Archives For opinions

will you be my neighbour

October 14, 2008 — 4 Comments

facebook has me thinking about the nature of friendship.
i’ve met a lot of people in my life and there are quite a few that i’m honoured to call my friends. one of my best friends is my ex-wife and we joke that we almost ruined a perfectly good friendship by getting married. one of my friends has described me as the person that you call to help you bury the body. all of this to say friendship is not something i take lightly.

which is why i approached facebook with a different perspective than most. i joined to keep in contact with my children and as more and more people i knew joined it helped me keep in touch with them. people that occasionally sent multi-kb missives every few months are now more accessible. one of my policies is not to add people i don’t know. according to some people that’s contrary to what facebook is about. i’m late 30-something year old man, i don’t need to be making friends online.

what’s interesting about that stance is how people react. if i get a request and i don’t know who it is, i tend to send an email requesting clarificaiton. there are people that have changed their names, people who i only knew by their nicknames, people i’ve worked with or went to school with and forgot about. in the twenty-something years since i’ve left high shcool i’ve worked in advertising and the media, two fields that afforded me the opportunity to meet a ton of people. i honestly don’t remember everyone, so i am going to ask how we know each other and if you can’t be bothered to answer, i’m not going to accept the request. cussing me out for denying your request simply proves i’m right not accept the request. and on that subject, if i went to school with you and you kicked my ass on a daily basis, i’m not going to be your friend. it’s petty yes, but i think i’m entitled to hold a grudge.

i think facebook is a great way to network and meet new people but not everyone uses it for the same purpose and as part of a social construct, that should be acceptable too.

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i want to watch it burn

October 6, 2008 — Leave a comment

entropy – a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration.

i’m fascinated by entropy and the adage ‘may you live in interesting times’ is not really a curse. in some small way i wanted to see total financial collapse not because i have nothing to lose, but because i believe the system is flawed and an implosion might be the thing to help reset the system. i’m amused by how quickly the shift occurs from free market to capitalism to government supported socialism when personal wealth is on the line.

where we are now is as a direct result of greed. plain and simple. and all the bailout does is reward that. the whole mortgage crisis was a giant pyramid scheme and now as always the suckers are left holding the bag. in this case the suckers are us. with the bailout no one is going to get penalised for their avarice. if you stop and look at it, the middle class is going be the ones left bleeding from the ass yet again – the people who were responisible and took their money and ran have a ton of mechanisms in place to ensure they pay as little tax as possible and the poor don’t have anything to take anyway so that leaves one group to foot the bill.

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it’s a wonder their heads don’t fall off

September 10, 2008 — Leave a comment

and some interesting insight from dan savage

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the truest definition of politics

September 4, 2008 — Leave a comment

Politics is the Art of Controlling your Environment
That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that “it doesn’t matter who’s Presided” has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World? Or been beaten and gassed by the Police for trespassing on public property?or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons?or locked up in the Cook County Jail  with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.

Hunter S. Thompson

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quick thought

August 29, 2008 — 1 Comment

why would you spend close to or over $2B, that’s $2,000,000,000 for a job that pays $200,000. there is a fundamental flaw in logic there plus if you think about it for too long you realise at some point, that various makers that make up that money will come due.

these are the thoughts that prevent me from getting to excited this election cycle.

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blame hofmann

August 1, 2008 — 1 Comment

i am exhausted beyond belief. there was a time when i could pull an all night and it would not affect me, those days are long gone, i’m ready to put my head down on my desk and sleep, we’ll see if this holds when i get home.

i’ve had occasion to think about political correctness and more recently i was asked to participate in a diversity and inclusion pilot program. fundamentally a good idea for most people, not so much me, i have real issues with trying to force people to be tolerant of each other. the process started with a questionnaire designed to evaluate how culturally sensitive you are. according to the survey my weak points are diversity related publications (does stuffwhitepeoplelike count?), diversity litigation and how i feel about people.

this question continues to fascinate me – i see people positively. one a scale of 1-5 where 1 = never and 5 = always, i scored it – 1. individuals i’m willing to give some variance and accept on their own recognisance, but people as a whole… the mob mentality equals dangerous. what was the blue oyster cult lyric, when you listen to fools the mob rules. i think it works both ways.

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Context is everything. right?

April 29, 2008 — Leave a comment

Posted below are ten quotes. read, digest, discuss, repost.

