The World is Falling Apart

Well, it's been awhile since I've been on here, was trying to cruise through April without getting too caught up in things since April usually turns out to be a crazy ass month, plus I had a lot of things to take care of in my real life. April came and went without too much incident apart from the usual crap, but no major school shooting or domestic terrorism at least. Last night I watched 'The Day After Tomorrow' and '2012' (fun!) and thought about all the natural disasters and crazy ass political/social turmoil going on around the world right now. We've had SEVERAL major earthquakes around the world, serious flooding, blizzards last winter (it's still snowing in some US states!), tornadoes, the HUGE environmental disaster still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico that is the BP spill, the Iceland volcano which subsequently shut down Europe's airspace for a while and it hasn't fully recovered, our country going nuts over the new immigration laws passed in Arizona, the collapse of Greece's economy and riots and now deadly rioting in Thailand. In the movie '2012' as they lead up to that year starting in 2009, there's crap like this going on and it's a really strange coincidence. Do I think anything will actually happen on 12/21/12? No I do not. But, shit, something may happen before then and it will have nothing to do with the Mayans!

Second Civil War

A couple of weeks ago I finished 'The Big Sort', which I've already written about on here already. I let Lee borrow it to read next and I've been telling a lot of people about it. What's fascinating is that it came out 3 years ago but is so pertinent now as we as a society seem to be splitting up and dividing even more so as the book predicted. I'd love to see the author's take on the last couple of years especially. Today I watched two movies from the Civil War period, 'Cold Mountain' and 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' as I was thinking about what it would be like if we had another event like that horrible tragic part of our history. Of course, in 1865 there were literally two halves of America, north and south, with a definitive line drawn across the middle and distinct areas with their own ideologies. What we have now is more city vs. suburb, urban vs. rural, coastal vs. the middle, with some leftovers even from back in the 1860's, the NE vs. the SE. There's a lot of talk about private or state run militias, more lax gun laws being passed by various states, including this week in Arizona where they are also getting ready to pass a law that will let cops stop anyone they want (but probably that look Hispanic) and question them/ask for documentation. I'm sorry, but this sounds like they can profile all they want. I've been reading the blogs and bitching about these news stories and read a lot of awful hate filled words out there. It's one thing to say someone's illegal and should go back to wherever they came from, but to blame them for crime and even fucking littering in one case! And no one mentions the fucking companies that not only hire illegals but even go into fucking Mexico and recruit them! And what do we expect when we're this un-fucking-believably rich country here even when our economy is bad and in Mexico it's a complete nightmare at this point? What would any of these people do if they were stuck in that situation? It's easy to say stupid shit from a computer terminal, but I HIGHLY doubt they'd say anything to any Hispanics, even if they knew any. Arizona is turning as crazy as Florida, S. Carolina and Virginia. And what's with the fucking guns already? Obama hasn't done ANYTHING federal against gun ownership, and meanwhile states, as I said before, have been relaxing their gun laws...so what the fuck are these people really afraid of? With so much rhetoric, guns, racism and whatever else seeming to ramp up, you can't help but wonder when it will all just explode. What we need is a leader that anyone can listen to, that can bring some sort of consensus back, and most of all that abhors all this violence and champions peace. We need it badly!

WTF America?

