Tag Archives: politics

Shocking Lightning, Soggy Bears, Militarized Police, Turing Test Fudge, Really Questionable Politics, and an End to Board Cheese

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I’m pretty open about the fact that I have a number of issues with the politicians who run the country, supposedly in our name. This has been the case through at least two decades at this point.

Today there’s a story about a state senator from Virginia who’s resigning from his position. Ostensibly in order to take a more prestigious political appointment and to clear the way for his daughter to get an appointment that his current position precludes her from holding. That in and of itself is pretty shady if you ask me. I mean, the guy was elected by his constituents to represent them and now he’s all, “Oh, yeah, sorry about that… you won’t mind if I just step down and get a better job over here, right?”

Not. Cool.

What makes it even less cool is that he’s a Democrat and his resignation tips the balance in the state legislature in favor of the Republicans.

So, not only is he stepping away from the position that those who voted for him entrusted to him in order to pursue personal gain and glory, in doing so he’s effectively handing over his hunk of the legislature to the other side. That’s totally: “Oh, yeah, and by the way, all that stuff I promised I’d represent you about… I’m just going to go and let it get outvoted by the people you disagree with the most. That’s not a problem, right?”

Doubly. Not. Cool.

The final tidbit is just icing on the cake at this point. Seems that shiny new appointment he’s leaving for (and the one that his daughter will get now that she’s free to do so)… those are positions that the Republican party has the power to grant. The scuttlebutt, of course, is that they’ve offered him these perks in order to get him out of the way so they can have a clear path to blocking anything the governor wants to do. So we can just tack on to the above two sentences, “Oh, and I’m doing it at the behest of those people that you sent me here to fight against.”

That’s just beyond “not cool.” That’s downright traitorous. That’s a full and complete middle finger to anyone who voted for him and trusted that he’d continue to do the job he’s been doing for years.

This is politics at its worst.

It makes me a bit ill to read about it.

Because it’s happening right in the open and, so far, no one’s doing anything about it.

Because it’s nothing new. This is how things have “worked” on and off since the first time one person was put in charge of the well being of others.

But just because it’s nothing new doesn’t mean it has to be business as usual. We know about it. We can do something about it (even if it is just shun the hell out of this guy). We can speak up and say “This sort of thing is more than unacceptable, it’s reprehensible.”

And, really, I hope a lot of people in Virginia do that.

Creative Living, Tone Deaf ‘Comedy’, Brain Science, Net Neutrality Sniping, and Reset the Net

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This entry is part 41 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

A year ago, a light got directed into a dark corner of our government.

How that light got turned on is a bit questionable, but it happened and now there’s no way to deny that our intelligence agencies are more than a little out of control. Without the knowledge of a large part of the government, and most certainly without a mandate from the population, massive amounts of data were being collected on American citizens.

Gleaned from every electronic network you could imagine, “metadata” was being harvested hand over fist… just because. They’re calling it “metadata” because that belies just how revealing it can be by masking it in techno-babble. “We’re not listening in! We’re just getting the metadata!” (So, y’know, they only who you’re talking to, when, for how long, and where both parties are… noting invasive in that, right?)

There’s a fight going on now. A fight for our rights to privacy. A fight for our right to know what our government is up to. A fight for the future usefulness of the Internet as a whole.

Yes, this ties into the whole Net Neutrality battle, too.

There’s just far too much at stake to not take some sort of stand, to not speak out. Remaining on the sidelines isn’t an option if you want things to change for the better… if you want to know you’re not going to suddenly find yourself on a watch list, or banned from air travel, or just constantly under surveillance for no good reason other than “they can.”

If you’re not ready to speak out loudly, then at least listen. Take the time to actually read a few articles. To think about the road we’ve been on for well over a decade. About the rash decisions that have chipped away at the freedoms we, as Americans, tend to cling to. Freedom, Rule of Law, Presumption of Innocence. “Little” things that are the cornerstones of everything we tend to think of as kind of important… things we’ve fought shooting wars in the name of and that we cheer whenever another nation steps up to those who would crush those ideals.

Some will say “Why bother? Nothing’s going to change anyway. They may be listening, but they never listen when we call for change. They’ll always just do what they want, anyway.”

If you don’t speak up, you only ensure you won’t be heard. You prove “them” right when they argue back that they have to take such an active role because people don’t care enough to take any action themselves… “after all,” they’d likely add, “no one’s really complaining about it.”

Be loud. Be active. Make it so no one can ever say We the People don’t care. So no one can ever think they can just walk all over us.

That can only happen if we let it.

We still have power.

