Sure, it's comfy. But is it worth THE BREAKDOWN OF OUR COLLECTIVE CULTURE? HMMM?

A couple of weeks ago I caught a story on NPR about how fewer Americans are going to the movies, choosing instead to cocoon themselves with their pirated films and home theater systems, and how film distributors are responding (a little more forward-thinkingly than the RIAA, apparently). I’m fairly skeptical of “trend watch” items, but I’m stingy enough to bring my own candy to the multiplex. So the prospect of having a wider selection of movies (a-HEM, streaming Netflix)to watch at home  is fairly thrilling.

Still, I can’t help but think it would be sad if the movie theater did go the way of the record store. I wouldn’t be sorry to say goodbye to $10 popcorn or the lunkhead in the next row answering her cell phone. But no matter how big your TV is, you miss something when the only way you watch movies is in your living room, with a few people you know well.

This is where an illustrative anecdote would come in handy–and what do you know, I’ve got one

Not as much fun at home.

I saw The Blair Witch Project on its opening night. This was before the spoilers, before the parodies and the unfortunate spin-offs and sequels. People were excited about this movie. The theater was packed.

Anyone who isn’t a complete asshat is generally quietish when watching films in public, but the silence in that theater during the next hour and a half was the stillness of five hundred people forgetting to breathe. Every pair of eyes was locked on the screen as if something would come out of it and get us if we looked away. We all had the bejesus scared out of us, and it was heightened because we were having a collective experience in a big room full of strangers.

Friends who saw Blair Witch in the following weeks told me they didn’t know what the hype was about. They’d heard too much about the movie. Other people in the theater were doing their normal movie-theater thing, fidgeting and whispering and rustling popcorn bags. The spell had been broken.

Even when the movie isn’t completely riveting, though, there’s something about laughing/gasping/groaning at the funny/scary/stupid/gross parts with a bunch of people you don’t know. Even the hell-is-other-people aspects of going to the movies have a purpose: they teach you how to endure bullshit, and how to decide when the line’s been crossed and it’s time to get the usher (or throw popcorn at a bitch).

Does this have societal implications beyond conditioning us to the idea that movies as well as music should be free? Maybe. I do think that having one more opportunity to wall oneself off from the unwashed masses won’t contribute much to increased empathy and goodwill toward fellow humans. Then again, maybe it will: it’s easier to contemplate paying more taxes for universal health care when you aren’t thinking it’s going to benefit the aging delinquent who was putting his feet up on your seat during 2012.

Let’s end the work week with some brief items mostly trivial although clearly some less trivial than others.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Apparently at the White House it is indeed guesswork to figure out who is coming to dinner. This was proven last week as the now infamous publicity whores known as the Salahi’s crashed Barack Obama’s State Dinner in honor of the Prime Minister of India. This is old news by now except for one recent and odd development in the story. Congress has been holding hearings investigating how the Salahi’s could have gotten into the White House without an invitation. When it was requested that the social secretary, Desiree Rogers appear before Congress to explain the White House staff’s contribution to this fiasco, the request was denied citing executive privilege. Excuse me? We’re not asking Ms. Rogers to spill state secrets. We’re asking her to own up to her and her staff’s screw up. Granted, the Secret Service is the first line of defense and they deserve a thorough thrashing but they weren’t the only ones who screwed up. (Apparently when the White House staff was made aware that the Salahi’s should not have been there, nothing was done to remove them.) The White House reaction to this incident, including the declaration of executive privilege leads me to believe not only were they complicit in the “crashing” but they don’t understand the severity of the error.

On a side note, should anyone be surprised that the Secret Service screwed up their end of this? Our memories are way too short. When George W. Bush got a shoe thrown at him, the only thing that saved him from minor injury was his own excellent reflexes. The fact that the assailant got off another shoe and that Bush was still in the “line of fire” for the second volly shows that the Secret Service is far from infallible. After the first shoe, Bush should have been tackled to the ground by an SS guy while another SS guy put a bullet in the shoe-throwers head. You don’t attack the President. Plain and simple. With these examples of lackluster performance, it is truly amazing that we haven’t seen a “successful” assassination since 1963.

The Joke, er, Jobs  Summit

I’ve heard two people share their view of the hastily assembled  Jobs Summit that was held Thursday in Washington. Both people said something to the effect of “I heard some interesting things at the Summit.” Sorry, I’m not interested in a bunch of CEO’s getting together and sharing interesting insights, especially when many of those CEO’s are the greedy bastards who have put thousands of people out on the street to please their stock holders.

In addition to labor leaders, economists and think-tank sorts, the attendees included business leaders from AT&T (where 12,000 jobs were cut a year ago and about 4,600 this year), Boeing Co. (where 6,212 net jobs have been eliminated since November 2008), AstraZeneca (6,000 cuts this year and 1,400 last year), American Airlines (which laid off 6,800 last summer and more workers in October), Home Depot (which announced 7,000 jobs cuts in January), Dow (which cut 5,000 last December), U.S. Steel (3,500 cuts in North America), Xerox (3,000 jobs cut this year), Disney (which eliminated 1,900 jobs in the first quarter), and Dow Corning Corp. (which cut 800 workers globally earlier this year).

via Jobs Summit Features Execs Who Have Cut Many Jobs — Sphere News, Opinion and Analysis.

What really burned me up was hearing the Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, Jeffrey Sachs tell MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that a lot of businesses are claiming “they can’t hire the workers that they need right now.” You’ll never guess why. Apparently, “they can’t hire skilled workers. They can’t find the welders. They can’t find the people who really know the trades.” These companies supposedly have jobs but the kids dropping out of school don’t have the skills needed.

Yes these companies want so badly to hire more people. I call BS big time. Have any of these companies heard of unpaid apprenticeships where you train the person and don’t pay him until he can do the job? Are you telling me that the able-bodied unemployed would not gladly work for free for a few months with a promise of employment once they’re trained? People have mortgages to pay. Many will do whatever it takes to secure a job. And I’m sorry folks, while welding is hard work, it’s not rocket science. Any company that really wants to hire can train within a few months and then have the employees they claim they want so badly.  To hear Dr. Sachs repeat this drivel made me sick. This is nothing more than excuse making. To add insult to injury, for purely political reasons a key player, the Chamber of Commerce was not even invited to the summit. Will anything come out of this summit? Only time will tell but as of today, I am not impressed.

Take My Picture, Please

Our favorite Facebook political pundit, Sarah Palin is charging her “fans” sixteen bucks to get their picture taken with her on the book tour. Considering that many bookstores have reduced the price of her book, Going Rogue to $20.00, it costs you almost as much to get a lousy photo as it does to buy the book itself. On the bright side, Ms. Palin has proven once and for all that she is no socialist. In World-Palin, capitalism is alive and well.

What do Meredith Baxter and Tiger Woods Have in Common?

You wouldn’t think that the actress from “Family Ties” fame, Meredith Baxter would have much in common with pro golfer Tiger Woods but you’d be wrong. Apparently they both like girls a bit more than we thought they did. In the case of Ms. Baxter, she announced this week that she is a lesbian. OK, so what. An entertainment footnote if ever there was one. The case of Tiger is a bit different. Folks through no fault of Tiger’s, assumed he was the wholesome athletic hero worthy of being on the Wheaties box. They discovered over the past week that Tiger has been doing way more with his putter than anyone expected, least of all his wife, who may very well have smashed a hole in his car with a golf club when she learned of his indiscretions. While this story is a week old, there is a new development worth addressing.

Apparently, Mrs. Woods is renegotiating the pre-nup agreement with her husband. As I understand it, Tiger will give her $5 million now and an additional $55 million if she sticks around for another two years.

