A Thought: On the Other Shoe

Rather than being scared of getting hit by the other shoe when it drops, how's about we try to catch it and think, hey, free shoes? Read more!

A Thought: On Defining Memories

If we make an effort to define memories as much as they define us, the most one need ever be is wistful for what once was, rather than sad for what couldn't be. Read more!

Hope for the Holidays

The holidays are my favorite time of year, from right around this week until a bit after New Year's. There's something about the world during all of this that feels...different. I understand why so many cultures have celebrated it; not just because it was a turning point, when the weather began to shift back towards warmth, but because it was full of something deeper, a time for thought, introspection and possibility.

People just seem happier, even if they aren't, really, and the world becomes something magical, with the lights, the clarity of cold air and the sounds and smells, the bells and woodsmoke, particular to the season.

I love it all, truly, but sometimes...it isn't easy. There are ghosts for me. I mean, they're there, all year, but the ones that haunt the holidays are a little stronger, more prevalent. I'll be alone for Christmas this year, for the first time in a very long time. Jennifer's going to Florida for the week and Katie, like everyone else, will be spending the day with her family. Mine will be over here in the early morning, but likely gone by noon. I'm not sure how to feel about all that yet.

My mom met my stepdad when I was 18. I was already living on my own in the old trailer, had been since I was a senior in high school and could walk up the steps to get inside again. My mom was living with my grandfather, who needed 24-hour care we couldn't afford to give him otherwise. She'd take care of him during the day and, more often than not, I'd go and take care of him overnight, so she could rest. But that's none of it the point.

My stepfamily moved in with the two of them the summer of my 18th year, just before I turned 19. I volunteered to stay with my grandfather, rather than going to my family's Christmas, back when I still had enough alive to do the big gathering. That was the last year, though we didn't know it then, obviously. He and I watched TV together and the little ones, my younger soon-to-be step-siblings, got to enjoy a real family Christmas the way we'd always done it, so it was good.

A week later, very early New Year's Day, Ian killed himself. Three months after that, my grandfather passed. It was hard, then, being alone in the world, truly alone, for the first time. My mom sought solace with my stepfather, which was only fair, then they got married and that year they went to his family's Christmas and forgot to invite me. There was no malice or anything. In all her own pain, she forgot and he'd assumed she had asked. It was just something that slipped through the cracks, is all.

My best friend called to see how my day had been, sometime after ten Christmas night. I told her about all of it. She asked if I'd eaten and I told her I hadn't, as I was out of food again (there were a couple of years when I was only eating every few days). We ended up sitting in the parking lot of Albertson's after I'd broken into a local farmer's market and taken some fruit, because nothing else was open, leaving money and a note on the counter. She fell asleep and I cried listening to her new Lifehouse CD.

A week later, very early New Year's Day, I stood at my door and watched snow fall in Louisiana for the first time in as long as I could remember.

It taught me something that I carry to this day, one of those things that I keep wrapped safe and tight in my heart. There is hope. Always hope. And if you remember that, the ghosts can become good company, visitors with whom to share that dark, contemplative time of year, I suppose. It can, at the very least, turn the memories from a sharp sense of loss to something softer, something that, even if touched by melancholy, can still be beautiful, as a sad smile is still, at its heart, a smile.

Read more!

A Thought: On Supply and Demand

If you demand nothing from people, you will often find you get everything. Read more!

A Thought: On the Unfairness of Congressional Exemption

I would happily support Congressional action to remove the "unfair and hypocritical" exemption from Obamacare granted to Congress and The White House were it to also remove all the other, larger exemptions Congress has given themselves over the years and knock them down to working for the unlivable federal minimum wage.
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A Thought: On the Failure of Civics Teachers

Every time something like the government shutdown incites such vehement, polarizing, vitriolic fervor in the media and, by extension, here on the internet, I am reminded that so many civics teachers, whether out of simple ignorance or cynical personal bias, failed to do the one job with which they were entrusted; educating Americans on the basic, fundamental ways in which our government functions. Read more!

A Thought: On Attacking the Solution

To acknowledge a problem and attack those who offer a solution without proffering your own is foolish. Read more!

Conversations: An Unhealthy Preoccupation With Cake

Friend: Ever think, clearly and rationally, that you shouldn't have cake, so you decide not to have cake, and then all you can think about is how badly you want cake?

 Me: Nope. I can see no clear, rational line of thinking that would lead to not choosing to have cake.

 

F: Well in this instance the cake is a metaphor.

 

M: For what?

F: Sex.

M: I knew that.

F: You just wanted me to say it?

 

M: I did.

F: Mean.

M: I like to think I'm actually straight-out evil, but sure. I'm teaching you to use metaphors.

F: I always use metaphors.

 

M: And that's fine, but you shouldn't use ones that don't make sense. Like those that assume anyone 

would ever not choose cake.

 

F: I can't think of anything else that works.

 

M: Because cake is the only thing on par with sex. I see your problem.

F: I'm actually fairly sure that you do, yes.

Read more!

You know you're in grad school...

When you start to move into another room of your house and think, "Wait, I need to be reading something," than chuckle with relief because you know there's at least a few books in every room to choose from, and you've got assigned reading in those, too. Read more!

A Thought: On the Burden and Blessing of Perception

It's the unfortunate burden, and consummate blessing, of those able to see evil in the world that they will often find themselves in a place to do good. Read more!

A Thought: On the Importance of Doors

Building castles around the heart is important, but you've got to remember to put a door, else you'll starve the soul. Read more!