Use it.

Reset the Net

FCC Overloaded, Rough Road to College, Red Velvet Mites of Love, Genderless, and Slenderman Delusions

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This entry is part 39 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

One of the strangest bits of news that came through today (amid a crazy work schedule and some really annoying Facebook problems), was the story of two 12-year-old girls who stabbed another 12-year-old “friend” of theirs in an attempted murder.

They did it, the article said, to gain the favor of the Slender Man and earn the comfort of getting to hang out with him in his mystical mansion in the woods.

In a word, that’s crazy.

For those who don’t know, Slender Man is a meme that kind of got out of control. Started in a “make something creepy” flavored thread on an online message board. He’s kind of taken on a life of it’s own, growing far beyond the confines of that one thread and making appearances in videos, art, and even computer games.

Apparently now he’s a focus for human sacrifice, too.

And that’s just sad.

Delusional is as delusional does, but at least most delusions in the past have been based on things that aren’t as easily dismiss-able (or searchable) as being, well, genuine fakes. Angels, demons, aliens, even most other urban legends, all have their origins buried in generations of ambiguity. Slenderman’s creation is documented on a Wikipedia page that’s one of the first things that comes up when you search for him.

If these kids can’t make the distinction between something that obviously made up and reality, it’s no wonder they have no problem with the idea of killing someone they called a friend.

There’s no connection to reality, let alone real-world cause and effect or empathy, to be found here.

At least not yet.

Maybe something more… human… will emerge if the case proceeds and the media covers it with any sensibility.

The one vaguely positive thing here is that it’s not the media fishing for a cause… this whole Slender Man motivation is apparently what the girls explained when they were caught.

My Generation, Celebrity Humor, Cute Overload, World Goth Day, Jobs, and Job Numbers

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This entry is part 33 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

As Gen X hits its collective mid-life crisis, we wade through a country that’s undergoing a political crisis. More extreme views appear to the left and right of a seemingly silent (and often bewildered) center.

That polarization causes wild swings–accentuated by whatever will bring the media the most eyeballs or ears–causes more of a feeling of instability (regardless of actual stability) than most are comfortable with. That feeling of instability further causes more polarization as each side becomes more and more reactionary in order to counter the escalating maneuverings of the other.

And my generation (Gen X, for those who haven’t been paying attention) is kind of at the middle of it all. In general, we’ve long been disillusioned when it comes to politics. We know they’re not pretty, that they’re often petty, and seem to almost always ignore sensibility. Even though we went out and “rocked the vote” way back when, we didn’t really get the long term results we hoped for.

Just like everything else in our lives.

But that hasn’t stopped us from just moving forward.

We’re used to being disappointed.  Or being disappointments. Either way, the effect is the same. We often keep to ourselves, bide our time while the water is rough (which is sometimes more hard work than is readily visible), and hope for that day when the skies clear up and we can actually accomplish the big things we’ve always wanted to do.

Thing is, the weather never seems to clear up.

And now… now we find that half of our own lives are gone.

We’ve worked harder than most seem to realize. Quietly, for the most part. But we’ve had a lot of that work destroyed before we could make use of it. So we have little to show for it.

And now… now just finding work is a long-term, full-time, unpaid job. Is it any wonder people are just giving up?

We were raised by the first TV generation and have been soaking in media hype and marketing messages for our entire lives. Celebrity leaves as bad a taste in our mouths as politics does… and half the time the two are closely intertwined, anyway.

Half of our lives are gone and, yeah, we’re likely kind of bitter about it.

But that doesn’t stop us from continuing to move onward.

That’s the only thing we’ve ever known: that the horizon is where we should be.

And it’s always just a wee bit farther out.

Sometimes it’s obscured by a haze (of politics, of entertainment, of hype)… but we’ve been trained to know the general direction, regardless.

We move, always. Slowly at times. And we’re getting old and want to rest.

If only we really knew how.

Ant Physics, Lots of Television Show Stuff, Godzilla, and an Awesome Optical Illusion

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This entry is part 25 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Over the next week or so, there’s going to be a lot of news on TV shows that get canceled, renewed, and picked up from the list of potentials.

That always breeds a lot of laments and cheers from people… and more than a few quirked eyebrows in some cases.

It also breeds some great discussions about why we like what we like and why shows we don’t like get renewed. That’s what happened a lot today. I won’t rehash it (and if I were going to, I’d probably do it on my ToobTalk.com site… which has gathered quite a bit of dust).

There’s also a lot of highly charged political stuff on the horizon… net neutrality being the big one that concerns me. So, keep an eye out for that, too.