Some people...
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Zadroga Bill
The Zadroga Bill was intended to provide assistance to the first responders (firefighters et al.) to the 9/11 attacks. It was filibustered by the G.O.P. I know Jon Stewart is a humorist, and not the most reliable source for unbiased news, but the underlying truth to this video actually sickened me more than it made me laugh.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday Funday
Whew. So today I stepped my game up and did some intense nose-to-the-grindstone homework. 14 hours later, I'm proud to say that I have made flash cards for and (mostly) memorized 150 terms and chapters from the Old Testament for my Religion 321 final tomorrow, in addition to knocking out 3, 3-page essays for US Foreign Policy that are due tomorrow. Granted, I basically took a poo on 9 sheets of 20#, 92 bright, 30% recycled 8.5x11" paper, but it's done! Enjoy it, Dr. Pirro! Can't wait to see you next semester in European Politics!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Doomtree
Last weekend I, along with 6 other friends, went to a free Doomtree concert at Grinnell College. For those out of the loop, Doomtree is a hip-hop group consisting of producers Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger, along with emcees Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, P.O.S., and Sims (in order of appearance in the following video). I'm not crazy into hip-hop, but Twin Cities underground holds a special place in my heart. Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger know how to make some dope beats, and all 5 emcees are extremely versatile and talented. Plus their lyrics are smart and down-to-earth. This was one of the most fun shows I've ever been to. As usual, I was able to talk to the band/help them load out afterwards. Nice folks. Except P.O.S. (my personal favorite emcee) was kind of awkward.
Anyways, someone at the show invited us to a house party across the street afterwards, so naturally we went to party with a ton of people none of us knew. Half the people there thought we were students at Iowa State, and the other half thought we were the band. I'm not sure how we managed to convince them of both, and I wonder if those two halves ever talked afterwards...oh well! Good times anyways!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
This is not about aardvarks.
It was around this time last year that I wrote a post called "Being Great." It was all about positivity and doing anything and everything as best as you can. A good example would be the Pittsburgh Penguins right meow--12 game win streak!--at least one of my teams is winning.
I must confess that I have been having a lot of trouble being great lately. I can't even write this post without getting up and walking away from the computer multiple times. Just as a point, it has so far taken me about an hour to write these first five sentences. I can't focus on anything, yet I'm thinking about everything. Earlier today, I spent seven hours working on a take-home final, and have two sentences typed up to show for it. I can't tell if, at this point in the semester, I'm way too distracted or way too disinterested. What I do know is that final is worth 30% of my grade and I can't seem to care enough about it. Nothing ever gets done.
I am swimming in a sea of unrelated thoughts right now, but I don't think I'll add more to this post. The longer I type, the less interested the reader gets, especially when my thoughts become inevitably disjointed.
One last thing: I gotta give an ad hoc greatness award to Lauren Mason for her recent engagement. Yeah gurl!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Compromise
The Bush tax cuts were extended for two years this week, plus a generous estate tax break was added*, unemployment benefits extended, and payroll tax cuts added. I could have sworn I wrote about this a few months ago, but that must have been the post that I remember writing for a really long time and then abruptly deleting everything. So it goes.
Anyways, I won't go into the details of the plan; there are stories all over about it. Basically taxes won't increase next year, which is good for taxpayers and bad for our deficit, if you happen to care about that as much as the incoming Republican class does.
The most striking thing about all of this to me can be summed up well by this paragraph from this article by EJ Dionne Jr.:
"And at least these negotiations have had the benefit of proving conclusively that the only people for whom conservative Republicans will go to the mat are the country's best-off citizens—and deficits be damned."
Politics frustrate me.
*I'm going to add a footnote that the 2010 rate for estates over $1 million is 0, but is due to revert to its pre-Bush levels of 55% next year. The number agreed upon is now 35%, which some (mostly the Right) consider a tax hike (which it is, relative to the current 0%), while most consider it a tax cut, since it will only jump to 35% instead of 55% next year, as it would have if the bill hadn't passed.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Music 2010
2010 is quickly drawing to a close (OMG), so I thought I would look back and create a top list of my favorite albums released this year. The problem is that this was a particularly good year, so I'm just going to give my tentative top 5, plus a shout out to some other notable albums that this year produced, in no particular order of preference. Maybe I'll try to go back and rate them later, but as you may have noticed, I'm not so good at doing the things I say I'm going to do on here.
