I have a few ideas:
1. Let's start with all members of the legislative and judicial branches of government, at state and federal levels, reducing their salaries by 20%. They need to show us that they are serious about spending fewer tax dollars.
2. Reduce U.S. Postal deliveries to three day a week, or eliminate the postal service entirely. Yes, there would be personnel losses.
3. Remove all farm subsidies for those farms that are paid to not grow a crop. I understand the reasons for these subsidies, but if you look at who's getting them, it makes no sense.
4. No more NASA unless each and every mission is chock full of real world, immediately practical projects. In other words, eliminate NASA. I understand the need for pure research, but now's not the time.
5. No more esoteric spending, and that includes any pork barrel legislation that is not needed to save lives.
6. Eliminate health insurance companies and do it the right way: a federal health plan. Do you have any idea how much money those blood sucking insurance companies take in profits from the American people and what they do to get it? And how this is a huge substrate of our economic woes? With far less money to spend, consumers aren't lighting up our commerce. Another day, another blog.
7. Birth control. Spend money on teen and young adult sex education and prevention programs. I know for a fact these work. Our planet cannot tolerate the overpopulation it is attempting to support. This is the baseline issue that feeds into all the other ways that the human race is choking itself, and the earth, out of its life-sustaining abilities. These programs must be available everywhere in all corners of the world.
8. Stop all wars that we are engaged in. STOP< STOP< STOP! Wars beget wars, not peace. Reduce defense spending and merge and interlace security and defense services to avoid duplication, of which there is WAY too much.
9. Implement a flat tax with major simplifications of the codes.
10. Make most jobs paid on a merit basis. I am tried of people doing little and getting paid for it, sometimes in inverse proportion to how little they produce. Like congress.
11. Invest in and mandate electric cars, solar energy, nuclear energy (with an eventual phase out), and wind power.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Top Ten Signs your Social Life Sucks
10. You look forward to eating lunch at Target, alone.
9. You decide which pair of socks to wear by sniffing them.8. You interpret the "back off" gestures you constantly get from women as turn-ons.
7. Saturday night you were at Best Buy looking for a new printer.
6. You believe your best moments occur while alone in the graveyard.
5. The last date you had was only a fantasy.
4. Your pile of Penthouse magazines is now taller than your ex-girlfriend.
3. You dream about becoming a regular on Jersey Shore.
2. Your very best friend is not a human being.
1. You sit around listing all the ways your social life stinks.
Parts of this appeared first in a weekly column written by the author. Many changes were made.
The Temperature is Rising...
After a few weeks of snowy, icy, shut down the neighborhood dreadful weather, the tide has turned. It was seventy-eight degrees today, with an accompanying brisk wind. Shorts and sandals will dominate our college campus, and I will yet again experience envy and my annually sparked dread of aging.
I read a good book: How to Read a Sentence: and How to Write One, a thoughtful book that dissects the elements of great sentence-making. I got in touch with the author and we exchanged emails. What is most fascinating about that is the ease with which I could find him and his email address. One of many positive elements of the information age.
I have developed terrible allergies: all of a sudden, and to what I have no idea. It is incredibly frustrating and downright difficult to teach with my voice emanating from a clogged nasal passage.
The textbook reps showed up again. They ply us with bizarre compliments (you really should publish those Power Points you made!), and give us trinkets (pens, bookmarks) and lots of books for us to look at and keep. I generally give these away to students, because they can sell them to a nearby bookstore and generate some serious cash. The really excellent book reps bring bagels and doughnuts. I may start a bribery war by telling each about what the others have brought us. "McGraw-Hill brought two dozen doughnuts, bagels, and a variety pack of cream cheeses," I'll inform them.
I won a contest and I think it's the first time I ever have. It was a submission to an educational organization looking for new teaching methods to spark critical thinking. I get $300 and a "gift basket." I am hoping the basket has a $500 gas card redeemable anywhere gas is sold, some coupons for Panera restaurant, and some coffee mugs. That's what I need, more coffee mugs. Coffee mugs are an ever growing concern around my office and house: impossible to throw away, you realize. You can't just throw them out. They look too useful. So they collect in huge piles in the kitchen cabinets and on my bookshelves, choking the life out of all the other beverage containers. Surely we'll need them, I convince myself. Anyway, I bet I do get some more mugs, and maybe an apple or two, in this "gift basket."
As I wish for more cold weather, I realize that it's because I can hide my ever-expanding waistline with coats and my ever-diminishing sense of immortality. I'm just gonna have to deal with the rising temperatures.
I read a good book: How to Read a Sentence: and How to Write One, a thoughtful book that dissects the elements of great sentence-making. I got in touch with the author and we exchanged emails. What is most fascinating about that is the ease with which I could find him and his email address. One of many positive elements of the information age.
I have developed terrible allergies: all of a sudden, and to what I have no idea. It is incredibly frustrating and downright difficult to teach with my voice emanating from a clogged nasal passage.
