WEARINESS...

     I'm weary.

     There's a certain heaviness that comes with knowing your suffering is pointless.

     Now, I want to be clear. I'm not suffering in any physical sense. My body, its organs and limbs, are doing quite well for themselves. I've managed to take good care of myself and avoid catastrophe. But my mind...my mind is weary. I don't want to do this anymore...this purposeless of being...this monotony.

     I don't like working for a living. It sucks. I never wanted my life to be defined by how I earned money. I didn't want my life defined by my job but my job most certainly defines my life. I work overnights and I've worked overnights since 2001. I thus keep odd hours and on top of that my job requires me to work weekends...all of them. My job pays me enough to survive but not enough to live. To make ends meet I cannot drive. I can't afford the car payments, the car insurance, and gas & miscellaneous expenses associated with car ownership. You can imagine how difficult this makes it to meet girls. How difficult you (didn't) ask? I went on my first date when I was 33 years old. My job is not responsible for all of that...but it is responsible for enough.

     Maybe things will get better... - something I've said for many years, but - ...I'm starting to see a girl at a time every now and again. There's definite improvement over the nearly 20 years of nothing. It's heartening to find girls who will give me a chance despite knowing the difficulties I enter in on...even if the majority of them have been one-date-wonders. Still...I'm weary.

     I don't want to work anymore. Not just my current job but any job. I wish I could just stop but the bills won't stop just because I want to. It's frustrating but it's a frustration I feel I could endure if I only had a reason to endure it. I'm not enough. My selfish will to live means less and less to me each day. The only official thing I have to look forward to is New Horizons reaching Pluto in July 2015. I do want to see what this world looks like after all these years. That date is fast approaching and then what?

    I feel like if I had a girlfriend or a wife (as I have wanted one since I was 24) and/or a child to raise, I feel I could muster the requisite strength to endure the monotony, to endure the purposeless because I would thus have a purpose. My suffering...my anguish?...it could be rationalized.

    I don't like having these fantasies but I will admit one of my darker ones today. Maybe doing so semi-publicly will prove cathartic. I'm not an immediate suicide risk and the reason for that is simple: I've been diligent in saving my money for old age though I've been able to save far less since moving out. The inheritance I received from my father was, in the beginning, less than a third of my net worth. Now it is possibly over half thanks to a rising stock market. Still, it's blood money so I don't want to spend any of it except in my old age. Killing myself would mean leaving all that money behind unused.

      What a waste...

      What I daydream about when I'm weary is cashing out my IRAs and summing it up with my savings to see what I've got. I keep detailed financial records so I know how much my life costs. Presently, it's just under $20,000 a year. I think my financial happiness would peak at around $30,000 a year take-home pay (I really could give less than a fuck about gross pay...if I don't see it, I didn't earn it so stop using my gross as a basis for aid calculation). I could be happy on the $20,000 if my rent were halved but that won't happen unless I get a girl to move in with me and just getting a girlfriend has proven ridiculously difficult.

      But that would be nice...a girlfriend who loves me enough and whom I love enough to want to live together and pool expenses in preparation for marriage. That'd be the best thing that could happen to me both as a human being and financially...someone to share the burden-of-living with. Hell, at this point I would take a fucking cat but my apartment strictly forbids pet ownership and there isn't another affordable complex within walking distance of work...additional sorrow...

      My net worth is around $200,000. I don't know what the tax penalty would be if I cashed out all the IRAs I have but even if it was half, and I highly doubt that, I'd still have a minimum of five years worth of money...and if interest rates would ever rise, up to seven.

      That's some fantasy. Five years of freedom. The only problem is when the money would run out I know I would not have the courage to kill myself at the end. I'd be a coward and run...or desperately get a job to keep alive, however miserably...but those five years...they could be good ones. Five years to do whatever the fuck I want. I'd be like one of those Inca sacrifices (except they only got one year...I'd get five).

      It bothers me because usually I can talk myself out of these fantasies within a few hours. I'm usually just cranky. But this one has lasted a full week and as far as I know will continue tomorrow. I blame my job and by extension myself for not getting out of it while I still could. Almost thirteen years I've put in there. What pisses me off is how the words don't match the deeds. For my entire tenure there I've been told what a good and dutiful employee I've been. I've been given numerous awards in recognition of that. What have I wanted in return? Full time. That's it. Full time. I've been bidding for ten years and still have not gotten it. In fact, in all my years there I have not known anyone to have gotten full time. How shitty of the store. The store doesn't give full time...that's basically what I'm told...yet they have to present bid sheets every six months (which they make a pain in the ass to get). It feels so fraudulent. If they don't give full time and only offer it to satisfy some union demand...it just feels wrong. Like holding a contest but never declaring a winner.

     Additionally, despite my glowing reviews, I have been given a pay cut. For the past year I've consistently had about 2 hours cut from my schedule each week. It's not even something I can bump for. It's a very calculated move on my employer's part and it's costing me about $1000 in lost income over the course of a year. My income has been stagnant or falling since 2008. I don't feel like a valued employee...I feel like an unwanted expense.
 
     Word-deed mismatch. I would cry out that I feel like I've earned a little respect from the store but then I feel like I would be met with the same words Lyta Alexander got when confronting Ulkesh over the same idea..."Respect...from whom?"
 
     Hell, I'd even settle for "full-time lite". I'm old school. A full time job to me is a 40 hour workweek. Sundays are paid at time-and-a-half and Sundays are separate from regular pay. The rule for part time is less than 29 non-Sunday hours a week (5 weeks or more above 29 equals automatic full time but my store is just as diligent about preventing that as they are at denying full time status to begin with). But anyway, it's workable within the system. 28 non-Sunday hours plus 8 Sunday hours straightens out to 40 hours of pay. Full time with the status of part-time...but I can't even get that. My historical average was 27.5 + 7.5 which, quite frankly is close enough but nowadays it has been averaging 26.75 + 6.75 which hurts, albeit slowly. It's like death from a thousand small cuts. My budget is already tight as is. I already endure a cold apartment in the Winter (I keep it at 60 degrees and dress warmly...I only turn it up to 72 degrees when I know I'm having company. I have not had company in over a month) and a hot apartment in the Summer (I only turn the air conditioner on when my apartment's temperature rises above 90 degrees and I'm off work or when I have company [see Winter]. In the meantime I sweat it out sitting around in my underwear) so I've already squeezed what savings I can from my electric bill. The only room left for cuts is cable and food.

    I know cable seems like an obvious luxury to eliminate and while I have no problem with that conceptually, I am trying to date girls. It's already bad enough that I work weekends, overnights, and can't drive. Must I be without entertainment capabilities as well? How much poverty must I ask a potential girlfriend to endure? But it will go if it gets difficult since I'm already stretched thin enough as is.

     I'm sure I'll get over this but it's been a hard week. It's all psychological...it's always been psychological. I've been blessed with a healthy body but cursed with a poisoned mind...