5: Gorilla Manor -- Local Natives
4: In Medias Res -- PMToday
3: American Ghetto -- Portugal. The Man
2: Infinite Arms -- Band of Horses
1: The World We Know -- I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business
Also noteworthy:
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy -- Kanye West
- Would it Kill You -- Hellogoodbye
- Big Echo -- The Morning Benders
- Steel Train -- Steel Train
- Treats -- Sleigh Bells
- Enemy of the World -- Four Year Strong
- The Upsides -- The Wonder Years
- Of Men and Angels -- The Rocket Summer
- My Dinosaur Life -- Motion City Soundtrack
- Of the Blue Colour of the Sky -- OK Go
- This Is Happening -- LCD Soundsystem
- Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty -- Big Boi
- Teenage Dream -- Katy Perry
...and many more. Please add suggestions to my list. Kthx.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Midterms
What a great day to be free Americans. People say it all the time (because it is absolutely 100% true)...we take our freedom for granted. Shame on you if you did not vote today. It's one of the greatest privileges we can have, and something a great number of people are not able to do.
I can't say I'm particularly pleased with the results of the elections today, but I also can't say that I'm at all surprised. This really should have surprised no one. As of now, the Republicans are projected to take back a majority in the House, but still hold a 51-49 disadvantage in the Senate. Gubernatorial (that's for governors) races across the country are almost all colored red--most pertinent to me and many of my readers is Terry Branstad's defeat of Chet Culver here in Iowa (why wasn't I able to vote against Terry's haircut on the back of the ballot today?). My problem is this: gridlock. The next two years are going to be full of a lot of talk and arguing and very little being accomplished, not unlike the final years of Clinton's administration (Democratic president vs. Republican Congress). To me, this gridlock is the most frustrating thing. I tend to, though not always (I'm looking at you, Chuck Grassley) vote Democrat--and I would much rather see an all-Republican Congress than a gridlocked one. At least we'll be moving somewhere in an orderly fashion.
A lot of people who are frustrated with the polarization of the political world, especially since 2003, would say that Washington is broken...attributing our problems to some sort of structural deficiency within our government. I would caution against this. In theory, our government works. In theory, it's foolproof. It's been intact and stable for over 200 years. The concept of our government...the Constitution, organization, all that...is solid. Please don't confuse me with a Tea Partier--don't even get me started on that. Anyways, the practice is where we have problems. Basically, suffice it to say that I think we are in a transition period where our government is struggling to adapt to the fast-paced, uncensored information era. Perhaps I'll save that discussion for another time.
One of the major challenges associated with this is the role of the media in government. What you need to understand when you are thinking about anything dealing with politics is that everything is essentially driven by motives. Decisions aren't made for the hell of it, and the sad apparent truth is that most people involved in policy are self-interested. Always ask what they want. What do politicians want? They, like most reasonable working people, want to keep their job so that they can live comfortably. How do they keep their job? Win elections. How do they win elections? The vast majority of the time the candidate who raises more funds wins. So it comes down to money, and making popular decisions. Remember that old saying "what's right is not always popular and what's popular is not always right?" Well...I think the problem in politics is evident.
The other side of that is the media. What do media companies want to do? Make money. How do you make money? Create a product that sells. People don't like to be fed facts, they like to be entertained. People don't want to have to think too hard, they want to have all the facts and details chewed up and analyzed by some talking head, who then spits it back out with whatever flavor they want to put on it. Almost all of the information we receive is second hand, and second hand information is almost always biased. Even if people are trying to be neutral, they will include subconscious biases, often in what they don't say. It's unavoidable.
What else entertains? Controversy and nut jobs. You never see moderate people on cable news, because they are too boring. The media loves the Tea Party, because they are entertaining. Almost no one in Washington takes them or their views seriously, but that's not the point. They get all kinds of news coverage, to the point where they have become sort of this self-fulfilling artificial political force to be reckoned with. It's like Jersey Shore...they are so ridiculous that no one should take them seriously, and the establishment actively resists taking them seriously, but at the same time, they present a challenge in that they have undue influence on the way people think and behave, so they must be given fair consideration.
I never, ever, ever treat television news as a credible source for information. That shit's below Wikipedia in my book. If you want real, fair news, you have to go abroad. BBC is fantastic. RT out of Russia does a very good job. Al-Jazeera is a great source too. If you absolutely must go American, it's NPR and POLITICO. The other way I get information is from actual first-hand documents. Most people don't realize just how much information is publicly available from the government, and frankly, people are too lazy to dig it up themselves.
