what's wrong with kids today

"Helicopter parents" have their own mental disorder which contributes to the insanity of their children. I think children in the US are hyper-supervised today, because of the irrational paranoia - hyper-fear of disease (flu infections do last longer, flesh-eating bacteria), hyper-fear of bullying (kids end up in the hospital these days from bullying), hyper-fear of kidnapping (Hell, I think there were at least five women rescued just last year from years-long enslavement by psychos - that scares the crap out of me, and I'm no longer the target victim age group), prevalence of guns (school shooting every other week??), kids get raped by other kids (we had two cases prosecuted in Seattle alone in the last few months).

I maintain it's a downward spiral - dysfunctional hyper-paranoia dissolving sense of community and twisting minds leading to twisted minds and hyper-paranoia creating dysfunctional people, rinse and repeat.

I'm glad to think things may be different in other countries. I'm just saying the "let kids run free like they did 50 years ago and magically we cure the social ills" is naive.

I think kids may be physically present with parents more - I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you -  but the prevalence of electronic devices - DVD players, phones, games - means they're actually spending less time connecting with each other. How often do you see an adult at the mall ignoring her two kids to talk on the phone? Or dad present at the playground, with his face in his tablet, instead of watching - let alone interacting with - his kids (or even other adults - erosion of community).

I see the mega-churches as just another example - five thousand people present, but not sharing the experience. They all go home after the ritual, but how many potluck dinners do they have anymore? How many "let's go clean up the park" events? How many events in which adults are encouraged to interact with other adults as human beings, instead of some bizarre collection of withdrawn and frightful individuals?

Postmortem

The beauty of a rant is that I can rip my own comments from a G+ conversation, throw them up here, and some long exposition to explain or form total narrative is not mandatory, because it's my rant and I'll break design rules if I want to.
https://plus.google.com/110695872689494369839/posts/U8B63rHQK7g

#IAmIcarus

I'm going to log off for a while, while I decide if the risk is worth it

I think I’m going to log off for a while. The blog has a dozen posts auto-queued, so it will take care of itself.

This NY Times story I recently read, which is really about how the Interweb community, as a singular entity, is a selfish, heartless monster that does not believe in forgiveness, and craves the bloodsport of destroying people to satisfy some greedy need for self-righteousness, and has the sick, yet treasured, habit of resurrecting dead horses specifically to murder them again, has me asking the basic question:

Is it worth the risk that the next victim will be me?

A woman makes a poorly-worded tweet and gets on a plane for eleven hours. By the time the plane lands, thousands, tens of thousands, or possibly millions of people are clamoring for the bloodsport of watching her face when she gets off the plane – tired, cramped, looking forward to seeing her family – and watching her face as she realizes the world hates her, that her friends, family and co-workers are being attacked and shamed, and her life is destroyed. People clamored to see the confusion and pain on the face of this woman they knew nothing about, except what they had invented in their own minds. 

The monster craves blood, 

and the monster will invent excuses to murder for that blood.

I love my blog. I love expressing myself. I love the community of people who surround my on-line presence.

But, I log off every weekend. That’s 48 hours I’m not here to do spin-control, should someone decide that I should be punished for some “wrong” – real or imagined – and launch a campaign destroy my life.

I need time to consider if the risk is worth it.

Pay compliments to people. It's good for both of you.

But, they must be compliments freely given, without attachments of any kind. Literally throw the words out there, and let go of the words. Understand - and accept - the person may not even react. If you have released the words, then you are not disappointed, you merely feel good that you have said something nice. 

 

This is important. Every human contact is a link of energy. Even the act of you reading this is a link of my energy to your energy. I am infiltrating your system right  now. ;-)

 

Back on the topic of compliments, the energy link is important to understand, because people can feel if there are strings attached to compliments. It's not really a compliment if the expectation is that there be a response.  Then it's just a gift-with-strings, which isn't really a gift.

 

On the flip side, if someone does pay you a compliment, the best response is simply "thank you." If you feel strings attached, then you can decide if you will freely give a gift in return, e.g. pay a compliment also, or not. 

