So I just flew in from Las Vegas and boy are my arms tired... and my ass is sore because Vegas had it's foot in it the whole time I was there. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time as I always do. But usually when I leave I say, "Man, I can't wait to come back," but this time I was like, "Maybe I'll wait a while to go back." The last two times I was there in Vegas I noticed it was getting more and more expensive. But both of those times I was winning money and then spending it on fun things here and there. It seems like every single time I've been there (over a dozen times since I turned 21) I always had just enough money to have a good time. When I first turned 21 I wouldn't win anything but everything was so cheap I was able to drink what I wanted and see all the things I wanted to too. As I've gotten older Vegas has been getting more and more expensive; but this wasn't a problem because I would win a lot more and then spend a lot more but, hey, at least having a good time. This time I was getting piddly little shit wins and the prices were CRANKED!
So think of this, a good price for a beer was about $8 (for a bottle); if you really looked around you could find $4-5 beers, but these were usually outside the casino in the drug stores. I remember waiting in a line that had 6 or 7 people in it only to get to the end and find that it was $12 for a Corona; and there were plenty of people willingly paying that price. I was about to ask the lady how much it was for the beer without the handjob but I guess $12 only gets you the beer. Not too long ago you could expect to pay maybe $10-15 at a casual restaurant but now it's in the $19-24 range. And if you really want to get screwed, I remember when the Mandalay Bay first opened you could get an all-you-could-eat buffet for about $14 I think; I seem to remember that being the price and we thought that was a little steep. Now it's $28-30 almost no matter where you go for the buffets. I thought resort towns were bad but Vegas almost eclipsed them; and it's not like food and drinks are their only source of revenue, or even their main source of revenue, their main source of revenue is GAMBLING! I mean these guys aren't exactly the March of Dimes; why the hell do they need to charge that much? Vegas and I used to have an understanding; it would show me a good time and take all of my money. This time it was just stingy and I spent a lot of my time gathering coupons and going off the strip for cheap beers.
One of my ultimate favorite things to do is check out the new hotels that have been built since the last time I had been there. Every time this has happened I've always enjoyed the new additions... until this time. They have this thing called the CityCenter; for the most part it's like an indoor mall and some other hotels. I would have thought that was cool, but damn, it's all really upscale shops like Tiffany's, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton. Because obviously the biggest problem in Vegas is that there aren't enough places to spend your money at. Okay maybe there are upscale shops at the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, New York New York, MGM Grand, The Wynn, The Paris, The Venetian, Caesar's Palace, Planet Hollywood, and I guess they do have a mall called the Fashion Show Mall right across the street from CityCenter; but other than that no places to buy upscale clothing and accessories. One thing that CityCenter doesn't have... places to sit down and rest. And I really felt it this time I was there. Almost every place there had gotten rid of their shuttles, trams and other means of free travel so you can take taxis everywhere, walk, or take the monorail.
Cost-wise the Monorail is pretty good but it doesn't go to every hotel, in fact there are only a few hotels that even participated in this venture. The monorail is clunky, questionably safe, and almost always tucked back at the very end of whatever hotel you go to. If you have problems with something on the monorail, I don't know what you do, I almost never even see people operating it. I do remember one time it was raining and a guy in a reflective vest (I assume he worked on the monorail) saw us lining up to catch the train and he said, "Yeah don't even bother lining up, that train ain't going to stop when the track is wet." Sure enough the tram rocketed past us full of terrified passengers realizing that they weren't going to be able to get off. When we finally did get on the monorail it seemed like it was moving heaven and earth to get it to stop at the end of the line. But for value I guess it's the way to go, each ride is $5 which isn't worth it, but it's $15 for an all day pass which is pretty worth it if you want to explore Las Vegas (and safety isn't a motivating factor). But for us at Mandalay Bay we had to walk almost 2 miles to get to MGM Grand which had the monorail stop and then it's way at the back of the whole hotel so even more walking. For the hotels that have been built since the monorail was made, there are very few options to get there you just kind of roll the dice on which stop is closest. They do have a list of hotels that are closest to each stop but I think I could debate their recommendations on a few of them.
So they have taken away creature comforts, or in some cases, started charging money for things they didn't used to; and they increased the prices of nearly everything. I could possibly live with these things if the slots payed out and in the recent past I was able to do just that. I'd hit a $200-$300 win every other day and it gave us the money to go out and play for a few days. But not this time I got a $150 "life support" win once during my whole trip. I call it a life support win because it was like Vegas was stepping on my trachea and decided to give me a few breaths of air, just because it wanted me to make sure I was alive when it decided to torture me some more. So to some a $150 win is pretty good, but it doesn't get you crap in Vegas, hell it barely gets you craps. Most tables are $10 minimum for craps, you can find $5 tables in a few places but not in every casino. So maybe my luck just finally ran out; but I've always believed in the adage "Unlucky in love, lucky in cards." I'm probably the unluckiest in love there has ever been, so therefore, I must be the luckiest at gambling of anyone. So if I'm not winning nobody else must be either; or maybe I'm starting to get lucky in love... Nah, they just aren't letting people win.
The final gripe I had is that people working there are just kind of dicks more and more each time I'm out there. It used to be you could get all the help you need from the employees of any given hotel wandering around. But this time they seemed to have thrown in some attitude as some sort of bonus. Now I'm kind of used to just regular people being dicks to me; but casino people should probably be nice, maybe... I did probably pay their paychecks with my gambling losses this time. But almost never in my life have I felt so isolated in a place with that many people. I made a remark to one of the people I went to Las Vegas with about suntan lotion and this lady in the elevator started to strike up a conversation with me; and I was fucking pumped about it. If that hadn't happened I would be wondering if it was some kind of Sixth Sense thing where I was a ghost and just didn't know it. I think there was one waitress the whole time I was there that I felt even deserved above a 10% tip. In speaking of that there was this place I kept hearing about at the Excalibur called "Dick's" that apparently had good food. The catch is that the waiters and waitresses treat you like shit. Some people like that place I guess, but when everyone is being a shithead anyway it seems kind of extraneous that there would be places that give you an extra dose of bitchiness. And I do specifically mean bitchiness; the women were the worst in Vegas. Apart from the nice lady in the elevator, the one waitress, and a maid I had to avoid women altogether. I was kind of sick of getting the feminine-hostility-hoduken to the face every time I asked a lady who worked there to do her job. They guys weren't exactly sunshine and roses, but at least they knew it was their job. I am kind of wondering if they have some kind of focus group that said to the Las Vegas developers, "We don't want to win when we gamble, but we want expensive meals and clothing, we want to walk until we almost die of exhaustion, and then we want your staff to treat us like shit everywhere we go." That's the opposite of what I want!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
What does a Meter Maid say she does for a Living at a Party?
This is dedicated to a friend who asked me to write about what a meter-maid says she (or he) does for a living when people ask her at a party. You can't say you're a meter-maid; people would hate that. You basically ruin people's days so that the city can spend the money on offensive and/or stupid looking artwork or whatever bullshit thing they want to spend it on. I was thinking, Cops probably have the same problem buuuuttt... people are probably less likely to start shit with a Cop. Meter-maids are almost helpless; a Cop can throw you in jail for any one of millions of reasons but a meter-maid can give you a $50 ticket if she knows which one is your car and she can prove you were doing something wrong. So what could you do, avoid talking about your job? I'm unemployed and I can tell you that is almost the first thing people ask you after they introduce you. I hate telling people I'm unemployed, even though they don't come out and say it, how they really feel about usually boils to the surface eventually. I'd say if someone tells you they are unemployed you react one of two ways: 1. You think they are lazy and worthless 2. You get jealous that you have to work when they don't have to. So I know that they must face the same thing when they say they are meter-maids.
Obviously it's not just meter-maids; I've met people in all sorts of frowned upon professions and nearly everyone would bring it up in a different way. I actually had one like this (I'll get to that in a second) and I'd just try to change the subject and only tell them if they really persisted. Now that I think about it, really there was only one person I liked less after hearing what she did, and that was just because of the way she told me about it. She was some like credit card bill collector and she would tell me about all the things she lied to people about and how stupid people were for falling for that... I was one of those people who was stupid enough to fall for it; so the more she talked about it the madder I got. But I actually learned a lot from what she told me. She told me that they make threats like, "If you don't pay us we are going to have to escalate this, or turn this over." They don't have anyone to turn it over to because it's not a crime, in fact it's an unsecured loan. They can sue you for the money, which you don't want, but really they don't want to have to do that either. Likely what they will do is sell the loans to collection agencies, the harder you are to collect from, the less they sell it for so say I owe $500 on my merchant Visa card. I'm a real pain in the ass to deal with so they sell the loan to some other asshole for $100. They are going to try for a while to get $500 but after a while they might just want to get $200 or $300. So you settle for much less than you owe. This is very risky and the best policy is to just pay your bills on time as even if you can get away with it, your credit gets shredded.
I have met a bunch of people who handled the "What do you do for a living" question well. For instance I met a girl at a wedding and she was very shy, in fact I asked her to dance and she said, "No I'm not feeling good" and then her sister told me to just ask her again and then she came up to dance. This illustrates the point that I know more about Nuclear Fission Reactors than I do about women. Anyway after asking her what she did the necessary two times needed to get the information, I found out she repossesses houses and at first I was taken a back by that. But she said, "It's just a job and if I didn't do it someone else would." And I guess I never thought about it that way, no matter what you do for a living there will always be a meter-maid out there somewhere. If it's you, then that just sucks, but it needs to be done by somebody. It all just kind of goes back the thing that we think that people's jobs are who they are. Like I said that's almost the first thing we ask people when we meet them. I know I used to program computers but it said absolutely nothing about who I was. I didn't ever say, "I'm sorry, I was expecting a Boolean response to that question," or "Sorry bro that's not a valid operand for that thing you were just talking about." So why would I even think that that would even help to get to know people? Of course there are people who are exactly what their job is. I remember there was this one guy and his name was Johnny and he was a repo man. They say, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but whatever Johnny did they came and got his ass, and as far as I know he's still doing a stretch down there. Johnny was the type of guy who was too proud to take $10 from you, but if he could steal or con you out of $5 he'd do it in a heartbeat. Jackin' people's shit was his bread and butter, the fact that he could do it and not have to go to jail for it probably only sweetened the deal.
I know for me I had a job like that, I used to work at a Catholic church at the time when all of the priest scandals were going on. At a party I couldn't tell anyone what I did, if I did I'd either get people rolling their eyes or people saying, "Well you know what I think about religion." As if for some reason I really needed to know what some idiot frat kid double-fisting Steel Reserves thought about religion. We would have people come in asking for money (for some reason it's common for people to ask for money from churches). Now it's one thing to have people come up to you on the street asking for change. It's a lot harder when they come into your office, not that I had any money to give them, not surprisingly we keep the money in the bank. Some people would get upset, some people would almost get violent, I've never been hurt but had a couple close calls. I had one guy who would come and stay in my office every day until I gave him money, I just ignored him and after a few hours he'd just leave. One time I got an unexpected Christmas bonus and a woman called me up in tears saying she needed money to buy her kids Christmas presents and to keep her power on. I gave in and said I'd drop the money by her house, she said she wouldn't be home but her son would. So I go to the bank and get cash and find the house, I knocked on the door and a man in his thirties answers the door while on the phone, grabs the money out of my hand and slams the door. I didn't get a thank you or anything and when I realized that her son (or whoever he was) was far past the throwing-a-temper-tantrum-because-he-didn't-get-a-Christmas-present age, it made me even sadder. Hey and since everyone goes there with me, why the fuck didn't this joker have a job? It wasn't like they weren't easy to get in 2002.
So despite everyone looking to us for money; they still hated us. When we didn't give any money we would get smart ass remarks like, "Oh yeah you need to pay off those kids that you molest." I didn't take it personally because I'm not a priest and I was in charge of the business side of things like getting bids for our finance council, scheduling repairs and inspections, getting people their stipends, and getting people their office supplies. But still that shit is really unsettling to hear, I wouldn't call Golf Pro Shop and call them adulterers or something. We would get prank calls and calls from people all the time; I even got a couple phone calls from a woman I now believe to be Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church. They are a quaint little hate group that goes around the U.S. protesting at gay people's funerals as well as soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Judging by their website they predominately hate homosexuals but they also seem to hate fallen soldiers, Jewish people, Catholics, churches that don't hate homosexuals, and even churches that do hate homosexuals but don't embrace Westboro Baptists. Apparently the Phelps family, that heads up the parish in Kansas, enjoy skiing when they aren't spreading whatever their convoluted hate message is. I recognized that woman's voice when I saw part of a documentary, The Most Hated Family in America as one of the people who would call up our church and harass us. Her trademark phrase is saying something to the effect of "Hell is going to split underneath you and suck you in" as if Hell is some sort of fissure that just lies dormant underneath us waiting for us to say, "Gays aren't so bad." They protested at a few of the churches around us while on ski trips, but ours wasn't big enough for them to actually visit, just call and tell us that we are going to hell. So any job where I can give away my whole Christmas bonus and still have people call me nearly every day and tell me that they hate me and I was going to hell, wasn't for me. So that's my job that I try not to talk about a whole lot.