     I don't think my problems are as big as I imagine them to be. I can't imagine there aren't throngs of people who'd happily trade their problems for mine. I hate that I even consider that. I want to be selfish at times. I want it to be about me sometimes. Stupid brain...

     I wish I were less lonely. I've never been truly alone before. There's always been someone living with me even if we largely ignored one and other. It's been just me for 2½ years now. It's soul-crushing. Someone to pass the time with...someone I could hold and who would hold me...that would be nice. It would be nice to have some of the voids in my soul filled with joy and comfort. Definitely nice...

THINGS CHANGE...

     It has come to my attention lately that the DSM-5, released just this year, has officially come to the conclusion that transgenderism (or gender dysphoria), in the light of new medical and psychological evidence, shall no longer be classified as a mental disorder.

     I like to think of myself as a scientist and one of the things that comes with being a scientist (as a philosophy since I am not employed as one in any field) is that things held true today may be overturned by new evidence in the future. This is one of those things.

     Seeing as how I am neither a doctor nor have I ever been trained as one, I readily accept this change even if it may take some time getting used to because who am I to judge the consensus of hundreds, if not thousands, of medical professionals with far greater knowledge of the subject of human psychology and development? I would think it absurd to do so.

     I would have to hand in my scientist card if I were to continue to hold a belief found to be no longer consistent with present knowledge and I shan't be doing that.

     As such, I have vocalized some opinions here on this blog that I would now, in light of this new knowledge, like to take back. I apologize for ever having held those opinions and I will take the time to educate myself as opportunity permits. Henceforth, I will stand against ignorant claims made against the transgendered to the best of my abilities. This does not mean you will see me at protests and whatnot but it does mean I will no longer stand with the "it's a mental disorder" crowd.

      I neither seek nor require the forgiveness of anyone whom I have offended with my prior stated views in this blog. I do this for myself but I choose to let the random happen upon to this blog know that the view of transgenderism being a mental disorder is no longer one I hold.

      I suspect it will take some time to clear from my head thoughts I've held in the past but that is the goal. Out with the old knowledge, in with the new!

THE PANIC OF HAPPINESS...

     I was rereading (after having been reminded of it) this Cracked article by John Cheese on the "5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor" and the thought just occurred to me...I want to spend any and all happiness I acquire right goddamned now!

     In the article Mr. Cheese says:

When a windfall check is dropped in your lap, you don't know how to handle it. Instead of thinking, "This will cover our rent and bills for half a year," you immediately jump to all the things you've been meaning to get, but couldn't afford on your regular income. If you don't buy it right now, you know that the money will slowly bleed away to everyday life over the course of the next few months, leaving you with nothing to show for it. Don't misunderstand me here, it's never a "greed" thing. It's a panic thing. "We have to spend this before it disappears."

     I think that's how I've come to look at my happiness too. I'm usually feeling anywhere from neutral to lonely so when a windfall opportunity for happiness gets dropped on my figurative lap, I feel the same way about it. I don't want to ration it or save it for the future because even though I know that would be a good idea and that I will surely need this happiness then, I'm afraid it will be bled out by my life's everyday circumstances before I ever get a chance to properly experience it.

     What ends up happening is my normally patient self gets overwhelmed by this desire to spend my happiness right fucking now and that usually results in that opportunity being squandered. It sucks and I really don't know how to not do that.

      I've been fortunate these past two weeks. I've met a girl at work - a customer of mine. We've been talking. We've even met up already. I want to see her, like, all the time. I want to rush through the opening stages of this potential relationship to get to the middle part already: I want the foundation already laid. That part where we already know we like each other and already know we want to be together...that part where we're building on that foundation.

       I hate being this impatient and wanting to move things along even more rapidly than I am comfortable with. I hate what it reveals about me and what it suggests about me. But I also don't want to fuck it up, so I'm being patient...

SOMETHING OVERLOOKED BY EVOLUTION...

     There are certain kinds of pains I just don't understand and by not understanding I mean, why do they hurt so much when nothing can be done about them?

     Take tooth pain for example. Pretty much any pain involving the mouth, like abscesses, is dreadfully bad. We've only had anything resembling modern dentistry for, at best, a few hundred years. But we've been anatomically human for almost 200,000 years. Why should tooth pain be quite so exquisite? What's the purpose of it? Sure, something could be done about it now...but what about then?

     And then you have other types of pain that seem to serve no purpose as nothing can be done about it like kidney stones, splinters, broken bones, and giving birth.

     Pain should have a purpose. It should be there to remind you that what you're doing is damaging or potentially so. It's good that fire feels hot because you don't want to be exposed to it. It's good that ice feels cold for the same reason. The initial pain of a splinter is fine. It teaches you to be careful but the continued pain that is felt until you or your body can push it out is just overkill.
      Broken bone pain seems unnecessary too. Yes, nowadays we have casts and splints but what about when you broke your leg back in prehistoric times? You were tiger food now and all the while you're waiting to become a meal, it hurts like fuck. Your body and mind get to have one final, totally unnecessary conversation about how you shouldn't've done what you did à la Scrambles to Chopper: (body) "I told ya! I told ya!" (mind) "I know! I KNOW!!!"...but with pain instead of words.
      And like tooth pain, I don't even know the point of the pain associated with kidney stones. Whatever causes them to form in the first place certainly doesn't happen overnight so their being painful just seems so spiteful on the part of your body, doesn't it?
      Why is childbirth painful? One would think that giving birth, being vital for the continuation of a species, would be a most pleasant experience in order to encourage females to want to do it again. But nope, dorko body here has decided to trip all its pain sensors instead.

       I guess I'm referring to two major types of stupid pain here: inexplicable and fatal. Both are senseless but the latter is especially cruel. Unfortunately evolution could never set up a system to deal with fatal pain because, well...you need survivors to pass along traits. Still, you'd think some sort of mercy would exist for cases like this. At the very minimum such a system could be present in the bones and/or the nervous system.
      Breaking a leg in prehistory pretty much meant death. It means death for any animal today to lose its primary means for locomotion. The same is true for severing an artery. Wouldn't it be much more merciful to the animal (or human) if opiates or some other feel-good chemicals could be released from bone marrow if a bone broke or from the brain if reports of pain went above a certain threshold or if blood pressure dropped below a critical point?

      Let the inevitable end for the animal feel euphoric instead of horrifying. Why shouldn't being mauled by a tiger feel fantastic?

LINGERING RACISM...

     While walking to work the other night, I saw two high school aged girls run across what is normally a very busy street to seek shelter from the rain which had only just started. I noticed that they were both rather pretty and for a moment found myself wishing I were their age again if only to continue the fantasy that if I could be given a second chance that I (somehow) wouldn't make the same mistakes over and over again.

      The thought left me when I saw the group of four guys they had been with bicycling and skateboarding across the street to meet them. Three of these teenaged boys were black and the one on the skateboard, latino. I scoffed to myself wondering what these pretty white girls were doing hanging out with these black and latino kids.