Man, I don't add anything in a week and this country turns upside down. Last weeekend the House met to pass the sweeping Health Bill endorsed by the President. Outside, teabaggers gathered and began to FINALLY show their true face - RACIST SCUMBAGS! It's about time they fessed up. They called a congressman that marched with MLK a n*%$#er and Barney Frank a 'faggot'! The bill passed anyways but that didn't stop anything, it only got worse. Bricks started being hurled at Democratic congresspeople's windows of their offices. A tea party add in N. Virginia gave what they thought was the congressman's address and said 'drop by' but it was his brother's home and some lunatic cut the gas line to the house! Several got threats over the phone and email and did the Republicans try and talk to these groups and see about calming things down? Of course not! In some cases, like 'Boner' they actual used words like 'He's a dead man back in his home town' and that fucking cunt Bauchmann said 'We're armed and ready in Minnesota, a revolution is good every now and then'. The worst thing I saw today was some sort of call to arms on April 19. They're using that day they 'claim' because it's the day the American Revolution began in 1775 with the battles of Concord and Lexington, but more recently it's the anniversary of the Waco compound attack in '93 and the Oklahoma City bombing in '95!!! They actually were calling for people to try and get as close to Washington with loaded guns as they could. THIS IS FUCKING CRAZY!!! As a historian I know how volatile that week in April can be...Columbine, Apr 19, Virginia Tech, Apr 16...hell even Hitler's birthday is April 20th! I abhore violence. I'm a pacifist. It's been 150 years since this country split in two and began a horrible 5 year Civil War that left the most casualties in any war American's have fought, the most destruction on our own soil, and an amazing President shot dead at the end of it. In some ways we've never recovered from that event and now these fuckers are actually yelling as if they'd like another Civil War! I mean what person that really loves this country would want that? Are they THAT sore of losers? Or is it that we've become so divided and only talk to or listen to people that are like our ideology? This sort of behavior has always begot violence. If you only listen to those that agree with you then it's a self fulfilling prophecy of destruction...and to have the idea that 30% of the population AT MOST can dictate what the other 70% do is just plain stupid. White people are scared because they see more and more Hispanics every day and hear stories of how they will be a minority in a few decades. They are like cats backed into a corner and they are lashing out in complete desperation now. Why don't they try and actually get along with those that don't look or think exactly like them? That's what made this country WORK in the past. Instead they'd rather tear it down to rubble than do that. And rubble is what they will get because even a pacifist, gun hating liberal like me will do everything in my power to defend myself and those I love against these creeps and if they think they're little revolution will help them out they're gonna really hate the one after that because then the 70% will hunt each and every one of them down and run them into the fucking ocean. And I guarantee this if these fuckers keep on going this direction and Obama gets assassinated. Guarantee it. You want a revolution? You'll get one and you'll just wish your end times came right then and there before we get to you. You may be the loudmouth on the block now, but the sleeping giant will awaken.

Today's the Day

Sunday, March 21, 2010 - The day Obama's administration sinks or swims. At least that's the way the news is setting up (and Repubs for that matter). If his Health bill doesn't pass today then this will be a one term Presidency a la Jimmy Carter and that's exactly how the Repubs want it so they've fought it tooth and nail despite the fact that it's completely toothless now without the public option and many concessions. The Dems should have just passed this thing as the House passed it back when they had the Filibuster votes, but because they didn't it really makes me wonder who they are conceding to, Repubs or big insurance and pharmaco? I hate how it's been set up like this too. If it doesn't pass it doesn't automatically mean that his adminstration is over, just like if it does pass these same people will say 'Well, his administration could still fail' but if it fails they'll say 'His administration ended today!'. And of course these are people that seem to be fine with throwing four years of America and have everything stagnate just so they can get back in office in 2012. On the Dem side, they had the biggest majority in decades last year and they completely blew it! They waited, and now everything will be this kind of battle instead of just passing laws on Health Care, the environment, etc. and just telling the Repubs to go piss up a chain because that's what Repubs would say to Dems. They don't want to be as bad, but sometimes you have to play tough to get things done and they promised the American people change and getting things done. Sure, they had to deal with the financial crisis, but I'm not so sure that was even handled very well since some of the same players are in the White House or the government still. Did Wall Street suddenly move out of the White House? Alas, it did not. The least they could have done was to give the people something too if they felt they needed to 'help out' Wall St. yet again. So today is the big vote. I still hope it passes but it's like voting for a guy you don't really like to keep another guy out of office. I will hope this passes, but only so it will finally be at least something passed to see if it works instead of just bickering for months and months on end.

Cable battles

Cable companies have been monopolizing viewership for close to 30 years now, though initially there were several companies that would compete in an area, by about 15 years ago it had come down to one main company per major city or network area. Like AT&T's monopoly before 1982, these companies don't just cover one city, but have statewide networks and almost national coverage, or they cover a powerful network area like New York City. Time Warner, Cablevision, Comcast - these are huge corporations that pretty much do just enough to not be considered a monopoly but might as well be one since any other competition in their areas are pretty much nill. I've noticed a trend recently where just before some major TV event, a cable company will 'suddenly' get into a battle over fees from the major networks and the next thing you know there's the threat of the channel disappearing from that cable company and a lot of pissed off viewers. I first saw this in September of 2007 as the World Series was getting ready to start and NBC and Time Warner went toe to toe. NBC went off the air here in Austin for a few weeks and the one show I was keeping tabs on at the time, 'Heroes', was missed and I never went back to it. This happened again recently with the Big 12 Championship and this weekend it's ABC and Cablevision in NYC while the Oscars are on tonight. I don't believe in coincidence anymore so just like strikes that happen at the worst possible time this seems like a ploy to me and not just some random 'Oh, the contract's up now and someone won't budge'. The big three networks, barely hanging on for dear life up against cable channels and putting out crappy reality shows and zero good sitcoms anymore are charging higher and higher fees to the cable companies to run their networks. But these cable companies have money falling out of their ass, yet they put on the 'poor me' mask when this happens as if they couldn't afford the fees. The cable company is really just a middle man created after network television wasn't 'free' anymore and this just got worse with the digital tranfer from a couple of years ago where NO channels are free and you HAVE to view them via some sort of cable company...sounds like more strong arming to me by you guessed it, the monopoly cable companies. These companies don't really care about the viewers, but if the networks go bankrupt and all the shows that are still watched by America, and this includes the Super Bowl, the Oscars and still a few damn good shows like 'Lost' then who really loses here?