::Grinds teeth::

As a person in a terminal Master's program with nearly as many credit and lab requirements as a Ph.D. program, I have come to loathe the feeling I get every time someone in a doctorate field asks, "Why aren't you going for your Ph.D.?" or someone in another, far less intensive Master's program asks what's taking me so long.

You people are paying for my inevitable dental bills. Read more!

A Thought: On Unjust Veneration

While loss of life is always tragic, and to die young even more so, those who die as a result of their own foolish action should be remembered, at best, as cautionary tales, not venerated as heroes.
Read more!

A Thought: On the Responsibility of Change

I don't care for statements like, "Money changes people," or, "Power corrupts." They remove all responsibility from the person changing for the subsequent change.

A more accurate statement would be that people with money or power change. Nothing outside ourselves can force a particular change upon us. While we are often faced with situations which require adaptation, we always have a choice in how we are changed by them and rarely are the changes we make irreversible. Read more!

A Thought: On the Unbearable Burden of Pants

Did you ever find out that you had to do something and just think to yourself, "I feel like I've met my pants-wearing quota for the day?" Read more!

A Thought: On Relative Time

At what point in my life did things go so horribly awry that I now consider 9:30am a late morning appointment? Read more!

A Thought: On the Necessity of Primary Sources

I treat arguments over information found on the internet, be they scientific, political or otherwise, the same way I do those about religion or The Constitution.

If you only have a passing familiarity with the primary source, I'm not likely to give it much time or credence. Read more!

A Thought: On Keeping Around the Better Parts

If someone's been in your life for the better part of a decade or more and you still consider them one of the better parts, chances are, they're worth keeping around. Read more!

eBay...

Because it isn't just in games that you should get to scream, "Damn it! Just put a buy it now button!" at the idiots who think that their real life greys are going to start a bidding war. Read more!

A Thought: On the Burden of Self-Awareness

It is not enough to recognize your flaws. Once you've done so, you have a responsibility to do everything you can to rectify them.

It may be a battle that lasts a lifetime, but it will be one that is always worth fighting. Read more!

A Thought: On the Risk of Death

In the growing cultural obsession with postponing our inevitable demise, it's becoming more and more common to see the phrase, "if you do/don't do this or that, you're increasing your risk of death."

I find it funny, every time. To use the word risk implies that, somehow, if we follow the proper rituals or cultivate the proper diet or what have you, we can manage to avoid dying.


It's a waste of time focusing on how long until we die when it could be better spent reveling in how long we have left to live. Read more!

A Thought: On What We May Sacrifice

Someday, I hope we come to realize that the only thing we have a right to sacrifice, for any cause, is ourselves. Read more!

A Question to Those Who Would Fight Tyranny

While I do not in any way advocate violence, because it serves little lasting purpose, I do ask those who keep claiming that Americans need guns to stand up to those who would take away our rights any time someone even mentions tightening gun control, what rights, other than that to bear arms, are you talking about?

Our education system is crumbling, with children being packed like sardines into classrooms falling apart to be taught only the basic facts necessary to pass standardized tests created by companies with no educational background, thus causing us to slide further and further behind countries whose citizens understand that education, more than anything else, is the way to drive an economy.

Millions of Americans fall victim to profit-based privatized health care system, driven by pharmaceutical and insurance industries, causing us to have health numbers and mortality rates rivaling those of third world nations.

Banks and big businesses receive massive subsidies while small businesses are crushed under laws bought from career Congressmen by said large ones to ensure their oligopolies are maintained as they squeeze the life from their workers, one paycheck at a time, cutting jobs while posting profits.

State governments loot their coffers and destroy their states, one backdoor deal at a time, all the while erecting, along with Congressmen who can hold their jobs for life, a masterful smokescreen that makes the average person think it's all the fault of the evil president, who actually has as much power domestically as any one of them.

So, again, I ask, when, exactly, are you going to start standing up for those rights that you need your guns to protect?

Read more!

A Thought: On the Value of Losing Everything

It isn't until we've lost everything that we can truly understand the value of anything. Read more!

A Thought: On a Too Dark World

Sometimes the world only seems so dark because we've forgotten to open our eyes to the light that surrounds us. Read more!

A Thought: On the Struggle for Balance

Balance can never be achieved through struggle, only acceptance. Read more!

We Can Stop It

   The Scottish government has recently begun a large campaign to address the issue of rape education in their country, following the passage of much clearer, stricter laws regarding its commission.  The campaign seems targeted towards not just aggravated rape, but coercive and date rape, as well. 

I appreciate that it includes same-sex relationships in the campaign, as it has always been a very real issue that's been shied away from in the past.

Check it out here: We Can Stop It. Read more!

A Thought: On the Misuse of Physical Escalation

It's disturbing that physical escalation has gone, in less than a decade, from a term used when documenting a violent crime to one used when talking about how to flirt, in a positive sense.

If you think physical escalation is something you should use to pick up women, look up the term coercive rape.  Yep, that's you, you douche. Read more!

A Thought: On a Closed Door

There is something inherently unsettling in finding a closed door in your home, one which is normally left open, where you aren't expecting one to be so, especially when alone in the house.  Read more!

A Thought: On Playing Chess with a Bhuddist

A wise and accomplished Buddhist will always lose at chess, but will never mind. Read more!

A Thought: On Grammar and Idiocy

For some reason, it always bothers me more when I read ignorant, bigoted or closed-minded statements that are well-written and grammatically correct.  Read more!

The Lingering of Ghosts...