The textbook reps showed up again. They ply us with bizarre compliments (you really should publish those Power Points you made!), and give us trinkets (pens, bookmarks) and lots of books for us to look at and keep. I generally give these away to students, because they can sell them to a nearby bookstore and generate some serious cash. The really excellent book reps bring bagels and doughnuts. I may start a bribery war by telling each about what the others have brought us. "McGraw-Hill brought two dozen doughnuts, bagels, and a variety pack of cream cheeses," I'll inform them.
I won a contest and I think it's the first time I ever have. It was a submission to an educational organization looking for new teaching methods to spark critical thinking. I get $300 and a "gift basket." I am hoping the basket has a $500 gas card redeemable anywhere gas is sold, some coupons for Panera restaurant, and some coffee mugs. That's what I need, more coffee mugs. Coffee mugs are an ever growing concern around my office and house: impossible to throw away, you realize. You can't just throw them out. They look too useful. So they collect in huge piles in the kitchen cabinets and on my bookshelves, choking the life out of all the other beverage containers. Surely we'll need them, I convince myself. Anyway, I bet I do get some more mugs, and maybe an apple or two, in this "gift basket."
As I wish for more cold weather, I realize that it's because I can hide my ever-expanding waistline with coats and my ever-diminishing sense of immortality. I'm just gonna have to deal with the rising temperatures.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Hero in Us All
If a baseball player wins game seven of the world series by hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth, is he a hero? If a woman runs into a burning home to save her neighbor's children, is she? If they are her children, is it heroism or duty? If I grab a child when he is about to step in front of a passing car am I acting heroically? Carefully crafting a precise definition is less useful than understanding the purposes of our quest to identify and deify the heroes among us.
Why do we need to find heroes, and why do some wish to be one? The process is essentially identification. We call up the best parts of ourselves when we identify a heroic deed, thereby exercising what some psychologists say are innate parts of us humans: empathy and altruism. When we call someone a hero, we are seeing ourselves. How common it is to imagine how we might respond in that same circumstance, how we too might save that little child, how we could endure terrible times and odds to prevail against them. We fantasize about such things because we need to remind ourselves of our truest potentials. Or is it something else?
If I was a hero, would I know it? Probably not. I am reminded of how often someone who gets called a hero says, "I really don't think what I did was anything special," or, "I was doing what anybody would do." There is something to this. Is selflessness required for heroism to be displayed? Must we be risking our own safety to help another? Maybe when acting heroically we are blinded forever to its specialness, as if we enter a world of hyper-connection to humanity: accepting such a label disconnects us from the collective unconscious.
Would I want such a designation? No, never. Because that would mean that I have, at the very least, assigned self-importance to my behavior; at worst become narcissistic. I have been told by more than one person that because I have fought and mostly prevailed in my "struggle" with Type 1 diabetes for 47 years, I am a hero. No I'm not, and not even close to that. There is no selflessness in my behaviors; quite the contrary. After all, what is the alternative to my self-care, death? In any activities to ensure one's own survival, heroic deeds cannot be done.
What happens to someone when they are ascribed that mythical label? I think there's a book in this question, or at least a study or two. There's already a movie, not surprisingly called "Hero." Dustin Hoffman was the "real" hero, and someone else takes credit for his deeds. It depicts the dynamic of selflessness and narcissism at work in both characters.
I think we need to identify heroic acts, but not over idealize the individuals who perform them. I tend to get disappointed when I do that.
Why do we need to find heroes, and why do some wish to be one? The process is essentially identification. We call up the best parts of ourselves when we identify a heroic deed, thereby exercising what some psychologists say are innate parts of us humans: empathy and altruism. When we call someone a hero, we are seeing ourselves. How common it is to imagine how we might respond in that same circumstance, how we too might save that little child, how we could endure terrible times and odds to prevail against them. We fantasize about such things because we need to remind ourselves of our truest potentials. Or is it something else?
If I was a hero, would I know it? Probably not. I am reminded of how often someone who gets called a hero says, "I really don't think what I did was anything special," or, "I was doing what anybody would do." There is something to this. Is selflessness required for heroism to be displayed? Must we be risking our own safety to help another? Maybe when acting heroically we are blinded forever to its specialness, as if we enter a world of hyper-connection to humanity: accepting such a label disconnects us from the collective unconscious.
Would I want such a designation? No, never. Because that would mean that I have, at the very least, assigned self-importance to my behavior; at worst become narcissistic. I have been told by more than one person that because I have fought and mostly prevailed in my "struggle" with Type 1 diabetes for 47 years, I am a hero. No I'm not, and not even close to that. There is no selflessness in my behaviors; quite the contrary. After all, what is the alternative to my self-care, death? In any activities to ensure one's own survival, heroic deeds cannot be done.
What happens to someone when they are ascribed that mythical label? I think there's a book in this question, or at least a study or two. There's already a movie, not surprisingly called "Hero." Dustin Hoffman was the "real" hero, and someone else takes credit for his deeds. It depicts the dynamic of selflessness and narcissism at work in both characters.
