I Hate Most Reality Television and its Subjects.

So apparently people who have no talent and nothing useful to offer to society are interesting and now called "social experiments".  Back in the day (yes, I am using this line) they were called bums or welfare cases. They mooch off of society and the degradation of quality in entertainment that has occurred as of recent. Now, I am in now way saying that before the reality t.v. boom there was absolute gold on t.v., but "reality" t.v. has just brought society down to another ring of hell. Cops, the original reality show, is exempt because it is real and absolutely amazing. This rant was oddly set off by breezing through the channels and catching a whiff of the new Margaret Cho show. First, I said this must be fake and then I proceeded to vomit and step three was the realization that it was real. As with other reality shows she is equally worthless; this includes Pam Anderson (yes, big tits and all), Denise Richards, Tila Tequila, The Hills gang, and the numerous others that litter the television landscape. If there was a t.v. indian in this landscape he would cry also. These are all people who really offer nothing other than an insight into either a emotional train wreck, a luxurious life, or slut bag douche-baggery. It frustrates me to no end that people are so shameless that they will eat gross food and foolishly expose themselves to, sadly, millions of viewers all the gain the "love" of Bret Michaels (who needs to lose that god damn cowboy hat and join hair club for men) or a midget whore Vietnamese women. What's worse is that the retard contestants keep getting spin off shows. Thank god that Flava Flav has had 20 shows because he is advancing human kind. Ugliest and most obnoxiously annoying guy EVAR.

I understand that they aren't on t.v. to provide any kind of useful service, but they are supposed to be entertaining correct? If they were even doing the non-job that they were supposed to do correctly I wouldn't be upset. It's just the fact that they become famous and have absolutely no talent other than having no shame. Has our society gone so far as to for-go talent and artistry. I don't want t.v. to be like PBS all the time, but why aren't quality t.v. shows being produced? Is it a real situation of the media giving us what we want? I certainly hope not. Shows like Arrested Development, a hilarious and smart show, was cancelled due to lack of viewership, but Bret Michaels et al. get numerous seasons to destroy any kind of imagination or entertainment still available. Great shows such as Seinfeld, The Office, Friends, and such are redeemers for t.v. and entertainment, but the fact that reality shows that focus on nobodies who should remain nobodies keep surviving year after year is slightly disconcerting. So to end, I hate talentless people that are included, but not limited to the people mentioned above. They are wastes of time and life offering nothing of interest (other than maybe making yourself feel better that you don't live like them or have hepatitis, oddly enough I can't limit the last part to just one of the reality stars) and just generally being annoying while the fabric of society cries itself to sleep at night trying to figure out why we hate it so much. 

To Be Hooded or Not To Be Hooded, That is the Question!

So my mind has been blown in the past recent months with the fact of how many people I know that are circumcised. I thought only people of the Jewish faith were the ones that were circumcised. Now this may have come out of ignorance and/or innocence, but the issue came up the other night and I was completely taken aback to the amount of non-hooded peeps there were. So a friend and I just out of general curiosity went around and asked the question to as many of the guys we could find and I found that I and my hooded brethren were outnumbered 2 to 1 (14-7). Now obviously this raised a small tiff about which outfit pleased the ladies more and obviously each side took the side that they were given a birth. So this led to online research that ended up nowhere because the studies seemed to be confused as we were about the whole thing.
The practice of non-religious circumcision (which the U.S. is the only country who does it for non-religious reasons) really started in the 1890's and this was done so in a puritanical spirit to stop the act of masturbation. Then in WW1 it was because of medical reasons due to extended stays in trenches without the ability to thoroughly clean themselves. As the nation became less sensitive to sexual freedom and masturbation in the 1960's the practice slowly faded, but still stayed strong. Not until the 1980's did medical science figure out that there really isn't a real medical reason anymore to perform circumcision so it has slowed down the "chop shop" slowly over the past 20 years where now the rate is around 50/50 for circumcision at birth. It has also started to be slowed due to cosmetic reasons, a few too many botched surgeries and disfigurement. The procedure also removes thousands of neuro-receptors which can make sex less enjoyable. Now with the history lesson out of the way back to the debate at hand.
This debate turned some into the crypts and the bloods or the west side story of foreskin. One brother was ready to fight about the whole issue. Both women and men are undecided about the whole topic. I think this is a debate for the ages and those of which who remain fully clothed will probably continue the tradition with our future children ( I know I will) while those who are topless like a drunken college girl getting beads thrown at her will continue the tradition with their offspring. People have been made fun of for the lack of or the retaining of flesh and the skin-shed will continue.The two groups might be like the Jews and Muslims, not really sure what we are fighting for or about anymore just knowing the other one started it.