 

But don't say stupid things that diminish the gift that was given.  Women are the worst about this, often with "Oh, this old thing?" and other self-deprecating responses that create strings back to the compliment maker.  People tend to think that shows "Oh, that was a nice compliment, but I don't want to look arrogant by simply accepting that someone said something nice about me," but in fact it's like "Oh, thank you for this nice gift, but look at the slightly torn wrapping paper, and it smells kind of funny."  Yep, congrats, you've just insulted the gift-giver. 

 

A compliment is a gift. Just say "thank you," and don't screw it up by insulting the gift giver.

 

 

 

Acting like an adult at conventions

Patric Rogers said:

I think every attendee needs to sign (or e-sign) a form, at registration, saying they read and understand what "still not asking for it" means. That way, everyone accepts responsibility for the policy of "I understand that a costumed body, male or female, regardless of how garbed, that stimulates me, is still not appropriate to grab, touch, or comment on as if I was a four year old child. I will act like a responsible adult. If I decide to act like a child and inappropriately touch someone, I waive my right to sue when that person decides to break my offending finger."

Hey, Tuesday: I Woke Up This Morning - Who's Laughing Now, Bitch?

Some mornings, I wake from warm dreams to the nightmare of a screwed up world, with horrible people Hellbent on making it worse. Days like that, only self-discipline and the warm body next to me give me the motivation to wake up. Specifically, the promise I made to him that I would wake up every day. There were witnesses, and there is video, so it's not like I can recant my promise.

Then, wrapped in global loathing and personal self-pity, seeking to avoid my promise, I bury my face against him. That contact reminds me that, damnit, there are good things in the world. There are things worth fighting for. That Evil wins if Good does nothing, blah, blah, whatever. Evil can wait five minutes. There are good things right here, in my little universe: hugs, smiles, laughter, cookies, puppies, sunshine.

He didn't hear me as I renewed my promise with a whisper in his ear. In the end, I woke up, not for the promises of the past, but for the promises yet to come; because it was worth doing. I rose, ready to embrace the day; only time would tell if the day itself survives to regret another failed attempt to stop me.

Musical Monday - "Losing My Religion" by Lacuna Coil

Here is a version of "Losing My Religion," performed by Lacuna Coil, re-cut using footage from a shitload of video games.  The Embed feature is disabled, which is a bummer, but here is a screensnip of one of the visuals I thought most beautiful. 

I recognize the names of most of the games, but my gaming style is old school pen-and-paper, not video games, so I was surprised and blown away by most of the visuals.

Recut by Selena8056

Video games are definitely an art form.  Some of these clips are definitely big screen film worthy, and the storytelling is obviously equally huge and grand. No wonder these games are costing $50 and up.

Batting 2000!

I've hit another millennial mark - 2000 page views!

Here's my post back when I hit 1000 page views.

So, 94 days to hit the first 1000 (about 12 views per post, about 11 views per day), ...

...and another 72 days for the second 1000 (about 14 views per day) and 137 total posts (about 15 views per post).

Yeah!!  I'm having fun, and sweeping you guys along with me!!  You guys are the best audience EVER!!

Climate Change Is Real: Can We Grow Up Now and FIX THE PROBLEM?

I'm going to throw out a dumb question: "Even if climate change is 'natural', do we really want it to happen, at all?"

I mean, we see the damn Greenland and polar ice caps melting. This means sea levels are rising and ocean temperatures are changing.

'Natural cycle' or not, this has a negative impact on humanity.

Do we really want to see a day when Florida - the highest elevation being a trivial 33 feet above sea level - which is why hurricanes just roll right over it - spending half of every day underwater when the tide comes in?

Hell, 'natural' or not, I think humanity is better off if we move on to accepting the hockey stick exists - simply as a fact, fuck wasting energy over "why" - and figure out how to stop the damn thing.

Here is another excellent discussion of the science behind the climate change discussion
https://plus.google.com/105510708763837902389/posts/DiJADwvVxqp







Doxxing is criminal and needs to be illegal

"doxxing" - It's publicly exposing someone's real name or address on the Internet who has taken pains to keep them secret. - according to Urban Dictionary - should be considered accessory to murder. No fuckwit publicly exposes someone's real name and address unless there is intent to cause harm. It should be a fucking crime. There's a reason I live under a bridge. Come find me, asshole. Some day, some dickwad will try, simply because I have a blog, and I have an opinion.

