Think About It! – Page 6

Odometer

December 4, 2013

When I’m driving and my odometer is about to reach a cool number, like a multiple of 1000 or where all the numbers are the same (it just recently passed 55,555 miles), I find myself watching it, waiting for it to change. Waited when it was at 49,999 and saw it switch to 50,000. Did same at 54,999. Did same at 55,554.

So awesome! 😀

And yet, when I’m paying so much attention to the odometer, it takes some attention away from the road. So this really isn’t a good idea. I don’t take my eyes off the road entirely, as that would just be stupid, but I glance back and forth repeatedly.

This makes me wonder… for car accidents caused by a driver simply not paying attention and the reason for the inattention isn’t clear, what were the odometer readings? Was the driver doing like I do and just watching for it to tick over to some round number?

Well, the message is clear… ODOMETERS KILL!!!!! 😮

Going Public

October 26, 2013

Just a little while ago, I posted something to I Support Youth Rights, a short tumblr post about some Australian mother who sold her daughter’s One Direction concert tickets as punishment, complete with bragging about it on the sale page. Honestly, I hesitated before sharing, despite the piece explaining why this mother is a pile of shit being a good one. Why? Because asshat parents like these get enough attention as it is.

In fact, the more attention we give them, the more this will happen.

And it happens so so much. That mother who sold her son’s car. That father who shot his daughter’s laptop. I can’t even count how many times now some parent had made their child stand on the side of the road with a sign detailing their transgression, whether lying or bullying or dressing like a tramp or some stupid crap. There was a coach in Utah who suspended the entire football team because some of the players were apparently cyberbullying someone. Setting aside the question of whether cyberbullying is really any of the school’s business (that and the nature of the cyberbullying was never specified), why is the entire team being punished for what only some of the players are doing? No matter. The coach has been applauded for this.

For taking a stand against bullying.
Continue reading “Going Public”

World News

August 21, 2013

Just a little while ago, a friend of mine posted to Facebook about the high death toll from some attacks in the Middle East being mostly ignored by mainstream American media. It’s a typical complaint, one that I even agree with. In fact my comment to that status was “That’s because people outside the US aren’t people, especially if they’re yucky brown people. Duh!”

Then I thought about it some more.

While it is in fact a shame that such disasters on other continents get mostly glossed over, and that there are often crypto-racist reasons for it… Have you looked at the world news section over on Google News or something? Every single damn article is about either some political scandal or some explosion or natural disaster or attack somewhere that left a nasty death toll. Imagine if all of those always made the headline news.

We’d be right back at square one, in that you’d just tune it all out after a while.

Then the mold is broken by some news that doesn’t involve tons of devastation, such as Prince George’s birth or something. Nice to have happy news for once, right? And then the response is “Why should I care about that? I’m an American, damn it!”

I’m beginning to think all anyone really cares to talk about with international events is whether or not anyone should be talking about it. Hmm

This has been Day 90 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 13. Summertime!

How to Be Religious

June 6, 2013

I reject the notion that religion is inherently evil and causes all the Bad Stuff in the world. For one, that view is incredibly simplistic. Yes, many horrible acts are committed in the name of religion, but then again, so are many good ones. And while, yes, the good ones don’t require religion to be done, neither do the bad ones, really.

So by all means be religious if that’s what you want. Just please be the good kind. How can you do that? Well, here’s a handy guide to the Good and the Bad of faith-based actions!

So if your religion inspires you to…

-Donate food, clothing, and other items to the needy? Good!

-Volunteer for some sort of disaster relief effort, such as rebuilding houses? Good!

-Visit people in hospitals or nursing homes? Good!

-Take someone into your home when they’ve fallen on bad times? Good!

-Sing in your congregation’s choir? Good.

-Fight oppression? Good!

-Spread peace and love? Good!
Continue reading “How to Be Religious”

Shut Up, Charlie Brown

December 18, 2012

I’ve never understood the complaint about Christmas being “too commercial”. Charlie Brown bitches about it when Snoopy puts up Christmas lights on his dog house to win a cash prize in a contest and when Sally wants tens and twenties from Santa Claus.

What the fuck does that even mean? Too commercial? Is that basically the dumbass complaint about materialism?

Well, it did finally occur to me what this common complaint is about. The whole “you should buy this because Christmas” stuff. The implicit negligence of what the holiday is really about (a loaded question itself, but I digress) and exploiting its importance for profit.