Robot Assisted Suicide

So crazy story, I was reading Fark. com, my personal favorite news website and an article came up about an Australian man who committed suicide. Now when I say committed suicide, this guy was fully committed and succeeded. His family was worried about him because he was 81 and they wanted to put him in an assisted living home, but instead the man decided to build a robot and kill himself. His suicide note explained that after the "threat" to take him to a home, he researched for hours online looking for a way to kill himself. Now the thing that got me was he was killed by 4 gunshots which obviously means he had a gun to begin with. What was he doing researching how to off himself when he had the necessary tools already? He was obviously crazy and needed to be put in a home, but no he builds a highly mechanized robot...to shoot him four (4) times in the head in his driveway...so he could be found dead by next door neighbors. I don't know this guy's background or what he did for a job before retirement, but why couldn't he use his technical abilities for good instead of killing himself? If I could build or own a robot it certainly wouldn't be used to kill myself, (same with a chimp or monkey, which would also be fun to own), I would have it go get things for me or take over the world or something. What a waste of resources, that's like having a transformer car (bumble bee) and throwing yourself in front of it before enjoying it. I don't get it. Oh crazy people, you bring such awkward and unheard of situations to light in the sane world.

Societal Issues and My "Mtv Theory"

So this theory may not be perfect or completely thought out to be honest, but this will be a semi-quick jaunt into why I think society is semi-deteriorating and probably random ranting with little relevance to the main topic. Now I am sure every generation has people who have said society is falling apart (i.e., blaming rock and roll and such), but I am arguing the fraying of society and fraying of the things that hold it together. I call it the MTV theory, but that is not the sole reason for societal issues. I label this theory with MTV because it is the figurehead to me of moral decay in most circumstances. Now some will point out and I will agree with that there is a chicken and egg scenario going on, is MTV the cause or is it just a byproduct of the society we live in. Is it showing us a glimpse into what we want to see or what society has become or maybe a combination of both? I shall start with my central point that I can pretty much tie most if not all societal issues to; which is the decay of the nuclear family. The nuclear family may not be perfect and it certainly has flaws, but of all the family systems it the best and works the best. This family unit has been working for the past Milena's that humans have been alive. Before there were governments an tribes there were family units and most tribes were formed from family units. It is a source of stability and strength. My view is if it has been working and still does work then why change it? The nuclear family is being asked to step aside and make room for other inferior family types. Now I don't mean to offend or to say that single and mixed parent families don't' work because for some they do, but to me those family types aren't as strong as the nuclear family. This is a point I will never waver from or changed my mind on. Yet, not all nuclear families are amazing or perfect either there are always going to be issues, there are problems that arise in nuclear families like fighting and such. I don't enjoy that because, sadly, nuclear families are becoming less and less the norm that we are supposed to accept all family types as just as good or wonderful and they aren't. There is a reason that there are two parents in the family and not just to pro-create, but to provide, socialize, and educate. Now sometimes a single parent relationship can provide this, but I feel like that is not the norm or majority. There are numerous studies that show the negative effects due to divorce and single parent families, such as higher teen suicide rates and a more gradual progress in educational development. Now this may seem to not have anything to do with MTV or the rest of society, but that is incorrect. Families are the basis for the structure of society. With a deterioration of family soon follows that degradation of society.
MTV's part in this is showing certain activities as norms. These activities include promiscuous relationships and no real consequences. When there is a slackening of self-responsibility there will be trouble for society in general. By showing that relationships don't matter that much or that you should just drop something because it is difficult is teaching and breeding a lack of self-responsibility. It starts young, girls are dressing much older than their age when they are very young. When relationships aren't taken seriously then why should marriage be taken seriously, even forget the relifious church aspect because when you get married you are legally state government married as well. It is a very serious bond that isn't being taken seriously anymore. Just because you have a hissy fit over something doesn't warrant a divorce or because an idiosyncricy or habit your partner has bugs you doesn't warrant a divorce. When the main source of stability, the family, is eroded and cast aside it causes problems. With the sense of forward progress and political correctness the nuclear family is thought of as too old-fashioned or traditional. Which leads me to ask the question what is wrong with old-fashined or traditional? I am not saying bring back wives who weren't allowed to work or segregation I am talking about simple moral values. Progress and advancement has brought us a great many thing, but to me it has failed to fulfill the role of the nuclear family. It is necessary for a functional and orderly society. To me there is a narrow scope for divorce which would be abuse in any form or adultery, but other than that I cannot see much other reason. I understand so called loveless marriages, but I still don't know if I accept that. There used to be these nice little things called stigma and shame, but that has apparently been forgotten or not accepted in today's PC world where nobody's feelings can be hurt without fear of a law suit citing harrassment and degradation of character. Showing favor to one system of family is being unfair to those who aren't in one and you are thought of as close minded; maybe it is because I don't think the other paradigms of families are working well. I am sick of not being able to be exclusionary in society in general, I am not talking about yet again segregation or removing women's suffrage. If whites have a group for themselves its racist (barring the obvious assholes of the KKK), but if minorities and women do the same it is looked at as great progress for their group and excellent move to the future. I am just sick of a wek and uber-sensitive society. Shame has been neglected in turn for 15 minutes of fame on reality shows where people will air their dirtiest laundry without hesitation.
Drugs and violence are idolized through rap, movies, and video games. Now I will not be a hippocrit here because I do enjoy violent movies and video games, but I do see where the problem lies. I will not blame such media for the reason why kids shoot up schools and such. This media does desensitize people to such violence, but that is not an excuse for commiting such an act. This is also where the lack and lessening of self-responsibilty comes into play as well. I have spoken on this before, in that the lessening of self-responsibility leads to people who place the blame outward instead of inward. Oh, it isn't my fault I shot people because of angry music or because mommy and daddy didn't love me enough. Bullshit, you are weak and there is something mentally wrong with you. Don't blame other sources for your issues. I am not excluding the effect environment has on development, but to me it isn't always the main source. Sometimes I feel I should have been born in a different time period or era, but I do enjoy the comforts of today's world and society. Society can be tiring and very frustrating sometimes, but it has its redeeming qualities that mostly outweigh the bads. I would just like a return to the center, enough extremism and diviseness. We, as a society, shouldn't be so traditional as to be archaic, but not to be so advanced that humanity and traditionalism is forgotten.

