Official Tally

WIN LOSS
[ ] [X] Gubernatorial race against a wacky former professional wrestler nicknamed "The Body."
[X] [ ] Senate race against a man who died in a plane crash shortly before the election.
[ ] [X] Senate race against a comedian and writer writer who portrayed self-help guru Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live.

Way to be, Norm Coleman. Now take this as your hint to fade into obscurity.

A View From Here

I had a rousing debate with a coworker of mine in the lab this evening, and it sparked a lot of thoughts and a small bit of research to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. It's important to me to "get my story straight" when making political and ideological arguments, since I severely dislike finding the roots of my beliefs were poisoned from the start. Anyway, the argument was about the merits of left versus right wing politics, in general, and the subject of fascism came up.

Now, of course, the prototypical fascist in history is Mussolini, the Italian prime minister during World War II. Now, there really is no agreed upon or concise definition of what exactly fascism is, but it exists on a continuum that includes both traditionally right- and left-wing issues under its cloak. This is especially important to remember when thinking of groups like the Nazis - my coworker did, in fact, cite them as being an example of "left-wing". I staunchly disagree.

As far as left-wing policies usually incorporated in "fascism," generally they have to do with fiscally liberal politics, especially when considering the "corporate state." Corporatism was at the heart of both Mussolini's policies and Hitler's. The concept, in general, means that the government is the means of production - that is, a governing group is installed to exert control over the corporate structure of a state. This is similar to the concept of socialism, though there are differences.

Socialism, broadly, is the placement of the means of production in the hands of the people. This would generally imply the government takes the reigns, being an extension of the public. The one flaw here in a fascist system is that fascism also exhibits extreme forms of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism includes under its skirts the concept of unelected leadership. So the government is no longer a representation of the "people" - yes, technically, fascism does include socialist fiscal policies, but there are subtle differences.

On the right wing, fascism takes on an authoritarian nationalist viewpoint. That is, it suppresses individual rights and promotes nationalism in an extreme way. The key concept here is that the suppression of individual rights is innately right wing - social control, as it were. You can see that in the dichotomy of the Republicans versus Democrats today; Republicans tend to be more for interventionism in social matters like abortion, marriage equality, and basically anything in the Bill of Rights. This is also the reason why the right wing of the United States demonizes organizations like the ACLU which defend civil liberties. The one issue that falls into the hands of the Republicans is gun control, which they favor.

Anyway, the spectra and coordinate systems that can represent these beliefs are undoubtedly infinite. Below is one I threw together to illustrate a point. Please note that the sometimes-ambiguous term "liberal" is used here in the current, left-wing context.

To keep terms straight:

• Social rights are on a spectrum from - as a libertarian would put it - "less" to "more" personal freedom. This includes issues mentioned above; the "more" socially liberal someone is, the more likely they are to agree with pro-choice movements, the right to due process and fair trial, the right for marriage equality, et cetera. The reason I mention the ACLU here is that it really illustrates how current-era conservatism (especially neo-conservatism) is in opposition to the organization and the concept of civil liberties generally. Republicans are generally in opposition to the ACLU on issues such as separation of church and state, the death penalty, the USA PATRIOT act, and the defense of accused and convicted criminals.
• Economic ideologies span from socialism at the top to laissez-faire anarcho-capitalism at the bottom. In general, the more economically liberal an individual is, the more they are for government intervention into resource allocation, production, and environmental protection. An economically conservative person would likely be an advocate of concepts like corporate citizenship, lowered taxes levied on corporations and individuals alike, and the dissolution of workers' unions.

So, the point I'm trying to get across is that totalitarianism and populism are on a spectrum opposing libertarianism, and not conservatism neither liberalism in general. Just as libertarianism combines personal "freedom" and economic "freedom," totalitarianism seeks to suppress both. It's really not that hard to understand, though sometimes the spectrums can be exaggerated or simplified by too high a degree. I have simplified them for this example, but hopefully I haven't neutered them beyond recognition.

Cath...

Cath...
It seems that you live in someone else's dream
In a hand-me-down wedding dress
With the things that could have been are repressed
But you said your vows and you closed the door
On so many men who would have loved you more

Just Call Me Keith Silver

No real reason for this, but Nate Silver recently posted a story about which countries you could obliterate to maintain 95% of the worldwide GDP. I grabbed the same data and played around with it a little to satisfy some curiosities.

Anyway, Silver mentions the fact that you could completely discount about 2,865,623,000 people in order to make this reduction, or about 43% of the world's population. This made me wonder exactly how many you could take from the top end; that is, do the opposite. So I pulled the data, sorted it, and found the countries with the highest per capita GDPs:

Luxembourg, Norway, Qatar, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and two-thirds of the Netherlands constitutes 5% of the world's GDP. And yes, I'm aware that taking a fraction of a country is kind of a tricky thing; in this case, it means roughly the middle 67%; imagine you could take away both the richest 16.5% and the poorest 16.5% from the Netherlands. The United States just misses the cut, falling after the "rest" of the Netherlands and the UK.

