Why war happens in this day and age, a primer on making change

Economics, Politics, Religion, , , , , , , , , , ,

There’s been a lot of talk about war lately. It seems that whenever international diplomacy starts to fall apart, or easy answers to complex questions don’t seem all that available, talk of war starts up, and people begin to think that this is the solution to everything. It rarely is, and on an unconscious level, I think most people realize that. But in the end, it tends to be the final vestige of common sense, and then we find ourselves engaging in war talk which leads, not surprisingly, to war.

But few people seem to think about why we find ourselves talking about war, except in simplistic terms, like “they started it” or “they gave us no other choice.” Unpacking such comments can often lead one to realize that such proclamations are the same kinds of claims we made when we were children, when that one kid threw a rock at us and “forced us” to engage in a fight. We all know that walking away was an option. We also know ten or twenty other alternatives that didn’t lead to “knocking his block off”, but for some reason the escalation of hostilities seemed to be the only one we chose.

But is it as simple as that? I don’t think so. I think there’s a part of that, but it still doesn’t explain why a nation would want to go to war. People don’t think collectively like that unless something happens that puts them into a disturbed state of mind (like being bombed unprovoked by another country, invaded in the middle of the night, or where hatreds between two peoples has gone on so long that no one is capable of thinking any other way). So, if we put this sort of thing on the shoulders of the leaders, the ones who make these sorts of decisions for nations, then perhaps we might figure out why we see so much war today.

One of the problems historians have with modernists is that people who think in terms of “today” often think that we’re in some kind of enlightened age where things today are so much different than they were in earlier eras. We see that we have so much more technology, so we sort of assume that our thinking has progressed just as well. Well, it hasn’t. If you examine most wars happening today, you’ll see the same sorts of horrific actions occurring today as existing back in the days of barbarism. Soldiers still pillage. Soldiers still rape. Soldiers still run off with the spoils of war. And no, there isn’t a nation around that is so enlightened that it hasn’t done these things. Wars in Africa have been decimating the infrastructure of those countries. The UN has been accused of, and has definitely stood on the sidelines of, numerous rapes that have happened as a consequence of war. The United States had a run of American soldiers removing the relics of Iraq during its most recent war, and in some cases soldiers had to be forced to give back these items as we had to keep reminding ourselves that “civilized soldiers don’t do that sort of thing”. Only very recently did we return some of the spoils of war from Iraq’s palaces, as some military units in the United States had them on display as “trophies” of the war.

So, our thinking isn’t any more enlightened than its ever been. In some cases we act better, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty actions of war, we look the other way when things start to fall apart. That’s a natural consequence; no one wants to think they are part of the problem but somehow always part of the solution.

Which brings me back to leaders. When leaders don’t get along with other leaders and can’t seem to find easy solutions to complex problems, they do what they’ve always done: They declare war. Or they just attack. You’d think that centuries having done this over and over that we’d figure out how to stop this, but we’ve never been all that good at learning from history. Or even our own pasts.

But what’s significant about this is that we’re still following a model that is no longer relevant for today’s time. In the old days, just a few hundred years ago, leaders of nations used to duke it out on the battlefield over all sorts of stupid reasons. (“You stole my girlfriend, so we’re going to wage an epic war.”) But for so many centuries, wars were fought between the nobles of their subsequent empires. A king would declare war, and then all of his nobles would rally behind him and fight. Sure, lots of soldiers would fight as well, but the important fighting was the accumulation of nobles. If a king wanted to go to war, he had to convince all of the people who would actually be going to war that they needed to go to war. So those people would take to the field and fight. That was war.

Today, we don’t have that model. None of the leaders who declare war, or who help that leader decide on war, actually fight any more. The nobles are now very rich men (some women, although not that many) who are part of an aristocratic infrastructure that has no connection to the military. Instead, our military consists of a lot of people who are not part of the economic elite. When we go to war today, we send a lot of very poor people out with the skills to decimate the very poor people in the militaries of other nations. No more do we send out nobles on horses, leading the charge.

This means that the people who decide to go to war are most likely not the people fighting it. Think about that for a moment. If you didn’t have to fight a war, what would stop you from deciding to go to war? Sure, some might have kids fighting in those wars, but look at our legislature when Iraq and Afghanistan wars started. Very, very few sent their own kids. Instead, they sent the kids of other parents. There was absolutely no risk to them. Only benefits. And the economic elites didn’t send their kids either. They received only benefits.

