I just found out some of the blogs have not been posted, so I went back at put them up today. This is partially due to the fact that saving a post in Word Press is separate from publishing a post (a concept that is not without merit, except it is not intuitive to me), but largely can be attributed to “operator error”. In other words, I screwed up.
Monthly Archives: June 2008
A Day at the Aquarium
Originally written on 5/25
Trevor and I went to The Aquarium of The Pacific down in Long Beach today. The drive was fast, both ways, the weather was nice, if a little cool, and there were about a gazillion people to share the experience with. Joy!
As before, the experience was outstanding. They really know how to run a place, and even with huge crowd, things went smoothly. Honestly, my only complaint is that the eating area is small enough that it can be difficult fiding a spot to eat. And if that is all I have to complain about, then that is saying something.
Trevor really loved a few of the exhibits; more than half our time there was spent at 4-5 spots. This was the first time he really got into observing at one place, which is a lot more interesting to me. You really get a better feel for an animal once you see more of it’s behaviors, and it gave me a goodly amount of time for people watching (one of my favorite pass-times).
Yes that fish is larger than you!
Jelly about to crash.
Open up and say Ahhhh
I just like the colors in this one.
Don’t jump. Don’t jump.
Cute kid. This is the only shot I did with a flash.
The boys are back in town.
The Right Thing To Do
Originally written sometime in early May
We stayed up and watched the first of a new miniseries on PBS called Carrier. Like most stuff on that network, the show was excellent. At one point, in what I believe to be an effort to show the scope of drama in the lives of the 5000 people living on a floating city, they showed a fresh-faced young man recounting the story of how he told his girlfriend’s father that his daughter was pregnant.
Now what struck me about this is not the fact that the girl was pregnant; that stuff happens all the time. What bothered me was that the lad mentioned that he and the girlfriend both wanted to “do the responsible thing” or “the right thing”. Not to single this couple out, as this is a common refrain in our country, but I have to call bullshit on this one. The “right thing to do”, the “responsible thing to do”, would be to not have unprotected, or partially protected sex. Period. Having a child with someone who failed to be responsible in the first place, is hardly responsible. At best is shows the hope of responsibility, but not the fact of responsibility. In fact, it’s probably more appropriate to say it shows the faith of responsibility, as little or no responsibility has been actually demostraited.
Once pregnant, having the child is nothing more than making the best of a bad situation; one caused by one’s own irresponsibility. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Now I don’t wish any ill on this couple, or any other in this situation. Quite the contrary; I hope for them the best. Nor do I think they should have gotten an abortion. My point, my only point here, is that dressing up a pig, doesn’t make it any less a pig. If you want to be responsible, and do the right thing, and if you do not believe in the personal use of abortion (like myself), then the responsible thing to do, the right thing to do, is to not get anyone (our yourself) pregnant. Period.
See how simple that is?
We’ve Got The Spirit, Yes We Do…
About 230 years, and untold hundreds of billions of dollars, ago this country was founded under some pretty cool ideas. By accident of geography, a healthy dash of luck, and a huge amount of sweat, we’ve grown into a wonderfully large and diverse country that makes a HUGE impact on the world, and the world’s culture. We were small, now were large. Can you dig it?
But here’s the thing. In all that growth, in all that advancement of ideas and ideals, in all those billions of dollars made and earned, we still practice politics with slogans that are reduced down to nothing more complicated than can be expressed by a hundred cheering fans at a football game.
Since Barack Obama captured the Democratic nomination, slaying (at least for four more years) the hideous Hilldibeast, and the start of the real election campaigning began (real as in Dems vs. Repubs), the only things that have made the blogosphere are such terribly silly stuff as whether or not McCain is a U.S. citizen, or why Obama will not release his birth certificate.
This is an interesting time in America politics, with a couple of interesting guys running for the big office. They are both pretty sharp, eloquent, camera savvy, and able to work without a teleprompter. These are the kind of guys who can really debate; really get into the meat of an argument, and chew it down to the bone. Yet, the election so far looks to me more like they are campaigning for Prom King, rather than the Most Powerful Man In The World.
The sad part is, this is our own fault. If we only respond to the silly and sensational, then that is what is going to be “in play”, and right now, that is all we’ve got.
We are a country of bigger ideas than “We’ve got the spirit…” (hell, we are a country founded on bigger ideas than that), and right now we have a couple of candidates who are capable of articulating these more complex ideas, and doing it with élan. As citizens would should expect, nay demand, that they raise the bar of electoral communication, and we should do this every time they, the candidates, or any blog or new organization, talks politics.
Do not let anyone else tell you their pet molehill is a mountain. Do not let anyone else lower the bar of political discussion to such crap. We’ve been given such a steady diet of political junk food, for so long, that most of us accept it as a real meal. It’s not, and we shouldn’t.
We finally got some real political chefs in the kitchen. It time to demand something more than hamburgers and hotdogs.