Now folks, call me an old-fashioned romantic but where I come from if a woman is justifiably angry at her husband for infidelity, she has two choices. Either forgive him and stick around or divorce him and get as much money as you can. Mrs. Woods seems to be making a third choice. We have a name for women who get paid to “stay” with a man. The nice word is “escort”. We all know what the not-so-nice word is.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Complemented with risk management vocabulary guide

 (ISO: Geneva) — A new international standard, ISO 31000:2009—“Risk management—Principles and guidelines,” will help organizations of all types and sizes to manage risk effectively.

ISO 31000 provides principles, framework, and a process for managing any form of risk in a transparent, systematic, and credible manner within any scope or context.

At the same time, ISO is publishing ISO Guide 73:2009—“Risk management vocabulary,” which complements ISO 31000 by providing a collection of terms and definitions relating to the risk management.

“All organizations, no matter how big or small, face internal and external factors that create uncertainty on whether they will be able to achieve their objectives. The effect of this uncertainty is ‘risk’ and it is inherent in all activities,” explains Kevin W. Knight, chair of the ISO working group that developed the standard.  “In fact, it can be argued that the global financial crisis resulted from the failure of boards and executive management to effectively manage risk. ISO 31000 is expected to help industry and commerce, public and private, to confidently emerge from the crisis,” continues Knight.

The standard recommends that organizations develop, implement, and continuously improve a risk management framework as an integral component of their management system. “ISO 31000 is a practical document that seeks to assist organizations in developing their own approach to the management of risk,” says Knight. “But this is not a standard that organizations can seek certification to. By implementing ISO 31000, organizations can compare their risk management practices with an internationally recognized benchmark, providing sound principles for effective management. ISO Guide 73 will further ensure that all organizations are on the same page when talking about risk.”

ISO 31000 is designed to help organizations:

• Increase the likelihood of achieving objectives
• Encourage proactive management
• Be aware of the need to identify and treat risk throughout the organization
• Improve the identification of opportunities and threats
• Comply with relevant legal and regulatory requirements and international norms
• Improve financial reporting
• Improve governance
• Improve stakeholder confidence and trust
• Establish a reliable basis for decision making and planning
• Improve controls
• Effectively allocate and use resources for risk treatment
• Improve operational effectiveness and efficiency
• Enhance health and safety performance, as well as environmental protection
• Improve loss prevention and incident management
• Minimize losses
• Improve organizational learning
• Improve organizational resilience

ISO 31000 and ISO Guide 73 can be applied to any public, private, or community enterprise, association, group, or individual.   The documents will be useful to:

• Those responsible for implementing risk management within their organizations
• Those who need to ensure that an organization manages risk
• Those needing to evaluate an organization’s practices in managing risk
• Developers of standards, guides, procedures, and codes of practice relating to the management of risk

Both documents were developed by the ISO working group on risk management.  For additional information, please visit the ISO website at: http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1266.

Apparently, dumb men are the new plague (if you’re already offended, chances are you’ve got the fever). Now before anyone starts texting and tweeting about how reverse-sexist I’m being, pick up a book…and learn about how reverse sexism is in fact, nothing that has or ever will exist (kind of like reverse racism…)

When you’re finished, I invite you to come back and take a walk with me down the aisle of unadulterated disrespect.

So, about five minutes ago, I was doing some “social networking” and drifted across a friendly post. Some guy who calls himself “KingNoble7″ found it in his heart to share with me a video titled “Booty-full Black God-ass-Sis”.

::This is where we collectively sigh::

I used to feel empathetic toward men who reach out to women, Black women in particular, with warped notions of respect. You know, the “peace queen” brothas; the “hey sis” brothas; the “let’s burn incense together during the winter solstice” brothas. The brothas who know how to pronounce “patriarchy” “prison industrial complex” “neo-colonialism” and the rest of those I-went-to-college-and-think-I’m-top-shit terms and phrase in hopes that their correct annunciation will grant them a party pass into my drawers.

First off, there is no party in my panties. That just sounds unhealthy.

Empathy rears its head when I’m reminded of the Black man’s daily fight to function in a society that deems him almost ineligible to exist. And after having gotten to know said brothas, I’ve learned that some, if not most of them have undergone trauma associated with physical abuse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still empathetic. However, I no longer allow empathy to cloak my apathy for fried chicken grease-like behavior disguised as a celery stick.

Know that every time you “hey sis” me, we do not need to exchange contact information to further discuss the civil war in Sudan, or Tiger Woods for that matter. Please, burn incense as a means to lift the residue of the past from your heart. And when you see the moon in full bloom, call and ask my mood how its doing. (trust me, if you do this, you will be invited to more than just a panty party).

It’s nearing Christmastime, when all your family’s traditions come out to play. My family is mostly Irish-German (which explains why I like beer so much), and we’ve always hung a glass pickle ornament from our Christmas tree. The story goes that it’s an old German tradition that the parents hang the pickle deep in the tree’s boughs on Christmas Eve, and whoever finds the pickle first the next morning gets a special prize. Isn’t that nice? I mean, aside from the fact that it may have caused Lil Bro and I to knock over the tree in an effort to find the dang pickle.

But it’s fake.

I just had what Mum described (when I told her) as a “balloon > pin > psssssss” moment. It was like finding my letters to the Tooth Fairy and Santa and maybe even the Easter Bunny in the top of the medicine cabinet when I was young (true story).

According to these articles I’ve found on Google, the tradition is American and somehow got pinned on the Germans. From what I’ve read, the German tie comes from a town in Germany that’s famous for its blown-glass ornaments, many of which are in fruit or nut shapes.

I immediately emailed Mum to ask her what other pseudo-cultural traditions we observe might be fake (wearing green and drinking Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day immediately came to mind). She gently asked if I knew St. Paddy’s Day was a bigger deal here than it is in Ireland, which I knew. But she was, in her words “verklempt” that the pickle tradition was a fake.

Naturally, I bought a few of the dang pickles to give as gifts this year, so writing the “tradition” behind them will be an exercise in creative storytelling.

Have you ever had a “balloon > pin > psssssss” moment about one of your traditions or beliefs? What was it?

Just me or are we what others see us as? Just be….Just me! Check it out and come up with your take!

Twihards: we don't mock you because you're girly. We mock you because you're crazy.

Writer Sady Doyle has published an editorial on The American Prospect about hate directed at the Twilight series, and how it is essentially happening because Twilight is girly and something can’t be good unless it speaks to a male audience.

Actually, I’m pretty sure Twilight gets flack because it is flagrantly anti-woman, anti-feminist and encourages young girls to pine for emotionally abusive men and seek out co-dependent relationships. And it’s poorly written (and acted).

But I am not going to counter here with a statement against the Twilight series. I didn’t make it through the first book (I faltered when Edward started sparkling, then came to a full stop after vampire baseball), and while I’m fully versed on what happens in the following books, I’m hardly an expert. And others  can say it much better. I would recommend reading this post about the anti-feminist issues in the Twilight series – it’s excellent!

What I did find notable in Doyle’s editorial was first her assertion that developing teen girls need “safe” stories with characters such as vampires because real boys are “scary.” Doyle’s right — YA has a very appropriate place in the development of pre-teen and teen girl readers, and most tween-aimed novels do function as a “safe space” for girls to explore ideas about sex and romance. And vampires are a perfect object of focus: they are enigmatic, a little bit dangerous, usually beautiful, often sensitive (for various reasons) and one can focus on all the existential angst of being and loving a vampire without having to bring up sex. Or, you know, biting can function as a metaphor.

I, too, loved vampire stories when I was a young girl (which never really stopped — Buffy, True Blood). My favorite when I was about 11 was a novel called The Silver Kiss, which it seems with all the Twilight rage has been repacked and reissued. The heroine is 16-year-old Zoe, whose mother is dying of cancer and her grieving father is pushing her away. She meets the pale, mysterious Simon, and angst ensues. It’s a solid book, though hardly award winning stuff, that skirts the romance question far more than Meyer’s Twilight, but still give a good thrill. But, of course, Simon was a real vampire (who feed on people, 4SRS!) and Zoe was a real girl, and not a rampaging Mary Sue.