Obviously it's not just meter-maids; I've met people in all sorts of frowned upon professions and nearly everyone would bring it up in a different way. I actually had one like this (I'll get to that in a second) and I'd just try to change the subject and only tell them if they really persisted. Now that I think about it, really there was only one person I liked less after hearing what she did, and that was just because of the way she told me about it. She was some like credit card bill collector and she would tell me about all the things she lied to people about and how stupid people were for falling for that... I was one of those people who was stupid enough to fall for it; so the more she talked about it the madder I got. But I actually learned a lot from what she told me. She told me that they make threats like, "If you don't pay us we are going to have to escalate this, or turn this over." They don't have anyone to turn it over to because it's not a crime, in fact it's an unsecured loan. They can sue you for the money, which you don't want, but really they don't want to have to do that either. Likely what they will do is sell the loans to collection agencies, the harder you are to collect from, the less they sell it for so say I owe $500 on my merchant Visa card. I'm a real pain in the ass to deal with so they sell the loan to some other asshole for $100. They are going to try for a while to get $500 but after a while they might just want to get $200 or $300. So you settle for much less than you owe. This is very risky and the best policy is to just pay your bills on time as even if you can get away with it, your credit gets shredded.
I have met a bunch of people who handled the "What do you do for a living" question well. For instance I met a girl at a wedding and she was very shy, in fact I asked her to dance and she said, "No I'm not feeling good" and then her sister told me to just ask her again and then she came up to dance. This illustrates the point that I know more about Nuclear Fission Reactors than I do about women. Anyway after asking her what she did the necessary two times needed to get the information, I found out she repossesses houses and at first I was taken a back by that. But she said, "It's just a job and if I didn't do it someone else would." And I guess I never thought about it that way, no matter what you do for a living there will always be a meter-maid out there somewhere. If it's you, then that just sucks, but it needs to be done by somebody. It all just kind of goes back the thing that we think that people's jobs are who they are. Like I said that's almost the first thing we ask people when we meet them. I know I used to program computers but it said absolutely nothing about who I was. I didn't ever say, "I'm sorry, I was expecting a Boolean response to that question," or "Sorry bro that's not a valid operand for that thing you were just talking about." So why would I even think that that would even help to get to know people? Of course there are people who are exactly what their job is. I remember there was this one guy and his name was Johnny and he was a repo man. They say, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but whatever Johnny did they came and got his ass, and as far as I know he's still doing a stretch down there. Johnny was the type of guy who was too proud to take $10 from you, but if he could steal or con you out of $5 he'd do it in a heartbeat. Jackin' people's shit was his bread and butter, the fact that he could do it and not have to go to jail for it probably only sweetened the deal.
I know for me I had a job like that, I used to work at a Catholic church at the time when all of the priest scandals were going on. At a party I couldn't tell anyone what I did, if I did I'd either get people rolling their eyes or people saying, "Well you know what I think about religion." As if for some reason I really needed to know what some idiot frat kid double-fisting Steel Reserves thought about religion. We would have people come in asking for money (for some reason it's common for people to ask for money from churches). Now it's one thing to have people come up to you on the street asking for change. It's a lot harder when they come into your office, not that I had any money to give them, not surprisingly we keep the money in the bank. Some people would get upset, some people would almost get violent, I've never been hurt but had a couple close calls. I had one guy who would come and stay in my office every day until I gave him money, I just ignored him and after a few hours he'd just leave. One time I got an unexpected Christmas bonus and a woman called me up in tears saying she needed money to buy her kids Christmas presents and to keep her power on. I gave in and said I'd drop the money by her house, she said she wouldn't be home but her son would. So I go to the bank and get cash and find the house, I knocked on the door and a man in his thirties answers the door while on the phone, grabs the money out of my hand and slams the door. I didn't get a thank you or anything and when I realized that her son (or whoever he was) was far past the throwing-a-temper-tantrum-because-he-didn't-get-a-Christmas-present age, it made me even sadder. Hey and since everyone goes there with me, why the fuck didn't this joker have a job? It wasn't like they weren't easy to get in 2002.
So despite everyone looking to us for money; they still hated us. When we didn't give any money we would get smart ass remarks like, "Oh yeah you need to pay off those kids that you molest." I didn't take it personally because I'm not a priest and I was in charge of the business side of things like getting bids for our finance council, scheduling repairs and inspections, getting people their stipends, and getting people their office supplies. But still that shit is really unsettling to hear, I wouldn't call Golf Pro Shop and call them adulterers or something. We would get prank calls and calls from people all the time; I even got a couple phone calls from a woman I now believe to be Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church. They are a quaint little hate group that goes around the U.S. protesting at gay people's funerals as well as soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Judging by their website they predominately hate homosexuals but they also seem to hate fallen soldiers, Jewish people, Catholics, churches that don't hate homosexuals, and even churches that do hate homosexuals but don't embrace Westboro Baptists. Apparently the Phelps family, that heads up the parish in Kansas, enjoy skiing when they aren't spreading whatever their convoluted hate message is. I recognized that woman's voice when I saw part of a documentary, The Most Hated Family in America as one of the people who would call up our church and harass us. Her trademark phrase is saying something to the effect of "Hell is going to split underneath you and suck you in" as if Hell is some sort of fissure that just lies dormant underneath us waiting for us to say, "Gays aren't so bad." They protested at a few of the churches around us while on ski trips, but ours wasn't big enough for them to actually visit, just call and tell us that we are going to hell. So any job where I can give away my whole Christmas bonus and still have people call me nearly every day and tell me that they hate me and I was going to hell, wasn't for me. So that's my job that I try not to talk about a whole lot.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Learning how to Relax
Some people have found this story interesting when I tell them, others write it off. I think that the truth will outweigh the number of people who think I'm crazy. This all came about when I had a dream a few weeks ago. I was floating up to heaven, all around me there were clouds charged with electricity; kind of like going into "warp speed" only if you went there from the earth. I saw a giant light at the end of the tunnel, it didn't take a theologian to guess that I was going up to heaven. I was almost close enough to see God, but instead I saw a word that was coming towards me even faster than I was going towards it. The word was "Relax!" with the exclamation point. It hit me with such force I fell all the way back down to earth twice as fast as I had floated up. I woke up gasping for air, my whole body ached like I had fallen from a great height. In a way it was kind of funny, but the message was more... ferocious...
I had felt this way one other time in my life, I used to live with my brother, my cousin and a friend; I called it a "faux-frat house" it was a total college house just not officially a frat. There were two girls that would come over very often, for the purpose of this story I'll call one Devan and the other Rebecca. I'd like to say I hadn't met them many times, but the truth of the matter was that I had met them over a dozen times. I was playing cards with some of our CU friends, nothing big just playing some cards. One of them came over and wanted to talk but didn't need to be dealt in. We talked for a few hours, nothing ground breaking just talking. I looked down to shuffle the cards and said, "So Devan..." Before I knew what happened I was on the floor and the cards were everywhere and everyone was laughing at me. Apparently that was Rebecca and after calling her Devan nearly 20 times that night alone she slapped me across the face. Granted I was a little drunk and not expecting it, I do have to give credit where it's due; do you realize how hard a 110 pound girl has to slap a 230 pound man to knock him out of a chair? I also want to point out that my chair was up against a wall so she didn't even have leverage on her side. Needless to say that's the kind of correction I needed to make sure I called her Rebecca from now on. Politely correcting me wasn't going to get the point across.
Now think of that lesson, and then think about one over one hundred times as clear. It wasn't like, "hey here is a suggestion, just try to relax." It wasn't like, "things are going to turn out right, all you got to do is relax a little bit." For all I know things could end up getting a lot worse and I still have to relax. It was more like, "this is your last chance." I don't know what the last chance is for, my life has been in the toilet for over 15 years. I had all but given up on life; it just seems like there isn't anything out there for me any more. I also am a very luke-warm Catholic so I didn't really believe in heaven much less think that I could jeopardize it by not relaxing. You don't have to believe in God, but you can believe this every time I have given in to stress or missed the opportunity to relax and "let things go," it's yielded only catastrophe. Even if you think that maybe I just am looking at the bad, the last two times I got worked up about anything the tips of my fingers started to go numb. I don't really have the money to go to the doctor, but even if I did it's not like I haven't been to the doctor about stress problems over 20 times already.
As far back as second grade I was so stressed about the work-load I had in my class room that I was 100% literally pulling my hair out in chunks. I didn't know what was wrong with me, it wasn't until the janitor noticed hair all around my desk that anyone even noticed it. I look at a second grader today and there is no way I could understand one of them having any sort of stress problems. The result has been the same for nearly 20 years: I see a therapist, pediatrician, or some general physician and they give me pills to solve the problem manifesting or give me some stress relief techniques and I abide by them for a while and then they soon fall by the wayside. Family and friends have all suggested this to me over a hundred times; it's not like I don't want to, I just feel like I can't. I mean even now I am almost stressed thinking about why I'm not supposed to be stressed. Do you know how bad a problem needs to be for God to intervene from a biblical standpoint? After 400 years of slavery he came to Moses, after over 3,000 years of sin he sends his son to set the record strait. So if you think about it, God really really really wants me to calm down. I know what you're thinking, how hard can it be? I don't have a job, no kids, and very little responsibility; why can't I?
You are just going to have to believe me when I say this, it's hard, it's the very first knee-jerk reaction I have to everything. Think about if someone told you that if you didn't answer "yes" to every single question no matter what your initial gut response was going to be, "or else" with no information that would be pretty hard. And it is hard, my brother had to go to the hospital this week, and I had to consciously not stress about it. Even thought my brother is fine; try not to panic when you hear the best friend of your entire life was in the hospital after a snowboarding accident and there are no details except he has a broken thumb and his face is all messed up. But in a way I'm sort of grateful that I had something so profound happen like that. Family and friends have told me this as long as I can remember; but it is so hard-wired into my being that it was almost impossible for me to change the way I thought. For example, the very day after this dream happened I went to drive to church (obviously I thought I should go since it was Sunday). I have been there dozens of times but in order to not be stressed since I was late I made 3 wrong turns in a 2 mile drive. Seriously I only have to make 4 turns and making 3 wrong turns is pretty unacceptable. I literally had to turn off my brain in order to not stress about this. I'm getting better but I have a LONG way to go. I was kind of worried about sharing this with too many people, because I tried to give up negativity for lent once and everyone just tried to test my mettle every chance they got (that and getting slapped so hard by a girl I fall off my chair isn't exactly the proudest moments for Jesse fans). But if you feel the need to test me, by all means, I need to learn this lesson the hard way.
I had felt this way one other time in my life, I used to live with my brother, my cousin and a friend; I called it a "faux-frat house" it was a total college house just not officially a frat. There were two girls that would come over very often, for the purpose of this story I'll call one Devan and the other Rebecca. I'd like to say I hadn't met them many times, but the truth of the matter was that I had met them over a dozen times. I was playing cards with some of our CU friends, nothing big just playing some cards. One of them came over and wanted to talk but didn't need to be dealt in. We talked for a few hours, nothing ground breaking just talking. I looked down to shuffle the cards and said, "So Devan..." Before I knew what happened I was on the floor and the cards were everywhere and everyone was laughing at me. Apparently that was Rebecca and after calling her Devan nearly 20 times that night alone she slapped me across the face. Granted I was a little drunk and not expecting it, I do have to give credit where it's due; do you realize how hard a 110 pound girl has to slap a 230 pound man to knock him out of a chair? I also want to point out that my chair was up against a wall so she didn't even have leverage on her side. Needless to say that's the kind of correction I needed to make sure I called her Rebecca from now on. Politely correcting me wasn't going to get the point across.
Now think of that lesson, and then think about one over one hundred times as clear. It wasn't like, "hey here is a suggestion, just try to relax." It wasn't like, "things are going to turn out right, all you got to do is relax a little bit." For all I know things could end up getting a lot worse and I still have to relax. It was more like, "this is your last chance." I don't know what the last chance is for, my life has been in the toilet for over 15 years. I had all but given up on life; it just seems like there isn't anything out there for me any more. I also am a very luke-warm Catholic so I didn't really believe in heaven much less think that I could jeopardize it by not relaxing. You don't have to believe in God, but you can believe this every time I have given in to stress or missed the opportunity to relax and "let things go," it's yielded only catastrophe. Even if you think that maybe I just am looking at the bad, the last two times I got worked up about anything the tips of my fingers started to go numb. I don't really have the money to go to the doctor, but even if I did it's not like I haven't been to the doctor about stress problems over 20 times already.
As far back as second grade I was so stressed about the work-load I had in my class room that I was 100% literally pulling my hair out in chunks. I didn't know what was wrong with me, it wasn't until the janitor noticed hair all around my desk that anyone even noticed it. I look at a second grader today and there is no way I could understand one of them having any sort of stress problems. The result has been the same for nearly 20 years: I see a therapist, pediatrician, or some general physician and they give me pills to solve the problem manifesting or give me some stress relief techniques and I abide by them for a while and then they soon fall by the wayside. Family and friends have all suggested this to me over a hundred times; it's not like I don't want to, I just feel like I can't. I mean even now I am almost stressed thinking about why I'm not supposed to be stressed. Do you know how bad a problem needs to be for God to intervene from a biblical standpoint? After 400 years of slavery he came to Moses, after over 3,000 years of sin he sends his son to set the record strait. So if you think about it, God really really really wants me to calm down. I know what you're thinking, how hard can it be? I don't have a job, no kids, and very little responsibility; why can't I?