The drawback to being the sort of person who realizes the finite nature of life and seeks to squeeze from every moment the most possible is that those ghosts linger for us just that little bit longer. Read more!

Very Important! All Cell Phone Users!

Guys, I heard that whenever your cell phone is on, it's basically like carrying a camera and microphone everywhere you go!  Plus, there's a GPS in there.  People can, like, find, listen to and watch you everywhere and you CAN'T TURN IT OFF!  They say it's just so you can get phone calls and texts and post pictures of food and random stuff.  But that's what they WOULD say.  I say down with cell phones!  Screw you, Big Brother!

-Posted from my iPhone Read more!

Xbox Users...

What, exactly, do you think you do that makes you important enough for MS to want to watch you 24 hours a day?  Really.  Think about it. 

And that thing you're talking about, with the camera and mic being on all the time?  Yeah, your phone already does that.  Why not do the world a favor and chuck that, while you're at it. Read more!

The Polite Dishonesty of Everyday Conversation

"There was nothing horrible, nothing grand or shocking, just the tiny untruths slipped thoughtlessly into the world each time someone asks how one's day is going or how one feels, the polite dishonesty of everyday conversation." Read more!

A Thought: On Fear, Reason and Faith

Those who find faith through fear are like children.  They do as they are told not because they see the reason for goodness but because they wish to avoid punishment or gain praise.

True faith, be it in religion, philosophy, humanity, science or anything else, must be reached through reason and questioned consistently, that it may grow. When they do good works, it is because they understand that it is what must be done. Read more!

A Thought: On Finger Pointing

If you're pointing fingers, you can't use your hands to work on solutions. Read more!

Dead Dove.

Do Not Eat. Read more!

A Thought: On Outcries and Amendments

The outcries to end the IRS and repeal the 16th amendment after the recent scandal seem to be coming from many of the same camps that fiercely defend against the repeal of the second amendment after every mass shooting, with no sense of irony whatsoever. 

America, folks.  It's a shame Washington only cut down the one cherry tree, as had he kept going, we may not have to deal with so many cherry-pickers. Read more!

A Thought: On Constitutional Scholarship

I've noticed a growing trend amongst this new breed of self-proclaimed Constitutional scholars who use the infallibility of The Found Fathers to back up any number of antiquated statutes. 

The problem I have with this, however, is the same I have with many religious (not just Christian) fundamentalists, which is a tendency to pick and choose which things they want to defend, ignoring the less palatable bits.

In other words, if you try to cite The Constitution as a perfect, static document allowing everyone to have all the guns, be prepared for me to do the same thing when I make my argument for the legality of slavery, because that's in there, too.

Also, if you ever even imply that taxation is unconstitutional, I just assume you've never actually read The Constitution (See the 16th Amendment).  Oh, and if you argue that it's not taxes but the IRS that's illegal, I'll gladly support the dissolution of the IRS as a means of assessing and collecting taxes if you're willing to give up all your bullets, but keep the guns. Read more!

A Thought: On Argument and Semantics

If semantics are the only things that you can argue, then you probably need to stop arguing. Read more!

A Thought: On the Hope in Dystopia

There was a time when dystopian fiction was used to highlight the problems with the world as it was in an attempt to show how to fix them, to offer a cautionary roadmap in the imagination to prevent us from heading down the path in reality.

Now, it seems, with the market flooded with images of dystopian futures, on television, in movies and in literature, we've lost the hope, the caution, choosing, instead, to focus everything on the hellish hopelessness of it all.  There are no victories, no answers, no ways to stop it.  And that, to be certain, is the surest way to guarantee these dark visions become reality. Read more!

A Thought: On Science and Conspiracy

We tend  to see conspiracies only in the words and actions of those whose views disagree with what we want to believe. 

True, healthy skepticism weighs all things taken in equally and seeks out fact derived from accurate, valid, reliable science first, drawing conclusions from them, rather than seeking evidence to back up what they've already decided to be the answer.  Read more!

A Thought: On Changing the Past

We cannot change the past, but we can allow the past to change us. Read more!

A Thought: On the John Hughes Generation

I've heard or read a few times in recent months people complaining that John Hughes is an overrated writer/director, that his work is just too sappy, sentimental and overly idealistic. 

True, most of his movies ended happily.  But there was rarely a neat little bow on them.  It was, as it so often is in real life, less of a happy ending than the possibility for a happy beginning.  It wasn't idealism so much as hope.  Add to that the fact that the characters he wrote, especially the teenagers, were some of the most realistic, three-dimensional kids ever to grace the screen and his legacy is unquestionable.  He understood them in a way that teen movies hadn't before and haven't since, making them people, rather than just some caricature of a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal. 

How many people in my generation didn't secretly kind of want to end up in Saturday detention after The Breakfast Club?  How many didn't feel, every time they went out with friends, that maybe, just maybe, they could have the kind of time that Ferris, Cameron and Sloane did?  And maybe it made it a little easier for some of us, most of us, who were burdened with things like poverty, abusive, overbearing or absentee parents and the stress of society's seemingly overwhelming expectations.

So yeah, perhaps they were a bit sappy.  Maybe they were idealistic.  But you know what they made?  A generation of idealists, of people who question authority, empathize, don't necessarily take someone at face value and try, even if we sometimes fail, to understand the world and one another a little better.  That seems to me like more than enough to validate his reputation.  Read more!

Missing Two Johns

I'm watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  It makes me miss both Johns, Hughes and Candy.  They just don't make movies like this anymore, much to the detriment of cinema. Read more!