So I’m understanding some more why I wasn’t seeing what this “commercialism” of Christmas means. Everything from decorations to cookies to bad reindeer sweaters involves buying something. Even the things that are homemade still require the purchase of materials and ingredients, so someone is still profiting. Not to mention the air fares and toll roads for those traveling. One way or another, Christmas is hellbent on parting you from your cash. Because commercialism. Because consumerism. Because avarice and greed.

Oh noes, Christmas is so corrupted!

Just one thing about that…

If it weren’t for Christmas being so economically beneficial, we probably wouldn’t be celebrating it.

We’ve only been celebrating Christmas as it is for a century and a half. I mean, obviously, Jesus and Mithra and countless winter solstice observances are significantly older, yes, but Christmas was never the big deal it is now until mid to late 19th century. As in around the time Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” was written. As in around the time “Visit from Saint Nicholas” was written. As in… around the time Thanksgiving was invented.

Yeah. That’s what Thanksgiving is about, too. It’s only been a holiday since around the late 19th century and the specific reason for it was to officially “open” the Christmas season. The pilgrim story was tacked on (which makes the complaints about Thanksgiving “celebrating genocide” just that much stupider). With the day before it being the busiest travel day and the day after it the biggest shopping day, yeah, it’s pretty cha-ching! Because the getting together with family and giving thanks is so important!

These things didn’t spring up overnight, of course. A number of shifts within our cultures led to the establishment of this more modern holiday season. Industrial revolution, mainly. That was also around the time the institution of childhood was seen as worthy of protection (something with a lot of youth rights effects, for sure!), and as such, there were more toys. And then toys for children at Christmas. Leading, of course, to toy and other industries benefiting from the Christmas gift giving, leading to stimulated economy.

Well, something like that. 😛

In any case, for something like Christmas to survive and be the big deal it is in our society, in our world in fact, there needs to be some tangible benefit in it. And that benefit is, of course, all the money that gets spent for Christmas reasons.

And the thing is, it’s not without benefits coming right back. Don’t just mean gifts. We get Christmas movies and Christmas songs that we love (for the most part). We get Christmas plays and parties. We get the exchange of Christmas stories. We get awesome decorations and twinkling lights. And, of course, cards and cookies! 😀

Irony shouldn’t be lost, though, that this commercialism of Christmas is even the reason we get Christmas TV specials like, say, Charlie Brown’s special where he bitches about commercialism!

Coventry Carol

December 17, 2012

Ever heard of Coventry Carol? Yeah, didn’t think so. It’s an obscure Christmas carol, existing pretty much only in choirs and whatnot.

Anyway, check it out:

Lullay, thou little tiny child
By by lully lullay
Lullay thou little tiny child
By by lully lullay

Yeah, yeah… lots to, um, think about there. That’s, um, some deep stuff.

Anyway, second verse:

O sisters too how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing
By by lully lullay

Wait… what was that?!

This poor youngling for whom we sing

You know what this means?!

youngling

…

Of course! It’s so obvious!

JESUS WAS A JEDI!!!

Say Your Prayers

December 15, 2012

Or not.

Because… why? What good would it do?

I’ve mentioned before that praying accomplishes nothing. God is going to do whatever. God ignores prayers all the time.

When a tragedy occurs, whether what happened yesterday or someone’s relative just got diagnosed with something nasty, you often get “please keep me/us/them in your thoughts and prayers!”

Or maybe someone should do something useful. I mean, is there perhaps some real tangible action someone could take? Bring you food? Send a card?

Wait, why did I say “send a card”? What good does that do someone who just found out they’ve got pancreatic cancer? Well, not much. But the difference between that and saying a prayer is a card involves actually informing the person in question of your well-wishes, which can sometimes improve their mood while going through this. It’s miniscule but more than a damn prayer.

A few years back, I visited my aunt who has been having lots of health problems. I mentioned that Grandma had had her name put into the Prayers for the People list at our church. And, holy crap, was she grateful and excited about that! But, again, what improved her mood was hearing about this. Had I not told her, it would have made no difference whatsoever. The prayers alone had no power.

And then, around this time of year in particular, you often hear “Pray for Peace!”

Now this one is interesting, because, in a way, it can work. If you’re getting people to pray for peace, then they aren’t fighting at that moment! Well, either that, or stopping to pray allows for the enemy to finish them off. Or maybe they can pray and fight at the same time. Multitasking!

Teaching Generosity

December 12, 2012

This morning on the radio, they were talking about a little boy who recently donated all his birthday presents to charity. Then his town was so impressed with his generosity that they threw him a big birthday party with a zillion more presents… all of which also went to charity.

It’s a lovely story of generosity, based on that little bit about it I heard.

