Mawwiage

So because I'm so in love with Roger Craig Smith thanks to his work in the Assassin's Creed series, I'm watching Say Yes to the Dress. I can't help but enjoy a few things about the show, mostly just seeing all of the gowns and feeling creative for an hour or so. But I'm sure that you, Reader, can imagine why I don't like watching it.

Marriage is a completely flawed institution. I realized not too long ago that the LGBT (GLBT? wtfbbq) community is crazy for wanting to be a part of it. Thanks to shows like SYttD and Bridezillas, marriage is little more than a dog and pony show, or a completely wasteful expenditure of one's money as well as that of relatives who probably don't love your fiance(é) anyway. Not only that, the actual wedding ceremony has become an excuse for women the world over to become selfish control freaks, where their future husbands fall tertiary to their very important needs to have perfect makeup and the perfect cake and the perfect pre-reception cocktail and the perfect dress.

Well, let's just skip all that bullshit and go straight to the dress, because obviously that's the most important thing about getting murreed. Bitches can spend thousands (or even millions) of their parents' dollars on weddings, and inevitably a large hunk of that chump change will go toward buying the gown. Some bitches even buy gowns with the intention of ruining it the moment the knot has been secured over the joint bank account (more on that later). The idea that the way someone, primarily the bride, looks on the day she goes from being bangable to pretentious is so worth the thousands of dollars thrown away is absurd. Never you mind that the standard for the groom is pretty much 99% of the time a tuxedo with slight variation in vest and tie. He usually doesn't even keep the damn thing. Oh, but that dress. It has to be the one, don't it? 'Cause, you know, forging a supposed everlasting bond with another person is all defined by what you wear when people see it happen.

I will take a moment to applaud the frugal folks who manage to perform their ceremonies without all the excess pomp and circumstance. Hear me clapping? That's for you. Way to go.

But you're still a sucker.

When GLBT civil rights activists say they want to be able to marry the person they love, that's not what they really mean, whether or not they realize it. Usually that desire has quite a few other requests tacked onto it, such as hospital visitation and property ownership rights. According to our all-knowing and ever-benevolent government that can't possibly have anything but our best interests laid bare during legislative considerations, the only person who should have the most immediate access to a patient in the ER is his or her spouse. Not his twin, not her daughter, not even his gorram clone. Why is this? What is it about a religious ritual that shouldn't even be recognized by the state that gives people extra rights?

Clearly the answer is that marriage is nothing but a financial agreement with a tearful little show we all like to put on and be a part of to make it look less like signing a mortgage deed. Can you imagine what the housing crisis would look like if instead of sitting in a cramped and smelly room to sign your life away, you did it in a huge cathedral with all your friends and family, even those who think you're making a mistake? It might create some jobs, at the very least. (Oh, but that's banker talk. That's evil.)

I'd like to reiterate that if The Church wants to "protect the 'sanctity "of marriage,"'" then the state should not provide any advantages that cannot be afforded to non-traditional but united pairs of people. Since marriage is little more than a business arrangement between two people and their families, why is it against the law in most of the United States for two men or two women to sign up for the same package (even though it's a scam)? Does the legal definition of a civil union somehow not apply to homosexual couples, or even same-sex couples who just want to file joint tax returns? I'm seeing here that there is significant influence by the church on marriage laws. And that is definitely not OK.

Assume what you like about the founding fathers' preferences regarding which douchebag floats around in the sky. (Hint: many of them believed in a universal consciousness of sorts that had nothing to do with the Christian god.) But did you see anyone quoting scripture when the foundations were laid for our Constitution? No, you didn't, because so-called Christian principles are not a part of this country's framework. If you want to talk about the morality behind every man being free, that's not a religious thing. That's a human rights thing, and any atheist would argue the same. You don't need a god who endorses slavery and murder to tell you that.

And so if we eliminate the facade of marriage being a joining of two lovers of opposite sex, we have only the joining of hands to create one fiscal, tax-paying unit. When you look at it that way, wouldn't the government want same-sex marriage? It means less paperwork and more direct filing of taxes. It means more people who have taken the gateway agreement towards making large (taxable) purchases as potentially self-accountable couples as opposed to desperate individuals with nothing better to do than spend money they don't have. If I had the choice between two happy people in the house of their dreams and one unhappy person who's spent hermself into bankruptcy and housing paid for by earning taxpayers...let me think about this one...uh...OH GOSH THIS IS SO HARD.

Oh, wait. No, it's not hard at all. Happy couple wins. Give them their fucking house and stop calling marriage something it's not.

