Today I think that I am pretty funny. I know... that's dangerous. But I do.
So here's some of what made me laugh when it came out of my head.
I still use asterisks to indicate actions while chatting, i.e. *cough*. So today while chatting with my wife I came up with *scoff cough* and *snot-laden snort* which both made her laugh and cringe respectively. I have a friend who says chat acronyms now instead of the actual words. He says, "LOL" (pronounced lah-wl), for example. I have been saying the word "scoff" in the same way for a while now. My wife thinks that's funny.
I also like to say that "I am a focus group of one." I think that's funny because of how arrogant it sounds, and that I actually believe it sometimes. I have such strong opinions about art and other design things that I really don't play well with others. I can articulate in obsessive detail why I feel strongly about anything in this realm. It's uber-nerdy.
We also got talking about memes and idioms yesterday. I realized that I had an incomplete understanding of idiomatic expressions. But after talking about them I get it now. They're essentially the sorts of statements that cannot be taken for their literal meanings. The sort of thing that a non-native speaker will be confused by.
"Down in the dumps"; "dead in the water"; and "in over my head" are some good examples.
Would "LOL" or "ROFL" be part of the new e-idioms? Surely, ROFLMAO would qualify, and ROFLCOPTER is just damn silly and beyond categorization.
Anyway, after January 1st my wife and I tried adopting a new expression that we'd try use when the opportunity arose. Hers is "So it has come to this." That's funny when she uses it at times when I am not expecting it, and where the gravitas of the statement is not in parallel with the actual circumstances. Mine was "See, this is why we can't have nice things." I liked it as a deadpan response to something tragic happening that didn't involve personal harm. But it a chance to use it doesn't come up that often (thankfully), and my wife was right in saying that it's only really funny if you say it within a group as if they were your family and you were scolding them. It's the fact that it's said outside of a relationship with those boundaries that is funniest.
So I don't like mine anymore. Instead, I may employ a nonsense phrase. I like, "SEE, THAT'S why I HATE lima beans!" I think it would be funny if you're annoyed by someone telling a story in which they're essentially complaining about life or circumstances in a way which sounds like victimstance or old-fashioned bitching to interrupt just near the end of it with "SEE, THAT'S why I HATE lima beans!" I think that it would catch them off guard. It'd definitely indicate how little I was listening to them.
I think that I am funny. I am probably self-deluded. But I have fun with my own fantasy that I am.
*scoff cough*
Friday, March 8, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Response To A Video About Crime Stats
Choose Your Own Crime Stats
I would say that the speaker leans toward a particular political position, although his statistics appear apolitical. How he uses them is slightly biased.
He does not address thoroughly how significant it is that the murder rate is so much lower in the UK/Wales, despite their violent crime rate being 3x higher. One could easily note the absence of guns for that.
And we do not know what the violent crimes are. Soccer hooligans or stabbings? It would help to know what we are dealing with, because violent crime is too broad of a statistical category. It is a convenient political category, not a sociological/criminological one. We learn nothing from it. Politicians simply use it.
That said, I do not disagree with him fully until he directs his comments against specific people, which makes him appear to have an agenda. He didn't need to do so. Keep us all listening...
His focus on urban crime, spot on in many ways, has been used as the justification for inaction before. I like his comment about improving conditions of poverty and jobs there, and hope that he means that, because the response to urban crime statistics in USA is usually white flight and suburban apathy. Those facts mean that the concentration of property tax wealth has shifted away from the urban center and taken the political will with it.
I live in the inner city of the second most segregated city in USA on purpose. I am committed to see the plight of the urban poor up close. The characterization of the urban poor (usually considered minorities) has been far from the reality. The urban poor I know want to work, they want an education for themselves and their kids, and they want to be safe. But they face massive obstacles to the same.
