Here’s to You!!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, Alex Koroknay-Palicz!”

This may seem awfully strange considering I absolutely blasted him in some recent entries. So, okay, maaaaybe this is also out of guilt.

Alex absolutely drives me insane. I don’t think that will change. I’m sure I return the favor. Sometimes intentionally.

But, no, seriously, he’s alright. I suppose I forget that sometimes. It’s easy to criticize. Fun, too! I don’t agree with a lot of what he says and does. I even stick by most of the criticisms I’ve had about him recently. I’m not going to lie. However, what’s all too common and easy to fall into when going overboard with negative criticism is to forget the positive. Sometimes we think the positives are a given, that it should be assumed that what isn’t negatively criticized should be assumed to be positive.

Saying so is necessary, though. And warranted.

It’s easy to say and know a decision he makes isn’t what’s best for NYRA, while also easy to forget there really wouldn’t be a NYRA without him. Easy to forget the entire organization, even with its amazing growth over the years, has been resting entirely on his shoulders, and against all odds he’s held it up, crushing himself in the process. Easy to forget he might have his reasons for why he does what he does, even if he should explain them better now and then.

Not to mention that for a little while a few months ago, he seemed to be free at last and able to separate himself safely, seeing such a bright future for NYRA, only for things to go bad and require his disappointed return. Back to working for nothing, unsure of the future, and having board members like me tell him everything he’s doing wrong.

I guess that’s what makes criticism so easy, though. He’s seen as uniquely capable of amazing things, so we have really high expectations of him. He’s our Fearless Leader, so we expect superior judgment and unparalleled zeal for the cause. And when he doesn’t live up to this, which is hard for anyone classified as human, we get annoyed at him.

But he’s alright. In the end, he’s still the person with whom I’ve done just about every NYRA activity, from tabling to setting up and attending annual meetings. So many failed attempts at NYRA-DC meetings have turned into just the two of us and maybe a third person having lunch. Not to mention years and years of tending to the forums!

Forums, I might mention, that when I first joined I was bothered by what some people there were saying (not about youth rights, though, other stuff), and it was knowing Alex, who was a regular on there and I’d already met him a few times, was alright.

But lately, as you can imagine, maybe Alex has been feeling a bit like nobody thinks he can ever do anything right. Most of what he does, what he puts many hours and much effort into, is either ignored or critically picked apart. Maybe it just might not seem worth it. Low morale is a bitch.

Which leads me to one important thing I want him and everyone to remember.

Even if NYRA succumbs to all the shit that went bad in recent months and sinks to the bottom of the ocean tomorrow…

Alex, you did NOT waste your life!

You’re 30 years old and you’ve done more you can be proud of than probably most 90-year-olds (and that’s considering they can be proud of, well, making it to 90). This is what you wanted to do with your life. And you did it. Your friends and family thought and probably still think you’re out of your mind or that you have wasted your life, but they’re full of shit. You did it anyway. And you did it well. Not perfectly by any stretch, but no matter what happens you were still successful. Sustaining NYRA meant also sustaining a movement largely ignored beforehand. Most people with such ambitious dreams either give it up because they don’t have what it takes. Most give it up because they are incapable of doing something so many people in their lives think is ridiculous. Most give it up because it isn’t paying anything. Most give it up for more realistic yet significantly less rewarding lives. But not you. You stuck with it. Even when things seemed dark, you kept it going, and over time more of us came along to help.

And, while I’m confident it won’t happen, even if we lose NYRA, devastating as the idea may be, not all is lost. We can rebuild it. NYRA is more than an office and funding. Those things are pretty goddamn important, YES! But what makes NYRA what it is has always been… US! All of us!

To paraphrase the Whos: “NYRA will always be, just as long as we have we!”

And nothing that happens now can change the impact NYRA has made on youth rights. We still had all that press coverage. All those supporters whose eyes were opened. So many members whose lives were changed for the better when they found and got involved with this organization. This organization that is only here because of you kept it going. Nothing will ever change that.