You are just going to have to believe me when I say this, it's hard, it's the very first knee-jerk reaction I have to everything. Think about if someone told you that if you didn't answer "yes" to every single question no matter what your initial gut response was going to be, "or else" with no information that would be pretty hard. And it is hard, my brother had to go to the hospital this week, and I had to consciously not stress about it. Even thought my brother is fine; try not to panic when you hear the best friend of your entire life was in the hospital after a snowboarding accident and there are no details except he has a broken thumb and his face is all messed up. But in a way I'm sort of grateful that I had something so profound happen like that. Family and friends have told me this as long as I can remember; but it is so hard-wired into my being that it was almost impossible for me to change the way I thought. For example, the very day after this dream happened I went to drive to church (obviously I thought I should go since it was Sunday). I have been there dozens of times but in order to not be stressed since I was late I made 3 wrong turns in a 2 mile drive. Seriously I only have to make 4 turns and making 3 wrong turns is pretty unacceptable. I literally had to turn off my brain in order to not stress about this. I'm getting better but I have a LONG way to go. I was kind of worried about sharing this with too many people, because I tried to give up negativity for lent once and everyone just tried to test my mettle every chance they got (that and getting slapped so hard by a girl I fall off my chair isn't exactly the proudest moments for Jesse fans). But if you feel the need to test me, by all means, I need to learn this lesson the hard way.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Western Culture's Obsession with Evil
This is my Religious Philosophy final, again I'm pretty proud, despite sort of straying from the topic. I might change the name and I also need to site a source from an academic journal at the library, but I doubt it will change much. Enjoy!
Suppose there were a sign on a drinking fountain that said, “out of order,” we would be less compelled to use it. Why then when God says, “thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,” does it almost compel people to use it every time they stub their toe? Is it about the punishment? Likely the water fountain is turned off, but I suppose there is an outside chance that it sprays everywhere when you turn it on and you get drenched. The punishment for taking the Lord’s name in vain: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” Deuteronomy 5:11 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). I’m not sure what that punishment is, but I’m pretty sure the maintenance person or plumber who put that sign there would seek any sort of retribution despite it possibly making their jobs a little more difficult. So from a utilitarian standpoint, it would seem like if you wanted to rebel you would turn on the drinking fountain and risk making a mess, instead of invoking the Lord’s name and vain and getting an undefined divine punishment. But these are things nearly everyone does nearly every day. People are mesmerized by people who go against the grain. James Dean was an icon after his movie Rebel Without a Cause, while Leave it to Beaver released around the same time is sort of mocked as a bland white-bread comedy. Would you rather have a noisy biker gang living next door; or would you rather have the Cleavers? I would think many people would gravitate towards having the Cleavers next door. Who would you rather be, a sexy youngster with a troubled past or an unassuming middle class suburban youngster who never seems to get into a situation that takes more than a day to resolve? I think most people in some dark fantasy many people would definitely rather be a sexy rebel with a devil-may-care attitude. To me it is hypocrisy; I’d rather be a rebel that does whatever I want all the time, yet everyone else needs to be the Cleavers. The most common reaction to having been caught doing something immoral, nearly everyone responds in one or two ways; they either try to justify it, or try to find someone who is worse than them. So suppose a woman is caught cheating on her husband you would likely hear one of two responses, “I am only doing this because my needs aren’t being met, you are never home” or “I’ve only cheated on you a few times, I bet you’ve cheated on me more times.” Rarely will someone say, “I cheated on you because it felt good and I’m selfish enough to betray your trust for a fleeting moment of passion.” So we do bad things because we want to, but we are very self conscious about it. So why would anyone do something they know they would feel bad about later?
Where do our laws and moral structure come from? Though some try to sever the connection, it’s very clear our moral fabric has much of its grounds in the Ten Commandments. Some say that these are “no-brainer laws,” however, I completely disagree. Predating the Ten Commandments there weren’t very many laws were for everyone to abide by. One of the most famous early laws dates back to the cradle of civilization called “Hammurabi’s Code,” it sort of stated that slaves couldn’t do anything but the aristocracy could do whatever they wanted… except for things like buying stolen merchandise from slaves. The punishments were very strict and some were very convoluted, “If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser” (Hooker, 1999). As you can see he made very specific punishments and it looks as if there was a divine element to judging the just, if you didn’t in fact steal property then the river will not let you drown (unless I’m misunderstanding it and it’s actually just some sort of swimming competition for houses). I don’t think I need to say that this would be barbaric to subject shoplifters to today, but it helps to prove my point that for its time the Ten Commandments were quite revolutionary. Firstly Moses does not offer a specific punishment for any of these, it just tells you what not to do, and the ultimate punishment will come from God or the person whom you have wronged. For instance if you take a few pens from work and take them home it is up to your boss weather he just tells you to “knock it off” or if he thinks it is grounds for termination. In many ways this is better, however, this opens the person up for justifying his actions or trying to shift the blame to a coworker. “I didn’t think a Fortune 500 company would miss a few pens, besides I’ve been working so much overtime I didn’t have time to get my own,” or “James steals out of the petty cash drawer, stealing pens is nowhere near as bad.” But the Hammurabi interpretation leaves much less room for imagination, “I better not steal this pen because I don’t want to be thrown in a river today.” The problem of course with this is that maybe this punishment wouldn’t fit the crime even from the mindset from the victim, “I just want you to bring the pens back, but I guess I have to formally accuse you and throw you in the river to get them back.” Another thing that not having a specific punishment does for the crime is allows us to judge the severity of the crime. So we could say stealing pens from the office isn’t grounds for termination, much less being thrown in a river, but that behavior is certainly discouraged and will reflect poorly on your character. Moses also makes no distinctions between classes of people, thou shalt not steal; but Hammurabi makes has different laws for different classes, “If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death” (Hooker, 1999). In my management of human resources class I learned that effective punishments are like touching a hot stove, among other things, one of the rules is, “It burns each person equally.” So stealing from an aristocrat is just as bad as stealing from a peer. This allows people to invoke an internal conscience about the action. This is reaffirmed in Christianity by Jesus when he says, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 7:12 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). Jesus wasn’t the first to say this, however, nearly every culture has something (including Moses in Leviticus 19:18) like this which is universally called “the golden rule.” This was a great catch all rule so as to give people sort of a situation by situation rubric to determine what is right and wrong.
Though the Ten Commandments doesn’t address complex modern problems like intellectual property or drug use, most of them are straightforward enough that even preadolescents can understand them. It’s pretty rare that someone would make the case that they are from a totemistic society and that all things belong to Gaia, therefore I didn’t steal because I have no concept of possessions. And by the same token when I go to Regis I use a chair, though I would say, “That’s my chair” and if someone else were to sit in it, I am fully within my right to correct them and claim that it is “my chair.” But after class I realize it no longer belongs to me; regardless nobody else in the course of history ever uses that chair, or how good I think it would look in my living room, I don’t have a claim to the chair unless it’s class time. These are some of the unspoken morals we have ingrained in our being that we simply take for granted. There are some commandments that seem very straight forward and yet it makes them even more complex. Until recently and even then limited to primarily protestant bibles, a specific commandment read “Thou shalt not kill.” This generates some controversy, as to whether it should be kill or murder. And even then there are many grey areas. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people would consider killing someone for no reason is wrong. This is the truest most universal application of the commandment. Is it alright to kill someone for a reason you believe is just? In the movie A Time to Kill the protagonist, Jake Tyler Brigance, defends Carl Lee Hailey who guns down two bigots for raping and brutalizing his daughter. When asked by the prosecutor at his trial if the men deserved to die he says, “Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!” (IMDB, 2010). The movie isn’t about ethics, whether it is okay to kill a person under the grizzly circumstances, the movie almost assumes he is justified in his crime. His daughter survives, though with permanent damage to her reproductive organs, he still seems justified in killing two aggressors who are unsuccessful in killing a child. From a strictly eye-for-an-eye ethic it would seem that this is not justified, however, the social consensus is that due to the nature of the crime it is, in fact, a just punishment. Is it alright to kill if it is in self defense, or are we supposed to do everything within our power to avoid a lethal outcome? Is it alright to kill as an act of war? Even if we were able to discern that the commandment should read murder, it still has some moral and ethical depth to the point it’s hard to tell. If it is in fact kill, there are much more interpretations. Is it okay to kill an animal for food? Is it okay to kill an animal for sport if you really don’t need to? Is it okay to squish a spider just because it’s scary? If you want to be really literal in your interpretation you could argue that our immune system kills microorganisms every second of every day. I have seen no evidence to refute that in the Hebrew text for the commandment says “lo tirtzack” and lo means “thou shalt not.” As for what tirtzack means, well it depends who you ask on Wikipedia the author of the section does not cite any sources but says, “In the fullness of the Old Testament Exodus 20:13 is abundantly evidenced as prohibiting unjust killing, rather than a universal injunction against all killing, as retzach is never used in reference to the slaying of animals, nor the taking of life in war, while its most frequent use is in reference to involuntary manslaughter and secondarily for murderers” (Wikipedia, 2009). It was interesting, though I highly doubt God was telling us not to accidently kill people, it directly contradicts other things I’ve seen. “The exact Hebrew wording of this biblical phrase is lo tirtzack. One of the greatest scholars of Hebrew/English linguistics (in the Twentieth Century) -Dr. Reuben Alcalay - has written in his mammoth book the Complete Hebrew /English Dictionary that 'tirtzach' refers to 'any kind of killing whatsoever'” (The Nazarene Way).
So I guess in summation if you are consulting Hebrew texts to figure out if it’s right to kill or steal; you might want to just rethink it. We are left mostly to our own resources, but if we think something is wrong then it probably is. These laws even have something of a secular value, most of them are crimes you commit against other people and then a few that are crimes against God. But if you were to take a secular approach to this, one could say the crimes against God are simply crimes that you can commit against yourself. Not having false Gods or idols can be summed up as don’t let things guide your hand, like money, power, and lust. Don’t use God’s name in vain, or don’t swear, it ultimately cheapens your character; it’s very hard to take people seriously or respect them when they swear every other word. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day, could be interpreted take time out for yourself, be sure to devote time to the things you love be it God, family, or even a meaningful hobby. So with a bit of artistic license we can see that all of the Ten Commandments serve a purpose; if you don’t steal you won’t upset the harmony you have with your neighbors. If you don’t commit adultery, you won’t bring unnecessary complications into your love relationships. We can see that most of these rules aren’t meant to be cumbersome; they were made to try to inhibit unhealthy desires that would keep us from God, as far as my opinion goes. That being said why when we see a sign that says, “wet paint” do we avoid it so as not to paint on our hands, but yet we covet our neighbor’s possessions or wife and bring unnecessary desire and turmoil into our lives. So even if we do these things because we aren’t worried specifically about retribution from God, but only to simplify our lives, it baffles me why people would do bad things. My rule of thumb goes something like the golden rule but a little different, “If you would feel embarrassed if someone found out you were doing this, then you probably shouldn’t do it.” Now this isn’t to say you don’t do intimate acts in the bedroom with your lover because you wouldn’t want them to be described to someone else; but for normal everyday occurrences, like stealing money from the petty cash, think of the shame it would bring on you if you were caught. This would eliminate punishment, justification, and blame-shifting; if you don’t mind being known as an office kleptomaniac then by all means proceed. The problem with the golden rule is that there is a certain level of ambiguity, “Would I mind if someone was stealing out of my petty cash box? No, I don’t even have one.” And also this sort of nullifies crimes of selfishness, “Would I mind if my husband cheated on me? This isn’t about my husband, it’s about my needs.” But, if you wouldn’t care if everyone in the neighborhood knew you were doing that, then it’s obviously something you can pursue. This idea came to me when I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where Bart steals a videogame and is banned from the store by the security guard; later the family goes to the same store to get a family photo, the store security guard recognizes him and reminds him he’s banned, when his mom says he’s mistaken he prepares to show a video of him stealing the game. Bart confesses to his mom and says that he doesn’t want his mother to see the tape. Sometimes breaking the hearts of the ones we love and care about is the most powerful moral tool we can use. So consider if your own mother witnessed you committing the immoral act (again this does not apply to romantic intimacy). Using sort of a Taoist principal, simply not doing something because you are afraid of the punishment, is flawed reasoning. You don’t think that you are going to fail when you do anything, think about it, would you do something to get 6 months in jail? Not a chance, you’ve gotten away with the crime before it’s even been committed, otherwise you wouldn’t even do it. This is why reflecting on the punishment likely won’t deter the crime, even when you could be drowned like in Hammurabi’s day, judging by the almost 30 laws pertaining to stealing, that wasn’t even a deterrent.
