Dear Major News Networks,
I prefer to get my news from your evening news broadcasts because I don't have time to read the news during the work day, and especially don't need the bias of Facebook (pardon the irony that I'm posting this to FB during the workday about how I don't have time...yeah). That being said, I'd like to lodge a serious complaint and recommend a change to your schedule.
My wife does not appreciate the egregious level of violence you depict on TV during the news. I understand that this is 'Murica and not Europe, thus we can show murder live but not nipples in a medical documentary, and you need shock value for attention because your "old media" broadcast is in competition with the internet for viewership... But the fact is when the TV's on, my whole family sees it, and sometimes even I don't care to see that first-person Twitter/Vine of people being shot in the street for the reason du jour from 10 feet away. BTW if you were wondering why people in 'Murica have such a gun violence problem, it's probably because we show real crap like this on TV and it looks surprisingly like playing a lo-res version of Call of Duty which is obv fiction to our generation, but I digress.
Fact is, I'd like to be able to have some discretion about what kind of news I'm about to see on the TV, it's harder to control than the internet. And let's be honest, not a lot really goes on in the world every day, yet you're constantly jumping to be the first to report anything and everything, Balloon Boy lessons be damned. But I do want to know the political news without endangering my poor wife's emotions and children's psychiatric futures. We can kill two birds with one stone here by simply showing the news on more of a daily digest schedule, sorted by category, and then we as viewers can just avoid the days that feature the topics and material we'd rather not face.
On Mondays, we are back to the grind, it's all business and no fun, no one likes Mondays. So let's cover Murica's business that day: "War in Other Countries". I want to see a map, and you can just give cumulative totals for the x,xxx Arabs that died and yy Americans that got injured and/or killed for the week. You're welcome to show the graphic footage if you must, but I'd appreciate saving it for the back half of the show, I mean let's be real, you're trying to "entertain" here, but I want news. Just give me the deets from 6:30-6:45pm, then roll the phone cams for the rest of the half hour. My wife leaves for work by 6:40 anyway, so she can miss the violence, and I can change the channel to spare my kids. Oh, and the in-depth story about the one "lucky" American who died that week that you picked to do a cover story on, save that for Friday (see below).
On Tuesdays, let's knock out the "Terror Everywhere Else". But again, just save it up and give me the digest from the week before, at least I'll know what to expect to see on Tuesday nights. There's usually only one of these a week anyway, you know, San Bernadino, Paris, a subway in London, yada yada. Rather than have us gasp while staring at a complete lack of details, I can wait a week while you gather real information. I'd rather you spent the week figuring out what their nice and happy name was before they changed it after spending too much time on "radical" websites and what not, take some time to find a good before & after beard pic, and get a full record of all those times Homeland/FBI neglected to arrest them from a few years ago. If there weren't any Muslim threats that week, don't forget that terrorism can be domestic too! I'm sure there's a school, theater, or government building full of people who got bombed or shot up otherwise. Same rules apply, just replace "before & after beard" with "mostly spent time to himself alone", and "FBI neglected to arrest" with "legally purchased a gun on (date)", find and replace "Islam" with "mental illness" (not that I want to liken the two, but somehow that's always the motivation... and I don't know why you need a week to figure that out, seems like a canned response anyway). And again, please hold all the amateur video of people actually getting killed until the last 15 minutes or so.
On Wednesdays, let's get the rest of the worst out of our system, we can call it "Hump/Discrimination" day. This will be the day to post the summary of the unarmed black guy or kid that got killed by excessive force from a white officer the week before, and by this time hopefully you've accumulated all the previous strikes against both that officer and the victim, and please try to be fair and get both a happy and a sinister pic for both parties from now on. By waiting a week to post rather than plaster it everywhere before any facts could be gathered, you might give people some time to cool down a little, which may prevent a few of the smaller riots from happening, and with any luck, a jury might have gotten together and a trial could be underway already. Since the Wednesday theme is kind of about "rights" and "not being respected", this is a good time to follow-up on any "ban guns" or "not all Muslims" angles that came about on Monday and Tuesday. Fill the rest of the time slot with stories about lingering prejudice toward homo/trans/multi/fluidsexual unions, cyber-bullying, secret funding of politically-charged causes by seemingly neutral corporations, and the like.
Now on Thursdays, I like to start my weekend early, so let's switch to something more light-hearted: "Politics". The next election seems perennially relevant to you, seeing as how despite the fact that a presidential election only takes place every 4 years, you - and especially the republicans - have been talking about the 2016 election every week since 2011. While I'll admit I always find that enjoyable, honestly in a single week, not much happens on the political front, I think you could consolidate it to one good day a week. Heck, even in the course of a year, it winds up being all hot air, and the lead elephant rotation is about as reliable and relevant as Ryan Seacrest's weekly Top 40. But that aside, I'm sure a good 30-minutes of sound bytes could be scraped together each week between the 30+ presidential hopefuls on that side, and nothing gets me giggling like short-sighted, one-sided, blanket statements from a bunch of old men and the occasional woman who's totally out of touch with reality, one after the other. I mean seriously, this rivals Big Brother in terms of intelligence per interview, it's hysterical, and I LOVE the drama!
For Fridays, people are pretty much done and don't want to think anymore, after a week like that. This is where you can dump all your "human interest stories", you know, the pieces you do in the last 4 minutes of an episode, usually? The stuff I usually read about on Facebook and saw on YouTube two days prior? About the dog that was still waiting for his master after 16 years of sitting on a porch, or the 8 year old girl who wrote a cute petition to her principal urging her classmates to share things, the old lady who plays Rock Band and/or DDR with her great-grandkids, high school boy who made a full court basketball shot, factory workers in America making real 'Murican goods for real 'Murican jobs, blah blah blah. Yeah, you're not any later to the party by putting it off until Friday, and it's fluff anyway, so... just save it for Friday. Including that story about the soldier's poor family who survived him on Monday, and any democratic political events that you didn't get to on Thursday (but I mean actual news, not like a personal email usage scandal, that goes under GOP comedy Thursday).
If you had any real news stories that didn't get covered during the week, like how we're causing the weather or economy to slowly kill us and are too dumb to acknowledge it, those should take precedence on Friday though, and you can push the rest of this "viral video" drivel to the weekend. Yes I know, you should be so lucky as to have any viewers on the weekend anyway, and that's kind of the point. People watching the news on the weekend have nothing better to do and are either looking for fluff entertainment or something to help them sleep anyway, so "On The Road" really has a best fit there.
Sincerely,
Old Media Dad
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Robert Barron's Catholicism >> Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos
"Catholicism" was just as informative and had fewer axes to grind than "Cosmos", and more people should watch it. It's essentially the same program for religion, exploring the awe and beauty of the church established by Christ throughout history, with a surface level education on some of the coolest facts about the church. And it doesn't call out any names of scientists and accuse them of being self-righteous dicks.
I watched Cosmos on Sunday night earnestly hoping to learn something new and cool, and unfortunately I didn't because I already do read about these topics near weekly just for fun. But it was nice to say "Yep, I already knew that!" and the presentation was pretty cool... Except for an uncomfortably long propaganda session bashing the Catholic church (albeit with a really sweet animation style), which took up 12 minutes of the 40 minute broadcast. I thought that time could have been better spent talking about other things. Like science. Or perhaps contributors like Copernicus, or Galileo, with maybe a dismissive blurb about how sometimes they got in trouble with the church, and then Dr. Tyson could've just gone on about more astro-, quantum-, and nuclear physics and how cool they are on their own.
I'm a huge science buff, and I firmly believe the whole "conflict" of science vs. religion is non-existent at best, and ridiculously misunderstood at its worst in the public sphere. Most importantly, modern science owes a great deal to the Catholic church, which in its history is the biggest financial contributor to scientific research, who founded the university system, invented and enforced the scientific method, devised the peer review process for earning doctorate degrees which we still use today, and made countless other contributions to education in general, and science in particular. There's a reason why Europe leads the world in science today. It's because of Catholic scientists like Georges Lemaitre who conjectured the Big Bang Theory, but he was mysteriously left unmentioned in the Big Bang segment of the show.