But that’s just the western nations. What about all of those other third world nations? Same thing. Their leaders are rarely fighting the wars. Instead, a lot of brainwashed, or patriotic (call them whatever they are), young people fight those wars for them. When you have this model in place, there’s absolutely no reason to avoid war. As long as the enemy doesn’t destroy your infrastructure and your continuation of being able to rule and enrich yourself, there’s nothing to lose. Even the economic elites of Iran and Afghanistan have suffered minimally, having stopped being rewarded by their former leaders and now enriching themselves through the corruption of having themselves selectively placed in positions that allow them to do so.

With this in place, why wouldn’t a leader want to go to war? That’s the question that no one seems to ask. Instead, they allow themselves to be rallied towards more wars. As long as you have standing armies that need to be used in order to be seen as useful, you are always going to see petty wars being fought for the purpose of justifying existence.

Until people stop accepting this as the way things are, the model has no reason to change itself.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 773

Stewart/Colbert hold a real rally, but no one will probably take them seriously

Politics, Television, , , , , , ,

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is planning to hold a major rally in Washington, D.C. that is a direct response to some of the stupidity that has been happening by pundits and/or politicians like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. The theme of the rally, being held on October 30, is “Rally to Restore Sanity”. Stephen Colbert, not one to miss out on the fun, is holding a counter rally at the same time, in the same location, titled: “March to Keep Fear Alive.”

The significance of this event (these events) is that politics and media have gotten stupid lately. So, what better way to hold them in check but to call them out on it.

The problem that I perceive is that the news media doesn’t even realize that it’s being ridiculed for how bad they’ve gotten. What is most likely going to happen is some pretty face is going to announce the success of this “event” and treat is as if they’re somehow “in” on the joke. I think that’s what pissed me off the most about whenever the news covers Stewart and Colbert. They so often are NOT “in” on the joke, but the actual butt of it, and I’m sorry but laughing about it doesn’t make it any different when they go back to doing exactly what they were doing that caused the ridicule in the first place.

Unfortunately, this is a one time event. Which means that the media will get right back to being stupid again.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 736

The Struggle of the Independent Film Creator

Movies, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Small Change Movie 

I have a friend of mine who makes movies. They’re independent films, but at the same time they’re very well done and obviously put together by someone who understands how to make movies. The interesting thing is that he’s relatively unknown, and the chances are pretty good that he will be completely unknown for the rest of his career. But not because he’s not any good. It’s because independent movie makers generally have about zero percent chance of making it these days.

He’s currently in the process of completing his latest film, which he made for about $15,000. Now, if you didn’t make movies, you might think that’s a lot of money. I mean, it’s more money than I have to spend. I mean, let’s face it: With my expenses for online porn, I really don’t have a lot of money to spend on anything else. Oh wait, did I say that out loud?

Anyway, he’s made a few movies before that didn’t do very well because there’s a certain amount of stigma that comes with being an independent film producer. Those of us who watch movies are very critical, and for some reason, we want high-quality, big budget productions, even when the movies being made aren’t big budget productions that can afford to have such high-quality. Yet, we expect it, so if a movie doesn’t blow $15 Million on its budget, we’re probably not going to watch it.

Which means, fewer and fewer independent films get made. Which also means we get more and more crappy remakes because Hollywood has never really been all that innovative when it closes off the spigot of new visions, which often can’t afford such budgets.

Think about one of the biggest independent successes in our time: Clerks. It was made on a shoestring budget that was essentially paid for on the director’s credit card. Granted, he made it back in huge returns, but most independent movie directors don’t succeed that way. Generally, they go into serious debt, pawn the car and then live the rest of their lives in dire destitution.

The old way of breaking into the industry was to do a shoestring budget film and then have it shown at one of the independent film festivals. Well, if you notice the current crop of movies that show up at these independent film festivals, you might be interested to know that the definition of “independent” is becoming very skewed lately. Nowadays, big stars figure on breaking out of their connections to the big studios, so they fund huge independent films, and THAT is what shows up at these festivals. The low budget guy has been forced out by the big names with deep pockets that make movies often with venture capital funding.

