I swear to God, if someone gives me Pig Flu, I'm going to make out with their mom. So don't give it to me. But seriously, this stuff is kind of scary. I mean, the levels that government agencies to designate the seriousness of threats has never really been a good gauge for the actual danger, eg. the color-coded terrorist threat level. But in reading up on this Swine Flu thing, I read that CDC has a 6-level system that was instituted in the early 90's. Since then it has never been over 3. In the last 2 or 3 weeks since the outbreak it has gone up to 5. Kind of scary. They are the "experts" and they feel threatened enough to raise it like that? Nuts. And the other kind of scary thing is something I had never even heard of until this Pig Flu thing came out. In 1918, a third of the world's population got sick and more than 50 million people died of a flu strain. Now, I know that people get flus all the time and influenza strains change every year, that's why for people who get flu shots, you have to get a new one every year, but it's just creepy, to me, that that is actually possible.
We'll see I guess, how bad it really gets. Only one death in the U.S. so far, an infant, but virus evolve so fast and if we don't have any kind of vaccine for it, it could get bad, real fast. Ok, now everyone, freakout!!!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
speaking of free speech
Here's the article on cnn.com about the FCC and the Supreme Court.
So, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sued the major TV networks for indecency. The FCC is trying to make it a crime to be "indecent" on network TV. The networks won in Appeals Court where the judges called the regulations the FCC arbitrary. But the FCC appealed again and the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, overturning the appeals court's decision to not penalize the networks for a few F-bombs and stuff.
So here's a couple of things I found funny, first, The Court wouldn't decide on the free-speech issue the networks brought up. They sent that issue back to the lower court. Second there were a few comments by the Court in their decision and the FCC in their comments (and the responses to them) after that I kind of laughed at. I normally like Scalia because he's kind of a dick, but when in his concurrence he he says, "Even when used as an expletive, the F-word's power to insult and offend derives from its sexual meaning." Wait, really? There are plenty of other meanings for the F-Bomb and honestly he doesn't seem to have a clue here as to what insults people. Considering the fact that if it didn't sell, the networks wouldn't have ran it. After the "wardrobe malfunction" during the Superbowl a few years ago, ALL live TV is on 15 second delay. So the examples given in the article about things said on live TV were actually let through by the producers. Yes, I understand that what sells may not be what EVERYONE wants, but that means that more people want it, or simply don't care, than the number of people that do care or make a big deal about it.
In response to the Scalia comment Justice Stevens, in his descent said, "As any golfer who has watched his partner shank a short approach knows, it would be absurd to accept the suggestion that the resultant four-letter word uttered on the golf course describes sex or excrement and is therefore indecent. But that is the absurdity the FCC has embraced in its new approach to indecency."
Dude, that's one of the best arguments I've ever heard. Partly because I golf, and even if you read my last blog and know that it is my meditation, I still get mad at bad shots, when I hit them. And partly because it makes sense. If I say, "holy shit," does anyone really think I'm talking about God dropping a deuce?
The FCC is lame. At least they don't have control over cable TV and they can't FUCK with my South Park, or Eastbound and Down.
So, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sued the major TV networks for indecency. The FCC is trying to make it a crime to be "indecent" on network TV. The networks won in Appeals Court where the judges called the regulations the FCC arbitrary. But the FCC appealed again and the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, overturning the appeals court's decision to not penalize the networks for a few F-bombs and stuff.
So here's a couple of things I found funny, first, The Court wouldn't decide on the free-speech issue the networks brought up. They sent that issue back to the lower court. Second there were a few comments by the Court in their decision and the FCC in their comments (and the responses to them) after that I kind of laughed at. I normally like Scalia because he's kind of a dick, but when in his concurrence he he says, "Even when used as an expletive, the F-word's power to insult and offend derives from its sexual meaning." Wait, really? There are plenty of other meanings for the F-Bomb and honestly he doesn't seem to have a clue here as to what insults people. Considering the fact that if it didn't sell, the networks wouldn't have ran it. After the "wardrobe malfunction" during the Superbowl a few years ago, ALL live TV is on 15 second delay. So the examples given in the article about things said on live TV were actually let through by the producers. Yes, I understand that what sells may not be what EVERYONE wants, but that means that more people want it, or simply don't care, than the number of people that do care or make a big deal about it.