Huh. I almost left it at that. But I haven't quite finished with the original point I came to make. So we'll go back to the stupid dress. The dress is an interesting symbol of life in general. Where men get to fork over maybe a couple hundred bucks for a tuxedo and shoes that goes away once the event is over, women have this big to-do about The One. Where men have some half-hearted weeks of planning for their stupid ritual that they were tricked into in the first place and a night or two of revelry before the big day, women have months of frantic chaos where they feel the need to ensure that everything is right, because no one can possibly know that their relationships aren't the most important thing in the world. And of course, the biggest moment in the end isn't the part where the man in the bedclothes tells them to make out on stage. Nope. It's the moment when the bride walks down the aisle and robs the actual wedding of all attention.

Now, I don't have a problem with a girl wanting to look good. My problem is with the expectation that she has to look good. So many times I go to bars or clubs and no matter what I wear, I feel under-dressed. Bitches are always trying to outdo each other, and for what? I've never understood the necessity for a woman to look good, not because she wants to, but because she is somehow less of a person if she doesn't want to.

I've believed for a long time that there are more talented men in the acting profession than women. It is not because men are better equipped for acting, but because women are sought after for something different. Take the movie X-Men: First Class. Not many can argue that it was a pretty decent film. And then January Jones happens. I suppose if you ask a random fellow on the street if she's hot, he'd probably say yes. And that must be how she got the part of Emma Frost. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen January Jones do anything besides look good in a skin tight dress and perfectly curled, blonde locks.

So what is a homely and/or overweight girl to do? Be the better actress? Not a chance. If she doesn't live up to the world's standards of what a woman is supposed to look like, she might as well trade in her character shoes for some non-slip tennies, because the only thing she's good for is walking from the deep-fryer to the counter to hand off your Whopper. The same, of course, is not true for men. True, there are some roles in films that can't be filled by anything other than rugged hunks. But just look at Mickey Rourke. Even before his nastier days he wasn't the best-looking guy ever. And yet he landed himself some decent roles. He even managed to get back into acting in spite of everything. Go ahead and scour the Internet for an example of this happening during the career of an actress. And I mean legitimate acting roles, not something where she winds up being comic relief or a character whose "point" is to cast a shadow of non-beauty.

So there's society and beauty for you. And I'm not doubting that men have their share of self-image concerns. I'm only suggesting that the standards are so much higher for women that the consequences are farther-reaching than I think many might suppose. And we're back to the dress. Mainly my frustration stems from the assertion of many a bride that the wedding is her day. It's not a day to celebrate the love she shares with her significant other. It's not a day in which two families come together and make nice to form lasting relationships (and cash flow for Big Brother). It's the day where she gets to be the center of everyone's attention for twelve to twenty-four hours. It's the day where she gets to dress up and play princess, and everyone else better be damn fine with that or else they don't get to play along.

This proliferation of deteriorating values is what I think marriage has really become. Even in the earliest days of human civilization, the unification of two people has been exploited more than congratulated. If you want to get married, fine. But I just want you to know that there are some steps to be taken before the knot is even tied to ensure that your marriage means something more than wearing costumes and wasting money.

1. You don't need to spend more than a house payment on your wedding to be happy.
2. You don't need to look like a Vera Wang model to be happy.
3. You don't need to prance around in front of a preacher to be happy.
4. You don't need to pander to the idiotic conglomerate of government and church to be happy.
5. You do need to realize that a marriage involves more than one person to be happy in one.
6. You do need to love someone if you're going to make a lifelong vow to stay with that person.
7. You do need to listen to your friends and/or family before you go through with it; they are just as important as the person at the other end of the aisle.

The Good Doctor Paul

I just wanted to say a few words on presidential candidate Ron Paul. In the future, that will be the answer to your question, "why did you write this blog entry?" (That was a reference to a confused tense.)

Young and old people alike today are jumping the Fed's Love Boat and signing onto the Ron Paul fan club. Ron Paul is a very outspoken candidate who has been in the running since 2007. Where Ralph Nader was once the fallback guy when neither primary candidate was particularly appealing, Paul has stepped in to take his place. Except he's becoming a lot more than the fallback guy thanks to the current administration losing rapt and drooling liberal attention. When was the last time you heard so many college-age people singing the name of a Republican?

Ron Paul has a lot of great things going for him, most notably his distaste for big government. The Fed, he says (and I generously paraphrase), has taken too much power away from the states by delegating issues without consulting Constitutional doctrine. The Fed is printing bills without having the resources to back up the dollar, which bankrupts the country when they continue to spend money we do not have. This is not an issue specific to any one president or party, and Ron Paul is right to say it needs to stop.

While I am fuzzy on Dr. Paul's policies behind reducing the reach of the Fed and that private bank they use to rob us, I know his ideology is solid. He has a great rapport as a member of Congress and he rarely panders to political jargon. He says what he thinks is right and promises to make his dream a reality without relying on the mirage of tax dollars to fund a campaign of lies.

Also good news: Ron Paul is passed over by the media 75% of the time, which means he isn't sharing pockets with anyone who might lead him astray.

