Sarah Palin once graced us with the question, “How’s that hopey changey thing workin’ out for ya?”
Well, depends on who you ask.
If you ask a lot of Democrats these days, their answers are understandably grim. To the naked eye, Obama has been manhandled by Republicans on many issues, and he has failed to follow through on promises he made during the campaign. And while I put a lot of the blame on the other side, I have to admit Obama, and any president, is ultimately judged on the outcome of a conflict and not the circumstances.
This is not to say he hasn’t accomplished anything, as some people like to believe. A very short list here is relevant:
*Prevented insurance companies from denying coverage to people because of the dreaded “pre-existing condition” condition.
*Established a Credit Card Bill of Rights to help people protect themselves from bad credit policies.
*Expanded Pell Grants to allow more low-income students access to college.
*Ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
History’s memory may be vast, but our collective one, the one that matters in an election, is quite small and short-sighted. Few people remember these successes, usually because the failures tend to draw much more attention.
With the economy still on the rocks and a formidable Republican war machine on the move, the outlook is dim for Obama in 2012. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve disagreed with more things Obama has done (or not done) that I thought I would four years ago, but that is not reason to abandon ship. I voted for Obama with great enthusiasm in 2008, and will do so with at least as much desire, if not outright glee, in 2012.
Why?
Because when I vote for a president, I’m not voting for a friend. I’m not voting for someone “I’d want to have a beer with.” I’m not voting for an idealogical equal. I’m not even, necessarily, voting for a party.
What I am voting for is this: someone who I believe is well-informed, considerate, and intelligent enough to make their own decisions based on a proper evaluation of everything they are given. I don’t want a maverick, I don’t want someone who just speaks their gut. People like that are interesting to watch, but they make terrible leaders.
Even when I disagree with Obama, I respect his decisions, because I feel that he owns them. It’s easy to armchair quarterback in politics, partly because the media gives us a very basic overview of a situation rather than the nitty-gritty details that we would really need to make an informed decision. And the truth is, we’re not president. We’re not playing the game. Hell, we’re not even on the same field. What can we really say?
We don’t have to be blind followers, of course. Constructive criticism is necessary in any political arena. But a blind curses get us nowhere.
Obama has been considerate and compromising to a fault. In an effort to raise the level of discourse, he’s unleashed a partisan monster that threatens to drag the entire country down into the depths of Hades with it. But I wouldn’t trade his efforts for another’s.
He inherited an already dismal economy, and his very nature inflamed the opposing party. Republican brinkmanship has destroyed political action, and for some reason the American public hasn’t caught on, or at least, figured out who’s actually to blame. None of this is his fault.
I agree with those who say Obama needs to be more forceful and less compromising, and I feel he will. He tried the hopey changey stuff, and he should be proud of his record. But he’s not stupid. Obama is as much a competitor as anyone else – he will find a way to win. Plus, as scary as a second-term president with nothing to lose was during George W. Bush’s reign, the thought of a second-term Obama should send chills down every uncooperative lawmaker’s spine. If I were them, I’d be investing in Advil and Band-Aids right now, because there’s going to be some serious work done on their party come 2012.
This all assumes Obama actually wins the election, which of course, is far from guaranteed. But the only way to ensure he does is to still vote for him, with as much or greater intensity as we did in 2008.
Because yes, we’re mad, yes, we’re a bit disillusioned, yes, we’re frustrated. But not to act because of it is madness.
After all, let’s think of the alternatives.
Or rather, perhaps not.
Much has been made, recently, of the decision to scuttle the Shuttle. Our last great hope, it seems, for humans to voyage to other worlds in search of ET has faded. Or so the space cadets would have you believe. But given the state of American politics today, I have to say one thing has become increasingly clear: we don’t need NASA to search for aliens; they’re right here at home.
They call themselves Republicans, but they aren’t, really. Not in the seminal, Dwight Eisenhower, even Ronald Reagan sense. The modern-day Republican party has been overtaken by demagogues from another planet (catchy name for a movie), driving the Grand Ol’ Party in a direction heretofore never seen in the United States. Or even on Earth.
They have seemingly human names: Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and they are remarkably anthropomorphic. They look like us, talk like us, eat the same food and drink the same water as us. Yet there is a stark difference – they don’t think like us.