Kickstarter: MyTemple...Go and back this now.

I love the whole concept of Kickstarter and have (arguably) wasted many an hour browsing through the occasionally lame, very often fantastic, in every sense of the word, and sometimes just creepy project there.  Now and then, I come across one that I get really excited about.  As I've been on a big kick this past month to get my health on track as I enter my 30s, this one definitely falls into that category.  Check it out.  Back it.  Share it.  If they hit $100k, it'll be on Android, too.

MyTemple: The Fitness Training Game Read more!

A Thought: On Marriage and Murderous Home Design

I do so love being married to someone who gets excited when I ask if she wants to help me design a mansion of doom.  That's love, right there. Read more!

A Thought: On the Power of Inclusion

There are few things better at motivating one to great change than feelings of loneliness and exclusion. Read more!

A Thought: On Horrible Parenting

Does anyone else remember the days when you could see a horror movie at midnight and not have at least one or two kids under five there?  Anyone? Read more!

To the Grunters...

If you must grunt every time you do a rep, you've either got too much weight or too little attention.  Either way, it feels like a personal problem, so please stop.  Thank you. Read more!

A Thought: On Us and Them

The human mind is exceptional at creating monsters, wired to do so, to make an us and a them.  It is, however, also capable of rising above what are inevitably petty distinctions, of reasoning, finding compromise and, most importantly, of understanding.  It is only by doing so that we have any hope for the future.

If you approach the world expecting to find enemies, you always will.  If you approach it expecting to find allies, well, the same is also true. Read more!

A Thought: On the Efficacy of Placing Blame

Placing blame is an exceptionally effective tool.  The evidence is everywhere.  We use it constantly, as individuals and as a society, to put off actually fixing all sorts of problems.

What it comes down to is this: Placing blame (not to be confused with trying to understand a problem) does nothing but provide a way to keep from having to do the work of fixing a problem.  Hands used to point fingers can't be used to clean up a mess. Read more!

A Thought: On Guns and Immigrants

Okay, folks, here we go again...One of the most valid arguments against banning all guns in the U.S.  (which, mind you, NO ONE has ever actually tried to do with any traction, but that aside) is that the problem simply isn't feasible.  There are just too many guns out there to possibly get rid of them all, so regulation is the only possible way to go and, believe it or not, most reasonable gun advocates support it wholeheartedly.

The thing is, if you swap out the word gun with the word immigrant in that rational, you end up with just as valid a point.  There is no way to, "send them all back," and not just because it would quite literally cripple our already ailing economy.  So give them papers, make them pay taxes like the rest of the working poor and problem solved. 

You only get to use the argument for one if you're willing to accept it for the other.  Read more!

16th Annual Zach's Dead Day

Sixteen years ago, I was in a massive car accident that killed me, which didn't take, and crippled me for life, which, unfortunately, did.  I've officially spent half my life with this pain as a constant companion and, while, of course, I would love to be free of it, I made the choice a long time ago (not immediately, no one does that, despite what they may say) to not allow it to consume me. 

Spending my senior year in high school in a wheelchair, I wasn't so enlightened as that on the first anniversary.  My friends at the time decided, then, to throw me a party in order to keep my spirit's up.  It worked.  I've still got a flyer for the first annual Zach's Dead Day party somewhere.  I was never able to tell them how much it meant, because you don't think to, when you're that age.  I'm grateful, though, because it was a large part of how I began to come to terms with things.  So I'll just put my gratitude out there into the ether and hope that it finds them somehow.

All that being said, Happy Zach's Dead Day! Read more!

A Thought: On Prioritizing the Rights of Our Children

I often wish we expended even half as much effort and outrage on ensuring that our children are able to be well-educated as we do on ensuring that they are able to be well-armed.  Read more!

A Thought: On the Misappropriation of Books

For all the vast and interesting things tutorials all over the internet can show you how to do with books, from making potters for plants to fantastic works of art crafted by slicing into the pages, I find, to my heart's sore ache, that fewer and fewer suggest actually reading them. Read more!

A Thought: On the Goodness of Goodness

Just because you're good at something doesn't mean it's good for you. Read more!

A Thought: On Existentialism's Oft Misunderstood Message

If you believe that the logical conclusion of Existentialism is hopelessness and despair, you've likely got a bit more existing to do. Read more!

Conversations: Hand-licking on the playground

"You licked my hand!"

"You put your hand over my mouth. I don't know what playground you grew up on, but that was the logical conclusion of that action.  Putting your hand over someone's mouth was basically like saying, 'Please lick my hand.'" Read more!

Rules of the Blues

When I was sixteen, I went to Detroit on a school trip.  Wandering around the little neighborhood of Trapper's Alley, where I would later buy a potted ivy that still sits in a window all these years later, I came across an old bluesman sitting on a bench.  He wore an immaculately pressed suit, sharp, if a few decades out of style, a pair of dark glasses, a broad, bright grin and an old guitar that had seen more life than I had, then. 

            I asked if I could sit beside him, listen to him play for a while, and he just laughed and told me that he didn't own the music and I could do as I like.  We sat for a while, he and I, talking and playing, passing the guitar back and forth with its deserved reverence.  Along with the memories, I took away from that night an early education in the blues, as, fittingly, handed down to me from one musician to another.

            "Son," he told me, a slow grin making its way across his face, "you got to remember two things, if you want to play the blues, and God only knows why you would.  First, ain't nobody owns music, so it can't be stolen.  You take a song, change it a little, make it yours and that's what it is, till someone else hears you play it, then it becomes theirs, too."