But Meyer doesn’t offer a safe space for girls in Twilight. Her vampires don’t offer an outlet for girls to contemplate adult relationships and sexuality through mystique and metaphor. Hell, they’re not even real vampires — they don’t feed on people, they can go out in sunlight — and SPARKLE!, they have no problems with crosses or garlic, they can fly (generally using tacky special effects) and they play wicked awesome games of baseball! Edward is an abusive figure, Bella is weak and needy, and Meyer hits girls over the head with sex and all sorts of messages about marriage and female subordination. She teaches girls antiquated ideas about patriarchy, co-dependent relationships and saving sex for marriage — then letting your husband ravage and destroy you. NOT A SAFE SPACE FOR YOUNG GIRLS, SRY.

Doyle’s main supporting argument and counter-example to Twilight, however, is the Harry Potter series, and here is where she goes horribly wrong, displaying her ignorance of Harry Potter fandom, and of the books in general (though given her romantic sentiment, I’m not surprised). Honestly, this is one of the reasons the Twifen are so derisively mocked — they are so tightly enclosed in their own bubble, thinking they are OMG SO OPPRESSED and the world revolves around them, that they are totally out of touch with other fan circles.

Doyle asserts that people don’t mock Harry Potter fans. Why? Because the main character is a boy, who does boy things, and there are a lot of male Harry Potter fans. And in the sci-fi/fantasy fan world, a fandom surrounding a girly book and populated mostly by girls is OMG NOT ACCEPTABLE. Doyle writes:

“…she also benefited from escaping the girly ghetto to which Twilight has been confined. Her publishers, famously, asked her to bill herself as J.K. rather than Joanne so as not to alienate male readers, and her books focused on a male hero and included lots of boy-friendly elements such as sports and warfare. She won a male readership, and with it, praise for the “universality” of her work.”

Oh, but this is where she is ever so wrong. There is a significant faction of Harry Potter fans and scholars who believe just the opposite: that JKR can’t write strong female characters to save her life, let alone good romance, and that the Harry Potter series isn’t universal at all. It teaches girls that male characters are the most complex and interesting, and that female character’s lives do and should revolve around boys, and more specifically marriage. Every single Harry Potter fan convention held has featured some panel, roundtable or paper discussing issues of romance, feminism and heteronormative standards present in the Harry Potter series.

Author Meyer with her Mary Sue self insert Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Perfect Man Creation Edward (Robert Pattinson)

The fandom is also mostly women. Not the readers, the fans — the ones who, just like the Twifen (though not to the same extent!), line up in the thousands, dressed up, with wild signs, for book releases and movie premieres, who obsess over the film stars and the characters and the romances. Twilight has Edward or Jacob, HP had the Harmony debacle of 2005 (Hermione with Ron or Harry, with JKR derisively calling the Harry/Hermione shippers short-sighted and silly).

Doyle says that Meyer dared to be female, have a leading female character and a driving romantic plot. And you know what, it is good to see female writers writing female characters in YA novels — many fans question JKR for choosing to write Harry Potter and not Harriet Potter, though seeing how she ultimately fails to write well-rounded female characters it was probably for the best. But women writers often have the sad distinction of doing the most disservice to female characters, and on this point, Meyer and JKR can be united. But at least Rowling didn’t focus her novel on archaic romantic drivel, and her female characters floundered on the sidelines of her story. Meyer’s instead stood center stage. Harry Potter isn’t some infallible bastion of popular fantasy literature — though it is leaps and bounds better than the Twilight series.

The Twihards aren’t getting flack because Meyer dared to write a girly book. We deride the Twifen because everything about the book and what it stands for smacks of misogyny. Twilight is perfectly fine for what it is, but the super fans have put it on a pedestal that opens them up to mocking: enjoy your silly YA novel (I like them, too), but don’t define your life by it!

Doyle concludes by calling out to feminists to defend the Twihards, even if they loathe the series, because the powerful teen female consumer is being trodden upon. Actually, I think what feminists should concentrate on is misogyny (Twilight) and male-produced drivel (Miley Cyrus, whom she also cites as proof of an empowered tween girl market) being peddled to impressionable tween girls and the implications thereof.

So here I am hoping that underneath all that callousness, insensitivity, and magically hurtful vocabulary, you’re actually a caring, kind, humble human being who is altruistic/paid enough to actually help us even though we never research on whatever we’re supposed to write/know what suspension of disbelief means (apparently a formula created by poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who is no Shakespeare, by the way)/have the nerve to think that a bunch of people holding swords actually stand a CHANCE against people with machine guns (I’d very much direct the blame to Marah Rusli for this one, but unfortunately he has died a long, long time ago and I certainly don’t want him to pop up at my front door)/never have even read a musical theatre script (aren’t we ridiculous! What kind of playwrights are we? Oh right, amateurs.)/have the nerve to actually have other things going on than writing musical theatre scripts (we actually have SCHOOL and EXAMS and 1,001 other things to worry about other than that. I know! We can just go to hell for being so useless!).

Yeah so I understand that you’re all that and you’ve been in this industry since forever (maybe even since BEFORE you were born, if that’s biologically possible, but it’s not) and you have your own headlining show and you’ve performed in the Durian Building down there (even though you sang for approximately two minutes and three seconds and I never saw you again because I guess you were just a bit undistinguished thanks to your inadequate height. Whoops! I did not just say that.) and then you’ve been at the bloody school for twelve hours today (the injustice! At least that’s what I always feel whenever I stay overnight at school.) and then you’re more gifted in singing and acting and dancing (which you probably learned in singing/acting/dancing school, whichever one it is. Aren’t we business school students supposed to be embarrassed!) and that you’re basically better than all of us inadequate and inferior human beings in every aspect (except in calculating the time value of money, of course, but who cares about that? [Clues: rich people? Big banks? Multinational corporations? The financial industry?]).

So to reiterate my point, I really hope that there’s actually a glimmer of love for your fellow human beings somewhere under there, because if not, you’re just a bitch, and I don’t really respect bitches all that much.

Tiger Woods in his child-like way thinks he can just plead privacy and escape public scrutiny for crass behavior.

*****************

We here on the Farm know better: Tiger Woods’ monies come from the public, and it is the public he answers to.

You cannot collect millions – nay, billions – from the public, then tell them to go to the devil when your private behavior turns your life into a circus act because of your ignorant ways.

******************

Tiger Woods has been acting childish on the courses and off.

Time to pay the piper.

*******************

“This is OnStar Mister Woods. We see you’ve been in an accident. We’ve sent your wife out with a seven iron to extricate you from your vehicle.”

In the past week or so, three major events have occurred which have dominated the news media like Drew Brees recently dominated the Pats on Monday Night Football.  On the 25th of November, Michaele and Tareq Salahi managed to crash the first state dinner host by the Obama administration (eat your hearts out, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn), and got the secret service into heaps of trouble.  Then, golf god Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife and, in the ensuing attempt at fleeing what was doubtless an epic fight, crashed his car into a tree.  Finally, last Tuesday, the President announced that on the heels of winning a Nobel Peace Prize, he is planning to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, ostensibly to maintain order while the new Afghan government is stabilized.  Truly, though, only one of these stories is real news.  Can you guess which one?  Let’s take a look at these stories and decide…

Tiger’s Wild Ride

The world’s richest and most famous athlete (a term I use loosely, he’s a golfer after all), in the prime of his life, with beautiful women throwing themselves at him literally everywhere he goes, had an affair.  Really?  I’m shocked beyond words, I truly am.  How can a human being have a lapse of judgement like that?  And more than one?  Utterly intolerable.  Almost as bad as the cheating is the number of fights this story started in marriages across America when millions of men said “You know, it’s not cool to cheat, but I can see how temptation might get the better of him,” and immediately ducked to avoid a flying vase.  Really, the fact is that it most certainly is not okay to cheat on your spouse, and under no circumstances should we condone it.  We also shouldn’t be surprised when it happens with superstar athletes, though.  Since it’s totally not shocking and very much is expected, this story is not worthy of being called news.  But that one’s easy.  The other two are much harder to figure out.

