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.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
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.
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:
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
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 |
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
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
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 :-)
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 :-)
Monday, September 2, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, August 26, 2013
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".
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?
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? |
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.
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.