            "Second, your first guitar can't be new.  It's got to come second, maybe third, hand.  It's got to have stories, got to know the music, cause one of you got to know where to put your hands, and sure as hell ain't gonna be you."  He laughed at that last part.  I laughed with him.

            I never got his name, but I still carry what he told me and I've passed it along, as opportunity or necessity demanded.  I still play the guitar I bought the Christmas after I met that old bluesman, pulled off the rack, a little worn, and I've added some of my own stories to it.  It still knows more than I do, I think, about where to put my hands, but I think I'm okay with that, all things considered, because sometimes, when I close my eyes and I just let the music come, I hear it whisper, let it lead, and it carries me away.

Read more!

A Thought: On Relative Pain

Some mornings, it feels like there's a vice grip on my right side, slowly tightening, grinding the bones to dust.  Other mornings, it's really bad. Read more!

A Thought: On Skepticism vs. Mockery

Skepticism is the mark of the intellectual.  Mockery and derision marks of the foolish. Read more!

Easter Bunnies Taste Better With Terror

When I eat my chocolate bunny, I always start at the feet, move up to the neck, then go from the ears down, saving the head for last.  I want him to know what's happening because fear tastes just delicious.  True story. Read more!

A Thought: On the Eradication of Fear

While reason is the tool with which fear is eradicated, hope must be the force which drives it. Read more!

A Thought: On Unreasonable Inequality

In all of the fervor over marriage equality lately, I have yet to find a single non-theological argument against it that holds up to even a cursory reasoned examination. 

The founders of the country never put word one in The Constitution about marriage in any sense.  And don't try to get into the whole literal vs. spirit debate.  You don't want that when it comes time to talk about other things that actually ARE in there.  Trust me.

Expanding a right to all never diminishes it.  That's like saying giving everyone all the free apples they want makes it so you don't get as many apples.  You're a lot less likely to get to enjoy your apples if the people who you said don't get any are staring, empty-handed, at you while you try and eat them every day.

Okay, so all cherrypicking aside, you've got a verse in The Bible that says, under one interpretation and context aside, that gay sex is wrong.  Here's a solution...You've been stressing that teenagers can and will go without sex until marriage, which is why we shouldn't be educating them about it.  So let's just have gay people promise they won't have sex, just be married.  How does that sound?  Feel better?  Good.

What else?  Ah, yes, the old snowball effect.  If we allow this, next we'll be letting adults marry kids, men marry their snakes, all that sort of thing.  What you're forgetting is that a legal marriage is a binding contract.  We've already got a TON of safeguards in place to prevent anyone deemed incapable of reasoned consent from signing them.  That includes kids and animals.  So that one goes down the drain.

Finally, when it comes right down to it, you just don't want it because the thought of it makes you feel icky.  Fine.  You're entitled to think that, to feel that, even to say it.  The thing is, you can't make legislation against something just because it makes you uncomfortable.  Believe me, I wish you could, because bigotry and close-mindedness  make me feel pretty icky. Read more!

A Thought: On Equal Irony

I find it ironic that so many people today have elected to speak out against those who choose, for whatever reason, not to change their profile picture to a symbol meant to support equal rights.  Read more!

A Thought: On the Tragedy of a Catalyst

The difficult and sometimes tragic nature of a catalyst is that it is so often used up in the reaction it inspires. Read more!

A Thought: On Hopeful Inspiration

If you give people hope for a better future, remind them that just because things have been does not mean they must always be, they are more willing to fight for the tools to make it so.  Inspiration.  Education.  Innovation. Read more!

A Thought: On the Seed of Possibility

Possibility is amazing, intoxicating, the very essence of inspiration and that which drives the grandest of endeavors.  However, the seed of possibility, no matter how great, must first find fertile root in reality to truly thrive. Read more!

A Thought: On Equine Misandry

While I can totally get behind My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, as it manages to be entertaining for adults as well as children and puts forth genuine, valuable lessons in each episode, I do take issue with the subtle misandry of it. 

The show provides very few positive male figures, with nearly all who do appear in speaking roles being in subservient positions or as bumbling comic relief.  And, on the rare occasion one does attempt to contribute to the plot, he inevitably fails in his attempts, only to be rescued by one of the female characters.

Are there a ton of misogynistic shows out there for kids?  Yep.  And I take the same issue with them.  I just feel as though this show, with its near-cultish male following, should rise above that.  With so much emphasis placed on friendship, how about showing that boys and girls CAN be friends, and that both can bring things to the table? Read more!

A Thought: On Comfort Versus Possibility

Too many choose comfortable misery over frightful possibility.  In truth, we shape both.  The latter simply provides more options. Read more!

Flash Fiction: Year 2!

Last year, I asked you guys to give me some titles so that I could write some flash fiction. It was a whole lot of fun and I'd like to do it again. So, if you could, come up with some more?

The ones I used last year were, "The Darkness That Made the Light," "The Eye," "Sheer Whimsy," "The Weekender," and "The Ritual." So run wild with it. Make them as simple or complex as you like. I'm very excited to do this again. Thanks! Read more!

A Thought: On Nightmares and the Unknown

I wouldn't mind so much waking in a state of lingering dread, could I remember what it was that had put me there.  It's so much easier to remind myself that the nightmares aren't real when I can put a name to them. Read more!

The Vicious Double-Standard of Dreams

"Last night, in my dream, you sacrificed yourself in a really terrible fashion to save me and the group of homeless orphans."

    Spoken with little emotion and absolutely no reaction.