Our ability to see new ideas is slowly being turned off so that the future is going to be nothing but Explosion Man VII types of presentations.

My friend is currently trying to do all of the work that big budget films have hundreds of people doing the work. It’s kind of amazing to see how he goes through such stress just to try to get his movie into its first movie theater.

Is it a perfect movie? Probably not. I mean, what film ever is. But it’s probably going to be something different than what you normally get to see. And it’s completely independent, and unfortunately it’s part of an endangered species that we could easily support by actively looking for independent features and supporting them. But we won’t because we’re finicky movie watchers, wanting stuff that’s only perfect and highly produced with lots of Hollywood money. And that’s why we’ll lose in the end. It’s like appreciating a mom and pop store, but never going there, always shopping at the local Wal Mart and talking about how we have to do something to save the local mom and pop stores. Sadly, so many people do exactly that.

So, here’s your chance. I guarantee that somewhere in your community someone is trying to get an independent movie seen. Support that person or lose that creativity forever. I mean, it really is your choice, and in a day where we don’t even get to choose who we get to vote for, you have to grab onto those little opportunities while you can. Or you lose them. But remember, it was your choice.

(the image is of the poster for Small Change, the independent movie that was the impetus of this article)

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 669

Poverty is getting worse in America, but no one seems to care

Economics, Politics, , , , , , , ,

It was reported again today that poverty is getting worse in America. The info came from the Census Bureau this time. Seems that in 2009, poverty jumped to 14.3 percent from 11.3 percent in 2000. Unemployment is also worse. Yet, you wouldn’t know this from the pundits who want to do everything to convince us that everything’s fine, or everything’s just on a downswing, just waiting to start swinging back up to prosperity.

But there’s no evidence of that. We’ve had a couple of HUGE stimulus packages and MAJOR bailouts of industries and banks. Hasn’t done anything but make a few more millionaires into mega millionaires, and the job outlook doesn’t look any better, and poverty looks like it’s becoming more of the norm.

So what are we supposed to do with this information? Riot in the streets? Jump off the nearest bridge? I’d like to know because I don’t really have an answer. There are two political parties in power that will continue to be in power NO MATTER WHO GETS ELECTED, and these two parties are acting like it’s no big deal. Oh sure, they’ll complain if it might get more of their people into office, but in reality, they don’t care. Because everyone of them have jobs. We’re paying for them. They have jobs pretty much for life because the system is designed to keep them in power and to allow them to decide how much we get to pay them. We, on the other hand, have little to no power, and we have to listen as they argue about how much they should be able to charge us for the privilege of letting them serve on the government payroll.

Oh, we can get upset, but it won’t do any good. They’ll still be in power no matter how mad we get.

And people will still continue to get poorer, and the jobs will continue to disappear from us because the corporate heads of most companies have discovered there’s profit in not paying people. There’s even profit in bankrupting your company, cheating all of your customers, and in some cases, pretending you have a real company and charging people to rip them off before they go bankrupt themselves and the criminal gets even wealthier.

No, there are no jokes in this post because there’s really nothing funny about it. Those who might actually be reading this will just file it away to never be used again and then go back to wondering about whether or not Lady Gaga will wear something bizarre during her next television appearance. Instead of paying attention to who really runs the country, they’ll think about who they want to vote for on the next American Idol, or who to vote off the island.

Meanwhile, the poverty rate will continue to rise, and unemployment will continue to dip, while someone in government (doesn’t matter which party) will spin it to make it seem like everything’s better, even though everything’s not.

Kind of sad. I’ll close with a picture of cute puppies because that’s probably more important to people anyway.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 627

Solving the Middle East Problems is like Dating a Supermodel Who Sees You Only as a Friend

Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s 2010, and politicians are still trying to solve the “Middle East Crisis”, and they’re doing so by doing exactly what everyone has done before and hoping for different results. As we all know by now, by the overused analogy by Einstein, doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results is the definition of insanity.

We really need to face it: We’re not going to solve the crisis in the Middle East by doing what everyone has tried to do in the past. Getting people to talk is not a solution. It’s not even a stop-gap until we come up with a solution. One side hates the other so much it wants to kill everyone on the other side. The other side is so angry at the other side for hating it throughout history that they’ve pretty much resorted to the same tactics of killing those guys as well. Everyone involved remembers EVERYTHING bad that ever happened, and wants justice and retribution for every bad thing that happened. Neither side remembers a single bad thing they have done, so they don’t seem to see any problems but the ones being caused by the other side.

