See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Nationwide Protest for Marriage Equality Saturday 11/15
It will be held simultaneously across the country at city halls in cities in every state. For more info:
http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com/
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Friday, October 03, 2008
A Well Lubricated Life
Comfort and complacency have become so endemic to American life, it seems that many of our fellow citizens wish only for a well lubricated life through which they can slide without the intrusion of any thought or feeling that nettles the surface of ignorant bliss.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
George Will is Wrong
On today's edition of This Week with George Stephanopoulos the topic of McCain's misleading ad about Barack Obama's support of age-appropriate sex ed came up. Age-appropriate sex education for kindergarten is understood to be teaching the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching to help children protect themselves against predators. All of the panelists agreed the McCain ad was dishonest, except George Will, who challenged anyone to explain why it was dishonest. Once someone did, Will shifted his argument to the erstwhile Culture War and pompously opined that "It is very common across the centuries that parents, not schools, parents tell their children to beware of strangers. What's new here, and reflects a conservative/liberal difference, is the idea that a)it has to be tarted up as sex education, beware of strangers, and b)parents can't do it, schools must - in kindergarten! Now that's a cultural divide and let's vote."
As usual, Will's assertion was punctuated with contempt for anyone who is so stupid as to disagree with him. But he doesn't understand the issue at all.
This is from the US Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders:
"Most often, sexual abusers know the child they abuse but are not relatives. In fact, about 60% of perpetrators are nonrelative acquaintances, such as a friend of the family, babysitter, or neighbor.
About 30% of those who sexually abuse children are relatives of the child, such as fathers, uncles, or cousins.
Strangers are perpetrators in about 10% of child sexual abuse cases."
Accordingly, to adopt Mr. Will's admonition to beware of strangers would protect children from only 10% of predators. Why does George Will want children to be exposed to 90% of abusers?
What does a child do when a parent or the close friend of a parent abuses her? And if a child has grown up in an abusive environment, how does he know that it is not appropriate. Children have a way of believing adults and blaming themselves.
George Will is a pompous idiot, who like most people who have too high an esteem of their own intelligence no longer think it is necessary to acquire actual facts or engage in actual analysis. No wonder children are at risk.
Culture war, my ass! This is about smart vs. stupid.
As usual, Will's assertion was punctuated with contempt for anyone who is so stupid as to disagree with him. But he doesn't understand the issue at all.
This is from the US Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders:
"Most often, sexual abusers know the child they abuse but are not relatives. In fact, about 60% of perpetrators are nonrelative acquaintances, such as a friend of the family, babysitter, or neighbor.
About 30% of those who sexually abuse children are relatives of the child, such as fathers, uncles, or cousins.
Strangers are perpetrators in about 10% of child sexual abuse cases."
Accordingly, to adopt Mr. Will's admonition to beware of strangers would protect children from only 10% of predators. Why does George Will want children to be exposed to 90% of abusers?
What does a child do when a parent or the close friend of a parent abuses her? And if a child has grown up in an abusive environment, how does he know that it is not appropriate. Children have a way of believing adults and blaming themselves.
George Will is a pompous idiot, who like most people who have too high an esteem of their own intelligence no longer think it is necessary to acquire actual facts or engage in actual analysis. No wonder children are at risk.
Culture war, my ass! This is about smart vs. stupid.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Trolling His Way to the Presidency
Wikipedia defines an internet troll as "someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion".
The McCain campaign is doing exactly that with its latest ads about lipstick on a pig and Obama's support for sex education for kindergarten kids. Both ads are outright lies and they know it. The media also knows it, but instead of pointing out the obvious lies and setting the record straight, this morning on Morning Joe (MSNBC) the talking heads took the bait and were commending McCain fpr the political cleverness of it all.
Trolling is something usually done by immature disaffected guys whose only lifeline from a sea of despair is snark and destructiveness. It offers them a moment of respite from shooting people and watching them explode in a gory bloodbath in a video game. They become dissociated from healthy emotions like compassion or any sense of social responsibility. The only thing that matters is win vs fail (or phail).
What lofty aspirations for John McCain! Now that his character has been totally subsumed by a Rovian ethos, he apparently has decided that his only hope for winning is to bait and troll and destroy. Last week the Republicans spent so much energy building him up as a hero, which he once was. He apparently has decided to chuck his honor into the garbage bin and troll his way to the oval office. The very sad truth is that it may work.