"Wants to reshape the government you say? Knows how our economy should work you say? Doesn't appear to accept bribes, hm? Well then, what's the problem?"

Ah, you know me too well already. I follow a certain foul-mouthed fatty on YouTube, and while he has abandoned tact in favor of expressing his honest opinion, I agree with him more often than I rage quit on his videos. As usual, he brought to light a few unpleasant truths, this time about Ron Paul. Most especially (and appropriately, considering his channel name), he cited instances in which Ron Paul has said he is pro-choice and even believes that America and its Constitution were built on the foundations of Christianity. You can see the video and the links on his channel, linked above.

First, let's talk about abortion. (If you've read a few of my older entries, I'm going to start sounding like a broken record.) Pro-lifers believe that even a fetus is a human being who has rights and the potential to do something good for the world. I would argue, and in fact I will now, that protecting currently unrealized potential is absurd when you simply look around and see all of the suffering youths around the world being subjected to less than ideal situations, often because they are born into poverty. Why do poor people have kids? Because, likely, sex is part of a limited reality for them, wherein contraception is either not affordable or goes ignored. When the blind lead the blind, it's no wonder the poverty level in first-world nations is increasing every day. So instead of allowing irresponsible people to undo their mistakes, pro-lifers think it's for their own good to force them to raise another irresponsible person. The cycle continues.

Christian pro-lifers like to say things like, "God created that baby for a reason." If God had a plan in mind for a person, do you really think that person getting aborted would stop the plan from happening? Wouldn't God see the abortion ahead of time? Maybe his plan was just to let the girl get pregnant so that she could really evaluate whether or not she was ready for motherhood so that when she finally decided, some many years later, that she was ready, she could create a good, strong family? How do you even know that fetus has a soul yet? Hint: faith is not the correct answer.*

I would also point out that labeling abortion as murder should be considered hypocrisy for anyone who eats the flesh of any creature. If a seemingly unthinking entity that is no more than a parasite until it is born has the same rights as a fully grown person, then why doesn't my neighbor's seemingly unthinking terrier enjoy the same rights? If my neighbor's dog attacks someone for whatever reason, even if he's threatened, you can bet he'll be put down without a trial. And that's after several dog years' worth of life and love for my neighbor. But if my neighbor were to be raped and impregnated by some unscrupulous asshole, she may be charged with murder if she chooses to remove from her body what can't even be considered a child yet. Why is it that carnivorous pro-lifers are fine with trillions of livestock creatures living without even the smallest hint of freedom from the day they are born to the day they are slaughtered, while screaming for the blood of any woman who would rather not allow an unwanted non-person to feed off of her for nine months?

*Regardless of what you believe, you can never know. Forcing what you believe on others is unconstitutional.

Oh, but wait. Ron Paul, a man known for charging his fellow candidates to read the Constitution, seems to think that America is a Christian nation. So I guess as long as you're a Christian in America you're free to force on whomever whatever bullshit you decide to cherry-pick from the Bible...?

In the sort of way that makes me want to jam my face into a wood chipper, I find it funny that Ron Paul is so decidedly ignorant of the United States Constitution. Take a look, won't you?

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.
-Ron Paul, MD 

While I agree that the abolition of religious celebration from the public eye (even Christmas, even though it's more pagan than Christian) is not what the founding fathers had in mind, I find it completely asinine that he would suggest they intended for the Christian church to be any part of our governing bodies. I've found an invaluable resource that compiles quotations from our founding fathers and excerpts from some of their most important documentation, including the Constitution, that would support my accusations of Dr. Paul's selective ignorance. I would quote my own favorites, but you might as well just skim the page from that link, since every word contradicts what Ron Paul has said about separation of church and state.

Many might wonder what either of these things have to do with electing a decent president for the first time in fuck-all. I would pose a question to those many wondering. How would you feel if you were fined or arrested for a.) having or performing an abortion; or b.) exhibiting your non-Christian beliefs in public?

I am not attempting to assert that if Ron Paul is elected this will happen. I am merely cautioning that it is a possibility, even for a man who protests excessive power in the hands of a democratic government. It says in the Bill of Rights that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Although Dr. Paul has insisted that it's not the government's job to create laws about abortion, he seems pretty sure of himself when he says that abortion is murder. One can never fully expect any politician to keep his word, so what if some day he decides that it is the government's job to step in on the abortion issue and make it illegal? What if, some day, he takes his false understanding of the founding fathers' rather varied Christian tendencies and decides that his church should be valued above all others?

I like Ron Paul, I really do. I like that he can speak so plainly and passionately about what our country has become. I like that for once someone can safely suggest that the free market and corporations are fine without Big Brother thankyouverymuch. I really like that when someone calls him out on his beliefs, he will answer the question truthfully and in line with his political leanings. However, I do not appreciate his uninformed arrogance, and it makes me fearful that if he is ever in office, things could take an unfortunate turn.