Adding up the populations of all these countries and partial countries comes to roughly 52,144,145 people, according to the most recent census data available for all. That's a teensy 0.78% of the world's population. So yes, in a country-by-country basis (it'd be a worse comparison in a person by person one), the top 0.78% of the population is as wealthy as the bottom 43%.

Transformers: Insert Banal, Parodical Subtitle

So this weekend I decided to cruise down to Maryland to hang out with my middle/high school friend Andy. It was my second trek down there, and I have to say I do very much enjoy the drive. The Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, the gorgeous rural Maryland driving, all of it. But this weekend was not without its mishaps.

Namely one named Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I shouldn't really be surprised, though. I specifically was visiting the area to see the movie with Andy, and this certainly continued the streak I have of going to awful films with friends of mine. Anyway, we were quite surprised when the film was sold out for the 10:30pm Friday showing, figuring that a smallish town like Lexington Park would have trouble supporting such a showing. We were quite incorrect, so we ended up seeing it the next day at a matinee.

Without further ado, it was a waste. My time is essentially worthless for the most part, so I will only very rarely complain about it being wasted, but this two-and-a-half hour abomination falls squarely into that category. Really, the action was about the same as the first Transformers film, lots of tumbling metal. It was still fairly difficult to distinguish between the robots when they were punching and rolling about - something I had a fair amount of difficulty with in the first movie, but far more in this one.

Anyway, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel to find good points about the film, but I'll say that the computer graphics work was fantastic. A forest battle involving Optimus Prime was fantastically animated and well done, in addition to being a little more comprehensible than the other fights. A little nostalgia was brought about thanks to the arguments between Starscream and Megatron so characteristic of the old cartoons. And yeah, that's pretty much all I enjoyed about the movie.

It's easier to express my hatred of this film's weaker points in bullet format, since there's just too many to list in paragraph format.

• The length. At about 140 minutes, the film dragged on far too long. The plot was quite slow and the story extremely bloated; they could have easily cut it down to a hundred minutes and been fine.
• Speaking of the plot, it was pulling in several different directions for the first hour and a half of the film. Subplots that didn't go much of anywhere included the relationship troubles of the two main characters and the power squabbling between military high-ups. They wasted a lot of time setting these up, and really they weren't resolved in any meaningful or satisfactory way. It just seemed so confused.
  
• The sound in any scene that wasn't gigantic robots punching each other was mixed terribly. Effect sounds were extremely loud compared to dialogue to the point where some scenes obscured the vocals to the point of being unable to follow them.
• The comic relief made me want to shoot myself in the face. Yes, it's a kids' movie, but the sheer amount of characters thrown in simply for comedy was mind-boggling - they easily outnumbered the "serious" characters. Sam's clueless and stereotypical parents were the most guilty of this, especially the mind-bogglingly stupid incident with the mother and pot brownies. John Tuturro brought me to a state somewhere between sobbing for what his career used to be and shaking my head at how the mighty fall. Oh, and of course, the racist characters that somehow made it to the final cut made me wince.
  
• There was never a point where I felt much empathy or even sympathy for the characters. There was never really any sense of real danger, but this may be because of the type of film Transformers II is. I knew that in the end everything would be hunky-dory.

Really, I have to agree with a friend of mine who stated that one loses I.Q. points when seeing a film this poorly crafted. Skip it if you haven't already - at best, it's a movie that you put on when you're writing a report or doing homework and occasionally glance up to see a robot catch an uppercut on the chin.

Schedule for Week Ending 7/5/09 and 7/12/09

Time for the schedule, hooray. I'm on the verge of vacation, so this week will be nicely packed into three days plus a paid holiday.

Monday - 8:00 to 20:00 (12 hours)
Tuesday - 10:00 to 20:00 (22 hours)
Wednesday - 10:00 to 20:00 (32 hours)
Thursday - OFF
Friday - HOLIDAY (40 hours)

Monday - VACATION (8 hours)
Tuesday - VACATION (16 hours)
Wednesday - VACATION (24 hours)
Thursday - VACATION (32 hours)
Friday - VACATION (40 hours)

Yeah, I just kind of wanted an excuse to write "vacation" five times. What of it?

Things That I Love

I was discussing some things on my wish list with my friend Liz tonight, and bam, I discovered something awesome.


Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is apparently, and has been, on BluRay. Must... purchase...

Autotune That News

I love these things far more than I should. More than is healthy, I'm sure.

It's the smooooooooooooooooke.