The McCain campaign is doing exactly that with its latest ads about lipstick on a pig and Obama's support for sex education for kindergarten kids. Both ads are outright lies and they know it. The media also knows it, but instead of pointing out the obvious lies and setting the record straight, this morning on Morning Joe (MSNBC) the talking heads took the bait and were commending McCain fpr the political cleverness of it all.
Trolling is something usually done by immature disaffected guys whose only lifeline from a sea of despair is snark and destructiveness. It offers them a moment of respite from shooting people and watching them explode in a gory bloodbath in a video game. They become dissociated from healthy emotions like compassion or any sense of social responsibility. The only thing that matters is win vs fail (or phail).
What lofty aspirations for John McCain! Now that his character has been totally subsumed by a Rovian ethos, he apparently has decided that his only hope for winning is to bait and troll and destroy. Last week the Republicans spent so much energy building him up as a hero, which he once was. He apparently has decided to chuck his honor into the garbage bin and troll his way to the oval office. The very sad truth is that it may work.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
The Palin Frenzy
As the rumors about Sarah Palin spread maybe it's time to chill a bit while the wheat gets separated from the chaff. Whether the state jet was sold on eBay or not is not important to me (neither is whether or not Obama knows the correct name of college football teams). Taking care of her children while running for office is her problem, not mine or yours. It is important whether or not she abused the power of her office, and if she hasn't thought much about national issues, that is everybody's problem. The first casualty of the Sarah Palin pick was the truth. From bloggers with limited facts spreading unsubstantiated rumors to the glassy-eyed worship of "The Other One" from Republican delegates, most of what has passed for information thus far is pretty foggy. Let us hope that the public vetting of Palin over the next few weeks will be carried out with more professionalism and objectivity than has been displayed so far by either side. Perhaps Palin herself will not hide from the press during this period. Well, I can hope, can't I.
In the meantime one blogger has attempted to debunk some of the rumors. While the facts get settled, it doesn't hurt to laugh.
In the meantime one blogger has attempted to debunk some of the rumors. While the facts get settled, it doesn't hurt to laugh.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Stop for a Moment
Before the bodies are cold journalists, pundits, and people with an axe to grind are already jumping on the Virginia Tech tragedy like buzzards. Fingers are being pointed, fault is being found, explanations are being given before the facts are known. The usual stuff. Can't we just pause for a moment and feel the sorrow? There will be plenty of time for the noise. But first, a bit of peace and quiet and respect, please.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
What I Want to Do When I Grow Up
A few years ago my high school class held its 30th reunion. I did not go. A few weeks afterwards a friend sent me a link to a website that had pictures of the attendees, mostly couples. I knew most of these people, some of them quite well. But I only recognized one or two of them. I’m sure I have changed a lot in 30 years. Even though the change has been gradual, sometimes I am nonplussed when I look into a mirror. Nothing could prepare me, however, for the shock of seeing my classmates. They looked old. It wasn’t just a chronological age, though. They looked done: Stick a fork in them. They looked like people for whom the Early Bird Special was the highlight of the day.
Now these were people in their early fifties. I heard someone on the radio the other day say that 50 is the new 30. An exaggeration, to be sure, but still, in this day and age why should 50ish people look so over the hill? I recently discussed this with another friend of mine from the same class who doesn’t have that look. He looks quite a bit younger than these people, and so do I (to be fair he looks ten years younger than I). It doesn’t hurt that neither of us has much gray hair, a natural phenomenon (in my case, at least.)
A major difference, we observed, was that most of the people at the reunion knew what they wanted to do early, finished college and went to work at good jobs and succeeded at their goals. That is an admirable thing. For the most part they looked happy and satisfied. Good for them. What is different about my friend and I is that we are still trying to figure out what we are going to do when we grow up. We have both had some successes and live comfortable, yet unextravagant lives. But we aren’t satisfied. We’re still trying, still hungry for achievement. Neither of us have found that satisfaction, unless you consider the striving for it to be the satisfaction istelf. It is a rather existential satisfaction, like Camus’ Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill.
