Writer’s note: This is a ramble-as-I-type manifesto and those things either turn out to be insightful in a really cryptic way or the literary equivalent of a newly-purchased 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle dumped on your table.I may retool it or delete it in the future.
I just got done reading a lengthy piece published in movie critic Robert Ebert’s blog about the tenor of modern media, and now today’s news differs from the news of generations past. While Ebert took pains to turn it away from a political bash piece, mentioning Bill O’Reilly in the headlines was enough for more than a few of the readers, based on the responses. That, along with the bizarro “Applachacian hike” taken by Governor Mark Sanford got me to thinking in the “big picture” sense about politics and life and how we react to it.
The PROBLEM is I don’t feel very qualified to comment on such matters. I read a political blog here and there, but do not immerse myself in cable news (I get the bulk of my news from NPR, to be truthful) and know the workings of government on a very rudimentary basis. What I do know is my personal philosophy and how it reflects on what politicians I support. I tend to lean liberal on just about everything, and yet have a hard time explaining why. I guess you could say having parents that leaned Democratic helped, but then again one of my brothers is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. (I am unsure of how my oldest brother aligns himself – getting into political discussions rarely ends well, especially with my uneasy grasp of politics as mentioned above, so I tend to let those discussions pass me by.) For me –and this is painting it into the broadest strokes as I can define – everyone in America deserves a fighting chance to live and prosper. Not all of us were born in a lucky situation where we have a family that loves us and gives us the chance for three square meals a day. Some of us, for whatever reason, don’t get a fair shake in life. While it sucks to pay taxes, I don’t mind as long as the government uses the proceeds to make America better. In a nutshell, I guess that’s why I vote the way I vote. But now, looking at these words I just typed, I can imagine an opposing viewpoint attack each of my tenants one by one, or twist my phrases away from their intended meaning. That’s not right (Right?), that’s naive, you’re a bleeding heart, etc etc. I guess I’ve watched enough cable news to see even my own personal beliefs can be dissected in “talking points” and fair and balanced criticism.
That’s probably my biggest issue with the tenor of the media... how the confines of news bites turn every thing into a black or white issue, a pro or a con. This constant duality makes politics hard to handle for me.... this is America, where free speech was priority number one when we wrote the rulebook 200+ years ago. Yet when we vote, we only have two real choices when we get to the ballot. What kind of ice cream store would survive offering only vanilla and chocolate as flavor choices? Here’s the rub, though: most Americans understand conflict better than ambigiouity. Setting up the issues as one side versus another side like it’s a sports contest is an easy concept to grasp from a viewing standpoint. From a practical standpoint, though, it fails miserably – and if the argumentative tone of the nation isn’t an indication, how about all these disgraced politicians?
Being a politician means you have to appeal to the masses, to tailor your personal beliefs in a way to make them admirable to the lever-pullers. So the tired-but-true cliche of the baby-kissing, grinning-and-waving person of the people comes to life. But remember what I said above about making issues black and white, one side or another? The kind of people who genuinely are happy in public, who are wonderful and positive contributions to their town/city/state/country tend to not worry about being one way or another. (This is based not on any sort of scientific poll but rather over three decades of life and 12+ years working retail.) People may have one or two pet causes they feel strongly about, but by and large people have a “live and let live” philosophy towards others. These people, as you can imagine, tend to be pretty lousy politicians. Politicians have to be aggressive about pushing their agendas and/or party agendas. Still, to get the vote, politicians must give off the aura of approachibility and kinship even to people whose feelings directly contradict theirs. I think it’s the tightrope of this delicate balance that makes these politicians hire hookers, send lurid emails to their employees or go to Argentina unannounced to hang with your mistress, or any other crazy crap folks from both parties engage in. (It’s a shaky theory, but it could also be that “regular” America does the exact type of crazy crap as well, just not in the public eye.)
Disgraced politicians bring up another thing that deeply resonates as part of my core beliefs: accountibility and a lack of hypocrisy. As I said above, I do tend to lean liberal, but the thing that tips me from pro-liberal to anti-conservative (and yes, I believe there IS a difference between the two camps) is when people say one thing and do the polar opposite. Let’s keep looking at Mark Sanford, because the proverbial iron is hot and as time passes he’ll be little more than a Trivial Pursuit question worth a blue slice. This guy went to Argentina for seven days to hang out with his Argentine concubine, skipping Father’s Day and not even informing his wife. But a decade ago, while investigating Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, he thought that "I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign)... I come from the business side," he said. "If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he'd be gone." Whether Sanford has to shed his Governorship as well as his Republican Governors Association post is irrelevant; if you’re willing to condemn someone else’s sexual conduct in public, abandoning your job for a week without telling anyone for some extramarital nookie should not even be a thought in your head. Sanford isn’t the first to fall from political grace and probably won’t be the last. But having these kinds of things happen to people who supposedly stand for morals and family is disheartening, whether he’s a Donkey or Elephant.