A major part of the problem is that everyone who tries to negotiate peace does so as if everyone involved has the goal of actually achieving peace. That’s not what they want. Maybe 60 years ago that might have been the case, but some decades ago, it became much more about achieving small, specific goals. All peace negotiations were centered around not achieving those goals in hopes of achieving peace. Bad idea. Not sustainable. Obviously, because now they’re back to killing each other again.

So, how do you solve the problem? Well, here’s what you don’t do: Don’t act as if getting them back to the negotiating table is actual progress. Both sides are usually willing to talk. Neither side is actually willing to do anything to create an atmosphere of peace. They both want their own gains and the demise of the other side. You really don’t have much room to negotiate when it comes down to that.

So, again, what is the solution?

Work it out over time by investing in the future of both entities. This means just giving up on the current actors involved because face it: They’re not going to do anything to further peace. But that doesn’t mean their offspring can’t be influenced. But you have to do it by setting a new paradigm and a new way of looking at things. You also have to go out of your way to not engage the parents in any way, to show future generations that we don’t reward bad people for doing bad things. Until we start to engage this way, we’re always going to be stuck with the current generation that is only going to continue to think in the ways of the erroneous past.

So, how do you do this? I mean, the parents are still around. You can’t just ignore them, right? Actually, I think you can. That’s not to say we can’t still engage them in the hopes of getting them to see the light, but we should go into every negotiation with the belief that the parents are really the problem, so we’re probably not going to achieve any success from them any way. However, we should constantly let it be known that we’re investing in their future, not in them because we’ve already seen that no matter what we do, they’re just going to screw up the future regardless.

This doesn’t mean we just disengage. What it means is that we take a different approach in all things foreign affairs. Our goal should be to start influencing neighbors everywhere by a process of dealing with foreign countries on an honest, straight-forward approach. I know this is a lot different than the old CIA-overthrowing dictators technique we used before, but it may take a generation or two to convince people of our resolve, but once on that path, we’d have a chance of influencing the rest of the world in a new way of handling international affairs. This might also bring to the table the future generations of these countries in the Middle East whose parents we gave up on after realizing that they are never going to understand anything but hate.

I know I’ve made a lot of jokes on how to handle international affairs (Puppy Diplomacy and the Elmo Theory of Containment), but I’m pretty serious about this. I originally called this approach the Friendship Over Time (FOT) Theory, and it’s a mathematics-based foreign affairs approach that involves iterative contacts with countries rather than incremental approaches and our current method of unilateral tit for tat (but never following it up) diplomacy.

As the title of this post indicates, our current process is a lot like dating a supermodel who is only capable of seeing you as a friend. It sounds like a great idea, and it might make you look good when you’re out on a date, but in the end, you’re going to go home every night hating yourself, wondering why she can never see you as anything better. For women, it’s a lot like dating me. Okay, that doesn’t make sense, but I assure you there’s a really funny joke in there somewhere.

Right now, Secretary of State H. Clinton is trying to make a name for herself by deluding herself into believing that bringing the Middle East heads of state to the table is actually accomplishing something. Instead, what it is going to do is set up a new process of disappointment that will most definitely lead to hostilities, broken promises and further deterioration of potential peace in the Middle East. I really wish people could see that instead of leading us down a false path of hope, thinking that somehow people who hate each other are somehow going to change their natural way of being.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 660

Humor Writing Gets Very Little Respect These Days

Uncategorized, Writing, , , ,

I’m a humor writer. Been one for a number of years now. Sometimes it involves fiction; other times it’s incorporated into non-fiction. Either way, it is something I enjoy doing.

What I have discovered is that no matter what genre or style I utilize it in, it rarely gets a lot of respect by anyone in those respective fields. And that’s what I’d like to talk about today.

First, as most people who attempt to write humor know, good humor is very difficult to write. You either know what you’re doing, or you don’t. Those who don’t know how to write good humor end up writing really bad humor, but think that they’re funny. Such writing is very difficult to read, and quite often these conversations go something like:

You: “Um, I really like what you did with this piece.”

Attempted Funny Person: “What did you find funny about the piece?”