I'm Brianna Wu, And I'm Risking My Life Standing Up To Gamergate

The bullshit, fucked up thing is that she is, too. Anyone who doubts that needs to stop living in fantasy land where people are nice to each other, and pay attention to the fucking evening news.

People go psycho-shit and murder other human beings all the time, for the dumbest fucking reasons.

There is no doubt in my mind that psychos - who think of themselves as some kind of "justice warriors" - get off on finding her, and threatening her. That's sick, and I fear for the people around those assholes, because anyone that screwed up and divorced from empathy, common decency, common sense, and common reality, is a dick and a dangerous fool who is going to hurt someone.

Vaccines and Abortion and "Small Fascist Government" - Oh, My!

+Leo Garcia wrote " America... where killing the unborn is an option; but protecting children from toxic chemicals is a crime."

To which I replied:

See, no, you've got that backwards. It should read "America - Where forcing a woman to experience permanent metabolic changes to incubate an organism she might not want is one of the few times that 'small government' should invade not just a woman's home, but the woman's body itself, but bloody well keep your fascist government off my right to disfigure or murder my children - and other people's children, too - with preventable disease organisms!"


(Note, this is not intended as a criticism of Leo Garcia. He merely made a statement, and I'm running off on my own snarky tangent.)

Musical Monday - "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" - Dead or Alive

So, I'm looking up all these songs I keep hearing on the radio. And...

The Eighties must have been a real trip for anyone in hig school or college at the time. I mean, just that hair - it's so over the top! I love it ;-)  Glam, glam, glam, glam, glam, glam ;-)

Oh, and it's just so funny as heck to see how tastes in what makes interesting visuals changes over time. I'm sure at some point, someone thought those "snap the nails" finger moves where somehow appealing, rather than simply gauche ;-)

People don't value the truth

People value what makes them feel good, and they want to believe what makes them feel good is the truth, so they will value some bullshit artist, that makes them feel good, even more when he lies to them that he is telling them the truth.

People are hard-wired to feel good. Some people feel good by knowing the truth, and some people will chance fanciful lies and call them true, because that is what makes them feel good.

None of this is conscious effort. This is all wired at the subconscious level. Only by understanding this can anyone hope to pull it to the conscious level, and even then the wiring fights with us, because the wiring is animal instinct and biochemistry and it is amoral and doesn't give a fuck about anything but feeling good.

Anti-Troll 3: Pick your Battles

So much of human conflict originates with simple miscommunication and misunderstanding.

Very often people make things worse by letting their emotions take over, or listening to the noise in their own heads, or leaping to assumptions, or just plain not-listening-in-the-first-place.

My point remains, in this as with all things (literally, this is a mantra I repeat often): pick your battles and only fight the ones that are necessary, instead of starting fights that never need to be.

Of course, once you have picked the battle, fight to the metaphorical death :)

Buy American - The Job You Save May Be Your Own

This link has great info and commentary on buying American-made products.

I am pro-union. Unions have flaws, because people have flaws, but unions are a powerful way to protect the low- and middle-class from the elitist pigs at the top of the food chain. That is why unions formed in the first place: to protect the low- and middle-classes from the elitists.

Before unions, there were no 40-hour work weeks or overtime pay. It was "You'll work when I say, or you won't work at all, and you'll take any shit I give you, and if you're injured while working for me, it's too bad, get your broken ass off my property, because there is a desperate schmuck right behind you, ready to clean up the blood and take over where you left off."

See, I've studied macro-history and human nature. I'm a big picture person. Human history is dominated by the greedy and selfish seizing power and authority over everyone else.

It was the rampant and unfettered stock market speculation that broke the economy in the 1920s and lead to the Great Depression - you know, the kind we saw right before the recession of the 1980s, the recession of the late 1990s, and the recession caused by President G.W. Bush in 2008... (remember, President Obama took the oath of office in 2009, so anyone associating the Pres Bush recession with Pres Obama is either wrong or lying).

It was the rise of unions that brought on the 40-hour work week, overtime and holiday pay differentials, and safer working conditions, that lead to the "golden age" of prosperity in the 1950s and 60s.