The relative handful of times the church lashed out at scientists was over heresy, which is a theological offense, not a scientific one. And in every case, the focus of the tribunals was on the heresy itself, while the discoveries, hypotheses, and evidence related to the science that sparked the controversy were largely put on the side for a later, unrelated debate in the scientific sphere. There were occasions of individuals turning these heresy charges into ad hominem attacks against the scientist or his specific contributions, but those were the actions of flawed individuals that stood outside the greater church's mission.
It's important to note that it is a foreign concept to the secular world that "the church" as a term can take many different textured meanings that are blurred in these circumstances, the confusion of which has horrible consequences for the divine church's mission. I'll coin a few terms myself here just to straighten out a few concepts I plan to elaborate on.
The conflict of course arises when the only part of the mystical body of the church that the secular world recognizes is the current corporeal portion of it, and the necessary risks that come from only this mortal section being able to convey the will of the mystical body to the rest of humanity. The corporeal church is inevitably prone to error, but its mission is perfect in that it stems from its identity as the mystical body on earth. A major part of its mission is delivering and preserving the truth of the mystical body of God to His people alive at any given time. This is why the corporeal church cannot change doctrine. It's also why the church identifies heresy and brings it to light, as a necessary part of preserving and defending that truth.
So let's also clear up what heresy is. Heresy is a false teaching about theology that is being proliferated as truth in the theological sphere. It can only be recognized in contrast to the fact that God Himself came to earth in the form of Jesus to give us His divine will, so His life and example is the unquestionable truth straight from God's mind.
Take note that God did not come in the form of some wise, rich, powerful, or educated person, and did not find it important to write His will down. Rather, His son lived a life of example, with a public ministry of three years, during which time He took in many disciples, but a certain twelve men in particular. These 12 apostles lived with the man those three years, and likewise wrote almost nothing down themselves. A scant four books (more like "pamphlets" compared to the volume we write today), written a few decades after His life ended are not going to cover every will and teaching He had, let alone every whim and preference, or nuance to his teaching. But living with the man, they learned a lot more about him, and knew how He thought. His favorite foods, His tone of voice, His nervous ticks and pet peeves. Whether rainy days made Him sad and dreary, or happy that there was nourishment for the earth, or just glad to see variety of weather in the desert. They knew how often He bathed, what foods gave him gas, and whether He was a morning person or not. As an aside, keep in mind this man claimed to be God, was publicly executed, and came back to life, proving that He wasn't just another crazy person, or a diabolical villain capitalizing on the trust of weak-minded people for personal gain. He was the real deal. He was God.
So when someone asks "What did Jesus mean when He said this?", you can be sure the apostles knew. Those apostles instructed their successors on how to live the way Jesus did. Those successors became bishops who appointed new worthy bishops who learned their ways to their satisfaction. Those bishops appointed new successors. Yes, many humans in this line were subject to sin and mistakes - including the first apostles themselves, and in particular our first pope St. Peter! But the Holy Spirit was with them in their authenticity, and good would win out over time. This apostolic succession into the modern day ensures that if anyone knows the truth straight from the mouth of God Himself, these people will be the most reliable resource, flawed as it may be. This is the Catholic church, capital "C".
The danger of heresy is when people make a claim and attribute it as a true teaching of Christianity and usurp the Catholic church's authority to gain credibility for their false teaching.
Hilariously, people who love to get on to the scientific side of the evolution vs. creationism debate should be able to resonate with this danger strongly.
The creationist viewpoint is in fact a scientific "heresy" because it makes claims about the truth of the world based in theology (although a misunderstanding of it from the Catholic church's view) and claims science as its authority falsely to prove this claim. The obvious danger is that people who are not informed could mistake the authority of science used in the argument and believe in creationism as scientific truth, when clear evidence, proven through the scientific method, supports the theory of evolution. Then they'll shape their lives according to this falsehood, leading to shutting one's mind down to the possibility that other scientific research out there is true too. Going to the other extreme, it might force one's worldview to that of Biblical literalism.
This is the same danger of heresy with theology. Someone can't go out and leverage a scientific truth, nor falsify approval of the corporeal church, to prove a theological point which is counter to what people in the apostolic succession know and have deduced through rational philosophy to be a theological truth revealed by God Himself. Uninformed people will mistake that falsehood as the truth of God, and shape their lives according to it, leading them away from God and their salvation, the ultimate purpose of their mortal lives. Or worse, cause them to shut down one's mind to the possibility that other theological knowledge out there is true too. The results of believing this falsehood seem much more dire to me than just being foolish.
So all that being said, let's look at some case studies.
Galileo's much publicized situation has plenty of bad moves on both sides of the issue. Before him, Copernicus first put forth the heliocentric theory, and he gathered some mathematical proof to back up his claims. He took his time not to accidentally imply any related theological conclusions drawn from it. Galileo on the other hand was more than happy to challenge church authorities and mock them, and leveraged his discoveries to give himself clout against them. The mystical body of the church could not allow heresy to go on like that, despite any other truths his thorough research may have revealed. So, using the corporeal branch, the mystical body of the church had to go forward with calling him out, and defending the theological truth that God has put humanity at the fore of his creation for a specific purpose. The geographic or stellar coordinates were rather irrelevant to this truth, and in the actual trials, were rarely referred to.
I expected to see some of this rehashed in Cosmos in its typical biased form, but was surprised, bewildered, and honestly appalled that not only were Galileo and Copernicus mentioned only in passing, but instead this sideshow clown Giordano Bruno was brought in, and his case droned on for a quarter of the broadcast.
Let the public know that first off, Bruno had no scientific evidence to his claims like Copernicus or Galileo. He had a dream about it, and a gut instinct. The Catholic church doesn't even recognize saints on gut instinct, there's an entire logic and evidence-based canonization process. They sure as hell aren't going to accept the ravings of a lunatic unfounded, even if through dumb luck he happened to be right later. And the mystical body is absolutely not going to allow said lunatic to begin preaching heresies based on a hunch, while scientific and theological reasoning are noticeably absent. The whole scripted "I believe an infinite God would have produced infinitely more possibilities in the universe!" or some such drivel that Bruno used in the cartoon in Cosmos is eliciting a sympathetic emotional response while dodging the hard facts of the dangers of the logical heresy, which I think is a low blow to the church. I'll concede that having him burned at the stake isn't consistent with a theology that posits that capital punishment is wrong in all circumstances, and I'll chalk that one up to the fallibility of the corporeal church of the time. But that again, doesn't change the fact that Bruno was a heretic preaching an extrapolated pantheism as Christian doctrine, which should have been and was quashed.
The portrayal of Bruno in Cosmos was not only grossly uninformed of what was at stake, or even historical facts, but it was also unnecessarily dramatized for far too long. I can only interpret that as a direct, prolonged attack on the Catholic church, because it served no other purpose in the show. Yet the Catholic church as the mystical body of God indeed carries forth a higher truth, which should be recognized in the world. Maybe not during the Cosmos program, because theology and the authority of the church are not topics that fall within its scientific sphere, and as such it should have avoided these topics all together. More importantly, why this story? The undermining of the credibility of the corporeal church in a complex, nuanced case like Galileo is one thing, but seriously? Giordano Bruno of all people? He was a dangerous idiot with a lucky guess.
My question is, what would the scientists do if Ken Ham or Stephen Meyer turned out to be right in another 200 years, based on a lucky guess? And yet you see the incensed efforts they make to stamp them out now.
That said, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's portrayal of Bruno is yet another heresy of its own to be stomped out. It leverages science (bad science, at that) and an incomplete presentation of history to prove a theological point about the church's authority and purpose. It twisted the church justifiably doing its job in its own sphere into mistakenly trying to oppress scientific research, portraying it as a villain of progress. That can easily be interpreted by the casual observer that if the church was wrong about an unrelated scientific subject, that ad hominem somehow this means other things the church teaches are wrong too, even within its own sphere of theology. Going to its extreme, it leads to scientific reductionism, the inverse of Biblical literalism - and just as foolish - the ignoring of any and all evidence of the supernatural truths of the universe, because if it isn't in the science journals, then it isn't true! Don't believe his trash and shut your mind down to the good news because of this over-dramatization.