Escalation in Afghanistan

Damn.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I should have known better than to hope.  30,000?  Haven’t I seen this somewhere before?  Comparisons to VietNam have been batted about lately, but a better comparison might be with the U.S.S.R. and freakin’ Afghanistan! Or to any number of other large, even multinational empires like our that have tried and failed at stabilizing and governing that region of the planet.  Am I to believe that the President of the United States, who was a professor of law at one of the nation’s most prestigious ivy league colleges, has never opened a world history textbook?  No nation in written history has been able to successfully govern the area we now call Afghanistan.  What, we’re so much better than everyone else that we can do everything no one else ever could?  Seems awfully arrogant to me.  What’s worse is that the people making the decisions will suffer nothing more than a temporary job loss resulting from such egotism, while our nation’s fighting men and women will be forced to pay the ultimate price for someone else’s hubris.  Nothing doing, but that’s just wrong.  Sad thing is, I kind of expected exactly this sort of thing to happen, and so I don’t know if it’s news so much as a confirmation of what I always suspected would be the case.

Barbarians Crash the Gate

Think I’m wrong to call Michaele Salahi and her husband Tareq barbarians?  They’re “reality” TV people.  How much less civilized can you be without becoming wild animals, or even worse, hippies?  These idiots decided to attempt what is most certainly one of the dumbest, most dangerous stunts ever dreamed up by a shameless fame-seeking media whore.  After all, wouldn’t the secret service be well within the scope of their purpose were they to just shoot the Salahis on sight?  I mean, you can’t just have random, unknown people coming up to shake the President’s hand, especially when the man holds the record for the most death threats received by any President in our nation’s history.  The really interesting thing, though, is that now the leader of the free world is faced with the fact that even the peons in this country can get to him any time they want.  How will he respond to that realization?  Will Obama beef up security and refuse to talk to strangers, or will he feel comfortable that he is serving the public will enough to avoid an uglier trespassing incident?  One thing’s for certain; future guest lists will be much more comprehensive than they have been in the past.  But is this whole thing newsworthy?  If it isn’t, which of the other stories of the week is news?  Try the poll, give your two cents.

I can’t decide what’s more disturbing: the realism of the robot or the creators’ concept of “the perfect woman”. Even the narrator is a chauvinistic asshole. “The only thing we don’t know about her is whether she can ever say that she has a headache.” Really? Like the perfect woman would never complain of having a headache? Like the perfect woman would have a blank stare and follow every command without thought?
They wasted spent three years of their lives making a realistic robot to comfort the rich and desperate men of the world. How sad is modern humanity?

I’m practising my dumb grin again. I smile and nod at my colleagues, and try to ignore the feelings of despair that spring from the inanity of it all.

If the world made any sense, the ultimate goal for anyone working in the public sector would be to make themselves redundant. Their aim would be to eradicate the social problems that our bloated civil service and non-departmental bodies have been created to fix. It should go without saying really: if there are fewer street crimes being committed you don’t need so many bobbies-on-the-beat, if everyone is gainfully employed and society is prosperous you can close the Job Centres, and if people aren’t going bankrupt then you can shut down the Insolvency Service.

Yet the meeting I’m in is a million miles from these lofty ideals. The only principles on display here are cynicism, self-preservation, and a sense of entitlement to a cushy, over-paid job. No-one really wants to improve how things are done: that would only lead to reductions in next year’s headcount, and good golly, “managing people out the door” might mean some truly difficult work had to be done. No. Our job is to fiddle with figures and make sure it looks like we need all the deadwood, ‘cos they can always be counted on to sap the enthusiasm out of any progressive initiative that might come along and threaten the status quo. Pretty much everyone sitting round the table knows this, but is too canny or worn-down to admit it. And those who don’t know it are even worse, being too blinkered to notice all the gross inefficiencies staring them in the face.

It’s a problem that’s easy to identify but hard to fix. Where I work, we’re already trying to ‘rationalise’ the workforce, but inevitably, it’s the wrong people who are leaving. Those who are talented and ambitious find it easy to move on to bigger and better things, and so jump before they’re pushed or happily sign up for redundancy. Those who have spent twenty years moving piles of paper from one cupboard to another know that they’re less employable, and so dig in their heels and demand that their right to be useless is protected.

The scale of the culture change required seems insurmountable at times, because of the cursed legacy that’s been passed down. People joining the Civil Service in the 90’s or earlier were told they were signing up for a “job for life”. Indeed, ‘job security’ was still being touted as one of the main selling points of a Civil Service career at my school Careers Fair less than a decade ago. Yet it can only be a very perverse logic that says, “come and work for the Department of Health when you leave school. We’ll employ you for forty years and together make sure the country never gets any healthier. That way you’ll always have a job!”

I really want to have faith in the state to fix social problems: its probably most important thing it’s there to do. Yet the way it’s set-up seems so fundamentally maladjusted to dealing with the task that it’s difficult not to become disillusioned. It seems like by creating large permanent institutions to solve problems, you just end up with large permanent problems.

Do I have an alternative? Yes: a ruthless meritocracy. Scrap the job for life, get rid of the over-generous pension, and create civil servants who feel grateful for being able to do genuinely worthy work. At two year intervals they’d have to demonstrate that they’d done an amazing job, or get thrown out. Those who passed their reviews would get moved on to another department, to prevent the stagnation that grows from over-familiarity. What you’d end up with is a skilled bunch of civil servants with a broad range of knowledge of the full machinery of government, who through constantly moving around would be immunised against the kind of “silo-thinking” that is currently throttling the system.

Sadly, the PCS would never allow such a thing, and all new Civil Servants would have to sign some controversial kind of waiver to several of their employment rights, but it feels like a nice dream all the same…

Apparently the surfeit of blogs and the congruent shortened attention span of most folks has contributed to the death of the mainstream media, mainly because an industry built on the advertising dollars of Macy’s fine-print coupons and Mattress Sales for every holiday [ed. note: based solely upon observations of the Washington Post during childhood] was bound to have some issues in the brave new world of the internet, where we can merely be shocked, awed and pawned by hundreds of SINGLE MOM TEETH WHITENING and ONE TINY OLD RULE: CHOP OFF A LIMB TO LOOSE WEIGHT ads while reading AP briefs.

Exhibit A.

Ahem, WashPost? They died so that we might enjoy the freedom of downy comfort?

Across the pond, the Telegraph offered up this recent breaking news:

I know, they’re legit surveys primped up into pablum for the plebians. Who, apparently, deeply care about…

Crisps, porn, swish cars, photographic disasters and…Climategate: Font Fail edition. Great. Thanks, guys.

Lest you think I’m just being persnickety without cause, I present the evidence that pushed me to this rant, the damning screen shot of a newspaper that actually offers a substantial number of headlines on current, crucial events, without relying on the market power of discount bedding; this newspaper, known for its crafted portraits of columnists and of threats to the American Capitalist Way, tried to woo me into its pages with this:

I…I expected better of you, WSJ. Front page news? Does anyone click this out of desire? Or is it solely out of pity?

Okay. Okay, breathing. I just want headlines and cogent background evidence. I don’t ever, ever want to think about John Travolta’s heaving, sweaty carcass.

Ever.

In a more lighthearted vein, I’ve been considering the driving habits of Southern Californians lately.  I’m not going to lie; I’ve been wanting to write on this topic for some time, now, and it appears that the moment is come.  Upon reflection, several possible approaches appeared: I could rant about things that piss me off during my commute; I could teach a sarcastic driving course; I could make fun of the habits of drivers from various different areas; or I could make fun of drivers by stereotyping their choice of automobiles.  The choice has been a difficult one though, so I’m just going to do all four.  OK?