Incorrect Pronunciation of Words and Names

Now, this topic has recently surfaced between a friend and I and it bothers me. I don't mind if people have accents that make words or names sound slightly different from the correct pronunciation, but recently a few names and words have come up for dispute. I will start with one that has been on my radar for a while; which is the name of my girlfriend Kerrie. For some reason people in general and not just my friend(s) get this name confused with Carrie. To me and to most of the world they are two different, yet similar names. Ke- and Ca- make two different sounds while the ending is the same even if you were to put a -y instead of -ie. You pronounce the name Carrie like the word carry and Kerrie like kerosene, but to my friends they are pronounced exactly the same. Another group of words that I used for example were caught and cot, to me again they are two different pronunciations. Caught is pronounced like taut or somewhat phoneticallyCawt and cot is like cahhht. Again my friend said it exactly the same. It has nothing to do with an accent it is just how he pronounces the words. That is a pet peeve of mine, I will admit that I may not pronounce words correctly all the time, but these are major differences that are being treated the same. I do realize that this is something small in the grand scheme of things, but I can't help but be perturbed by it. As Kevin James put it, "sweat the small stuff," which I do sometimes. It bothers me because I don't understand how the difference is missed, all of the examples are separate words and are not homophones.

Movie Madness

So yesterday, Saturday the 23rd, Ross, Meader, and I embarked on a journey to Portland to view a cinematic adventure all of us had been waiting to see for months. We decided to make a day of it and instead of just seeing "Be Kind Rewind" we would go to 2 other movies and then dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. So they pick me up from work a 12pm and we head on the road to our destination at Cinemagic at 2:40; as the trip went along the car ride became increasingly louder. Meader's car has always had a gruff rumble noise to it because the pipe that leads to the exhaust had a hole in it and apparently that became larger as we went along. Among the rounds of "the movie game" (you have to say an actor/movie to extend the game such as Jim Carrey-The mask then I would say the mask-Cameron Diaz or a different Jim Carrey movie) and we are making good time and the car is getting louder and louder. There is some concern on Meader's part and jokes being made by all about how frigging loud the car was. So that is put aside for a while as we get to the theater, we all approach the line and are confident in our ticket buying abilities well aside from the Liberace self-playing piano they have, they also have selected seating where you get an electronic screen and pick out your seats. It blew my mind and somewhat confused me. So we put our brain power together and coordinated our seating. So we go past the beret wearing stuff, I stifling snickers at that fact, and head to the movie. We get to our seats and to my surprise God himself or a self preserving and -serving lazy person designed the seating. They were leather reclining chairs pretty much and very comfortable, which was exciting considering we had another 6 hours to go movie wise once this one started. First up, "Be Kind Rewind", which was hilarious and I loved it. The "Ghostbusters" remake was the best aside from the line "what's happening to our hood?" I would highly recommend this movie to those traveling to the Portland area or if this movie ever comes our way. So an hour and 40ish minutes later we exit and have 20 minutes until the next movie "Vantage Point", we all decide to get some treats and a drink and are all impressed that this place offers personal pizzas and hamburgers. After the salivations ended I ended up with Raisinettes and a soda. So we head into the next theater with the delicious lazy God seats and have the added bonus of digital film. Now digital film is amazing, it is so clear on the big screen. So the movie starts and I am ok with it and then 15 minutes the movie starts over, but from a slightly different perspective. This happens throughout the whole movie, but very noticeable and annoying for the first 40 minutes. the movie turned out decent for the second half and became more like a regular action flick which I enjoyed. I didn't care for the first half though and overall felt like a bad remake of a 24 episode elongated. The movie ends earlier than we all expected which turned out to be a good thing because we had a hard time finding the next theater in Portland which was the Nickelodeon.