A recent WI study shows that the urban poor are working harder, for less money, and our urban MPS school system has been sapped of hundreds of millions in support. It's no surprise that the schools are not safe, lack resources, and that less than 4 of 10 black males graduate high school in this city. These kids no longer have working class jobs to fall back on, so they end up casualties, literally and figuratively. Causality is complicated, and they own some of their own failure, but one cannot be as dismissive as has been the political rhetoric about their plight. They're less to blame than policies are in my opinion.
Violent crime in 'da hood tends to be less random than one might think. In Milwaukee, improved policing has recognized that, and our crime rate has dropped. I am safer here in the 'hood than I am in the 'burbs in some ways. Still, we have underfunded our police force for years. We had 3x as many cops on our streets in the 1980s, and that coincided with a period of urban boon. A black male in Milwaukee made the highest wage per capita in USA at that point. That meant the quality of life in Milwaukee was high for the working class.
It is worth noting that this was during the period that we had a long tradition of Sewer Socialists who led the city. The government was notably free from corruption, and focused on municipal services. We were the place where the municipal sewer, the 8-hour work day, and many other current normalities were born.
The urban minority wants the same things, with the same resources available as the suburbs. But they don't get it. They get inadequate policing and impoverished schools. They get neglected and costly public transit, and often live in food deserts. They have to succeed without so many things that the rest of us have. In Milwaukee our poor ride a bus system which is fraught with violence, and pay the highest fare in the lower 48 states. Yet, 90% of riders have no other option.
Are we surprised when the urban poor fail? I could say more about the reality of the urban milieu, but I should simply say that I doubt that there are political leaders who will be honest about what it will take to "fix" the urban crime problem. We tend to believe myths about the urban poor, because it girds our sense of bystander syndrome. Entire political policy trends have been based on myths, like the "lessons learned" from Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, for example.
That all said, the issue of gun control on the table now is specific to the mass assassination incidents. Those aren't perpetuated by urban minorities.
It isn't disingenuous to discuss the issue if assault weapons or multi-shot magazines in light of what is a measurable increase in the same.
Police want this discussed. They're facing criminals with more fatal weapons, and the response of police to these events cannot easily match the speed of the violence they enable. Police departments are less staffed nowadays, with slower response times to reported crimes. Couple that with semi automatic weapons and massive magazines and it is a problem.
I would like to see increased funding to police departments, and beat patrols again in metro areas. That has worked in areas of deployment in Brewtown.
I would also like to see a ban in assault weapons and multi-shot magazines. Anything military-grade should be illegal to possess. There is no justification in my mind for any citizen owning anything capable of mass murder.
I am not opposed to handguns or conceal and carry, but I would like a strict and universal licensure-training program. I want someone to be able to carry across state lines with common restrictions.
But I do not support the straw sales or gun show sales of guns. The circumventing of the waiting period is problematic, particularly since we now know more about the profile of these assassins.
I also support people owning hunting rifles. 'Nuff said.
So I agree that we need to help the urban poor. I agree that people should be able to keep most guns. I agree that our crime rate has dropped. But I also agree with some others that want to consider whether citizens should own weapons that are capable of enabling mass assassination events of this nature.
Even with an assailant that has multiple small capacity firearms, they'd have to reload or switch guns. It'd be harder to pull that off, and it would give time to the heroes among us to step up instead of being shot dead.
I would say that the speaker leans toward a particular political position, although his statistics appear apolitical. How he uses them is slightly biased.
He does not address thoroughly how significant it is that the murder rate is so much lower in the UK/Wales, despite their violent crime rate being 3x higher. One could easily note the absence of guns for that.
And we do not know what the violent crimes are. Soccer hooligans or stabbings? It would help to know what we are dealing with, because violent crime is too broad of a statistical category. It is a convenient political category, not a sociological/criminological one. We learn nothing from it. Politicians simply use it.
That said, I do not disagree with him fully until he directs his comments against specific people, which makes him appear to have an agenda. He didn't need to do so. Keep us all listening...
His focus on urban crime, spot on in many ways, has been used as the justification for inaction before. I like his comment about improving conditions of poverty and jobs there, and hope that he means that, because the response to urban crime statistics in USA is usually white flight and suburban apathy. Those facts mean that the concentration of property tax wealth has shifted away from the urban center and taken the political will with it.