Aging Boomers

I was watching the Golden Globes last night and noticing all the women in their late 40's to 60's that still look good but thought about how much money they have and how much work it is to stay looking that good. My dad's been working out at the gym every day of his life since the 60's and when he goes to these Forest Ave. High reunions every once in awhile he says they all look like old people, fat, gray hair, tons of wrinkles and what not, while he still looks younger. I also thought about the term '60's the new 40' or whatever and about the term 'cougar' describing older women that date younger men (there's even a TV show about it) and once again I see the Boomer generation not wanting to admit that they are getting old. It's not bad enough that as they get older they're going to suck all of what's left of Social Security before it's our turn, but they have to run away from aging in such a manner. Now, if they actually did take better care of themselves and not be as much of a burden on our medical system that would be great, but most people I see in their age group look that age, NOT 40 or 30. You know what? 60's the new 60.

Corporate Ways

Yesterday, one of my friends that I met at work got fired. She and I talked a lot about her department over the past months and I guess we saw it coming, but what bothers me is just seeing how companies do their dirty work. They had really put her in a situation where she could not win. She worked in the call center for our company, which meant being on phones all day long with our outside customers (my area does the same but with our inside customers). Coming from such an environment where I worked before, I know how the 'slave ship' works. What surprised me when I started working here was that the call center had little turn around and the employees seemed happy. I believe this stemmed from the managers of that area that seemed to genuinely care about their employees and made a rough job something to be respected and even enjoy with lots of team building and what not. Then they brought in a new manager for the area and not long after they lost two or three great managers and the turn around began in earnest. Unfortunately, the company doesn't step back and go 'hmmm...I wonder what happened?' they just let it run. Part of this could be that this manager is sleeping with a manager in HR. Anyways, another thing that happens in call centers and companies in general is that when the economy is good and other jobs are available out there, they tend to be more lax with the rules, but when the economy turns sour the screws are applied in order to weed out people and save money. Unfortunately the call center takes the brunt since they are at the bottom of the food chain. This along with a sub par manager leads to a disaster. Therese had tried to work with these people, but she was also very vocal about problems she saw in their methods and they did not want to hear this even if it was true. In the end they fired her. What's weird is I heard from someone else that it happened around lunch time, but we didn't get the email from HR about it until 5pm. This email tells us to delete their domain account and turn off email immediately and usually comes as soon as they are walked out of the building. We got another one at the same time, and last week two were let go in the same day. I have a feeling this is going to be a regular occurance now but I could be wrong. Like the ark, they are led out two by two. The company calls it a RIF (Reduction in Force). I wish Carlin could give his response on that bullshit. It's a firing, but lets call it something that sounds like nothing so no one has to feel guilty. We had a firing of 12 people in one day late last year and it included someone from HR who usually was the one walking people out so that was sweet. This just smells. Our area had our one on ones with our manager this week and he told us something that sounds a little cryptic. They want to actually get project managers to take over our projects so that we can focus on stuff that we actually are supposed to be doing. That sounds great but it also sounds like they won't need all of us to do that. We'll see what happens. There's a part of me still leftover from the battle scarred landscape of last year that thinks if I get let go I'll just store my stuff somewhere (dad's?) and hit the road or something.

Peace Man

It's time for another true peace movement. I was born just before the last big one and I'm 43 years old now...that's a super long time. Since the only thing I can control is myself (and I have enough fun trying to do that) I'm going to really work on being my own personal ambassador of peace. I will shun violence hopefully no matter what. I've been watching 'John Adams' again after Jena gave it to me on Blu-ray for Christmas and I just love the tone of Thomas Jefferson, how nothing seems to phase him and he's able to stay in control of his emotions. I want to be an example of peace and spread it's message whenever it's possible. In the land of apathy, cynicism, and outright hate, this is going to be tough, but I'll give it a try and see what I can do.