Lastly, to do a favor to Dr. Tyson that was not shown to the church, I will go the extra mile and acknowledge that he is a brilliant and entertaining scientist, and everything else presented in Cosmos was true and awe-inspiring, in what was an otherwise enlightening program. What was left of it in the other 28 minutes, anyway.
I watched Cosmos on Sunday night earnestly hoping to learn something new and cool, and unfortunately I didn't because I already do read about these topics near weekly just for fun. But it was nice to say "Yep, I already knew that!" and the presentation was pretty cool... Except for an uncomfortably long propaganda session bashing the Catholic church (albeit with a really sweet animation style), which took up 12 minutes of the 40 minute broadcast. I thought that time could have been better spent talking about other things. Like science. Or perhaps contributors like Copernicus, or Galileo, with maybe a dismissive blurb about how sometimes they got in trouble with the church, and then Dr. Tyson could've just gone on about more astro-, quantum-, and nuclear physics and how cool they are on their own.
I'm a huge science buff, and I firmly believe the whole "conflict" of science vs. religion is non-existent at best, and ridiculously misunderstood at its worst in the public sphere. Most importantly, modern science owes a great deal to the Catholic church, which in its history is the biggest financial contributor to scientific research, who founded the university system, invented and enforced the scientific method, devised the peer review process for earning doctorate degrees which we still use today, and made countless other contributions to education in general, and science in particular. There's a reason why Europe leads the world in science today. It's because of Catholic scientists like Georges Lemaitre who conjectured the Big Bang Theory, but he was mysteriously left unmentioned in the Big Bang segment of the show.
The relative handful of times the church lashed out at scientists was over heresy, which is a theological offense, not a scientific one. And in every case, the focus of the tribunals was on the heresy itself, while the discoveries, hypotheses, and evidence related to the science that sparked the controversy were largely put on the side for a later, unrelated debate in the scientific sphere. There were occasions of individuals turning these heresy charges into ad hominem attacks against the scientist or his specific contributions, but those were the actions of flawed individuals that stood outside the greater church's mission.
It's important to note that it is a foreign concept to the secular world that "the church" as a term can take many different textured meanings that are blurred in these circumstances, the confusion of which has horrible consequences for the divine church's mission. I'll coin a few terms myself here just to straighten out a few concepts I plan to elaborate on.
- The first one is basic, "the sanctuary," the physical buildings we set aside as "churches," structures where individual parish communities gather. This term is fairly irrelevant to the topic at hand...
- The next is what I'll call "the corporeal church", the group of people alive at any one given time that comprises the clergy - priests, bishops, cardinals, the pope, and other administrators - and really the laity is included here too, regular practicing Catholic parish members. Keep in mind that this is temporal, and the set of people alive in the corporeal church of the 1500s was different from the corporeal church of today. Also remember that it is composed of many human beings, all of which are subject to original sin and are imperfect people.
- Then there's "the mystical body" of the church, which is the extension of God Himself, His presence on earth through Jesus in the marriage of the Trinitarian Holy Spirit to flesh, whose authority was passed on through His spiritual progeny of the apostles and bishops, His physical body shared with and embedded in us through the Eucharist, leaving the full community of the modern catholic (note the little "c" for "universal") church on the material earth. In this sense, the mystical body of the church is not an organization but an organism. It's the true presence of God on earth, and its mission is to make known the ways and will of God in the tangible world, and to bring mortals into Himself through the Holy Spirit. It is from the mystical body that the catechism and doctrine flow infallibly.
The conflict of course arises when the only part of the mystical body of the church that the secular world recognizes is the current corporeal portion of it, and the necessary risks that come from only this mortal section being able to convey the will of the mystical body to the rest of humanity. The corporeal church is inevitably prone to error, but its mission is perfect in that it stems from its identity as the mystical body on earth. A major part of its mission is delivering and preserving the truth of the mystical body of God to His people alive at any given time. This is why the corporeal church cannot change doctrine. It's also why the church identifies heresy and brings it to light, as a necessary part of preserving and defending that truth.
So let's also clear up what heresy is. Heresy is a false teaching about theology that is being proliferated as truth in the theological sphere. It can only be recognized in contrast to the fact that God Himself came to earth in the form of Jesus to give us His divine will, so His life and example is the unquestionable truth straight from God's mind.
Take note that God did not come in the form of some wise, rich, powerful, or educated person, and did not find it important to write His will down. Rather, His son lived a life of example, with a public ministry of three years, during which time He took in many disciples, but a certain twelve men in particular. These 12 apostles lived with the man those three years, and likewise wrote almost nothing down themselves. A scant four books (more like "pamphlets" compared to the volume we write today), written a few decades after His life ended are not going to cover every will and teaching He had, let alone every whim and preference, or nuance to his teaching. But living with the man, they learned a lot more about him, and knew how He thought. His favorite foods, His tone of voice, His nervous ticks and pet peeves. Whether rainy days made Him sad and dreary, or happy that there was nourishment for the earth, or just glad to see variety of weather in the desert. They knew how often He bathed, what foods gave him gas, and whether He was a morning person or not. As an aside, keep in mind this man claimed to be God, was publicly executed, and came back to life, proving that He wasn't just another crazy person, or a diabolical villain capitalizing on the trust of weak-minded people for personal gain. He was the real deal. He was God.
So when someone asks "What did Jesus mean when He said this?", you can be sure the apostles knew. Those apostles instructed their successors on how to live the way Jesus did. Those successors became bishops who appointed new worthy bishops who learned their ways to their satisfaction. Those bishops appointed new successors. Yes, many humans in this line were subject to sin and mistakes - including the first apostles themselves, and in particular our first pope St. Peter! But the Holy Spirit was with them in their authenticity, and good would win out over time. This apostolic succession into the modern day ensures that if anyone knows the truth straight from the mouth of God Himself, these people will be the most reliable resource, flawed as it may be. This is the Catholic church, capital "C".
The danger of heresy is when people make a claim and attribute it as a true teaching of Christianity and usurp the Catholic church's authority to gain credibility for their false teaching.
Hilariously, people who love to get on to the scientific side of the evolution vs. creationism debate should be able to resonate with this danger strongly.
The creationist viewpoint is in fact a scientific "heresy" because it makes claims about the truth of the world based in theology (although a misunderstanding of it from the Catholic church's view) and claims science as its authority falsely to prove this claim. The obvious danger is that people who are not informed could mistake the authority of science used in the argument and believe in creationism as scientific truth, when clear evidence, proven through the scientific method, supports the theory of evolution. Then they'll shape their lives according to this falsehood, leading to shutting one's mind down to the possibility that other scientific research out there is true too. Going to the other extreme, it might force one's worldview to that of Biblical literalism.
This is the same danger of heresy with theology. Someone can't go out and leverage a scientific truth, nor falsify approval of the corporeal church, to prove a theological point which is counter to what people in the apostolic succession know and have deduced through rational philosophy to be a theological truth revealed by God Himself. Uninformed people will mistake that falsehood as the truth of God, and shape their lives according to it, leading them away from God and their salvation, the ultimate purpose of their mortal lives. Or worse, cause them to shut down one's mind to the possibility that other theological knowledge out there is true too. The results of believing this falsehood seem much more dire to me than just being foolish.
So all that being said, let's look at some case studies.
Galileo's much publicized situation has plenty of bad moves on both sides of the issue. Before him, Copernicus first put forth the heliocentric theory, and he gathered some mathematical proof to back up his claims. He took his time not to accidentally imply any related theological conclusions drawn from it. Galileo on the other hand was more than happy to challenge church authorities and mock them, and leveraged his discoveries to give himself clout against them. The mystical body of the church could not allow heresy to go on like that, despite any other truths his thorough research may have revealed. So, using the corporeal branch, the mystical body of the church had to go forward with calling him out, and defending the theological truth that God has put humanity at the fore of his creation for a specific purpose. The geographic or stellar coordinates were rather irrelevant to this truth, and in the actual trials, were rarely referred to.
I expected to see some of this rehashed in Cosmos in its typical biased form, but was surprised, bewildered, and honestly appalled that not only were Galileo and Copernicus mentioned only in passing, but instead this sideshow clown Giordano Bruno was brought in, and his case droned on for a quarter of the broadcast.
