1/13/2011

Not a whole lot going on these days, aside from the usual work. The good news is that work is picking up for me right now. I'm doing stuff that I enjoy doing, and it's making my days go by really fast. Also, speaking of work, I found out that there are 19 openings in the new line of business for which I applied. Unfortunately, only a few (my estimation) are the position that I applied for, and only one or two of those will be in Austin. My chances of scoring that job are diminishing. However, they're interviewing in mid-February so if anything I'll know by then. No big deal if I don't get that job, I was probably over-idealizing it anyways.

I played disc golf for the first time this past weekend. I played at Mary Moore Searight park with a couple of my coworkers and their friend. It was fun and I definitely want to play again. Next time Taylor has the weekend off I'm going to get a group together to hit one of the disc golf courses. It's a fun and free way to waste a couple hours of time outside.

----USELESS DRIBBLE THAT YOU CAN SKIP----

Doesn't look like I have much else to talk about. Luckily, I have the power of never shutting up. As I'm sure you've heard (if you haven't you need to get out from under your rock), there was a shooting in Arizona, critically injuring a congresswoman and several others, and sadly killing innocent lives. That's not exactly what my topic is about, however.

My topic is about how reactionary everything is in our society. No matter what incident might have happened, our society feels the need to take a course of action to "correct" or "prevent" future occurrences. For example, in this shooting in Arizona, we are likely going to spawn off endless gun control debates. Also, speaking of the shooter, have you noticed that not one media member has deemed him a "terrorist"? Change his skin color to a particularly shade of dark, and change nothing else, and all you'll be hearing about is terrorism, what connections he might have had to Al Qaeda, etc. Sad state of affairs.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent in my tangent. Let's take another example: shoe bomber. In fact, the whole construct of the TSA is a perfect example of reactionary actions designed to help, but don't actually do anything. Now we have to take off our shoes. Great, because that was really necessary.

I feel like I'm not making a strong enough point, but think about it. Everything that happens, usually bad, requires some sort of reaction in order to satiate people. One person can ruin the way things are for everyone else. We have one mad man going around shooting people and now there will be debates on gun control, enacted laws, more security for congress members when none of that is probably necessary. When we have bad things like this happen, sometimes the best action is just to move on. If we continuously have these knee-jerk reactions we're going to be building up this huge fort with no foundation (I just made up a nonsensical analogy).

Sorry for this barely coherent ramble, but I needed to make this blog longer. Besides, I told you to skip it earlier, didn't I?

TSA and you

For those of you who check out my links to the left, you may have noticed a trend lately - the TSA. I am not a fan of the direction the TSA has taken since its inception in 2001. In fact, that's an interesting tidbit for those who have forgotten. The TSA has been around for less than 10 years. It was created as a division of Homeland Security after 9/11. What about before then? Private security companies were contracted for each airport, and I think that's how it needs to be once again.

First, let's take a look at what TSA has become: an overreaching, privacy-invading security theater for airports. Now, that's of course just my opinion, but I have yet to be convinced otherwise. I think every additional security step they have introduced has been simply reactionary, and they have little imagination and foresight to prevent future attacks. In fact, its creation was reactionary. We had the tragic 9/11 attacks, so we created the TSA because we thought it would help. We had the shoe bomber, so we started taking off our shoes. We had some liquid scare, so now we can't have more than 3oz of any liquid. Now we have this underwear bomber guy, so they escalated their roll-outs of the full-body scanners. At one point, however, have they actually prevented a major incident? None that I can recall, although I could be mistaken. All of those potential attacks went completely by the TSA. Imagine that.

Before 2001, I am fairly certain that we were targets of terrorists. In fact, to my recollection there have been extremists out there who have hated us since the mid-1900's when we screwed up that whole Israel-Palestine thing. Yet, we still somehow got by. Since 9/11, we (the U.S. Government) have been infused with fear, and that fear has driven us to points that I deem unacceptable.

The sad truth is that if a terrorist wants to wreak havoc, they will find a way to do it. Not to instill fear in anyone, but we could all be sitting at our jobs and a suicide bomber could just come in and blow us all up. There are some harsh realities out there, and one of them is that we could die at any moment. But it doesn't even have to be from a terrorist attack. It could be from a car accident, natural causes, or anything really. Think about the New York subways for a moment. There are thousands of people who ride the subways every day, and yet we don't have crazy security restrictions involved there. Metro buses? Trains? Ferries? What makes an airport and an airplane any different?

Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have any security, nor should we just abolish the screening process altogether. However, I just don't think TSA helps and it's been pretty evident so far. Now they are starting to cross lines. Not only are they inefficient and ineffectual, but they continue to impose stricter security on us simply to appear as if they are actually doing something. At some point, we as a people have to push back. "Pushing back" is one of the foundations of this country (think the American Revolution), lest we forget. At what point do you draw the line for a "security theater"?