The Republicans of today show very little consideration for what the rest of the country believes. Now, of course, the entire country doesn’t believe the same thing, but as a whole we have leanings, tendencies, and wants. Let’s look at three of the most contentious topics in America today: taxes, gay marriage, and abortion.
TAXES
This is the most recognizable economic issue to Americans. Forget trade deficits and agreements, interest rates, or the stock market. The paycheck is king, and when people see money taken out of it, they’re going to have an opinion. Most recently, taxes came up in the brouhaha regarding raising the federal debt ceiling, and more generally, the budget deficit. These alien Republicans hijacked the debate, and the country, declaring tax increases “off the table.” Romney, Boehner, et al, continued to spout the tired and disproven mantra of trickle-down politics. Give the big boys enough money, and the little guy will fill himself on the scraps. This worked with the bank bailouts, right?
Regardless of efficacy of policy, what do Americans think is the best way to reduce the deficit? Well, it’s not cutting taxes. A mere 14% thought that tax cuts were the way to go. However, 64% supported raising taxes on those making more than $250,000. Heck, even the wealthiest of the wealthy, Warren Buffett, thinks that’s a good idea.
What does alien candidate Rick Perry think? “We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.”
I’m sorry, what? You’re lamenting the fact that some people are too poor to pay tax? On what planet is that a problem?
GAY MARRIAGE
Ah, nothing gets the alien blood boiling like the prospect of two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together getting married. Believing that gays are waging a war on marriage, Michelle Bachmann has signed two pledges to oppose gay marriage should she become president. She believes being gay means living a life of “personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement.” Sounds like people who are trying to destroy the fabric of our country if I’ve ever heard it.
So what does America think? Well, a majority believes it should be legal. A majority believes we should not support laws that allow states not to recognize other states’ gay marriages. And more people than not support New York’s latest law allowing gay marriages. But what do we Americans know? After all, we’re only human.
ABORTION
You’d think allowing a woman to choose how she deals with an impending pregnancy would be a simple one: let her choose. Oh, but how wrong you would be! These other-worldly Republicans, yes they of the small, hands-off government lot, believe that the government is much better as making decisions than she would be.
Can this be true? Well, Rick Perry, governor of the state with the third highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, believes Roe v. Wade to be “a shameful footnote in our nation’s history books.” Sarah Palin, at the time having a 14 year-old daughter, said she would oppose abortion even if her daughter were raped. This coming from the State of Alaska where the rape rate was double that of the rest of the US, and where 25% of all rapes resulted in unwanted pregnancies. Supernatural statistics for the win!
But wait. Surely these politicians understand what real Americans think, right? After all, that’s supposedly what they’re there to do – represent our interests. Alas, wrong again. Once again, a majority believe that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Nearly a super-majority believe that whether or not they personally support it, a woman should at least have the choice to terminate or not terminate a pregnancy.
What a strangely human idea.
Lest I go too far, let me say that not all Republicans are of this new, alien breed. Somewhere, pushed to the back of the group, are intelligent men and women who want to have a real and honest conversation about how best to improve the economy and general welfare of the country. However, these voices have been silenced, shouted down from the rooftops by our new alien overlords. Standing up for what one believes is admirable, but doing so by elbowing out everyone else is not.
In all this doom and gloom, however, I believe there’s a silver lining. A party so out of touch with its country is by nature irrelevant and dying. Sure, the Tea Party Express seems to have a lot of momentum right now. But unapologetic rage can only fuel the beast for so long. At some point, it will have to start consuming itself, because we know it won’t open itself up to any serious, intellectual fuel sources.
An exchange from the movie Alien seems like an apropos ending:
“Ash: Ripley, for God’s sake, this is the first time that we’ve encountered a species like this. It has to go back. All sorts of tests have to be made.
Ripley: Ash, are you kidding? This thing bled acid. Who knows what it’s gonna do when it’s dead?
Ash: I think it’s safe to assume it isn’t a zombie.”
One can only hope.
SOURCES:
A recent article in the Washington Post reports that on average, humanities majors make less than their counterparts in engineering and other scientific fields. BFD, right? Isn’t this common knowledge?