Let the public know that first off, Bruno had no scientific evidence to his claims like Copernicus or Galileo. He had a dream about it, and a gut instinct. The Catholic church doesn't even recognize saints on gut instinct, there's an entire logic and evidence-based canonization process. They sure as hell aren't going to accept the ravings of a lunatic unfounded, even if through dumb luck he happened to be right later. And the mystical body is absolutely not going to allow said lunatic to begin preaching heresies based on a hunch, while scientific and theological reasoning are noticeably absent. The whole scripted "I believe an infinite God would have produced infinitely more possibilities in the universe!" or some such drivel that Bruno used in the cartoon in Cosmos is eliciting a sympathetic emotional response while dodging the hard facts of the dangers of the logical heresy, which I think is a low blow to the church. I'll concede that having him burned at the stake isn't consistent with a theology that posits that capital punishment is wrong in all circumstances, and I'll chalk that one up to the fallibility of the corporeal church of the time. But that again, doesn't change the fact that Bruno was a heretic preaching an extrapolated pantheism as Christian doctrine, which should have been and was quashed.
The portrayal of Bruno in Cosmos was not only grossly uninformed of what was at stake, or even historical facts, but it was also unnecessarily dramatized for far too long. I can only interpret that as a direct, prolonged attack on the Catholic church, because it served no other purpose in the show. Yet the Catholic church as the mystical body of God indeed carries forth a higher truth, which should be recognized in the world. Maybe not during the Cosmos program, because theology and the authority of the church are not topics that fall within its scientific sphere, and as such it should have avoided these topics all together. More importantly, why this story? The undermining of the credibility of the corporeal church in a complex, nuanced case like Galileo is one thing, but seriously? Giordano Bruno of all people? He was a dangerous idiot with a lucky guess.
My question is, what would the scientists do if Ken Ham or Stephen Meyer turned out to be right in another 200 years, based on a lucky guess? And yet you see the incensed efforts they make to stamp them out now.
That said, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's portrayal of Bruno is yet another heresy of its own to be stomped out. It leverages science (bad science, at that) and an incomplete presentation of history to prove a theological point about the church's authority and purpose. It twisted the church justifiably doing its job in its own sphere into mistakenly trying to oppress scientific research, portraying it as a villain of progress. That can easily be interpreted by the casual observer that if the church was wrong about an unrelated scientific subject, that ad hominem somehow this means other things the church teaches are wrong too, even within its own sphere of theology. Going to its extreme, it leads to scientific reductionism, the inverse of Biblical literalism - and just as foolish - the ignoring of any and all evidence of the supernatural truths of the universe, because if it isn't in the science journals, then it isn't true! Don't believe his trash and shut your mind down to the good news because of this over-dramatization.
Lastly, to do a favor to Dr. Tyson that was not shown to the church, I will go the extra mile and acknowledge that he is a brilliant and entertaining scientist, and everything else presented in Cosmos was true and awe-inspiring, in what was an otherwise enlightening program. What was left of it in the other 28 minutes, anyway.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Get Off Your High Horse, Ann Romney
I saw on the news last night that the Democrats are apologizing after Ann Romney complained that their recent ad making fun of Romney's dress horse that he wrote off on his taxes was in poor taste because riding that horse is part of her therapy for her multiple sclerosis. Speaking of people being insensitive...
I worked at a camp for children with disabilities for five years or so. We had several kids with MS, muscular distrophy, and a myriad of other disabilities. Trust me I know about people not being sensitive to people's conditions. But that's not what they were poking fun of Ann, in fact you're not even mentioned in the ad.
Austin, a favorite camper of mine, has MS so bad he's confined to a wheelchair. He, like the vast majority of our campers, comes from a rural area, from a middle to lower class family. His family had a hard time paying for his electric wheelchair, but wouldn't have had such a hard time getting it under "Obamacare", since their insurance wouldn't have precluded their purchase due to a pre-existing condition, I'm sure. Pretty sure his family broke into their retirement funds for most of his care and treatments. He was only able to come to camp at all - his favorite two weeks of every year - because generous local Rotary Club members donated to our camp so that he could attend for free.
My point is, most people with MS can't afford dressage therapy to begin with! If you want to know what insensitivity to people's needs and lifestyles is, try repealing Obamacare - which was based off of Mitt's own Massachusetts plan in the first place. Try having all the money in the world, gained by outsourcing jobs to India and spending it on a precious show horse that you didn't even need to pay taxes on, and then using that money to buy an election with the explicit intention of denying someone with muscular sclerosis access to coverage. THAT'S insensitive. Pull your head out of your ass!
--I mean, horse!
* * *
While I'm on the topic, let me point out to anyone who's never thought this through, but people in the health care and insurance industry have been complaining for years that "the reason costs are so high is because of uninsured people taking advantage of health care services." That's from their own mouths. Well, the comprehensive health care plan was addressing that, and I don't see how you could complain about it, considering it only affects you positively, and it's exactly what you asked for.
The idea was for the government to provide a baseline, unimpressive, but all-bases-covered, additional public health care plan option. We're talking COBRA level here, bare bones.
If you have health care coverage that you like - that is to say, you have a job and it has benefits at all - then don't take the government option. You wouldn't anyway. So how does this affect you, self-righteous employed person?
If you are poor and do not have health coverage - for example, you are an entry level burger flipper, or a part-time custodian, because that's the only job left that you qualify for, because you don't have affluent parents so you couldn't afford an education, and this job does not provide health insurance - then you are going to have to take that government option or face the tax penalty. In case you missed the implication, "poor people" does not mean "unemployed", poor people still have jobs, they're just crappy ones that don't afford them a living wage. This may be a surprise to you.
Let me run that by you again: Your choices as a poor person are to take the public option, or pay a tax penalty.
If you take the public option, should you need to go to the hospital for some reason, the insurance that you pay for will help cover that bill. Fewer uninsured people going to the hospital means lower hospital bills and insurance for everyone! Right, health care and insurance providers? Isn't that what you said would happen? Isn't that your excuse for being greedy bast--ahem.
If you, the poor person, instead opt not to take any insurance, you'll have to pay the tax penalty. Now let me remind the GOP fans out there, that you also love to complain about how the poor actually get tax refunds - for shame! Well, that tax penalty, that you love to bitch about that wouldn't even apply to you because you wouldn't even be in this position I'm describing right now in a million years, happens to do nothing but cut into that tax refund they'd be getting. Shouldn't you be happy about this, republicans? That the poor are receiving "less free money" because they didn't take the government option? Like where in the hell do you get off being outraged about this "mandate"? It doesn't even affect you, and does actually hurt poor people, so that should absolutely thrill you.
Last but not least, let me explain how a tax penalty actually works. If you're entirely homeless and unemployed and you have to go to the hospital, yes, it costs everyone more insurance premiums to care for you (in theory, so the industry tells us). Obviously you didn't take the government public option, so you would be subject to the tax penalty "mandate"... if you paid federal taxes in the first place. But seeing as how you didn't have an income, there are no taxes to take. So anyone harping on the "mandate" being unfair to poor people who couldn't afford it is spewing complete bull and has no idea what they're talking about.
Then of course there's pre-existing conditions benefits and what not, basically it's good for everyone. EVERYONE. The fact is, 1%ers like Rick Scott only want you to hate Obamacare because it means lower costs and better competition causes his insurance company that he owns to be unable to afford to pay him 500 times your salary, and he'll need to settle for 450 times your salary, and that make widdle Wick cwy.
I worked at a camp for children with disabilities for five years or so. We had several kids with MS, muscular distrophy, and a myriad of other disabilities. Trust me I know about people not being sensitive to people's conditions. But that's not what they were poking fun of Ann, in fact you're not even mentioned in the ad.
Austin, a favorite camper of mine, has MS so bad he's confined to a wheelchair. He, like the vast majority of our campers, comes from a rural area, from a middle to lower class family. His family had a hard time paying for his electric wheelchair, but wouldn't have had such a hard time getting it under "Obamacare", since their insurance wouldn't have precluded their purchase due to a pre-existing condition, I'm sure. Pretty sure his family broke into their retirement funds for most of his care and treatments. He was only able to come to camp at all - his favorite two weeks of every year - because generous local Rotary Club members donated to our camp so that he could attend for free.
