To Idealism, from Apathy

Dear Idealism,

I know it’s been a long time, and I know you tried, or maybe you didn’t necessarily try, but were compelled to be who you were. Life has a way of wearing out even the most ardent.  I know because I was there a long, long time ago myself.

Politics, private agendas, money-hungry corporations beholden to the money-hungry stock holders; it can all be a daunting.  Starting out, you hope you can make a difference; you believe that if enough people like yourself band together, you can change the world, but reality eventually comes crashing down like so much weather-worn lumber of a structure that couldn’t be maintained because of the constant storms.

Then you begin to realize that nothing you say, nothing you do, will change things infected by so much evil.  All you can do is withdraw and protect what little you have and let others take up the banner of hopefulness.  Wishing that bright minds are numerous enough to outweigh the tragically misguided, or deceptively righteous.

Finding out that every single advertisement you see, that pervade nearly every waking minute, and some even that are not waking, are filled with so many lies they cannot be singled out; that so many utterances of so many people are tainted by self-interest; that even news shows are filled with bias and an ultimate goal of profit can drive anyone to the brink.  I think this has more effect on someone like yourself who actually believed in altruism and the power of pure ideas held by a critical mass of individuals.

So don’t be hard on yourself, don’t become bitter. Hold the light because eventually it can still serve you, if in a much smaller, personal way.  This can still change things for the better, but from the inside out, rather than the outside in.

Please come home again.  Your room is just as you left it.  We can live out our days in a smaller, less frustrating world.

Love,

Apathy

The Dude abides

http://www.dudeism.com/

Come join the slowest-growing religion in the world – Dudeism. An ancient philosophy that preaches non-preachiness, practices as little as possible, and above all, uh…lost my train of thought there. Anyway, if you’d like to find peace on earth and goodwill, man, we’ll help you get started. Right after a little nap.

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Jacko

OK, I’ve heard enough ppl QQing about a dead Michael Jackson.  This world is a better place without that freak.  He was so jacked up that he didn’t even know it was wrong to abuse little boys, and the only reason he wasn’t jailed is because he bought some of them off, and he was famous.  I’m tired of people acting like he was some sort of tortured artist — he thought he could do anything he wanted and get away with it.  Laughs on you, Jacko — nobody cheats Fate.  Hope your Karma brings you back as a conscious grub — over and over — to be torn to shreds by a blind mole.

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Universal Health Care

Ya know, one of the reasons I didn’t want to vote for Hilary Clinton was that her solution to Universal Health Care was to simply make it a law that individuals without healthcare go ahead and purchase some.  Now here is Obama proposing the same stupid solution.

Why can’t we have the same health care as Canada, Britain, & France?  I recently found out more info about those countries’ health care systems by watching Sicko, by Michael Moore.  Yeah, yeah, some people don’t like Moore and claim he makes stuff up, but there has to be at least some truth to what’s in this movie, and even if just some of it is true, it’s still better than what we have.

I don’t know how we can achieve what those countries are doing, but I’m embarrassed that we’re not already doing it.  Apparently there was a bill in Congress, but the last action on H.R. 676 was in 2006.  I’ll write my Congressman and ask.  I’m sure the response will be amusing.

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Animals in my yard

So I was getting ready to cut the grass (aka “mow the lawn” to some /shrug) and was cleaning up the dog poop, and just as I’m putting the full bag away, I noticed the dog pushing desperately to drop a deuce.  What the??  Now I suspect there’s some rational explanation as to why she always does this, like insisting that her territory is marked or some such, but it’s possible she’s just messin’ with me — showing me who’s really the boss.

After the grass was cut, I was sitting, smoking, and saw a robin land and peck at the ground a bit, then turned around, spread its wings, settled its butt into the grass and laid its outstretched wings on the grass beside it.  It stayed like this several minutes, then preened and flew off.  Very strange (to me).  It was a red-breasted robin, so I guess it was a male.  It did this odd thing in a sunny patch, so we’re thinking that maybe he was drying out his wings or something.

Animals are just weird.

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Unlocker for Windows

Here’s a nice little program that did what it said it would and didn’t cost me anything at all:  Unlocker

I couldn’t rename a folder on our XP machine.  It said, “Cannot rename folder. It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.”

Of course finding that program is an exercise in frustration.  This program makes it so much easier.

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Ghost Town a good rental

Wifey picked out the movie Ghost Town, so I thought that it would surely be not-so-good for a few reasons, chief among them being that Wifey picked it out, another being that it stars Greg Kinnear, which for some reason I consider the kiss of death, but of course that’s wrong because he was, in fact, also in As Good as it Gets, which was a fine movie. Ooh, and he was also in Mystery Men, which I loved, so you see, my first assumption of his inclusion is completely wrong.

Thing is, that Ricky Gervais gets all the best lines.  I’d never heard of him before, but some may be familiar with him from The Office.  I don’t watch it.  Gervais is awesome though, and were it not for him, the movie would probably be a flop indeed.  So we’re all very happy he’s in it.  If you don’t like this movie, then surely you will love The Astronaut’s Wife, which I detested.

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Biden refuses to cross picket line

Maybe there’s stories of Bushies crossing lines — or maybe not — either way, this is good on Biden and Obama:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/06/08/biden-refuses-to-cross-fire-fighters-picket-line/

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Hero Pushes Suicide Jumper

Passer-by pushes suicide jumper in south China – Yahoo! News.

Chen Fuchao, a man heavily in debt, had been contemplating suicide on a bridge in southern China for hours when a passer-by came up, shook his hand — and pushed him off the ledge.

The Perfect Game

The perfect game would be an MMO(RPG) with two factions, one that plays like Warhammer and WoW, et al, and the other that plays like PlanetSide and Battlefield, et al.  I thought about a third faction that played like Unreal, but the third faction was a horrible drawback in PlanetSide, so no.