'Cause You Want Your Love Just a Certain Way

Mark Sanford 2: Sanford Harder

Well, I think this merits a second post in less than two hours. Mark Sanford was, surprise!, away on a trip to have an affair with an apparent mistress. This has been the second Republican cheater outed in the past week or so, and the schadenfreude I'm feeling is delicious. Haha, as is the case with every disgraced Republican, Fox News does this:


He was a democrat anyway, I guess. I'll have to look for more of the (D) pictures later on when I have more unfettered internet access. I'll post 'em underneath for the sake of comedy.

City Councilman Unearths Magical Zoning Amulet

This is a really good one.

Mark Sanford

Hurr. So, apparently he's in South Carolina now, but seriously, this is really confusing. Basically here's what's been happening over the weekend to the South Carolinian Governor as far as I can gather:

• Sanford had been gone for four or five days by Monday, when the media started noticing that he was MIA. His staffers responded at first by saying that nobody knew where he had sojourned off to, including his wife and children.
• Monday morning, his staffers said that they were contacted with information that Sanford was hiking the Appalachian Trail for some reason. Yeah, on the weekend of Father's Day he decided to spend no time with his kids. Odd.
• There were rumors of his cell phone being detected in or around the Atlanta airport, and even some sightings of him supposedly boarding a plane bound for Minneapolis, Minnesota. Reminiscent of Larry Craig, anyone?
• Apparently his car was in the Columbia, South Carolina airport parking lot in the same area where everybody else parks. No security detail or anything.
• The story broke this morning that Sanford had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• More information will apparently being released in about twelve minutes from this writing when Sanford speaks at a press conference.

How could this be more bizarre?

Anyway, it's going to be interesting to hear exactly how the governor will justify his absence. I mean, it's kind of disturbing that this guy would just abandon his state without an executive without telling anyone. Granted, there is a lieutenant governor, but it's still distressing to think that the governor would just up and run away. So here's what I think are the least to most likely things he was doing down ol' South America way:

1. He was on a diplomatic mission to arrange aid for Argentinian children to collaborate with South Carolinian children in an exchange and sponsorship programs to mutually enrich the educational environments of both places.
2. Any reason that doesn't at least tangentially involve hookers and/or blow.
3. Sanford was inspecting a factory he had built in Argentina for the mass manufacture of Confederate Flags in a tax shelter.
4. Blow.
5. South American hookers.

BA DUM CHAAAAAH.

Withnail posted:
“But I said ‘no’ I wanted to do something exotic,” Mr. Sanford told Ms. Smith. “… It’s a great city.”

EDIT: Hahaha, holy christ, it was an affair. Hahahahahahaha.

Moon

Thanks a lot, Scott. Now I can't wait to see this.

New York, New York

So, this weekend, Sunday specifically, I did something that I've been meaning to for a very long time: head up to New York City and visit my cousin, and also just to hang out in the city for awhile. It seems to be the perfect time, as my uncle and pseudo-aunt were visiting over this last weekend. So the scene was set about a week ago, and I bought tickets for the Bolt Bus.

Speaking of the Bolt Bus, if you ever need a ride from New York to Philadelphia, Boston, or DC, use that service. It was effortless as it gets to hop on the bus and ride the hour and a half it takes to get from Philly to New York and back. I didn't bring my laptop, but for those that are going for more than a daytrip, they have wireless access on the bus itself, along with power outlets so you can juice up your gadgets on the road. Plenty of leg room (way more than your usual airplane seat) and cheap cost ($24.50 round trip!) just serve to sweeten the pot.

Anyway, I headed over to the Cherry Hill, NJ mall at about eight in the morning to catch the bus at 8:20. It left on time, and surprisingly, I set foot at the Penn Station area of Manhattan at around 9:45. It took about forty-five minutes to find my way to the Marcel - the hotel my relatives were staying at - and despite a little rain I made it without being too worse for wear.

After that, we headed to the subway and took it over to Brooklyn, where Nick biked over to grab us. His apartment was quite amazing, given that it had a lot of "city charm" and looked like the kind of place one would see in a movie. He's perched up on the fourth floor with two roommates that work with him, and the place even provides some rooftop views. I'll have to think about spending weekends up there with friends of mine from down here. We also enjoyed some great Spanish food - I ordered some strange fusion of tortillas, beans, and scrambled eggs. It was absolutely lovely.

We crossed over the Williamsburg Bridge, which was quite a hike, heading back into Manhattan and saying goodbye to Nick. The apex of said bridge offered quite the fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline. I took a few pictures, but I'll have to post them later, thanks to the fact that I'm a caveman when it comes to extracting pictures from my phone.

After checking out the World Trade Center site, I parted ways with Dik and Mary and headed back to Penn Station. I had ambition of seeing a movie - I had hoped Moon, which Scott had recommended - but there really wasn't much time. I ended up just walking around and looking at things, people watching, et cetera. By quarter-to-nine I was back on the bus, and I was home by eleven.