So what is the TSA doing these days? Full-body scans and invasive pat-downs. Those are your two options in most airports if you don't get the trusty metal detector. You have two choices for the body scan: x-ray and radio-wave/millimeter-wave. The former has some people questioning the legitimacy of their safety claims. These type of x-ray full-body scanners are still in their infancies as far as I'm concerned, and we really have no way of knowing long-term effects and potential cancer risks. The radio-wave or millimeter-wave scanners are apparently safer, according to the previously linked article. Is it actually dangerous? Hell if I know, but to me, it's not worth the risk. It might be worth the risk if I thought that we as a society actually valued the full body scanner. When we get radiation at a hospital via x-rays or treatment, we are doing it because the benefits outweigh the risks. I want to see if my bone is broken. I don't get shit from being scanned at the airport.

If you've read this far into my blog, then you have the patience to read this very interesting piece on how they handle security at the Israel airport. They profile people, have behavioral specialists everywhere, and only scan belongings as a backup. They don't look for weapons, they look for people. It's a method that actually makes sense, but I admit that at this point, setting up a system like that in the U.S. would be very costly. Then again, I wonder how much money we're draining into this piece of shit we call the TSA.

Also, did you guys know that airports can opt-out of the TSA and go back to privatized companies now? They only had to use the TSA for 2 years after its formation, apparently. A representative has already started contacting airports to let them know about this clause in the original bill.

Here are a few more views on the TSA:
-Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA
-Has Airport Security Gone Too Far?
-TSA screenings: Government stupidity at work

I'm not one to really take up causes, but I think we're at a crucial point in our society. I know some people simply don't care and will do whatever, but that doesn't make what they're doing right. Apathy does not breed anything good. The TSA has no qualms to continue to violate our privacies for the sake of "security" and eventually it'll be on us to tell them we've had enough. They have no concept otherwise. In fact, they seem to have no problem harassing 3-year-olds.

I'm curious if you guys have an opinion on this. Am I just going overboard here? In the mean time, you can count on me to opt-out of the scanners. Yes, I'll have to deal with getting violated with a pair of hands, but at least I know for certain that there won't be any adverse side-effects.

Firefighters refuse to help man who didn't pay his fee

This has to be the most ridiculous story I've read recently.

Let me set up the story for you. Every year, residents living in the rural area of Obion County must pay a $75 fee for fire fighter service from South Fulton. As you'd expect, this family did not pay the fee that year, for reasons I don't know.

Well, as you can probably assume at this point, their house caught fire and they called 911. "Didn't pay your fee? Whoops, talk to you later!" That's basically the response he got.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.

Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.

...

It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't. 

So, let's get this straight. They denied coming to help him because he didn't pay the fee. Harsh. A short while later, the fire spread to the neighbors house. Then they came to the neighbors house to put out the fire, and continued to ignore the Cranicks' burning house.

Their response seems so ridiculously morally incorrect that it honestly upsets me. Over $75 measly dollars, they refused to come and save a man's residence from burning down. Then, even after they arrived on the scene to help the neighbors' houses, they still refused to help him. Are you shitting me? What happened to civic duty? How about instead of making it optional, you just tax them $75 a year so we don't have these situations? How about instead of refusing to put out a fire, you fine someone $300 if they didn't pay the $75 fee? How about instead of letting a family's residence and possessions get destroyed in a fire over $75, you just help them out because it's the right thing to do? How important is $75 to you that you are willing to risk the obvious media, community, and political backlash? It's so stupid that I can't fathom their thought process.

To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.

Good for you.

[Full story via WPSD]

French senate approves the "burqa ban"

Something about this ban rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the fact that it's completely hypocritical.

The French claim that burqas represent a society in which women have no rights, and they want to separate themselves from that. And yet, they feel that the solution to this is take away a woman's right to wear a burqa. Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy? Apparently I'm a minority in France:

The ban has strong public support, but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.

That's nice, but if it's only a tiny minority to begin with, then why are they so gung-ho to ban it outright? What if a woman wants to wear a burqa? I cannot claim to understand why they would, but I'm also not a Muslim woman so I can't say that it isn't possible. I'm sure there is a fair percentage of full veil-wearing women in France who are doing so out of choice. In fact, many people do things that make sense to them and few others because of their faith. There are Mormons in America that refuse to see rated R movies. What does that have to do with your faith? Since I'm not Mormon, I can't understand. Yet, you don't see anyone moving to ban any Mormon practices.

However, if the law passes, women who choose to wear a burqa will have this to look forward to:

It envisages fines of 150 euros (£119) for women who break the law

Well done, France.