Oh, and by the way...the word "god" does not appear once in the Constitution. It appears only once in the Declaration of Independence at the very beginning. I wouldn't label that as "replete," Congressman Paul. winkieface.jpg

The Spark of Creation

There are a few things in life that make me smile, and surprisingly one of those things is the Disney entity. I am fully aware that any mega-corporation like Disney is likely full of corrupted individuals and cast members with broken dreams. And yet, for visitors to the parks, for children who grow up on the movies and cartoons, and for anyone willing to fork over their life's savings for a week spent in the "happiest place on Earth," there is an incredible allure about the entire experience. My family used to visit Walt Disney World once a year, usually around Christmas time. When the Disney Cruise Line came about, we sailed the Wonder a few times, to my infinite delight. Now every time we manage to return to either WDW, the Disneyland Resort in California, or snag a stateroom on the ever-coveted Disney Cruise, I find myself in a state of bliss that is rarely matched in man-made places.

Of course I grew up watching Disney movies; we even had a small television set in our Astrovan on which we would watch our favorites on long car rides. All of us, even my brother, would sing along to every tune, laughing at each childish joke as if it were the first time we'd heard it.

It's a wonder that I've grown so jaded since those days.

So naturally, even though I still get choked up when a costumed parade of my favorite princesses sings a song about believing in your dreams and waiting for your wish to come true, I still find ways to sneer at the spectacle of the Disney parks.

Allow me to preface by saying that I'm amazed at the caliber of employees, or cast members, that the Disney parks manage to summon. For the most part, they are polite, informative, and well trained. On occasion you will encounter the average teenager who hates his job, regardless of the obvious perk of having very expensive access to one of the most popular locations on the planet, and takes it out on visitors by being rude or simply refusing to wear a smile. For the actual performers, there is a whole different set of standards, and I'm often surprised at some of the people who manage to land their roles. You'd think that there is some unspoken rule about dancers' measurements, but every once in a while I'll see shorter, huskier girls dancing in parades. As for the stage shows...perhaps it is out of envy, but I find myself disappointed rather often by the Belles and the Ariels, etc. I see. Either their voices don't fit or they plain don't sing as well as they should. Of course the appearance is always spot on, thanks to the amazing costuming department.

In the defense of the stage performers, though, they are usually doing the same half-hour show four or so times a day and working with recordings of their fellow characters. Apart from the protagonist, the princess in the story usually, the other performers are puppeteers or dancers in full costume who do not speak, but act along with a recording of the entire show. This means no orchestra, and no stopping to take a breath even if something truly embarrassing happens.

As for costuming itself, I've come to take some issue with a certain new addition to the parks. Princess Tiana, whose story is as inspirational as the rest, has a costume that is likewise as familiar as the other princesses' dresses. Of course I'm referring to the swampy wedding gown from the end of The Princess and the Frog. While brushing up on Disney Dream footage, since the ship has been around quite a bit by now, I ran across a Youtube video of some of the TPatF segments from the live show on board called "Believe." One of the commenters had suggested that the gown was not appropriate for that particular scene, that being the number, "Dig a Little Deeper" (and the rest of the segment I assume, since it's only a 45-minute show). Someone else had responded, saying that it was her signature outfit and the most recognizable appearance for her. Commenter One replied, saying that Tiana had a just-as recognizable outfit from near the beginning that would have fit the formal '20's style of the number without being the out of place ballroom fashion.

Come to think of it, why is Tiana always in her ballgown now? Wouldn't it be more suited to her character to appear in her regular dress from the beginning of the film? To say that the ballgown is the most recognizable costume for her is due entirely to the costuming department of the parks. While every other Disney princess has appeared at length in her ballgown in their respective films, Tiana spent only a few minutes in hers, and it was after viewers had already gotten used to seeing her (and Naveen) as a frog. Of course, to keep the dreamy, sparkly allure of Disney, Tiana has to be in her ballgown when greeting visitors.

I find this rather silly. Belle from Beauty and the Beast appears just as often in her "street" clothes as she does in her ballgown in the parks. She's a tough but feminine Disney princess, which I suppose is why she is granted the dual privileges. So why isn't Tiana, often touted as too busy for romance, given the same respect? Why would she appear at a jazz jamboree in her ballgown when Belle gets to read stories in much more comfortable clothing?

While I love the idea of characters like Belle, Tiana, and especially Mulan - women who have strong personalities and will do whatever it takes to honor their families - I lose some respect for the Disney image when they pull crap like this. Instead of doing what's cool in the spirit of Imagineering, they do what they think people want to see. Any young girl who loves TPatF will recognize Tiana no matter what costume she's in, so why pander to the idiotic notion that your guests are complete morons who know nothing about the thing they came to see? The Disney parks used to be a lot more enjoyable before they were transformed into Neo-Tinkerbell and Nemo land. Pixar has clearly been one of Disney's major successes, because they are milking that cash cow like it's drinking from the fountain of youth. The same can be said of the Pirates series, where thankfully not much has changed in the original attraction.

As for Star Tours...well...I reserve the right to slay someone for all of the horrible CGI they've slapped all over a once classic attraction.

And I only just now realized: this is the second time I've blanted about the Disney parks. This, right after a post about the London riots? Clearly I need a vacation.

Enemy is everywhere!

I spent some time in the dark when it comes to the London riots. I've been trolling Youtube for a bit, because frankly reading the news isn't going to help me understand it any better than seeing raw footage of the events. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I'm appalled by a number of things.

First, it seems no one really knows what started all this. I'm sure it all began with innocent intentions to bring attention to undeniable disparities between the average citizen and Scotland Yard. But as with any conflict that sparks violence in a den of uncivilized low-lifes, it seems the looting was inevitable. Chavs, as they are called, are like America's wigger population: would-be gangsters who speak like children and revel in criminality and aggressive or antagonistic behavior. Just do a Google search for either word and you'll find more than ample evidence to support the comparison.

And so one must wonder if there is population within the chav "community" who do not quite fit the bill. Are there young, at least somewhat educated, likely impoverished people who started a protest that turned into several riots? Or did the chavs themselves start the rioting under the banner of fighting the Man? Either way, I fail to see how attacking the police and setting fire to businesses is a worthwhile solution. Any guise for robbery is clearly misidentified.

And this brings me to my second frustration. In reading the Youtube comments (like I do), I noticed a lot of "you Americans" talk. I find it very interesting that it took a national disaster and some significant oversight on the part of our (American) leaders to effectively rectify the situation for the last round of looting and severe rioting to occur in the USA. All it takes for the young people of London, apparently, is a few protesters standing up to the police. I'm so sick of this anti-American talk that appears all over the Internet. Americans are pretty stupid, but clearly so are Brits. So are Israeli Jews who berate visitors and pilgrims to their nation simply for being American. So are Danish fashionistas who sneer down their noses at tourists who would rather not spend hundreds of dollars on clothes they're just going to sweat through anyway.

Like I've said before, idiots come from all walks of life. Even intelligent people are prone to indoctrination under the right circumstances. I'm more ready to believe that anyone who assumes someone is a stupid American because of a maximum 500-character comment on a (likely unrelated) Youtube video is a member of the idiot variety of person.

I was going to rant about Facebook here, but that seems a little childish. I do that enough on Facebook.

That having been said, be sure to share this with your friends on Facebook.

Worth the Pricetag

As millions of willing and able citizens are finding, especially here in the United States, the job market is about as fun to navigate as a cobra pit lined with bear traps and grenade bouquets. What's the issue? Knowing me by now, you should expect my response to this question to be: people are too busy making more people to notice the strain they're putting on the rest of us.

I won't say much more on this topic, because if I haven't convinced you yet, it's hopeless to go much further. However, I imagine that if you're among the population who stupidly think population is something that should continue to grow, you'd like to argue the following:

With newborn babies come work possibilities, including prenatal care, baby supply manufacturing, maternity classes, nannies and midwives, pre- and primary education, et cetera, et cetera...

...et fucking cetera. Stop and think for a moment. If you had to lay a percentage upon the number of people you know who actually work in any of the above-listed fields, what sort of range would you be looking at? Exclude people you know strictly because they are in that line of work, so don't count any of the doctors or nurses you met because you or a loved one decided to have children.

Right now you're probably realizing (if you don't happen to work in healthcare or a nursery) that your ratio is quite small. So how many people would be out of a job if about 1000 brave individuals Volunteered to make baby-making off-limits permanently? Very, very few, I assure you, and yet it would make feeding approximately 1500 existing people a lot easier. Considering there are nearly seven billion people walking or crawling this earth, I don't think 1000 people is very much to ask for.

Now, there are obviously other problems with today's job market, or more specifically our economy. You can blame whoever you want - donkeys, elephants, some strange hybrid of the two - but sitting at home watching your favorite "non-partisan" news network isn't going to lower our deficit. While I don't have any real answers on how to fix our country's money problems, I do know that pretending it'll all clear itself up eventually doesn't help to clear up anything. In any case, one could probably assume with relative security that our economy would improve if more people were working instead of munching away at government cheese. Bigger income equals bigger (hopefully responsible) spending, which allows bigger funds to pool for smaller hiring gaps. Of course the income starts with a job.

So how do you get a job? For some it's as easy as turning in an application at a fast food or retail chain, lucking into a formality interview, and finally a minimum-wage employment agreement. For others, it's a matter of scattering resumés like Johnny's apple seeds, chasing down executives outside Starbucks, follow-up calls to follow-up a follow-up call, the occasional interview that lasts a few minutes and ends with "we've already filled the position," and a hefty dry-cleaning bill by the end of the week.