You’re hardly infallible. You’re not even above criticism, actually. But damn it, you’ve done some good shit. How can you call that wasted? If launching a movement to liberate billions of today’s and tomorrow’s young people is a wasted life, shit, WTF is a not-wasted one?!

Here’s to You!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, Usiel Phoenix!”

She’s the President of NYRA. Jeffrey Nadel’s the Vice President now. I like having the two of them running NYRA as I strongly believe they are our two greatest youth rights activists, though their powers and specialties are in different areas. Jeff’s a pro with the media and public relations and prestige and legal action and that sort of thing. Usi was an emancipated minor who’s had to not only overcome the conditions that led to her seeking it to begin with but the legal hurdles to at long last obtain it. And now that she’s gotten her freedom, she’s dedicated to doing the same for the other youth. She’s experienced more youth rights violations than most and is about attacking the root of the problem and expanding understanding of it.

And that is just what she’s been doing at Occupy Wall Street! Voting age. Behavior mod. You name it. She even stopped a mother from forcing her 15-year-old daughter home from the protests.

And then she was there when NYPD raided Zuccotti Park.

And the cops attacked her. They tried to suffocate her, but succeeded only in cracking a rib. Later they dislocated her elbow when forcing her to the ground.

NYPD DID THIS

And she battles on.

She’s alright now. But, damn, she is one of the bravest people I’ve ever had the privilege to know.

Technically, since one of the main things she’s been doing there is promoting youth rights, she experienced police brutality in the line of duty, so to speak.

Yet due to some weird technicalities her actions were completely left out of NYRA Freedom.

(Good Lord, our own organization is censoring Occupy stuff from its news! LOL)

And this is only the most recent of her wonderful youth rights endeavors. Last year, when we were rallying at the Supreme Court during the oral arguments for Schwarzenegger v EMA (later changed to Brown v EMA, which you may recall we won 7-2), she gave that amazing speech about free speech and voting rights! Not to mention her work leading up to it to find people to share their thoughts on the value of video games for our Amicus Brief. She’s also helped UTEC Lowell with their campaign to lower the Lowell, MA voting age to 17. She testified in DC against the curfew. She gave a presentation at the 2010 Annual Meeting about her emancipation process. And on top of all that, she’s the only board member besides myself who’s a regular at chats, who is interested in what our members have to say. Plus lots of other stuff I’m surely forgetting.

She’s a fierce fighter for the cause. We’re very honored to have her.

Here’s to You!!!

So I raise my glass (or perhaps a Reese’s Cup!) and say, “Here’s to you, trick-or-treating!”

Happy Halloween!

As I write this, I’m sitting at my front door with my laptop, periodically getting up to pass out candy to lots of adorable neighborhood children in adorable costumes! Yay!

I have to say, I’m happy that the rise in helicopter parenting and stranger danger hasn’t totally demolished trick-or-treating, although those have certainly taken some massive blows to it, varying depending on location. When I was living at my grandmother’s house a few years ago, there weren’t very many kids around on Halloween, which was disappointing. But now that I’m in a different neighborhood, there are a bunch!

Yet I get people I know getting apathetic about it, who… ugh… don’t give out any candy and just leave the lights off that night. See, I could never do that. How could I not participate in trick-or-treating? I remember trick-or-treating myself, occasionally having to pass by the darkened doorsteps of my boring neighbors who seemed to be going “bah humbug!” to the whole thing. Makes no sense.

It’s great! Sitting all evening with a bowl of candy I’m totally taking from now and then. The kids come up, dressed up in costumes they put some amount of effort in, all smiles, and I give them some candy and they smile even bigger and say “thanks!” Awww!

I sometimes wonder if this contributes to the objectification of children. I guess, the idea does seem to be “aww, you’re so cute! here’s a treat!” But I suppose that’s more a side thing, while there is good in the social aspect of visiting neighbors under happy terms, walking around the neighborhood on a lovely autumn evening (seriously, in my entire life, I think it has rained on Halloween only once or twice!). And it is an evening when, despite the occasional presence of parents to make sure Pedobear doesn’t attack, the kids themselves truly run the show. Therefore, we must keep up trick-or-treating, not grow apathetic, and keep Halloween and all the good clean fun it carries with it alive!