Preppers

Looks like there's a new word in the national lexicon, 'preppers'. These are what was once referred to as survivalists, but of course that has too many negative connotations, like gun or conspiracy nut, to call themselves that now. I just read an article in Newsweek about the phenomenon and this lady that started this about a year ago (right after Obama won the election and she lives in McCain's home state). I don't believe in coincidence yet not once in the article is Obama's win mentioned as a catalyst. Arizona is one of the least disaster prone areas of the country yet she claims she's doing this in case FEMA doesn't show up. Why doesn't she admit the real reason, that Obama scares her, or Beck told her a social civil war or political apocalypse was coming and she believes it? I've told my friends that if Palin wins election to President in 2012, I'm moving to another country, but if I was asked why I moved that would be my reason! Why is it that the ones with the guns and all the supplies also sound like the biggest pussies in the world? What the hell are they so afraid of? They're afraid of change, especially if it's away from some lifestyle they've become used to or actually like. They almost sound like a bunch of whiney civil liberties libs, but if you tried to compare them to that group they'd freak out. If an apocalyptic event started to happen, I'd want to be killed as quickly as possibly to not have to deal with it. To me, it's not about surviving anything (how many 'scares' have come up only to have nothing happen?) but making some sort of statement of their unhappiness with the way things have turned out.

2000's

Ah, the end of a decade is only 4 days away. I have NEVER been so ready for a decade to end. Most of the decades I've been alive have had both ups and downs but overall were pretty balanced between them so that I was only wishing for certain years to come to a close more quickly than others. This time around, with the lows far outweighing the highs, I'm ready for the whole fucking thing to be gone. Hell, no one even knows what to call the last ten years...the 'O's? The Otts? The WTF's? Because I follow events and the news (I just can't help it) my life and my mood tend to get tied in with what's going on out there, and I've pretty much hated just about everything about this decade when it came to politics especially. Sure, Obama won and that was probably the biggest plus event, but he's hardly been able to do anything in his first year and this is with a majority in Congress! But most of the decade was covered by the Bush years which I think will go down as one of the worst presidencies ever recorded in these here United States. People can argue all they want, but what irks me the most is that we've had bad presidents in the past, and they seemed to have to pay for idiocies, but this guy and especially the guy with the hand up his ass seemed to not only have gotten away with it all, but the media is still listening to Darth Vader still for some reason! Nixon resigned in disgrace, though he did get a big fat pardon from Ford. What worries me more is the precedent being set. Palin quit her fucking job as governor of Alaska and yet the media still keeps referring to her as 'possible 2012 candidate Sarah Palin'...would someone please explain to me why she would even be qualified after not only help McCain lose an election bid but then quit her job to go make money on books? I don't get it but the media is NOT all liberal like the right likes to say when the media says something it doesn't want to hear. There's also a very powerful right component to the media and they've learned from advertising that if you say something enough people start to believe it. Getting back to my original comment, I love the 70's, the 80's were okay and the 90's were pretty sweet but this decade has been one big pile of feces. This also goes for my personal life. I moved to Austin technically in the 90's so I can't even say that happened this decade. I got a big house and have made the most money ever but in the end I've got nothing to show for that really. This decade was a big experiment socially and I think in the end it failed if I want to be honest. As with any such times, I think I learned a lot of lessons and for the next while I should focus on those lessons and assimilate them into how I want to live my life going forward. Luckily friends that I made in the awesome 90's stuck around and made it through with me. I'm hoping with all hope that the 00's were the bottom of the barrel and things will only go up from here.

Apocalypse

'2012', 'The Road', 'The Book of Eli'...all apocalypse movies that are coming out within a few months of each other, and they're money makers as well. Why are we wanting the world to end so much? Is it all the end of days literature that the Christian right has been putting out for awhile now? Is it the bad economy and people are wanting something to happen that will put an end to it? Are our lives so bankrupt and seem so worthless in general that we want a societal suicide? It's hard to say if it's any of these or none of them. Beck the Asshole keeps talking about meltdown for our country (how patriotic is that?) and he has a lot of followers but it's not all teabaggers and religious nuts going to these movies. What's even more interesting when you look at the economic collapse reasoning, when the Great Depression happened, an economic slump that still makes this one look like nothing, the popular movies were escapist musicals and what not, not end of the world tomes. And of course with the whole 2012 scare, this is just the latest in a long line of end of the world 'scares' or scenarios dating back to at least the end of the first millennium before the year 1000 AD. Also economics isn't the only answer when looking at end of the world scares. Look at the Y2K scare at the end of the 90's. The economy was totally booming at the time. This one seemed to have more to do with the change to a new millennium and nothing more. Change is inevitable and always occurs no matter how afraid people in general are of it. They like what they know and change means different circumstances no matter if it means to a better life. You'll even hear people complain about winning the lottery and the changes it has brought their life, or someone that becomes a celebrity, yet so many strive to win the lottery or become famous. Change even happens when it illogically shouldn't. Look at 2000. The economy once again was booming, we had a surplus for the first time in decades, things seemed to really be going the right direction, yet Bush STILL 'won' (it shouldn't even have been that close by this philosophy) and the country took a different path. My final question on this subject is why does it have to be destructive change that's predicted? The Mayans said when their calendar ended it would be the start of a new age but they didn't say it would be a change to complete annihilation or a time of despair and destruction, yet that's how it's been interpreted by Hollywood and many books on the market today. Destruction is more exciting and people pay attention to it instead of to a new Age of Aquarius where people get along and all the divisions going on today are forgotten. Once again, people like what they know, and if they've known division, racism, cynicism, they want to keep knowing it. I mean shit, if you look at how divided we've become over the past 20 years, maybe the apocalypse is already here and the real change would be for us to get past this period in our history. Maybe that's the promise 2012 brings. I know that I will be hoping for that.