  1. “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”
  2. “The Quran teaches that [all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews]. Yes, it teaches that very clearly.”
  3. “I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans…. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that…. There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades…. The Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment.”
  4. “The military will have difficultly recruiting healthy and strong heterosexuals for combat purposes. Why? Fighting in combat with a man in your fox hole that has AIDS or is HIV positive is double jeopardy”
  5. “It [Gay marriage] will open the door to incest, to polygamy, and every conceivable marriage arrangement demented minds can possibly conceive. If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
  6. “It is impossible to call yourself a Christian and defend homosexuality. There is no justification or acceptance of homosexuality…. Homosexuality means the death of society because homosexuals can recruit, but they cannot reproduce.”
  7. “Only a Spirit-filled woman can submit to her husband’s lead. It is the natural desire of a woman to lead through feminine manipulation of the man. …. Fallen women will try to dominate the marriage. The man has the God-given role to be the loving leader of the home”
  8. “I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
  9. “Gay sexuality inevitably involves brutal physical abusiveness and the unnatural imposition of alien substances into internal organs, orally and anally, that inevitably suppress the immune system and heighten susceptibility to disease.”
  10. “Only 1 percent of the homosexual population in America will die of old age. The average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America is 43 years of age. A lesbian can only expect to live to be 45 years of age. Homosexuals represent 2 percent of the population, yet today they’re carrying 60 percent of the known cases of syphilis.”

appalled? if not, then move on now. if you are, sit for a spell. quotes 1 – 7 are from pastor john hagee and rev. rod parsley. why do they matter is more important question. you see as the obama campaign continues to get flack for statements in or out of context by rev. wright, these fine gentlemen are apparently john mccain’s spiritual advisors and theoretically the same rules should apply. right?

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my better is better than your better

April 28, 2008 — Leave a comment

i’ve never been big on team sports because fundamentally i’m not a people person. i was also the fat kid for a while so i didn’t get picked for shit. at the onset of puberty i got tall and thin but i’d already been burned so i took up distance running and i like it. you kept your own counsel and you were entirely motivated and driven by yourself. i like it so much i ran and 5k and 10k races, the one thing they don’t tell you about road running is how much it destroys your knees. and that when i stopped besides this long before the ipod when sony walkmen was still ridiculously expensive and the only thing accompanying your run was the sound of your own laboured breathing. this weekend was the country music half and full marathon and i’m seriously considering participating next year. i don’t have anywhere near the body i had in my late teens and early twenties and my knees are likely to hate me for months after, but i’ve never done a half marathon and i don’t have to run all 13 miles. we’ll see.

when i first started this post i was planning on talking about the sports that i watch on television and some how got sidetracked. i am first and foremost a formula one fan. forget nascar, forget irl, this is a good as it gets in motor-racing. i get up early or stay up late to watch races and qualifying, i’ve stuck by my team through thick and thin although during my current fandom, my team has done pretty well. there are two comparisons i like to draw between formula 1 and all other sports particularly in the last year. the first was the patriots got caught and fined for cheating about the same time as mclaren (one of the premiere teams in f1), the patriots fine? $500K and a first round draft pick. construed by most as a slap on the wrist. mclaren’s file? $100M which includes a portion of their tv revenues as well as their race winnings and forfeit of their constructor points for the season (effectively putting them in the worst garage at each event). f1 doesn’t operate in half measures.
the other comparison was the weekend nascar got cancelled in richmond because of rain, f1 was racing in japan, wait for it, in the rain. open wheel racing, 20 odd inches off the ground races in the rain, but stock cars can’t race in the rain, there is a disconnect somewhere.

i am also without shame an oakland raiders fan. i have been for over a decade. i’d never seen a game, i’d never seen a uniform and all my information about the team was based on the writings of hunter s. thompson and i was hooked. i actually watched the superbowl in ’01 i think and wrote about it here (somewhere in the archives, too lazy to look) for the singular reason that they were play. ‘football’ amuses me, because i grew in a country where we play rugby which makes this bunch of well padded athletes look like a bunch of pansy waists, but still i’m fascinated by this team run by a man who marches to the beat of his own drum come hell or high water.

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art is subjective

April 18, 2008 — Leave a comment

i despise modern art. i think most of it is onanistic garbage foisted upon the public by failed artist and bitter art major in the form of curators. i believe that art should communicate and enhance a shared experience, anything that requires detailed notes, a press release to explain the artist’s vision or has the word ‘installation’ is problematic. . i’ve been to the tate and the tate modern in london and i believe that the tate modern was a cruel joke that went something like this:

“good grief, we’ve got all this tripe we’re too ashamed to show with the real art. plus it’s costing us an arm and a leg to store it.”

“i know, let’s create a new modern space, put all that crap in there and charge people to want to put their eyes out.”

i started this entry yesterday before the furor about the insemination/abortion art project started up and now that it’s come out to be an elaborate hoax and the press release itself was the project, i have even less respect for project or the ‘artist.’ in fact this ‘event’ sums up why i loathe modern art. i don’t need to be told how i should feel about art, i shouldn’t need to have it explained to me. i suppose i shouldn’t make such a blanket statement, i love photography. i could spend hours at a photo exhibit, looking at light and texture and photography is a modern artform and like any other artform has it’s own pretensions but it doesn’t require a pre-determined set of responses.

think about all the great art you’ve seen – how much of it required some detailed explanation? or did you just see it and appreciate it.

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taxation without representation

April 15, 2008 — 2 Comments

although i have my green card, i can’t vote.

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