Maybe that might be why people tune off on politics in general, and accept the good/bad branding of topics on the nightly news. Why invest time and thought into these people who aren’t accountable, put on a false front and are hypocritical to a fault? I really don’t want this to be a party-bashing diatribe, as I have people I respect to both sides of the fence, and both sides have unclean hands in these issues. I just want to repair the few rogue gears of the American Government machine before the whole thing breaks.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Throwing the flag on FWD: progress
Am I tired? My head is woozy, my body is wavering, and my eyelids are gaining weight. Yet there are certain things that are compelling me to write at this late hour. So I am foregoing sleep at the moment to transmit a minor gripe I have with a few people who email me.
Let me preface by saying I **LOVE** getting emails from all my friends/readers/admirers/etc. I enjoy staying in touch with people and being updated on their progress. This is IMO the genius of Facebook, as it's a up-to-the-minute ticker of what people you know are up to. Yeah, a lot of times it's mundane and pointless -- like most of my Facebook posts, heh -- but it's a valid slice of someone's life they are nice enough to share with you and the dozens of other people they befriend. With this in mind, getting a personal email written and directed for you is a treat that I relish. Sadly, instead of emails I tend to stockpile forwards.
Forwards are the worst of both worlds: they have the appeal and time-sucking properties of stamped junk mail, but they're sent to you by people who supposedly like and care about you. (Fun trivia: the wide, wide majority of the worthless forwards I get nowadays eminate from one source -- my folks, which means my dad, as my mom doesn't get computers and internet and doesn't want to.) It's like getting snail mail, and noticing the return address as one you know by heart, and you open up the envelope -- and it's one of those Publisher's Clearinghouse envelopes with Ed McMahon's grinning mug on it. Uh, thanks?
Now, I've been receiving email for almost two decades, so I'm well aware of the usual cast of characters that populate the forwards that litter the web. The guy from Africa who needs to transfer money out of his country and will give you a cut, the transscripts from old Paul Harvey broadcasts from when I was in high school, the "OMG OBAMA IS A MUSLIM/SOCIALIST/CHECK HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE" all-in-caps memes, the [name of popular chain store] is giving away $25 gift certificates if you forward the email, etc etc. Chances are you know them, too. (Hey, if I don't, I'll foward em to ya! Haw haw!) After you get the same email with the same premise for the umpteenth time, from someone whose opinion you like and respect, it's more than a little disquieting.
I am far from an Ann Landers type, but I feel there should really be some sort of etiquette for dealing with this. As it stands, if I get a forward and it's something I've never heard of before that sounds even slightly suspicious, I do not pass go, do not collect $200 and go directly to snopes.com and decipher how on the level the forward is, and 99.9% of the time, it's so far off the level it's like that one negative mystery world on Super Mario Bros. where all you do is swim and collect coins. (WARNING: if you're never been to Snopes, you could easily spend an afternoon rifling through all the hundreds of urban legends they ran into and define the "truthiness"of each, if any. Don't say I didn't warn ya.)
After this, I used to reply back to the sender with a quick note to always check the validity of the forward, include the Snopes link, and be on my merry way. But I realized one day that such an act is akin to emailing all the kids you know and telling them what you know about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Sometimes people are happy with the truth they perceive. (The one that prompted this rant detailed a poor child who allegedly had a limb-compromising accident, and with each forward, the email provider will donate money towards her cause. It's the kind of benign, feel-good gesture to take part of forward every person you know so this girl can get the treatment she needs. Except that the accident never happened, the girl doesn't exist, and the email providers tend to not throw money around just by people sending out forwards.)
But still, am I the only person who gets annoyed by this? I suppose it rankles me a tad more just because I'm a journalism major and it's good journalistic sense not to take things at face value, esp. on the net. It's amazing that as more and more information seems to be spreading through the web, the less and less people feel like taking a few extra keystrokes and doing that research. Now this is NOT something I'm grabbing the pitchfork for and hunting people down. (After all, as I said above, my number one offender is my pops!) Truth be told, there are still a lot of forwards I send here and there (not so oddly enough, the lion's share come from my wife -- what can I say, she knows my humor!) But it's just something I noticed and have actually been ruminating on for the better part of a year, and am finally taking the time to write about it at length.