But then the radio guy, awestruck by this kid, remarked, “That’s just amazing. How do you even teach this sort of thing?”

That’s when my brain got stuck for a moment (not the best time, as I was navigating rush hour traffic!), from all the things I found very wrong with that statement.

For one, the question itself implies that “teaching this sort of thing”, to this extent, is even desirable. Don’t get me wrong. They were this boy’s toys and thus his to do as he wished, and what he wished was for them to be donated. And it was certainly an extremely kind thing to do. But it’s such an extreme level of selflessness, and to teach it would be to imply that this is a general expectation, just good manners, as opposed to the above and beyond gesture it is.

Also, because you know I’m going to bring this up, again, he’s a child. His selflessness like this is seen as amazing and adorable, while, had he been twenty or thirty years older, people would have just thought he was crazy, perhaps even threatening. Why? Because when an adult your own age makes some sacrifice, you feel like you’re expected to do the same, and you just plain don’t want to. But it’s just fine for kids to do it, and they should be encouraged in a way adults wouldn’t be. Why? Because you don’t identify with them. Almost everything about their lives is trivial and expendable. It’s easy for an adult to believe a kid’s Nintendo DS is just some useless gadget they don’t really need, when they’d probably slice off their own legs before they’d give up their iPhone. So it’s not only seen as the easier sacrifice for children to give so much for charity, but it’s even seen as the “right” way to be.

And the question itself, of teaching generosity. Again, that implies it even needs to be specifically taught. That an adult who wants a child to be this extremely generous needs to preach it in some way. In fact, that’s bullshit. Generous kids generally have generous parents. There needs to be some strong example of this behavior going on already. Want kids to be generous or any other desirable trait? Be generous yourself. Be the good person you expect your kids to be, rather than preaching it to them while sitting back and clutching your own hedonism and avarice.

All this talk over how amazing this kid is, that he got it right, that all kids should be taught to be like this, but how willing are you to give up your stuff? Perhaps everything you get for Christmas this year? Yeah… that’s what I thought.

But by all means expect kids to do it. Good enough, right? 🙄

Anakin

December 10, 2012

So, unlike most of the rest of the world, I actually like the Star Wars prequels. I also sort of think much of the hate they get was inevitable, that being a later set, there was nothing that could have been in them that anyone would have liked. It’s also sort of the “cool” thing to say they’re bad.

Very common complaint was that the famous villain-turned-good Darth Vader, known well already as some badass in a big black robot suit, appears as not only human but… an emotional being! And… young! Especially in The Phantom Menace, because – oh noes! – he’s a child! And the presence of children offends people.

Okay, so, aside from the horrifying realization that Darth Vader was ever young, there’s also that he was a good guy and human. That he spent all of Attack of the Clones and the first part of Revenge of the Sith stupidly in love with Padme. And with it came the cheesy dialogue. Even after he turned evil, still with the cheesy dialogue. And he was whiny and demanding.

That’s all true. But here’s what gets conveniently ignored and forgotten… All six movies have cheesy dialogue, from all characters!

Also, Anakin was whiny and demanding? Alright, let’s play a little game. Imagine all of pre-Dark Side Anakin’s dialogue being said by Darth Vader, with James Earl Jones’s voice. And vice versa: imagine all of Darth Vader’s original trilogy dialogue being said by pre-Dark Side Anakin Skywalker, by Hayden Christensen.

Funny, I’m sure which one sounds whiny and demanding is a little less clear now. Original trilogy Darth Vader is in that big dark mechanical suit and much older, so of course his dialogue will be construed as menacing and badass, while that of young human Anakin, even if the same damn words, will be construed as some spoiled brat whining about something.

In the original trilogy, yes, Darth Vader is still demanding. Much of that owing to him being, you know, evil. And the evil guy in charge. And he’s even still whiny. It just doesn’t seem so since the whininess is usually accompanied by a choking.

Blanket

November 23, 2012

So I’m watching some new Peanuts TV special called “Happiness Is a Warm Blanket”, which is about, of course, Linus’s blanket, and the pressure he’s under to give it up and stop carrying it everywhere. It’s the typical “you’re too old for that, stop being a baby and give up the habit already”.

Fuck you, why should he?!

He’s not hurting anybody. Nor is any other kid who maintains some harmless habit or attachment despite being technically “too old”. Then again, some of those things can be creepy. The blanket is not one of them.

I myself had a cherished blanket when I was little. There are even pictures of me wrapped in it as a newborn. Never been Linus with it, carrying it everywhere or anything like that, but I liked it a lot.

And yet… where is it now?

Right fucking next to me, that’s where! :doitnow: