Good post on Superman and the American Way from Jarvis.
All in Politics
Ok, here's something from the, "I don't know nearly enough about my representatives" catagory...
Hilary Clinton doesn't support gay marriage. Really? I had no idea.
So, wait... if 52% of the people (to 38%) of the people in your state are supportive of it, and you're the elected representative, then who exactly are you representing?
I'm a fan of the domino effect... letting the states decide who they want to issue licenses to (since they are, in fact, state licenses)... but its going to be really hard when the supportive states have politicians with their own agenda propping up the domino.
On one hand, she attacks the anti-gay marriage amendment, chastizing Republicans... and on the other she has said in the press that marriage is "between a man and a woman."
In other news, her 2008 Presidential Campaign slogan just got annouced.
Hilary Clinton: I'm for whatever will get me elected.... which means trying to present myself so deeping entrenched in the center that I don't actually stand for anything.
A lot of good that did John Kerry...
In 2008, I hope we have a choice between Mike Bloomberg/John McCain and Al Gore/Barack Obama. I actually think only one of these four, Gore, will make it onto any ticket, but still, with a choice like that, you'd have to feel pretty good about your vote, no matter which way it came out.
I like Scott Adam's ability to make us all realize how self-important we all are.
Today he covered flag burning.
Now, I'm not a fan of flag burning the same way I'm not a fan of tearing up Pope photos or defacating on Yankee jerseys. (oh... wait... about that last one... that's probably ok) But I'd never want to go so far as to make it illegal.
I love his reasoning:
"For me, a flag that I’m NOT allowed to burn is a symbol that the government is too intrusive in my life. And it’s an insult to anyone who died to defend freedom. But that’s just me. You might prefer your symbols of freedom to have as many restrictions as possible.
It seems to me that the great thing about the flag is that it symbolizes something inherently indestructible: the concept of freedom. You can burn the flag as many times as you want and the concept of freedom is not only still there – it’s stronger. I like that about my flag. I would go so far as to say it’s my flag’s best feature."
The American Flag: Growing stronger with every match. You can't burn freedom, punks.
Brad wrote this morning about an interesting take on tech blogging.
Too many people writing about solutions, but not enough people talking about the problems.
At the same time, two people sent me some info on this Sunday's DC rally for Darfur.
I'm a bit cynical about these types of political rallies because I feel like its all about complaining about the problems, but not too many people have actual solutions. Where's the ten step plan for fixing the atrocities in Darfur? I'll get behind a reasonable solution, but I haven't seen any.
Maybe we should get the tech bloggers to bring their 85 calandaring solutions together to come up with one solution for Darfur...
...and then get the political protesters to work on pointing out what the everyday problems in the tech world that the average person needs solving.
I'd love that. Web based, AJAX world peace... and protesters outside Amazon with little "No walled garden" signs.
In the last couple of years, I've had the privilege of working with a lot of college students in various career mentoring programs, and one thing has always stood out at me.
Probably about two thirds or more of the applications for NYSSA's SEMI Program come from either immigrants to this country or children of immigrants. Now, I know that's generally not reflective of the general NYC college student population, so, a disproportionately large percentage of the foreign students are taking advantage of this great opportunity.
I asked one student about this and he told me that education and opportunity is the only reason that he was here--it was the only reason his whole family came here in the first place.
What's really obvious to me is that a lot of the native born students here are simply going to get steamrolled by competition like that... and as well they should be.
So maybe instead of closing the borders, we should be trying to figure out how we can get the people that are here as motivated as the people trying to come here.
So I've been e-mailing with a Jesuit scholastic (someone who is studying to become a priest) about some family values issues and I wanted to blog my response to something he said about beliefs and how I arrive at them:
"Going to be tough to chat via phone... have a very busy schedule over the next few days. Plus, admittedly, I'm a writer. I kind of hate the phone and do my best thinging when I can sit, go back to something, think about it... I find the phone to be unecessarily syncronous when my brain doesn't work that way.
Plus, this is the way the Paul did it, right? :) He would have made a great blogger.
I'm sure we'll run into different definitions of the word faith, but here's one from the Catholic Encyclopedia that seems that you would go on that I have a lot of trouble with.
"...faith must necessarily result in a body of dogmatic beliefs....Objectively, it stands for the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and tradition and which the Church presents to us in a brief form in her creeds..."
"That such Divine faith is necessary, follows from the fact of Divine revelation. For revelation means that the Supreme Truth has spoken to man and revealed to him truths which are not in themselves evident to the human mind. We must, then, either reject revelation altogether, or accept it by faith; that is, we must submit our intellect to truths which we cannot understand, but which come to us on Divine authority."
The problem I have, where this breaks down for me and where it breaks down for a lot of Catholics, or people in general, is that once you get to the point where religion needs to be explained to you by someone with a lot more schooling that you, you don't trust it... because you know that no one is infallable and we are all subject to our own biases. Religion has been used to exploit people, as an excuse to start wars (not talking about today), and as an instrument of fear. (You should see V for Vendetta, btw...) Individual faith doesn't have those negative charactoristics, or at least not to the same extent. If I base my faith on what I believe in my heart and my innate sense of right and wrong, while it is no doubt subject to my own biases, I also don't get the sense that I am using religion to justify an end. Whereas, when you have Divine Revelation explained to you by others that seems to contradict what's in your heart, people get a little suspicious.
So, you could tell me that there is Divine revelation that dictates what family means, but I say that, to me, family is love and support and I see the best kind of love and support in a multitude of different arrangements and architectures. I believe that... it is my own personal faith that it is acceptable to God. Scholars and experts could point out otherwise, but then again, some Church scholars thought the world was flat at one point, too, and that notions of a round world were contrary to scripture. Such is the result when imperfect people try and interpret the Divine."
Link: CNN.com - Long Island principal cancels prom - Oct 16, 2005.
This is interesting... I agree with the idea, but perhaps maybe something less drastic would have worked better. How about a "no limo rule" or holding the school's Disney trip the day after the prom, eliminating the weekend in the Hampton's afterwards. I see what he was trying to do, but now you've just created a vacuum that will be filled by rich parents.