So we go so far to establish laws and order and keep people in line; and yet we glorify those who oppose these laws. Think about it, you go out to a nightclub with your friends; all of your single girl friends are going to end up hooking up with the biggest jerks in the whole place. When guys go out, their most obnoxious loudmouth friend is almost inevitably going to get the prettiest girl. And I’m sure you all know a woman in each of your lives who started a relationship with these big jerks only to find out that they are even bigger jerks then they first appeared. So the men she knows try to be jerks because they see how well women respond to it, and the women in their lives aren’t content to have a life that is free of the kind of sexy drama that dating a total jerk yields, so soon everyone fuses with these roles. And I think this is how it begins, the glamorization of evil starts from a bad boy complex. It almost can’t be refuted, you don’t see girls swooning for men who love their families like Hank Hill (King of the Hill) or Danny Tanner (Full House) nor do you see men idolizing them. I think if you were to ask people I think that they would like a family that loves each other and pulls together to overcome their challenges like in Full House. But what people say they want isn’t exactly what they really want. The same woman who dates the jerk probably says, “I just wish I could find a nice guy” but her actions clearly dictate she likes being treated like garbage and pushed around. This is what I call an “addiction to drama” people who seem to make bad decisions presumably just so they can complain about it. Think about it, we don’t see movies where the characters pay their bills, rent movies, and go to the grocery store; we don’t listen to songs about people going to the post office; we don’t watch TV shows about the merits of being a good friend. That would be boring, but as much as people try not to admit it, sometimes we are unable to tell the difference between fiction and reality. For instance, you can watch Jersey Shore once and think to yourself, “Oh my God, I can’t believe there are people like that out there.” But just as with obnoxious people you meet, after a while you come to understand and get to know them better. Now think of how many people you see in real life on a daily basis. If you are in a normal office or classroom I would say you deal with about 30 or so, if you want to get really chatty maybe 4 or 5 of them you talk to about 15 minutes. Now think of the principal cast of your favorite show, now think about the idea you’ve just had 20 minutes of face time with Jerry Seinfeld, where you have only had 15 minutes with your best friend at work; I would think that an hour of TV is kind of a lowball estimate for most households so you might have spent more time with Johnny Knoxville from Jackass than you did with your spouse or kids! What is that you say? You don’t watch immature shows like that? Of course you don’t, your kids do. PBS had a documentary called Merchants of Cool in which they try to figure out how to market to pre-teens and teens. Teens don’t really know what they want, and even if they did they don’t really vocalize it. They show focus group interviews with teens and they are lucky to get one or two words out of the teen when they talk about products. They need something that grips the kids, someone that’s cool that tells them what’s cool, and can keep their attention when they need to pitch to them; they need a “Mook.” “The Mook is what critics call the crude, loud, obnoxious, in-your-face character that can be found almost any hour of day or night somewhere on MTV. He's a teen frozen in permanent adolescence” (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2008). It’s gone on since I was a kid Beavis and Butthead, Tom Green Show, Jackass, Viva La Bam, The Real World, Jersey Shore; these characters are role models to people of my generation. And the message they all peddle is the message that says being reckless, irresponsible, inconsiderate, conceited, self-centered; these are the spices of life. And then the thirst for the dramatic is quenched.
Now I’m not one to accuse people of not being able to make up their minds about what’s real and what’s not on TV; but I just think after a while the line becomes blurred and whether or not we are aware, we emulate things we have a prolonged exposure to. It’s even worse now, with the internet, I’ve played online video games and there are 9 and 10 year old kids that are saying things I would say locked in a room in the middle of Siberia. In a Lord of the Flies way they have a mask of anonymity, I highly doubt any of these people would use the N-word in school but they are perfectly okay to say it online anonymously. It’s a difficult concept for even adults to grasp much less pre-teens; but every time you do something wrong you chip away at that boundary. This is why people consider marijuana to be a gateway drug; it’s not as bad as many other drugs but it still “gets you high,” makes you look cool, and it’s illegal. But there are many other drugs that carry the exact same stigma so it’s easy for people to make the jump to other drugs like cocaine, after having initially broken the barrier from marijuana. Although there are some people who use marijuana and never go the step further, and ultimately some people that use heavier drugs without using marijuana first; it just is easier for people to work their way into something like that because they can say, “Well I already smoke weed and that’s illegal, might as well try mushrooms they come from the earth too.” The same thing can be said for using swear words that you use online, there is a point that they just sort of creep into your vernacular, and using them sparingly you were able control it, but overuse has broken the barrier and they will come out at inappropriate times. Maybe swearing accidently is inappropriate but not evil, but the line there once was is gone. A while ago there was a music video uploaded to YouTube under the name Tom O.C.; it used the “Auto-tune” feature which will move your singing to the desired key, but this one was almost intentionally awful. Then there were many pictures of him doing outrageous things like posing in front of sports cars and brandishing an air soft gun (a gun that shoots tiny pieces of plastic) going on while the song was playing. I thought this was so funny I sent it to all my friends for laughs. But then I came across a radio interview the man in the pictures, named Tom O’Connor, claimed that the video that spawned 200,000 hits was something he had nothing to do with. In the interview he says this, “I got a couple of mails about it and also the person who created it (who I have no idea… who did) and sent it to some of my customers (I have my own business). And so the customers brought it to my attention, ya’ know, and now I did report it with YouTube, 6 or 7 times, but apparently it’s pretty difficult to get videos removed” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though the video is in a colloquial Irish accent it’s pretty clear that he didn’t actually make the song, and says that the person who did wasn’t responsible nor did they use Auto-tune. The pictures on there were the “worst of the worst were taken off of my personal Bebo, and Facebook as well and thrown into the video” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though I don’t know exactly how it unfolded it seems pretty clear that someone just played a joke on him, maybe a business competitor, and claimed they were him. At one point there was even a website where he claims to be getting ready to “drop and album.” If it is true that he didn’t actually make the video or website; think of the person who went to such lengths, it’s not only sick but it’s ferocious the way they went after him. Tom O’Connor’s life and business could have been ruined from this. It is one kind of evil to do something like this, but the evil I was guilty of was not researching it before I sent it to all of my friends, if this was a news story that broke without all of the facts we could hold the station that broadcasts it responsible. Whoever made this will probably never need to apologize or ever be held accountable; people like me, who sent it to all their friends probably don’t feel any remorse for the trouble it caused Tom O’Connor. But then what is really sad to me is when he talks about the comments on his video, “Some of them deal with death threats, go and kill yourself, commit suicide, sort of stuff I wasn’t even thinking about… I was contemplating could I actually write those comments myself against another video, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anyone to kill themselves” (Clubbingie, 2009). And I thought to myself, I’m the same way, no cloak of anonymity could ever get me to tell another person to kill themselves even jokingly. What has happened to us?
So we don’t gain anything by picking on Tom O’Connor, when we say something cruel and tell him to commit suicide he probably won’t listen, it’s nothing clever there were probably a dozen people saying the exact same thing; so why say such an awful thing? I think I know why this is; when we feel insecure we look for a way to establish our dominance; to regain our confidence. We can regain our confidence by doing something meaningful for a loved one, a productive hobby, build something, do volunteer work; but there is a much easier way, to simply find someone else we think we are better than. I am not a dork because I found someone who is dorkier than me; I lie, cheat, and steal but not as much as Tommy does, so by comparison I’m good. Now we can get that beloved bad boy or bad girl appeal without feeling guilt. There is a quote from Scarface that should sum it up better (pardon the language), “You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f**kin' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’ So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.” –Tony Montana, Scarface (IMDB, 2010). In a way I have to agree with him, everyone does do bad things, but we need a ‘bad guy’ to be the rubric for how bad is too bad. It’s the same mentality that says that if a bear attacks, you don’t need to be the fastest guy you just can’t be the slowest. The problem is that it’s easier to find people that are worse than you, be it people with looser morals, or just then next Tom O.C. Bad influences are in no short supply, at least to find a Tom O.C. you have to actually look for them, the bad influences sometimes come looking for you. There used to be a time when you could tell that the guy underneath the lamp post in 5-Points selling you a slick story was simply trying to con you. Sometimes you would run into someone in the parking lot or at the mall with some kind of story; for instance my Dad saw a guy at the gas station who said he was a Versace rep from Italy and said we could have some coats if we give him enough money to buy a Stetson hat as a souvenir. He assured him that now that they charge for luggage, it was cheaper to just give them away; but he was very firm about how much his Stetson hat was going to cost and his catalogue was very out of date so my Dad backed out of the deal. Now who knows he could have been legit, but we assumed he was a con man selling fake Versace. Now if this was the case, notice he took the time to find a mark, he took the time to lie to my Dad’s face, and ultimately you only get conned for being greedy. But now you don’t even need to leave your home, how many people can say they got an email from some freedom fighter in Zimbabwe who needs to get his $10 million fortune out of his country and its corrupt government, but only needs you to send him a million of it. The way this con works is that they send you a check and tell you where he wants his million, for international checks the money might show up in your account and make you assume that the check has cleared and the transaction is legit. You hold up your end of the bargain and send the $1 million and then the bank gives you a very nasty phone call up to 30 days later when the check didn’t clear and you ended up bouncing a $1 million check. Now, you certainly didn’t go looking for this opportunity, it presented itself, he doesn’t meet you face-to-face he just sends a million emails out and one sucker is enough for the whole year; sympathy for the devil, this con is still based on greed, sure you were honest enough to write the check, but you were perfectly willing to let a refugee give you his vast fortune to write one little check. Then the other week I got a virus from a Facebook link, I couldn’t open any programs every time I did I went to an anti-virus website that asked for money to remove it. Some people might not even do it because they got tricked but because it’s almost impossible to fix a virus that doesn’t even let you open the virus scanner you did pay for. So not only is it not being done to your face, but greed has nothing to do with it, you just clicked on the wrong link.
Do you know how easy that is to do? You’re tired and you get an email from a friend you haven’t seen in a while with a link to a video, then all of a sudden the only thing you can do on your computer is virus software to stop the virus they put on your computer. It’s sad to say but our criminals have even become more evil, not to mention much more in-your-face. Even in your home minding your own business you have to avoid the criminal element, not just on some unlucky day; a criminal has access to you every time you turn on your computer. It’s almost as if it’s a sad thing that nobody puts a gun to your head asks for your cash. Now they don’t want your money, they want your identity, they want to be you. They want to use your credit cards, file their taxes in your name; this is a much more horrifying criminal. And it’s almost as if they are insulting you, “Thanks for your personal information, sucker,” at least someone puts a gun to your head and you give them your money, you can rest assured your priorities are in order. You could look at it as a very smart decision that you thought your very life was worth more than the $60 that you had on you. It would almost even be nice for a face to face interaction so that you knew that you were going to lose your money instead of fainting when you get a credit card bill, and you could see the desperation of their situation; hell, you could see that he was at least worth it for them to leave their house to rob you. So the criminal element is now just a bad link away on the computer, evil isn’t a few blocks down, it’s just one misstep away. Now that we face these things so often our lines are blurred, we don’t have to look for a bad guy to say we are better than, they just came looking for you. And when the world is sick enough, what can’t you justify?
Bibliography
Clubbingie. (2009, September 24). tom o c - THE REAL INTERVIEW. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piMff_YwbSY
Hooker, R. (1999, June 6). The Code of Hammurabi. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Washington State University: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM
The Lockman Foundation. (1977). New American Standard Bible. The Lockman Foundation.
The Nazarene Way. (n.d.). ~Thou Shalt Not Kill~. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from The Nazarene Way: http://www.thenazareneway.com/thou_shalt_not_kill.htm
WGBH Educational Foundation. (2008). Frontline: Merchants of Cool. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/tour/tour2.html
Works Cited (from user maintained content sites)
IMDB. (2010). Carl Lee Hailey (Character) - Quotes. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0010664/quotes
IMDB. (2010). Scarface (1983) - Memorable quotes. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes
Wikipedia. (2009, March). Ten Commandments. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
Suppose there were a sign on a drinking fountain that said, “out of order,” we would be less compelled to use it. Why then when God says, “thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,” does it almost compel people to use it every time they stub their toe? Is it about the punishment? Likely the water fountain is turned off, but I suppose there is an outside chance that it sprays everywhere when you turn it on and you get drenched. The punishment for taking the Lord’s name in vain: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” Deuteronomy 5:11 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). I’m not sure what that punishment is, but I’m pretty sure the maintenance person or plumber who put that sign there would seek any sort of retribution despite it possibly making their jobs a little more difficult. So from a utilitarian standpoint, it would seem like if you wanted to rebel you would turn on the drinking fountain and risk making a mess, instead of invoking the Lord’s name and vain and getting an undefined divine punishment. But these are things nearly everyone does nearly every day. People are mesmerized by people who go against the grain. James Dean was an icon after his movie Rebel Without a Cause, while Leave it to Beaver released around the same time is sort of mocked as a bland white-bread comedy. Would you rather have a noisy biker gang living next door; or would you rather have the Cleavers? I would think many people would gravitate towards having the Cleavers next door. Who would you rather be, a sexy youngster with a troubled past or an unassuming middle class suburban youngster who never seems to get into a situation that takes more than a day to resolve? I think most people in some dark fantasy many people would definitely rather be a sexy rebel with a devil-may-care attitude. To me it is hypocrisy; I’d rather be a rebel that does whatever I want all the time, yet everyone else needs to be the Cleavers. The most common reaction to having been caught doing something immoral, nearly everyone responds in one or two ways; they either try to justify it, or try to find someone who is worse than them. So suppose a woman is caught cheating on her husband you would likely hear one of two responses, “I am only doing this because my needs aren’t being met, you are never home” or “I’ve only cheated on you a few times, I bet you’ve cheated on me more times.” Rarely will someone say, “I cheated on you because it felt good and I’m selfish enough to betray your trust for a fleeting moment of passion.” So we do bad things because we want to, but we are very self conscious about it. So why would anyone do something they know they would feel bad about later?
