Month: March 2008

You gotta fight for your right… To be emo?

Apparently Mexican riot police have been deployed to several areas to protect citizens from anti-emo riots and demonstrations. And apparently there is a heated cultural controversy over….
Whether or not people should be emo.

Does this make you feel like losing all faith in humanity? I know it tempts me to.

Having front-page headlines on dead strippers and the Iraq death toll on page 8 was one thing. But I haven’t felt this ashamed of my species since it cast more votes for an American Idol than the leader of the free world. If the kind of pants you wear or way you comb your hair is something worth rioting over, real current problems like war, disease, and hunger do not, I want off this planet, please.

Post-Break Motivations

Right now I really, really want to:

  • Kick the tires on FL Studio 8, which just came out
  • Build the new Deliver Me Seven website on WordPress 2.5, which is in Release Candidate stage and looks like an awesome update to the CMS software
  • Write out a couple of percussion pieces for the band (think 3 drummers, one bass.)

Notice anything missing on that list? Yeah, school kind of gets in the way of things. Grr…

Hillary, Release Your Returns!

Hillary Clinton hasn’t released her tax returns since she left the White House. Since then, she has amassed a large amount of wealth – enough to personally loan her campaign $5 million – and the American people have no idea of where she got that money.

Barack Obama – like many members of government – release their taxes to the public regularly. Mrs. Clinton says she will release her returns, but she is “too busy” to do so now.

Mrs. Clinton, you are most certainly busy. Much more so than I. But alas: I am releasing my 2007 tax return to the public, right now. It took me all of five minutes. All it takes is a Sharpie and a quick scan or fax.

Why should we wait until after many more primaries to hear where you got your money? We deserve to know this now, before we cast our votes for or against you. Release your 2000-2007 tax returns to the public. It was easy for me, it will be easy for you.

Tomorrow I will fax my return to the Clinton campaign office. I encourage anyone reading this blog to do so as well:  215.625.0379

9/11 Commentary, in Context

There has been a lot of fuss recently over various presidential candidates’ pastors’ comments. Barack Obama has had some, and John McCain’s pastor is now facing scrutiny as well.

I believe that, except for Governor Huckabee, who is himself a clergyman who chose to run for office, these issues have no relevance to any political campaign, and can only be used as personal proxy attacks with limited factual significance.

However, as this issue currently dominates national news, and it touches on two very important issues – my faith and my politics – I think it deserves to be addressed.

Rev. Wright’s comments post-9/11 were taken out of context by the media – he was quoting a US Ambassador as part of a larger sermon with a different message. Consider his comments in context, compared to those of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on 9/13/2001:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ&hl=en]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-CAcdta_8I&hl=en]

I do not share viewpoints with either of the above videos. I disagree with parts of both. I agree with other parts of both. But the issue deserves better attention than the sensationalism being encouraged by the media and by desperate campaigns right now.

5 Years Later: The Words that Sent Us to War

The Hufffington Post has a good collection of commitments made to the American people regarding the Iraq war.

My personal favorite:

“The idea that it’s going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”

– Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 11/15/02

Try five years, Rumsfeld.

Recession

A USA Today / Gallup poll released yesterday says the following:

  • 3 in 4 Americans agree that we are in an economic recession
  • 59% say it is likely that we will be in a depression that will last several years
  • 79% are worried about a depression

I have few money concerns compared to most of the country, but even I am beginning to feel the squeeze and notice how my dollars don’t go as far as they did just last year.

It’s still early, but this could very well be one of the biggest threats to our country’s future. It makes me wonder about the presidential campaigns right now – if a depression is looming, we need smart people in charge who can make the right decisions to get us back on our feet, free of liberal or conservative agendas.

I honestly don’t know which candidate is the strongest on the economy (Edwards comes to mind, but he’s out), and even an economically weak president could still put very smart people in their administration to right-side the economy.

President Bush’s first campaign was about compassionate conservativism and domestic policy reform. Then 9/11 happened and we had a president with zero foreign policy experience spending most of their time on global affairs. I would hate to see the same happen with the economy, but right now most of what I hear from each candidate has more to do with yesterday’s problems – how to reverse the Bush administrations mistakes, how to deal with the war in Iraq, what to do about healthcare and immigration. These are all important issues, but I am starting to think that the economy really isn’t getting the attention it deserves.