You: “Um…” Which quite often is followed by you dropping one of those smoke pellets that were used in cartoons and really bad spy films, where you make your get-away, realizing that if you don’t disappear quickly you’re somehow going to have to answer that unanswerable question.

Which then leads to the mistake so many people make when they think that humor must be so easy to write, and anyone can do it, even though they personally can’t do it themselves. This culminates in the erroneous postulation that humor is never to be taken seriously, so therefore it is not important enough to be used by “real” writers.

And this is the problem I find myself in today. As a serious writer of fiction (when I fall into my self-important moods), I find that some of my best fiction has been the type that has been developed through humor. My latest novel is probably the best novel I have ever written, and it is a full-fledged story of humor, involving a Greek epic of ridiculous proportions. Having said that, I have also discovered that when I discuss this novel with other people, they don’t take it, or me, seriously. They hear the “humorous” parts and immediately fall into this belief that both me and the novel are not to be considered serious, as in writing and writers. The fact that it is some of my best writing ever does not seem to make a difference. The fact that it involves some of the strongest uses of metaphor and allusion that I have seen in most modern day novels does not seem to cause anyone to consider it seriously. To everyone who looks it over, it’s a 300 page joke that doesn’t deserve that much attention.

I’ve discovered this to be the case with most humor I write. And people don’t even seem to realize that much of the humor I put forth has very serious implications when dealing with important issues. It’s just a different aperature to observe such circumstances. But because it made someone laugh or smile, it’s not to be taken seriously.

 This happens with my nonfiction writing as well. In a recent article, I attempted to deal with the concepts of cults and religions by pretending to create my own cult. The responses I received were usually derision and not very serious themselves. The fact that seriously important issues were being broached in an absurd way should have given people a reason to think about their own normal concepts, but instead of doing so, they saw a “ha ha” moment, and nothing was seen as being in any way serious.

Sadly, most humor writers, especially ones who write so that issues can be approached from a different perspective, are rarely taken seriously, except by very few readers who seem to “get” it. It’s like a conversation I had about science fiction on television, in which I was trying to argue that some of the greatest drama of our time has been covered by the science fiction genre. A person responded to me with: “I prefer real dramas, like Gossip Girl, so I don’t have time for science fiction.” Unfortunately, she wasn’t joking.

I find that same sort of criticism with humor. And no matter how many times I try to joke about it, it still manages to bother me.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 670

What is the future of the literary magazine?

Writing, , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been wondering this question for a bit of time now with the emergence of the Internet as the place where everything seems to be centered in writing these days. In the old days, to be a writer, you first finished your education (generally), then you started publishing in literary magazines, then to commercial, high paying magazines, and then you started to work your way into getting that novel published. Granted, some people took an easier path, but mostly this was the formula for success.

The Internet has kind of changed all of that. Now, anyone can claim to be a writer and try to make his or her way without any previous work. This has developed a whole sense of a lot of junk that has been thrown into the mix, making it almost impossible for a writer to get recognized and even worse, that much harder for a reader to figure out what is worth reading. Bookstores start to gravitate away from the old formula, and the next thing you know (or we currently know) bookstores only publish commercial fiction that is churned out by publishers who are only willing to invest in already established names or, even worse, celebrities who are now writing books. Like Nancy Grace’s new book. Or Glenn Beck’s. Or the autobiographies of unimportant important people which were really written by other people. This leads to events like Tyra Banks announcing she’s writing her new book Modelland, which really excited only about four people, all of them employed by Tyra Banks.

Which brings it back to me. It’s my blog, so why not?

At one point, I was actually making a name for myself in the literary magazine marketplace. Editors started to know me. Sometimes they even commented on my published work when they saw me in another magazine. It used to be a really close-knit community, and I was breaking into it.

And then I stopped writing for about a decade and a half due to a really strange relationship I had with a woman. It took me that long to realize I needed to get back to writing, and here I am. But no one remembers me any more, so it’s like I’m starting over again.

Recently, one of those editors contacted me and published one of my later pieces of work in his literary magazine, a science fiction one. A success. Yay. But it leaves me wondering if this old model of publishing is still viable today. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll include it on my vita like I normally would, but I wonder if the publication of this story in this ‘zine is really going to contribute to my eventual success. Oh don’t get me wrong. I’d still have it published there cause I like the editor and support his continued attempts to build an audience for what he does best. But I’m still wondering if there’s a career out there for me because there are so many writers these days, and basically you’re competing with anyone who has access to a computer today.