It was daunting to think that I was in New York City for a good portion of the day, between waking up and going to sleep in my bed. It was a fantastic day, and I'm excited to head up there with a friend at some point. Seeing Nick was a good reason to go up there alone, but it was nice to work out the logistics of the Bolt Bus.

Powerful Stuff

Really powerful video I just watched, linked from the Huffington Post's live blogging coverage. You can find said coverage here. It's a great resource if you want to know what's happening in the Tehran protests, and it's more condensed than the information you'd find on Twitter.

Anyway, the video shows protesters tending to an injured police officer who appears to have a pretty bad headwound. They help him out of the fray and tie a scarf around his head to help with the bleeding before assisting him away from the protest. Whether it's completely real or just showmanship, it's really powerful, and provides the viewer with a great deal of motivation to find the protesters to be the "good guys".

The Ice is Getting Thinner

I wish there were a studio version of this on YouTube, but Gibbard's a good performer so it works.

Schedule for Week Ending 6/28

My last full week before vacation! The week following this coming one, I'll be trying to work about 32 hours in three days (two twelve hour days and an eight, basically) to make the whole week-and-a-half ordeal into just forty hours of vacation. The fact that July 3rd is a paid holiday is good for this fact.

Anyway, here's what next week's going to look like. I'm becoming a normal person and not a vampire. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Monday - 12:18 to 20:00 (7.7 hours)
Tuesday - 12:42 to 19:00 (14 hours)
Wednesday - 12:00 to 20:00 (22 hours)
Thursday - 7:30 to 20:00 (34.5 hours) I might stick around for the festivities in the evening for an hour or two, too.
Friday - 7:30 to 13:00 (40 hours)

UPDATED 6/22

I might need to shave a bit of that off, though it'd be nice to comp a couple hours to use the next week. Regardless, I've got absolutely nothing to do on Tuesday, so maybe I can make it an even shorter day.

Iran

Revolution is painful, but revolution is necessary. This post will probably just end up being a dumping ground for all the information I find interesting with this civil unrest.



What follows will probably be reposts of the news reports coming from Iran. Please note that none of this information is being scrutinized by the media or any sources but their posters, but appears to be fairly accurate:

• Midday, 15th of June - This brings us to the third wave, which just began around 12:30PM for those of us on the East Coast. Plainclothes militia opened fire on civilians protesting peacefully. Possibly up to 2 million protesters took the street. Chaos erupted in the streets, with reports of fighting all over Tehran and spreading over Iran as the news circulated. Pictures of people shot, some to death, finally surfaced and were published in the mainstream media. Violent and murderous repression has started. At least a twenty people had been killed at this by the end of the 15th of June.
• Eventually, the people started to fight back. First, they took over and burned down a Basij base, killing its commander. Later, a Basij shot a young man in the face in front of their HQ, at which point a policeman went to confront them. The Basij beat the policeman, at which point students stormed the compound, throwing molotov cocktails, burning it to the ground.
• As for the Iranian Government and different branches, there are rumours that many Army Generals have been arrested for plotting a Coup d'État, but this is still speculation at this point. The Supreme Leader has also called for a 10-day inquiry into the claims of fraud, but it has been widely dismissed as cosmetic. Moussavi and his supporters have rejected this, claiming that they want new elections. Khameini is now using the armed Basij as his own bodyguards, hundreds of them are surround him and his residence to protect from attempted assassinations. Ahmadinejad himself is in Russia right now, for a planned visit, and tries to pretend that everything is good as usual.
• The Basij, surprisingly, did not attacking the march itself but rather assaulted dorms again. It looks like they are using the march as a diversion. In Tehran proper, 2000 Basij are waiting to storm the male dorm, and they are backed by IRG helicopters, which seems to send the message that the IRG has broken from their undeclared neutrality toward tacitly supporting the Regime.

Warning on this one. Basiji opening fire into a crowd on the street protesting outside of what appears to be a headquarters. Blood.



The first good news I've heard is that it's only the Basij - a paramilitary force that takes orders directly from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - and police organizations that are opening fire. Thus far, it's widely reported that the Iranian military is refusing to follow orders. The violence is growing to a fever pitch, but without support from the Iranian army forces, the regime will (hopefully) be forced to fold.

Rumor has it that certain military commanders and police force leaders have been detained for possible coup plans. There's definitely some dissent among the military, and we can only hope that they're the force that comes between the Basij/police force and the protesters and finally keeps people safe.

It was interesting that the special forces - who normally take the side of Ahmadinejad's Basij militia - were there with clubs and sticks in their camouflage trousers and their purity white shirts and on this occasion the Iranian military kept them away from Mousavi's men and women.