My point is, most people with MS can't afford dressage therapy to begin with! If you want to know what insensitivity to people's needs and lifestyles is, try repealing Obamacare - which was based off of Mitt's own Massachusetts plan in the first place. Try having all the money in the world, gained by outsourcing jobs to India and spending it on a precious show horse that you didn't even need to pay taxes on, and then using that money to buy an election with the explicit intention of denying someone with muscular sclerosis access to coverage. THAT'S insensitive. Pull your head out of your ass!
--I mean, horse!
* * *
While I'm on the topic, let me point out to anyone who's never thought this through, but people in the health care and insurance industry have been complaining for years that "the reason costs are so high is because of uninsured people taking advantage of health care services." That's from their own mouths. Well, the comprehensive health care plan was addressing that, and I don't see how you could complain about it, considering it only affects you positively, and it's exactly what you asked for.
The idea was for the government to provide a baseline, unimpressive, but all-bases-covered, additional public health care plan option. We're talking COBRA level here, bare bones.
If you have health care coverage that you like - that is to say, you have a job and it has benefits at all - then don't take the government option. You wouldn't anyway. So how does this affect you, self-righteous employed person?
If you are poor and do not have health coverage - for example, you are an entry level burger flipper, or a part-time custodian, because that's the only job left that you qualify for, because you don't have affluent parents so you couldn't afford an education, and this job does not provide health insurance - then you are going to have to take that government option or face the tax penalty. In case you missed the implication, "poor people" does not mean "unemployed", poor people still have jobs, they're just crappy ones that don't afford them a living wage. This may be a surprise to you.
Let me run that by you again: Your choices as a poor person are to take the public option, or pay a tax penalty.
If you take the public option, should you need to go to the hospital for some reason, the insurance that you pay for will help cover that bill. Fewer uninsured people going to the hospital means lower hospital bills and insurance for everyone! Right, health care and insurance providers? Isn't that what you said would happen? Isn't that your excuse for being greedy bast--ahem.
If you, the poor person, instead opt not to take any insurance, you'll have to pay the tax penalty. Now let me remind the GOP fans out there, that you also love to complain about how the poor actually get tax refunds - for shame! Well, that tax penalty, that you love to bitch about that wouldn't even apply to you because you wouldn't even be in this position I'm describing right now in a million years, happens to do nothing but cut into that tax refund they'd be getting. Shouldn't you be happy about this, republicans? That the poor are receiving "less free money" because they didn't take the government option? Like where in the hell do you get off being outraged about this "mandate"? It doesn't even affect you, and does actually hurt poor people, so that should absolutely thrill you.
Last but not least, let me explain how a tax penalty actually works. If you're entirely homeless and unemployed and you have to go to the hospital, yes, it costs everyone more insurance premiums to care for you (in theory, so the industry tells us). Obviously you didn't take the government public option, so you would be subject to the tax penalty "mandate"... if you paid federal taxes in the first place. But seeing as how you didn't have an income, there are no taxes to take. So anyone harping on the "mandate" being unfair to poor people who couldn't afford it is spewing complete bull and has no idea what they're talking about.
Then of course there's pre-existing conditions benefits and what not, basically it's good for everyone. EVERYONE. The fact is, 1%ers like Rick Scott only want you to hate Obamacare because it means lower costs and better competition causes his insurance company that he owns to be unable to afford to pay him 500 times your salary, and he'll need to settle for 450 times your salary, and that make widdle Wick cwy.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Fun Political Thought Experiment
I'll throw it out here now: I'm a devout Roman Catholic. I've read and studied and questioned my faith my entire life, and I've chosen this path through reason and rational thought, and even challenged myself to live as an atheist for a few months to see if it could apply and I just couldn't do it. I know it's the truth, for me, and part of demonstrating my faith and love entails being open to hearing and trying on other viewpoints and being respectful to those that hold them even if I disagree. Rising above the conflict with cool heads promotes real progress between varied peoples.
One thing I find funny though, and am a bit at odds with in the Catholic community, is that many priests and practitioners will try to influence people to vote a certain way. I am not knocking the church itself, because the Popes have made it very clear that they do not influence state politics anywhere in the world, they just inform moral opinion, which of course people use to discern their votes. There's a significant difference there, and I like that and respect the church for it... at the international level. However, once you get down to the locality of bishops and below, some of those clergy have been known to take it upon themselves to explicitly say "Vote against Amendment #34" or whatever, which to me is wrong. The church at the higher levels absolutely believes in separation of church vs. state, and even Jesus told us to give to Caesar what is Caesar's.
I think what people forget to consider in that separation is the role of each. Yes, the church is doing its role by informing our moral opinions. But that's also because those of us who hear the church's teaching are more often than not, part of the church. We fall under its jurisdiction, which is wonderful in building community across the country and around the world. The voice and law of Catholicism reaches us across seas and domains of leadership, it affects the man in the desert, and the woman on the island, and the children in the snow. As the Universal church, its reach is everywhere. That's really cool. And it can inform our morality everywhere. Cool, cool. And the beauty of freedom of religion, which is law nearly everywhere now, is that we choose to fall under the reach of the church no matter where we are geographically. That's amazing.
But the state's jurisdiction is drawn in the dirt. Atheists, Protestants, Buddhists, and Catholics, are all Americans, and for the most part, it's hard for us to change that fact. And the laws we vote into action affect all of us, often times against our will, within that jurisdiction. That's why we're trying democracy, so that at least most of us had a voice. Granted, part of authority, even like the church's, is that they have to make laws that not everyone agrees with, that's just a fact of life on earth. But thanks to the freedom of religion, if you disagree with the Catholic church, well then leave it! Become an Episcopalian or whatever works for you, no one's stopping you! Just change your mind, and you're out of their reach. But to escape the jurisdiction of the law of the state, you need to change your geography. That's way easier said than done.
Yeah, as Catholics we should totally let our morality and the church inform our opinions on our vote, but this concept is completely lost on a lot of people that how you vote - even if it's the right thing - does have a real affect on your neighbors who disagree with you. This can overlap with lots of other topics too like evangelization; I personally believe you can catch more flies with honey, and beating people over the head with your faith doesn't convert them. I also believe you can't force someone to love you because at that point you've broken the definition of love, which should be freely chosen, ergo free will was given to us by God, but that's digressing. My point is, no one in this country wants to vote thinking about their fellow man. They want their opinion to win in politics, rather than working as a team. They forget that they are as much American as they are Catholics.
I bring this up because after reading about Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Family Planning, I realized that politically, I am pretty moderate in the United States political theater (let's be honest, that's what it is), because I fall on both camps, yet really my Catholic background determines my "side" of every issue we vote on. I'm socially conservative, but fiscally liberal, and I think that suits Catholic teaching, but surprisingly does not suit the way certain priests have told me to vote.
It's true, I'm hardcore Catholic, by reasoned choice. I'm very pro-life, vehemently against both abortion and contraception. I'm in favor of charity work, making sure people are rightfully paid a living wage, enough to raise their family on and pay for a house, but not a lavish lifestyle. I believe marriage is a special sacrament between a man and a woman and they symbolize a deeper love that the Father has for all humans on earth because whether they agree to it or not, they are His children. I believe in forgiveness, love, and consideration of your neighbor. These are all informed by my Catholic morals, learned through years of philosophy within the church.
But I'm also an American, and not by choice, though I have a little pride in my position. I believe in freedom, democracy, concern for fellow man, justice, and the like. And when I consider all the things I just said about separation of church and state, and realizing how my actions affect those in my dual jurisdictions that I find myself in, I actually want to make some compromises. I think it's wrong to make abortion and contraception illegal across the board. I think they're abominations to human life, but the fact is not everyone in my state agrees with me, and those that disagree will take a lot of risks to their health and harm others on the way if they resorted to illegal methods to achieve their goals. I think it's wrong to deny gay couples the right to "be married" under the law of the state, because if one of them goes to the hospital, or dies and has to bequeath their belongings, that person, as a person who does love as Jesus loves in some ways, is best served being able to receive the company of their companion, and leave their legacy to that companion. That companion knows them best and is in the best position to help that person. Make no mistake, I see the "marriage" as a hollow, pale comparison to what I view marriage as, but as for rights under the law, it's simply unAmerican to deny them certain rights. I think it's wrong for CEOs to make over 400 times as much as their average worker's salary, while their own workforce has to negotiate which bill they won't pay that month, between their food, electricity, and mortgage.