It is a BFD, though. The problem with this report, and the media attention surrounding it, is that it presumes that the only important value of a college degree is the amount of money one makes after receiving it. While it’s true a degree almost has to be viewed as an investment with an expectation of a return, why is the only expected return financial?
It’s as if there must be something WRONG with people who want to teach, or study languages, or help others. How could they possibly not want to work eighty hours a week? Think of all the money they’re wasting by not being petroleum engineers! How do they live?
Actually, they probably live quite happily, because instead of being pressured into a career they don’t necessarily want, they work in a field they actually enjoy. Something that rewards them less financially but more emotionally. This isn’t to say all doctors/lawyers/bankers don’t enjoy their jobs, but lets be honest: how many people did you meet in college who were pre-law, pre-med, engineering, or otherwise because their parents forced them? And how many have you met afterward who are chained to their desks?
And that’s just it. Money is often a key to happiness, but it certainly isn’t the only, or even the best. If you live your life according to what someone else decrees, what’s the point? If you’re constantly looking at the bottom line, you become blind to everything above it.
The world needs engineers and scientists, for sure. And yes, it’s possible for them to have families and personal lives. But let’s not pretend, as politicians are particularly wont to do, that they are the glue that holds society together. They, like us humanities majors, are all part of the puzzle, a great Jenga tower constantly trying to stay upright. Pull out a few of the pieces and pretty soon that tower starts to collapse.
After all, somebody’s gotta bag the groceries and flip the burgers!
Apparently, Osama Bin Laden watched porn. OMG WTF LOL!!!!!!!
Wait, really, why is this a story? Of all the things Osama did, we’re worried about the fact that he had porn?
What do you think a guy does locked up in a room 24/7? Eventually you get tired of Real Housewives.
While the regularity probably various, everybody watches porn. If you’re reading this, you probably watch porn. If you’ve ever been sexually active, you watch porn. And anyone who says it’s “immoral” DEFINITELY watches porn.
Big deal! What will they discover next? That he brushed his teeth??
Good article about this over on Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2294804/
We, America, are about to get Boehned. Hardcore.
House Majority leader John Boehner (R-OH) (Isn’t it – Obvious) yesterday demanded that, in order for Republicans to agree to raise the debt ceiling, Obama come up with 2 trillion dollars worth of cuts to at least offset that increase. In doing so, he flatly rejected any idea of raising taxes or curtailing military spending. He also wants to “restructure” Medicare, despite his constituents somewhat ironic desire to “keep the government hands off my Medicare.”
The Washington Post, and other major news organizations, refuse to call this what it is: a blatant attempt to sabotage every ideal Democrats have fought for in the last fifty years. Boehner is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. By trying to couch cuts as the only solution, he’s attempting to shift from a revenue-centered debate to a spending-centered debate. It’s quite clever, and most Americans will probably eat it up. Wolves are excellent predators on the blind.
We all know what’s going to be in the crosshairs: NPR, Planned Parenthood, education funding, recycling and mass-transit programs, highway construction projects, environmental cleanup projects, and of course, Medicare. As if somehow it is these programs bankrupting our economy. Imagine what a great world we’d have! Money falling from the skies! Children dying from malnutrition, farms going fallow from acid rain! Smog-choked cities giving birth to hosts of new lung cancer patients! Women, raped by their abusive partners, giving birth to children who will never be cared for! College graduates lucky to get a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s!
In addition, any attempt at eliminating taxes, subsidies, or other loopholes is couched by Boehner as a “tax hike,” as if taxes have always been at their historic lows, and corporate subsidies always at such great highs. How many times are we going to fall for this political double-speak? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me five thousand ninehundred and fifty-three times? Shame on all of us.
Boehner and his army of far-sighted Republicans like to say that this is a time of mutual sacrifice, and everyone needs to do their share. But let’s call out bullshit when we hear it, okay? ExxonMobil, Bank of America, and General Electric are hardly doing “their fair share.” How much are they starving?
ExxonMobil – $19,000,000,000 in 2009 profits. $0 tax paid. $150,000,000 rebate given.
Bank of America – $4,400,000,000 in 2009 profits. $0 tax paid. $1,900,000,000 rebate given.