In fact at one point, Mousavi's supporters were shouting 'thank you, thank you' to the soldiers.

One woman went up to the special forces men, who normally are very brutal with Mr Mousavi's supporters, and said 'can you protect us from the Basij?' He said 'with God's help'.

Incredible.

For the record, though, I don't think American intervention is what needs to happen in this situation. Not everything is about making the rest of the world love us, nor is it about ignoring the rest of the world - interventionism in situations not falling into the "genocide" category should stop here and now. That said, westerners can and should support what they believe in in this situation. Supporting the Iranian protester movement for the sole reason that it might make Iran more friendly to the west, though, is missing the point.

Gigantic Protest in Naghshe Jahan Square

Letterman Lunacy

Another week, another stupid and essentially insignificant gaffe blown out of proportion. For those of you who somehow aren't aware of the Letterman joke at the Palin family's expense, he basically made reference to Palin's daughter being knocked up again. Yeah, really controversial to talk about a girl who got pregnant at an early age getting pregnant again. But wait! That's apparently not what the joke was about.

Palin and her menagerie twisted the joke to suddenly be about Palin's younger daughter, Holly. Oh, and it was no longer about becoming pregnant by not being careful, but rather about rape! This is clearly not what was intended by the joke, but they're rolling with it for the purposes of their moral outrage. Oh, and by the way, Palin knows a thing or two about that awful crime.

So where should comedy be limited, if anywhere? I've always been of the mind that if speech is not inciteful, it should be allowed. Period. Yes, that includes some forms of hate speech; slippery slope arguments aside, it's difficult to draw a line which isn't arbitrary besides "if it's directly inciting the commission of a crime or a panic, it's not allowed." And when it comes to comedians on television or the radio? I don't think there should be limits.

I had a discussion with a friend several months back with a similar subject. She posited that since minorities are downtrodden and ganged up on, it's unfair to make fun or joke about them. Speaking from a position of mostly-majority identities (heterosexual, male, white, middle class), I can't disagree with this more. I am a minority in my religious/spiritual beliefs, and honestly? I don't let jokes about atheists/agnostics bother me. Getting angry at Jim Norton for telling a misogynist joke is like getting angry at Edward Norton for playing a neo-nazi in American History X. You're raging against a character and not a person.

I choose not to use language that might offend people, and some people do not. I choose not to tell misogynist/racist jokes, because I know the power that language has to hurt people. But being hurt by speech isn't a reason to remove others' ability to use said speech. If you don't like it, though, you're completely welcome to not listen. But I digress!

Letterman's joke was harmless. It wasn't very funny, but it wasn't the malignant shot at the Palins that people are making it out to be. Despite Letterman's long winded apology on Monday, there were still protests outside his studio during his taping yesterday. They marched up and down the street, threatening (inevitably impotent) boycotts of Letterman's advertisers should he not be fired immediately.

Oh, and Nate Silver's best friend John Ziegler was on hand to rage against the comedian yesterday as well. I'm sure he delivered a speech free of ad hominem attacks (JZ: The purpose of the question, you pinhead, was we wanted to determine the Tina Fey Effect.) and finger-pointing toward some vague liberal elitist media.

The best part of the protest, though, was Sirius-XM Radio's own East Side Dave going ballistic within the confines of the protest. He was holding a sign reading "I'm a Right Wing Lunatic," which managed to get him confined to the PROTEST CAGE, as seen here:



Apparently Dave was going crazy the entire time, shouting random phrases and generally weirding everyone at the event out. As phrased by the Daily Beast:

Ziegler scowled as a huge red-bearded man carrying a placard reading “I’m a Right-Wing Lunatic” whirled around and shrieked such sentiments as “I hate it when people tell jokes on television!” “Jesus is speaking to me!” and “Letterman is worse than Hitler!” (Turns out the guy was a plant from the Ron & Fez Show on Sirius XM Radio.)

Who would be proud to have these people as supporters?

Shattered Faith

Right or wrong
The main criterion
Is what you do
And not what you say

The roads you take
The friends you make
And those you throw away

The method is a simple synthesis
Of the past and present state
You never lose
If the path you choose
Is one you can easily
Navigate

I had a dream
Light and carefree
But now there's doubt
And gravity!

Oh, Onion

Anyway, you would totally hate me as your girlfriend. I'd be all needy and dramatic and slowly growing to love you. If I was your girlfriend, I would never be able to tell you all about the other asshole guys I date and pretend I don't see how much it crushes you. Let's never lose that. That's what makes us us.

Don't worry. You're so funny and smart and amazing, any girl but me would be lucky to date you. You'll find someone, I know it. And when you do, I'll be right by your side to suddenly become all flirty and affectionate with you in front of her, until she grows jealous and won't believe it when you say we're just friends. But when she dumps you, that's just what we'll be.