With the decline of unions since the 1980s, we'ved seen the decimation of a living wage and the renewed rampant economic excesses by the greedElitists - see above about the recessions and depressions.

Some say it was the unions that killed Hostess Bakery. That's a lie. When you dig into the numbers, the venture capitalists spent three years raiding the employee pension funds, destroying the company, and then putting on a huge show of "negotiating" in bad faith with the unions, in order that make the unions the scapegoats, when the venture capitalists finally bankrupted the company and made one last shitload of money selling off the assets - and leaving thousands of people out of work and an American icon in ruins.

Musical Monday - Primus "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver"

This one came to my attention through a random conversation. Of course I had to look it up base on the name of the song.

After that... well, shit, I'm still scratching my head. The music is fun, the lyrics are just plain bizarre, and the video?  The video is captivating, almost for all the wrong reasons.

I'm impressed by the costumes, though. That took serious dedication. In fact, here is a video detailing just how dedicated:

Charlie Hebdo: Let's call evil evil

Let's get a few things out of the way:

Twelve (12) people were murdered in cold blood in Paris. The people may, or may not, have been offensive assholes, but they sure as fuck did not deserve to be murdered.

I'm not going to defend Islam, and I'm not going to attack Christianity. I'm also not going to attack Islam, and I'm not going to defend Christianity.

You are going to drop your preconceived attitude assumptions about what you think I have to say, and pay attention, or fob off. I don't care.

This is not about religion. This is about politics. This is about power. This is about getting people to act like paranoid, stupid fucks, and people are buying right into the plans of the evil men.

Oh, lovely. Stupidity and arrogance beat the fuck out of common sense, and congratulations assholes, the bad guys have won, and you're too petty, narrow-minded stupid to even recognize you've handed them the victory by doing exactly what they wanted you to do.

The murder of twelve people at Charlie Hebdo wasn't about religion. It was about politics, psychological warfare, and evil.

Anyone who commits violence or hatred out of some misguided need to avenge the fallen has merely taken the bait, done exactly as the enemy intended, and leapt on the short road to evil.

Theological Thursday: Memo to Christians - You're Unpredictable and that Scares the Crap out of People

People are afraid of you, because - as a collective - you're about as predictable as the filthy, twitchy guy wandering down the street shouting randomly at everyone around while waving a rusty knife.

As a collective, Christians have beaten other human beings to death for what amounts to "being different."

As a collective, Christians have DEFENDED the murder (or any other crime) by BLAMING THE VICTIM.

So much for Thou Shalt Not Kill.

As a collective, Christians are going out of their way to deny options, opportunities, and BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS to other groups "because you think it's bad."

In other words, Christians, as a collective, you are screaming and ranting and raving for how to dehumanize, and denigrate, and humiliate, and harm, other human beings, because they are different than you.

All the while, inconsistently and selectively citing as your source (i.e. "cherry-picking") a self-contradictory collection of stories written across a span of a thousand years, or more, and tampered with by humans for at least two thousand years.

Yeah, as a collective, you're about as sane as a box of rocks, as violent as shark with a brain tumor, and predictable and consistent as a rabid dog.

Oh, all while defending the murderers in your pack, and denying that any of their crimes are wrong, because the victims "weren't really human," and blinding yourselves to the reality of your own duplicity, complacency and stupidity, while screaming that YOU are the "Good People."

So, yeah. No shit people with half a brain are terrified of you.

Anti-Troll 2 - The Big Picture

I don't need to win every battle, because I fight to win the war.

Pick your fights, and pick them carefully. Know when to walk away, because sometimes it just isn't worth it.

Only fools think they need to fight every battle, let alone win. when you are "arguing" with someone online, remember that a troll won't change his mind, so your actual audience is not even the troll, but anyone observing.

If the other people in the thread cannot be persuaded, then just walk away, and save your energy for an audience that will listen, and that can be persuaded.

Keep in mind the audience - this will help you stay focused on your message. Do use remarks by the troll as springboards for your message, but do not attempt to address remarks by the troll directly.