And to not ruin it by trying to make it more adult.

Although, for your information, absolutely none of the little girls I’ve seen out tonight, or on any Halloween, despite what the news says, have been dressed like prostitutes!

Here’s to You!!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, college protesters!”

Today, March 4th (”march forth”, get it?! ha ha ha), at a fuckton of colleges around this country students are occupying their school buildings and even interstates! It’s a beautiful thing!

What for? What else? Tuition keeps going up, yet there are constant layoffs, lower quality education, cut programs, and all kinds of other ways the students are getting the royal screw job. So GOOD FOR THEM for all their activities today, standing up for themselves! I’m at awe at all that has gone on!

Look at this! A map of all the day’s student protests and occupations. Look at that! Holy crap!

Look at all that has happened! Mostly in California, but also stuff right around here at good old College Park.

Go here for more info on everything.

Yay, students! Kick some ass!

Here’s to You!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, Simpsons!”

It was twenty years ago today the pilot episode “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” first aired. Nah, I wasn’t watching. Didn’t start watching until the second season actually. But even before then, for some reason, I decided Bart was my favorite character. They were on the cover of a TV Guide, and I showed it to my dad’s friend and pointed to him saying “that one is my favorite”, and he said “You mean Bart?” and I’m like “oh, is that his name?” Something like that. To this day, I still call Bart my favorite character, though it’s really sort of a three-way tie with him and Lisa and Maggie, depending on the episode.

I like the Sideshow Bob episodes, the very old ones and the more recent ones.

There’s a segmented Christmas episode from a couple years ago, where Homer, Marge, and Bart are Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, and Bart/Jesus is crying and Marge/Mary asks Homer/Joseph to hold him for a while, and he groans and says “But I’m watching the Orange Bowl!” and the screen pans over to reveal he’s just staring at a bowl of oranges.

Interesting how the episodes “The Crepes of Wrath” and “Bart vs. Australia” portray France and Australia respectively as being indifferent about child abuse, compared to a supposedly more child-friendly USA, when in reality both of those countries have harsher laws against child abuse than we do. Of course, those episodes are so old now that when they first came out, that might not have been true yet. And apparently the Australia one is mostly just spoofing the Singapore caning thing.

And while the Simpsons themselves, at least near the beginning, seemed like an average white (yellow?) family that could have been pulled out of the 1950’s, with them living in the size house they live in, yet Marge doesn’t work and Homer works a blue-collar job, outside the family things were sometimes a bit more modern, at least acting like the 1960s occurred. The family physician Dr. Hibbert being black, for one. Plus a few other roles here and there occupied by someone other than a white male, yet done so seemlessly. Well, except they dropped that in recent episodes, and it kind of annoys me. Yeah, Hibbert, Carl, and a few other regulars are black, but there was never any kind big deal made of it, never came up in conversation. More recently, there have been scenes or jokes that seem to focus on them being black and even behaving stereotypically, such as the Hibberts going to a “black” church in one episode, or Carl complaining that the other guys assumed he was good at basketball just because he was black only to the next second make a great shot and start boasting about it in a stereotypical “ghetto” way. Yeah, let Family Guy do shit like that. The Simpsons should be above that sort of crap.

That’s another thing. Yeah, I realize Seth MacFarlane just crapped out a spinoff, occupying an hour and a half of Sunday night with three different shows of his (only Family Guy actually being funny, while Cleveland Show is so-so, and American Dad just fails hard), and seeing as that just knocked off King of the Hill (noooooo!). But, Simpsons, you’re NOT Family Guy! You’re better than Family Guy and have a different style. Don’t imitate Family Guy, because Family Guy already fills that role. Stick to your role. Don’t go all “New Coke” on us.

Eh, I could keep up this commentary forever, so I’ll just switch to some quotes…

“Oh, my God! Somebody took a bite out of the big Rice Krispie square!… Oh, yeah, and the waiter’s been brutally beaten, heh.”