At first we had no idea of really where we should go because we listened to yahoo maps which turned out to be wrong. So eventually we find it and park in the garage right next to/on top of it and head in with 10 minutes to spare. We head in buy the tickets to "In Bruges", which is a movie I had never heard of before though Ross swears he told me about it. Before the movie I need to hit up the bathroom and find it upstairs and down a narrow dimly lit and turny hallway. It is really quiet and creepy up there so much that when I opened the door to leave someone who was heaidn in at the same time scare the shit out of me. I jumped like a 6 year old girl at the thought of the boogie man and as everyone does I played it cool and left feeling pretty sure the guy didn't notice me get freaked out. I get to the theater and sit down to notice that the theater is filling quickly quite to my surprise. I had never heard of it so apparently I figured noone else had since I am obviously on the pulse of hollywood. The movie was absolutely hilarious and Colin Farrell was excellent, the movie was about two hit men that had to lay low in Bruges, Belgium and boredom and sight-seeing occur. The movie is unexpectedly hilarious until the end when it is graphically violent and kind of tarnished the whole movie. I still thoroughly enjoyed and like this movie and would reccomend it.
Alright, so our movie lust has been quenched and we head off to get some dinner. It is around 9 pm and we come to the conclusion that we have made an excellently executed plan. So anyway we head to Longhorn steakhouse and get a table instantly. The waitress comes over and asks for our drinks so I decide to go first. As I order my much loved and much made fun of by everyone else beverage of mango iced tea the waitress starts to grin and semi snickers and says ok at the same time, so I am slightly offended and possibly think that maybe I am interpreting the situation wrong until Meader started to smile and look at me as if to corraborate my initial feelings of she just called me a homo without saying it. So we all have a decent laugh over it and there are gay jokes thrown at me, but I enjoyed my god-damned mango iced tea it is so good. So I eventually order a steak partially because I want one and partially to prove my manhood to her. I threatened to order a 76 oz. steak to Meader to compensate for the gay iced tea incident, but instead went with a 12 oz sirloin which was delicious. I finish off the steak and we pay our bills, on a sidenote I tipped the waitress 50 cents less than I was going to because as I stated "she called me a fag with her eyes", and we headed out to go home.
Alright, I brought up the loud car for reason those few paragraphs ago because it was ten times worse on the ride home then down. We are all very tired and have the fucking space shuttle going off inside the car, the sound shook the change in the car and as Meader put it "goes straight to the center of your brain" which it did. Everytime he would accelerate the car would blast off into loudness. We could barely hear each other at times and the radio was a savior when turned up enough. We got home at around 1ish and I instantly crashed into deep sleep and woke up at 11 am this morning. Overall, it was a very enjoyable and fun trip filled with good movies, good times, good friends and one fucking ridiculously loud car.