Where do our laws and moral structure come from? Though some try to sever the connection, it’s very clear our moral fabric has much of its grounds in the Ten Commandments. Some say that these are “no-brainer laws,” however, I completely disagree. Predating the Ten Commandments there weren’t very many laws were for everyone to abide by. One of the most famous early laws dates back to the cradle of civilization called “Hammurabi’s Code,” it sort of stated that slaves couldn’t do anything but the aristocracy could do whatever they wanted… except for things like buying stolen merchandise from slaves. The punishments were very strict and some were very convoluted, “If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser” (Hooker, 1999). As you can see he made very specific punishments and it looks as if there was a divine element to judging the just, if you didn’t in fact steal property then the river will not let you drown (unless I’m misunderstanding it and it’s actually just some sort of swimming competition for houses). I don’t think I need to say that this would be barbaric to subject shoplifters to today, but it helps to prove my point that for its time the Ten Commandments were quite revolutionary. Firstly Moses does not offer a specific punishment for any of these, it just tells you what not to do, and the ultimate punishment will come from God or the person whom you have wronged. For instance if you take a few pens from work and take them home it is up to your boss weather he just tells you to “knock it off” or if he thinks it is grounds for termination. In many ways this is better, however, this opens the person up for justifying his actions or trying to shift the blame to a coworker. “I didn’t think a Fortune 500 company would miss a few pens, besides I’ve been working so much overtime I didn’t have time to get my own,” or “James steals out of the petty cash drawer, stealing pens is nowhere near as bad.” But the Hammurabi interpretation leaves much less room for imagination, “I better not steal this pen because I don’t want to be thrown in a river today.” The problem of course with this is that maybe this punishment wouldn’t fit the crime even from the mindset from the victim, “I just want you to bring the pens back, but I guess I have to formally accuse you and throw you in the river to get them back.” Another thing that not having a specific punishment does for the crime is allows us to judge the severity of the crime. So we could say stealing pens from the office isn’t grounds for termination, much less being thrown in a river, but that behavior is certainly discouraged and will reflect poorly on your character. Moses also makes no distinctions between classes of people, thou shalt not steal; but Hammurabi makes has different laws for different classes, “If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death” (Hooker, 1999). In my management of human resources class I learned that effective punishments are like touching a hot stove, among other things, one of the rules is, “It burns each person equally.” So stealing from an aristocrat is just as bad as stealing from a peer. This allows people to invoke an internal conscience about the action. This is reaffirmed in Christianity by Jesus when he says, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 7:12 (The Lockman Foundation, 1977). Jesus wasn’t the first to say this, however, nearly every culture has something (including Moses in Leviticus 19:18) like this which is universally called “the golden rule.” This was a great catch all rule so as to give people sort of a situation by situation rubric to determine what is right and wrong.
Though the Ten Commandments doesn’t address complex modern problems like intellectual property or drug use, most of them are straightforward enough that even preadolescents can understand them. It’s pretty rare that someone would make the case that they are from a totemistic society and that all things belong to Gaia, therefore I didn’t steal because I have no concept of possessions. And by the same token when I go to Regis I use a chair, though I would say, “That’s my chair” and if someone else were to sit in it, I am fully within my right to correct them and claim that it is “my chair.” But after class I realize it no longer belongs to me; regardless nobody else in the course of history ever uses that chair, or how good I think it would look in my living room, I don’t have a claim to the chair unless it’s class time. These are some of the unspoken morals we have ingrained in our being that we simply take for granted. There are some commandments that seem very straight forward and yet it makes them even more complex. Until recently and even then limited to primarily protestant bibles, a specific commandment read “Thou shalt not kill.” This generates some controversy, as to whether it should be kill or murder. And even then there are many grey areas. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people would consider killing someone for no reason is wrong. This is the truest most universal application of the commandment. Is it alright to kill someone for a reason you believe is just? In the movie A Time to Kill the protagonist, Jake Tyler Brigance, defends Carl Lee Hailey who guns down two bigots for raping and brutalizing his daughter. When asked by the prosecutor at his trial if the men deserved to die he says, “Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!” (IMDB, 2010). The movie isn’t about ethics, whether it is okay to kill a person under the grizzly circumstances, the movie almost assumes he is justified in his crime. His daughter survives, though with permanent damage to her reproductive organs, he still seems justified in killing two aggressors who are unsuccessful in killing a child. From a strictly eye-for-an-eye ethic it would seem that this is not justified, however, the social consensus is that due to the nature of the crime it is, in fact, a just punishment. Is it alright to kill if it is in self defense, or are we supposed to do everything within our power to avoid a lethal outcome? Is it alright to kill as an act of war? Even if we were able to discern that the commandment should read murder, it still has some moral and ethical depth to the point it’s hard to tell. If it is in fact kill, there are much more interpretations. Is it okay to kill an animal for food? Is it okay to kill an animal for sport if you really don’t need to? Is it okay to squish a spider just because it’s scary? If you want to be really literal in your interpretation you could argue that our immune system kills microorganisms every second of every day. I have seen no evidence to refute that in the Hebrew text for the commandment says “lo tirtzack” and lo means “thou shalt not.” As for what tirtzack means, well it depends who you ask on Wikipedia the author of the section does not cite any sources but says, “In the fullness of the Old Testament Exodus 20:13 is abundantly evidenced as prohibiting unjust killing, rather than a universal injunction against all killing, as retzach is never used in reference to the slaying of animals, nor the taking of life in war, while its most frequent use is in reference to involuntary manslaughter and secondarily for murderers” (Wikipedia, 2009). It was interesting, though I highly doubt God was telling us not to accidently kill people, it directly contradicts other things I’ve seen. “The exact Hebrew wording of this biblical phrase is lo tirtzack. One of the greatest scholars of Hebrew/English linguistics (in the Twentieth Century) -Dr. Reuben Alcalay - has written in his mammoth book the Complete Hebrew /English Dictionary that 'tirtzach' refers to 'any kind of killing whatsoever'” (The Nazarene Way).
So I guess in summation if you are consulting Hebrew texts to figure out if it’s right to kill or steal; you might want to just rethink it. We are left mostly to our own resources, but if we think something is wrong then it probably is. These laws even have something of a secular value, most of them are crimes you commit against other people and then a few that are crimes against God. But if you were to take a secular approach to this, one could say the crimes against God are simply crimes that you can commit against yourself. Not having false Gods or idols can be summed up as don’t let things guide your hand, like money, power, and lust. Don’t use God’s name in vain, or don’t swear, it ultimately cheapens your character; it’s very hard to take people seriously or respect them when they swear every other word. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day, could be interpreted take time out for yourself, be sure to devote time to the things you love be it God, family, or even a meaningful hobby. So with a bit of artistic license we can see that all of the Ten Commandments serve a purpose; if you don’t steal you won’t upset the harmony you have with your neighbors. If you don’t commit adultery, you won’t bring unnecessary complications into your love relationships. We can see that most of these rules aren’t meant to be cumbersome; they were made to try to inhibit unhealthy desires that would keep us from God, as far as my opinion goes. That being said why when we see a sign that says, “wet paint” do we avoid it so as not to paint on our hands, but yet we covet our neighbor’s possessions or wife and bring unnecessary desire and turmoil into our lives. So even if we do these things because we aren’t worried specifically about retribution from God, but only to simplify our lives, it baffles me why people would do bad things. My rule of thumb goes something like the golden rule but a little different, “If you would feel embarrassed if someone found out you were doing this, then you probably shouldn’t do it.” Now this isn’t to say you don’t do intimate acts in the bedroom with your lover because you wouldn’t want them to be described to someone else; but for normal everyday occurrences, like stealing money from the petty cash, think of the shame it would bring on you if you were caught. This would eliminate punishment, justification, and blame-shifting; if you don’t mind being known as an office kleptomaniac then by all means proceed. The problem with the golden rule is that there is a certain level of ambiguity, “Would I mind if someone was stealing out of my petty cash box? No, I don’t even have one.” And also this sort of nullifies crimes of selfishness, “Would I mind if my husband cheated on me? This isn’t about my husband, it’s about my needs.” But, if you wouldn’t care if everyone in the neighborhood knew you were doing that, then it’s obviously something you can pursue. This idea came to me when I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where Bart steals a videogame and is banned from the store by the security guard; later the family goes to the same store to get a family photo, the store security guard recognizes him and reminds him he’s banned, when his mom says he’s mistaken he prepares to show a video of him stealing the game. Bart confesses to his mom and says that he doesn’t want his mother to see the tape. Sometimes breaking the hearts of the ones we love and care about is the most powerful moral tool we can use. So consider if your own mother witnessed you committing the immoral act (again this does not apply to romantic intimacy). Using sort of a Taoist principal, simply not doing something because you are afraid of the punishment, is flawed reasoning. You don’t think that you are going to fail when you do anything, think about it, would you do something to get 6 months in jail? Not a chance, you’ve gotten away with the crime before it’s even been committed, otherwise you wouldn’t even do it. This is why reflecting on the punishment likely won’t deter the crime, even when you could be drowned like in Hammurabi’s day, judging by the almost 30 laws pertaining to stealing, that wasn’t even a deterrent.
So we go so far to establish laws and order and keep people in line; and yet we glorify those who oppose these laws. Think about it, you go out to a nightclub with your friends; all of your single girl friends are going to end up hooking up with the biggest jerks in the whole place. When guys go out, their most obnoxious loudmouth friend is almost inevitably going to get the prettiest girl. And I’m sure you all know a woman in each of your lives who started a relationship with these big jerks only to find out that they are even bigger jerks then they first appeared. So the men she knows try to be jerks because they see how well women respond to it, and the women in their lives aren’t content to have a life that is free of the kind of sexy drama that dating a total jerk yields, so soon everyone fuses with these roles. And I think this is how it begins, the glamorization of evil starts from a bad boy complex. It almost can’t be refuted, you don’t see girls swooning for men who love their families like Hank Hill (King of the Hill) or Danny Tanner (Full House) nor do you see men idolizing them. I think if you were to ask people I think that they would like a family that loves each other and pulls together to overcome their challenges like in Full House. But what people say they want isn’t exactly what they really want. The same woman who dates the jerk probably says, “I just wish I could find a nice guy” but her actions clearly dictate she likes being treated like garbage and pushed around. This is what I call an “addiction to drama” people who seem to make bad decisions presumably just so they can complain about it. Think about it, we don’t see movies where the characters pay their bills, rent movies, and go to the grocery store; we don’t listen to songs about people going to the post office; we don’t watch TV shows about the merits of being a good friend. That would be boring, but as much as people try not to admit it, sometimes we are unable to tell the difference between fiction and reality. For instance, you can watch Jersey Shore once and think to yourself, “Oh my God, I can’t believe there are people like that out there.” But just as with obnoxious people you meet, after a while you come to understand and get to know them better. Now think of how many people you see in real life on a daily basis. If you are in a normal office or classroom I would say you deal with about 30 or so, if you want to get really chatty maybe 4 or 5 of them you talk to about 15 minutes. Now think of the principal cast of your favorite show, now think about the idea you’ve just had 20 minutes of face time with Jerry Seinfeld, where you have only had 15 minutes with your best friend at work; I would think that an hour of TV is kind of a lowball estimate for most households so you might have spent more time with Johnny Knoxville from Jackass than you did with your spouse or kids! What is that you say? You don’t watch immature shows like that? Of course you don’t, your kids do. PBS had a documentary called Merchants of Cool in which they try to figure out how to market to pre-teens and teens. Teens don’t really know what they want, and even if they did they don’t really vocalize it. They show focus group interviews with teens and they are lucky to get one or two words out of the teen when they talk about products. They need something that grips the kids, someone that’s cool that tells them what’s cool, and can keep their attention when they need to pitch to them; they need a “Mook.” “The Mook is what critics call the crude, loud, obnoxious, in-your-face character that can be found almost any hour of day or night somewhere on MTV. He's a teen frozen in permanent adolescence” (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2008). It’s gone on since I was a kid Beavis and Butthead, Tom Green Show, Jackass, Viva La Bam, The Real World, Jersey Shore; these characters are role models to people of my generation. And the message they all peddle is the message that says being reckless, irresponsible, inconsiderate, conceited, self-centered; these are the spices of life. And then the thirst for the dramatic is quenched.
