Self Perception: The not so free admission funhouse inside your head.

We all see ourselves differently than others see us. Perception is reality, as the saying goes, but what of the perceptions that exist due to “Funhouse Syndrome”?

Over the last three years I have been transforming- physically, emotionally, and mentally. I can say, resolutely, that I am a completely different person inside and out than I was 6mos ago, a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago. The stages are recalled so clearly, it is as if I have cataloged my mental and emotional state through this whole journey. This mental and emotional transformation, I believe, perpetuates my physical evolution. Mentally I am more fit then I have ever been. Emotionally I am stronger and more confident than I ever thought possible. Physically I am effecting the changes needed to project to the world who I am mentally and emotionally- stronger, more confident, and more fit than ever.

It seems there is a part of the human condition that naturally self-deprecates. Despite all of the positive changes I have made inwardly and outwardly, I still find things about me, that force me to take pause and sometimes even wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me. My favorite analogy for the human condition that allows someone to wholeheartedly believe something that just isn’t real is the bikini. Just because they make a cute two piece in a size 20 doesn’t mean that the size 20 individual who will inevitably purchase and wear the bare-all garment will look cute in it. There are people whose brains distort their unhealthy bodies into long lean sleek machines fit for a cute leave nothing to the imagination two piece, much like a funhouse mirror. While on the flip side, there are perfectly healthy individuals who have long, lean, sleek machines to call their body, that will put on a knock em’ dead bathing suit only to throw shorts and a tank top on, while professing that more work needs to be done before they could possibly pull off something so revealing.

If our mind’s eye is much like our physical eye, with concave and/or convex abnormalities, causing a distorted self perception, how do you fit corrective lenses to something metaphysical?

The power of self-talk has been studied and documented by countless medical journals. If self-talk is the metaphysical equivalent to a pair of spectacles, how does an individual prescribe the proper bent in the lenses one fits the “self” with? Through soul searching, meditation, and practical evaluation, a reasonable level-headed logical person should be able to take the perceptions given to them, as rendered by others, and apply the necessary filters to see the “self” properly- or as properly as one is able. Utopian? Probably. The reality is that there are fewer and fewer people arriving into maturity equipped with the tools necessary to prescribe self adjusting metaphysical spectacles.

So what is the remedy for those afflicted with FHS? It would depend on the severity. For those who contract FHS early in life- and let it go untreated- years of therapy, antidepressants, and often times constant self sabotaging behavior bring the individual to rock bottom which then sets the stage for the difficult, dare I say near impossible, climb to the top of Self-perception Ravine. The moderately afflicted have proven to benefit from something as simple as surrounding themselves with positive, but truthful, comrades. While the least severe cases of FHS suffer under the debilitating need for attention, and will generally display a behavior affectionately dubbed as “fishing for compliments” to fulfill their need for acceptance. Generally for all cases of FHS having someone who believes in them and climbs down the ravine, shows them the way up, and supports them through the worst of the journey is just the ticket to earning a doctorate in Self-Perspectometry.

The beauty is in the balance. If you climb up the mountain side of Self-perception Ravine you may just find yourself at the top of Mount Delusional-lonely and alone, a size 20 sun bathing in a two piece or a size 2 who needs to work a little harder before removing the baggy T-shirt cover up on a 100 degree day. While my article today discussed those with Physical FHS, the same principles apply in the attempt to remedy Mental FHS. If you find you suffer from any type of FHS- talk to someone about it. Find a mentor, and get on the path to the Emerald City- your hot air balloon home to a happy life is waiting for you!

 

In Response to ” Commentary: Pope wrong on condoms”