General Electric – $26,000,000,000 in 2009 profits. $0 tax paid. $4,100,000,000 rebate given.
(Source)
Among those three companies alone, there were 49.4 Billion dollars in profits. Zero dollars of tax paid to the government. And the worst part? We gave them 6.15 billion dollars BACK! That’s your money, bypassing Go, going straight to jail, and definitely not collecting 200 dollars.
Boehner is also against reducing the subsidies given to large oil companies, attempting to fool us into thinking that it will raise prices at the pump. But smart people know that gas prices aren’t affected one iota by oil company profits or losses – it’s by oil speculation. How can he possibly justify giving MORE money to ExxonMobil when they’re reaping windfalls off of what we pay?
The sad part is he doesn’t have to, because no one outside of a few courageous congressmen like Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, and Anthony Wiener, is calling him on it.
Where exactly does Boehner think government money comes from? You can cut all you want, but if you don’t increase revenue, all that cutting is for naught. It’s like Apple laying off their entire workforce in order to stop selling iPhones. What exactly, then, is the point?
Nobody is saying this is an easy process. Yes, cuts can and should be made. But let’s not pretend Boehner’s latest crusade is nothing more than shoving a giant you-know-what up our collective you-know-wheres.
Bend over, USA. We’re getting Boehned.
I get dozens of spam emails a day. Almost all are caught by my Gmail spam filter, so I don’t even notice. The ones that do slip through I just trash and forget about. Out of sight, out of mind. Over the past decade, we’ve spent a lot of time, money, and effort into ridding ourselves of this electronic, leftover-pork-gut menace, and those endeavors are paying off. But really, who cares?
Email spam is basically harmless. Email spam doesn’t clog sewers, sit in landfills, or require any resources like trees or water to produce. Sure, it’s annoying, but other than occasionally scamming an old lady or two, the real costs to our planet are infinitesimally small.
There is, however, a type of spam that is dramatically worse for our planet: snail mail spam. The countless credit-card offers, coupon books, grocery circulars, and other trash that just goes straight from our mailbox into the garbage. This spam is tangible, real, and incredibly harmful.
We might not really notice, though, because it tends to be a constant but small trickle of mail. An envelope or two here, a few pieces of newsprint there. Because we don’t keep these pieces of paper around for long periods of time, the buildup of waste is essentially invisible to us.
Last month I aimed to change that. From exactly April 1st thru 30th, I kept every piece of mail I received, whether I wanted it or not. I sorted it into two basic stacks: stack A) mail that I solicited (or that was applicable to me in a very specific way), and stack B) mail that I didn’t (and that wasn’t). Today, I combed through those two stacks and have come upon some interesting and disturbing observations.
First, a look at stack A:
Yep, that’s it! Five whole pieces in one month. An electric bill, a ballot, a ticket chart for the LA Philharmonic, an AAA membership renewal, and an auto insurance bill. And honestly, all five of these things could be done electronically, though the companies from which they come don’t have that capability.
Now let’s look at stack B:
Ugh. A load of generic grocery and coupon circulars, coupons, credit card offers, cable/phone upgrade offers, and brochures.
Now THIS is what I call spam. There’s no filter in my mailslot, no “Trash” button. This stuff takes up physical space and doesn’t just go away with a click.
How much stuff, do you ask? 3.8 pounds! Of paper!
If that doesn’t sound like a lot, consider the following calculation:
*3.8lbs of paper a month = 45.6lbs per year. That’s about the weight of a 6 year-old child!
I, of course, am just one man, in one household. Imagine how big that number gets when we extrapolate it across the entire country.
Actually, don’t imagine. Here it is: based on the latest census of approximately 130 million households, that’s 29,640,000 tons per year.
Now, that’s assuming every household gets exactly as much junk as I do, which is unlikely. I live in a major city and have relatively active spending habits. As such, I’m prone to more junk mail. There are plenty of households who probably receive less mail.
But even still, let’s say for argument that I’m way off. WAY off. Like 90% off. Even 10% of that number is 2.9 million tons of trash. That is a whole lot of garbage no matter how you look at it. And not only is it garbage that has to be disposed of, it’s garbage that has to be produced first, a process that uses a great deal of resources in its own right.