Now I’m not one to accuse people of not being able to make up their minds about what’s real and what’s not on TV; but I just think after a while the line becomes blurred and whether or not we are aware, we emulate things we have a prolonged exposure to. It’s even worse now, with the internet, I’ve played online video games and there are 9 and 10 year old kids that are saying things I would say locked in a room in the middle of Siberia. In a Lord of the Flies way they have a mask of anonymity, I highly doubt any of these people would use the N-word in school but they are perfectly okay to say it online anonymously. It’s a difficult concept for even adults to grasp much less pre-teens; but every time you do something wrong you chip away at that boundary. This is why people consider marijuana to be a gateway drug; it’s not as bad as many other drugs but it still “gets you high,” makes you look cool, and it’s illegal. But there are many other drugs that carry the exact same stigma so it’s easy for people to make the jump to other drugs like cocaine, after having initially broken the barrier from marijuana. Although there are some people who use marijuana and never go the step further, and ultimately some people that use heavier drugs without using marijuana first; it just is easier for people to work their way into something like that because they can say, “Well I already smoke weed and that’s illegal, might as well try mushrooms they come from the earth too.” The same thing can be said for using swear words that you use online, there is a point that they just sort of creep into your vernacular, and using them sparingly you were able control it, but overuse has broken the barrier and they will come out at inappropriate times. Maybe swearing accidently is inappropriate but not evil, but the line there once was is gone. A while ago there was a music video uploaded to YouTube under the name Tom O.C.; it used the “Auto-tune” feature which will move your singing to the desired key, but this one was almost intentionally awful. Then there were many pictures of him doing outrageous things like posing in front of sports cars and brandishing an air soft gun (a gun that shoots tiny pieces of plastic) going on while the song was playing. I thought this was so funny I sent it to all my friends for laughs. But then I came across a radio interview the man in the pictures, named Tom O’Connor, claimed that the video that spawned 200,000 hits was something he had nothing to do with. In the interview he says this, “I got a couple of mails about it and also the person who created it (who I have no idea… who did) and sent it to some of my customers (I have my own business). And so the customers brought it to my attention, ya’ know, and now I did report it with YouTube, 6 or 7 times, but apparently it’s pretty difficult to get videos removed” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though the video is in a colloquial Irish accent it’s pretty clear that he didn’t actually make the song, and says that the person who did wasn’t responsible nor did they use Auto-tune. The pictures on there were the “worst of the worst were taken off of my personal Bebo, and Facebook as well and thrown into the video” (Clubbingie, 2009). Though I don’t know exactly how it unfolded it seems pretty clear that someone just played a joke on him, maybe a business competitor, and claimed they were him. At one point there was even a website where he claims to be getting ready to “drop and album.” If it is true that he didn’t actually make the video or website; think of the person who went to such lengths, it’s not only sick but it’s ferocious the way they went after him. Tom O’Connor’s life and business could have been ruined from this. It is one kind of evil to do something like this, but the evil I was guilty of was not researching it before I sent it to all of my friends, if this was a news story that broke without all of the facts we could hold the station that broadcasts it responsible. Whoever made this will probably never need to apologize or ever be held accountable; people like me, who sent it to all their friends probably don’t feel any remorse for the trouble it caused Tom O’Connor. But then what is really sad to me is when he talks about the comments on his video, “Some of them deal with death threats, go and kill yourself, commit suicide, sort of stuff I wasn’t even thinking about… I was contemplating could I actually write those comments myself against another video, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell anyone to kill themselves” (Clubbingie, 2009). And I thought to myself, I’m the same way, no cloak of anonymity could ever get me to tell another person to kill themselves even jokingly. What has happened to us?
So we don’t gain anything by picking on Tom O’Connor, when we say something cruel and tell him to commit suicide he probably won’t listen, it’s nothing clever there were probably a dozen people saying the exact same thing; so why say such an awful thing? I think I know why this is; when we feel insecure we look for a way to establish our dominance; to regain our confidence. We can regain our confidence by doing something meaningful for a loved one, a productive hobby, build something, do volunteer work; but there is a much easier way, to simply find someone else we think we are better than. I am not a dork because I found someone who is dorkier than me; I lie, cheat, and steal but not as much as Tommy does, so by comparison I’m good. Now we can get that beloved bad boy or bad girl appeal without feeling guilt. There is a quote from Scarface that should sum it up better (pardon the language), “You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f**kin' fingers and say, ‘That's the bad guy.’ So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.” –Tony Montana, Scarface (IMDB, 2010). In a way I have to agree with him, everyone does do bad things, but we need a ‘bad guy’ to be the rubric for how bad is too bad. It’s the same mentality that says that if a bear attacks, you don’t need to be the fastest guy you just can’t be the slowest. The problem is that it’s easier to find people that are worse than you, be it people with looser morals, or just then next Tom O.C. Bad influences are in no short supply, at least to find a Tom O.C. you have to actually look for them, the bad influences sometimes come looking for you. There used to be a time when you could tell that the guy underneath the lamp post in 5-Points selling you a slick story was simply trying to con you. Sometimes you would run into someone in the parking lot or at the mall with some kind of story; for instance my Dad saw a guy at the gas station who said he was a Versace rep from Italy and said we could have some coats if we give him enough money to buy a Stetson hat as a souvenir. He assured him that now that they charge for luggage, it was cheaper to just give them away; but he was very firm about how much his Stetson hat was going to cost and his catalogue was very out of date so my Dad backed out of the deal. Now who knows he could have been legit, but we assumed he was a con man selling fake Versace. Now if this was the case, notice he took the time to find a mark, he took the time to lie to my Dad’s face, and ultimately you only get conned for being greedy. But now you don’t even need to leave your home, how many people can say they got an email from some freedom fighter in Zimbabwe who needs to get his $10 million fortune out of his country and its corrupt government, but only needs you to send him a million of it. The way this con works is that they send you a check and tell you where he wants his million, for international checks the money might show up in your account and make you assume that the check has cleared and the transaction is legit. You hold up your end of the bargain and send the $1 million and then the bank gives you a very nasty phone call up to 30 days later when the check didn’t clear and you ended up bouncing a $1 million check. Now, you certainly didn’t go looking for this opportunity, it presented itself, he doesn’t meet you face-to-face he just sends a million emails out and one sucker is enough for the whole year; sympathy for the devil, this con is still based on greed, sure you were honest enough to write the check, but you were perfectly willing to let a refugee give you his vast fortune to write one little check. Then the other week I got a virus from a Facebook link, I couldn’t open any programs every time I did I went to an anti-virus website that asked for money to remove it. Some people might not even do it because they got tricked but because it’s almost impossible to fix a virus that doesn’t even let you open the virus scanner you did pay for. So not only is it not being done to your face, but greed has nothing to do with it, you just clicked on the wrong link.
Do you know how easy that is to do? You’re tired and you get an email from a friend you haven’t seen in a while with a link to a video, then all of a sudden the only thing you can do on your computer is virus software to stop the virus they put on your computer. It’s sad to say but our criminals have even become more evil, not to mention much more in-your-face. Even in your home minding your own business you have to avoid the criminal element, not just on some unlucky day; a criminal has access to you every time you turn on your computer. It’s almost as if it’s a sad thing that nobody puts a gun to your head asks for your cash. Now they don’t want your money, they want your identity, they want to be you. They want to use your credit cards, file their taxes in your name; this is a much more horrifying criminal. And it’s almost as if they are insulting you, “Thanks for your personal information, sucker,” at least someone puts a gun to your head and you give them your money, you can rest assured your priorities are in order. You could look at it as a very smart decision that you thought your very life was worth more than the $60 that you had on you. It would almost even be nice for a face to face interaction so that you knew that you were going to lose your money instead of fainting when you get a credit card bill, and you could see the desperation of their situation; hell, you could see that he was at least worth it for them to leave their house to rob you. So the criminal element is now just a bad link away on the computer, evil isn’t a few blocks down, it’s just one misstep away. Now that we face these things so often our lines are blurred, we don’t have to look for a bad guy to say we are better than, they just came looking for you. And when the world is sick enough, what can’t you justify?
Bibliography
Clubbingie. (2009, September 24). tom o c - THE REAL INTERVIEW. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piMff_YwbSY
Hooker, R. (1999, June 6). The Code of Hammurabi. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Washington State University: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM
The Lockman Foundation. (1977). New American Standard Bible. The Lockman Foundation.
The Nazarene Way. (n.d.). ~Thou Shalt Not Kill~. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from The Nazarene Way: http://www.thenazareneway.com/thou_shalt_not_kill.htm
WGBH Educational Foundation. (2008). Frontline: Merchants of Cool. Retrieved March 14, 2010, from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/tour/tour2.html
Works Cited (from user maintained content sites)
IMDB. (2010). Carl Lee Hailey (Character) - Quotes. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0010664/quotes
IMDB. (2010). Scarface (1983) - Memorable quotes. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes
Wikipedia. (2009, March). Ten Commandments. Retrieved March 13, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Improperly Turned Phrases...
There is just a super-nerdy pet peeve I have and that's with people misusing or improperly turning phrases. I see it all the time but hey maybe this will help people; but mostly just irritate people, and I'm okay with that. I realize that I'm damning myself to the 6th circle of nerd hell, reserved for pretentious nerds, but again this is something I must do for the good of the English language and my love of turning phrases. So away we go!
Piss and Vinegar:
What it's used to mean: You are a "firecracker" or have a strong-willed bad attitude.
How it's used: "You're full of piss and vinegar today."
The etymology even sort of changed with this one, it has sort of evolved into being like a "firecracker" or someone with a bad attitude. The actual phrase was "pith and vigor." Vigor is like strength, pith is like something has been removed (usually the brain) so what it means is strength with an absence of fear or concern. So when this used to be used pith and vigor actually meant having an attitude that nothing will stop you.
Get my Goat:
What it's used to mean: Trying to get under someone's skin.
How it's used: "I can't believe you would go to such lengths to get my goat."
You don't usually see this unless it's on like an internet forum in response to "trolling" (saying or posting something absurd in order to upset people or get into an argument). Unless it literally means to take a farm animal away from someone, this is being used improperly. The actual phrase should be, "get my goad" goad means to "egg on" or prod something. When used this way it means to provoke into action.
Rapist Wit:
What it's used to mean: A very cunning and almost sinister wit.
How it's used: "You have a rapist wit."
This was from Dumb and Dumber but I think people hear this stuff and forget where they heard it from. The actual phrase is "rapier wit" a rapier is a narrow sword usually used in fencing. So the phrase should mean like a sharp and cutting wit, like the sword.
Salmon of Capistrano:
What it's used to mean: Places where something flocks to.
How it's used: "Women flock there like the salmon of Capisrano."
Yet another Dumb and Dumber joke that creeped into our vernacular. The actual thing that this makes reference to is the swallows that migrate from San Juan Capistrano mission on October 23rd (St. John Capistrano's feast day) and returning close to his former feast day at the end of March. So you would say, "Women flock there like the swallows of San Juan de Capistrano." It's obvious that soon people will be using "mind-bottling" sometime in the next decade.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine:
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people say he was talking about time travel and it some how saving nine people, or any sort of time travel and fixing the fabric of time reference.
How it's used: "Ben Franklin believed in time travel, he used to say, 'a stitch in time saves nine.'"
I have no idea who the hell people attribute this quote to, usually either Ben Franklin or Albert Einstein. It seems obvious when you think about it that it means if a stitch is coming loose patching it up early will save you from having to make 9 more stitches. But some people, I guess, had to look for a more complex interpretation.
Pavlov's Dog, Occam's Razor, etc.
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people tend to think it's referring to an object.
How it's used: "Who is Pavlov and why does his dog have anything to do with this?"
"Pavlov's dog" is an expression which refers to mental conditioning. Ivan Pavlov used to have a device that measured salivation in his dog. He would use a metronome to alert his dog that his food was there and eventually just the sound of the metronome cause the dog to salivate. Occam's razor is not some mythical weapon or anything it's an idea when simplified, "the simplest solution is usually the correct one." So of two theories, I lost my remote or somebody stole that and nothing else while I was at the grocery store; it's far more likely that you just lost it. So these things aren't really objects but more theories or ideas.
Roll a Character:
What it's used to mean: In class-based RPG's (yes I'm a nerd, don't bother pointing it out) starting a character.
How it's used: "I think I'm going to roll a hunter on this server."
It's strange because they nearly all usually use some sort of "roll" mechanism in order to randomize the outcome. But to "roll a character" would mean you have a chance of not being able to do it. The actual way it should be used is "I think I'm going to role a hunter on this server." To signify you are filling a role in the grand scheme of whatever.
St. Elmo's Fire:
What it's used to mean: A blue fire from the human body, used to vanquish foes and smite the wicked.
Not normally used in written or verbal communication unless it's in reference to the Emilio Estavez movie.
A lot of people think this is some supernatural blue fire thing and that it isn't real. It is in fact not fire at all, and it is very real. It's a blue electrical discharge that would materialize above the mast of a ship before, during, or after a thunderstorm. Many saw this as a positive omen that the ship would see the shore once again. Why is this on here? Because I play video games and it's always a freakin' fire elemental attack and it should be a lightning/thunder attack. Gol, IDDDDIIIOOOTSS!!! Ha, just kidding, I couldn't resist totally nerding the shit out of people! Though everything I said is actually true, I couldn't really care less if anyone besides me knew that.
Piss and Vinegar:
What it's used to mean: You are a "firecracker" or have a strong-willed bad attitude.
How it's used: "You're full of piss and vinegar today."
The etymology even sort of changed with this one, it has sort of evolved into being like a "firecracker" or someone with a bad attitude. The actual phrase was "pith and vigor." Vigor is like strength, pith is like something has been removed (usually the brain) so what it means is strength with an absence of fear or concern. So when this used to be used pith and vigor actually meant having an attitude that nothing will stop you.
Get my Goat:
What it's used to mean: Trying to get under someone's skin.
How it's used: "I can't believe you would go to such lengths to get my goat."
You don't usually see this unless it's on like an internet forum in response to "trolling" (saying or posting something absurd in order to upset people or get into an argument). Unless it literally means to take a farm animal away from someone, this is being used improperly. The actual phrase should be, "get my goad" goad means to "egg on" or prod something. When used this way it means to provoke into action.
Rapist Wit:
What it's used to mean: A very cunning and almost sinister wit.
How it's used: "You have a rapist wit."
This was from Dumb and Dumber but I think people hear this stuff and forget where they heard it from. The actual phrase is "rapier wit" a rapier is a narrow sword usually used in fencing. So the phrase should mean like a sharp and cutting wit, like the sword.
Salmon of Capistrano:
What it's used to mean: Places where something flocks to.
How it's used: "Women flock there like the salmon of Capisrano."
Yet another Dumb and Dumber joke that creeped into our vernacular. The actual thing that this makes reference to is the swallows that migrate from San Juan Capistrano mission on October 23rd (St. John Capistrano's feast day) and returning close to his former feast day at the end of March. So you would say, "Women flock there like the swallows of San Juan de Capistrano." It's obvious that soon people will be using "mind-bottling" sometime in the next decade.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine:
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people say he was talking about time travel and it some how saving nine people, or any sort of time travel and fixing the fabric of time reference.