So let’s go!  Walk around your vehicle and perform your five-point safety inspection, being sure to check tires for proper inflation, lights for functionality, and the ground for any suspicious puddles of leaked fluid.  Adjust your mirrors, seat, head restraint and steering wheel angle (if applicable), buckle and adjust your seat belt, engage the clutch and brake, and finally, turn your ignition key to start the motor.  E-brake off!  First gear!  Lightly off the clutch and hard on the accelerator, and don’t forget to make that left turn in Albuquerque.

The Average Jane or Joe

The Average Janes and Joes of Southern California drive to familiar places daily and know their roadways.  As a rule, they break posted speed limits by approximately 10 MPH and eye out-of-state plates with contempt.  They usually carry no more than two passengers at a given time (often children) and limit their choice of bumper adornments to one icon or sticker, much like local police cruisers, except that adornments on civilian autos are typically religious or political in nature.

On that score, So-Cal. Average Janes and Joes drive rather like So-Cal. cops drive, since cops give tickets here for failing to drive like a patrolling cop.  In short, the Average Jane or Joe in Southern California is a happy conformist, using signals before lane changes and turns, casually commenting on the mistakes of others, and trying not to text too much during long commutes.  Nothing spectacular.  They may be recognized by their unremarkable vehicle, which generally looks like a nice, shiny used car even when it’s bought brand-new, and which they sell 40,000 miles later with no discernible aesthetic differences.

Personally speaking: I have no beef with the Average Jane or Joe — that is, unless I’ve recently had a run-in with one of the inconsiderate bastards described below.  Almost everyone is an Average Jane or Joe sometimes.  It can depend on the car we’re driving, current stress levels, how many antidepressants we’re on, or even something dumb like what song is on the radio.  So, yeah.  As long as you aren’t doing some intensely ignorant shit, I want you to know that I understand.  We’re all on the same team.  I’ll even let you merge.

The Soccer Mom

The Southern California mode of soccer mom can be seen pacing down the freeway at a static velocity without regard to the surrounding flow of traffic.  She often seems to speak animatedly to no one, though this is really a conversation via Blue Tooth or with children hidden behind tinted windows.  Of course, it also may purport the onset of schizophrenia.  She has a selection of both political and religious bumper stickers on her rear window, and she thinks they look classier there than on the actual bumper.

The So. Cal. soccer mom has also the dubious distinction of pre-menopause, a self-administered sexual repression during what is generally considered to be the peak of female sexuality.  Soccer Mom Pre-menopause, or SMP (a reversal of PMS like menopause itself), causes a particular social apathy which is believed to produce her disregard for the surrounding flow of traffic.  The cause of this phenomenon is unknown, but researchers widely recognize a probable connection to both Oprah Winfrey and the Lifetime network.

Notable hazards include (but are not limited to): ignorance of nearby vehicles, failure to check blind spots before lane changes, and habitual stopping twenty feet before crosswalks at traffic signals.  The latter is particularly dangerous in inner cities, when Soccer Mom’s buffer of twenty feet leaves drivers several cars behind sitting in an intersection when the light changes.

Soccer moms may be recognized by their sensible choice of automobile, typically a minivan or station wagon, though overprotective and so-called “helicopter” parents prefer SUVs and 80s-era trucks such as the Ford Bronco, as these behemoths politely crush anything that otherwise might test the safety specifications of a conventional car or pickup.

Personally speaking: when one of these bitches cuts me off while reaching to slap the brat in the back seat, I begin to fantasize about all the ways I’d like to remind her that there’s a world outside the faux-safe environment she’s contrived around her kids.  Sometimes we happen to be going to the same place, and I once waited to talk to one as she got her kids out of the car.  I wanted to scare her, to invade her sanitary little incubator of a lifestyle, maybe say something to the effect that people who drive like selfish, clueless twats sometimes find Hustler magazine centerfolds flour-pasted to their precious family wagons in the morning, maybe a broken beer bottle or two on the floorboard — oh, wicked world! — but can you believe it took that bitch over five minutes to armor her little maggots against the harsh Orange County elements?  I had to give up in disgust.  They win again.

Nondescript Van Guy

Nondescript Van Guy comes from a variety of possible lifestyles.  He may be driving an airport shuttle, rideshare, or church bus.  He may be a utility worker, IT professional, or caregiver to the elderly.  He may work as a courier, electrician, cable guy, or repairman.  Several attempts to clarify the taxonomy of homo vana nondescriptus have been made, but these efforts are thwarted by several factors.

Strangely, all vans are white.  They have been painted thus since 1994, the year of the popular Harrison Ford movie, “Clear and Present Danger,” in which a string of white vans is exploded with rocket launchers.  This lack of color would be confusing enough but they also all sport tinted windows, tinted so black as to be opaque.  Many do not have side and rear windows at all, these last belonging to branch Chester molesterus, the purpose of which van is commonly presumed.  In addition, many Nondescript Van Guys do not advertise the name or nature of their business on the outside of their vehicles, forcing interested parties to guess at what regularly – or irregularly – transpires within.

Notable hazards include: use of turn signals after lane change has commenced or completed; poor driver field of vision; forward field of vision obscured for following drivers; possible kidnapping/molestation, esp. in 909 area code (watch for TAP OUT, F-Word Industries, or Metal Mulitia logos on bumpers or windows).

Personally speaking: Nondescript Van Guys don’t piss me off too much, usually.  Most of these guys have to drive these lugging steel Twinkies for their work, and they hate the lack of windows at least as much as I hate their inability to see.  Every now and then one of them gets tired of having to be extra-cautious, though, and casually slides into my lane without so much as a glance at his side mirror.  That’s when I take advantage of his lack of a rear window and start chucking stink bombs at his tail.   You’d be amazed how well those things seep into a cab from behind at sixty miles per hour.  Learned that in high school.

Plodding Doom: old people and three tons of moving steel

Though not especially confined to this locale, the elderly motorist takes great interest in the mild Mediterranean climate of Southern California, and like most red-blooded Americans, she would rather lose a limb than relinquish her cherished automobile.  This trend gives rise to perhaps the most ubiquitous known roadway hazard — the Plodding Doom.

Fortunately, the Doom feels out-of-place in traffic over 25 MPH and shuns freeways and highways in favor of community avenues and boulevards.  This sadistic disposition leads Plodding Doom to refrain from exceeding 25 MPH, however, which requires other motorists to evade, circumvent, or simply endure them, even in 45 or 55 MPH zones.  This critical danger is augmented more than somewhat by the condition of the motorists who must pass the Doom in sudden bursts of speed, many of whom are themselves Soccer Moms, Nondescript Van Guys, Grand Prix Guys, or hitherto-undocumented roadway hazards.

Approach Plodding Doom with extreme caution!  They may be recognized by their slight, non-erratic swerve, intermittent brake lights, driver invisibility, or by their vehicle, which is invariably an early model in far better condition than naturally occurs.

NOTE: the Doom is not a dextrous creature; if you suspect that you are being followed by a member of this genus and species, quickly execute a U-turn; the Doom will not be able to reciprocate, thus facilitating your fortuitous escape.  This maneuver is colloquially known as “flipping a bitch,” as the surviving majority of Plodding Dooms are of the female gender.

Personally speaking: I don’t sweat Plodding Doom.  I just go around.  I mean, shit — these people are rolling toward death as it is, and if they happen to plow into a crowd of people on 4th St. in Santa Monica every now and then, well hey, that’s facilitating evolution, too, isn’t it?  Be ever vigilant, my friends!

Modern Harley Guy

Modern Harley Guy is a disarming specimen.  He observes traffic laws, uses his turn signals, and whenever possible, travels in large packs in order to increase visibility for his own safety and that of others.  He is good-natured, magnanimous in heavy traffic, and exudes an aura of a man on holiday.  One must remind oneself at every sighting that Modern Harley Guy is a killer, and that one ought not engage him on the highway without the proper precautions: water balloons, for example.