Typically I will agree or at least be able to reasonably accept Ronald S. Martin’s point of view on any number of subjects as a well thought out and intelligent argument, but his article posted today on CNN.com, ” Commentary: Pope wrong on condoms”, is just lunacy. In this article Martin presents the Catholic church’s steadfast resistence to the condoning of the use of condoms as a catalyst in the spread of HIV/AIDS. I cannot describe to you all the epic head scratch that commenced about a paragraph into reviewing this.
Martin calls the Catholic Church’s resolve an “ignorance of reality”. I call his article ignorant. Part of the very foundation of the Christian religion is abstinence from sex outside of marriage. The Pope’s job is to preserve the integrity of the Catholic Church and set straight any questions that may be challenged by an increase in demand for religious modernity by the community. The Pope is responsible for the interpretation of the Scriptures as they apply to the congregation. By asking the Holy See to make an exception to the rule on contraception is asking him to condone blatant disobedience of God’s Will.
Martin says the Pope has “sparked outrage” in Africa, “where Catholicism is spreading like wildfire”. He quotes the Pope as responding to the outrage with:”You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.” The Pope is correct on all levels. As he is the religious true North for Catholics, and an example for all, for him to compromise on a fundamental is the stuff heracy is made of. The church murdered for less blasphemous rhetoric. By condoning the use of any contraceptive under any circumstance, the Pope would be opening the door to further corosion of the faith. The Pope is right to continue his sermon on abstinance.
Further into the article, Mr. Martin attempts to substanitate his stance by likening the corrosion of a fundemental to that of not recommending the use of a seat belt while driving or not hiring an accountant to keep the records of offerings made to the church. Wearing a seat belt is the law of man in many countries, and wearing one doesn’t contradict an order from God. Having clean and tracable records of manetary dealings is a requirement of doing business legally. Abstaining from sex when you are not married is God’s Law, not man’s.
While I agree that the spread of HIV/AIDS is tragic, and a global humanitarian burden, I cannot, will not, berrate the Pope for remaining true to his faith and requiring that all persons wishing to claim that same faith as he follow the rules set forth by his God as interpreted by his successors and by him. The Pope is meeting with modernity on a vaild issue of infected people that are married being able to use condoms. These are the issues that are able to be compromised upon for the greater good- the welfare of the spouse and the potential of bringing more suffering into the world through infected pregnancy. If the people that Martin is campaigning for want to continue to disobey their God’s Will as interpreted by the Pope(who is the leader of their chosen faith), and continue the spread of a devastating disease to meet a selfish end (lustful satisfaction), then they need to find a different interpretation of their God’s Will that does allow for contraception and pre-marital sex. The fact that infected people are not behaving responsibly is on the conscience of no one but the individuals themselves.

Link to article:  http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/18/martin.condoms/index.html

 

Watchman

Watchman

 

Duty, Honor, Admiration

I work to fulfill.

If not me then who?

If not now then when?

No child left behind,

Said who?

 

 

Fear, anger, disgust

I make a plan

Unveiling the misguided man

Standing to fight & unite

Living with purpose

I ignite.

 

 

Who will champion

To right the wrongs & strive

To build love in their lives

I can never tire

Living with purpose

I desire.

 

 

Paralyzed from the infirmity

Those who cannot speak

Have been forgotten & forsaken.

Are we really that weak?

Living with purpose

I restore.

 

 

More, Better, Stronger

We must be

To realize all they see.

With understanding & a spark

Living with purpose

I leave my mark.

 

The right stuff

Stuff is a funny sort of word. It can be whatever you want it to be, but for the most part we use stuff to mean things, both the tangible and intangible. After being tossed a life lesson by the KG’s, packaged up in the form of the most complex and secretive person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, I am beginning to understand stuff, the intangible stuff we are all said to be made of. We have seen movies and read books that illustrate this stuff that I am talking about. The heroes are always made of the ‘right’ stuff.

The best example of the right stuff I have run into low these many years came to me in the form a man somewhere in his 20’s. I don’t know his exact age, or really many details of his life at all. See he works on a need to know basis, not a nice to know, or a good to know. If he feels the need to let you know then he does, otherwise he pretty much keeps to himself the specifics of a life less charmed than most. Intrigue has plagued me since getting to know one of what I imagine to be the many facets of this person. I don’t ask him much, because he would have told me if he wanted me to know. Could I be glorifying his secrecy merely out of a need to fill in the blanks? Sure, I suppose I could be. Not like I haven’t before, but this person allows me portholes into his life that have allowed me to think otherwise. The only time I sense he is completely comfortable talking about himself is when he is discussing his time while in service to our great country. His recounts of the time he spent in the military and the emotions he experienced have such range that I can only imagine he must be tired of feeling. I know I would be.