That's why I'm writing this article. I think the two-party system is atrociously flawed in the fact that we only have two choices, between two candidates, to make all our decisions on all issues. I think it's especially wrong that priests - fallen humans like the rest of us who have their share of faults, and that's forgivable because we're all humans - might force people to vote for one party, because of a pet issue that the Catholic church is vehemently against. Do they seriously want us to vote a Republican into office because they think that person will be able to make abortion illegal entirely? Is that worth the cost of starving us all and denying 98% of the population affordable health care? It makes it very hard for a rational, moral person to vote for one party or the other, because they've taken every Catholic belief I have, and divvied them up between them, and I have to sell myself out either way. It used to be that any candidate had to strive toward political center to get the most votes, and cherry pick a few issues from the other party's traditional platform to support as a compromise. That left more variety of choices. But now I have to side with gluttons and spit on the poor to win the dignity of an unborn child. I have to join forces with people living in sin to promote a living wage. In the meanwhile, all we've done is cause the American population to fiercely divide and hate each other, and throw compromise to the wind, because it's about one party winning, not any coherent set of issues prevailing within our borders. It's great that we can all choose our religion, but there isn't much most of us can do about our geographic location. So why can't we work like neighbors?
A completely unrealistic solution I had was to have a government wherein we vote on our officials based on singular issues. A candidate would run as the pro-life vs. the pro-choice candidate, and that is the only issue that either of them can vote on. Yeah, I realize that we'd have to quintuple the size of congress, which is a sinking ship as it is, just so we could accommodate so many people into so many specialized committees - which is what we do already is assign arbitrary people to committees for special interest laws. My idea is really clunky, and I don't know how we'd do it logistically, but wouldn't it be nice to know that a candidate I voted for, would actually do the things I voted for them to do? I mean, I voted for Obama because he seemed like he'd be a great negotiator (which let's face it, he tried to be, and at the first sign of weakness, the GOP galvanized itself to brick-wall him at every turn since), and mostly because he cared about the middle class worker being able to live comfortably and afford a home. "The American Dream." I liked the idea of fixing a very greedy health care, pharmaceutical, and insurance system. I did not like the idea that he'd be promoting pro-choice or gay rights issues very much, and that's not why I voted for him, but... them's the breaks, and compromises have to be made. Because I did not elect him Pope. I elected him President.
So Catholics, tell me. Have you stopped to consider how short-sighted it is to always vote Republican? Do you let one pet issue inform your entire vote? Because any elected official makes more than one decision in a term, and on more than just your pet issue. Think hard, think about every issue separately, and think about all of us. Including that nice agnostic girl who babysits your children, she's been your best friend for a few years. You know, she's a good girl and she has to feed her kids too, and they need health care coverage. If want to evangelize her about the psychological dangers of abortion, go ahead, but let her agree with you on her own terms, don't force her to. You are not her parents. You are not her church. You ARE her geographical neighbor. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's if that's what she wants. Your God gave her free will, let her use it. You might have been told to admonish the sinner and spread the good news, but above all your instruction was to love your neighbor. You will catch more flies with honey, and the cream of good reasoning will boil to the top. Let God reach that person, through examples of your love if necessary. But using your vote to force your state to force your church upon her isn't doing you any favors for credibility for your beliefs in her mind. Voting a candidate into office based on one goal is narrow-minded and foolhardy. I don't care if you still want to vote GOP, that's your choice, I'll still love you, I just want to know that you really, really thought about it, and realized the repercussions. ALL of them.
One thing I find funny though, and am a bit at odds with in the Catholic community, is that many priests and practitioners will try to influence people to vote a certain way. I am not knocking the church itself, because the Popes have made it very clear that they do not influence state politics anywhere in the world, they just inform moral opinion, which of course people use to discern their votes. There's a significant difference there, and I like that and respect the church for it... at the international level. However, once you get down to the locality of bishops and below, some of those clergy have been known to take it upon themselves to explicitly say "Vote against Amendment #34" or whatever, which to me is wrong. The church at the higher levels absolutely believes in separation of church vs. state, and even Jesus told us to give to Caesar what is Caesar's.
I think what people forget to consider in that separation is the role of each. Yes, the church is doing its role by informing our moral opinions. But that's also because those of us who hear the church's teaching are more often than not, part of the church. We fall under its jurisdiction, which is wonderful in building community across the country and around the world. The voice and law of Catholicism reaches us across seas and domains of leadership, it affects the man in the desert, and the woman on the island, and the children in the snow. As the Universal church, its reach is everywhere. That's really cool. And it can inform our morality everywhere. Cool, cool. And the beauty of freedom of religion, which is law nearly everywhere now, is that we choose to fall under the reach of the church no matter where we are geographically. That's amazing.
But the state's jurisdiction is drawn in the dirt. Atheists, Protestants, Buddhists, and Catholics, are all Americans, and for the most part, it's hard for us to change that fact. And the laws we vote into action affect all of us, often times against our will, within that jurisdiction. That's why we're trying democracy, so that at least most of us had a voice. Granted, part of authority, even like the church's, is that they have to make laws that not everyone agrees with, that's just a fact of life on earth. But thanks to the freedom of religion, if you disagree with the Catholic church, well then leave it! Become an Episcopalian or whatever works for you, no one's stopping you! Just change your mind, and you're out of their reach. But to escape the jurisdiction of the law of the state, you need to change your geography. That's way easier said than done.
Yeah, as Catholics we should totally let our morality and the church inform our opinions on our vote, but this concept is completely lost on a lot of people that how you vote - even if it's the right thing - does have a real affect on your neighbors who disagree with you. This can overlap with lots of other topics too like evangelization; I personally believe you can catch more flies with honey, and beating people over the head with your faith doesn't convert them. I also believe you can't force someone to love you because at that point you've broken the definition of love, which should be freely chosen, ergo free will was given to us by God, but that's digressing. My point is, no one in this country wants to vote thinking about their fellow man. They want their opinion to win in politics, rather than working as a team. They forget that they are as much American as they are Catholics.
I bring this up because after reading about Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Family Planning, I realized that politically, I am pretty moderate in the United States political theater (let's be honest, that's what it is), because I fall on both camps, yet really my Catholic background determines my "side" of every issue we vote on. I'm socially conservative, but fiscally liberal, and I think that suits Catholic teaching, but surprisingly does not suit the way certain priests have told me to vote.
It's true, I'm hardcore Catholic, by reasoned choice. I'm very pro-life, vehemently against both abortion and contraception. I'm in favor of charity work, making sure people are rightfully paid a living wage, enough to raise their family on and pay for a house, but not a lavish lifestyle. I believe marriage is a special sacrament between a man and a woman and they symbolize a deeper love that the Father has for all humans on earth because whether they agree to it or not, they are His children. I believe in forgiveness, love, and consideration of your neighbor. These are all informed by my Catholic morals, learned through years of philosophy within the church.
But I'm also an American, and not by choice, though I have a little pride in my position. I believe in freedom, democracy, concern for fellow man, justice, and the like. And when I consider all the things I just said about separation of church and state, and realizing how my actions affect those in my dual jurisdictions that I find myself in, I actually want to make some compromises. I think it's wrong to make abortion and contraception illegal across the board. I think they're abominations to human life, but the fact is not everyone in my state agrees with me, and those that disagree will take a lot of risks to their health and harm others on the way if they resorted to illegal methods to achieve their goals. I think it's wrong to deny gay couples the right to "be married" under the law of the state, because if one of them goes to the hospital, or dies and has to bequeath their belongings, that person, as a person who does love as Jesus loves in some ways, is best served being able to receive the company of their companion, and leave their legacy to that companion. That companion knows them best and is in the best position to help that person. Make no mistake, I see the "marriage" as a hollow, pale comparison to what I view marriage as, but as for rights under the law, it's simply unAmerican to deny them certain rights. I think it's wrong for CEOs to make over 400 times as much as their average worker's salary, while their own workforce has to negotiate which bill they won't pay that month, between their food, electricity, and mortgage.