I live in the inner city of the second most segregated city in USA on purpose. I am committed to see the plight of the urban poor up close. The characterization of the urban poor (usually considered minorities) has been far from the reality. The urban poor I know want to work, they want an education for themselves and their kids, and they want to be safe. But they face massive obstacles to the same.
A recent WI study shows that the urban poor are working harder, for less money, and our urban MPS school system has been sapped of hundreds of millions in support. It's no surprise that the schools are not safe, lack resources, and that less than 4 of 10 black males graduate high school in this city. These kids no longer have working class jobs to fall back on, so they end up casualties, literally and figuratively. Causality is complicated, and they own some of their own failure, but one cannot be as dismissive as has been the political rhetoric about their plight. They're less to blame than policies are in my opinion.
Violent crime in 'da hood tends to be less random than one might think. In Milwaukee, improved policing has recognized that, and our crime rate has dropped. I am safer here in the 'hood than I am in the 'burbs in some ways. Still, we have underfunded our police force for years. We had 3x as many cops on our streets in the 1980s, and that coincided with a period of urban boon. A black male in Milwaukee made the highest wage per capita in USA at that point. That meant the quality of life in Milwaukee was high for the working class.
It is worth noting that this was during the period that we had a long tradition of Sewer Socialists who led the city. The government was notably free from corruption, and focused on municipal services. We were the place where the municipal sewer, the 8-hour work day, and many other current normalities were born.
The urban minority wants the same things, with the same resources available as the suburbs. But they don't get it. They get inadequate policing and impoverished schools. They get neglected and costly public transit, and often live in food deserts. They have to succeed without so many things that the rest of us have. In Milwaukee our poor ride a bus system which is fraught with violence, and pay the highest fare in the lower 48 states. Yet, 90% of riders have no other option.
Are we surprised when the urban poor fail? I could say more about the reality of the urban milieu, but I should simply say that I doubt that there are political leaders who will be honest about what it will take to "fix" the urban crime problem. We tend to believe myths about the urban poor, because it girds our sense of bystander syndrome. Entire political policy trends have been based on myths, like the "lessons learned" from Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, for example.
That all said, the issue of gun control on the table now is specific to the mass assassination incidents. Those aren't perpetuated by urban minorities.
It isn't disingenuous to discuss the issue if assault weapons or multi-shot magazines in light of what is a measurable increase in the same.
Police want this discussed. They're facing criminals with more fatal weapons, and the response of police to these events cannot easily match the speed of the violence they enable. Police departments are less staffed nowadays, with slower response times to reported crimes. Couple that with semi automatic weapons and massive magazines and it is a problem.
I would like to see increased funding to police departments, and beat patrols again in metro areas. That has worked in areas of deployment in Brewtown.
I would also like to see a ban in assault weapons and multi-shot magazines. Anything military-grade should be illegal to possess. There is no justification in my mind for any citizen owning anything capable of mass murder.
I am not opposed to handguns or conceal and carry, but I would like a strict and universal licensure-training program. I want someone to be able to carry across state lines with common restrictions.
But I do not support the straw sales or gun show sales of guns. The circumventing of the waiting period is problematic, particularly since we now know more about the profile of these assassins.
I also support people owning hunting rifles. 'Nuff said.
So I agree that we need to help the urban poor. I agree that people should be able to keep most guns. I agree that our crime rate has dropped. But I also agree with some others that want to consider whether citizens should own weapons that are capable of enabling mass assassination events of this nature.
Even with an assailant that has multiple small capacity firearms, they'd have to reload or switch guns. It'd be harder to pull that off, and it would give time to the heroes among us to step up instead of being shot dead.
Friday, December 14, 2012
First Speedbump in Juice Fast
I caved. Yeah. And not for something worthwhile.
It was for Pizza Hut Pizza left over from last night's work party. Terrible stuff... but in my hunger state, almost irresistible to me. I love salty, savory crap.
