March 30, 2007

Why Every President Sucks

I don't think we will ever, as a country, really like any elected President ever again. There's too much information out there now. The media covers every word they've ever said, and it's impossible for them to not have said hundreds of stupid things over the course of their life. And it all it takes is one for the populace to shun them. So, because of this, I will use this forum to occasionally remind us why all of our former Presidents sucked. It's not that we're entering a new age of folly. It's that we're finally able to witness the depravity of all men from up close.
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March 29, 2007

Reiki Car Repair

I'm going to open up a holistic heal-by-touch mechanic shop near my home. I won't use tools. I will use love. And the broken gasket will respond to my touch by healing itself. And if it doesn't work, it's your fault for not believing hard enough.
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March 28, 2007

Freakonomics

So, when I first heard about the book, Freakonomics, I was very skeptical. I thought it would be a guy trying to peddle social issues based on wild correlations. I was wrong. It's a very practical book regarding the downside of conventional wisdom, and the search for true, causal relationships between events. Frankly, it's about the power of incentive, and how social and economic problems can be looked at through this lens of true incentive to create possible solutions. One thing that the author has gotten in trouble for mentioning over the past few years was a correlation he found with the Roe vs. Wade decision lowering crime rates in America. Hold your initial reaction. With legalized abortion causing less children to be born into poverty, and with crime tending to stem from economic poverty, this DOES make sense. It doesn't claim to make a moral decision, the point is finding the true causes. And the author does clarify that turning that Roe vs. Wade correlation into a moral decision depends on how much you value the life of a fetus. For example, if a fetus is worth 0 lives, then abortion is a fairly practical solution for helping the fight against poverty. If a fetus is worth 1 life, then the 1.5 million abortions a year are far worse than the crime that these abortions eliminate. If we're trying to figure out the equal tradeoff, we would have to believe that roughly 500 abortions is the moral equivalent of preventing one homicide. Fascinating stuff. It's making me very interested in the ideas of governing through incentives as a whole.
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March 27, 2007

E-Ching For the Day

"You cannot place yourself in a position of authority. You must be placed there."
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March 26, 2007

Whose Idea?

So, the film Waking Life broaches this subject, but never answers the question that often puzzles me. Have you ever had a dream where you're at a concert, and you're hearing this band that you never heard of before, and they're playing a song that you never heard of before, and it's awesome? When you wake up, you realize that it was just a dream. But, who wrote that song? Who's writing the dialogue of the other characters in your dream? Who's thinking up these incredibly intricate worlds and ideas that you're interacting with in your dream? Are we all crazy and brilliant, and need to figure out a way to release these ideas when we're awake? Or do we channel these ideas from somewhere that we can only enter when unconscious?
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March 23, 2007

More Yellow Paint

If we didn't have solid and dashed yellow lines painted all over the expressways, driving would be chaotic, crashes would be constant. Take Wal-Mart for instance. No cart lanes, and that's why you get the lady with three kids sitting with her cart in the middle of the aisle, going backwards from everyone else, oblivious to others around her. Now, if yellow paint solved our highway problem, and it's evident that yellow paint could increase the logistical efficiency in our supermarkets as well, perhaps yellow paint could regulate our personal behavior as well. Take Joe GunToter for instance, "la dee dah, I think I'll go shoot my neighbor, let's go get my handgun...huh? what's this?" If we force handguns to be stored in cases painted similarly to no-parking zones, perhaps our psychees would innately understand that this is probably not a good idea, or at least we'd be scared of getting a ticket and bumping our insurance rates. It's time we painted this nation yellow...and dashed on occasion.
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March 22, 2007

Outlearning Faith

I read a statistic yesterday that said that "roughly 50% of students walk away from their faith in God during college." Now, this is obviously a very loaded statistic, what does faith mean? what does walking away mean? But, the easy conclusion that you could come to from this statistic is that once people became properly educated, they dismiss the childish superstitions of their youth. They're too smart for faith in what they can not see anymore. But, for those of us who are confident in the existence of God, this is even more of a perplexing statistic, and makes us question the value of a college curriculum that closes the eyes to the things not of this world.
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March 21, 2007

We Are Teachers

So, every idea that we contend upon on this blog, I often share with friends and family to engage even more differing views. Yesterday I had two separate conversations with people. And while engaged in discussions, both of them made arguments using the exact phrases that you and I have come to as a result of discussions on this blog. The argument had become theirs. They weren't using my phrasing to be funny. Neither was aware that they were "stealing" our words. It had become truth for them, and they no longer recognized it as an idea, but their own viewpoint. I am telling you this not so much to glorify the discussions that we have here, but rather to say that the discussions you have anywhere do indeed matter. They do indeed change things. And whether or not you want to be one, you are a teacher.
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March 20, 2007

Gambling as Recreation

People tend to buy this excuse. It seems like a pretty good rationalization. "I could either spend 20 bucks at the movie theater or $20 playing blackjack at the casino. It's all just entertainment." However, if someone wanted to go to a stripclub with that same logic, the argument isn't as strong. That's because we tend to understand that the underlying moral failings behind a stripclub is 'lust'. However, we call the moral failing of a casino, 'gambling', when it's really 'greed' and 'jealousy'. So, if you believe that the desire for money you didn't "earn" is wrong, and that risking your money on a game of chance that is not in your favor is stupid, then the next time someone says they're going gambling for entertainment, ask them if they would be just as happy playing cards at a buddy's house for no money. If not, then the gaming part isn't the recreation for that person. It's the quick possibility at wealth that's so entertaining.
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March 19, 2007

Transitional Art

I have a theory entitled: The Necessity of Transitional Art. And I would like feedback to see if it's making sense to anyone. I think that transitional art is necessary to get to the really good stuff. Let's say you're a huge fan of the musical group, Wilco. You probably wouldn't have liked them when you were 7. Since you had never been exposed to anything like it before, it was strange and awkward, and therefore, unenjoyable to you. Back to Sesame Street sing-a-longs. But, then you hear the California Raisins, they lead you into MoTown, you start giving different radio dials a try. Matchbox 20, yeah, pretty catchy. That gets you into Ryan Adams. And then finally. You hear Wilco's album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. And you wonder where it's been your whole life. I think the same transition takes place for everything. Books: Nancy Drew - Lord of the Flies - Tolstoy. Movies: Honey I Shrunk the Kids - The Sandlot - My Cousin Vinny - The Fugitive - The Godfather. Food, clothing, knowledge, wisdom. It's all the same. Even though something may be great, it may take us a while to get there. So, instead of trying to argue that the Godfather is the best film of all time with someone who's not listening, let them borrow 'My Cousin Vinny' instead. They'll get there.
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