Maybe the end?

I think I'm going to end the current run of this blog since my topics have yet to seem to converge to a particular niche. I have a couple of ideas for new blogs with more specific focuses than whatever the hell type of topics this blog tried to cover.

In any case, if I choose to continue this blog, I may lessen my post frequency to that of a biweekly basis. I might even change this to a more personal (and maybe private) journal-like blog (in which only friends would be able to view ... so friend me?).

The ideas are still not clear. I'll (hopefully) update this with a clearer goal later in the week.

UPDATES:
01/06/10: New blog: Crack Theory Thursday

Dating tips

You've seen them. Articles and headlines about how to date better, more effectively, or whatever. On the one hand, they do offer some advice to beginners in the dating market. But on the other hand, they are absolutely ridiculous in their immaturity, generalizing, and sexism. I now only read them for amusement purposes, really.

[Actually, no text will be forthcoming. I've decided that this topic will be elaborated at a later date in a new blog.]


Unrelated: The following music video is a hilariously awesome video from Major Lazer (a DJ/Producer duo consisting of DJs Diplo and Switch) for their latest single "Keep It Goin' Louder" featuring Ricky Blaze and Nina Sky. The video is directed by Eric Wareheim. You might remember Nina Sky from a years ago from their single "Move Ya Body." They are exponentially hotter in the offering below, as is Diplo (the white DJ ... Switch is the crazily-dressed fellow who doesn't do the rapping).

Trust no one

We should kick out immigrants.

They leech off the American system of well-being. True, some may be quite productive to society, but how can we tell the good ones from the bad ones?! We simply cannot. Undocumented workers are a legal mess and cause significant undercounts in employee numbers and business income accounting. And the documented ones provide foreign competition to our domestic companies (which should be our top priority, of course). It would be easier just to kick out anything that did not resemble Americanism.

Any attempt to "mainstream" outsiders, such as bilingual education or affirmative action, should absolutely be met with ridicule, scorn, and immediate rejection. America should have one language. Americans aren't going to go to other countries anyway, so why embrace linguistic diversity at all? And affirmative action is silly. If minorities can't get accepted at schools or jobs on their own merit, then doesn't this just prove their inferiority? YES. The answer is unequivocally yes. Furthermore, we all know real and true Americans don't use drugs, so we should without a doubt push for all the costs of maintaining a war on drugs. It will be worth it when we can one day look at each and every American citizen and see a completely sober face. Likewise, we should outlaw alcohol, cigarettes, and any type of medical drugs. We Americans are hardy enough to not need to be sedated during open-heart surgery or whatever.

We should also keep in mind subversive insiders such as the immoral gays and lesbians, lazy welfare recipients, violent gang members, hippie feminists, and self-labeled "progressive" thinkers (who really just want to change the current American ideals). You're bisexual? Jail. You're a bum on welfare? Cut off. You're in a gang? Kicked out with those illegal (or legal ... who cares, right?) aliens. Feminist? Force you into a male-breadwinner marriage. A thinker? Who are you kidding? We should never tolerate such insider factions in America because change and diversity only leads to corruption and devolution.

America is an economic and military power-house and the most populous developed nation in the world. If we allow such alien outsiders and domestic immoralities to continue existing in and changing the very fabric of what it means to be American, we could lose this stance. Never mind the fact that the world and the political/economic global landscape is constantly changing. We should be the single beacon of stability and continuity of the world, if need be. If a man is swept away by the current of a river, he should cling tight to a tree limb to avoid drowning. He should continue to cling tight to his morals branch even if his surroundings change. Even if rescue comes. Even if the river dries up and there is no longer an imminent threat (maybe another one will appear!). Even if the man sees a wave of cyanide-filled needles approaching quickly from upstream. If he lets go, who knows where he will go? Perhaps the situation downstream is a hundred times worse!

So let's keep America just the way it is. Well, the way it was before all these other cultures (outside and within) tried to change the sameness and monotony that should make America what it is. Out with the foreigners and repress the insiders!