To have the ‘right’ stuff it is said you must have courage, honor, discipline, honesty, bravery, and a host of other attributes that make heroes heroes. The military gives the vast amount of its enlisted an opportunity to test their stuff, allows them the chance to see if what they are made of is enough to get them through. I am jealous of that test. I want to know if my stuff is the right stuff, enough to get me through. In my world my stuff is strong and resilient. In a world where Oreo cookies are not at a premium, I have a varied diet, insects are never thought of as food nor game, and fighting for my life and the lives of my comrades is not even conceivable I stand in wonder to think if I even have the right to say I am strong or resilient.

“At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heaven, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever,” (excerpt Siddhartha by Herman Hesse) I imagine he has had this feeling, and my heart aches know it too. To feel so alone and utterly helpless to change your circumstances, but feel certain that through the worst of it you know who you are and what you are doing. To have that sense of self be so firmly soldered in place, that not even acts of war can take it away…

I must take care to not give up so much of what I know about myself in order to rediscover my stuff, as I may only find again what was already revealed to me through my life thus far. I must take care not to seek the approval of the people who have already validated their stuff, because the ‘right’ stuff is in the eye of the beholder. That beholder is me. I will probably never know if my stuff is good enough to get me through war, but as I journey through this life lesson, and spend my days unwrapping the gifts of knowledge given to me by someone who has validated their stuff, I will continue to hold out hope that one day I can have that undying sense of knowing that what I have is enough to validate for someone else I am worth knowing.

 

In Reponse to “A Funeral for a Cricket” by Paula Donnelly

I suppose you would need to know Paula to fully appreciate her declaim on the woes of a being fully and completely aware of themselves and their environment. While most of my friends do not know Paula, you can appreciate it as if it were coming from me. Paula and I are two peas in a pod, although she is the crazy pea way at the very end of the pod (cue “One of these things is not like the other….”). I am the pea in the center of the pod who, at times, desperately wishes to have her theme song (Space Oddity) played in tandum with the crazy pea’s. Here is my ode to Paula, and my response to a tirade against the blissfully ignorant and the Karmic Gods (coined by Paula and henceforth referred to as KG’s) who do nothing but fuck with us.

Paula quoted an excerpt from Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath. Per Paula “Its a story about this woman, who works in a psychotherapy office and steals dreams out of the therapist’s notes for a bible she is creating for a made-up deity she named Johnny Panic.” (The quote could have been about the relavence of the milk mustache in childhood..but let’s translate that to : move on it doesn’t matter so stop wondering.) I read her rant to say that being intelligently aware is oft times as much a curse, as it is a blessing. A curse in that you see meaning in everything. While some of us have the ability to turn a blind third eye to these things when on sensory overload, there are times when what the world is telling us through happenstance just becomes to much. We become as paranoid and suspicious of the significance of someone we haven’t heard from or seen in years reappearing in our life, as we are of spotting a particular white rock amongst a bunch of other white rocks in a garden bed while on a walk.

Paula states in her declaim “Stupidity to me is like a cheap form of vacation. Beach-side property in La-La Land is prime real-estate and most people already own a portion of it. Me? I’m sitting on a tree trunk in the Yukon trying to figure out why Jack London felt the need to personify a dog in almost all of his stories.” I love that. I really do. I feel that too often I begin to ostracize myself in the most classic sense. Back in the ancient times of Athens to practice ostracism was to basically cut someone off socially for their own good. It was a way to diffuse a social discrepency before the discrepency even occured. Like when making a seating chart for a function, and sitting Grandma Jo clear across the hall from Great Aunt Jesse to prevent a quarrell. Just once in awhile I wish and hope for a whole day to go by without philosophisizing the role of the praying mantis on my car that morning or what purpose do the KG’s have for this person or that person in my life. I wish for the one day where I just don’t care about meaning or significance. I am wishing to invest in Boringsuckpantsville. So many people flock there everyday. There has to be something good about it. If Paula is on a tree trunk in the Yukon wondering about Jack London’s character choices, then I am slightly less focused but closer to home sitting on the dock of a bay pondering how an interaction may have effected Joe Schmoe’s life.

If only I could make the noise stop. Oh to be a decorative ball perched atop a fabulous candleholder which is stoically sitting on an oddly placed mantle which is only oddly placed due to the nature of the odd wall on which the strange hearth/additional seating was built in this 1980’s style ‘open’ floor plan. To have a sigular purpose in life, revealed to me by the sheer nature of my existence- to exist for the esthetic pleasure of my purchaser.