I was fine with all the Christmas cookies and candy out on the table in the mailroom. I even reorganized the stuff and neatly set out plates for the masses. I used to find that stuff magnetic--but not today.
I drank my juice and was fine until someone came in and said, "Guess what?" "There's pizza left over!"
It was only an hour later that I caved.
I won't be the end for me. I'm back on the juicing again, now hoping to detox AGAIN.
I'll bet that I feel some side effects from eating this pseudo-food as my first solid stuff for days.
It was for Pizza Hut Pizza left over from last night's work party. Terrible stuff... but in my hunger state, almost irresistible to me. I love salty, savory crap.
I was fine with all the Christmas cookies and candy out on the table in the mailroom. I even reorganized the stuff and neatly set out plates for the masses. I used to find that stuff magnetic--but not today.
I drank my juice and was fine until someone came in and said, "Guess what?" "There's pizza left over!"
It was only an hour later that I caved.
I won't be the end for me. I'm back on the juicing again, now hoping to detox AGAIN.
I'll bet that I feel some side effects from eating this pseudo-food as my first solid stuff for days.
Juice Fast: Day Five
I had some strange leg cramps last night where a muscle in my lower leg cramped, causing my big toe to flex in a fixed bend. It was excruciating. This, even though I am doing bananas as part of my juice fast.
I got over it with a little help from my wife. Thanks honey! She helped by pressing on the area of the most pain and massaging out the cramp.
Today I woke up with my first mild headache in five days. Odd, on water fasts I usually have this in day two. I also have a slight tummy ache, and feel a bit irritable. Also, day two phenomena in the water fast.
WARNING: overshare ahead..
What really strikes me as odd is that I am actually still pooping. Seriously? No solid food in nearly five whole days and there are still matters to be worked out in that way? I do have less flatulence, which is good. But shouldn't that all be done with by now?
Anyway, I hope that my chronic eye redness and fatigue will be fixed forever once I get through this and switch to a 95% vegetarian diet, without processed foods or non-organic produce. I've been toxic for far too long.
It'll all work itself out in good time. I'm committed and hopeful.
I got over it with a little help from my wife. Thanks honey! She helped by pressing on the area of the most pain and massaging out the cramp.
Today I woke up with my first mild headache in five days. Odd, on water fasts I usually have this in day two. I also have a slight tummy ache, and feel a bit irritable. Also, day two phenomena in the water fast.
WARNING: overshare ahead..
What really strikes me as odd is that I am actually still pooping. Seriously? No solid food in nearly five whole days and there are still matters to be worked out in that way? I do have less flatulence, which is good. But shouldn't that all be done with by now?
Anyway, I hope that my chronic eye redness and fatigue will be fixed forever once I get through this and switch to a 95% vegetarian diet, without processed foods or non-organic produce. I've been toxic for far too long.
It'll all work itself out in good time. I'm committed and hopeful.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Juice fast: day three.
I feel great. No strong cravings, headaches, etc. I'm more clear-headed than usual.
But a cheeseburger sounds delightful.
Still, what I am most learning is that I view food like a dysfunctional relationship. It's there to make me feel better, and I don't know proper boundaries with it. No more eating due to boredom or for a quick boost of "happiness". I want to be healthy and truly happy.
But a cheeseburger sounds delightful.
Still, what I am most learning is that I view food like a dysfunctional relationship. It's there to make me feel better, and I don't know proper boundaries with it. No more eating due to boredom or for a quick boost of "happiness". I want to be healthy and truly happy.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Letter to John Boehner
Hello John,
I'm flabbergasted that your party has learned little from the last election, choosing to stand on issues that the majority of voters do not support. A vast majority of taxpayers from both parties agree that we should maintain the tax cut for the middle class. These same people resoundingly agree that we should tax the rich at a higher rate.
So why all the brinksmanship? You know that you've all got the worst rating of public approval in history. Why exacerbate that by doubling-down on that which few support?
It will be the GOP who are blamed if the proverbial car goes over the cliff. You're the one playing politics with the future of the middle class.