Let me preface by saying I **LOVE** getting emails from all my friends/readers/admirers/etc. I enjoy staying in touch with people and being updated on their progress. This is IMO the genius of Facebook, as it's a up-to-the-minute ticker of what people you know are up to. Yeah, a lot of times it's mundane and pointless -- like most of my Facebook posts, heh -- but it's a valid slice of someone's life they are nice enough to share with you and the dozens of other people they befriend. With this in mind, getting a personal email written and directed for you is a treat that I relish. Sadly, instead of emails I tend to stockpile forwards.
Forwards are the worst of both worlds: they have the appeal and time-sucking properties of stamped junk mail, but they're sent to you by people who supposedly like and care about you. (Fun trivia: the wide, wide majority of the worthless forwards I get nowadays eminate from one source -- my folks, which means my dad, as my mom doesn't get computers and internet and doesn't want to.) It's like getting snail mail, and noticing the return address as one you know by heart, and you open up the envelope -- and it's one of those Publisher's Clearinghouse envelopes with Ed McMahon's grinning mug on it. Uh, thanks?
Now, I've been receiving email for almost two decades, so I'm well aware of the usual cast of characters that populate the forwards that litter the web. The guy from Africa who needs to transfer money out of his country and will give you a cut, the transscripts from old Paul Harvey broadcasts from when I was in high school, the "OMG OBAMA IS A MUSLIM/SOCIALIST/CHECK HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE" all-in-caps memes, the [name of popular chain store] is giving away $25 gift certificates if you forward the email, etc etc. Chances are you know them, too. (Hey, if I don't, I'll foward em to ya! Haw haw!) After you get the same email with the same premise for the umpteenth time, from someone whose opinion you like and respect, it's more than a little disquieting.
I am far from an Ann Landers type, but I feel there should really be some sort of etiquette for dealing with this. As it stands, if I get a forward and it's something I've never heard of before that sounds even slightly suspicious, I do not pass go, do not collect $200 and go directly to snopes.com and decipher how on the level the forward is, and 99.9% of the time, it's so far off the level it's like that one negative mystery world on Super Mario Bros. where all you do is swim and collect coins. (WARNING: if you're never been to Snopes, you could easily spend an afternoon rifling through all the hundreds of urban legends they ran into and define the "truthiness"of each, if any. Don't say I didn't warn ya.)
After this, I used to reply back to the sender with a quick note to always check the validity of the forward, include the Snopes link, and be on my merry way. But I realized one day that such an act is akin to emailing all the kids you know and telling them what you know about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Sometimes people are happy with the truth they perceive. (The one that prompted this rant detailed a poor child who allegedly had a limb-compromising accident, and with each forward, the email provider will donate money towards her cause. It's the kind of benign, feel-good gesture to take part of forward every person you know so this girl can get the treatment she needs. Except that the accident never happened, the girl doesn't exist, and the email providers tend to not throw money around just by people sending out forwards.)
But still, am I the only person who gets annoyed by this? I suppose it rankles me a tad more just because I'm a journalism major and it's good journalistic sense not to take things at face value, esp. on the net. It's amazing that as more and more information seems to be spreading through the web, the less and less people feel like taking a few extra keystrokes and doing that research. Now this is NOT something I'm grabbing the pitchfork for and hunting people down. (After all, as I said above, my number one offender is my pops!) Truth be told, there are still a lot of forwards I send here and there (not so oddly enough, the lion's share come from my wife -- what can I say, she knows my humor!) But it's just something I noticed and have actually been ruminating on for the better part of a year, and am finally taking the time to write about it at length.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
It All Has to Begin Somewhere....right?
OK, so it's 11pm on a Saturday night, I'm feeling my energy drink pulsing through my body (Rip It's A'tomic Pom, if you're curious -- if people can be liquor connoisseurs then maybe I'll be an energy drink connoisseur) and I'm been reading lots of divergent thoughts throughout the internet, through all forms of media, and it's inspired me to maybe create a blog of my own. Now, I already have a presence on the internet, if only social networking sites... more on that later. But if all goes according to the plan, this blog will serve as a headquarters to my prolonged thoughts on matters and how it relates to who I am as a person. So maybe I should begin with a (hopefully short) summary of where I am now. Kind of like "my origin story" if I were a comic book hero. (Disclaimer: I am *NOT* a comic book hero. Far from it. I mean, do you SEE what they wear?)