“What? It’s not Magaggie’s birthday?”

“Now I know I haven’t been the best Christian, because while you’re up there blah-blah-blahing, I’m usually asleep or mentally undressing one of the female parishioners. Anyhoo, can I have $40,000?”
“Now I know I haven’t been the best Jew, but I have rented Fiddler on the Roof, and I will watch. Anyhoo, can I have $40,000?”
“Now I know I haven’t been the best… oh, forget it.”

“Without our Mayor Quimby, our town would be extinct/ We wouldn’t have our tire yard or midsize roller rink/ We wouldn’t have our gallows, or our shiny bigfoot traps/ It’s not the mayor’s fault that the stadium collapsed!… Mayor Quimby… if you were running for mayor he’d vote for you!”

“You call that a knife? THIS is a knife!”
“That’s a spoon.”
“Aha, so you’ve played knifey-spoony before!”

“You never learned cursive?”
“Well, I know hell, damn, bitch…”

“Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse.”
“Oooh, that’s bad.”
“But it comes with a free Frogurt!”
“That’s good!”
“The Frogurt is also cursed.”
“That’s bad.”
“But it comes with your choice of toppings!”
“That’s good.”
“The toppings contain potassium benzoate.”
*stares blankly*
“That’s bad.”
“Can I go now?”

“Apu, I’ve learned that life is just one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead.”

“Here are your messages: You have 30 minutes to move your car, you have ten minutes, your car has been impounded, your car has been crushed into a cube, you have 30 minutes to move your cube.”
*phone rings*
“Y’ello, Mr. Burns’s office.”
“Is it about my cube?”

“Dear Mr. President, there are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am NOT a crackpot!”

“Homer, I have someone here who thinks he can help you.”
“Batman?”
“No, he’s a scientist.”
“Batman’s a scientist.”
“It’s not Batman!”

“You have anything to drink?”
“Mountain Dew or Crab Juice.”
“Ewww, yuck!… I’ll take a Crab Juice.”

“I’m so hungry I could eat at Arby’s!”

“Ohh, Wet Cement! Is there any sweeter sign?… Well, maybe High Voltage.”

“What ever happened to good old fashioned town pride?”
“That’s been going downhill ever since the lake caught fire.”

“We’ll find Bart and Stampy. All we have to do is follow this path of destruction… D’oh! Stupid tornado!… Hahahaha! Look! It’s got Patty and Selma!”

“Brought to you by ILG, selling your body’s chemicals after you die, and by Little Sweetheart Cupcakes, a subsidiary of ILG.”

“Bart, how did you get a cell phone?”
“Same way you got me. By accident, on a golf course.”

Okay, this could go on forever, too. Yay, Simpsons! Keep on rolling!

Here’s to You!!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, NYRA!”

For today, after several weeks of toiling and bugging the crap out of everyone for votes in some Facebook contest sponsored by Chase bank, NYRA has met with success. Amazing, breathtaking, miraculous success on this December 16, 2009, nine days before Christmas and 6th night of Chanukah…

NYRA has won $25,000.

For so long, we’ve been a small-budgeted organization, weak next to bigger stronger organizations who can run big ass campaigns and hire staff who aren’t starving to death. For so long, we’ve had members who wanted to help out but didn’t know how and we didn’t know what to have them do. We’ve always been great at keeping ourselves afloat during adversity like a cork in the bath tub, but we’ve still been seemingly without direction and without a future.

Perhaps God showed us mercy. What is known is that all our people had to do was vote for us. What with it not costing anything and being very straight forward instructions, it had a recipe for success. What is known is that, somehow or another, we built our miracle at last, through Keith’s incessant calling of members, through Alex’s exhausting tabling, and the invaluable efforts of our other members, who all came together, believing that this could be done.