      It was an automatic reaction. It caught me off guard. It had been a while since I had felt such a thought in me. I don't know where it comes from or how it got rooted. Is it something my parents had taught me subtly? I don't remember either of them ever being overtly racist.
      My father would drop the N-bomb every once in a while in conversation but I would describe his use of nigger more like the Black People vs. Niggaz bit Chris Rock did all those years ago. My Dad was not wanting for black friends throughout his life so I find his use of nigger puzzling, almost like he believed blacks ought to be better than the stereotypes attributed to them. I never heard him use the word in anger nor did I ever hear him direct the word at a black person.

     Maybe it was the lack of interracial relationships in my life? I cannot think of any except on TV and whenever those relationships did appear the couples always had to justify their being together. That alone presses the idea that such relationships are unnatural and ought not be pursued. Perhaps it plays into the mind over the years?

     My personal thoughts upon seeing a pretty white girl - and it's only when it's a pretty white girl: I could care less if it were an unattractive white girl or a white boy with a black girl - my thought is that of disgust but not disgust in that I find a black guy with a white girl disgusting, but a jealous disgust that derives from my loneliness. This idea that there are plenty of white men for you to be with and you chose a black man? This idea that white girls shouldn't go for other races until all the white men in their local group have been taken.
     The jealousy is still there if the guy with the pretty white girl is white. Perhaps since jealousy comes from an ugly place, it is only natural that racism will follow when presented with the opportunity?

     It is the only racism that lingers on inside me. Personally I think I hide it well. No one I know has ever suspected it in me. It is something I intend to die with and do my damnedest not to pass along to the next generation should I actually have kids of my own.

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXXV

     This is from a recent post on Snopes. It very clearly states why nothing you do will ever make a difference in anything:

"...I tell them that I don't really believe our site (Snopes) makes much of a difference in the greater scheme of things; that the responses we get tend to indicate a good many people are determined to believe whatever they want to believe, and no collection of contradictory factual information, no matter how large or authoritative or impressive it might be, is ever going to dissuade them from their beliefs."    

You said it Homer. You sure said it.

     Remember that quote the next time you try convincing anyone of anything, especially if it's a subject dear to you, and also that you are vulnerable to it too.

9/11: WE WILL NEVER FORGET...BUT WE WILL MOVE ON

     For the twelfth time now, media has officially gone somber for the occasion. Bringing out its sad music and mourning wear, especially for its normally flirty hostesses. A day to pay homage before going back into their normal stupid shit. I'll admit, this September 11th like last year's (for me at least) just came and went without acknowledgement.

     I can't be bothered with it anymore. This "national day of mourning" I feel has long since crossed the line from a genuine expression of emotion to exploitative. It's one thing to acknowledge sadness but it's quite another to use it to drum up business or an agenda and that's what I feel the "holiday" of September 11th has become. It's officially called "Patriot Day" and while no one calls it that, I think just like the other day of infamy in this country, "Pearl Harbor Day" (December 7th), it too will just fade away but not before the big anniversaries - the 20th and 25th (and so forth) - into little blurbs in the headlines becoming less and less acknowledged with each passing year.

     But for me, it's just exploitative. There are enough survivors from that heinous attack. It's their day now, not the nation's. Leave them alone, stop reading the names of those who died that day, and quit it with the phony jingoism and easy patriotism the day affords. Stop using them as symbols to unite us in supporting wars that don't need to be fought.

      I think back to the opposite expression: the end of a trying war. V-J Day was on September 2, 1945 and we've seen the pictures...it was a hell of a celebration (for the United States at least). World War II was finally over. And I imagine there were similar, albeit smaller, parties through what remained of the 1940s on that day. But how long can one keep celebrating victory over one's enemy before it slips from a meaningful celebration over the end of a great war to what amounts to "rubbing it in"?

      And that's what brings me back to September 11th. Yes, the first anniversary was meaningful and it probably should've stopped there as we had taken our pound of flesh from Afghanistan. But before even the second anniversary it had been used as a backdrop to justify an invasion of Iraq and to maintain the growing "security" state apparatus. By the tenth anniversary, one of the big anniversaries, the failure of our "War on Terror" was more than apparent and I remember acknowledging it as such (I'm certainly using that word a lot, aren't I?) but being introspective about what we as a nation had done to others and ourselves in response to that terrorist attack was not fashionable to say the least of it. I'm not when it will ever be fashionable to criticize our responses in the mainstream.

     I'm not sure where I'm going with all this so I'll end it here. September 11th is just another day...as it should be.

WELL THAT WAS ANNOYING...

     I had gotten used to my blog looking the way it had. I don't what I did while trying to edit the blog description but it fucked up my header and I couldn't get it back the way it had been so yay (?) new template and color scheme. Get used to it because I don't have a choice now either. This is why you don't muck with things that ain't broke kids...

     I'll remind you from a previous post that I do in fact suffer from a common form of colorblindness so if the colors clash or are otherwise ridiculous, feel free to suggest new colors. Just be sure to use web color values  (because I have no idea what mauve or bone is - let's be realistic here) and I'll get right on it.

A TOTALLY GRATUITOUS SWIPE AT THE KARDASHIANS...

     I saw this posted on Facebook the other day and it annoyed me. I should probably make this clear that autistic people don't annoy me. To me they're no different than anyone else who's retarded. They get passes for their behavior (within reason) because you know they know not what they do. No, I get mad at their caregivers/parents because they, more often than not, come across with rather unrealistic assessments of their child's present and future capabilities.

     I get it. You've been saddled with a burden you never asked for but stop pretending that your burden must now also be our burden. Just as you wouldn't bring a child into a go-go bar or a deaf person to a music concert, you have to be aware that not all venues are appropriate for retarded/developmentally disabled children and adults.

     Anyways, I see this post and my assholish thoughts immediately surface. I'll post my thoughts in blue italics and not bother to proofread them to make it easier for you to attack me in the comments' section. Also, the original post had "thou shall" rather than the properly conjugated "thou shalt". This has been corrected.

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR INTERACTING WITH KIDS ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM:

THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT OF FEEL-GOOD...

     So how far in the minority am I for not believing any, not a single one, of the many posts you've doubtlessly seen on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit (oh yeah, and here on Blogspot), etc. is real? You know, those ones which often come with an inspiring story or perhaps a tale of revenge or some other comeuppance?

     Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

allegedly from a pissed off One Percenter

allegedly from a store's entire staff in reaction to a bad manager

allegedly given to a family with an autistic child

allegedly written by an active duty US soldier

allegedly after Zachary had come out of the closet on Facebook

allegedly given to a woman seen "controversially" breastfeeding in public

     I don't believe any of it. All these feels-inducing human interest stories come across as having been staged. And no, I still wouldn't believe it if any of the above scenarios had been caught on video because those too are easily staged. They're all too easy to fake and just seem like easy and extremely convenient ways to get attention and page views for agenda-driven websites and forums. It's confirmation bias run amok.

     After all, is it really any different than, "Can you believe what so&so did the other night with such&such?"?

