Has anyone else seen this Audi commercial, where Shining-style people intone, "I've been told to desire a red sports car..." and "I've been told hollow status symbols define my worth" or some such hokum?
Text appears on the screen: "The spell has been broken."
In other words, now that you are being told you can buy an Audi, that's somehow different? Freakin' ridiculous.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Who Cares How Christian the Founders Were?
How Christian Were the Founders?
In this moderately terrifying Times Magazine article, Russell Shorto takes us to Texas, where an ultra-religious bloc of conservatives on the school board are trying to re-write American history books, to the tune that America was founded on Christian principles. Perhaps more upsetting is the attempt to push American exceptionalism: the notion that America is somehow 'better' than the other nations of the world.
While I take countless issues with listening to a man who self-identifies as a "Christian fundamentalist" and believes the earth is only a few thousand years old, and was created in six days, I am more concerned with this obsession to figure out what the Founding Fathers may have meant, or wanted.
I do not mean to cast any aspersions on the (often great) men who founded our (often great, but often not-so-great) nation. But they were doing their thinking and writing in the 1770's and 80's, for Christ's sake! (ha.) Two hundred thirty years have passed, and, in case people haven't noticed, things have CHANGED! Whatever the founders intentions, they could not have had the forethought to imagine a country stretching from sea to sea, with an absurdly heterogeneous mix of 300+ million people. They set some good ideas in motion, but to think they meant for their thoughts and words to literally shackle their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren is the height of insanity.
The article goes into detail about Thomas Jefferson's phrase 'the wall of separation between church and state.' As the religious zealots are quick to point out, this phrase itself does not appear in the constitution; TJ wrote it in a letter, explaining the purpose of the first amendment. But, as several sane people have pointed out, TJ wrote the first amendment, so it's quite sensible to trust his interpretation of what it means.
But I feel the need to point this out again: Jefferson penned those words more than two hundred years ago! The population of America has changed. The ideas of Americans have changed. And the complexity and interconnectedness of the world has grown, seemingly faster each year.
So who cares how Christian the founders were? Let's look at America TODAY, and the problems and issues facing us NOW, and address them with TODAY'S solutions, and ideas that might well have been born sometime during the last two hundred years. America didn't stop evolving (and don't let us get started on evolution) when she was created. The Declaration of Independence, and, a decade later, the Constitution, were big, bold first steps. As a nation, we must keep walking.
In this moderately terrifying Times Magazine article, Russell Shorto takes us to Texas, where an ultra-religious bloc of conservatives on the school board are trying to re-write American history books, to the tune that America was founded on Christian principles. Perhaps more upsetting is the attempt to push American exceptionalism: the notion that America is somehow 'better' than the other nations of the world.
While I take countless issues with listening to a man who self-identifies as a "Christian fundamentalist" and believes the earth is only a few thousand years old, and was created in six days, I am more concerned with this obsession to figure out what the Founding Fathers may have meant, or wanted.
I do not mean to cast any aspersions on the (often great) men who founded our (often great, but often not-so-great) nation. But they were doing their thinking and writing in the 1770's and 80's, for Christ's sake! (ha.) Two hundred thirty years have passed, and, in case people haven't noticed, things have CHANGED! Whatever the founders intentions, they could not have had the forethought to imagine a country stretching from sea to sea, with an absurdly heterogeneous mix of 300+ million people. They set some good ideas in motion, but to think they meant for their thoughts and words to literally shackle their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren is the height of insanity.
The article goes into detail about Thomas Jefferson's phrase 'the wall of separation between church and state.' As the religious zealots are quick to point out, this phrase itself does not appear in the constitution; TJ wrote it in a letter, explaining the purpose of the first amendment. But, as several sane people have pointed out, TJ wrote the first amendment, so it's quite sensible to trust his interpretation of what it means.
But I feel the need to point this out again: Jefferson penned those words more than two hundred years ago! The population of America has changed. The ideas of Americans have changed. And the complexity and interconnectedness of the world has grown, seemingly faster each year.
So who cares how Christian the founders were? Let's look at America TODAY, and the problems and issues facing us NOW, and address them with TODAY'S solutions, and ideas that might well have been born sometime during the last two hundred years. America didn't stop evolving (and don't let us get started on evolution) when she was created. The Declaration of Independence, and, a decade later, the Constitution, were big, bold first steps. As a nation, we must keep walking.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Photos, Round 1
So we're in Playa del Carmen at the moment, taking advantage of some free wi-fi. We haven't yet been here a week, but we're super-happy to be missing the snow-dump happening on the east coast at the moment. :)
Anyway, Mexico is warm and beautiful, and I don't have the time or inclination to regale you all with wondrous stories (that, and nothing too particularly exciting has really happened yet). So, without further ado, here is the link to some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jasonsiegel
It will be updated with new pics as they are taken and, perhaps more importantly, as I come across more wi-fi hotspots.
As they say here in Mexico, paz.
Anyway, Mexico is warm and beautiful, and I don't have the time or inclination to regale you all with wondrous stories (that, and nothing too particularly exciting has really happened yet). So, without further ado, here is the link to some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jasonsiegel
It will be updated with new pics as they are taken and, perhaps more importantly, as I come across more wi-fi hotspots.
As they say here in Mexico, paz.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Suggestions?
We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal.Wonderful. Seriously, does anyone, anywhere, have any ideas how to actually fix this thing? Who's going to convince China to stop using energy?
Read the whole article here.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Spam, Glorious Spam
Whoa. Check out this little nugget, from a histrionic article about all the various things we should be afraid of:
"Spam—unsolicited E-mail that can contain malicious software—now accounts for 81 percent of all E-mail. . . ."
WTF? 4 out of 5 emails sent are SPAM?!?! Praise Google for their Gmail spam-filter, then. Jeez.
"Spam—unsolicited E-mail that can contain malicious software—now accounts for 81 percent of all E-mail. . . ."
WTF? 4 out of 5 emails sent are SPAM?!?! Praise Google for their Gmail spam-filter, then. Jeez.
Senator Two Stupid First Names
Senator Gregg is a schmuck. He goes out there seeking a job, namely Secretary of Commerce, then turns around after Obama has decided to throw a little more sand in the liberals' faces and actually appointed Gregg, he decides he's actually a Republican after all, and doesn't want the job. Now it comes out that he will vote against the stimulus package.
Nevermind the fact that there is no actual brain behind the idea of voting against the bill, it's just the Republican thing to do. But Judd Gregg is just a class-A ass. And hopefully New Hampshire will wise up to his ass-ness and vote him out in 2010.
On a slightly broader note, I'm still heartedned by O's attempts at post- or bi-partisanship, but the ignorant stonewall he's getting from the mindless Rush-following Right has also stoked some bloodlust... after all, we did win, right?
Nevermind the fact that there is no actual brain behind the idea of voting against the bill, it's just the Republican thing to do. But Judd Gregg is just a class-A ass. And hopefully New Hampshire will wise up to his ass-ness and vote him out in 2010.
On a slightly broader note, I'm still heartedned by O's attempts at post- or bi-partisanship, but the ignorant stonewall he's getting from the mindless Rush-following Right has also stoked some bloodlust... after all, we did win, right?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Secretary of the Treasury
I don't trust this punk as far as I can throw him. Which is not very far.But he was in charge of the NY Fed when all this BS began, and now it looks like he's fought off some of Team-O's good sense. (See NYTimes article here.)
I know you've gotta delegate and all, and we want the best people and all that, but really? Geithner opposes regulating the funds? Opposes limits on executive compensation? Where's the Change, Barack?
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