The truth about the American voting base is that we get all of our information as these half-truths from television news. As a result, we are either terribly misinformed or under-informed. We are also very fickle, with short attention spans and even shorter memories.
This is why the Republicans are taking back control. I talked about it in an earlier post...the Democrats failed to answer the most pressing need--unemployment--and are going to pay a heavy price for it. People don't seem to remember just how discontented the political climate was during the Bush era--and, as an offhanded comment, Bush was a pretty terrible president. Thankfully, Bush isn't waltzing back into Washington, but all of his best friends are.
Let's continue on this line...I don't usually like to get too political in my political posts...but this could be fun. The biggest issues on the ballot for me today were on the back: justice retention and the constitutional convention. It looks like all three of the Iowa Supreme Court Justices who were up for retention aren't going to keep their seats. This is quite a blow to Iowa's gay marriage ruling, as it looks like their replacements will be appointed by Terry Branstad, who opposes gay marriage. Another thing is if the constitutional convention is passed, that is the most viable way for an amendment regarding the banning of gay marriage to pass. A convention will be held, where an amendment will be brought up for a popular vote regarding the issue. Hot button, single-issues like this are the Republican party's bread and butter. They are able to play on people's disdain for "morally unjust" issues to recruit votes for their more substantial political agenda. Frankly, I don't think anyone in Washington gives two shits about abortion or gay marriage, but it energizes their base, who unwittingly vote for all the other (more important) items on their agenda. There are no viable excuses for continuing to deny homosexuals equal rights, and our resistance to fairness is disturbing. For further reading, this article is one relevant reason (among many) why Bob VanderPlaats is near the top of my political shit list. Also, I intend to dedicate a post to this topic soon.
I think I'm going to wrap this up quick. I apologize for any incoherence...I'm exhausted and haven't given this as careful of a review as I'd like. Feel free to fire back at my uncharacteristic political jabs. I like to think that I am still being objective in my commentary, mostly because these high-emotion issues don't faze me. I am (as far as I know) the closest thing to an unemotional machine, while still having a pulse...but we can save my personal peculiarities for another discussion as well.
In sum, I'm disappointed by the elections, but not surprised. It should be an interesting next two years, and a very pivotal point in Obama's career. I envision much more polarization, arguing, and gridlock, which will be frustrating. People would do well to remember that in the grand scheme of things, we are all playing for the same team. It's pretty sad that it takes some sort of national crisis or tragedy to ever realize that. I can only hope that our generation is the one to figure it out...but I don't think my significant doubts are unreasonable. Go America!
So then...upcoming discussions:
Tea Party
Media and Politics
Gay Marriage
Perhaps a little Old Testament knowledge?
My peculiarities
Me hanging out with Bo Burnham
Should be fun!
I can't say I'm particularly pleased with the results of the elections today, but I also can't say that I'm at all surprised. This really should have surprised no one. As of now, the Republicans are projected to take back a majority in the House, but still hold a 51-49 disadvantage in the Senate. Gubernatorial (that's for governors) races across the country are almost all colored red--most pertinent to me and many of my readers is Terry Branstad's defeat of Chet Culver here in Iowa (why wasn't I able to vote against Terry's haircut on the back of the ballot today?). My problem is this: gridlock. The next two years are going to be full of a lot of talk and arguing and very little being accomplished, not unlike the final years of Clinton's administration (Democratic president vs. Republican Congress). To me, this gridlock is the most frustrating thing. I tend to, though not always (I'm looking at you, Chuck Grassley) vote Democrat--and I would much rather see an all-Republican Congress than a gridlocked one. At least we'll be moving somewhere in an orderly fashion.
A lot of people who are frustrated with the polarization of the political world, especially since 2003, would say that Washington is broken...attributing our problems to some sort of structural deficiency within our government. I would caution against this. In theory, our government works. In theory, it's foolproof. It's been intact and stable for over 200 years. The concept of our government...the Constitution, organization, all that...is solid. Please don't confuse me with a Tea Partier--don't even get me started on that. Anyways, the practice is where we have problems. Basically, suffice it to say that I think we are in a transition period where our government is struggling to adapt to the fast-paced, uncensored information era. Perhaps I'll save that discussion for another time.