In response to the Scalia comment Justice Stevens, in his descent said, "As any golfer who has watched his partner shank a short approach knows, it would be absurd to accept the suggestion that the resultant four-letter word uttered on the golf course describes sex or excrement and is therefore indecent. But that is the absurdity the FCC has embraced in its new approach to indecency."
Dude, that's one of the best arguments I've ever heard. Partly because I golf, and even if you read my last blog and know that it is my meditation, I still get mad at bad shots, when I hit them. And partly because it makes sense. If I say, "holy shit," does anyone really think I'm talking about God dropping a deuce?
The FCC is lame. At least they don't have control over cable TV and they can't FUCK with my South Park, or Eastbound and Down.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
my sanctuary
I grew up on golf courses. Almost all of my baby pictures are on Spring Hills GC. Mine was the first name ever on their member's board, when I was 6 months old. I love golf, but I suck at it. I've been on golf courses for 30 years and I'm still a 15 or 16 handicap. which means I bogey almost every hole, on average. But, none of that matters.
My mind runs, a lot. It never stops actually. I've tried conventional forms of meditation, the gym, all kinds of stuff. Until one day I was watching one of my favorite movies of all time, Layer Cake. Keep in mind I've seen this movie, I don't know, a lot of times, even before this, but one time I realized what one of the characters means when he says that meditation is concentrating the front of the mind so the rest of the mind can be at peace. I realized that's what golf is for me. No matter how bad (or well) I play, my mind only focuses on what I'm doing at that moment, and/or for the 4 hours on the course. It's the only place on the planet where I only think about one thing. Golf is my meditation, my sanctuary, my peace.
It's expensive meditation, but the more I play, the better I feel. I hope everyone can find a peaceful place in their mind.
My mind runs, a lot. It never stops actually. I've tried conventional forms of meditation, the gym, all kinds of stuff. Until one day I was watching one of my favorite movies of all time, Layer Cake. Keep in mind I've seen this movie, I don't know, a lot of times, even before this, but one time I realized what one of the characters means when he says that meditation is concentrating the front of the mind so the rest of the mind can be at peace. I realized that's what golf is for me. No matter how bad (or well) I play, my mind only focuses on what I'm doing at that moment, and/or for the 4 hours on the course. It's the only place on the planet where I only think about one thing. Golf is my meditation, my sanctuary, my peace.
It's expensive meditation, but the more I play, the better I feel. I hope everyone can find a peaceful place in their mind.
Friday, April 17, 2009
I hate hippies!
Not the real hippies. Not 60's and 70's hippies who had really lived on themselves. Not the hippies that who were REALLY enlightened to what was going on in the world. I was driving today and was reminded of how people in Santa Cruz think that wearing a black shirt, standing on an overpass, holding a sign and creating traffic somehow actually does something. Do I hate real hippies?
No, I hate fake hippies, the hippies that shop at Trader Joe's and think that the organic label is somehow equivalent to growing it themselves, and that it makes them somehow better than the single mom who shops at Safeway for the sales. Don't get me wrong I shop at Trader Joe's too (and Safeway), but it's all about the attitude. Look for it and you'll see it, if you don't it's probably you. The hippies that get ALL their news from Alex Jones and believe that it's not one-sided just like FoxNews and CNN, only skewed the other way. The hippies that think anti-growth can work, when all it really does is make more traffic for the PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE! The hippies that follow Ralph Nader and don't realize that he's no better than they are holding a sign on the overpass fucking up traffic, talking about wanting to change stuff, but merely wasting their resources (in Nader's case money, in the Bay's case, time, yours and mine) by merely riling people up, and for what? To say you did it? To say you got through to people? WHAT FREAKING GOOD DOES THAT DO? DO SOMETHING! Anything! I don't care, but your fucking sign doesn't change a thing. You want change, do something different, don't just talk (hold a sign) that says your pissed (or a more national example, tea parties). Really!?! And what are you accomplishing, really? OOOOO, now they know you're angry. So? You think they really care when all you do is say it when all you do is talk. Affect Change, idiots. Good thing you actually made anything at all happen. SHUT UP!!!! Because all your doing is making peoples' days harder than they already are. The last thing this country needs right now is for people who claim to be trying fix it (though again, are they really?) making lives of good people harder. I'm not at all calling for a revolution or anything like that, all I'm saying is they aren't doing anything besides making everyone else's life that they say their helping, harder.