Best friends. Friends forever.

But If We Started Dating It Would Ruin Our Friendship Where I Ask You To Do Things And You Do Them

Shepard Smith

In the wake of the two high profile shootings recently, I've been reading a lot about the motives and drives of those who committed the acts themselves. If I were an alarmist, I'd be ridiculously scared, but right now I hold steady at "fairly unnerved".

Believe it or not, the Department of Homeland Security report warning of right-wing extremist was spot on, it seems. Whether it's a self-fulfilling prophecy or not is impossible to discern, but the fact that President Obama has only been in office for going on five months and things like this are already happening is somewhat frightening. The threat of the right-wing domestic terrorist is similar to and just as real as the left-wing extremist committing arson and tossing Molotov cocktails around.

But for the first time, there are legitimizing forces in the media. People are being encouraged to disbelieve that the president is a United States citizen, to believe that Obama wants to take their guns and control their lives and take away their right to religion. People are even being told that their entire way of life is threatened unless they do something about it - but these same people are not being told how to do it.

I have plenty of respect for conservatism in this country, especially fiscal conservatism. I accept that we've traditionally been an individualist society, and though I am of the opinion that we should move away from this ideal, it's fact that the "American Way" means complete self-sufficiency in every way possible to many people. It's also fact that there are crazy people on both sides of politics. You have your stereotypes: the eco-terrorist, torching SUV dealerships and animal testing labs, and the white supremacist shooting abortion doctors and progressive politicians.

The one difference between the two? Well, the first is generally peaceful and, although people do get hurt, generally targets property and not people. The latter have been stockpiling guns since Obama won the election.

The legitimizing forces of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck are the catalyst here, I feel. They tell people that their darkest fears are about to come true, that their freedom is in jeopardy, and they have to fight back. For these extremists who take every word from the lips of these conservative figureheads as gospel, that could (and apparently, has) been interpretted as "kill abortion doctors" or "shoot up people at a national monument." The level of rage, pain, and fear of some wings of the right in this day in age is already at a frenzied level. It's only going up from here.

But oh, there's one shimmering light on Fox News - one who's being boycotted by bloggers and called out for a firing. That would be Shepard Smith, one of the folks that isn't always caught toeing a party line behind him:



The man sounds legitimately frightened by the e-mails he receives. He mentions above the dehumanizing factors that many extremist figureheads use to rile up their bases: the meme that Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States, calling him "Hussein," calling him a socialist, and saying that he's destroying everything good about America. Of course, the figureheads use these terms and memes to garner more loyalty from their bases, but the side effect is that some of their listeners (perhaps even a small, small fraction of them) believe all of it. Believe that these "facts" make the president and those who support him inhuman and unAmerican. This is the scariest part. If you actually buy that in four years, Obama will have some kind of Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque governmental system set up where conservative thought is forever outlawed and people are utterly controlled by their government, well, you might do something about it.

And perhaps a small, small percentage of these true believers will pick up a gun.

Schedule for Week Ending 6/21

Very preliminary, figured I'd post it anyway though. Another week with this mystical thing called a "weekend" attached on the end of it. How novel!

Monday - 11:30 to 20:00 (8.5 hours)
Tuesday - 7:30 to 16:00 (17 hours)
Wednesday - 12:00 to 20:00 (25 hours)
Thursday - 15:30 to 24:00 (33.5 hours)
Friday - 12:00 to 18:30 (40 hours)

The weekend may have to be spent traveling up to New York City to see my uncle and cousin while the former visits the latter. Fun times. BOLT bus, here I come!

You Know, I Never Saw it That Way

So I've been reading in the latter part of my shift, and stumbled upon something interesting. I've never really been all that into Spongebob Squarepants, though I'll admit it's a pretty entertaining show in general. It's one of the newer crop of children's cartoons that offers something to older audiences, with nuance and subtle reference to things that children couldn't possibly understand. Now, since I haven't watch the show much, there's no sense in my buying the DVD, but now I truly want to listen to parts of the commentary featured therein.

Apparently, according to the creators and Tom Kenny (the eponymous character's voice), each main character in the show is modeled after a mortal sin. Yeah, that's right, those mortal sins. I go through the movie Se7en to count them all up, but here they are, in no particular order: greed, sloth, gluttony, lust, envy, pride, and wrath.

So, some of these are pretty obvious, such as Mr. Krabs, the capitalistic entrepeneur and owner of a business that's often portrayed as exploitative of its workers and customers alike. Definitely greed, as often he's shown valuing money and wealth above all else. Squidward, one of the main antagonists of the series, finds his inspiration in pride. He feels above the others' escapades quite often, and condescends to the other characters on the show in a high-and-mighty way. Sandy is quick to anger, so she probably represents wrath. Patrick is fairly interesting, as he could be a number of things - gluttony for his propensity to eat a lot, sloth for his laziness, and envy in his jealousy of Spongebob.