I think New York has something to do with that. It is a city of strivers. Author David McCullough commented on the Brooklyn Bridge being a symbol of monumental effort, something which characterizes the essence of New York City. Some days just getting to work requires overcoming adversity: traffic, subway delays, overcrowding, bad attitudes, climbing stairs when you’re too tired… But we thrive on the struggle, the minor ones like the commute or the major ones, like 9/11. It is not uncommon to see an elderly, stooped over New Yorker struggling with a walker to get to the market and return, with the bag tied to the walker. Perhaps in the snow. I live in a walk up building, and there used to be an elderly woman on the fifth floor who went out every day to get her six pack of Meister Brau and she would come back and walk up one flight, then sit and rest, walk up the next flight, then sit and rest, and so on. And she always seemed immensely happy. She conversed with people who passed during her rest periods, and that was her social time of the day. It is my hope, and indeed my belief, that she enjoyed every drop of the cheap beer she struggled every day to get.
New York is full of dreamers (and schemers). Everybody, young and old, has some angle going that is going to make life better. Some are full of shit, and some are con artists, but many of them are actually doing something to fulfill the dream. Even if they don’t fulfill it, the dreaming itself is worth something.
I am grateful for the struggle. Every time I get smacked in the face by the harsh realities of the city, and I overcome it, I feel a rush of possibility. I can do anything. I design computer networks and challenge the organizational structure and habits of my company. I write. I make videos for YouTube. I still search for what I am going to do next and get excited by how much fun it will be. My friend makes films and is on the verge of a major success. And though the climb up the subway stairs makes my body feel each day of my 54 years, I still dream like a high school kid with his future in front of him. That’s why I don’t need to go to a high school reunion. I haven’t graduated yet.
Now these were people in their early fifties. I heard someone on the radio the other day say that 50 is the new 30. An exaggeration, to be sure, but still, in this day and age why should 50ish people look so over the hill? I recently discussed this with another friend of mine from the same class who doesn’t have that look. He looks quite a bit younger than these people, and so do I (to be fair he looks ten years younger than I). It doesn’t hurt that neither of us has much gray hair, a natural phenomenon (in my case, at least.)
A major difference, we observed, was that most of the people at the reunion knew what they wanted to do early, finished college and went to work at good jobs and succeeded at their goals. That is an admirable thing. For the most part they looked happy and satisfied. Good for them. What is different about my friend and I is that we are still trying to figure out what we are going to do when we grow up. We have both had some successes and live comfortable, yet unextravagant lives. But we aren’t satisfied. We’re still trying, still hungry for achievement. Neither of us have found that satisfaction, unless you consider the striving for it to be the satisfaction istelf. It is a rather existential satisfaction, like Camus’ Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill.
I think New York has something to do with that. It is a city of strivers. Author David McCullough commented on the Brooklyn Bridge being a symbol of monumental effort, something which characterizes the essence of New York City. Some days just getting to work requires overcoming adversity: traffic, subway delays, overcrowding, bad attitudes, climbing stairs when you’re too tired… But we thrive on the struggle, the minor ones like the commute or the major ones, like 9/11. It is not uncommon to see an elderly, stooped over New Yorker struggling with a walker to get to the market and return, with the bag tied to the walker. Perhaps in the snow. I live in a walk up building, and there used to be an elderly woman on the fifth floor who went out every day to get her six pack of Meister Brau and she would come back and walk up one flight, then sit and rest, walk up the next flight, then sit and rest, and so on. And she always seemed immensely happy. She conversed with people who passed during her rest periods, and that was her social time of the day. It is my hope, and indeed my belief, that she enjoyed every drop of the cheap beer she struggled every day to get.
New York is full of dreamers (and schemers). Everybody, young and old, has some angle going that is going to make life better. Some are full of shit, and some are con artists, but many of them are actually doing something to fulfill the dream. Even if they don’t fulfill it, the dreaming itself is worth something.
I am grateful for the struggle. Every time I get smacked in the face by the harsh realities of the city, and I overcome it, I feel a rush of possibility. I can do anything. I design computer networks and challenge the organizational structure and habits of my company. I write. I make videos for YouTube. I still search for what I am going to do next and get excited by how much fun it will be. My friend makes films and is on the verge of a major success. And though the climb up the subway stairs makes my body feel each day of my 54 years, I still dream like a high school kid with his future in front of him. That’s why I don’t need to go to a high school reunion. I haven’t graduated yet.
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