Browsed by
Category: Political musings

Can you guess what it was?

Can you guess what it was?

Comments 0 Comment

Here’s a little clip of information taken directly from a recent article I was reading. I replaced the parts that would give away what it is, see if you can guess what it is:

Even as project proposals were being submitted, a 53-year-old structural engineer secretly already had the job sewn up. He had met with the government official in charge of funding and the official had rigged the process so that only this engineer could possibly win the bid. When the construction was started, more than 300 prominent [inhabitants] signed a petition protesting the [construction]. They claimed that [it] would “disfigure and dishonor” the city.

There was a great deal of protest surrounding the construction as well. A [prominent] mathematics professor predicted that when the structure passed the 748-foot mark, it would inevitable collapse; another expert predicted that the [construction]’s lightening rods would kill all the fish in the [nearby river].

The [local] edition of the New York Herald claimed the [construction] was changing the weather; and a daily newspaper ran a headline story claiming The [construction] was sinking. “If it has really begun to sink,” [local paper] pontificated, “any further building should stop and sections already built should be demolished as quickly as possible.”

What was this abominable construction that would destroy the environment and be a disfigurement to the city? It was none other than the Eiffel tower.I always try to keep things like this in mind when confronted with the scads of ‘disaster is imminent’ reports on everything from new public/religious social programs, to dams, to global warming, to whatever. Whatever you’re in the middle of, by nature you are going to be very myopic. Now, this is not to say that disastrous human endeavors do occur and are often foreseen but warnings ignored, but it reminds me that you need to look at the real data and know that expert ‘opinions’ are just that – and are just as equally wrong as right on both sides.

Instead, the only way to denounce critics or lend credibility for a plan is in a *lot* of careful research and number crunching before one begins. A great example is a task force in Portland that have done some great research on homelessness patterns and found that often times the current feed/shelter system simply prolongs and perpetuates the homeless’ problems (this is not to say that homeless help should go away – but that their influence and role needs to change in a new way). Some of their findings

There has also been all this talk of carbon-neutral obsession, bio-fuels, etc. This is all good, but simply reducing environmental impact down to your ‘carbon-load’ doesn’t take into account scads of other toxic stuff you release. Use an air conditioner in your car/home? What about your freon load? What about your arsenic load? What about your estrogen loads ? (yes, estrogens from shampoos and birth control pills goes right though water treatment and has long been known to be mutating fish/river life. That one sure doesn’t get as much press as blowing up damns now does it) Now we hear that bio-fuels aren’t that much better than other fossil fuels as far as the environment goes.

I guess my point is that productive change in the right direction requires people not being reactionary, over-simplifying the problem, or lately appealing to sentimentality or emotionalism, or even spiritualism about ‘mother earth’ (I could go on about that one being even worse than the religious appeals made in the middle-ages that everyone loves to decry) – but really put some pencils and pens to paper and do the math and science. Real science that isn’t myopic ‘experts’- or we’ll end up looking as silly as the Parisians did to future generations.

Price hikes for internet radio and how petitions should work

Price hikes for internet radio and how petitions should work

Comments 0 Comment

I’m not much of a zealot about most grass-roots stuff, but the Copyright Royalty Board has raised rates for internet radio stations by hundreds of percent to play songs online. I, for one, listen to lots of internet radio at work – and this stinks because it will put some good stations out of business.

These guys (http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/home/) have a great system that allows you to enter your name/address and it will find your reps – then allow you to automatically fax or email them.  You can also print and snail mail them. Takes about 30 seconds total unless you want to customize the message. This is the way petitions should work.

Conservative and Liberal

Conservative and Liberal

Comments 0 Comment

I have increasingly notice how useless and downright harmful the terms conservative and liberal are.  In the political arena, religious matters, or wherever.

I, for one, plan to ban their use from my vocabulary.  What does it mean to be conservative?  To be a liberal?  The best I’ve ever heard of is that it is a title under which we lump our favorite agendas and favorite demons.  If I were to ask 20 people the definition of those terms and what one would classify under each title, each person would likely put their own favorite issue(s) under whichever one they wish to alienate or affirm.  These labels often turn into firebrands upon which we like to point fingers and make tongue-wagging generalities.  When someone starts saying ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ anything, I find that it’s usually an attempt to be divisive, polarizing, and as vague as possible.  Even more harmful is to use these terms to classify people.

When I hear a person using these terms, I have yet to see it convince the person they are talking too if they are of a differing opinion.  I think it’s because we all can see the broad generalities they are appealing to and not actually saying anything about the real truth of the matter.  If someone is wrong about a viewpoint then the argument should be directed to correct the particular viewpoint or argue that one topic.  Making a blanket statements they are liberal or conservative seeks to lump a person with tags they cannot really fall under.

Is a whole person’s viewpoint really conservative or liberal?  At best we could use the term with the one stance or topic.  We are all far too complex of people to be satisfied with such foolishly simple terms and harmful judgments based on one position.  Far more often I find that the real reason people are so polarized or set on a particular topic is because they have personally been hurt or carry a lot of emotional, spiritual, or mental baggage with the topic that was never healed.  Often this pain or anger is carried subconsciously.

One of the best deacons I’ve ever met lives by the creed that it is only through loving relationship that any conversion happens.  I have come to believe more and more this is true.  Love implies relationship.  Unless we are willing to be in a genuine relationship with the other person, to really listen to their concerns and work with the questions *together*, we are not loving anyone.  Without love, there is no change.  God brought salvation to this world through the very real and human person of Jesus.  He didn’t do it from ‘on high’ but from real, human relationship and that is an example we should take to heart.

One does not deny there is wrong or evil in our understandings, but one needs to affirm that there is good in the person first.  It is the the power of real, loving relationship that  correction and change can happen.  One is far more likely to listen to someone that they know cares for them and listens to them than yelling at them with labels.