April 2003

Dick Gephardt, D-Missouri, has recently stepped up the plate and put forward a plan that actually aims to do something to help society.  I’m all for it.   You really want to read this.

National health care?   Amazing.   Putting money back into the economy as opposed to cutting the taxes of the richest citizens?   Completely off-the-wall.  And I’d vote for it in a second.

Bush’s tax cuts haven’t done anything to stimulate the economy.  It still sucks, honestly, the Dow Jones hasn’t recovered, the Nasdaq is still in awful shape, and I still can’t look at the job market without wanting to break down and cry.   People aren’t using their tax cut money to revitalize the economy, they’re stuffing it under mattresses and hiding it away in bank funds to pay for their childrens’ educations or possibly as a buffer-fund for when their jobs are downsized.   And as for the rich, who are supposed to be pouring in all this money?   They’re not putting in any more money to the general economy than they ever have.

So, let’s do something about this.   Let’s make some forward social changes that will take away the stresses of worrying about having health coverage or being able to pay for a prescription because the major drug companies are deciding that yes, we in fact can afford to pay extra for the next miracle drug as well as the Board of Directors’ 2-week management seminar in Antigua.

Am I a bit of a political socialist?   Yep.   Sorry.

I just think we’d be going a lot more good for our country if we all decided to suck it up a bit more, pay out a little more money, and show a little responsibility on a social level that we’ve never managed to.  Ever.  For all our talk of being a great nation.

Random thoughts.  No one cares.  I just paid my last $200 to the Bursar’s office, which means all my credits are current, and I should be graduating on time.   Life is good.  All that remains is to get through the last three weeks of classes and not massacre anybody for causing me an inordinate amount of stress.

Well, those are the intermediate goals, I guess.

In the short term, I need a bottle of water and I need to get my ass over to English so I can be bored with Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.   I hate modern drama.  I mean, fucking Sophocles is right there in the book, why can’t we do Oedipus Rex?  It’s a funnier story by any measurable standard.

All right. I’m fine. I can continue.

New Castlevania for PS2 - Uh Oh - it looks like the new Castlevania game for the Playstation2 isn’t going to be the über-2D scroller some people wanted. It looks like they’re using games like Devil May Cry and Onimusha for inspiration with this one. I dunno, I think it could work. It could definitely work - I’m just going to need to see how they execute it.

Diet Guru Dr. Atkins Dies From Slip-and-Fall Accident - I dunno, I don’t like talking ill about the deceased - but I so wanted him to die from something diet related. I think God has a weirder sense of humour than I thought.

That’s all for today. In closing, if you need some reading material to get you through the dark times, please check this site out - A List Apart. It’s a wonderful web-development site with plenty of useful tips.

now playing - Yoko Kanno - Fantasie Sign

Well, it’s been a very interesting week. I’m just going to throw together a few things that caught my eye and made me think. Freeform link posting with commentary. Let’s boogie.

Local College Cuts Staff in Attempt to Make School Better - this is a brilliant move. The Board of Rockland Community College decides to get rid of 55 staff members in order to make sure they can improve the quality of the school. And in the process they gut several degree programs and raise tuition at the same time. Sounds brilliant to me. Oh yes, and after agreeing to not make any moves on staffing until June 30, they go ahead and pull a surprise agenda item at a meeting to make sure they can do what they feel they need to without too much protest. Nice move, jackasses.

Couple Pleads Innocent in Child Decapitations - just read this one. There are relatively few times I feel like screaming in incoherent rage. This kinda thing puts me over the top.

Ugh. That’s it, I gotta take a break for now.

Matt

I’ve been a little disturbed lately by the kind of things I’ve been reading in the Opinion section of the local paper. A good number of the opinion pieces in the paper from local residents seem to follow a certain formula:

“These anti-war protesters make me sick. They’re encouraging the enemy and taking away from what our troops are doing. They should be arrested.”

…and so forth.

Here’s the problem I have with this: one of the founding principles of the United States was that the citizenry was to have the right to free speech, and censure and prohibition of speech was only allowed under very specific wartime conditions, and then only particularly seditious types of speech. Sedition, of course, being defined as “an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government”. Of course, since we have free speech, anti-war demonstrations cannot be defined as illegal.

And of course, we’re not even at war. Congress has to declare a war. That pesky Constitution thing again.

If we’re waging this “war” as a means to protect American interests and our way of life, why are we saying that the rights of Americans are not worth protecting? Who cares if you don’t like what they’re saying? They’ve still got the right to say it. Because I have to say for myself, I really don’t care for what people are saying about arresting protesters for not supporting the troops. They don’t have to support the troops. There’s no law, there’s no central moral imperative, there’s no real reason. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, and there’s no reason to force the issue.

I suppose for myself it all comes down to the issue of the Constitution. Without the Constitution, the United States of America is a worthless shell, no better than any other nation on the planet. We might as well pack it in and go back to Britain, except that Britain today is better than it was back when we split away from the United Kingdom. Forget the flag, forget the yellow ribbons, forget nationalist jingoistic bullshit. Let’s all start pledging to support the Constitution, because without it, America isn’t America.

After all, is it America the Free, or America the Free to Sit Down and Shut Up?

I’ve just acquired the newest Dynasty Warriors game this last week. The concept, I think, just should not work in an American market. But it does.
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