The split personality of Modern Harley Guy contributes to his hazardous behavior.  He affords his $25,000 motorbike by working days as a doctor, lawyer, or corporate executive, a lifestyle which affords him much stress, little relaxation, and no time with which to exult in a hobby or family (though many Modern Harley Guys purchase hobbies or families intending to invest time in them at a later date).  After his children grow up and monies sufficient for the sustaining of the — often newly divorced — Modern Harley Guy are garnered, the Modharg retires from his job and accedes to  a life of leisure: a maximum of four days at the office; two days maintaining recently acquired real estate; and one day on which he forces himself to indulge in the hobby he invested in during the failure of his marriage.  Without fail, this new hobby is motorcycling.

The Modharg, having grown up in an era of Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, still associates the Harley Davidson brand with rebelliousness, vigor, and freedom, a delusion which impels him to bizarre highway behavior, such as taking in the sunset at a cool 40 MPH without watching the road.  He does not possess any latent mechanical skill and so does not understand some or many attributes of his vehicle.  This lack of confidence causes Modern Harley Guy to operate his motorcycle like a Soccer Mom / Nondescript Van Guy hybrid, riding at static speeds, changing lanes without checking his blind spot, and moving down the road with all the apathy and deliberate ignorance of a doctor on his lunch break.  If the Modharg achieves a level of confidence with his Sunday plaything, he may take a second, younger and more blonde mate to entertain him on weekends, and in this stage of development ceases to cause problems on the road, being only dangerous when inebriated in the presence of another Modharg in a prior stage.

He may be easily recognized by the perfect condition of his new leather jacket, which is usually bedecked in scores of leather tassels, or by his Willie Nelson stars n’ stripes bandanna, which he may be wearing on his head, around his ankle, or out of his back pocket.

Personally speaking: now seriously, I want to stress that it’s the weekend warrior bastards who tend to be total wastes of water.  I mean, I ride, and I’ve met everyone from the crusty ol’ Easy Rider rebels from the 60s to the neon-suited street-bike bros, and honestly, they’re all pretty nice guys.  I mean, hell, there’s alot of camaraderie between riders, anyhow.  But Modern Harley Guys can really fucking suck!  Who gets off the bike and starts bragging about his new Ferrari?  Who fucking does that?  And what about the needless and careless fuck-you-I’m-riding-here attitude?  Needless does not mean independent, asshole.  And careless is not the same as carefree.  You’ll notice that Modhargs tend to ride with other Modhargs.  There’s a reason for that.

Grand Prix Guy

Grand Prix Guy is the villain discussed in most driver’s education courses, the type-A personality with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, a disease stemming from various causes without any significant difference in the symptoms.  These symptoms include neurotic and unpredictable decision-making with a tendency towards active rather than passive, sharp versus gradual, breaking-through instead of blending-in.  Grand Prix Guy finds himself unable to escape the delusion that everyone envies his lightning reflexes and commanding presence on the road, and studies show that the rise in testosterone levels during his commute actually makes him feel sexier to females whom may be sharing the road with him.

Grand Prix Guy may rev his engine at stoplights to entice other drivers to compete against him or as a show of feigned self-confidence.  He may also do this as part of a bizarre mating ritual which has baffled experts, baffled them because the mating call has no record of success outside of classic movies and therefore does not lend itself to the evolution of the species.  Another step in GPG’s mating ritual is to show his poor taste in music by playing it as loud as possible, music typically of the top-40 hip-hop genre; this has changed through the years, having been gangsta rap in the 90s, heavy metal in the 80s, and in the 70s — disco.  He advertises his poor taste in music in order that Grand Prix Girls (also called “Bro Hos”) might associate themselves with him through their own poor taste in music and thereby seek him out if he happens to park nearby.  This scenario is also part of GPG’s delusion.

He may be recognized by his erratic behavior and shocking gambles on the road, but not by his vehicle.  Terrifyingly, Grand Prix Guy has been known to drive every known make and model of automobile, including even the forklift, the golf cart, and the La-Z-Boy.

Personally speaking: I used to brake-check Grand Prix Guys, until one day this jackass in a fucking Trans-Am (of course) was so close to my bumper that when I hit the brakes he fishtailed behind me and almost lost control, and at the next light he got out to threaten my life.  This motherfucker was so high on amphetamines that he looked like his face was about to tear free from his head and float away, and so pissed that he couldn’t even talk.  When the light turned green I just cruised on ahead and regretted having almost created a terrible accident.  That Trans-Am didn’t hurt anyone.  Why should I take my aggression out on a helpless macho relic from the 80s?  The moral is, when you see Grand Prix Guy and want to flip him off, remember that GPG is very likely PCP — on wheels.

S.U.V. Captains

SUV Captains have been piloting their tuna boats through the narrow straits of our cities and suburbs for a little over a decade, now, and calculating the amount of damage this misgiven trend has caused could crash the most stalwart computer processor.  Without even considering ecological complications, drivers of SUVs are six times more likely to kill other drivers in a collision, and they know this.  The Southern California breed of SUV Captain often does not own a sports-utility vehicle for sports or utility, but rather for the selfish safety of their families at the expense of other people’s safety everywhere they go.  SUVs also afford their owners all the luxury and comfort of an early-model conversion van, with an entertainment center instead of a sink and wooden cabinets.  SUV Captains drive without regard to laws, social conventions, or other drivers, and can be expected to commit any of the atrocities here described when it suits their fancy.

Large trucks present an obstacle to the flow of traffic as well as myriad other hazards, and for this reason the drivers of conventional vehicles distaste having one nearby, a lesson that newly commissioned SUV Captains learn soon after leaving his or her port-of-call.  They resent that no one wants to let them merge and do not understand that they obscure the forward field of vision of everyone following them, so they quickly begin to neglect their turn signals and opt instead for the “Fuck you, I’m coming over” method.  They also do not understand that without being able to see ahead, everyone behind them depends on their SUV’s brake lights to warn them of any approaching danger whatsoever, so they do not keep a large following distance in front of them but instead tailgate others, using their mammoth size to intimidate drivers into making way for them.  It takes no time at all before the SUV Captain sees that he is reviled on the road, and rather than rethinking his rash, self-serving decision to buy a behemoth, he sides with the other SUV Captains and simply decides that all common courtesies and civic codes were intended for common people in common cars.  A small example of this elitist mentality is pictured above.  Note the CA plate.  No surprise there.

Personally speaking: when these fucking Tonka toys first gained popularity, people made lots of dick jokes, the kind we used to tell about the Lamborghini owners and Corvette bastards.  Guy steps out of something flashy like that, you pretty much automatically figure he’s got a little dick, but it’s always seemed extra true about SUV Captains to me, maybe because I’ve never seen a tall guy step out of one.  It’s always some Napoleon motherfucker in a polo shirt, looking around and hiking up his Dockers before strutting into the local Trader Joe’s.  If their demeanor were yoked to their driving habits, I could stand being around these Rear Admirals, but the ones I’ve met have almost uniformly been assholes (and having worked in Orange County as a kid for ten years, I’ve met hundreds).  My hypothesis is that the “fuck-you-I’m-coming-over” attitude leaks into their personality until they drive their lives the way they drive their fucking Tonka toys.  Or, alternately, perhaps they were like that all along, and it took the advent of the S-U-fucking-V for them to feel right at home in their jerkmobiles,  a selfish little castle for selfish little men — oh, and for their Soccer Mom Pre-menopausal wives, lest we forget.

Rolling Status Symbol Guy, Addendum I.

Rolling Status Symbol Guy drives like a cross between a Modharg and a Soccer Mom, except I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what it is that causes their utter apathy.  They aren’t necessarily assholes in person, and they don’t seem particularly unintelligent.  Whatever it is, I know that I should never get behind one, because the nicer the car, the less urgent the business, and I want to get where I’m going preferably before my unborn grandchildren do.  You ever notice how a late model Lotus will never exceed the speed limit by even a little?  And speaking of the Lotus, why are they all neon?  Who wants to spend 60,000 dollars on a lime-green sports car?