Are we peas crazy, hearing and seeing things others do not? To be perfectly aware of my surroundings is more than I could hope for. But there are times, increasingly more so, when what my mind’s eye sees and my soul hears is blinding and deafening. Paula, “you are not alone. I am here for you…” Here’s to sleepless nights, agonizing days, focus free musing, desparaging thoughts of the others, pining for that which we cannot have, restless hopes, impatience, and aphoristic statements of the world in which we live. May the KG’s throw pebbles at your window, and your world become as interesting as ours. Paula, you are the only one that has read this far, and for that I owe you.

And so let us go in peace.

 

Karate Kids

Rear Naked Choke, Side Mount, Ground and Pound… I might be talking about an interesting evening after a bottle of wine, but I am not. What is on my mind is the wonderful world of mixed martial arts. As an avid lover of the spectacle, my ill conceived and rather airy rebuttal to the question as to whether not not children should be learning MMA was ‘Sure. Why not?’. I went on to outline how mixed martial arts is merely a rue incorporating all disciplines considered a ‘martial art’, seasoned with grappling and wrestling. I heard myself reasoning that if the parent would allow their child to learn one discipline why not all of them collectively? Besides,  it is up to the parent to instill sanctity for human life, and to monitor them closely to ensure they don’t get the idea this practice might be a good idea on the playground or in school.  Right? Right?

Maybe, but I am not so sure. Take, for example, “Karate Kid”. There are good senseis and bad senseis.  Mr. Miaygi instructed Daniel-san in the discipline of Karate. He used everyday activities; paired with a threefold demand for respect (a respect for self, sport, and teacher) to instill the values needed to master the art of Karate. Conversely, John Kreese used fear and submission to train his students in the mechanics of Karate. Fear, pain, defeat, and mercy do not exist in his dojo. Mr. Miyagi taught Daniel to embrace the full spectrum of human emotions when teaching him to defend himself with karate. The Cobra Kai Dojo’s large classes were shown performing series after series of techniques with precision and accuracy, while standing tidy in their stark white gis ready for more berating .  Whereas Miyagi had Daniel-san washing cars and nailing boards to promote good breathing, focus, and muscle memory; all pillars for the foundation of Karate. This same yin and yang holds true for the MMA arena of entertainment. There are good instructors and bad instructors. Do I think that learning a wide variety of disciplines, and honing an ability to make them work together would have a negative impact on children? No, absolutely not. I do, however, believe that we are merely a product of our environment, and the MMA environment doesn’t promote the discipline and self-control the art does. Rather full contact fighting promotes the raw physical mechanics and merciless execution of skills, thereby perverting the art into a spectacle.

I am not belittling the amount of training, commitment, blood, sweat, and tears the full contact fighters put in to escalate within the sport in order to get paid big money to beat their opponent into a pulp. I am merely stating that for children there is nothing training for full contact fighting can give them that a single discipline cannot, unless, of course, you want your child to develop a ruthless disregard for another human’s life. The art in itself is not the problem, nor is the practice of compiling the skills into its own entity. The problem lies within the environment. The attitude and approach to learning mixed martial arts is defeat or be defeated, bloody or be bloodied. This has only evolved since the mainstream introduction of bad ass t-shirts, menacing entourages, wanton ring women, and caged men behaving badly. What we watch and love can no longer be chalked up to an art form. This spectacle we pay to view on pay-per-view tells our children that beating the bile out of an opponent until they tap ‘uncle’ is okay. 

If you are a parent and you can say with confidence your six year old can determine when it is ok to use the skills they develop in studying full contact fighting and you are at peace with them learning to use any means necessary to beat anyone that opposes them, then fine pay through the nose (literally if your check bounces) for the right to have a micro punishment pusher. Honing a skill of any kind will do wonders for self-esteem, but when the mantra for an entire sport is ‘pure punishment’ how can we be responsible stewards of life when we expose young minds to a no mercy mentality that promotes violence as the new all American pass-time? These boys are the future of America. Where do we draw the line? The Martial Arts offer and teach more than just a defense against bad guys. It teaches respect, self-control, discipline, synergy of body and mind, as well as a healthy appetite for competition where your opponent typically walks away without injury.

So to more accurately answer the question: No I do not think that children should be learning full contact fighting. I do not have a problem with children learning the arts and also learning to incorporate them into a separate art form, but the world is brutal enough without blurring the lines and confusing what is right and what is not. We need to protect our children from the harsh reality of our world while walking the line to prepare them for such a reality.  