That's why I'm writing this article. I think the two-party system is atrociously flawed in the fact that we only have two choices, between two candidates, to make all our decisions on all issues. I think it's especially wrong that priests - fallen humans like the rest of us who have their share of faults, and that's forgivable because we're all humans - might force people to vote for one party, because of a pet issue that the Catholic church is vehemently against. Do they seriously want us to vote a Republican into office because they think that person will be able to make abortion illegal entirely? Is that worth the cost of starving us all and denying 98% of the population affordable health care? It makes it very hard for a rational, moral person to vote for one party or the other, because they've taken every Catholic belief I have, and divvied them up between them, and I have to sell myself out either way. It used to be that any candidate had to strive toward political center to get the most votes, and cherry pick a few issues from the other party's traditional platform to support as a compromise. That left more variety of choices. But now I have to side with gluttons and spit on the poor to win the dignity of an unborn child. I have to join forces with people living in sin to promote a living wage. In the meanwhile, all we've done is cause the American population to fiercely divide and hate each other, and throw compromise to the wind, because it's about one party winning, not any coherent set of issues prevailing within our borders. It's great that we can all choose our religion, but there isn't much most of us can do about our geographic location. So why can't we work like neighbors?
A completely unrealistic solution I had was to have a government wherein we vote on our officials based on singular issues. A candidate would run as the pro-life vs. the pro-choice candidate, and that is the only issue that either of them can vote on. Yeah, I realize that we'd have to quintuple the size of congress, which is a sinking ship as it is, just so we could accommodate so many people into so many specialized committees - which is what we do already is assign arbitrary people to committees for special interest laws. My idea is really clunky, and I don't know how we'd do it logistically, but wouldn't it be nice to know that a candidate I voted for, would actually do the things I voted for them to do? I mean, I voted for Obama because he seemed like he'd be a great negotiator (which let's face it, he tried to be, and at the first sign of weakness, the GOP galvanized itself to brick-wall him at every turn since), and mostly because he cared about the middle class worker being able to live comfortably and afford a home. "The American Dream." I liked the idea of fixing a very greedy health care, pharmaceutical, and insurance system. I did not like the idea that he'd be promoting pro-choice or gay rights issues very much, and that's not why I voted for him, but... them's the breaks, and compromises have to be made. Because I did not elect him Pope. I elected him President.
So Catholics, tell me. Have you stopped to consider how short-sighted it is to always vote Republican? Do you let one pet issue inform your entire vote? Because any elected official makes more than one decision in a term, and on more than just your pet issue. Think hard, think about every issue separately, and think about all of us. Including that nice agnostic girl who babysits your children, she's been your best friend for a few years. You know, she's a good girl and she has to feed her kids too, and they need health care coverage. If want to evangelize her about the psychological dangers of abortion, go ahead, but let her agree with you on her own terms, don't force her to. You are not her parents. You are not her church. You ARE her geographical neighbor. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's if that's what she wants. Your God gave her free will, let her use it. You might have been told to admonish the sinner and spread the good news, but above all your instruction was to love your neighbor. You will catch more flies with honey, and the cream of good reasoning will boil to the top. Let God reach that person, through examples of your love if necessary. But using your vote to force your state to force your church upon her isn't doing you any favors for credibility for your beliefs in her mind. Voting a candidate into office based on one goal is narrow-minded and foolhardy. I don't care if you still want to vote GOP, that's your choice, I'll still love you, I just want to know that you really, really thought about it, and realized the repercussions. ALL of them.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
A Model?
I don't plan to cover this topic too often, if ever, because it is such a touchy one. But I have to say this post by another blogger out there was absolutely amazing. Specifically, I think the key line he mentions is this:
"I won’t get into the boring details of the research here, but basically when sex is done right, at its deepest level it is about intimacy. It is about one human being connecting with another human being they love."
That and the fact that his reasons to marry were not based in his ability to have sex for pleasure, but because he saw the beauty of biological family and dedication to what real love is. I agree with him that I think those should be the foremost reasons any two people - no matter their orientations - should want to get married. As an aside, civil rights are civil rights, that isn't a question about "marriage" to me. :P
Before my foot gets too deep in my mouth, I'll let him speak for himself...
http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html
"I won’t get into the boring details of the research here, but basically when sex is done right, at its deepest level it is about intimacy. It is about one human being connecting with another human being they love."
That and the fact that his reasons to marry were not based in his ability to have sex for pleasure, but because he saw the beauty of biological family and dedication to what real love is. I agree with him that I think those should be the foremost reasons any two people - no matter their orientations - should want to get married. As an aside, civil rights are civil rights, that isn't a question about "marriage" to me. :P
Before my foot gets too deep in my mouth, I'll let him speak for himself...
http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
T-Mobile Presents: How Not To Earn Consumers' Trust Through "Discounts" on Referrals
My brother had a really good deal from T-Mobile. Got a relatively cheap smart phone for himself and his wife, and they let him pay for the phone in installments, $10 per phone per month until it was paid off, so no real initial fee. Let him keep his number, and the plan called for unlimited voice, text, AND data for like $50 a month, plus tax and the cost of the phones, whatever. Not a bad deal! I'd heard that T-Mobile has terrible coverage though, especially compared to my previous provider, Verizon - with whom I always had great customer service and amazing coverage with no roaming ever, I even got reception on camping trips. But Verizon, I'm sorry, I just can't afford your data plan, even your cheap limited one. So I had to say goodbye...
Especially when T-Mobile even offered me a referral deal! According to the in-store associate, all I had to do was give them my brother's name for referring me, and they'd give him AND me a $25 discount on our next monthly bill! Rock out!
Of course, I had to submit this referral through their website. Their website, I have to say, isn't the neatest thing to navigate through, kinda confusing. And go figure, they hide the referral thing pretty well. Finally found it, submitted his name. Oops, since he's the referrer, he needs to submit it not me. Of course, seeing as how we would be getting the same discount, and he is clearly a long-time customer and I am new, they should've been able to figure out it out. Right? Nope, got denied. Called into service, they couldn't fix it for me over the phone, I had to cancel and resubmit. I called my brother, told him where to go, he submitted, but then he got denied for trying to refer me twice? I called into service again, they said I had to give them the last four digits of my social security number and the credit card I pay my bill with, fine. They also wanted my brother's. Of course, I didn't have it on hand, I'd have to call him, and get him to call them, and the service lady says that's not good enough, we need to be on the same phone call. A conference call? Really? We said we'd do it, then never did, because... well, we were exhausted and quit caring. Three months later, the following email came. Then my brother responded, which we know T-Mobile won't read, but hopefully you will.
I'm still sticking with you T-Mobile, only because you're dirt cheap - Verizon, want to buy me back? But it's sad when the reason I wouldn't refer a friend to T-Mobile isn't because of their poor coverage, but because of their God-awful, powerless customer service, and fine print policies.
===============
From: T-Mobile Refer-A-Friend
To: [my brother Andy]
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2012 8:38 PM
Subject: Your Referral was denied
To: [my brother Andy]
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2012 8:38 PM
Subject: Your Referral was denied
Thanks for referring Alan to the T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend program. We appreciate that you suggested us to Alan, but we’re unable to process your referral at this time.
To review the T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend program Terms and Conditions, have a look at the program website. To speak with one of us about why we were unable to move this referral forward, feel free to contact us using the form on the T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend website.
T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend is our thank-you for sharing your friends with us, and we do our best, whenever possible, to make it worthwhile for you and for them.
Cheers,
Your T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend Program Support Team
To contact the program support team, sign in to the T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend program website at http://T-Mobile.com/referral and submit your question using the form on the Contact Us page. You will also find more T-Mobile Refer-a-Friend information including Program Rules and Terms & Conditions.
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On 4/17/2012 8:44 AM, [My Brother] wrote:
It's quite simple: I referred my brother, Alan [same last name, obviously], to use T-Mobile. My brother, Alan [same last name, obviously], then subscribed to T-Mobile--therefore I referred my brother, Alan [same last name, obviously], to T-Mobile and we deserve the referral reward. Simple.