Oh, and a college degree fits in there somewhere.

Knowing that times are tough, I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I say that college graduates are finding it more and more difficult to find jobs in today's economy. This hardly seems fair after they've been promised an additional $1 million in lifetime income as a direct result of their degree. It seems every day hundreds of homes are put on the market as foreclosures as people (often honest, but just as often irresponsible) default on their mortgages and declare bankruptcy. The bank takes a substantial hit for each foreclosure they are left to sell at a fraction of its appraisal value, which affects the value of the dollar that once bought a couple of gallons of gas. Regardless, with the sale of their home, bankruptees are now without their mortgage and free to start over building their credit.

Mortgages are, naturally, different from student loans. With a mortgage, there is security, or collateral that the bank can threaten to seize should you ever stop making your payments. (Hey, it's better than vital organs, right?) With a student loan, there is nothing a lender can take from you aside from a certain percentage of your paycheck if you decide to stop sending money willfully. This is why, even in bankruptcy, you are still obligated to pay your student loan debt.

Thankfully, there are hundreds of programs available for loan repayment, even forgiveness and cancellation if you look in the right places. Usually these programs require volunteering for a year or more, receiving only a stipend and a grant at the end of it all for educational purposes (unlike 529 funds, this money can be used to pay off student loans). While the stipend generally isn't much - you're volunteering after all - it's enough to live by if you don't have a laundry list of expenses to deal with. Usually the hours you work would leave time for a second part-time job as well. Unfortunately, the end-of-contract grant is never more than $6k as far as I've seen, which for some won't even cover a semester of student loans. Even volunteering four years of your life to the Peace Corps will only wipe away 70% of your student debt.

And everyone knows that a degree does not guarantee employment. Either your degree overqualifies you for the job, or your lack of experience (having just graduated and all) underqualifies you. So if you're still working the same part-time shifts you held down in high school, how do you expect to pay the $60,000+ you owe to Wells Fargo? Er, I mean the Department of Education? I mean...Nelnet?

Oh yes. As if it wasn't hard enough just making enough money to write a check every month, now you have to deal with the confusion of where the fuck to send it. A few years ago, the Department of Education bought up a huge package of student loans, only to sell them off not long after. Nelnet, one of the most infamous student loan servicers out there, is likely now the sole owner of your ass, thanks to our federal government. Nelnet is known for taking payments when not necessary, sending statements claiming thousands remaining on a loan that should have been paid off months or even years before, separating loans out into several monthly statements instead of consolidating them into one like they claim to do, and generally making it impossible to speak with anyone who has a fucking clue how this god-forsaken system works. Oh, and they're thieves.

And now they're phasing out paper statements, making it almost mandatory to provide automatic clearing house information, which means they have instant access to your checking account, whether you want them to or not. So never mind they can claim the authority to pull what they want from your bi-monthly income check should they deem it necessary, now they can just reach directly into your pocket and take, take, take. I've read and heard about lenders and loan servicers (not just Nelnet) who continue to draw on checking accounts long after a loan has been paid, and sometimes long after the borrower has called to demand that it stop.

OK, let's step back for a moment. Fast forward two or three years after college. You have your degree, you have the job you ran all over town for, and you just became engaged and bought a house with your sweetie. So you've got decent income. Not what you thought you'd be making, but enough to get by. You still have a substantial balance remaining on your student loans, and now you have a mortgage and a wedding to deal with. Oh, and it turns out the house you bought is in need of some repairs, but because of some oversight it was never squared away on your purchase contract. Before you've even moved the first truckload, you and your betrothed are beginning to wonder if you've made the right decisions.

Maybe somewhere down the line you'll look back on a few years of hardship with a crooked smile. Maybe you can hope for a future where you're content, if not happy, with the choices you made as a young adult. Maybe, maybe.

Maybe it's the pessimist in me talking, or maybe it's about time we stop relying on maybes to come true and start educating ourselves and each other on how to avoid economic crises. It has been a failure of my parents, my education, and myself to teach me why money is everything, especially if you want that truth to die off at any point in your life. Surround yourself with the material world when and while you are able, so that the other side of things can come easier.

I want to travel the world living on nothing but a few bucks a day. Unfortunately, I realized this too late, and my dreams have just been offset, probably for good. If I could get a do-over, I'd tell the idiots who tried to convince me that money is a tertiary matter to stop lying to me and tell me the best way to earn income as a preteen. I should have cared a long time ago. I'm certainly paying for my mistakes now - with interest.

Reluctant Accord

I receive e-mail updates from DemandProgress.org, which usually bring me saddening news of how our rights are being flushed down the shitter every day. While I haven't been surprised by the willingness of our lawmakers to ignore the Constitution in favor a few hundred votes, I'm increasingly appalled by the lethargy exhibited by "my fellow Americans" /tongueincheek.