We know that the things you claim will be affected (small businesses and jobs) are both ruses based on bad numbers, skewed to say that which they cannot. As a man with a sociology degree this is easy for me to see. Y'all ought to be ashamed of yourselves for trying to dupe the lesser minds among us with the bitter rhetoric of obfuscatory data. There is no correlation to tax cuts for the top 2% and job growth. In fact, one can see the opposite has happened during the Bush tax cut years.
We went from a surplus, and a booming economy to a near-depression, while the very rich were taking record profits in some sectors, others were sitting on massive cash reserves, there was record compensation for CEOs and other top shareholders, and came out with the largest economic disparity in our nation's recorded history.
Is that what you want? Do you serve only the 2%? Or do you serve all 100% by creating a tax climate and code which scales taxes based on income in durable, sustainable ways? The rich CAN afford to pay more and STILL make money. They can live with less. The rest of us have been forced to.
I've worked in the private tech sector, for non-profits, for city, and now for state in the public sector. No matter where I go there is one thing I know for sure. Greed must be regulated, and profit corrupts good motives.
So when you talk about Medicaid and Medicare, why don't you get honest with yourselves and us. The problem is not the cost of those programs. It's the cost that those programs have to pay to the profiteers in health care.
That's a relatively new phenomenon. I worked in the tech sector during the NASDAQ crash. We saw capitalists pull their money and bully their way into health care. Now 12 years later, a break-even proposition has become solidly entrenched near the top 30 profitability mark. That's unacceptable. Profit is what is harming patients all around this nation, and sinking local, state, and federal budgets.
Show some character and source the problem. With integrity you can return the party of my youth back to what it once was. Stand up to the tea party idiots. Give me back my GOP, or get out.
Sincerely,
Christian E. Vettrus
I'm flabbergasted that your party has learned little from the last election, choosing to stand on issues that the majority of voters do not support. A vast majority of taxpayers from both parties agree that we should maintain the tax cut for the middle class. These same people resoundingly agree that we should tax the rich at a higher rate.
So why all the brinksmanship? You know that you've all got the worst rating of public approval in history. Why exacerbate that by doubling-down on that which few support?
It will be the GOP who are blamed if the proverbial car goes over the cliff. You're the one playing politics with the future of the middle class.
We know that the things you claim will be affected (small businesses and jobs) are both ruses based on bad numbers, skewed to say that which they cannot. As a man with a sociology degree this is easy for me to see. Y'all ought to be ashamed of yourselves for trying to dupe the lesser minds among us with the bitter rhetoric of obfuscatory data. There is no correlation to tax cuts for the top 2% and job growth. In fact, one can see the opposite has happened during the Bush tax cut years.
We went from a surplus, and a booming economy to a near-depression, while the very rich were taking record profits in some sectors, others were sitting on massive cash reserves, there was record compensation for CEOs and other top shareholders, and came out with the largest economic disparity in our nation's recorded history.
Is that what you want? Do you serve only the 2%? Or do you serve all 100% by creating a tax climate and code which scales taxes based on income in durable, sustainable ways? The rich CAN afford to pay more and STILL make money. They can live with less. The rest of us have been forced to.
I've worked in the private tech sector, for non-profits, for city, and now for state in the public sector. No matter where I go there is one thing I know for sure. Greed must be regulated, and profit corrupts good motives.
So when you talk about Medicaid and Medicare, why don't you get honest with yourselves and us. The problem is not the cost of those programs. It's the cost that those programs have to pay to the profiteers in health care.
That's a relatively new phenomenon. I worked in the tech sector during the NASDAQ crash. We saw capitalists pull their money and bully their way into health care. Now 12 years later, a break-even proposition has become solidly entrenched near the top 30 profitability mark. That's unacceptable. Profit is what is harming patients all around this nation, and sinking local, state, and federal budgets.
Show some character and source the problem. With integrity you can return the party of my youth back to what it once was. Stand up to the tea party idiots. Give me back my GOP, or get out.