"Last night, in my dream, you took me to dinner at a fancy restaurant, gave me a beautiful present, wrote me a song and sang it to me in front of the whole place. ::Narrows eyes:: But you kept smiling at the waitress."

    I'm forced to apologize and she's still angry for a week. Read more!

Kickstart Veronica Mars

This is a thing that should happen.  It should happen right now.  To all you fans of smart T.V., if you haven't seen the show, you should.  And if you have, I could have just stopped typing with the title line.  Go.  Give them money.

VERONICA MARS MOVIE Read more!

Old Writing: Wood Smoke

I came out of the building today

And into the overcast afternoon

In the air was the faint scent of wood smoke

Though it wasn’t cold

And still early yet

But it carried me back

To lost afternoons

And the smells of thing remembered

But long since passed-

The loam of rich soil

As I lay in bed of leaves and needles

Fallen from boughs that watched over me in the night

When no one else would

Cigarette smoke

And a certain, sharp smell

That I’ll always associate with yellow t-shirts.

As I walked to my car,

I remembered afternoons gone

And a little part of me lost

To the wood smoke

As it faded into the deep grey dusk

Read more!

A Clarification: On the Code Name Theory of James Bond

James Bond is not a code name.  It IS the same guy.  He's just a Time Lord.  You're welcome. Read more!

A Thought: On the Burdens of Being Literate

It secretly makes me smugly happy that I sometimes have to Google a word to make certain I'm not making it up because it's not in the built-in dictionary for whatever spellchecker the program in which I'm typing happens to be running.

On the other hand, not only have I had genuine, out-loud arguments with the squiggly red lines, but I've felt inappropriately superior to them when I've been right.

I may spend too much time alone. Read more!

A Thought: On the Responsibilities of Self-Government

The problem with living in a country founded on self-governance is that it relies on those who live within it to govern themselves and their own impulses in a manner which befits a rational, thinking person looking out for the greater good, rather than only their own interests. Read more!

A Thought: On Art's Great Secret

The secret of all artists is that for every wonderful piece we proudly, or humbly, show the world, there's at least a hundred half-finished pieces of crap shoved in the back of the closet or crumpled around the trash can. Read more!

A Thought: On Apothecary Employment Opportunities

I wonder if there's a market for an apothecary these days.  And I don't mean just an herbal pharmacist.  I mean a guy who runs a smoky, mysterious shop filled with strange artifacts and ancient herbal remedies.

...probably not.

......damn it. Read more!

A Thought: On Improper Passes

Okay, folks, I'm all for getting pissed at the government over not being able to come to a compromise and costing people jobs, given that you get pissed at the whole government.  But why are you giving businesses who post profits regularly and give massive bonuses to their executives for them but refuse to give their employees basic benefits or increase hiring a pass, every time? Read more!

A Thought: On Ignorance and Stupidity

Ignorance is simply the state of not knowing.  We are all of us ignorant about many, many things.  It is not until ignorance is clung to in the light of truth or reason that it becomes stupidity.  For the former, none can be held accountable.  For the latter, all perpetrators should be. Read more!

A Thought: On Being Thoughtful

Ever since I was a kid, people have called me thoughtful, for differing, but always positive, reasons.  While I appreciate it, there are times, like the middle of the night, when an unceasing ability to think becomes more of a burden than a blessing.  I don't think I'd give it up, though. Read more!

Photo Set: Hayley in Black & White

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Photo Set: Hayley In Color

The lovely Hayley Reese, with makeup by Jenny Sweet.

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A Thought: On Questioning Where Your Money Goes

Americans will raise hell over every penny the government wishes to take from them, regardless of the numerous necessary things for which it is used, but they will blindly and unquestioningly just shrug and shake their heads wordlessly while big business steadily increases the prices of basic necessities. Read more!

America's Promise Deferred

There are few things in my life that regularly bother me as much as my student loans.  I understand why so many in my generation feel so damned hopeless sometimes.  Read more!

A Thought: On Comparing Apples to Tiny South African Marmots

I understand that one of the primary purposes of the news media has become to stir up controversy and dilute the truth so much that the American public is barely able to recognize fact from fiction, but there are some things that need to stop happening.  For one, they need to stop squaring off Capitalism with Socialism, as though they are diametrically opposed political concepts, for a few reasons.

First, Socialism is a political system and Capitalism is, despite all evidence to the contrary here in America, an economic system.  Here in the states, while our economic policy is Capitalist, in theory, we are, politically, a Republic.  It's impossible to compare Capitalism to Socialism, as they're in two completely separate categories.  I know, I know.  It's just a nice way of calling your political opponents Communists, which is definitely not the same thing as Socialism to anyone who has any idea what in the hell they're talking about except that...

Socialism as a political policy, as its enacted by most civilized countries worldwide, is actually beneficial to Capitalism as a fiscal one, and here's why.  Capitalism's driving principal, and one which we seem to have forgotten, is a form of mutually-beneficial selfishness.  In its purest form, corporations care for their workers, compensate them well and reward them for innovation, all of which drive productivity which in turn increases profits, allowing said businesses to invest further in their workers care, which perpetuates the Capitalistic cycle.  We've seen it work.  It's why the U.S. was the economic leader of the last century.

Socialism, then, removes the burden of caring for the workers from the business.  It does NOT take money from the rich and just give it to the poor in the hopes of making everyone equal.  That's Communism.  Instead, it provides for the basic needs of its citizenry, things like health care, education, etc., all of which improve productivity and, thereby, improve the nation's GNP.  Almost every other first world nation does this right along side voting and having their democratic process remain unassailed. 