     "No, what? Tell me. This I gotta hear!"

ADDENDUM: Here's some more confirmation bias courtesy of NBC news :-)

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Gay-Server-Tip-Lifestyle-Receipt-Discrepancy-233040811.html 

COGITO ERGO SUM ERGO MORIAR...

     I've been reading a book by Jim Holt called Why Does the World Exist?. It's been an interesting romp through various philosophers and thinkers over the ages from the Greeks to today concerning the question. The book, of course, does not resolve the issue. No, it's a series of interviews and explorations of man's attempts to resolve this question. Along the way, you will find yourself falling into one camp or another or some mixture thereof.

     He ends the book reflecting on the essence of self. It got me to thinking (once again) about how existence itself is the ultimate joke. It makes me wonder if the Watchmen's Comedian would have agreed?

     How is it a joke? Well...you didn't ask for your existence, but you were given it anyway, and it will be taken away from you whether you like it or not. Our lives, at least when compared to the eons that the universe has existed, are likenable to the quantum foam. As quantum physics points out, space is not really empty. Even in the vacuum, at the tiniest of levels, particle pairs emerge from spacetime itself but only fleetingly.
     Their existence, like ours, is on borrowed time and they will soon return to the nothingness whence they came. It happens all around us all the time and all the while not violating physical principles.

     The universe is what, about fourteen billion years old?, and it will continue for an untold amount of eons. And do we get? If we're lucky, about eighty years. Eighty years versus fourteen billion.
     And it's a wonderful thing too. Even if your life is shitty, existence is still the most fucking amazingly amazing thing ever in all of ever...but it's not yours to keep. You get a piece of it and then you lose it...forever.  Sure, non-existence could be likened to the billions of years you didn't exist and thought of as not such a big deal to return to but that doesn't bring me any comfort...at least not after learning what existence has to offer.

      The thing is, when I was born, I didn't know what I had been missing out on. I also couldn't know what I had been missing out on. I had to figure it all out (or at least a portion of it). But when it comes to dying, you know know damn well what you're going to be missing out on (or at least that you're going to be missing out). It's so impishly cruel to do to someone.
     Either way, I assure you I will be kicking and screaming like a little bitch when my time comes. I will hold on to reality for as long as I can muster.

     Are suitably arranged brains required for consciousness or do the particles themselves comprising the universe come ready-made with such an endowment? It makes me wonder of life's other forms. Are insects aware of their existence? Do they have a sense of self? Do trees? How about slime molds, or even bacteria? How many animals are born only to die within minutes of their birth? How many seeds sprout only to grow a few leaves before dying? And even with humanity, after watching a documentary on World War II from Japan's point of view, there were babies suffocated by their mothers in caves under orders by their military to prevent their location from being discovered by the Americans. Those babies had only a few months of existence before they were returned to the void. It just seems so ridiculously pointless.
     I guess...take existence while you can and make of it what you will for surely it shall soon be gone is all that can be said.

      I will return to the void neither silently nor with begrudging acceptance. I will return with a "Fuck you!" on my lips. How dare "you", whoever "you" are, tease me with such wonders only to capriciously take them away!!! I guess what bugs me most, is like those particle pairs mentioned above, the choice to exist and to cease to exist were never mine to make. Stupid random chance...

      In the meantime, I shall live and enjoy myself :-)

ICE-AGES, IMPACTS, & DISEASE - oh my!

     It was just something that came up the other day in conversation but it left me wondering about the causes of extinction in plants and animals. It can't always be impacts, supervolcanoes, and ice-ages. Nor would it be fair to always blame humanity for these problems (though I'm sure with our worldwide presence and relative ease with which we can travel we do share some of the blame). After all, over 90% of all the species which have ever lived are extinct and were extinct long before homo sapiens entered the scene. As George Carlin would say, "We didn't kill them all. They just disappeared. That's what nature does."

     It had me wondering what role disease has to play. White Nose Syndrome is devastating bat populations in North America. Mortality rates make the Black Death look like a walk in the park by comparison. 90%-95% of bats who contract this fungus die and at this point I'm not even sure if those "lucky" 5 or so percent are naturally immune or simply got lucky. But still, it's like the Drafa Plague for bats...

     Fossil records only show that species have gone extinct and can only date those extinctions relatively or within a plus-or-minus of thousands to millions of years. With rare exceptions like the K-T Extinction event which famously wiped out the dinosaurs can it be shown that 80% of the species alive at the time perished in short order but even then, it only happened instantly in geological terms. Overall hundreds or even thousands of years may have passed before that 80% threshold was reached.

     But still, what of disease? Recorded history has only been around for a mere 6000 years and it's only become detailed recently. Yes, humans are responsible for some extinctions like the dodo bird but I don't think it's productive to reflexively blame humanity as we haven't been around long enough to notice how else the Earth disposes of species.
      Even if the White Nose Syndrome isn't 100% fatal, could it crash the bat populations to the point where it would be impossible for them to recover? The disease was only noticed in 2007. If a thousand years is the blink of an eye in geologic time, what is a decade or two? Is it possible that several bat species will have gone extinct before 2017 or 2027? And if so, how often has something like this happened? Viruses, bacteria, and fungi are insidious creatures and the former two have had quite a head start evolutionarily speaking.

      I don't know but like I said...it makes me wonder.

WHILE NOT BLIND TO COLOR, I'M STILL COLORBLIND...

     I'm not sure what the point of these tests are except to embarrass me but the following panels (left to right) are tests for three types of colorblindness called protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia respectively.
     Protanopia means the subject has difficulty distinguishing colors in the green-yellow-red end of the spectrum. "For a protanope, the brightness of red, orange, and yellow are much reduced compared to normal." It can be so bad for some people that colors like red appear black or dark gray. It also states that "[v]iolet, lavender, and purple are indistinguishable from various shades of blue because their reddish components are so dimmed as to be invisible."
     Deuteranopia sufferers also have difficulty distinguishing in the green-yellow-red end of the spectrum. "A deuteranope suffers the same hue discrimination problems as protanopes, but without the abnormal dimming."
     Tritanopia is the opposite of protanopia in which its sufferers have difficulty distinguishing the short wavelength colors of blue, indigo, and violet. They, like the protanope example, appear dimmed allowing blues to appear black or as dark gray. This is the rarest of the types.

     That's just the simplified version. There's way more to it than what I've just written. There's also protanomaly, deuteranomaly, and tritanomaly whereby the subjects possess all three cone cell types but with one of the types defective rather than absent like with the above examples.

     Okay, for the example test below, the top row of images is how they appeared on the Wikipedia page I'm getting my information from for this post.

     All I got from this test was just how poorly I perceive colors. Even knowing the answers ahead of time, I could only easily see the 56 on the right panel. The left panel is completely blank and the middle one shows hints of color on it. Now even though I said I see the 56 easily, it's still faint. If your color vision is normal you'll have to tell me if the numbers all appear ghostly or if they're so obviously plain that the test itself seems insulting.
     As you can see, I copied the three panels and I traced around what I could see. If my life depended on seeing the 37, I would be so dead. So very dead...