We built this Christmas miracle. Or Chanukah miracle, as Hal suggested, seeing as it is Chanukah right now and a lot of our members are Jewish. It wasn’t just handed to us. Well, the opportunity arose, but it took us, all of us, our determination and efforts, and we made it happen. We waited all day today for the results to get posted, biting our nails nervously, worrying it may all have been for naught. And then, around 6pm, Alex got the e-mail. And then, we found the miracle we had been building up had happened, had shown bright before us. Shining bright the future of the youth rights movement that merely six months ago we thought may just be a pipe dream. Shining bright for us to walk into and build it up together.

Here’s to You!!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, NYRA of Southeast Florida!”

They’re a chapter so nice I’ve said “Here’s to you!” to them twice! You may recall the first was last September for their super awesome voting age ad that we had aired on Comedy Central in DC in October. Oh, I’m so happy to say that was only the beginning of their sheer untainted awesomeness.

Because just yesterday, NYRA-SEFL filed a lawsuit against the city of West Palm Beach to get their curfew law struck down. They tried reasoning with the city. They tried protesting. City still wanted to be ridiculous and ageist, so NYRA got litigious. So Jeffrey Nadel and company, with the help of attorney Barry Silver, have filed a lawsuit that the curfew violates a host of constitutional rights. They have videos. They have docs. They have Twitter. West Palm Beach, and all curfew cities for that matter, can consider itself owned.

Here’s the news article about it, too. Go vote Yes in the poll and leave supportive comments. Youth rights supporters shall not be silent!

This has been Day 32 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 9.

Here’s to You!!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, President Barack Obama!”

I have two songs floating around in my head. One of them is “Wind of Change” by the Scorpions. The other one is “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who. I’m somewhere in between.

So today at work most of us were on CNN.com streaming the inauguration, not getting much work done but no one really cared.

In the minutes before the oath, you have to really think “I’m so glad I’m not him right now!” Can you imagine that kind of anticipation? What probably doesn’t help is that there are a lot of people under the foolish notion that practically by tomorrow Barack Obama will just flip a switch and everything will be cool. No more wars or economic strife or any of that bad stuff. Uh, yeah, as much as I very much believe he can improve things, and that his election is good news for the youth rights movement (as opposed to McCain, that is, I’m not including any of the long shots in that assessment), no one can just snap his fingers and fix everything. It will take a while. Accept that. Don’t go crying a month from now when things are relatively the same and start screaming that Obama lied. You’re just stupid.

Oh, and Dick Cheney in the wheelchair? At first I was thinking “aww, must be from his health issues”. But when I heard it was because he pulled a muscle while packing up to move, I LOL’d.

And, gee wiz, Ted Kennedy, can’t they get through an inaugural luncheon without it turning into what could be an intro to House?

Also, the whole “ZOMG! Black President!!!” thing is getting a little tiresome. I mean, yes, it is a great thing that we’ve broken the white mold (and even then, pretty much only those of English, Scottish, Irish, or German descent). I’m even proud to have seen such a milestone occur. But a black man is not all Barack Obama is. He’s the guy we elected to, among a fuckton of other things, pick up Bush’s mess. The fact he’s black never even enters my mind. Well, except for when he was walking during the parade and I had the lingering fear that in the crowds was some KKK asshole ready to make Obama beat William Henry Harrison’s record.

I’m happy about this. I mean, I just know I’ll head to the NYRA forums after this to find a bunch of the people there all like “waaah, I hate Obama, I want Ron Paul!” because everyone there is a whiny butthurt idiot, but whatever.

Here’s to You!!!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, Sara!”

Sara is the girlfriend of fearless NYRA executive director, Alex Koroknay-Palicz. I’ve mentioned her before in the 100 Days recap. Now I’ve handed out a lot of kudos in these occasional “Here’s to You” bits, but for this, she’s definitely among the most deserving. I mean, to have the role in Alex’s life that she does, it is far from enviable and indicates she must be either just that resilient, just that brave, or just that desperate. Maybe some combination thereof.

Four years ago, on the NYRA forums, there Alex was always whining that he wanted a girlfriend, and I always yelled at him to STFU and quit whining. Then in early 2005, he got a girlfriend, so he did STFU for a while. Then that went to hell that summer, and he was all whiny and bitter again. Then 2006 and 2007 went by… *trails off into some mumbling* …and then in April 2008 he met Sara and has been with her since. Yay! Happy Alex is win, after three years of loneliness and being an annoying prick.