So basically just...stop it, already.  Stop trying to scare people.  Stop trying to maintain a status quo that's dragging us down.  Tradition is a heavy weight to which we have chained ourselves and its time to bite the bullet, get with the rest of the world and care for America. 

Oh, and just so you know, if you do the math, taking away non-essential corporate subsidies and tax breaks alone would pay for every penny, and then some, of nearly every program that, under Capitalism, they're meant to be supporting but have long ago dropped the ball on, including universal healthcare.  Which means that the wealthy, the middle class and even the poor who live in fear of their taxes going up and take it out on the politicians should be directing their anger at those who are spending all that money they could be using to fix the country on keeping it the same: big business.
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Sound City Players

Dave Grohl made a movie and got together a group of famous musicians to work together to do the soundtrack.  This is one of the songs, with freakin' Stevie Nicks doing lead and sounding, as a friend of mine put it, like a long lost Sunny Day Real Estate track.  Check this out.  Right.  Now.

The Sound City Players - You Can't Fix This Read more!

We've got to stop doing this, Netflix....

A little while ago, you added in auto-play functionality, which was awesome.  Now, though, you still have it, but you randomly interrupt playback to make sure people are actually watching.  Do you see the problem here, Netflix?  Hm? Read more!

The Wheel Turns...

I first picked up The Eye of the World when I was a freshman in college, about twelve years ago.  I was instantly wrapped up in Jordan's world and, as I made my way through the series, I anxiously awaited its conclusion.  Like so many others, though, I eventually started to feel like it was a little long in the getting there, so I waited until it was finished to pick it back up.  After more than a decade, though, I figured it was best to start over.

I've just finished reading the first book again and, while I don't feel the same magic I did the first time, I'm actually really enjoying it.  Here's hoping that I'll make it through this time and, more so, that it's worth it, in the end.

Read more!

Pulling Myself Together

The last few months have been difficult, though in a way that I'm not sure I can properly identify.  There's been the obvious stressors, things like the slow process of applying to graduate school and gathering everything necessary for that.  But nothing overly specific.  Things in life are going well, overall, better than they have in quite a while. 

Still...I seem to have lost focus and much of the time I spend alone feels listless and lonely, unmotivated.  I need to find some drive, something to get me going, to inspire me.  I need to get moving, figuratively and literally.  It's time to get back on track. Read more!

A Thought: On the Upside of Ear Buds

I've finally discovered a positive side to the abominable things.  When out and about, businesses can play good music for we older folks, as anyone young enough to complain will likely be wearing their ear buds the entire time, anyway.  Hooray, technology! Read more!

A Thought: On The Unfairness of Capital Gains

I think it's grossly unfair to tax capital gains in the same way that earned income is taxed.  I don't believe we should do anything to give the impression that those drawing additional income from money they just had sitting in an account have done anything to earn it. Read more!

Ah, Valentine's Day

When we're all reminded that it isn't enough to show love in everything you do, unless at least a few of those things have high monetary value, that it's better to be with someone who treats us like crap than alone because life is a hollow, lifeless shell without someone to share it with (and upon whom, as previously stated, we can shower expensive gifts) and, finally, that if we pretend hard enough that we don't care, maybe the people in our lives will be kind enough to pretend they believe us. Read more!

Choices: Welfare and Minimum Wage

Okay, once again, you have to make a choice, people.  You can't be against both raising the minimum wage AND welfare.  Pick one.  If you don't want people being on welfare, make it more profitable to work than not. Read more!

A Thought: On The End of Days

I find that most who claim that the end of the world is nigh, citing all the chaos and degradation and greed as evidence, are generally using it as an excuse to keep from having to work against those things. Read more!

If I Had a Goat...

I would name him Chester. Read more!

Photo Set: The Gypsy Ball

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Oh, Community...

I want to go to Greendale... Read more!

Good morning...

Terrible, nauseating headache pain.  I'd like to say it's nice to see you, but, really, seeing anything right now isn't a whole lot of fun. Read more!

Thoughts on the State of Our Political System

In an ongoing discussion with a friend of mine regarding the politics of the country, he asked, in response to a statement I made, whether I subscribe to Marxist or Communist beliefs.  I spent a day or so thinking about it and came up with this response.

Would that it were that simple.  Marxism is an economic theory and one which has never been implemented anymore than pure capitalism, and for the same reason: neither takes into account humanity.  And the political Communism bears very little resemblance to Marx's theories anymore than conservative Republicanism actually embodies pure capitalism.  When it comes down to it, though, it isn't an either/or situation.  That's just something that we've been sold as a country so we'd have a united enemy that wasn't the actual enemy.

What I meant when I said what we have isn't working is just that.  Our political system isn't working.  It's product is a nation in decline.  But saying that the system we're using now doesn't mean that I'm saying we should switch to the system that others are using, because there are flaws in all of those, as well.  Chinese Communism does an exceptional job with prioritizing public education and social awareness, but allows for virtually no freedom of the press or personal expression.  European socialism does an exceptional job of taking care of its people's health and well-being, but keeps them isolated from one another and, as a result, has led to flagging economic systems which are only interconnected enough to drag one another down.  And American Republicanism allows for unprecedented levels of personal freedom, but limits those very freedoms by placing a higher priority on economic growth and the health of business now than it does on investing in the future.  So, as with all things, there's no black and white.  In order to grow and succeed, we need to learn from one another's successes and failures, take the good, leave out the bad and create a system that works, admitting when parts are broken, and fixing them.