Then the endless hoops for which we had to jump through began and we fought over $25 dollars which we thought would be a simple process. Twenty-five dollars should mean a lot more to me and my brother than it does to T-Mobile, but I guess times really are hard.Keep it.Andy [same last name, obviously]T-Mobile customer since 2009
======= UPDATE! 6/27/2012 =======
I got a text message survey from T-Mobile a few weeks ago, just two questions, they wanted single digit responses to make it easy. I figured what the heck, wouldn't take too long, so I went ahead and sent 1-5 ratings back on the two questions, I think it was overall satisfaction and would I refer someone, which I think I gave 4 and 3 responses or the like. Again, I don't hate T-Mobile, they just left a sour taste in my mouth.
So, T-Mobile, I publicly forgive you. And to the rest of you out there, it pays to take customer feedback surveys!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Forbes.com Doesn't Want My Business
Dear Forbes Magazine,
I was reading a very interesting article on your website regarding internet piracy today, I found it eye opening and informing. I was also very impressed to find you had an author entirely dedicated to digital age topics including video gaming. I was surprised to find such progressive and smart articles on Forbes.com, when Forbes Magazine gets a certain stigma attached to it for being only for the richest people in America, who likewise get an awful reputation for being short-sighted, conceited, selfish and the like, leading to things like our 99% vs. 1% Occupy movement and similar buzz words.
I enjoyed the article so much that I moved on to a second article. A pop-up appeared asking me to take a survey, which I could do when I was done reading, and I was gleefully looking forward to leaving positive feedback, truly enjoying my visit with such varied article topics, well-written and entertaining. I even read a third article first. Then on to the survey.
It began with some of the standards, "Is the site easy to navigate?", "Have the articles met your expectations?", et cetera. I answered honestly of course, yes, it seems clean, no, not too cluttered with ads, I don't know, I haven't actually tried to search for a particular article yet, so I can't make an informed decision about your search function...
Then the survey took a turn for the uncomfortable.
"Do you consider yourself an investor, or a financial professional?" Drop down options include "Investor", "Financial Professional", "Both", and "Neither." Well, "neither" I guess suits me.
Another subtly condescending question, "What is your occupation?" Options included "CEO", "CFO", "CIO", "COO", "Other C-Level Position" which I found considerably haughty as any of the others could have substituted for anything else I could imagine, "Director", "Manager", "Consultant", "Student", "Sales", and "Other", among others. No where in here are "Service professional", "Web developer", "Programmer", "Database Administrator", "Food-service Professional", "Factory Floor Worker", "Real Estate Broker", or any other of thousands of other occupations or even umbrella descriptions of other jobs that people have were available for options. Out of upwards of 15 options, apparently the only jobs one could fathom a reader of Forbes could have are some form of business owner, their management, or someone who sells their products. Don't bother to consider the other half of the payroll who makes any business run. Half, by population. Half or more of every company's employee roll call are the people who do the legwork who actually get stuff done. Not a single option out 15+ options in the drop down described me besides "other".
It makes me appreciate what it must be like to be a Bank of America teller. To try to defend my business on a daily basis, while people scream in my face about unnecessary fees, or being charged twice for the same mishandled charge, or having a promptly mailed bill be charged late fees. Pleading with customers face to face every day trying to convince them to stay with the bank, while we change their terms of service and their credit card interest rates, and threaten to add a surcharge to debit fees. Yeah, I'd feel a little guilty charging my client to use a service that they can't live without. I wonder what dealing with the stress of that would be like, eight long hours every day of taking the heat from dissatisfied clients, who are angry about policies my employer made, nothing that I had a hand in deciding, nothing my manager, or their regional manager, or their manager's manager decided, yet I have to deal with the backlash. Just a couple of millionaires in suits making those policies, most of whom I couldn't even name, because I'm just a teller, and what I do isn't appreciated by this company. That's okay, at least I'm being paid barely above minimum wage at the end of the week, it's so worth it to be yelled at all day, being responsible for decisions I didn't make that made other people billions of dollars, while I go home after a stressful week and figure out if I have enough to pay the rent and the electric bill this week. I might think about dropping my cell phone or cable bill, except that without internet and phone access, I can't keep my job or look for better ones, or keep going to school, they're necessary to stay afloat. Gas, which is constantly rising, is also another 15% of my income, but it's something I can't avoid because I will lose this precious Bank of America teller job if I can't drive to work. It's too bad I have to deal with the constant influx of absolutely pissed customers, rightly pissed about what's happened to them. Maybe I should transfer to phone customer service in the call center, at least they don't feel the spit from angry customers in their faces. I also know they aren't paid any better, in fact probably less, and face the same basic needs fulfilling challenges that I am. I'd really like to afford a glass of whiskey to forget about this stress for a day, but I can't afford it. I know for certain that our executive staff is forgetting about the stress they have to deal with off at some yacht party. I'm really glad they are held accountable for the business decisions they made.
In real life, I personally like my job. It isn't glamorous, but I take pride in what I do. I like to think I contribute to my lower mid-size company's success. But according to Forbes, there are 15 other top-level positions that I ought to have, should I be considered a worthy reader, or I could be one of two slave positions: "Salesperson", or "Other." Thanks. I should point out that these translate to me as "Someone who brings us more money" or "Who are you, again?" Really makes me feel appreciated as a customer reading Forbes. Now I know why I don't come here. Yet the insults continue.
"How much do you have in liquid assets?" I laughed before I could even look at the options. Sure enough, the minimum option is "Under $250,000". I'm sorry that, again, out of about 10 or 15 brackets shown, my liquid assets don't add up to your minimum recognized. I hate to deliver this reality check so sharply, and stop me if you've heard this one, but I believe that 99% of our country doesn't make $250,000 GROSS income in a year, let alone has it lying around in liquid assets. Those numbers ought to ring a lot of bells, I believe Obama wanted to have some tax reform that only affected people making more than $250,000 a year, which would have only affected 1% of the American population, it's now becoming all too apparent to me that these numbers weren't just pulled out of the blue as convenient, memorable numbers. No, it's apparently the entry fee to be recognized as a customer at something like Forbes.com, glad I don't subscribe to your magazine, what is the subscription fee? A paltry $1200 a year? Maybe some of my math is off, you can have your "financial experts" correct me by another 1% if it's actually the 98% of us who don't even make that much in a year, gross income, before mortgage, food, transportation, et cetera. But it might be worth it to recognize that every click through to your site is a click through to your site, whether I'm wearing a three-piece suit or a hoodie.
My favorite part of the survey was the last line, that if I entered my email address I would be entered to win a weekly drawing for $500 or something. Yeah, I threw my email in that pot. You know why? Because for someone in the 99% like me, that $500 matters. But for any other "qualified", "average" reader of your site, they might not notice that figure, they might find that stuck to the bottom of their shoe walking around their office bathroom. You may as well have a drawing for free lollipops. After all, there's a sucker born every minute.
There's something to be said about catering to a target audience. I've done marketing, I get it. I understand that that's your image as Forbes Magazine, to cater to the richest of Americans, that's cool. But I have half a mind to write your author and tell him he deserves to write for a better website, because the link a friend sent me to his article was very misleading. It lead me to a place where I clearly wasn't wanted. You're welcome, by the way, for receiving the opportunity to click on a banner ad that I gave you. Glad I never bothered to. The next time I see a link to an interesting article on Forbes.com, I'll kindly ask around for a link to the same article cross-posted elsewhere, if possible. Or a copy paste. Because you don't deserve my traffic, you conceited, greedy dogs. This is a prime example of how completely separated from reality the 1% is, and as an advertiser myself I despise dropping buzzwords, but you are doing nothing but proving this sensationalized concept true. In fact now I wonder if it could possibly be sensationalized enough.
I don't expect a reply to this email, besides the inevitable automated one. I don't expect this to be posted as feedback to your site open to commentary. I expect you and the rest of the wealthy to march on and continue to fund politicians who will see to it that voices like mine don't get heard. You know, the voices that sound awfully similar to the people working your reception desk, cleaning your bathrooms, and delivering your packages. I hope you expect to see this email copy pasted into a Facebook or G+ link somewhere. For all the hacks in the marketing industry touting their social marketing strategies, let me tell you something: Messages travel farther and wider when the content means something. Your survey has definitely meant something and I hope it goes viral.
Sincerely,
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