This site estimates that Americans produce 191,625,000 tons of trash a year, so mail waste would make up about 1.5% of that. If that number seems small, think of it this way: 2.9 million tons of trash weighs as much as 4,640 fully-loaded Airbus A380 planes*. That’s a lot of mail.
And a lot of unnecessary mail at that. As idealistic as it would be to argue for the elimination of all waste mail, I know that’s an unrealistic outcome. But that doesn’t mean we should be complacent in accepting the status quo!
Why can’t we devote the same time, money, and energy into eliminating snail mail spam as we can into email spam? The former has real costs and consequences. And don’t tell me that all I have to do is “opt out.” Yes, I could in theory go through the eighteen different companies that sent me spam letters and four companies that sent circulars and ask to be removed from their lists. That’s not the point. The real issue is why should I have to do this in the first place? At the very least, we have both National Do-Not-Call and Do-Not-Email lists enforced by federal law. How is it possible that 19th century technology (mail) hasn’t been dealt with in the same manner?
Every time you curse a v1Ag@ra email that sneaks through your spam filter, think twice about what’s really going on. We need to junk junk mail.
*According to Wikipedia, the maximum takeoff weight of an A380 is 625 tons.
So far this month, The WLA blog has received 629 unique visitors! We’re not Huffington Post, but it’s nothing to sneeze at (what does that phrase even mean?) Also, people from 25 different countries have visited, which is pretty cool I think.
People have found this blog via Google 564 times, and via Bing…1 time. Ouch.
I have had 22 page views from SSA.gov (Social Security Administration). Geezer love!
81% of users have spent an average of less than 30 seconds on the site. So either they are very fast readers, or this blog is just really lame. On the flip side, 5.9% of users have spent 1+ hours on the site. Do I have stalkers??
By far the most popular post this month was the one entitled, “Squish Face.” It was viewd 538 times. The next closest, “Disaster in the Cloud”, a rainy 68.
The most popular browser to hit this site was Firefox, with a 31.7% share. 0.3% of visitors found me using Netscape. That still exists?
One person found my blog by typing in “Nikki Cox” — in Arabic. Other fun search phrases included: “Old ladys with squishy face” and “dead people with guns.” Wow.
See, who says statistics can’t be fun?
“Cloud computing.” Trying to avoid that phrase these days is about as easy as avoiding the black plague in the 14th century. Sure, it was possible, but once you heard about it from your friends, you were pretty much SOL.
Microsoft, IBM, Apple, all the techno-conglomerates are putting big money into the idea of cloud computing, seeing it as another “wave of the future.” In theory, it’s a great idea: by distributing storage and processing power across a loosely-connected network of thousands of computers, you can achieve much loftier goals than you could with just one computer, at a cheaper cost to each individual.
This distribution of resources works great for a lot of things: fundraising, for one. Political candidates are able to amass vast sums of money by pooling millions of small donors. Manufacturing, for another. Through decentralization, products can move to different areas of the world simultaneously and faster thanks to decreased distances between the distributor and customer. Generally, mass distribution also adds an increasing layer of security in case one or more parts of the cloud fail. It’s basically stock diversification: if you have your money invested in ten different types of funds and one tanks, you have nine others that can still pick up the slack. If you have everything invested in one fund and it goes south, well, see “Black Plague”.
So far, so good. Cloud computing seems great, right? Wrong. As Timon the adorable meerkat from the Lion King once sang, “With all this romantic atmosphere / Disaster’s in the air!”
Exhibits A and B: Yesterday’s (and still on-going) outage at Amazon AWS, and the current outage on the Sony Playstation Network.
Cloud computing’s success or failure is vitally dependent on a reliable backbone. Amazon AWS is one of the Internet’s largest distributed web service providers. Probably almost every site you visit relies in some way on services it provides. So when it started having problems in its North American cluster yesterday, well, sites started turning into cluster-you-know-whats. The most visible to the WLA was reddit.com, which could only operate in “emergency read-only mode”. No logging in, no posting, no comments, no up or downvoting. Which, if you know what reddit is, is pretty much the entire functionality of the site.