Admittedly, I’ve only met Sara twice and know very little about her, and Alex never really says anything about her, so she remains a bit of an enigma. But I think I can piece it together.

Maybe she’s a sleepwalker. That in her own real waking world, she doesn’t know Alex at all. Only her sleepwalking self interacts with him. When she wakes up for real, she finds the faint scent of paprika in her home to be unusual but doesn’t think much of it.

Or maybe I should consider the possibility that she is in fact dating Alex in her normal, waking, semi-sane state, of her own free will. It’s a puzzling thought to think of. She seems perfectly nice. Why degrade herself?

Wait. Maybe she’s a plant. No, I don’t mean like someone specifically sent her to Alex for some devious purpose. I mean she’s an actual potted plant that just really, really seems human.

Or maybe she is that other kind of plant. MADD or some other anti-youth rights entity sent her to get close to Alex, gain his trust and love, only to break his heart and probably kill him, with the goal of toppling the youth rights movement. Eek!

Then again, maybe it’s not that unusual a girl might genuinely like Alex. Even though I only marginally at best really consider him a friend anymore, I admit he’s tolerable and even somewhat enjoyable in small doses. But “small doses” is the key here. The “annoying prick” factor comes to play quite often. I mean, I can see some people who like to drink straight vinegar. Others like to douse their food in hot sauce until their tongues melt. Some like to eat the fat and gristle from their steak. But, seriously, Sara, what in the world is your issue?! For eight months and counting!

Suspicions aside, watching that relationship develop is like you’re watching a vase that was just placed on a tall shaky pedestal. You stand there just hoping it’ll come stable and not fall down and shatter into a zillion pieces. Careful where you step on the floor whenever you have to enter the room, for fear a rogue floor board might attack the pedestal. Not that a spectator like that really has any influence whatsoever on the fate of the vase, but the concern is there. Because you’ve seen the shattered vase before. And it’s SAD!

Nonetheless, despite well wishes for the vase, can’t help the feeling that those jerkoffs on Fear Factor don’t have shit on Sara.

Here’s to You!

So I raise my glass and say, “Here’s to you, Animaniacs!”

I made of mention of this in last year’s Secular Specials entry, where I mentioned the reasons some Christmas specials tend to not touch the story of Jesus’s birth much (or it at least might seem that way). Basically, it’s safer not to. With all these oversensitive Christian morons running around, one false step on the sacred ground that is the nativity story could have like 5,000 midwestern churches wanting your head on a platter. Yet you might have these same people also whining that Jesus is being phased out of Christmas, a doublespeak typical of evangelicals. They want Jesus to get more of a mention, but if you try, they pipe up with “YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!” And because doing the nativity story can have the side effect of coming off as proselytizing, makes it all the more appealing to just stick to other Christmas stories.

There’s also the issue of how exactly the nativity story would even be incorporated, evangelical whininess aside. I mean, it gets at least a casual mention on a lot of sitcoms and whatnot (I’m thinking of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when the family was staying in a ski cabin or something at Christmas and Will says “no one else is being let into this cabin unless they’re with a pregnant virgin on a donkey!” Hehe.) But that would pretty much suffice since, let’s face it, the story is pretty boring. In which case, it’s actually pretty widespread and the people saying otherwise are either blind or nuts.

But I’m getting way off track here. There is one Christmas special that nailed it. Not proselytizing. Not disrespectful. Includes the show’s usual zaniness. I’m of course talking about the Animaniacs segment “Little Drummer Warners“.

Well, admittedly, it’s a little low key for Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, though that is perhaps just part of the humor when they go into the all out musical number, hehe. But it works and I really can’t see how either the religious or the secular can find it offensive. I’m sure there are some who find a way, but screw them.

In any case, something to shove in my dad’s face next time he whines that Charlie Brown’s Christmas is the only Christmas show ever to mention Jesus. But even in that, it’s still pretty much just a casual mention.