     But then, in an attempt to make me feel better, I wondered what would happen if I put the original panels into a photo editor and supersaturated the color.
     I've always said that I can see all the colors, just not well. I often need bright light to distinguish them. I've noticed this at work when red and green labelled things are next to each other in shaded areas, I cannot distinguish them even though I know which is which from reading them. But put them in the light and the red and green pops right out.
      I also think of this when looking at the stars. Three stars and the planet Mars are supposed to be noticeably red to the naked eye. Antares (the bright star of Scorpius), Aldeberan (the bright star of Taurus), and Betelgeuse (the topmost bright star of Orion) are all supposed to be ruddy-colored to the eye. They're just bright stars to me. However, if I look at them through binoculars or a telescope, their color becomes apparent.
      I remember the last time Mars became bright in the evening sky, I asked my Best Friend what color that bright "star" was and she replied that it was red thus letting me know that I was missing out on something. I pointed out Betelgeuse and got the same response. I wonder what this colorful world looks like? It's impossible for me to ever know. Do they look like supersaturated color photos? It makes me wonder when I gently uptick the color in some of my photos if to non-colorblind individuals those photos look ridiculously overcolored whereas to me they look simply "enhanced".

Enhanced color or ridiculously overcolored?

Do you see the rainbow's colors as easily on the left image as I can now see them on the right?

      Anyways, I supersaturated the test boxes and much to my joy, the numbers in all the boxes became quite plain to me. I see a red 37, a pale green 49, and a very blue 56. However I will admit that the 49 doesn't stand out, stand out...and the 9 looks like it's missing its top making it look like a crude 4. I see the 49 more as an absence of the darker, reddish looking dots whereas both the 37 and 56 look as though they had been spray-painted on.

     I again traced out the numbers albeit less carefully this time but as you can see (and likely saw all along), I can perceive the numbers now. If I would have to self-diagnose, I would say I am deuteranomalous. I found an anomaloscope online. According to the site, it's not possible to properly emulate the test using a monitor but the results are still useful and mine? My results are bad :-)
      It makes me wish I had money to waste. I would like to be properly diagnosed and alongside a non-colorblind friend because I would want to see just how off my vision is. Using the anomaloscope, where you see yellow, would I see greener light or redder light?

Well... Shit...

A POST LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE WORLD...

     I wonder if the liberal/conservative divide has run its course in American politics? We seem to be at an apex for the two ideologies...at least from the perspective of the House of Representatives. Hell, I'm not even sure what the words liberal and conservative mean politically anymore. I've had this notion that liberality was about embracing change or at least trying something new; that is was akin to progression...future thinking and that conservativism was about preserving the status quo or even retrogressing to a time or way of doing things perceived to be better than the way they are being done now. Liberalism was about trying out untested ideas and Conservativism was about proven ones (even if those ideas had been proven ill-advised).
     Yet that's not what the words mean. Like how "theory" means one thing to scientists and means quite the opposite colloquially, liberal and conservative, when worn as political labels, take on very different senses from the dictionary senses of the words.

     But where do we go from here? If liberalism and conservativism are on the way out, what ideologies replace them?
     In the past, there were liberal and conservative Democrats as well as liberal and conservative Republicans. What was their ideological dividing line? What did the parties back then ultimately disagree on before reaching an apex that allowed the current liberal/conservative paradigm reign?
     I'm not sure. I'm guessing this was the turn of the century (the 20th one) right up and through World War II that defined it. I imagine it came to a head in the McCarthy era. The Cold War paranoia may have ended the one reign bringing about the current liberal/conservative divide.
     Or maybe it goes back further to the ascendancy of the Republican party. Abraham Lincoln was its first President and soon after the Whig party died out. Perhaps a third party will rise soon in this country, electing its first President causing one of the two major parties to go extinct (I'd bank on the Republicans going extinct because they seem to be rushing headlong into it with their Tea Party and overzealous conservative factions).

     What might tomorrow's paradigm be? Libertarianism/authoritarianism? Labor/Capitalists?
     Personally I'd hope for the rise of a true labor party in this country. One emerging paradigm is the Haves vs. the Have Nots and there's a lot of Have Nots in this country who are unrepresented in government or at best marginally so. Congress is comprised as a percentage of their body by many more millionaires than are present as a percentage of the nation's population. Congress is also heavy on lawyers and businessmen. As Neil deGrasse Tyson asked (and I'm paraphrasing), where are the engineers, the scientists, the teachers, the service industry, the philosophers, hell even the ditchdiggers? Can we truly be represented by a government if that government's representatives do not even remotely resemble its constituencies?
      Personally I'd like to see a political party comprised of the actual poor, working, and middle classes and if any of its leaders are wealthy, they should have worked their way up to it. They should know intimately what it is like to be in the trenches so to speak.
       I would think the next divide would be between labor and the capitalists. The Republicans seem almost totally comprised of the latter category and the Democrats mostly so. What about the rest of us?

      But given the very close, very bipartisan vote on defunding the NSA (I believe it was 217 - 205 against defunding it), perhaps the next partisan divide that will shake up and reorganize the parties will be that of libertarians and authoritarians (though I'm sure the latter side will pick a better moniker). Privacy versus Need to Know.

      I hope something happens in the next few election cycles because this current stalemate between the two parties is preventing the government from governing at all and it's really annoying. To paraphrase a line from Babylon 5, the two parties are like divorcing parents fighting in front of their children and trying to make those children choose sides. It's one or the other we're told. I just look forward to a modern-day John Sheridan who can rise up and remind us that we don't need either of those parties anymore.

      As a Facebook friend suggested, we need to form the Mercutio Party...a pox on both your houses!...and figure out our own way through liberalism and conservativism; libertarianism and authoritarianism; labor and capitalists; privacy and publicity; individualism and community; etc. etc. etc.

ADDENDUM: This Daily Kos rant I offer as an example adding weight to my argument that the next division will be between labor and capitalists. If professionals organize in this country into guilds like screen actors and writers have in Hollywood, then I think the country will begin moving toward a real middle class again. Loyalty to companies seems a quaint and antiquated notion these days. It is further brought about by declining benefits and loss of pensions. Why bother sticking around? Accountants, lawyers, secretaries, hell even clerks, et al. need to organize into guilds.

LIFE CAN BE FICKLE...

     While walking to work last night, I thought I had seen something dart across the sidewalk at amazing speed. At first I thought it was one of those eye squigglies, albeit darker than usual or a dark spot from having glanced a bright headlight but no, I saw it had moved into the street. It was a field mouse but a car already on fast approach would prevent the little animal from completing its journey to wherever it was going for whatever it was going to do.

      It was completely a bad luck moment for the mouse. The mouse never wavered in its run. It moved in a quick, straight line to cross the street but it mistimed by all of a second bringing it to an encounter with an object evolution could have never prepared it for and for that, it cost the field mouse his/her life.