That’s nothing compared to the Lamborghinis, though.  The way Lamborghini drivers get around is irony beyond compare.  Imagine! $300,000 just to putt around like you were in a Volvo.  What the fuck is the point in that?  If I could afford something exorbitant like that, and if I could justify its expense to myself, I’d be able to justify driving like I was on the autobahn, too, and I’d poo-pooh speeding tickets just as if I were shooing a fly.

Of course, maybe it really is just a status symbol.  Really?  Really?  These fucktards are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars so other people are forced to accept that in some parts of the world, this is considered a standard purchase?  I guess if I were at the top, I’d be lonely, too, and this sort of reaching out for some semblance of respect, some distant glimpse of a smile in my direction might be all I had that kept my uneventful existence from becoming an exciting front page murder/suicide story.

On the other hand and to be fair: maybe they’re just sleepy, boring fuckers with irrational spending habits and a penchant for leather seats?  Couldn’t tell you.  Last time I tried to interview one, I practically jumped out the window myself.  Those poor bastards converse like a real-estate firm’s answering machine.

The Fixer, Addendum II.

OK, OK, I know — the fixed-gear bicycle is not technically a car.  But they’re on my fucking roads, and they’re in my fucking way everywhere I turn here in Long Beach, CA.  These entitled sons of bitches actually seem to think that I have some obligation to them and their $3,000 fashion accessory.  They want to merge into traffic at 30 MPH in the 45 zone.  They want extra room in the slow lane so they can ride in their trendy little cliques, three people abreast, their cute little capri shorts showing off their cute little emo bottoms.  They actually lobbied and won their own stupid lane in the road here where I live! Never mind the heavy traffic — we have goddamn fixers to coddle.

That was to decriminalize behavior like this jackass exhibits here, in the above photo, shown doing a K-rad skid out in the middle of the fucking roadway during heavy traffic.  Awesome!  Good job.  And whom would you suppose snapped up this fantastic photo opportunity?  The driver of the car behind, who was completely impressed, I’m sure?  No, it was one of the other fixers in the fashion-fuck echelon of Tour de France assholes behind him, of course.  They probably took turns doing fabulous skid outs for one another to take iPhone pictures of while riding one-handed, downhill, in traffic, so that they’d all have the eye-catching splendor of themselves in fixed-gear fashion on their Facebook pages.

Well, fuck them.  And you know what?  Even if they weren’t riding around like they owned the place, popping up in swarms of self-acceptance like the result of a Lance Armstrong gangbang via members of Paramour and My Chemical Romance, I still wouldn’t be OK with the spandex-free cycling fad, because fixers’d still contend that they’re engaged in this ridiculous trend for reasons other than that it’s fashionable, and I can’t stand a lack of introspection that grievous.

*                *                *

So that’s that.  I’m not going to say any more about any of the other kinds of shitty highway behavior or anyone else’s lack of etiquette.  To be completely honest, it’s frickin’ horrifying to look back on all this and see that this is the amalgam of death that we gamble our lives on here every day.  It’s even more chilling to reflect on ourselves honestly and realize that from time to time, we’ve all been one or two of these assholes.  Some of us are Grand Prix Guy every Friday after work.  Others are Plodding Death every Sunday after church when we’re still feeling “the spirit of the Lord.”  Still others of us much resemble the Rolling Status Symbol Guy, except that instead of Vivaldi’s “Quattro Stagioni” on the stereo, we have Sly and the Family Stone, and instead of a Bentley, we’re bouncing along in a VW bus, and instead of a Cuban cigar, we have a British-Columbian cigarette. . .  You get the picture.

Anyhow, the point is, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “Today, world, I am going to drive like utter shit all over you, and on top of that, I intend to be a total dick.”  Nobody says that, so keep it in mind when you really loathe that motherfucker in front of you clogging up the fast lane, or start to kind of hate the swerving madman who really may be drunk, or begin to detest whoever parked that goddamn SUV half on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.  If there’s any difference between your Average John or Jane Doe and the other people on this list, it’s that some drivers work together to keep from getting home any later than necessary, and some fuck it up by trying to do it their own way.  I guess that’s all I have to say about that.

Have an Awesome Trip and Happy Motoring,

-BothEyesShut

I have just started reading Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show On Earth – The Evidence for Evolution and was discussing it (evolution) with a work colleague the other morning. He mentioned that he was not aware of the validity of evolution as his religious upbringing had steered his thinking about the concept in a negative direction.

This is nothing new. It is quite common for those with a religious bent to assert that evolution is just a theory, as if it was merely a silly proposition or conjecture. It’s not their fault that they were led into thinking so by their parents and religious instructors. I am convinced that these people usually find no need to question the authority of  elders, as it would be construed as disrespectful. Invariably there would be no need to seek out substitutes or alternatives. I mentioned to my colleague that ignorance, although regularly referred to as not being a virtue, would in this instance not be a major transgression.

Ignorance merely points to a lack of knowledge, even though most people use the word to imply something more sinister. However, wilful ignorance is another matter entirely. When one actively disengages one’s mind from searching for, or educating himself or herself about the alternatives, when a dogmatically held belief is shown to be wanting, then that constitutes wilful ignorance.

I remember my colleague responding that ”new-found knowledge invariably upsets one’s lifestyle, routine, beliefs, even relationships and thus caused more problems,” when we were interrupted and I could not finish my argument. I sincerely believe that he is open-minded and willing to embrace new knowledge, so for his benefit, my response follows:

Knowledge can never be regarded as harmful by itself. There is no harm in finding things out; you are not obligated to accept what you find. What could be harmful, is the manner in which you choose to use that knowledge. You could use it for good or bad purposes. The key is to evaluate new knowledge critically before accepting or rejecting it. Any other treatment of new knowledge has more chances of causing negative changes in your life. The simple truth is that the truth is not always pretty or palatable.

Truth is good; actively seek it. Change is good; embrace it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/02/AR2009120203781.html?g=0

Oh there is no doubt they’re pathological. Some bizarre didn’t-get-attention-from-daddy is going on in that pretty, skewed, blonde head. Fo’ sho’ (says the woman who should know).

But I have to enjoy the Salahi’s.

Not because I feel they’re all that intelligent or fascinating, but for what they point out about us as a society. Because you know she was able to sneak into that cheerleader alumni gathering because she looks like a former cheerleader. And they were waved into the White House dinner without being verified because they look like a Washington power couple – the older gentleman and his younger, high maintenance, arm candy wife.

Picture this – Michaele Salahi closer to the American average and 30 pounds heavier, in the same sari, but her natural (assumably brown) hair and a traditional head scarf. Would they have been waved in? Chances grow thinner.

If she had not been yoga’d and pilate’d to painfully thin, bleached blonde within an inch of baldness, and tastefully tooth-whitened to that plastered Barbie grin…would any of their psycho deviant party crashing photo ops been possible? I think not.

A reversed example from this year would be the Susan Boyle phenomenon. Yes, the woman can sing. Yes she’s unattractive. Unattractive people can sing, is this actually shocking? Singing does not require hair extensions, a prerecorded track (*cough*, Britney) and a stylist. I know, the horror. But how do we not find it offensive that Susan Boyle opens her mouth and lets out a gorgeous voice and America tears up and claps…because, “I mean, look at her!”?

My opinion: the Salahi’s insanity is a mirror for our own.

Your thoughts?

        I see that FaceBook now has 350,000,000 users worldwide. Yes, that’s right — 350 million. With approximately 6.6 billion people on earth that means that roughly one out of every 18 people has a FaceBook account.

       According to FaceBook’s own statistics, the average user has 130 friends and spends 55 minutes online every day.