It makes me wonder if the age of being a writer is somewhat over, unless you already made it famous before or you’re some kind of marketing genius capable of making a name for yourself in the sea of endless writers.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 730

Is Craigslist Really the Enemy They Claim It Is?

Politics, Religion, Social Networking, , , , , , ,

Craigslist recently announced that it is going to be suppressing its listings for sex ads. Instead of the adult listing, it now shows up as “censored” on their site. Public interest groups are now high-fiving themselves because they seem to have won some sort of Quixotic victory that they believe has somehow made things better. Others, of course, still say that it’s not enough and want pretty much the universe when it comes to compliance. I thought it would be interesting to examine this and see what’s really going on.

First off, let’s look at the original problem. Craig Newmark started Craigslist back in 1995 in San Francisco. The idea was to give people a one stop marketplace where they could take care of their every need. You could find an apartment, get a job, sell that old TV you could never get rid of, and yes, even hook up with a potential partner, if that should be your current desire. Not surprisingly, that latter option has opened up all sorts of controversial issues with the online distributor of trade.

In 2002, according to Wikipedia, because of complaints, Craigslist started adding warnings to some of their personal ad areas, such as “men seeking men”, “casual encounters”, “rants and raves”, and “erotic services”. Already, these areas were causing problems with the mainstream segments of the population.

From this point forward, Craigslist has been on the attentions of quite a few public interst groups, and not surprisingly, law enforcement officials.

Up until this time, erotic services were pretty much an entity you had to search through some pretty creative methods, often involving a lot of bait and switch circumstances that one had to navigate solely on the hope that the next time would be better than the last time. Massage parlours were often a place men would go to seek prostitution, and after a lot of false leads and deception, it was not unusual for a man to pay hundreds of dollars to receive absolutely no desired experiences. Some got lucky, but most didn’t, and it was quite often a very discouraging experience.

The Internet was supposed to change all of that. At one’s fingertips was now immediate access to all sorts of information. Craigslist jumped into the game, and people were now following want ads for what they were seeking, and in conjunction with a lot of other erotic services on the Internet, people were actually finding what they were seeking. It was not unusual to see someone’s want ad on Craigslist, then check out the profile on one of the other erotic feedback sites, and then decide whether or not to book a session with that person. Very hard to find erotic services were now being much easier to find because they could now be found on Craigslist. Many people may not realize it, but there are a lot of people out there looking for some very specific types of encounters, and having everything in one place made it much easier for these people to connect.

Well, this didn’t bode well for the industy when there were people who would do everything possible to make sure that such people could never make any such connection. But this probably wouldn’t have been that much of a problem if another entity did not show up, which made things even worse. I’m talking about the scammer.

People may not realize it, but the entity of the scammer has pretty much destroyed every good thing that has ever come across on the Internet. Porn didn’t hurt the Internet, as the fuddy duddies would like you think it did (it actually served to fuel the Internet in its infancy, which is somewhat ironic if you think about it). Scammers did. Most of your email is now pretty much worthless because scammers found out they could profit off of naive people. You are required to buy special software to protect your computer because scammers discovered they could infect your computer just by hosting evil programs on sites where you wouldn’t expect them to be. Ebay used to be a great place to buy things; scammers and thieves put a wrench in the trust factor of that entity. So it is not that much of a surprise that scammers showed up and pretty much destroyed Craigslist.

Some of the biggest crimes that have rallied people against Craigslist have been people who have been cheating other people on the Internet. Call them scammers. Call them thieves. Call them the mob. Or whatever, but it’s this group of people who have caused all of the problems that have made Craigslist the cesspool that it can often be.

Because face it. Women being prostitutes has never caused all that much of a problem, unless you’re Tiger Woods. But people forcing women into prostitution has. Child predators looking for children for sex causes problems. Again, those same people are the ones that make this sort of thing available. These people are criminals who care little for the activity but everything for exploitation and making a quick buck. Unfortunately, they serve to diminish an activity that others might be providing in a more positive way, and unfortunately, there’s often very little way to separate the two.

There are a lot of honest people who are into the sex business who aren’t trying to steal from other people or to hurt other people. They easily get pushed aside whenever the bad class of people show up, and unfortunately that bad class shows up way too quickly and way too often.