The most interesting of them all, though, is probably Spongebob's seemingly major character flaw, lust. Connotatively, it seems like this wouldn't fit very easily into a cartoon meant for children, but Spongebob lusts after something other than carnal pleasures, preferring to chase excitement and fame in often unhealthy ways.

Anyway, there might not be much to it, but it's interesting in its own way. I wonder how the constructions of these characters were affected by this early decision in their development, and how far it really did go. In the end, though, it seems to have worked out - character flaws shape personalities and make predicting and writing behavior pretty easy.

And now I want to watch all the old Disney movies to figure out what sorts of gender stereotypes, subtle clues dropped about religion, and evidence of adult themes therein. Weird. I did happen to notice the ridiculously pro-monarchy stance in Anastasia from the beginning, though. Filthy reds!

EDIT: Thanks Duckbag for making me laugh at this.

[HERO is at the OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL FACILITY]

HERO: I AM THE GOOD GUY, YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE I HAVE FASHIONABLE 80'S HAIR AND DON'T HAVE SKULLS ON MY OUTFIT. I YELL ALL THE TIME BECAUSE I AM THE GOOD GUY AND I'M ALWAYS EXCITED ABOUT DOING GOOD, AND MY VOICE ACTOR CAN'T ACT. TIME TO ENGAGE IN A HEALTHY OUTDOOR ACTIVITY BECAUSE I AM A GOOD ROLE MODEL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

[VILLAIN is scheming in his SECRET LAIR]

VILLAIN: I AM THE BAD GUY, YOU CAN TELL I AM BAD BECAUSE MY OUTFIT HAS SKULLS ON IT. I SPEAK IN AN ANNOYING UNNATURAL SCREECH AND USE REALLY BAD PUNS BECAUSE I AM EVIL. NOW I WILL ENACT MY EVIL PLAN TO DO SOMETHING STUPID THAT'S NOT ACTUALLY IN MY BEST INTEREST BECAUSE ALL EVIL PEOPLE ARE ALSO INSANE.

[Back at the OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL FACILITY.]

HERO: THIS IS GREAT. I LOVE OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES.

VILLAIN: BWAHAHAHA I AM GOING TO DO SOMETHING EVIL IN THIS OUTDOOR AREA.

HERO: NOT SO FAST, VILLAIN!

VILLAIN: HERO?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!

HERO: I AM GOING TO DEFEAT YOU BECAUSE CHILDREN NEED TO LEARN TO OVERCOME ADVERSITY. NOW WATCH AS I SOLVE PROBLEMS WITH VIOLENCE.

[HERO picks up HEAVY OBJECT from a stack of slightly darker colored heavy objects and defeats VILLAIN with it.]

VILLAIN: OH NO I HAVE I BEEN DEFEATED BECAUSE I AM A BAD GUY AND GOOD GUYS ALWAYS BEAT BAD GUYS.

HERO: NUTS! LOOKS LIKE HE GOT AWAY, BUT AT LEAST THE OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL FACILITY IS SAFE, FOR NOW. ALSO HERE'S A TACKED ON MESSAGE ABOUT LITTERING.

Crisis of Credit Visualized

Really, you should have already seen this. If you're unsure on the whole global credit crisis thing and the root causes of it, this is pretty much the best primer on it I've ever seen.

The Last Stop

There's something about the bus, and in general all public transportation, that inspires some type of unity in me. The enclosed spaces, the silent staring. This was made abundantly clear to me when I took a job between second and third shift, and had to pull out the schedule to make sure I could time everything out perfectly. Said schedule was a bit too confusing for me, but one of the receptionists at the front of my building was happy to oblige. This is when I discovered the virtue of being the last stop.

There were regulars and there were people you'd see rarely. The latter were mostly young people returning from parties, too drunk to stand, much less drive their own cars, but this was mainly during the end of the week. Revelers rarely showed up on the Monday night drive, and that's why it was my favorite. You see, on the long stretch of road between the last stop and the one immediately before it, there were never many people, and none of them were too open to conversation. That's what attracted me to them.

The first one I talked to was a seemingly successful businessman who had buried himself in work. He had a wife and two children, but apathy gripped his brain after years of sameness and monotony. He pulled twelve and sixteen hour shifts until his near-omnipresence at the office caused him to become indispensable. He theorized that if he were let go, the entire place would fall around the owners' feet. He might have been right.