      The line between life and death is a thin one indeed...

Its broken body brought forth a tear of blood

LINE OF THE DAY, part XXXIV

(from cspackler from this article)

"From Conservatives, all we hear is the constant bitching and crying about how all lazy people want is welfare and to loaf about like lumps of crap on the teat of society. These are people that are working full time and still getting the shaft. When we argue that people should have the dignity of a living wage to encourage more work- we get a resounding no. And why? Because it potentially compromises the profits of the largest corporation in the history of the world.

I have news for you Righties. There are a lot of Americans who are utterly incapable of delivering value in a knowledge based economy, and the number is increasing. This was cool when we had factories, but sadly, even the factories we still have need fewer, more computer literate workers.  So it seems to me that you have two choices: get comfortable with sharing a bit more of the wealth in the form of higher wages, or look forward to seeing them with burning torches at a gated community near you.

And finally, let me demystify this for everyone who believes in the myth of the infallible, omniscient CEO: there isn't anyone alive in business who is worth 500 or 1000X an average worker. No one."

     I tend to agree with this sentiment. I'm also one of those people who gets pissed off when some asinine commenter mentions things like "those jobs are ENTRY LEVEL: they're not meant to support families" or "if you don't like your job/pay, get a different one" or "start your own business" or my favorite of all, "go to college and get an education so you can land a better job".

     Each one of those is stupid and simplistic in its own way. Are there jobs out there which are entry level? Yes. Should they pay less than jobs which require a skill base? Also yes. However there are a couple of things wrong, or at least questions I have, with that sentiment.
     Are there enough living wage jobs out there for everyone who wants one? If the answer is no, as I've ventured before, then it is arguable that the minimum wage must rise. It is also arguable that those jobs which do require a skill base are also not paying enough for the investment of time and money put into them. Perhaps your wages ought to be going up as well. Something tells me everyone working for a large company could get a decent raise if CEO compensation packages were limited to 25-40 times what the lowest paid worker (hired or contracted) for the company gets paid.
     The other thing is, and this may sound harsh, but I simply don't believe that it is possible, no matter how lofty our goals, to educate everyone to the levels necessary to participate in today's economy. Some people just don't have the intellect necessary to take on such difficult learning. Any Bell Curve will see to that. What of those people? Are they not deserving of dignity? And what of those people performing vital services that don't necessarily require a top-notch education like garbage haulers or bus/subway/taxi drivers or other low-level but obviously vital, services? I'm sure you would not want to live in a world where you were responsible for hauling your own trash to the dump or walking around a large city or cleaning your own sewage pipes. Yes, it's arguable that "anybody could do those jobs" but just because that is so, does that mean they are automatically undeserving of a living wage given the scale of the service provided?
     Also, what of those people who perform tasks that are also necessary but seem to add little or no value to the economy like people who work in animal shelters or for sanctuaries? What of librarians, philosophers, and researchers? Those latter jobs require a ton of skill, but offer few good-paying positions and the former jobs require passion, compassion, and dedication yet apparently ensuring the livelihoods of our abandoned furry and feathered friends and providing safety and comfort for abuse victims is not high on the pay priority scale.
     Replacing the low-education jobs with machinery isn't a smart idea either...at least not in a country with a rising population. Those people need work...they need money...and odds are they are not smart enough to compete in a knowledge-based internet level economy. And since we're not the kind of society which would kill such people for their unproductiveness or lack of utility, they have to be housed, clothed, fed, and provided with a measure of dignity. Something you're not going to get by paying poverty wages.
     To put it simply, if you don't like the idea of an entry-level worker making a better wage, then you're not being paid enough too. Don't attack down.

     I've also always hated the fallacious argument of leaving your job for another if you don't like it. This couples with the going back to school argument because while perfectly simple on paper, both arguments fail to take into account that these things cost money. And then there's logistics.
     I'd love to leave my job for something where I feel like a person and not a number on a budgetary spreadsheet, but where would I go that would pay me as much or more than what I'm making now and accessible from my home without a car? I'm trapped. My job pays too much to just up and go, but too little to really live off of (as evidenced by me not owning a car). I'm sure there are many people like me. Plus jobs, even in the best of times, are not abundant or at least readily available. And forget about quitting on principle. Unless you have a ton of cash you're sitting on, that's not even an option. Believe me, I'd love to have fuck-you money in the bank, but I don't...so I have to suck it up and take the hits to my dignity, to my pride, and to my sense of self-worth practically daily.
      Going back to school is just as stupid an argument because that costs a shit-ton of money...even with loans. And odds are you will not be able to go to school full time to get a degree in four years. No, you'll be working too, trying to stay afloat while studying complex and difficult subjects...and that's if you don't have children. If you have a spouse, you might stand a chance if s/he's supportive of the idea and willing to carry you during that time. But still, there's no guarantee that your degree will get you a job that not only pays better, but enough to also pay off your loans while living your life. Otherwise, you may have been better off where you had been. It's simply not an option without a society willing to pay for such an education socially.
      The value of an education is at an all-time low I would say. In days of yore, your father could have taught you ironworking and you would have that skill for life. And you could take that skill and teach it to your son and pass along the family business just as your grandfather had taught your father. A skilled, once learned, was worth a lifetime of labor and then some.
      How many jobs can you say that about nowadays? A lifetime career traditionally spanned forty years (I guess 25-65). Think about what goes on today. Imagine you were 65 right now. That means, you would have embarked on your career in 1973. That means you would've been formally educated in the 1960s. Life's changed a lot since then. If you were picking up where a retiree was leaving off in 1973, he would have begun his career in the 1930s. The world changed a lot in those forty years too, but not so much that a (wo)man couldn't have relied on their education to last them throughout most, if not all, of their career.
      How long does an education last now? I figure at an ideal minimum, it should last for at least as many years as it would take to pay off the student loans...or at the very minimum, an education should be worth at least as many years on the market as it took to earn it (in other words, if it takes four years to get a degree, the education received should last at least four years before needing to re-up on it). Does that even come close to how long an education lasts these days? How quickly does skill obsolescence take hold forcing workers to increase their knowledge and skills these days? It sounds all so very stressful and while I'm sure there are numbers among us who can handle (and even welcome) that kind of stress, I feel most people would burn out.

      As for starting your own business, the numbers bear this one out. Unless it's all sole proprietorships, we can't all be business owners. Some people lead, others follow. I suspect in any given group there are more followers than leaders. It's a great sentiment to try to make it on one's own but you still need investment capital which the poorer among us certainly don't have and you'll also need a marketable idea and an education in business and accounting (which brings us back to the prior example).

      Just pay people better. It's also a numbers game. Ultimately businesses have to sell shit and they can't sell shit if the people on the bottom have no money to spend because it's all going into housing, food, and transportation. The few people on top, the One Percenters as they've been called lately, can't buy it all and charity from the ultra-wealthy is ultimately insufficient. Until the wealth up top is spread to the lower classes, dreamers can't dream. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there with good ideas worth trying out but they'll never get the chance because they're too busy trying to survive, unable to save a few bucks to get ahead or take risks with.