All of the issues that have caused public interest against Craigslist have come from these bad elements of our societies. No one rallies around a leader seeking to stop prostitution. But everyone rallies around anyone seeking to stop child exploitation and people who wish to develop nonconsensual slavery circumstances.

This is the problem that Craigslist has fallen into because the owners of that site really didn’t care who was posting on the site. They were more interested in developing a site that brought in money. I can’t see that I blame them, but because of this, they have become the victim of their own success. With great success comes great responsibility, to steal and destroy a great line from Spiderman, and unfortunately Craigslist hasn’t really come up to the plate for the responsibility thing. It played a lot of shell games in hopes of getting people to think it was on the right side of morality, but when it came down to it, it was really only thinking of itself. When the public finally started to become a hammer to be used against them, they censored themselves and then tried to act all First Amendmentish and posted “censored” where they censored themselves.

The fact is: They could have dealt with this a lot easier by actually policing their ads in the beginning to see how much exploitation was going on. Instead, they dropped the ball and lost the whole game. But for lack of stupid analogies, I’ll take this one step further and say that they haven’t lost the whole season yet. They can still do something about cleaning up their site without destroying what they set out to do in the first place.

There are a lot of sex workers who do rely on Craigslist, and unfortunately because of this action, they are forced to start using more exploitive sites out there that are much worse, and that’s sad. Craigslist could step back up to the plate and decide where it wants to be in this debate. It can kowtow to the Bible thumpers and give in completely, like it’s doing right now, or it can bite back and work hand in hand with the communities that have grown up with them, making sure that the evil ones are ostracized, but the ones who are there for the right reasons still have a forum in which to do what they do best.

Unfortunately, it looks like Craigslist may take the easier road because it is filled with fewer obstacles. In the end, it may be a road that leads nowhere.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 1,053

All Common Sense Aside, a Virtual Girlfriend Sounds Like a Great Idea

Computer Games, Social Networking, , , , , , ,

I know we like to rag on the Japanese for adopting really ridiculous concepts like having virtual relationships with cartoon characters from computer games, but after thinking about it a bit, I’m starting to think that maybe they’re onto something here.

I mean, let’s face it. I haven’t done all that well with human girls/women. The few I’ve dated have either been completely nuts, strippers, professional dominatrices, or hell-bent Asian martial artists who have been bred with the sole purpose of destroying both my physical and immortal souls. And I’ll even admit that I’ve dated a few women who fit ALL of those categories. (the sad thing is, I’m not kidding)

So, I started thinking that perhaps I might do better if I just started dating fake women. You know, computer generated women who are designed to be what a real person might actually be looking for.

And then I started to realize that I’m not a normal person either. I have no idea what it is I’m looking for. To be honest, I was looking for exactly those crazy women I already mentioned previously when I found them, so I’m not sure I’m really the best judge of what’s best for me. Because they were pretty damn hot when I hooked up with them. You would have thought the ominous Satan music always playing in the background (when there was no actual music playing) should have been a dead give-away each time I was on a date with them, but when you’re out with a woman who looks a lot like a supermodel, you sort of overlook little things like cute animals keeling over dead whenever she comes near. I mean, a relationship is a compromise, right?

But a virtual woman seems like she’d be that much easier to handle. Okay, having seen movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, I should probably know better, but it sounds like such a fool-proof plan, kind of like that big ocean-liner they made in the early 20th century, or that awesome plan to get into Afghanistan and Iraq overnight, but I’m not really one who learns from earlier mistakes. I mean, I went back to a woman three times after she dumped me twice for “something better that just happened to come along”.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to move to Japan, buy a gaming device that they use to court this imaginary girlfriend. I mean, what can possibly go wrong with this plan?

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 499

Adventures in Volunteering…the good and the bad

Memoirs, , , , , , ,

One of the more difficult hurdles I discovered when trying to volunteer was actually finding some place where I could volunteer. Figuring that there were many agencies and groups that would be jumping up and down just waiting for a willing work pool, I started to inquire, only to discover the world of disfunctionality that exists within the volunteer corps themselves.