Fight Club and 9/11

I don't know if anyone's thought of this before now (they probably have) but how similar events that happen in 'Fight Club' occur two years later on 9/11. Tyler even calls where they are 'ground zero' before the buildings implode. I'm pretty sure that whether is was Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan or some element in our country that did it for real, they had to have been planning it way before the movie came out in the Fall of '99, BUT the book is older. Granted, there are big differences, like using planes, but hitting our financial district and just the act in general, sent us from a surplus just the year before to a recession! It wasn't as bad as it is now, but pretty bad. I wondered if maybe someone that read the book got the idea to set it up on our side, but lets say it was an anarchist that would have been excited at what happened around the same time the movie came out, the WTC riots in Seattle. I highly doubt they would want what occurred after 9/11, the crackdown on our country by our own government. I mean, watching 'Fight Club' is to also be reminded of how lax security was before 9/11. A lot of people hate this movie, but I l0ve it and my main reason is it's commentary on consumerism, not capitalism, consumerism. Advertisers getting us to work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need...direct quote from the movie. That pretty much sums it up. The only things we need are some sort of shelter, water, food, and I'll even through love in there but definitely the first three in order to actually survive. The rest are ideas put into our head from birth of things that we WANT. Part of me wonders if instead of doing what Tyler does in this movie, go to a monastery and give up all possessions and cut it all off that way without any violence. I want to be able to turn off this hate machine, but with peace. Unfortunately I like a lot of Americans am such a violent person. I want to not care too much about things especially those that I cannot control. Surely there's a way. Music can only go so far. Writing can only go so far as can film. And leaders become kidnapped by money, power or both. I hope I live to the day if ever that peace can truly reign.

Us vs. Them

Time to write about this because it's been spinning around my head a lot more lately. Of course, this is something I've been thinking about for a very long time and as this decade comes to a close, it's been a defining part of it. Why do we as a people or society have to be divided? I know there's always two sides to every coin: dark and light, good and evil, but 'black and white' has become much more defined as of late. There can be no middle ground, you're either with 'us' or with 'them'. It's almost as if we've all forgotten all the similarities between us in favor of the differences. We all will die one day. None of us truly knows what happens after we die (though we have heaven and hell which is kind of like us vs. them for the afterlife). The problem becomes even worse when one side becomes more powerful than the other and takes over the discussion. For conservatives and Republicans, this has been easy since they tend to agree with each other more and yell louder about their issues. For liberals and Democrats they try to listen to more sides of the issue but this causes more division and less cohesiveness which wouldn't be a problem accept that they are forced to compete with Republicans. What Republicans have done successfully is make the word 'liberal' seem like a bad thing, when it's just the opposite of them. How do you define light without dark or conservative without liberal? The media loves this division and instead of reporting the news like they used to, they place everything on these sides for us to battle over so they can have more interesting stories to report. For the rich, the division helps everyone keep their focus on each other and never at them. Lincoln himself said something along the lines of 'a house divided cannot stand' during a time when this country faced it's worst division ever, the Civil War. It almost seems like the media, the rich, the powerful would 'want' to see some sort of social war occur, though I'm not sure what they would really benefit from it in the end apart from a bunch of us killing each other off, removing competition, and one hell of a story. Just writing about this shows how I feel about 'them' and how easy it is to slip into a certain side. I've been thinking a lot about how a message could be sent out to everyone saying not to listen to the media, and in turn the rich corporations, but look around them at what they see day to day, see what happens around them, and don't immediately believe what they hear from a source that's not someone they already know. I truly hope that this starts to happen more as this new decade begins. Is that too much to ask?