While at work, I'll often get e-mails sent to me and (quite frequently) the rest of our staff detailing anything from anecdotes about how smart all the childwen are for believing in God and the things they're willing to do for a prayer all the way to outrageous claims about the atrocities heaped upon our soldiers fighting the good fight Over There. Sometimes I'll even get e-mails saying that President Obama has admitted that he intends to bankrupt the country (and other such unsubstantiated claims) and that the Tea Party and the Republic of MO need to team up to do battle with the NWO. You know, crazy shit like that you wouldn't generally think more than twice about.

So why is it that my coworkers will readily send and receive these e-mails, but request that I cease forwarding completely true and relevant messages about the Internet Blacklist Bill? Is it because they'd rather cry for a couple of minutes about our current levee situation than actually take notice of what's going on in Congress? Yes, yes, I know that politics are big and scary and that it's a lot easier to understand "levee break, water get big, house flooded." But even if you don't give a damn about your own rights, at least consider those of the future generations, if we can even expect to have any with the rate at which our world is spinning closer to oblivion.

Oh, but I suppose that apathy for future generations is why life becomes crappier every day for the average person. As the geniuses behind Futurama pointed out, the general consensus in the past has been "create a problem now, let the smarties in the future figure out a solution." As our idiocracy grows more and more rampant, there are fewer smarties to go around solving the problems created by the morons who continue to breed. Which, I suppose, leads me to a conundrum. I'm ready to believe I'm one of the youngest, if not the youngest person employed by my company. How is it that my elders seem to know/care far less about the workings of their country than someone twenty, thirty, even forty years their junior? How can someone live that long and learn so little?

I once had a very distressing conversation with one of the women I work with. Disclaimer: she is a very nice, incredibly patient woman about whom I hesitate to say anything negative. On the other hand, she's kind of an idiot (though she does her job very well). Somehow we got on the topic of gay marriage (I may have led the discussion in this direction to see how she felt about it, out of curiosity - not sure). She is the type who loves Jesus without really knowing why, so of course she has a single, baseless claim to make about allowing homosexuals to start families: it's not natural, mostly 'cause God says so.

I was hesitant to press the issue, but I did mention that heterosexual marriage has been on the declining end of success lately, and it hardly seems fair that two people who love each other should be turned away from an already buttfucked institution just because their private parts don't hug each other right. She simply shrugged, took a puff of her cigarette, and reiterated her point, in that "you really don't know what you're talking about because you're young" kind of way.

There's a lot that can be said of the paradox of experience accrual. How does one gain experience if one cannot get a job? I think the problem with older generations is that they like to pretend that we have had and are having similar experiences at the dawn of the 21st century that they had decades ago. They refuse to learn and understand new things because they're content without them. This is fine with me. What is not kosher is the fact that they always insist on taking the long way around when us young people have engineered and discovered any number of shortcuts. Even when we can prove that we're smarter than them, they still manage to chuckle and see our technology as nothing but a toy that we'll grow out of when the next big thing comes along.

Yeah...? So what? That's evolution, something I know you're loathe to agree with, since you have your dusty old tomes sitting securely in the filthy motel nightstands to tell you where Adam and Eve came from. It's nice that you're happy in your bubble of ignorance and self-preservation through accepting the terms of whomever has the bigger guns. But don't try to tell me I don't know anything just because I haven't sat in that same bubble for forty years.

And don't be surprised when your bubble is finally popped by the very people you thought were protecting it.

Socialism or not, we have a problem

I just watched a film about Stanislaw Burzynski's experimental cancer treatments that have been attacked by the government and privately sponsored Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The attacks began as a reasonable accusation that Burzynski's antineoplastons were not thoroughly examined in clinical trials and should not be administered as a safe and ethical treatment. It wasn't long before the treatments were returning phenomenal results and blowing radiation and chemotherapy procedures out of the water in terms of reducing, even curing cancer symptoms, as well as being non-harmful and non-toxic. (As far as the film would tell, Burzynski's treatment did not have any of the extreme side effects of modern medicine's most common therapies, the majority of which can cause leukemia.)

Antineoplastons, basically, are the results of an extraction process of a particular body that appears in the blood and urine of healthy (non-cancerous) people. This body does not appear in the blood and urine of cancer patients, so it is odd that the connection here was not made sooner. Regardless, Burzynski logically began experiments to transfer this peptide from healthy donors to his patients.

Remarkably, case after case of his patients' cancer began to resolve within two years.

Now, let's consider for a moment the incredibly large sum of money that is funneled into cancer research benefits and institutions. According to the film, these organizations' profits almost triple those of all Fortune 500 companies. Would you doubt that the government has a lot to do with these organizations? "Follow the money," as they say...