And I know I'm at ground zero and I may piss some people off with this, but I grew up in the area and I'm one of the few that didn't buy into the shit. I'm one of the few that actually researches both sides of a story before I pick a side (if I pick a side), and I'm fed up with what I see. I guess what I'm describing are yuppies. I love real hippies, but I don't think there are any left.
No, I hate fake hippies, the hippies that shop at Trader Joe's and think that the organic label is somehow equivalent to growing it themselves, and that it makes them somehow better than the single mom who shops at Safeway for the sales. Don't get me wrong I shop at Trader Joe's too (and Safeway), but it's all about the attitude. Look for it and you'll see it, if you don't it's probably you. The hippies that get ALL their news from Alex Jones and believe that it's not one-sided just like FoxNews and CNN, only skewed the other way. The hippies that think anti-growth can work, when all it really does is make more traffic for the PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE! The hippies that follow Ralph Nader and don't realize that he's no better than they are holding a sign on the overpass fucking up traffic, talking about wanting to change stuff, but merely wasting their resources (in Nader's case money, in the Bay's case, time, yours and mine) by merely riling people up, and for what? To say you did it? To say you got through to people? WHAT FREAKING GOOD DOES THAT DO? DO SOMETHING! Anything! I don't care, but your fucking sign doesn't change a thing. You want change, do something different, don't just talk (hold a sign) that says your pissed (or a more national example, tea parties). Really!?! And what are you accomplishing, really? OOOOO, now they know you're angry. So? You think they really care when all you do is say it when all you do is talk. Affect Change, idiots. Good thing you actually made anything at all happen. SHUT UP!!!! Because all your doing is making peoples' days harder than they already are. The last thing this country needs right now is for people who claim to be trying fix it (though again, are they really?) making lives of good people harder. I'm not at all calling for a revolution or anything like that, all I'm saying is they aren't doing anything besides making everyone else's life that they say their helping, harder.
And I know I'm at ground zero and I may piss some people off with this, but I grew up in the area and I'm one of the few that didn't buy into the shit. I'm one of the few that actually researches both sides of a story before I pick a side (if I pick a side), and I'm fed up with what I see. I guess what I'm describing are yuppies. I love real hippies, but I don't think there are any left.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
my kid
So my 2nd grade son's teacher had been picking on him at school. I'm interning at a law office and when I asked them what my rights are about getting him transferred they came up with some stuff for me to use. Background: This had ben going on for a few months. In December we had a meeting with the principle, his teacher, his mom, me, his grandma (who teaches at the school), and some other school staff and my chick and I thought some good things came out of it. However, even though Markus wasn't aware that we had had that meeting, for him things got worse. He came a few days after that meeting and said things were worse than ever in class. A couple months of trying to get the principle to change Markus' class reaped nothing. So I finally wrote a letter that had all the legal responsibilities and an outline of what the teacher had done (she said "crap" aboout his work a couple times and used Markus as an example when saying to other kids, "oh great, now you're slower than Markus"), in it. Now keep in mind the kid is smart, he gets the stuff but he gets super distracted, really easily. We feel the teacher's pain here, we have him at home and it's the same, but the problem is she is an adult and a 2nd grade teacher who is now taking her frustration out on a 7 year-old. Also, Markus internalizes everything, he takes everything personally, even when he gets in trouble at home. The difference is, at home, and everywhere else in his life where he sometimes gets disciplined for not staying focus, like his Kung Fu classes, once he get's torn down, he gets built back up. In class he wasn't getting that.
In the teacher's defense, I understand, I think, what she was doing. She was looking for way to get through to him. A way to make him stay focused. The problem is, when she figured out it wasn't working she didn't change it, she got worse. Like I said, after three and a half months of this, since the December 15th meeting, I knew something else had to be done. I worte a legal letter outlining everything and the laws, and that Markus had to be moved from that class immediately, no questions, just make it happen, in a more proffesional manner.
Here's the thing, so without us doing this for 3 months, nothing happened. In a matter of two days of me taking action, shit got done. I went at sat with an Associate Superintendent, got pretty verbal with her, and that produced a call from the principle. Got pretty verbal with the principle the next day, and that produced the teacher crying in the principle's office and sitting Markus down during a break from class that day apologizing to him for the way she had treated him, telling him she'll make the effort to help him learn.