OK, so. My name is Adam, I am on the cusp of the 35th birthday, I am happily married for just past six years, to a lady named Kelley. I live in a house in Janesville, WI with Kelley and two dogs. I work full-time for a major pharmaceutical convenience chain as an inventory specialist. Prior to being in Janesville, I spent my childhood/adolescence in a small town near Green Bay, then graduated from UW-Madison with a BA in Journalism. My deeply boring pastimes include listening to music, playing video games and reading. Although raised Catholic, I no longer regularly attend services; however, I still consider myself a fairly well-moraled person. I strive to follow the Golden Rule daily, and also attempt to learn something new each day. Although I've worked for my current company for over a decade, I have a wide and varied work background that includes getting paychecks from such myriad companies as Proctor & Gamble, Virgin Records, Asylm Marketing, The Badger Herald, the State Department of Revenue, Handleman Company, and the Janesville Gazette, as well as a recent stint being a foster parent which will hopefully continue with a different organization.
I've been a follower and fan of the web/internet since the first year of college, when email was a newfangled thing. Through some college buddies I discovered alt.net newsgroups and later, Mosiac, and never looked back from there. I did have a Geocities site waaay back in the late 90s, but have long since forgotten exactly where it was. I've had at least a dozen email accounts, but now have my main two at yahoo and gmail, as well as one I give out for people/companies that I suspect will spam the living daylights out of me. I have a Facebook account where I post all my nugget-sized updates and play waaaaaaaaaay too much Bejeweled Blitz and not enough Mafia Wars. I also have a MySpace page where I **used** to display all my random thoughts before it became overran with bots, famewhores and general clunkiness. My favorite internet extension of meself would easily be my last.fm page, which tabulates all the music I've listened to on my iPod and on my computer, song by song, since August 2006. Look in the "Journals" tab and you'll find a few dozen posts which are more music related -- I haven't yet decided whether I will keep my music blogs exclusively there going forward or drop them here as well.
OK, so a hour or so typing later, and the energy drink is wearing off, so I'll finish here. Where the blog goes from here on out is a mystery. I lead a very reserved life, so maybe this blog will allow me to show more of my opinionated, caustic side as it pertains of matters. Maybe I will unleash my zanier, freakier side some of my co-workers see brief glimpses of and that my older friends seem to relish. Maybe I'll just post a bunch of dirty limericks. But feel free to check in often; it may be fun.
OK, so. My name is Adam, I am on the cusp of the 35th birthday, I am happily married for just past six years, to a lady named Kelley. I live in a house in Janesville, WI with Kelley and two dogs. I work full-time for a major pharmaceutical convenience chain as an inventory specialist. Prior to being in Janesville, I spent my childhood/adolescence in a small town near Green Bay, then graduated from UW-Madison with a BA in Journalism. My deeply boring pastimes include listening to music, playing video games and reading. Although raised Catholic, I no longer regularly attend services; however, I still consider myself a fairly well-moraled person. I strive to follow the Golden Rule daily, and also attempt to learn something new each day. Although I've worked for my current company for over a decade, I have a wide and varied work background that includes getting paychecks from such myriad companies as Proctor & Gamble, Virgin Records, Asylm Marketing, The Badger Herald, the State Department of Revenue, Handleman Company, and the Janesville Gazette, as well as a recent stint being a foster parent which will hopefully continue with a different organization.
I've been a follower and fan of the web/internet since the first year of college, when email was a newfangled thing. Through some college buddies I discovered alt.net newsgroups and later, Mosiac, and never looked back from there. I did have a Geocities site waaay back in the late 90s, but have long since forgotten exactly where it was. I've had at least a dozen email accounts, but now have my main two at yahoo and gmail, as well as one I give out for people/companies that I suspect will spam the living daylights out of me. I have a Facebook account where I post all my nugget-sized updates and play waaaaaaaaaay too much Bejeweled Blitz and not enough Mafia Wars. I also have a MySpace page where I **used** to display all my random thoughts before it became overran with bots, famewhores and general clunkiness. My favorite internet extension of meself would easily be my last.fm page, which tabulates all the music I've listened to on my iPod and on my computer, song by song, since August 2006. Look in the "Journals" tab and you'll find a few dozen posts which are more music related -- I haven't yet decided whether I will keep my music blogs exclusively there going forward or drop them here as well.
OK, so a hour or so typing later, and the energy drink is wearing off, so I'll finish here. Where the blog goes from here on out is a mystery. I lead a very reserved life, so maybe this blog will allow me to show more of my opinionated, caustic side as it pertains of matters. Maybe I will unleash my zanier, freakier side some of my co-workers see brief glimpses of and that my older friends seem to relish. Maybe I'll just post a bunch of dirty limericks. But feel free to check in often; it may be fun.
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