[BBC - French senate votes to ban Islamic full veil in public]

Interesting article on the iPad and boredom

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/06/why-i-returned-my-ipad.html

I agree with some of the points on there, and I'm guilty, too.  I've mentioned to people before that I think kids are overstimulated these days.  There is not much of a concept of boredom anymore, is there?  They have constant access to tons of things, and most of them that aren't even that beneficial to you (not educational, not active, etc).  TV, internet, twitter, video games, etc.  Boredom sucks, but it also makes us search for something else, sometimes something that we wouldn't normally do.

don't judge a book by its cover

Social stigmas are a funny thing. If I saw this guy on the street, I would have probably assumed he was a douche or something. I definitely wouldn't have guessed that he would stop and be friendly to a little kid interesting in his jacket. Society, thankfully, has proved me wrong again.

my thoughts on the lost finale

As you probably know, I am obsessed with Lost. It finally came to an end last night, and overall I'd have to say I'm pleased - with both the finale and the entire story.

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***


First off, I watched the finale at the drafthouse which was pretty fun. When the show ended, and the "LOST" came up on the screen, I think that was the quietest the crowd had been the entire night. I imagine it was a combination of people being confused, absorbing what they just watched, and I'm sure some people were also disappointed.

I thought the finale was pretty damn good, but the reason I thought that was because eventually I let go of my expectations (I'm sure all the "let go" references in the show were also veiled comments to the audience, too) and just accepted the story they were telling us. At that point I stopped being so critical and I just enjoyed the story unfold.

I know there are some people who are hugely disappointed with the show, and I think those are the people who were more invested in the mythology and mysteries, and weren't really in it for the characters. Unfortunately, the producers have always said the characters come first. The show, in my opinion, was not about people being lost on an island. It was about people being lost in their lives. The story was about them "finding themselves" and seeking redemption from their flaws, with the help of each other.

Yes we all could have used more answers, but there is another problem in that - the show was part sci-fi. Any possible answer they could have given us for things that are fiction would have been disappointing. I read on a critic's review where they compared it to the meaning of life. If we were told what the meaning of life was, chances are we would be disappointed in the answer. The mystery and fun come in the unknown. Let's take the "whispers" and their explanation, for example. It is a perfectly feasible explanation, and yet it was kind of underwhelming. It wasn't so much the fault of the writers. Rather simply, there is no explanation to that kind of huge mystery that would have all of us saying, "how awesome!"

I'm kind of perplexed by how many people are confused about who was dead and when. It seems like they practically spelled it out on the show. If I understood right, everyone on the island either died on the island (Jack and everyone before), or died later (unseen on the show). The 'flash sideways' was an afterlife of sorts (open to interpretation), at a point after everyone died. And yet I see people theorizing that the island was purgatory, or that everyone was dead from the beginning. I don't see how that makes sense, what do you think? If they were all dead, then what? They had island "purgatory" and then also flash sideways "purgatory"? What would be the point of two "realms of existence" if they were dead in both? Also I think the last scene - where they panned across and showed Christian's shoe stuck up on the tree - practically proved that they weren't dead and the events on the island all actually happened. The shoe was completely worn and time had clearly passed.

Some people got confused by the wreckage they showed at the end of the episode - but that wasn't even part of the official episode. That was just footage ABC put up, in lieu of a promo for another show, I guess as an homage to the whole journey. But people started analyzing it and thought that maybe it was proof that no one survived or something. Who knows.

Overall, it's sad to see it come to an end - when will we have another show like this that both dares to be original and creative, and also draws such a huge community? Lost is untouched, in my opinion, in terms of the whole experience and journey. People who watch the show after it aired won't get the same experience of huddling with coworkers and friends, or on the internet, endlessly theorizing and over-analyzing pieces of the show. The writing hasn't always been great, there have been loopholes and missteps, and season 6 had its faults. In the end though, I'm grateful that I picked up the show and followed it religiously since season 1.

At least we have still Dexter (which I recommend if you don't watch it)!

Thank you, namaste, and good luck

Trust in government

Link: people-press.org/trust/

...hasn't been good in a while. I was wondering the other day about how saddened everyone in Poland was over the death of their president (and countless others). I'm sad to say if that happened here instead, I feel our population would not be grieving as much as theirs, and the reason is this poll I've linked.

I've only started becoming aware of politics over the last couple years, because prior to that I just didn't care. I'm probably still more apathetic than I should be, but at least now I'm actually trying to keep up with it all. More importantly, I'm trying to form my own opinions by reading multiple sources and viewpoints. That's a whole other can of worms, though. Back to my original point, I feel like right now our population is ridiculously polarized.  Part of that is the portrayal by the media, but I do believe that there is a strong percentage of people out there who truly hate our government and/or Obama. The question I have is, was this percentage as high in the past, with previous presidents? Also, are people so blinded by this hate that if the unthinkable were to happen and Obama died, would we all come together and unify as Poland did, or will we have people rejoicing in the streets?

Maybe I don't want to know the answer.