So, I tell you that so I can tell you this. At the risk of sounding arrogant, normally when situations like this arise, and I begin to research and devote resources to figuring people out, I know what's coming. But this time I was wrong, I'll admit it. When we went in the next morning to meet with the principle and now the teacher too, after she had apologized to Markus the morning before and he came home from school for the first time in months saying he had a good day (Again, he didn't know about that meeting either), I fully expected her to lie about what she said. I knew it was going to happen and I knew how I was going to discredit it (she had been caught in a lie about what other teachers had said about Markus, earlier in the semester), and I was going to go over everyone's head to the Super and school board. In fact, the day before I told the principle in a heated argument, that even though you have a good reputation now, they can topple like that, and that he would be held just as responsible for the neglect, discrimination, and emotional abuse that she had shown Markus because he is the principle and we'd been trying for 3 months to get him to do something about it, and he let it happen. Anyway, I was wrong, she didn't lie, she didn't deny, she was holding back tears ( I didn't believe the principle who told us she was crying the day before).
I had absolutely no thought in my mind of giving them a second, or what I felt was even more than that, chance, when we got there. But three things happened, Markus came home happy from school for the 1st time in months and at this age, getting turned off from school could have life long affects (and he has now for 4 straight days), we realized that had we done this footwork earlier (Assoc. Super., letter, etc) the teachers attitude may have changed then, and I was wrong about what was going to happen. Because of those three things we gave them an opportunity to not have their reputations irreparably damaged and make it right with the kid. It's like I told the principle "I know you have a good reputation in this district, but when it comes to children, your reputation can topple from the pedestal like that, if your responsible for damaging them. You may as well be labled a sex offender." I know, I'm an asshole.
Moral of the story. We admitted where we were wrong, they admitted where they wrong, and I even admitted, in my own mind, where I was wrong (about the teacher's following actions that didn't happen...yes I can admit it...I know, weird), and all of that resulted in what was best for Markus.
In the teacher's defense, I understand, I think, what she was doing. She was looking for way to get through to him. A way to make him stay focused. The problem is, when she figured out it wasn't working she didn't change it, she got worse. Like I said, after three and a half months of this, since the December 15th meeting, I knew something else had to be done. I worte a legal letter outlining everything and the laws, and that Markus had to be moved from that class immediately, no questions, just make it happen, in a more proffesional manner.
Here's the thing, so without us doing this for 3 months, nothing happened. In a matter of two days of me taking action, shit got done. I went at sat with an Associate Superintendent, got pretty verbal with her, and that produced a call from the principle. Got pretty verbal with the principle the next day, and that produced the teacher crying in the principle's office and sitting Markus down during a break from class that day apologizing to him for the way she had treated him, telling him she'll make the effort to help him learn.
So, I tell you that so I can tell you this. At the risk of sounding arrogant, normally when situations like this arise, and I begin to research and devote resources to figuring people out, I know what's coming. But this time I was wrong, I'll admit it. When we went in the next morning to meet with the principle and now the teacher too, after she had apologized to Markus the morning before and he came home from school for the first time in months saying he had a good day (Again, he didn't know about that meeting either), I fully expected her to lie about what she said. I knew it was going to happen and I knew how I was going to discredit it (she had been caught in a lie about what other teachers had said about Markus, earlier in the semester), and I was going to go over everyone's head to the Super and school board. In fact, the day before I told the principle in a heated argument, that even though you have a good reputation now, they can topple like that, and that he would be held just as responsible for the neglect, discrimination, and emotional abuse that she had shown Markus because he is the principle and we'd been trying for 3 months to get him to do something about it, and he let it happen. Anyway, I was wrong, she didn't lie, she didn't deny, she was holding back tears ( I didn't believe the principle who told us she was crying the day before).
I had absolutely no thought in my mind of giving them a second, or what I felt was even more than that, chance, when we got there. But three things happened, Markus came home happy from school for the 1st time in months and at this age, getting turned off from school could have life long affects (and he has now for 4 straight days), we realized that had we done this footwork earlier (Assoc. Super., letter, etc) the teachers attitude may have changed then, and I was wrong about what was going to happen. Because of those three things we gave them an opportunity to not have their reputations irreparably damaged and make it right with the kid. It's like I told the principle "I know you have a good reputation in this district, but when it comes to children, your reputation can topple from the pedestal like that, if your responsible for damaging them. You may as well be labled a sex offender." I know, I'm an asshole.
Moral of the story. We admitted where we were wrong, they admitted where they wrong, and I even admitted, in my own mind, where I was wrong (about the teacher's following actions that didn't happen...yes I can admit it...I know, weird), and all of that resulted in what was best for Markus.
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