Super Tuesday

So after watching the results of all of the caucuses, primaries, and town meetings I came to a conclusion....I don't like any of the candidates. Even worse there are no other options, the ones hanging on the fray belong there because they are crazy. I looked at each candidate and was not impressed or did not feel any swell of confidence in any candidate. Now most people ask me in the house what I think or what certain things mean in the political world, naturally because I did graduate with a political science degree. I don't mind answering questions or spewing my opinions, but the thing is I don't care about politics in the sense of campaigns and elections which is what people think of when you say my major. U.S. micro-managing politics and campaigns are boring to me, I don't care what it takes to be a politician, I am interested in what it takes to make a government run or why certain countries have the regimes they do. I am more interested in the philosophy of politcs and nation-state. I will talk more on this later. Back to the current election cycle's campaigning. As I was saying none of the candidates really interest me at this point, even though to be honest Obama is looking better and better. I cannot stand Hillary, not because she IS a woman, but because that is what she is running on. Her platform consists of I am a woman and I am not Bush, congrats I can't wait to vote for you. The Democrats are full of empty promises, which is funny to say because so are the Republicans, but the Dems always promise change and that they will stand up for the little people. Riiigghht, "we'll stop Bush cold in his tracks now that we control the house and senate and the purse strings." Really? I didn't realize rollign over and doing everything Bush wants was resistance (maybe the path of least resistance), but it does dick for any kind of promise or cause they hailed and ran their train of change on. Th Democrats don't know what they stand for, so how could they fight for it other than being anti-republican. Now I am not championing the Republicans either cause they suck too, but they have a straight forward stance on most things. So you know what you are getting when you talk about a Republican platform. You may know what you are getting with the Republicans and I agree with certain ideologies they have, but none of their candidates look good to me. There is Romney who is too much of a polished politician for me to even have a chance, forget about his religion. Ron Paul just looks crazy and his ads have revolution with evol backwards to spell love, give me a break. McCain, eh, I am so-so on him; I don't know really where he stands. Mike Huckabee is really doofy looking and is more known for his eccentricness rather than his actual stance on issues. So right now the Republicans are out, so on to the Democrats. There is Mike Gravel, who is old and has seemingly come out of nowhere. I can't say much on him because I have no idea who he is. I don't enjoy Hillary because she is running on her husband's success, that she is a woman, and she is not Bush. Now the last one may be enough for most of the nation to vote for her, but I will not. She is a very intelligent and motivated woman, but she panders more than I have seen anybody pander before. She changes accents and interests depending on her audience. Now some would say that is effective public speaking and what politicians do, but I can't stand her she is too fake for my taste. Obama is a new guy on trhe block who seems capable of doing the job and not too too fake. So he is looking like the front runner to me personally at the moment (John Edwards will most likely be his running mate). So there really isn't a great choice to me for president this upcoming cycle.

Now onto a different topic, yet related. My issue with my generation of voters. They are completely useless, if P Diddy isn't selling them a t-shirt in order to vote then it won't happen, even then it is a gamble. My generation of voters are given too much credit for being the crusaders of change, unless they start attaching a vote for pres. facebook app. or add it to xbox live, this generation will not vote in the quantities Mtv loves to say we do. 2004 election- this generation was supposed to change the course of history and come out in droves to elect Kerry and kick Bush out of office...hmmm..good job guys (I voted for Bush) stop bitching about how Bush is still in office, maybe if you had voted things would be somewhat different. On a sidenote, one of the guys in the house said he wanted to vote for Huckabee because on New Years instead of going to some political event he went hunting and that meant he was an everyman or a credible candidate. I told him straight to his face that he is someone I don't want with voting power. That is such a hill-billy reason to vote, I bet if Huckabee had a car named the General Lee it would have sweetened the deal for him. It really bothers me, voting isn't hard to do at all. You register there and check off names or flick switches, holy shit that is way too complicated for many it seems. I understand those who can't make it because of work or what have you that would void a person from voting, but the U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnouts out of all industrial democratic countries. A lot of it is laziness. Some blame that stat on the fact that we have the electoral college and a FPP system or first past the post= winner take all; whereas most other countries have proportional systems or mixed party systems. This seems to create a sense of efficacy among voters, they feel that their vote matters because in the prop. system if the candidate beats a certain threshold, most countries are at like 3-5% of the votes, psuedo-democratic countries have higher thresholds in order to monopolize the government and make it harder for the opposition to gain a foothold, they are allowed in the government where our system if 100 votes to 99 votes, those other 99 do not count for anything. So it is a somewhat convincing argument for the different types of systems, but I don't think the other systems would work in this country very well. And the reasons why it wouldn't work in this country is what interests me.
I find what makes up a country, a regime, and it's citizens are what interests me. I love the philosophy behind a nation, not so much the day to day managing of one. Factors such as resource, location, and religion are major determining factors. Such as religion in the Middle East or resource in the Middle East. Both of those factors are huge in why they are autocratic countries. Books such as Plato's The Republic and Symposium are great reads, very tough to get through but very interesting. So I could go on and on, but I think I have tpyed enough for today. Soon enough I will go further into the philosophy of politics and regimes.