One of the major challenges associated with this is the role of the media in government. What you need to understand when you are thinking about anything dealing with politics is that everything is essentially driven by motives. Decisions aren't made for the hell of it, and the sad apparent truth is that most people involved in policy are self-interested. Always ask what they want. What do politicians want? They, like most reasonable working people, want to keep their job so that they can live comfortably. How do they keep their job? Win elections. How do they win elections? The vast majority of the time the candidate who raises more funds wins. So it comes down to money, and making popular decisions. Remember that old saying "what's right is not always popular and what's popular is not always right?" Well...I think the problem in politics is evident.
The other side of that is the media. What do media companies want to do? Make money. How do you make money? Create a product that sells. People don't like to be fed facts, they like to be entertained. People don't want to have to think too hard, they want to have all the facts and details chewed up and analyzed by some talking head, who then spits it back out with whatever flavor they want to put on it. Almost all of the information we receive is second hand, and second hand information is almost always biased. Even if people are trying to be neutral, they will include subconscious biases, often in what they don't say. It's unavoidable.
What else entertains? Controversy and nut jobs. You never see moderate people on cable news, because they are too boring. The media loves the Tea Party, because they are entertaining. Almost no one in Washington takes them or their views seriously, but that's not the point. They get all kinds of news coverage, to the point where they have become sort of this self-fulfilling artificial political force to be reckoned with. It's like Jersey Shore...they are so ridiculous that no one should take them seriously, and the establishment actively resists taking them seriously, but at the same time, they present a challenge in that they have undue influence on the way people think and behave, so they must be given fair consideration.
I never, ever, ever treat television news as a credible source for information. That shit's below Wikipedia in my book. If you want real, fair news, you have to go abroad. BBC is fantastic. RT out of Russia does a very good job. Al-Jazeera is a great source too. If you absolutely must go American, it's NPR and POLITICO. The other way I get information is from actual first-hand documents. Most people don't realize just how much information is publicly available from the government, and frankly, people are too lazy to dig it up themselves.
The truth about the American voting base is that we get all of our information as these half-truths from television news. As a result, we are either terribly misinformed or under-informed. We are also very fickle, with short attention spans and even shorter memories.
This is why the Republicans are taking back control. I talked about it in an earlier post...the Democrats failed to answer the most pressing need--unemployment--and are going to pay a heavy price for it. People don't seem to remember just how discontented the political climate was during the Bush era--and, as an offhanded comment, Bush was a pretty terrible president. Thankfully, Bush isn't waltzing back into Washington, but all of his best friends are.
Let's continue on this line...I don't usually like to get too political in my political posts...but this could be fun. The biggest issues on the ballot for me today were on the back: justice retention and the constitutional convention. It looks like all three of the Iowa Supreme Court Justices who were up for retention aren't going to keep their seats. This is quite a blow to Iowa's gay marriage ruling, as it looks like their replacements will be appointed by Terry Branstad, who opposes gay marriage. Another thing is if the constitutional convention is passed, that is the most viable way for an amendment regarding the banning of gay marriage to pass. A convention will be held, where an amendment will be brought up for a popular vote regarding the issue. Hot button, single-issues like this are the Republican party's bread and butter. They are able to play on people's disdain for "morally unjust" issues to recruit votes for their more substantial political agenda. Frankly, I don't think anyone in Washington gives two shits about abortion or gay marriage, but it energizes their base, who unwittingly vote for all the other (more important) items on their agenda. There are no viable excuses for continuing to deny homosexuals equal rights, and our resistance to fairness is disturbing. For further reading, this article is one relevant reason (among many) why Bob VanderPlaats is near the top of my political shit list. Also, I intend to dedicate a post to this topic soon.
I think I'm going to wrap this up quick. I apologize for any incoherence...I'm exhausted and haven't given this as careful of a review as I'd like. Feel free to fire back at my uncharacteristic political jabs. I like to think that I am still being objective in my commentary, mostly because these high-emotion issues don't faze me. I am (as far as I know) the closest thing to an unemotional machine, while still having a pulse...but we can save my personal peculiarities for another discussion as well.
In sum, I'm disappointed by the elections, but not surprised. It should be an interesting next two years, and a very pivotal point in Obama's career. I envision much more polarization, arguing, and gridlock, which will be frustrating. People would do well to remember that in the grand scheme of things, we are all playing for the same team. It's pretty sad that it takes some sort of national crisis or tragedy to ever realize that. I can only hope that our generation is the one to figure it out...but I don't think my significant doubts are unreasonable. Go America!
So then...upcoming discussions:
Tea Party
Media and Politics
Gay Marriage
Perhaps a little Old Testament knowledge?
My peculiarities
Me hanging out with Bo Burnham
Should be fun!
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