After Burzynski's in-house trials started producing miraculous results, the state of Texas (the local law that had jurisdiction) began putting on the pressure. Unsurprisingly, their motive was not clear. Complaint after complaint could not prove that Burzynski's treatments were harmful or that they were ineffective. More importantly, they could not dispute that in manufacturing and distributing antineoplastons in his own facility and to his own patients, he was not breaking any laws. Eventually Dr. Burzynski was indicted (for what, I'm still not sure) and his case was brought to the federal level. His opponents (national cancer research institutions and our very own FDA) began a smear campaign wherein they would encourage past patients of Burzynski to file claims against him. Perhaps to their surprise, many of these patients and their families appeared in court, not to slander the doctor, but to testify that his non-toxic therapy had saved their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

Eventually, after spending millions of tax payer dollars in legal battles against Burzynski, the FDA approved Phase-II trials of the antineoplastons, but did their best to keep Burzynski mysteriously out of them. While a Japanese company was able to conclude that the drug was effective, our national tests proved inconclusive, but were published not too long after anyway. Burzynski was shocked to read the findings, as the levels of the drug used in his own trials far exceeded those in the peer-reviewed study. Astoundingly, the United States Government filed eleven patents for the drug that excluded Dr. Burzynski in ownership of its discovery and development, even after he had already gotten his own patent approved:

How could the U.S. Patent Office be corrupted to the point that they issue patents on medical therapies that have already been patented and issue them to someone who had nothing to do with their discovery or use? ...All of this was being done by the same government agencies who were spending millions of tax payer dollars trying to put Dr. Burzynski in jail so that he could not fight the criminal theft of his discovery. 

-Julian Whitaker, M.D.

One of the biggest objectives of this film was obvious, and that is to give one pause and wonder. How can a business/corporation/entity as large as the United States government get away with so much and still leave people thinking that they have our best interests at heart in everything they do? I'm amazed at the lengths people (cough liberals cough) are willing to go to justify or defend the very people who rob them of their earnings and their rights simply by existing. The film Burzynski is only one striking example of the atrocities our government commits every day.

I'm a big fan of being non-partisan, but just like with racism and stereotypes, the offended party is often guilty by association. Criticism for the movie involves phrases like "conspiracy theory," and assumes that  Merola, the filmmaker, is accusing everyone of gulping down the Kool-Aid. I can almost guarantee that someone insists that the film is right-wing propaganda poorly strung together with low-budget animations and "clogged with...transcripts" (Jeanette Catsoulis, RottenTomatoes - a great place for finding morons with nothing relevant to say). Notice how this critique does not involve what the transcripts say.

Any time I see political parody on republicans, it's instantly gobbled up. Make fun of a democrat and you're labeled an ignorant redneck who hates babies and colored people. OK, never mind the fact that it takes zero effort to associate George Dubya with "derp" these days, especially when just about everyone will agree with you simply because we've chosen to ignore any of the decent things he did in office, many of which Obama is currently expanding upon. Obama is also expanding on a lot of the negative things that came about with the Bush administration, but if you try to suggest this, you're immediately written off as a know-nothing. While I think Republicans are incredibly foolish for leaning so heavily on their faith and allowing their religious beliefs to poison their political worth, they seem to be the only ones who make any sense sometimes. It's hard to blame Glen Beck for going crazy, for instance; he's in the same boat as Shia LeBouef in Disturbia (a bad movie with OK acting but perfect for my argument). Both of them see something, they know it to be true, but everyone around them insists that they're mental.

For Shia as Kale in the movie, he sees his neighbor behaving suspiciously until there is no doubt that he's killed a person. Spoiler: there is no surprise ending here, the neighbor actually is a murderer. How exciting. In Glen's case, he has a warehouse full of evidence proving that the government has their hands in everyone's pockets. They are continually reaching into more pockets every second, and if you don't like their hand in your pocket even though you know your money is going to be spent fighting useless wars (literally and figuratively, see above), you are fined, taxed more, imprisoned, or simply disappear. With piece after piece of incriminating evidence, it just piles on until all you can see is a mountain of clarity that everyone else claims is invisible as they ready your straight jacket. It's really no wonder Mr. Beck flies off the handle, which is very unfortunate, because it loses him some credibility.

I once wrote an essay about a time when I was in WDW, surrounded by families and people I'd never know. I was unexpectedly stricken with this overwhelming sense of the known unknowns I could never comprehend. When I think about the scope of any large business, or even a small business, I soon become lost in a cornfield of all that's involved. Nothing can be a simple transaction anymore. Case in point: the Burger King scenario from my second blog entry. Knowing this, how can you expect anything in a business as large as the government to be readily understandable? And do you think that's just the nature of the beast, or do you suppose they want it that way? My money, which in full accordance with the law is being taken from me as I write, is on the latter.