      I can't think anymore so I'm done...

'TIL DEATH DO US PART...

     Someone I am trying to get to know had this to say recently when someone close to her died: "I am convinced that when someone you are close to dies, a part of that person then becomes a part of you."

     It makes me think she and I have fundamentally different ways of looking at the world. Another example before commenting on the original point was when she said she loved performing on stage because it was only in front of so many people that she felt she could finally be herself.
     I responded that I had felt oppositely; that one could only truly be themselves when alone. The very existence of another person causes you necessarily to react to that person and that reaction causes you to filter your thoughts and actions. The more people you are around, the more generic (in a sense) you become (and thus, less like yourself).
     She found my explanation rational even if she herself did not subscribe to the notion. It makes me feel she would respond similarly to my thoughts on the death of a person close to you.

     I wrote long ago about the death of someone I had barely known and how acutely I had felt it simply because her presence in my life was so limited. I had never written about how the death of someone I knew on far greater levels affects me and my perceptions of that kind of death.

     So no, I don't feel that when someone you are close to dies that they become a part of you. I feel instead like a part of me is lost...like my soul (my sense of self, my memories/experiences, etc.) has had a piece of itself forcibly removed leaving behind this sucking void, however tiny, which can never be refilled because there will never again be a piece exactly like the one taken to fill in what has been lost. Sure (to stick with the analogy), it could be covered either entirely or partially obstructed, but never completely. There will always be some kind of gap...some kind of hissing sound. Perhaps we die, if not felled by sickness or injury, when simply too much of ourselves has been lost and we surrender to despair.

     You might say I have a Tolkien-esque view of the human soul or perhaps a variation on that idea. For me, so long as a person is alive, their soul - their essence of being if you will - is an abstraction. It permeates all those things around them and all the lives they touch while alive. I guess you could say life is not so much defined by its presence, but by its absence. Life is nebulous. It is temporary. It is a chaos. It is a possibility.
     But death...death is far from abstract. It is concrete. It is a returning to the lifelessness whence you came. Existence is ultimately a loan and a loan which will be repaid.

     It is through death that the flow of existence is suddenly crystallized. Now that this individual has left this world, it puts an end to how they might have further influenced it. In some cases, like with painters, it's easy to see the crystallization. Their souls are crystallized in the paintings they have left behind and should a painting of theirs be lost, what remains of their existence is diminished and can never be replaced. For others, the objects remaining can be comparatively simple or even non-sequitur like.
    
     A person lives on in our memories until we too pass on, further taking from this world what little of them still remains.

     At least, that's how I see things...

The crystallization of a soul, fixing itself in those people and things which it had touched and created...or the shattering of the Shikon Jewel by Kagome in episode 2 of Inuyasha, I'm not sure which ;-)

WHO KNEW CONSOLIDATION TOOK SO LONG?

     I've been dismantling an old blog account of mine for the past two days now and reposting most of the old entries here since I can assign false posting dates to them. I thought this would be an afternoon but then I remembered this journal was from my early internetting when I used real names and actually wanted to be found so I've been forced to reread them and scrub identifying information and remove pictures and links that could lead to identification of both me and the people in my life whom I'm talking about.

      Long, difficult work. This Blogspot started in August 2010 so any entry prior to that month is from That Other Journal. Do you want a taste of my shitty past? Then click on the tag "That Other Journal" and read away to your heart's content...or not (as will more likely be the case).

      I'll have to finish my task another time. I'm getting close to the end though. If I stick to it, maybe by the end of the week. We'll see...or not (as will more likely be the case).

DESPERATELY SEEKING INTERNET ATTENTION

     I really can't believe that this hasn't been done before but a cursory image search revealed nothing. I keep seeing the various paper towel and toilet paper rackets issuing products with labels like "6 Super Rolls = 11 Regular Rolls!" or "6 Big Rolls = 8 Regular Rolls" and other variations on that kind of torturous math.

     In the Star Trek: TNG episode, "Chain of Command (part 2)", Captain Picard is tortured by a Cardassian named Gul Madred. One of the key points of the interrogator's attempts to break Picard was to ask him how many lights were there behind him shining on Picard.

Indeed.

     And yes, there were four lights. But every time Picard admitted this, he would be made to experience terrible pain. The interrogator insisted that there were in fact five lights in his efforts to break the captain. By the end, Picard was not only ready to admit that he saw five lights but that he believed he actually could see five lights. Instead, another guard came in and told Gul Madred that Picard had to leave. Picard, now knowing he had been rescued, screams at Madred, "THERE. ARE. FOUR. LIGHTS!!!" in a shining moment of awesome for the audience.

     Anyhow, with Charmin, Bounty, Cottonelle, Brawny, etc. all doing this inanity with fewer rolls somehow equalling more rolls (even though the "original" sized rolls no longer seem to be for sale), I had a moment of inspiration for this insipid attempt at a macro that yes, I'm hoping will somehow make the rounds on the internet because I'm desperate for attention and validation from anonymous strangers.

      At least I admit it...

Seriously...Charmin, Cottonelle, Brawny, Bounty, et al. Cut this shit out already...

RATIOS & MINIMUM WAGE...

     In yet another article talking about the high cost of living in states like New Jersey, the comments section blazes with arguments about whether the minimum wage needs to be raised or the educational level of the citizenry with each side ready with its talking points and no hope of a consensus ever being reached.

     I had a thought. Why not let math be our guide?

     It's simple really (and yes I'm aware that simple answers fly in the face of complicated situations like these) and my intent is to use it as a guide post for further debate, not a be-all/end-all solution.

     The article focuses on the cost of living in New Jersey for a family of four (the typical metric) and what that cost would be to barely get by. You'll do better on this amount if you manage to avoid emergency expenses for health and transportation but still, an amount was given. In this case, the answer comes in at almost exactly $80,000 a year for a family of four.
     So if you're going to have the traditional nuclear family with one stay-at-home parent, then a living wage job pays $80,000 a year. But that might be a bit too idealistic in this day and age where everybody is expected to work so it instead could be thought of as two $40,000 a year jobs (one for each parent). Taken from the latter perspective, a living wage job in New Jersey pays $40,000 a year.

     For the record, I make about $28,000 a year so an extra $12,000 would go a long way toward improving my life. I get by because I don't drive, I am very careful with my money, and most importantly, I have neither been sick nor injured enough to require hospitalization since I was 2½. But luck is not a game plan for life.

     Anyways, as for whether or not the minimum wage should be raised to reflect actual living costs in New Jersey (and elsewhere in the country to their respective rates), I think using a simple ratio would prove sufficient to answer the question.

     My question is this: What is the number of jobs in New Jersey which pay a living wage divided by the number of people who need a job which pays a living wage? I don't have the necessary information at hand to answer that question. However...