Sincerely,
Christian E. Vettrus
Monday, August 6, 2012
Sikh Thinking
With the tragedy yesterday in Oak Creek, and the world response, I have been hearing conjecture and rhetoric as to the 'why' we all seek in times of tragedy. I understand the desire to feel safe again, to compartmentalize an incident like this, and to seek a return to normalcy. But I believe that we must choose a different response.
We should ingest the pain and chew on it, reflecting, assessing, and repenting where we can as individuals. That's painful, and it's not the reaction I see from most people.
Some folks shed tears of empathy. Some get angry and assign blame. Others theorize about external factors. Still others dismiss these incidents as the result of a crazy individual. But tears are no defense, anger begets more violence, blame is often misapplied, and external factors are often little more than overly simplistic ways for us to practice bystander syndrome.
I also cannot accept that most of the folks who do this are crazy. That's a coping mechanism that non-offenders use to protect themselves against the fear that anyone could do the same. Even those who have an insanity defense may not be insane. I mean, look at the Jared Loughner case for an example. He's now being declared competent to plead guilty.
They're humans who made a choice to act upon the hatred and prejudice we all must remain vigilant against within our own hearts. The answer as to why this happens is both simple and profound. We are all capable of extreme violence and sin. Any one of us could be that shooter. To create a fantasy about an evil 'other' does not quell the cognitive dissonance we feel when something like this happens.
That said, it does us all good to do a fearless and searching moral inventory in times like this. What is it within me that hates, presupposes, fears? What can I do to root that out? What is the antidote for my own inadequacy? Is there good that I have failed to do?
I've found that in violent conflicts that both sides consider the other side evil. But when an objective observer interacts with people on both sides (like I did in Northern Ireland) it becomes clear that neither side is evil, and even the people who perpetrate the violence are not evil. They've done evil things, but they weren't insane when they did them. Rather, it only took other environmental circumstances and a mentality of fear and hatred to bridge the gap from civility to brutality.
So let us not kid ourselves, blame gun control lobbyists, isolate the shooter, or cower in fear of an external threat. The shooter exists in our own hearts, and no legislation can root out the evil within us. We must do so with God's help. Lord help us all.
We should ingest the pain and chew on it, reflecting, assessing, and repenting where we can as individuals. That's painful, and it's not the reaction I see from most people.
Some folks shed tears of empathy. Some get angry and assign blame. Others theorize about external factors. Still others dismiss these incidents as the result of a crazy individual. But tears are no defense, anger begets more violence, blame is often misapplied, and external factors are often little more than overly simplistic ways for us to practice bystander syndrome.
I also cannot accept that most of the folks who do this are crazy. That's a coping mechanism that non-offenders use to protect themselves against the fear that anyone could do the same. Even those who have an insanity defense may not be insane. I mean, look at the Jared Loughner case for an example. He's now being declared competent to plead guilty.
They're humans who made a choice to act upon the hatred and prejudice we all must remain vigilant against within our own hearts. The answer as to why this happens is both simple and profound. We are all capable of extreme violence and sin. Any one of us could be that shooter. To create a fantasy about an evil 'other' does not quell the cognitive dissonance we feel when something like this happens.
That said, it does us all good to do a fearless and searching moral inventory in times like this. What is it within me that hates, presupposes, fears? What can I do to root that out? What is the antidote for my own inadequacy? Is there good that I have failed to do?
I've found that in violent conflicts that both sides consider the other side evil. But when an objective observer interacts with people on both sides (like I did in Northern Ireland) it becomes clear that neither side is evil, and even the people who perpetrate the violence are not evil. They've done evil things, but they weren't insane when they did them. Rather, it only took other environmental circumstances and a mentality of fear and hatred to bridge the gap from civility to brutality.
So let us not kid ourselves, blame gun control lobbyists, isolate the shooter, or cower in fear of an external threat. The shooter exists in our own hearts, and no legislation can root out the evil within us. We must do so with God's help. Lord help us all.
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