The founding fathers intended the country's government and legal systems to be organic, to grow and change as necessary to reflect the needs of the country and technological growth.  Hell, Franklin and  Jefferson both speculated, pretty accurately, a lot of modern technology, but you can't base a government on speculation.  Look what basing our financial system on speculation has done.  Plato was right in that we ought to be governed not by politicians, but by top scholars and thinkers working as a council, for the betterment of the people, plain and simple. Read more!

A Reminder to Those Who Seek Immortality Through Wealth and Power

They've just found the bones of England's King Richard III, arguably one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of his time, beneath a car park in Leicester.  Read more!

Ah, Space Quest...

As usual, you've been a real pantload. Read more!

A Thought: On Half-naked Teachers on Twitter

While I am a proponent of free speech, believe it to be the cornerstone of any free nation, there is the inherent implication that we will be intelligent enough to censor ourselves in certain situations.  As an educator, then, it appalls me to read another story about a young teacher posting pictures in a public forum, some sexually provocative and others of her partaking in open drug use. 

In a profession that already struggles in this country for the respect necessary to do its work, where good people are struggling to find positions being filled by a flood of young people who enter the field with no real passion for it, nor a real willingness to do it, these people are evidence of how skewed our priorities and screening processes are when it comes to one of the most important service professions. Read more!

A Thought: On the State of Activism in America

A big part of what's wrong with our generation, what's contributing to the unimpeded downfall of America, is that reposting political memes is what passes for political activism.  We don't even want to think enough to write our own opinions, for the most part.  I enjoy a real debate, encourage them.  It's how we learn, how we grow, if we approach it properly, with an open mind and a willingness to listen to the views of others, to try and understand one another.  Think.  Write.  Express all the ideas you want, but make damned sure they're your own. Read more!

A Thought: On the Difference Between Ignorance and Stupidity

I often hear it said that the average American is stupid, that our country is being dragged down because of said stupidity.  That's not the case, though.  Most people in the country are ignorant, which isn't the same as stupid.  Ignorance is lack of knowledge, because of a failing education system, a life where education took a back seat to simple survival, that kind of thing.  Ignorance can be remedied.  Stupidity is when one realizes one's ignorance and is not only okay with it, but revels in it and seeks to spread it around rather than eliminate it. Read more!

A Reminder: On French-American Relations

To those Americans ignorant enough of our history to utter the foolish phrase, "If it weren't for us, the French would be speaking German," I remind you that, were it not for the French, we would still be English. Read more!

A Thought: On the Freedom of Chains

Those who spend their lives dodging commitment and responsibility, dreading the loss of freedom, never realize that they have shackled themselves to fear.  True freedom is in the choice of the things to which we attach ourselves. Read more!

No, no, Netflix...

You've done some pretty loose grouping in the past when it comes to placing movies in your absurdly specific genre designations, but please, I beg of you, don't put Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter under the heading of, "Civil War Movies."  The average American is already confused enough when it comes to American history without putting vampires into it. Read more!

A Lament for My 20s...

I remember fondly my 20s, when I could game and hang out until 4am, subsisting on nothing but junk food and good fellowship and NOT feel like I'd been hit by a truck the entirety of the next day. Read more!

A funny thing...

I apparently now draw as many hits on a day when I don't post as I used to on days when I did.  Not sure how I'm feeling about that except that it's nice to know people are reading.  Hello, people reading!  I'll post something more substantial next time.  Also, it'll probably be more ha-ha funny and less interesting funny.  Though it might be both.

...I may need more sleep. Read more!

Silly horror directors...

No matter how much gore or disquieting imagery you show, if your characters are idiots or lacking in, well, actual character, I'm not going to give a crap when they're in peril and your movie will suck.

If you really want to make a good horror movie, make me care about the people in it.  Don't skimp on the exposition, the development of solid, three-dimensional human beings in whom I can invest some real emotion.  Then, you know...torture them psychologically for a bit before killing them.

Horror's actually pretty messed up. Read more!

Quick Grammar Lesson: Lightening Lightning

After a week's worth of rain in my area, and countless posts about it, nearly all featuring this common error, I thought I would clarify it here.

Lightening: The removal of weight, physically or metaphorically

Lightning: A static discharge that precedes thunder Read more!

When Asked Why America Fell

When asked why America fell, they will say…

We spent too much time worrying about our guns

And too little worrying about our children’s education

We gave too much credence to men who had read one book

And far too little to those who had read many

We spent too much time trying to regulate people

And not nearly enough regulating our economy

We screamed constantly about being overtaxed

And never realized most were simply underpaid

We silenced our voices, hearts and minds

And spoke, felt and thought only what we were told

We vilified, crucified, the intellectuals and educated

And raised in their places those who spoke with slogans and smiles

We mistook fanaticism and pandering for toughness

And called toughness tyranny

We marched, step-lock, to those at the extremes

And called compromise cowardice

We neglected the long-term survival of the nation

For the brightest, shiniest distractions of the present

We fought too hard against the things that didn’t matter

And never, ever hard enough for the things that did

We were unwilling to sacrifice freedom at any cost

Except where the price was paid by others

We spent all our time pointing at problems

And none of it coming up with solutions

We let those in power convince us we couldn’t change a thing

Rather than reminding them often enough that we could

When asked why America fell, they will say…

We gave up, one by one,

In fear of the world and each other,

The strength of our unity

The power of our innovation

The protection of the weak

The checking of the strong

And the voice of our nation

Read more!