Unrelated music video! This is Emilie Simon's "Fleur de Saison." I don't actually know much about her, but the video is pretty cool. And I'm not sure if my friend who referred me to her mentioned it or not, but she's gorgeous/hot. (Yes, I understand the irony of including a French song with this post.)

An ode to hatred

A series of haikus about hatred(/evilness/badness)! (Because why the hell not?)

It's easy to hate.
When stressed, emotions run high,
And snap-backs frequent.

When one hesitates,
Trying to choose love or hate,
Quick choosing yields hate.

On God and Satan,
It's not simply good or bad,
But loved and hated?

Morals stress goodness,
But history proves diff'rent.
Society fails.

We strive hard to love,
But clear-thinking hap's not oft
Because hate's easy.

Unrelated music video. This is the Norwegian indie/folk band Kings of Convenience's "I'd Rather Dance With You." Their music is nice and mellow and a great listen!

We aren't ready for democracy

On Sunday, November 1, 2009, Swiss voters voted to suppress the Muslims in their country. With a surprisingly high 57.5% of the vote, the Swiss population (or at least those who voted on Sunday) have voted to pass a ban on the new construction of minarets in the country. Minarets are the tall distinctive spires on Muslim mosques.

I'll let you read the (controversial?) back story from the two article links above (and other sources you can easily find yourself if you're an overachiever) because what I really want to do is comment.

It's one thing when America continually votes against basic human rights (à la LGBT rights, gay marriage, health care, and so forth), but this is a European country doing it! America is generally viewed as quite conservative compared to its developed-nation counterparts, so the Swiss vote was definitely surprising to me. But the more I thought about it, the less surprising it should have been.

Europe probably has just as many issues as America has. One of the continually-discriminated groups in Europe are Gypsies. A few months ago in August, Madonna had a concert in Romania where she tried to briefly talk to the crowd about how wrong such discrimination was. She was booed.

Also, Africa is definitely not known to be human-rights friendly, but one such story I came across recently caused me raise an eyebrow. Apparently, albinos are being killed in Burundi and Tanzania simply because they are albino. What the hell?

Asian cultures tend to hold some sort of traditionalistic view. However, of more noteworthiness, I suppose it's a recent phenomenon, but in Japan, older people are starting to become discriminated against more and more, possibly leading some elderly to commit suicide in larger numbers than before (the reasons for increasing elderly suicide rates in Japan are more complicated than simply age discrimination, of course).

So what I'm trying to convey through these examples is that in all different parts of the world, some type of discrimination still exists that would be viewed as outrageous by (some of) the other parts of the world. That said, given the "pervasive" support of democracy (or something that resembles democracy) by the more-developed nations of the world, democratic nations are allowing the general populace to vote with their biased collective mindsets on issues that should really only be legislated by the progressive, more-intelligent higher-ups. A great example here is gay marriage in America. It has never been passed (or kept) by popular vote. It has always been legalized through the legislative or the judiciary system.

This is an excellent place for this comic: http://xkcd.com/603/

So it seems to me that well-educated people tend to have more-progressive, less-discriminatory views that the general population does not share. But we still allow the general population to vote with their collective, biased mindsets on issues that affect everyone--"everyone" including people who might be biased against by the general population. I'd say that people right now aren't fully-educated enough to realize the non-progressiveness of some of their views. Even a marginally additional amount of open-mindedness could go a long way. But otherwise, we just aren't quite ready for democracy with our current population.


Other links of possible interest:

Another article on the Swiss vote (you need to have a NYTimes account to read it now):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/world/europe/30swiss.html?_r=1&hp

(Anti-)Creationist comic
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1604



Unrelated music video! Here is Shayne Ward's "If That's OK With You." He's from England and was the winner of the second season of the British series The X Factor. I became a fan a couple of years ago from the song below, "No U Hang Up," and "Breathless." The non-single songs "Easy to Love You" and "Melt the Snow" from his first(-ish) and second albums, respectively, are also noteworthy listens.