     If the ratio is less than one, then I think it would strongly suggest the need to raise the minimum wage.

     However, if the ratio is greater than one, then it would strongly suggest the population needs to be better educated. 

THOUGHTS I NORMALLY KEEP IN MY HEAD, part XIX

     The essence of conservativism is the desire to return to a previous state of being. I think we all "suffer" from this longing, do we not? Is there no time in your life that you wish could be again? The internet fans the flames of nostalgia daily and I will admit that I find myself longing at times to return to periods like the 1980s and 1990s...those "simpler" times...those "better" times. But were they? And at what cost?

     The 1980s is simple. I was a child. So saying I wish to return to the '80s is merely a wish to relive my childhood. A life of simple schooling, playing outside, Atari & Nintendo, boredom, Cartoon Express & Nickelodeon, train sets, and general goofing off. The real world was shielded from me by my parents. No real work because it was being done by my parents. Food and snacks were always around. Good times paid for out of ignorance.

     The 1990s were my teenage years. Saying I wish to return to those years is a reflection of my desire to feel infatuation again for the first time; to explore more sophisticated forms of creativity like drawing, computer programming, and making up languages; to hear the music of "my era" as it was being made rather than as the poseur I am now (I do like the music of the 1990s, but I shunned it at the time in favor of the 1970s and 1980s music that my parents listened to...I blame it on a lack of peer pressure and friends); to relive college and get it "right" this time; to take part in the emerging internet as it happened; and again, to live in a time where I didn't have to work and keep house. My "job" was school and my willful ignorance kept me largely unaware of the world around me.

     Purely selfish motives. Now in my approaching middle age I might think these eras were also somehow better, or at least more understandable. I know I could certainly navigate technologically better in the 1990s and even more so in the 1980s. Hell, I would appreciate the 1970s for its understandability as well.

     But I guess what keeps me from fulling embracing conservativism is knowing that a return to those simpler times means also a return to times where groups of people are increasingly marginalized by society and with tacit (if not legislative) approval by said society. Going back means turning up the hatred on homosexuals (it's amazing how even revered '80s movies would casually drop fag(got) into the scripts...it's uncomfortable to watch now), decreasing women's rights (or eliminating them if you go back far enough), restoring blacks to second-class citizenry (at best), and so on. As Louis CK joked, going back in time is only good if you're a white male.

     As much as the future can frighten me and as much as I feel the pace of technological and sociological change is increasing faster than I can keep up with it, going back to an earlier era is basically just me (or anyone wishing to do so) being all-too-willing to sacrifice whole groups of people because I fear, what? Obsolescence? Irrelevance? My impending death?

     I guess at best I could become a retired liberal. One day I will simply end my active fighting for progress and instead just passively let it happen because they won't be my generation's battles anymore. I may not be happy about the changes the future will bring, but that doesn't mean I have to oppose them. I figure if you're going to be conservative, be so not in the temporal sense of "the past was better" but that of "let's proceed with caution" or "let's build a consensus before committing to this idea". At least that's how I intend to do it. I'll restrict my "past was better" thinking for fantasy only because condemning whole groups of people and ways of life simply for my comfort seems...just wrong.

BAD LUCK OR FILTH?

     I had an unpleasant surprise this evening. I went into my kitchen to make some microwave soup since I didn't feel like cooking. I didn't turn on the light, instead using the ambient light from my living room to guide me. When I placed the package on the counter, I thought I had seen something move around a small frying pan left on the countertop by the sink. I looked to where it had gone/blown to...and it moved again. Sure enough it was alive...and fast. Turns out it was a German cockroach. I killed it and went into my usual paranoia upon making such unfortunate discoveries.

     I've always found cockroaches offensive and not because I think they're icky but because they imply filth. Their presence is like judgement upon you.

     I immediately did the dishes, cleared the table, swept the floor, and searched the cabinets for any evidence of leavings or for a chance spying of roaches themselves. I found nothing. It made me wonder if the roach had been merely an anomaly rather than a vanguard for a much larger, heretofore unknown, infestation. I suppose it could happen. Hell, it happened before in my previous apartment when a giant winged cockroach found itself trapped in our bathtub after it came in through the bathroom window. We never had another roach after that one. It could be the same now. It's what I want to keep telling myself anyway.

     The damned thing could've hitched a ride on something I was carrying or been hiding under the door and scurried in when I had opened it briefly to come inside. I don't think I've got a bug problem because the out-of-the-way spiders I have a detente with in my living room never catch anything. It actually makes me feel bad for the spiders that their lives must necessarily end in starvation (or murder if they get a bit too bold with their choice of web placement) but then, that's nothing I intend to help them out with either.


     Then I also think that an apartment complex is only as clean as its dirtiest dwelling and as it may be, my apartment may actually be quite unworthy of infestation, but not necessarily unworthy of spillover from an apartment which is.

      Either way, I'm buying sticky traps and hoping nothing ends up on them but dust.

ADDENDUM: After more than a week I think it may be safe to declare my cockroach encounter a random one resulting either from a doorway dash or a window entry. All I've caught in all my glue traps was this little beetle:

It's small enough to fit through the holes in a screen

ADDENDUM II:  It turns out they were not mini roaches but rather phorid flies. This particular species frequents garbage and prefers running, flying only when necessary. After watching one I caught, its fly-like behavior was immediately obvious but when they catch you off-guard, their scurrying and coloration can, in my opinion at least, cause them to be confused for tiny roaches. What distinguishes them behaviorially is that they will scurry and stop whereas roaches don't stop running until they've found a dark place.
     The lesson here is to empty your garbage more often. I don't generate much trash at all so these flies actually had time to go through their larval stage and pupate. Lucky me!

They're about the size of fruit flies (but much faster) and their wings are not immediately obvious from a distance

Once it died I could get a clear picture. They have a noticeable hump when standing.

THOUGHTS ON THE ZIMMERMAN TRIAL...

     I'm just gonna state first off that I did not follow George Zimmerman trial at all. My awareness of it has been strictly limited to what could be gleaned from the front pages of newspapers and internet headlines. What struck me upon learning the verdict was how people reacted to it.

     I've noticed people treat these major trials like sporting events. They've picked their team and they root for it right to the end. If their side wins, justice was served. If their side loses, then an injustice has occurred. Of course when there's an acquittal there's no rematch so it can make people on the "losing team" a bit upset.

     The other thing I've noticed is that people pick their sides right at the start. The person on trial was judged guilty or innocent before the opening gavel and like I said above, this opinion - once formed - never changes. I first saw it with the O.J. Simpson trial. And what's more, I don't remember a single person I've ever spoken to who first thought that O.J. was guilty and then later changed his opinion based on the evidence (or vice-versa). This was also true with the Casey Anthony trial and more recently with the Jodi Arias trial.

      Knowing that makes me glad that the rule of law is what matters and not mob rule.

      As for the race-relations issue that has come to a head since the verdict, I dunno. I'm definitely not in a position to discuss that...not at all.