But at least reddit users could read it. Sony’s Playstation Network was completely down, and may not be back up for another day. Every Playstation user around the world is now without connectivity to other players. In other words, the cloud was gone.
These outages, while generally rare, are incredibly disturbing. Imagine storing all your documents, music, personal and financial information in the cloud, and then the cloud disappears. The power goes out, your internet goes down, IBM’s server farm freaks out – boom, cloud gone. Your information isn’t lost, but it’s inaccessible. How would you feel?
The answer that cloudies like to offer is that, Oh, these outages are very rare and affect a very small number of users. I’m sorry, but that’s a terrible excuse. We don’t let banks call and say, “Oh, we’re very sorry, but we’ve sent all your money to someone else.” Automakers can’t get away with, “Oh, sorry, your brakes won’t work today. But they should be working within a day or two.” Airlines who say, “Oh, we crashed that one today, but it was isolated and only affected a few hundred people” would be pilloried. So what makes these tech companies think they’re different? One error for one user defeats the whole idea of ubiquity.
Cloud computing’s barkers paint a very pretty picture of their circus: unlimited storage, ubiquitous access, always-on connectivity. But pay your money, step inside the tent, and suddenly the bearded lady you’d heard so much about turns out to be just some fat guy with fake hair taped to his face. Man-tits do not count!
I’m not a total luddite when it comes to cloud computing, because it certainly has its uses and merits. I just think we need to avoid the current hyperbole about the amazing new world that it’s going to create. After all, a world covered completely in clouds would be very dark indeed.
So the WLA has been on a bit of a hiatus, but now I’m back, ready to address a sad and horrifying trend amongst young women: Squish Face.
Exhibit A: photos above. Far left, a beautiful glowing portrait of an actress. Middle and right half, something resembling an alien inside a trash compactor. I’m not a plastic surgery expert, but it is clear that at least the lip and cheeks of Miss Cox have been, umm, plumped up?
Let’s be frank, she looks terrible. And she’s one of many young women who have traded in their natural beauty for something hideous and artificial. Heidi Montag also comes to mind. The amount of surgeries she’s had probably cost more than whatever ring Spencer bought her.
Plastic surgery is nothing new. We’ve seen it for decades on Joan Rivers and other aging Hollywood women. And while I don’t think it ever, EVER improves someone’s appearance, the underlying delusion of “looking young” makes a bit of psychological sense at that age.
What doesn’t make sense, though, is why women in their twenties would think they need this sort of surgery. I would argue that it has the reverse effect on them: that because we’re so used to seeing old ladies with stretched faces and altered noses, these young women are actually making themselves look older! If anything, they’re certainly not improving their appearance.
What’s most distressing to me about this surgery craze is that it must stem from terrible, deep-seated psychological issues these women have. Allow me to speculate for a bit:
Sure, it’s easy to blame “society” and our culture of judging everyone based on their looks, but I don’t think that’s the root of the problem. After all, surely these women judge other’s looks themselves. When they make the choice to alter their face, they must be seeing other altered faces and think, “Hey, that looks good.” That act of seeing alterations as beauty is deeply disturbing.
At face, it’s a matter of insecurity. These women aren’t comfortable in their own skin, so they seek solace in changing it. But why are they insecure in the first place? I would argue female behavioral dynamics is one reason. Women constantly judge themselves based on other women, particularly their friends. In a jealous, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses fashion, what they perceive as a flaw in themselves they will find appealing in another. Thus they surround themselves with people who serve as crutches for their insecurity. And said friends merely serve the negative feedback loop. Alice asks her friend about how she looks, and her friend will invariably say she looks beautiful. Women crave validation so they dole it out in droves, for fear of not getting it back themselves. This results in nobody calling the other’s bluff or telling the truth.
This is not to spite all female friendships. Many are based on greater connections like shared interests, trust, and enjoyment. But I believe even the best of friends still operate on the negative feedback level at some point. It’s just human nature.
But human nature can’t be the whole explanation, and it certainly doesn’t describe why the trend is among YOUNG women. What is it about today that causes the Squish Face to be so attractive to young women? Is it a greater sense of competition? Is it constantly being told “You can do better”? Is it like dominoes, i.e. when one celebrity starts falling for it, we all follow?