How it's used: "Ben Franklin believed in time travel, he used to say, 'a stitch in time saves nine.'"
I have no idea who the hell people attribute this quote to, usually either Ben Franklin or Albert Einstein. It seems obvious when you think about it that it means if a stitch is coming loose patching it up early will save you from having to make 9 more stitches. But some people, I guess, had to look for a more complex interpretation.
Pavlov's Dog, Occam's Razor, etc.
What it's used to mean (sometimes): Some people tend to think it's referring to an object.
How it's used: "Who is Pavlov and why does his dog have anything to do with this?"
"Pavlov's dog" is an expression which refers to mental conditioning. Ivan Pavlov used to have a device that measured salivation in his dog. He would use a metronome to alert his dog that his food was there and eventually just the sound of the metronome cause the dog to salivate. Occam's razor is not some mythical weapon or anything it's an idea when simplified, "the simplest solution is usually the correct one." So of two theories, I lost my remote or somebody stole that and nothing else while I was at the grocery store; it's far more likely that you just lost it. So these things aren't really objects but more theories or ideas.
Roll a Character:
What it's used to mean: In class-based RPG's (yes I'm a nerd, don't bother pointing it out) starting a character.
How it's used: "I think I'm going to roll a hunter on this server."
It's strange because they nearly all usually use some sort of "roll" mechanism in order to randomize the outcome. But to "roll a character" would mean you have a chance of not being able to do it. The actual way it should be used is "I think I'm going to role a hunter on this server." To signify you are filling a role in the grand scheme of whatever.
St. Elmo's Fire:
What it's used to mean: A blue fire from the human body, used to vanquish foes and smite the wicked.
Not normally used in written or verbal communication unless it's in reference to the Emilio Estavez movie.
A lot of people think this is some supernatural blue fire thing and that it isn't real. It is in fact not fire at all, and it is very real. It's a blue electrical discharge that would materialize above the mast of a ship before, during, or after a thunderstorm. Many saw this as a positive omen that the ship would see the shore once again. Why is this on here? Because I play video games and it's always a freakin' fire elemental attack and it should be a lightning/thunder attack. Gol, IDDDDIIIOOOTSS!!! Ha, just kidding, I couldn't resist totally nerding the shit out of people! Though everything I said is actually true, I couldn't really care less if anyone besides me knew that.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Linear Non-abrupt Mortality Theory
This is a paper I did for my Religious Philosophy class but I have a feeling the teacher is going to hate on it, so might as well share it with people who might actually like to read it. So this isn't really what I believe but it's where I went to try to describe my thoughts on the afterlife. Enjoy!
Is there life after death? What is the basis for believing? When I saw this question I thought introspectively on what actually defines life after death, is there a place where our soul goes while our bodies are left behind? I’m not sure, I constantly mull this over nearly every idle moment I have. One thing I can say with near certainty is that death isn’t the end for anything but mortal consciousness. Our bodies are buried into the ground and provide food for bacteria, scavengers, worms and the like and this gives them the energy to till the soil which allows plants to grow, and so on through the “circle of life.” This is the transfer of energy; almost literally, there is a small electrical charge that triggers cellular mitosis (Gagliardi, 2002). Absence of an electrical current in the brain is considered “brain death” (Martin, 2010) and for the purpose of this paper, irreversible brain death will be considered death without making any ethical or theological implications. So let’s call the circle of life “true kinetic transfer”; worms eat you and get the energy to live, birds eat them to get the energy to fly, etc. You can, if you know how, actually measure energy this way, so let’s call this energy “measurable energy.” But consider this, you come into work and someone makes a comment on your appearance, you are flattered and you dive into your work confident and much more enthusiastically than you normally would. There was no direct transfer of energy, and yet it actually did produce a reaction. This obeys Newton’s 3rd Law; an action of speech produced a reaction of confidence in the person it was directed towards. You can’t measure this sort of reaction though, you couldn’t say, “Thanks, what you said improved my day by 50 milliamps” so let’s call this “perceived energy.” It is this perceived energy that I believe is one of the closest things that I could use explain the classical interpretations of the soul. Think of the soul as a capacitor holding currents of both positive and negative energy. It can be affected positively or negatively by its environment, situations, and interactions and of course sometimes it’s a complete mystery as to why someone is good or evil.
Some might disagree that these interactions carry any sort of energy at all and say that they hear things all the time that don’t really affect them one way or another. Well some comments or things said carry such little gravity they most certainly aren’t even going to impact you for more than a few moments. I could also make the case that sometimes this energy can be deflected. For instance, suppose a woman is preparing to tell her boyfriend she loves him for the first time. It means a lot to her so it carries a lot of kinetic weight. If she says it and her boyfriend just says, “Okay” then the girl would probably feel rejected by this. I call this a “telekinetic exchange,” and when I say telekinetic, I don’t mean bending spoons with your mind; I mean “using energy to affect something at a distance.” The catalyst doesn’t even have to be speech, it could even be a book you read, or a song you hear. So let’s call an exchange with something animate a “dynamic exchange” and one with something inanimate a “static exchange.” I think it’s important to differentiate the two because it’s almost common sense why someone can call you a “jerk” and make you feel bad, because it’s personal and directed at you; however, why are we able to empathize with characters in fictional book, or even nonconcurrent people in a non-fictional book for that matter? How does one create a personal bond with something that isn’t personal?
So I threw out a glossary of terms but they so far don’t have a lot to do with life after death. I tend to use sort of a constructivist epistemology, so it is important to conduct the framework of my idea. So I’ve already explained what happens to the measurable energy, it goes on and completes the food chain; but what happens to this perceived energy? Even skeptical people must agree that some places of profound negative energy leave lasting scars on the terrain themselves. We interpret these as being haunted houses or simply as having a bad feeling about a place. But I think that these places are “anchor points” for this perceived energy. So imagine your parents are two cables composed of many tinier strands intertwined. When you are born you are created by taking some strands from each of your parent’s cables and then interwoven to create your cable. Naturally for a long time these cables run parallel, and as your parents impart lessons, wisdom, memories, or any other exchanges they break off strands of their own and create a thicker, more solid cable in you, just as these same things can be imparted on them as well. I call these off-chutes “tangents” and every day with every exchange, with every person, we are constantly exchanging strands of our cable both positively and negatively. Some of these strands are thicker and more profound and stick with the effected person for longer; some of them are so insignificant they simply wear away after time. Once we die the cable frays and all of the pieces bond to those closest to us and we continue to live on through them. Some people live more reclusively and the lack of any profound interaction with people causes their cable to gradually wear away and once their cable frays, there are less of the tangents to go around, thusly we are less impacted when they pass on. A loving father leaves profound tangents that become very large pieces in the lives of their family members; where as a famous person would leave several smaller strands which have less of an impact to much more people. So it is with this perceived energy that our spirits live on long after our mortal consciousness ceases.
This expansive network of all perceived energy that ever was and ever will be I call the “cosmic tapestry.” Not all the energy in the tapestry is created from dynamic interactions between living things. Some of these transfers can come from static sources which when used in the tapestry I call “static anchors.” Things like gravestones, monuments, statues and photographs would be “tangible anchors,” even things such as haunted houses can be explained as an anchor of high amounts of positive or negative energy linked to a former resident or denizen of that anchor point. Sometimes even things like a person’s name or a story of them could carry almost as much weight as the tangible anchors but I would call these “intangible anchors.” So just as a monument in a park would carry on a legacy, the same would occur for conductors of profoundly negative energy. For instance the very name Adolph Hitler can inspire a wide range of emotions many years after his death. But for the most part we all continue to live through the memories of our kin, and so I believe there is truly a life after death, however whether it’s in the traditional sense of eternal divine euphoria, I can’t begin to answer. But this is the framework for my hypothesis on the “Linear Non-abrupt Mortality Theory.”
Bibliography
Gagliardi, L. J. (2002, February 15). Journal of Electrostatics: Microscale electrostatics in mitosi. Retrieved February 21, 2010, from ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V02-4555PDN-2&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2002&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1216279730&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_us
Martin, A. R. (2010). Brain Death. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from Encyclopedia of Death and Dying: http://www.deathreference.com/Bl-Ce/Brain-Death.html
Is there life after death? What is the basis for believing? When I saw this question I thought introspectively on what actually defines life after death, is there a place where our soul goes while our bodies are left behind? I’m not sure, I constantly mull this over nearly every idle moment I have. One thing I can say with near certainty is that death isn’t the end for anything but mortal consciousness. Our bodies are buried into the ground and provide food for bacteria, scavengers, worms and the like and this gives them the energy to till the soil which allows plants to grow, and so on through the “circle of life.” This is the transfer of energy; almost literally, there is a small electrical charge that triggers cellular mitosis (Gagliardi, 2002). Absence of an electrical current in the brain is considered “brain death” (Martin, 2010) and for the purpose of this paper, irreversible brain death will be considered death without making any ethical or theological implications. So let’s call the circle of life “true kinetic transfer”; worms eat you and get the energy to live, birds eat them to get the energy to fly, etc. You can, if you know how, actually measure energy this way, so let’s call this energy “measurable energy.” But consider this, you come into work and someone makes a comment on your appearance, you are flattered and you dive into your work confident and much more enthusiastically than you normally would. There was no direct transfer of energy, and yet it actually did produce a reaction. This obeys Newton’s 3rd Law; an action of speech produced a reaction of confidence in the person it was directed towards. You can’t measure this sort of reaction though, you couldn’t say, “Thanks, what you said improved my day by 50 milliamps” so let’s call this “perceived energy.” It is this perceived energy that I believe is one of the closest things that I could use explain the classical interpretations of the soul. Think of the soul as a capacitor holding currents of both positive and negative energy. It can be affected positively or negatively by its environment, situations, and interactions and of course sometimes it’s a complete mystery as to why someone is good or evil.
Some might disagree that these interactions carry any sort of energy at all and say that they hear things all the time that don’t really affect them one way or another. Well some comments or things said carry such little gravity they most certainly aren’t even going to impact you for more than a few moments. I could also make the case that sometimes this energy can be deflected. For instance, suppose a woman is preparing to tell her boyfriend she loves him for the first time. It means a lot to her so it carries a lot of kinetic weight. If she says it and her boyfriend just says, “Okay” then the girl would probably feel rejected by this. I call this a “telekinetic exchange,” and when I say telekinetic, I don’t mean bending spoons with your mind; I mean “using energy to affect something at a distance.” The catalyst doesn’t even have to be speech, it could even be a book you read, or a song you hear. So let’s call an exchange with something animate a “dynamic exchange” and one with something inanimate a “static exchange.” I think it’s important to differentiate the two because it’s almost common sense why someone can call you a “jerk” and make you feel bad, because it’s personal and directed at you; however, why are we able to empathize with characters in fictional book, or even nonconcurrent people in a non-fictional book for that matter? How does one create a personal bond with something that isn’t personal?
So I threw out a glossary of terms but they so far don’t have a lot to do with life after death. I tend to use sort of a constructivist epistemology, so it is important to conduct the framework of my idea. So I’ve already explained what happens to the measurable energy, it goes on and completes the food chain; but what happens to this perceived energy? Even skeptical people must agree that some places of profound negative energy leave lasting scars on the terrain themselves. We interpret these as being haunted houses or simply as having a bad feeling about a place. But I think that these places are “anchor points” for this perceived energy. So imagine your parents are two cables composed of many tinier strands intertwined. When you are born you are created by taking some strands from each of your parent’s cables and then interwoven to create your cable. Naturally for a long time these cables run parallel, and as your parents impart lessons, wisdom, memories, or any other exchanges they break off strands of their own and create a thicker, more solid cable in you, just as these same things can be imparted on them as well. I call these off-chutes “tangents” and every day with every exchange, with every person, we are constantly exchanging strands of our cable both positively and negatively. Some of these strands are thicker and more profound and stick with the effected person for longer; some of them are so insignificant they simply wear away after time. Once we die the cable frays and all of the pieces bond to those closest to us and we continue to live on through them. Some people live more reclusively and the lack of any profound interaction with people causes their cable to gradually wear away and once their cable frays, there are less of the tangents to go around, thusly we are less impacted when they pass on. A loving father leaves profound tangents that become very large pieces in the lives of their family members; where as a famous person would leave several smaller strands which have less of an impact to much more people. So it is with this perceived energy that our spirits live on long after our mortal consciousness ceases.
This expansive network of all perceived energy that ever was and ever will be I call the “cosmic tapestry.” Not all the energy in the tapestry is created from dynamic interactions between living things. Some of these transfers can come from static sources which when used in the tapestry I call “static anchors.” Things like gravestones, monuments, statues and photographs would be “tangible anchors,” even things such as haunted houses can be explained as an anchor of high amounts of positive or negative energy linked to a former resident or denizen of that anchor point. Sometimes even things like a person’s name or a story of them could carry almost as much weight as the tangible anchors but I would call these “intangible anchors.” So just as a monument in a park would carry on a legacy, the same would occur for conductors of profoundly negative energy. For instance the very name Adolph Hitler can inspire a wide range of emotions many years after his death. But for the most part we all continue to live through the memories of our kin, and so I believe there is truly a life after death, however whether it’s in the traditional sense of eternal divine euphoria, I can’t begin to answer. But this is the framework for my hypothesis on the “Linear Non-abrupt Mortality Theory.”