Homeless people are fairly common on buses, especially in large cities and such where vagrants can find temporary shelter in disused buildings or park benches. Or the bus, as it were. Some of them had romantic tales of self-sacrifice or adventure to spin, though I'm not sure exactly how many of them were true. One woman claimed she had come from far west of here, carrying everything she owned on her back and in her pockets. Fate intervened in a way she didn't expect, and she was robbed blind by this city. She was forced to stay. She was a regular when I started riding, but all at once I never saw her on the lonely Monday night ride again. Perhaps she found the better life she had set out to look for. I like to think so, anyway.

There were the bar-hoppers, men and women who left their homes in nice dress and sharp haircuts. They were still accompanied by these traits when they began to drift home, but their manner of dress was juxtaposed by the melancholy expressions they wore. Not many of them wanted to speak to me. I'd wager the women just thought I was hitting on them, the men too lost in thought about the mistakes of the night to be bothered.

In every story, there's an end, though, and eventually I managed to get bumped up to a better shift for more pay and more visibility, working more "normal" hours. I even managed to move into an apartment that offered me a garage, and driving to work became a welcome possibility. But I kept riding the bus. Even late at night, for no real reason except addiction. Addiction to the unity I felt with all the other patrons. Every night I fell in love with each of their stories, I fell in love with all of them. And when we stepped off at that last stop, they were all just people again, busily brushing past me. Perhaps this is why I never had motivation to start a family in my life. I had the bus. For all their flaws and all their pain, problems, and frustrations, I loved all of them, for fifteen minutes at a time.

Alienated

In waiting for an opportunity to purchase or borrow some new books, I decided to re-read the July novel I had just finished a few weeks prior. I've sped through over half of it thus far on the shift, but the most curious thing happened when I had my nose buried in the tome while seated in the lab. One of the older engineers took it upon himself to ask what I had been reading for lo those past three hours. As I held it up, he called it "crap," because only two types of books exist according to his philosophy - those that can make you money, and those which are crap.

I don't think I've ever been more alienated by something someone said directly to me.

Without reading for the sake of reading, I can't imagine what kind of life I'd be supporting with the riches I'd make from his sort of reading. Money is not the doorway to happiness, but if I know one thing, it's that literature might very well provide a barred window to it.

Schedule for Week Ending 6/14

Ugh. Had some bad news today, but I'm going to hold back from posting it here until it's calmed down a little more, and I've calmed down a little more.

But here's the schedule, subject to change.

Monday - OFF (zoo time!)
Tuesday - 10:00 to 20:00 (10 hours)
Wednesday - 14:00 to 24:00 (20 hours)
Thursday - 14:00 to 24:00 (30 hours)
Friday - 11:00 to 21:00 (40 hours)

Very simple week.

Week in Review, Year in Review

So, I've been in New Jersey for a year now. Doesn't time just fly sometimes?

With that said, it's been a year of strange contradictions. As is necessary when moving to a new place, I've said a lot of goodbyes to people back home and many hellos to new faces. It can be rough sometimes; I've had higher highs than I've ever had, and most definitely been down into some low holes, but overall I have to say I've become a pretty happy person.

A lot of the time, I'm insecure about my abilities professionally, intellectually, and socially, but things around me seem to just keep confirming them to me. I shouldn't ignore this fact. Professionally, I'm charged with a great deal considering my short tenure at this position, so someone must have faith in me. Intellectually, I can't ignore all the things I don't know for long enough to realize what I do. And socially, I always feel like things are missing, like I'm not doing my best.

But lately, I've been feeling better on all fronts. I'm taking control of my job, really making myself visible and doing the best job I can to keep track of all of the work-related thought-threads running through my mind. I'm taking control of my learning, exploiting my desire to learn more by making myself keep track of the world around me and striving for the continuation of my learning. And socially, well, I've been too wrapped up in fantastic and thoughtful conversation to worry about that in the past week and a half.

Goals are good, though, and they're there for a reason. They can't be an obsession (at least not healthfully), but simply a point on the horizon that you're shooting for. My first goal is to bridle my impatience - in my eyes, one of my worst faults. Even now, I'm staring at the clock, waiting for the time to pass so that I can be, well, not here anymore. I'm always looking around the corner and anticipating rather than living in the moment. No more of that.

That said, though, I do need something to look forward to. Right now, that's the Monday trip to the zoo that I've lined up with Natalie. The bird sanctuary opened quite recently, and I'm excited to see the renovations. As Wikipedia describes:

On May 30, 2009, the Philadelphia Zoo opened the McNeil Avian center, the zoos renovation of its classic bird house. It features two species that are extinct in the wild: the Guam Rail and the Micronesian Kingfisher. A theatre presents a nine minute, 4D, movie about migration, following the migration of an animated oriel named Otis.

It probably won't top my old favorite parts of the Philadelphia zoo, namely Big Cat Falls and the Amur Leopard exhibit (the latter featuring the titular rarest cat in the world), but I'm sure it'll be up there in the rankings. Hopefully the weather holds up and all goes as planned schedule-wise!