I really don’t know, and that scares me, because I’m the WLA. I usually know things. But this one escapes me, and it’s tragic.
My message is simple: ladies, you are beautiful AS YOU ARE. Different women may appeal to different types of men, but in general, you should make sure you appeal to yourself first. Don’t evaluate yourself based on someone else; it’s a game you’ll never win. Learn to love yourself as you would want to be loved. Find friends who will do the same. A real friend is not someone who manages your self-worth; a real friend is someone who honestly helps you find it yourself.
If that message is still too long, just read this: DON’T GET PLASTIC SURGERY. You don’t need it and you will look worse. No matter what doctor you go to or how much you pay, it won’t look natural and even more, it won’t last. And once it’s done, there’s no going back. Gravity’s a bitch!
Please, just let us love you the way you are!
Few groups of people in this country are more vociferous in their defense of their beliefs than gun owners and gun-rights advocates. One only has to watch Charlton Heston raise a shotgun over his head and exalt “I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands” to realize their principles are driven by more than just a simple desire for recreation. Some would call this type of behavior “passionate.”
I call it foolish.
Let me get one thing straight – I don’t believe that all gun owners are fools. There are plenty of perfectly smart people who hold foolish beliefs. Hitler, for one. Or Simon Cowell. Of course, there are plenty of perfectly stupid people who own guns as well. But I digress.
While I personally don’t own or want to own a gun, I understand that there are people who, for whatever reason, do. Regardless of the ambiguity with which the second amendment is written, the legal precedent is clear: Americans can own guns.
But why treat gun ownership as a liberty or death cause? Gun owners seem to fancy themselves modern-day Patrick Henrys, guarding their constitutional rights against the assault of ruthless politicians. Why do they feel that, of all the possible principles to take to the grave, gun ownership is the most holy?
Not racial equality? Not religious freedom? Not even freedom of speech?
Dare I say it, my dears, but in the face of a host of other issues, gun rights are trivial. Those that need them, e.g. military/police/security, are in no danger of losing their access to firearms. Those that desire them, perhaps hunters and competitive shooters, would be hard-pressed to find me evidence that someone is actually coming for their weapon (as opposed to implementing sensible rules regarding their use, like not carrying them to a school-yard or to a bar). Those that want them, they of the self-defense/home-invader-protection lot, should have the least amount of worry, since the government really doesn’t care much about what you, Joe the Plumber, have in your coat closet. Unless they have a good reason to come looking, in which case you probably don’t care about rights anyway, other than, perhaps, Miranda.
The riotous defense of gun rights is made further ridiculous by the insistence that any type of gun ought to be legal, for anyone to own. This would include such weapons as assault rifles, sniper rifles, and machine guns. In short, weapons that serve absolutely no purpose other than to cause mass casualties and mayhem.
But it’s the principle, they say. Again, a foolish response. Americans can, legally, do a lot of things. I can light a firecracker in my face. I can tell my boss to go fillet himself with a rusty nail. I can jump out of an airplane blind-folded with my arms tied behind my back. I can do any of these things and more, but does it really mean I should?
Gun rights advocates are foolish not because they own or want to own guns, but because they see only black or white, gun or no gun. They don’t realize they can have their gun and eat it too (wait, I think I mixed metaphors there). The only thing us bleeding-heart liberals are asking in return is that they agree to sensible controls, real background and psychology checks, and an open and honest dialogue about the whole thing.
By relying on hyperbole and fear, gun advocates create a perceived chaos, an atmosphere where guns beget more guns. Eventually, someone does something stupid (see James Loughner), and suddenly we need even more guns to protect us from the more guns we begat before. It’s simple reasoning to expect that the more guns there are in circulation, the more likely one (or two, or two hundred) will fall into the wrong hands. If you want to see this in action, visit Afghanistan. Those are our guns they’re using against us.
Gun advocates ultimately lose in this scenario, because we all lose, some of us our lives. And the sad part is, it’s the gun advocates who can really help prevent it. The NRA is extremely powerful politically (where it counts), and exerts great control over its members and acolytes. Were it to put all its force (figurative, in this sense) behind any sort of meaningful discussion, we might actually be able to prevent gun violence.
Huh, look at that. Maybe guns are the answer after all.