I think we need to identify heroic acts, but not over idealize the individuals who perform them. I tend to get disappointed when I do that.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Nanonovellinas
Uhhh.
Do. It.
EVOL (ve)
No!
Meaningless
Go. Do. Be.
Do Be Do Be Do
Who?
Cry. Out.
Dat's it.
Do. It.
EVOL (ve)
No!
Meaningless
Go. Do. Be.
Do Be Do Be Do
Who?
Cry. Out.
Dat's it.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
OK, so enough with this snow already...
Enduring day after day of confinement in my house following record-breaking cold and snow, I have but one request: get me outta here! I want to go back to work. The truth is, I love being at work, sometimes more than I like being at home, and I tread on thin ice by explaining myself.
At home, I have a vast collection of music and movies and books, although I don't listen to much music or watch many of my movies. I need the music loud, so I can hear it, on account of my horrifically bad hearing, even with my hearing aids in. Likewise with the movies. This tends to piss people off. The other thing is that I like music and movies in vastly different genres than my wife and daughter. I like science fiction and westerns and violent and sexy movies. My wife likes feel-good flicks. A diet exclusively of these is like eating only lettuce: sure you'd start losing weight but it gets old, and bland, fast.
And of course the mercurial, hypersensitive emotional condition of 15 year old females is a special treat to behold!
Then there are the dogs. They follow me around, which is fine mostly, but sometimes annoying. They're on my lap if I'm sitting in my tall and fat man's recliner, which is most of the time. I love them, and they love me. I get affection needs met with those two little lovable devils.
Of course, it's just my perspective, but it seems there's a continual (not continuous) stream of annoying things going on at home (here's that thin ice I mentioned earlier.) Something I'm doing or not doing or saying or not saying that I should or shouldn't be doing or saying, or something my daughter is doing or not doing or saying or not saying that she should be doing or not be doing or should be saying or not saying. I refuse to disparage my wife in any of that. I accept full responsibility for this observation, no matter it's delusional or accurate depiction.
At work, I have a great deal of control. I like having control. More control = less stress because more control = greater predictability. I know what's coming next, usually. I don't control all of it, though, and since absolute power corrupts absolutely, I don't want total control. Total control also spoils spontaneity.
I love teaching, and all that goes with it, except maybe committee meetings. But God how I love preparing my courses and lectures, how I love standing (or sitting) in front of a class of expectant vessels. I so love conveying the essence of something in a new and powerful way. I love discussing the nuances of some subject, exploring its depth, watching brows rise and eyes light up. What a feeling! I'm not sure I wouldn't give up orgasms for that to continue. Luckily, no such bargains need be struck.
I want to set up my office in special ways, perhaps to duplicate the best parts of my house: flat screen TV, great stereo, fridge, microwave, massage chair, etc. After I make a million, I will.
Now back to reading that preparatory text for the Psychiatric board exams. Unnecessary, but fascinating.
At home, I have a vast collection of music and movies and books, although I don't listen to much music or watch many of my movies. I need the music loud, so I can hear it, on account of my horrifically bad hearing, even with my hearing aids in. Likewise with the movies. This tends to piss people off. The other thing is that I like music and movies in vastly different genres than my wife and daughter. I like science fiction and westerns and violent and sexy movies. My wife likes feel-good flicks. A diet exclusively of these is like eating only lettuce: sure you'd start losing weight but it gets old, and bland, fast.
And of course the mercurial, hypersensitive emotional condition of 15 year old females is a special treat to behold!
Then there are the dogs. They follow me around, which is fine mostly, but sometimes annoying. They're on my lap if I'm sitting in my tall and fat man's recliner, which is most of the time. I love them, and they love me. I get affection needs met with those two little lovable devils.
Of course, it's just my perspective, but it seems there's a continual (not continuous) stream of annoying things going on at home (here's that thin ice I mentioned earlier.) Something I'm doing or not doing or saying or not saying that I should or shouldn't be doing or saying, or something my daughter is doing or not doing or saying or not saying that she should be doing or not be doing or should be saying or not saying. I refuse to disparage my wife in any of that. I accept full responsibility for this observation, no matter it's delusional or accurate depiction.
At work, I have a great deal of control. I like having control. More control = less stress because more control = greater predictability. I know what's coming next, usually. I don't control all of it, though, and since absolute power corrupts absolutely, I don't want total control. Total control also spoils spontaneity.
I love teaching, and all that goes with it, except maybe committee meetings. But God how I love preparing my courses and lectures, how I love standing (or sitting) in front of a class of expectant vessels. I so love conveying the essence of something in a new and powerful way. I love discussing the nuances of some subject, exploring its depth, watching brows rise and eyes light up. What a feeling! I'm not sure I wouldn't give up orgasms for that to continue. Luckily, no such bargains need be struck.
I want to set up my office in special ways, perhaps to duplicate the best parts of my house: flat screen TV, great stereo, fridge, microwave, massage chair, etc. After I make a million, I will.
Now back to reading that preparatory text for the Psychiatric board exams. Unnecessary, but fascinating.
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