      Just think about that for a moment. If the average FaceBook user spends  55 minutes per day on FaceBook, that means that people are spending an aggregate of — are you ready for this — 117 billion hours a year connecting with other people who also have nothing better to do with their time.

     Can you imagine that? 117 billion hours spent sending cute messages to people we probably haven’t seen or talked to in years. Even worse, of those 130 friends, there are probably 125 that we never liked in the first place.

     As if that isn’t bad enough, we also upload 2.5 billion new photos each month to our FaceBook albums. In the old days when we had photos printed from film at the local drugstore, the vast majority of bad photos would have been thrown into the wastebasket before seeing the light of day. Now, people feel no qualms about posting photos online that can only be described as ‘too much exposure’.

        One would have thought that the ‘auto’ setting on most digital cameras could take a reasonably decent picture. Apparently not. Of course, the truth is, even a digital camera can’t take a good picture with your finger in front of the lens.

        Anyway, I have one question to ask. How exactly did we used to use those billions of hours before FaceBook came onto the scene? Square dancing? Shoveling snow? Cooking dinner? Taking care of the kids? I mean, really, something has to have gone the way of the white buffalo to free up that many hours.

       Is there now a wave of dirty underwear showing up in hospital emergency rooms (remember when Mothers used to tell their kids to always wear clean underwear in case they were in an accident?) Are we only cooking minute rice for 30 seconds?

        Maybe we used to use that time to have actual face-to-face contact with close friends and family. But, no more. And, perhaps that’s a good thing. Based on the pictures many people post of themselves on FaceBook, no one would want to come face-to-face with them.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the greatest tragedy to happen in Worcester, MA during my lifetime.  It is a day of remembrance, a day of sorrow and a day to be proud.  For me, it is mainly remembrance as I was not fortunate enough to know any of the six men that gave their lives, but many people I count as close friends did and I imagine that for them, today will be filled with sorrow and pride.

Although I have no family members on the WFD or WPD, I will never forget that night.  I’ve heard my parents and countless other people say that they remember exactly where they were when JFK was shot and now I get it.  There are 2 events in which I remember where I was; 9/11 and the Worcester Cold Storage Fire.  I was coming around Washington Square to head down Shrewsbury St. and I was a little confused as to why there was so much traffic.  It didn’t take long to figure out, however.  As I looked up and to my right, I saw flames shooting up over the railroad bridge next to the train station and flashing lights underneath it.  The next few hours was spent talking to people who have family and friends that were on duty that night, wondering if they were at the scene and if they were ok and trying to hear some sort of news about what was going on at the fire. 

I wanted to recount my initial memory of the fire to emphasize the magnitude of what happened that night, but I’m not writing this to give the play by play.  I’m writing this to express my absolute disgust over comments that I have read referring to the 10 year anniversary of the fire and the articles written about it.  There are people who seem to think that holding a ceremony in remembrance of this does not qualify as news and that such ceremonies are an inconvenience to their daily lives and commutes.  My first reaction was to sit there with my mouth hanging open and say “huh”?  After a minute or so of getting my thoughts in order I started to get a little angry.  Why would these people take time out of their day to write a hurtful comment about people who gave their lives to save, what they thought, were 2 homeless people trapped inside?  This is one event that I thought couldn’t possibly bring out the worst in people, but I was sadly mistaken.  The first amendment of the Constitution gives people the right to say whatever they want and unfortunately, it also gives people the right to be ignorant cowards, hiding behind the very thing that public servants are here to uphold.

This isn’t New York, Chicago or even Boston and although by definition, Worcester is a city, it has a small town feel to it and a sense of community that most cities don’t have.  They say there are 6 degrees of separation between everyone on this planet, well in Worcester it’s more like 1 degree (1.5 if you just moved here).  Everyone knows everyone through someone.  In some ways, it can be a bit irritating that so many people know your business, but in the face of adversity, people here come together like nowhere else I’ve seen.  Since I’ve only read the negative comments and have never heard any, I count myself fortunate that I have surrounded myself with people that at least have respect for the feelings of the community and more importantly, the people who lost loved ones that night.

For all the people that feel it is a waste of time to talk about this or an inconvenience having to take a detour because thousands of people came here from across the country to remember (yes thousands), I hope you realize that your copy of the Constitution is NOT fire and bullet proof.  If tragedy strikes, it’s not your rights that will help you; it’s the people that you are insulting with your cynicism and ignorance.  I think it’s time to take a good long look in the mirror, decide whether or not you like who you are (if you’re honest, you probably won’t), and either get yourself a shrink to deal with the issues that have made you this way, or do a nice swan dive off the glass building.

Dear Friends:

I have a question…

When Chris Brown tried to murder Rihanna we were appalled (well some of us. 80% of African-Americans–particularly women–believe that Rihanna deserved to be beaten) and rightfully so.

Yet, when Elen Woods went after her husband (Tiger Woods) with a nine iron golf club America laughed.

Granted, I know that 90% of all domestic violence cases involve the man beating the hell out of his wife or girlfriend. Men are generally bigger, stronger, and capable of inflicting more damage on a female than vice versa. Furthermore, even if–in 10% of the cases–the woman is the aggressor the guy, unless the woman is packing a nine millimeter, can usually control the situation. So, it’s really no comparison when it comes to domestic violence. It’s usually some brutish ogre torturing his defenseless wife or girlfriend.

Yet and still that does not excuse Elen for going all Valkyrie on Tiger, not at all. Elen’s act of violence was excused due to the fact that she is viewed as “weaker” than her pro-athlete husband. I’m willing to bet that the incident will probably be parodied on SNL (a show that should have gone off twenty years ago) this weekend.

We’re a bunch of hypocrites when it comes to the issue of domestic violence. Violence against women = Heinous. Violence against men = Comedy. What kind of message does this send, especially since teen dating violence is now common place? Furthermore, how does this hypocrisy impact the gay community?

Gay domestic violence is quite common as well. Sadly, it is not taken seriously because…

1.) They’re gay (so right there is a strike for any homophobe on the police force who gets the call)

2.) It’s two men (or women). People erroneously believe that simply because it’s two men they can defend themselves against one another. Well, what if one partner is significantly smaller and weaker than the other (who just happens to be perpetuating the violence)? Then what?

Some men like to say, “Oh, if my man hit me we would be fighting!” Yeah, use all that bravado if you want to but for some people it is not that simple. If someone even acted like they were going to smack me in a relationship I’d be out the door and never look back. Why do I need to fight somebody that is supposed to love and support me? It might be hard to leave but I’d assess the situation in 3rd person and do what’s best for myself.

Violence is unacceptable. Both parties should keep their hands to themselves, end of story.

Tiger won’t file charges on Elen. He just wants his squeaky clean image back. He’ll buy her diamonds, million dollar shopping sprees, and a new Bently and she’ll go back to being his trophy queen (doesn’t take much to placate a gold digger…Look at Vanessa Lane Bryant). Elen don’t give a damn and neither should we.

Sincerely,

Toddy English.

Title: No Impact Man
Author: Colin Beavan
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2009

This book surprised me. I have read a LOT of the “My Year Of…” category of books, and I arrived at this one from a not-particularly positive commentary on the New York Times. I found myself with book in hand only a day or two after the library obtained it, in the unusual position of NOT having heard much about it.

I loved this book. I was not expecting much; it had been portrayed (I think unjustly) as an eco-stunt that detracted from people engaging with political processes to make things better. What I found instead was an author who was struggling with many of the same issues that haunt me, even though he is living a significantly different life from my own. I see at the beginning of this book a fellow human being seeking a way to make an immediate change in his own life to make up for feeling disengaged. (I don’t think I’m misrepresenting him here – you could read the book and find out!) I have tried to engage politically and have burned out repeatedly. This book has helped me reconnect, re-engage, and has rekindled my interest in the political actions necessary to support my own activities.

In a very simplistic review, I give it 5 stars! I have also started reading his blog and several that I found from his comments section.

Go, Colin!