Bibliography
Gagliardi, L. J. (2002, February 15). Journal of Electrostatics: Microscale electrostatics in mitosi. Retrieved February 21, 2010, from ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V02-4555PDN-2&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2002&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1216279730&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_us
Martin, A. R. (2010). Brain Death. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from Encyclopedia of Death and Dying: http://www.deathreference.com/Bl-Ce/Brain-Death.html
Sunday, December 13, 2009
The Amazon Kindling
Okay so I had this posted up, but then I took it down because I found out my college has rules against "self plagiarism" so ergo I could have gotten in trouble if I posted this somewhere before I turned the paper in. So I waited almost a month and here it is back again. I am particularly proud of this because the teacher let the Dean of Students at the University read it because he was considering buying the Amazon Kindle. I was very proud of this even before, but after I was told that I was ecstatic. Do also note that this has been run through turnitin.com an anti-plagiarism site, so be smart and don't plagiarize this; cite it if you want to get something out of this. So without further ado, my Emerging Technologies report from last semester.
Introduction
Since I can’t seem to shake the hype, created by Amazon’s flagship eBook reader, I’ve decided to do my report on an emerging technology that should be much better. The Amazon Kindling… I’m sorry the Amazon Kindle, has set the wireless eBook market back so far, it could be years before we have a product that does for books what the iPod did for music. As the holiday season approaches, I want to not only urge, but plead that people forgo buying the Kindle at this time. I’m not some anti-Amazon critic, nor am I a supporter of one of its competitors like Sony. Many people will be offended though, and what I’m saying will almost be heresy to Kindle owners, but I say, “Nay, this is not heresy; it is my love of the written word that be the muse to inspire these slanderous words.” So I implore you to take this report with a grain of salt, but please do listen what I have to say. As savvy consumers, it is our duty to help dictate the free market. We must demand better or we will never get it. It kind of reminds me of a fable I heard about an emperor who commissioned a tailor to make him a vibrant colorful garment, but when he got it he couldn’t see it and the tailor said, “Fools will not be able to see the garment” so everyone pretended like they did see it. I don’t remember exactly how it goes but when I get an eBook reader that costs less than most computers, I will be sure to buy it and read it to you all.
Price Tag
The price of Amazon Kindle’s second iteration has only recently dropped below $300 (to $259) despite being on the market since 2007 where it debuted at $399 (Metz, 2009). Keep in mind that you are not paying for books or unlimited book rentals; that is simply the device that allows you to buy and view Amazon’s books. But this is actually the more affordable option; the Kindle also has a DX model that is still closing in on $500 with a tag of $489 (Amazon.com, 2009). Straining to see exactly what made this more expensive, I noticed it has a bigger screen, more storage space (which is still only 4GB, 3.3GB available for downloads, 2GB more than the $259 one), “Rotating Display,” and supports PDF natively instead of after conversion… There isn’t $200 worth of content in those features; of course there really isn’t $259 worth of content in the Kindle to begin with. So why do these devices have such lofty price tags? Well, it isn’t because it costs that much to make them, it’s because it was trying to compete with the iPods. Apple commands high prices as it is, but it is much more understandable given the versatility, support, and overall design of the product. Simply walking in to the Apple store, the clerk was able to get 5 audible “wows” from me showing the features of the iPod touch. Not only that, but if you have a question about your iPod or iPhone you can log into a chat room with an Apple representative to get it resolved. The Kindle got 1 audible wow from me, due to the crisp high resolution on the print. So in no way do I find this product even comparable with the iPhone or iPod touch. Here is a fun fact; I paid less for my car than the debut price of every generation of the Kindle. And it’s not a piece of junk either; since I bought it I’ve put 100,000 miles on it. Just something to think about before you empty out your wallets at Amazon. It’s not just me being cheap either, a much smarter woman than I (a Forrester analyst named Sarah Rotman Epps), suggests its price should be around $99 (Metz, 2009). Believe me, if that were the case it would be a completely different presentation that you are hearing right now.
Kindle’s Effect on eBooks
So why should I care about what other people spend their money on? Well, what you do spend your money on directly affects me, if you keep buying $500 pieces of plastic then I will have to pay $500 to get that same piece of plastic. I really like the idea and I want one but I can’t afford to pay these prices because I’m not a wealthy oil tycoon. Why not just wait for another company to come out with the same thing? Because even competitors like Sony that are throwing themselves into the ring, realize that if the price is already so high, they can keep their costs high and still undercut the Kindle. It’s like how the judicial system works, how the judge rules in a unique case sets a “precedent” in which future similar cases can be sited for judgment in the same way. The same thing here, if a company arbitrarily sets its price too high but successfully sells it at that price then the competitors see they can charge that price and still turn a profit. One of the main reasons that, I believe, competitors are timid to enter the fray, is that Amazon has such a huge library at their disposal, it would be hard to compete with them, at least for a while. It is a shame that they were so greedy with their great potential. I could wait for Amazon to get their act together but it just seems unlikely that will happen. They don’t seem to fix, or care, what criticisms they get as we can see with the progressions through Kindle’s generations. I remember looking through their forums to try to understand why they made the already pretty cumbersome Kindle bigger for the DX model. I remember one snarky poster said that people were idiots for not realizing it was for people who like to read newspapers on their Kindles, before presumably returning to his $500 newspaper. But it is really strange to me that unlike all other electronics, the Kindles get bigger, heavier, and more expensive with every generation. Which leads me to speculate that the lead engineer for the Kindle is none other than… Bizarro Superman.
Substandard Engineering
I was reading a tech blog by a man named Robert Scoble and he brings up an interesting point, “UI sucks. Menus? Did they hire some out-of-work Microsoft employees?” (Scoble, 2007). For those of you unfamiliar, UI is user interface, the industry standard for most post-2007 devices like this should be a touch-screen especially at an upper-end price point. Scoble make another good point, the ergonomics of it lead people to grab it right where the page flip screen is. In fact there really aren’t many good places to hold it, the thing about books is that you have to hold them for hours, if there is no good way to do that, you might as well just have a paperback. There is also no back light for the screen, probably to conserve battery power, but that limits the usability of the device. If you can only read it where you have direct light, how is it any better than any printed book? The display is not in color, though I don’t really see that it needs to be, but they should take that into pricing considerations. It also uses a very cheap plastic casing, kind of like what you’d find on a very cheap children’s toy. And the warranty is bogus, it says 2-year but it’s really just an extension onto the 1-year manufacturer warranty. It covers only one claim for accidental drop or damage and doesn’t cover the replacement of the battery (leaving me to wonder what else could really happen to it). And as for firmware and software, you aren’t able to do anything unless Amazon says you can. Whereas if I want to get Tetris for my iPhone I can go on iTunes and pay $5 or whatever and get it. If I want a game that my friend made for the iPhone, I can get that too; if I’m savvy enough I can make a program for myself and even sell it on iTunes. For the Kindle, you can only have what Amazon says you can, there aren’t any programs or even expansion slots for 3rd party developers. But with the vast number of file formats it supports… it will definitely spurn the sales of Windows ’95. Take that Windows ’95!
Bezos the Businessman
I realize it’s not the prudent thing to do, calling the founder of the internet giant Amazon.com a bad business man, but really he’s not as good as most people say he is. Firstly he got into hot water when he engineered what would be called a “bricks-and-clicks partnership (a brick and mortar coupling with an online store)” (Wolk, 2006) with the toy store Toys “R” Us. In the agreement Toys “R” Us would use Amazon as the, “exclusive online retail outlet for Toys “R” Us toys, games and baby products” (Wolk, 2006). In the lawsuit Toys “R” Us thought that according to the agreement the reverse was true, that Amazon couldn’t sign on competitors like Target or zShops that sold the toys that Toys “R” Us sold, but they did anyway. The lawsuit ruled in favor of Toys “R” Us and people say it was better for Amazon because they could make more money hiring competing stores, but that’s not really the problem. The problem is that if you sign a contract that says you won’t take on other toy stores and you do it anyway, that’s just unethical. You may ask, “So what? He doesn’t like to honor contracts, what’s the big deal?” The big deal is that he has already done something like this with the Kindle. Amazon went on to people’s Kindles and removed people’s copies of George Orwell’s 1984 (among others) presumably in case for some reason they needed to remove the definition of irony from people’s dictionaries. Amazon’s communications director Drew Herdener said, “These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers,” (Megna, 2009). In case you were wondering, this goes against the Kindle’s Terms of Service: “Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon” (Fisher, 2009). But apart from being a blatant breach of the Terms of Service, this raises a whole bunch of questions. Firstly it doesn’t seem that the books are really yours, it seems like you are just renting them if they can take them away whenever they want. Or who is to say they don’t spy on your book purchases and turn them over to “Big Brother?” It’s something to consider when they don’t follow their contracts, or even their own rules that they made themselves.
Another thing that Bezos hasn’t quite figured out is “Razor Marketing” it’s what nearly every electronic media provider does to offset the costs of their devices. Cell phones, iPods, X-Box, Playstation, even your color printers all use this. The idea is, you give the main device away at a lower price than what it costs to make it, and you make the profit up on the backend with the add-ons. It’s called Razor Marketing because there were manufacturers of men’s shaving razors that realized it was a better idea to give the hand razor away for free, and make the money up when they buy the replacement blades. Your printer costs way more to make then you bought it for, but you buy the printer cartridges at a higher price and the company makes money; X-Box 360 and Playstation 3’s lose several hundreds of dollars on every machine they make, but when you buy the games at $60 a piece they eventually will turn a profit. Just think if 3 million people were able to afford a Kindle at $100 a pop and increased the cost of their books from $9.99 to $14.99; I think they would even make more money. They are the ideal candidate for Razor marketing, they have access to a monstrous library, eBooks don’t require printing, paper, bindings, or even shipping; you only have to encode them, which can’t be too hard because some 3rd party publishers are doing it for free. You just pay the authors and publishers their fee (they probably are already selling their print books on Amazon anyway) and the rest is profit! Even though I’m panning the Kindle, this is far and away the most successful Amazon flagship endeavor to date. They at one time had their own MP3 player and purchasing service like iTunes; also they had a streaming video player with a company called “Roku.” The fate of these products was that they were too expensive on the front end, for their performance, and so they weren’t successful. You may not have even heard of these products because they effectively get buried like a dead goldfish; soon they stop adding content, then they cut back on the support, and then eventually you are left holding the bag with the device that time forgot. In 2 or 3 years when some other company creates an industry standard eBook reader, will Bezos remember you dropped $500 on his overhyped piece of plastic, or will he be trying to sell books in his competitor’s format?
Kindle’s Good Points
I have been really hard on the Kindle, but it has some really good points. One of the things I really like is that you have 3G coverage for free, so no contracts no matter how long you stay connected. Although, there isn’t much besides shop for books that you can do with Kindle, it’s still a monthly hassle I think we can all do without. I heard you can get to Wikipedia and Google, but I’m pretty sure at this day and age even my coffee maker can get to Wikipedia and Google. As I said before when I first saw the Kindle I said, “wow” when I saw the extremely crisp 167 ppi (pixels per inch), honestly you don’t even have to be a techie to be impressed with that, you can see how crisp and clear it is at a glance. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a portable microfiche display. Another feature is that all books on the NY Times bestseller list are $9.99; but the high priced ones seem to be around $30 so with a savings of $20 you would still need to purchase 10-25 eBooks to offset the cost of the device. I don’t know many people who would be able to do this within the shelf life of the Kindle. Another feature I really like is the “Read-to-Me” feature so that you can listen to it like a book tape when you’re in the car and then when you get out you can start reading again from the same point that the device left off. I, unfortunately, was not able to see this feature in action, so I don’t know if it’s a human voice or a computer voice (I would be really bummed if it’s a computer voice). Another great feature is the annotation feature, which I’ve heard is the best; I again was not able to do this on some other person’s Kindle for obvious reasons. But I did hear that when they spirit your copy of 1984 away they leave your annotations in a folder, out of context like a pile of post-it notes that fell off your file cabinets. Can you imagine highlighting and putting notes from the text book for this class and then without warning, poof, they are all gone? In conclusion, while the Kindle is an interesting gadget, it’s nowhere near where it should be. And if we continue to buy it, Amazon will not ever see the need to lower the price or fix nagging problems. Amazon knows online stores, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they know how to make electronics. Any questions?
Bibliography
Amazon.com. (2009). Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device (9.7" Display, U.S. Wireless, Latest Generation). Retrieved November 10, 2009, from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation/dp/B0015TCML0/ref=kinww_ddp
Fisher, K. (2009, July 17). Why Amazon went Big Brother on some Kindle e-books. Retrieved November 14, 2009, from Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/amazon-sold-pirated-books-raided-some-kindles.ars
Megna, M. (2009, July 20). Amazon's Irony: Orwellian Recall of Kindle Books. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from internetnews.com: http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3830861/Amazons+Irony+Orwellian+Recall+of+Kindle+Books.htm
Metz, R. (2009, October 7). Amazon cuts Kindle price, adds global version. Retrieved November 10, 2009, from MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33208339/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets
Scoble, R. (2007, November 25). Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review). Retrieved November 11, 2009, from Scobleizer: http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/25/dear-jeff-bezos-one-week-kindle-review/
Wolk, M. (2006, March 2). Toys 'R' Us wins suit against Amazon.com. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11641703/
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