Internet trolls "cheat" by being irrational (either intentionally provocative, or just naturally insane), so you can "cheat" back by not rising to the bait, and by staying on message.

Make the troll lose his cool, by not taking the bait, and you look better, because you expose the troll and look more mature. This helps you deliver your message, and win the war.

It's a Gun, Not a Condom 5: The paranoid, delusional, Open Carry movement - fucking psychonuts with too many guns

Here are some excepts and thoughts from an article about "Not Fucking Gun Assholes" down in Texas.

I mean, Jesus Christ, the paranoia of some of these people. "We''re not nuts," says one person, who also says "but I carry live ammo, just in case one of my enemies tries to run me down with a car." (I'm probably mashing a few things together.) Are you kidding me? Either paranoid, or such a huge asshole that he's making people want to murder him out in the open. Either way, his carrying live ammo makes him a public danger.

Some "not a nut" says "If there is a government coup..." Excuse me?? If that guy isn't already living in a fantasy world, he's only a few steps behind (and the irony of failing to realize it would be loons exactly like him leading coup...)

A 60-year old woman sees a bunch of men with guns, has no fucking clue who they are, and calls the cops. Good for her! Try to keep the damn city safe. One of their members posts her name and address on the Internet. Creating a real and present danger to her health and safety. She gets calls from his buddies calling her names and the leader of the group says -

• Grisham said the Open Carry member should not have made the woman’s name and number public. “He did it for the right reasons,” Grisham said. “It was just bad execution."

He did it for the right reasons??? She was fucking trying to be a good citizen and keep her neighborhood safe, same as this Grisham asshole claims he's doing- and he defends the public endangerment of an old woman?? What the fuck is wrong with this asshole? His head is all kinds of screwed on wrong when he can't distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, himself from Satan. How selfish, arrogant and self-deluded is he to say "Oh, if I run around with a device-meant-only-for-killing-humans, then I'm a good person," and can't separate that from "But if one of my buddies suddenly makes some old woman a target of psychos with a hard-on for devices-meant-only-for-killing-humans who really want an excuse to use them, then good for him!"

Fucking idiots. Assholes. Selfish, arrogant, pretentious, self-righteous, delusion-by-choice fuckwits are a danger to everyone, including themselves.  The arrogance and hubris to decide they are somehow right for bullying everyone around them.

God, it's people like these that make every sane person on the planet afraid of gun owners.  

So, yeah, we've come full circle to the "If you own a gun, clean up your own damn house of the lunatics, or shut the fuck up when everyone thinks you're a lunatic yourself."

Musical Monday - "Fucked Up World" - The Pretty Reckless

Oh, go on. It's totally soft-core porn.  I love the song, you can enjoy the visuals.

It is a fucked up world. Where people think violence is great entertainment, but sex is a sin? Where people go around finding "Satanic symbols" in school bus lights - and the fucking local news people "report" on it? Where journalism is dead, and there is no accountability for spewing hate and lies disguised as "what people care about"?

The assholes at Fox News (TM) have taken Orwell's playbook from "1984" and perfected it. If any of those fools do accidentally utter something true, factual, or - Heaven forbid verifyably real - then internal memos circulate so the offender can be publicly chastened for being so foolish as to think reality and truth matter.

Fuck it. Watch the vid,  rock on, whack off, thank me later.

Okay, here's one more thing that is fucked up. Guess how old Taylor Momsen is in this vid. With that voice and attitude, I'd guess mid- to late-
20s, right? Especially when you see some of her other vids, she's totally got her shit together.

She's 19 or 20 in this vid. OMFG. Old before her time, especially given this vid is softcore porn. Fuc-ked UP. I hope she does have her shit together. She's got serious talent and it would suck for her to go all full-on Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears meltdown crazy, too. (Props to Spears for pulling her shit back together.)

On another tangent, the entertainment world is a fucked up fantasy land. It's totally devoid from common reality, and is its own reality. It's the same fantasy land people like the Koch Brothers or Gov. Romney live in - where money and prestige and influence create their own gravity, and even light bends around it. People stop acting normally, and the cash cow is fawned over and coddled, and shielded from little things like washing dishes or changing bed sheets, and yet same cash cow is discarded when the usefulness ends. Fuc-ked UP.