First, I thought it would be fun to build housing for the poor and struggling. Having seen the articles and stories on Jimmy Carter’s involvement with Habitat for Humanity, I decided to volunteer with them. Having skills in carpentry, I figured I’d be able to offer lots of assistance in this field, but when I showed up at the interview, I discovered a very interesting dynamic that existed there. The woman who interviewed me kept asking me “why” I was volunteering. She kept looking into the “crime” I must have committed to be referred to their group, and even though I kept saying I found their name in the phone book and wasn’t in trouble in any way, she kept treating me like I was some prisoner who was getting a furlough to work off a debt to society. But I tried to ignore that and eventually got to go to a site where I could work.

Well, I discovered this to be a very interesting situation in that the person in charge of that site had two modes: “Leave me alone” and “You are all scum who are working for me so get your asses in gear, or you’ll pay dearly for crossing me.” It took me a short bit to realize that the majority of the people who were part of this project were all working off some debt to society, and that most were court-ordered placed on this job. I tried to work in this environment, but I kept feeling that I was now cast in a bad adaptation of Cool Hand Luke, so that when my day was done, I decided this was not the kind of volunteering I wanted to do.

So, I looked for something else. And what I found in that search process was how much dysfunctionality there is in the volunteer search process. The people were generally nice, but finding an actual assignment was really difficult. I should point out that I wasn’t interested in working with kids, mainly because I was paranoid about the tendency of agencies to accuse anyone around kids of improper behavior, even if all you did was show up to work. I had a friend of mine who was working with kids for some years, and she was accused of all sorts of atrocities, only to finally discover that the woman accusing her was a certified looney, who the agency discovered after my friend was almost railroaded through the criminal justice system. I decided I didn’t want anything to do with that.

So, I found myself hooked up with an agency called Lighthouse for the Blind, which is a service to volunteer with blind people. The first meeting was what sold me on this group because there was a young woman who was recently afflicted with blindness, who was tasked with speaking to the volunteers who attended the first orientation. Her motivational speech about how helpful the agency was seemed insightful and interesting, but to be honest, it was when I was walking home from the first meeting when I was sold. The girl was walking down the street towards her destination, and she was taking forever to get down the street. The visuals we were offered during the orientation showed blind people making their way pretty well, but this poor girl was having the most difficult time walking down the street alone, and I was immediately sold on the need to see what I could do to help someone like this so that a journey should never take as long as that one was taking her that day.

When I volunteered, they set me up with an old guy named Frank. He was one of those cranky, “I can do everything on my own” kind of guys who really just needed help reading his mail, folding his money and getting him to and from the store every now and then. I volunteered with him for a few months, showing up a couple of times a week and pretty much being his eyes for such little tasks.

Of course, after a few months, he started opening up and felt a lot more comfortable talking to me about things. That’s when I discovered there was a hidden side to Frank that you’d never know from any previous conversation. The conversation that made me realize it went something like:

Me: You have a letter here from the AARP (the retired people organization).

Frank: Just throw it away.

Me: Are you sure?

Frank: Those people piss me off. They have too many agendas. Like the Coloreds.

Then he started referring to ethnicities and races in extremely derogatory terms. I guess he felt really comfortable with me by then, so he just opened up and, and I discovered I was volunteering to help one of the most racist people I’d ever encountered. And it never escaped me the fact that he was blind, which should have made a difference (at least to me, it seemed like it would), but no, he was dogmatic about his beliefs and he would waste no amount of time getting to how much he hated “those people”.

Finally, I realized I couldn’t continue working with this guy. I realized he needed my help, but whenever I actually tried talking about such subjects, he would pretty much shut me down and talk about issues in ways that were extremely demeaning. He pretty much hated everyone, including African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and the Irish. By this time, my girlfriend was constantly coming over with me, spending quality time with me and Frank. Bless her heart, but not once did she ever reveal to him that she was Chinese, even when he took the opportunity to refer to Asians in some horrible fashion.

So I stopped showing up and told the Lighthouse I had to discontinue this volunteer opportunity. I could have chosen to work with someone else, but by then I was completely burnt out, and my girlfriend no longer wanted me to work with them any more. I mean, there was only so much she could take, and I didn’t blame her either. She wanted to share such time with me, and there’s only so much you can ask from another person.

So I stopped volunteering. Every now and then I think about taking up another opportunity again, but I find it hard to take the next first step.

Has Been Viewed (since August 20, 2021): 519