 

 

Long time no write… It’s a long’n’.

Monday July 21, 2008- 7:02pm my bedroom. 

 

Wow. I sit here bemused at the abject wonder Alain De Botton has instilled in me for the desire to become a modern day thinker.  His aptitude and seeming ease with which he lays the foundation to understanding many of the greats has me reeling back unable to decide whether to pop in one of the four kung-fu flicks or pick up one of the two Botton novels I just purchased. In Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life, he suggests that Proust identified a list of common ailments among “over reverent and over reliant” readers. Two of the maladies making the list are 1) making “oracles” of the authors and 2) being unable to write after finishing a good book. Astounding! Does he realize that was written for me? Have we met? Or is it possible that I am far more typical than I wish to admit?  I have two of Alain’s books that just arrived in the mail. He is the only author I wish to read at this time… Have I turned an author into a shaman? Or his books into the “Katie equivalent” to the Dead Sea Scrolls? Feeling comfortable to address him by his first name might be a hint. Check “yes” next to symptom #1.  The inability to write did certainly plague me after reading On Love, but that has certainly dissipated, and it has only been a week since I finished How Proust Can Change Your Life. This indicates a mild case of malady #2. Proust didn’t actually say for how long the symptom should last before you can call it a detriment… We had better keep an eye on this one.

 

Is it possible that I am far more typical than I wish to admit?

 

Being typical is a far different statement than being normal. Being typical suggests that I am in line with a particular set of standards for a type of person within a certain society, and that society may not be typical, allowing for my typification to be extraordinary. Where as, being “normal” is a much more ambiguous statement intent on wrapping humanity up in a pretty package ready for delivery to the main stream.  To be a typical writer, worker, wife, and friend seems so much more palatable, than a mundane life of being a “normal” anything. Being normal seems to me to be limiting, where in there is so much more room for “bodacity” within the typical. So if being typical is perceived by me as less than extraordinary, but is more extraordinary than say being “normal”, and it allows for growth into something positively stellar- then what is it that I strive to become? How much of this is semantics? Furthermore do I strive to be misunderstood? I feel like I do. Am I that person?  Right at this moment I feel like I am. Is perceiving that I am misunderstood really being misunderstood? Is being misunderstood really better than being understood? The mystery of being misunderstood captivates my imagination. I imagine that as I am writing this there is no one in the entire civilized world that can understand what it is that I am writing. I imagine that my dream of becoming a writer is the sort that is spawned from an intimate relationship with a pipe, and that I will post this on my blog and anyone that takes the time to read it will walk away with no return on their investment.  No. Not misunderstood, but rather I want to be perfectly understood. I think.

 

Kung Fu… kung fu… Why kung fu? I have a statement that might help some of you understand- “If you don’t know about kung fu, don’t try to understand kung fu, cause you won’t get kung fu.”- Unless of course you can approach it with an open mind.  Now for those of you that grasp what I just said then you are either familiar with the connotation associated with the phrase, or you understand the magic of kung fu flicks to titillate the imagination and inspire the mind to believe in the impossible. For those of you that understand neither let me try my best to explain.  Kung Fu is an art, a skill, a marriage of body and mind, and a ritualistic dance between all components of the action sequence. Most who watch a Bruce Lee film will sit bewildered at the power and precision with which he operates. I am confident he could have controlled the beads of sweat cascading down his body if he had only felt it important to do so.  Good or bad, how can there be a serious choice between a movie with bad dubbing versus an award winning author’s book you have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of?  There is someone out there that understands… I just know it. 

 

HA! There it is settled. I do not wish to be misunderstood, but rather perfectly understood. I want there to be another somebody out there whose tastes and interests align with my own. Is there anyone up for a philosophical discussion about Spirited Killer?  Or could begin to understand the need for both philosophy and bad kung fu in life? Anyone? Hellooooooo…. I think I may be alone on this one….

 

To Become Great

Who can say that they spent their childhood wishing to never make a difference or not amount to something great in their life? Furthermore, who could refuse an opportunity to be great and do great things if it was packaged up in pretty paper, a smart bow, required little to no effort, and was free for the taking? Frankly, no one would! Simply the desire to be something great in life is not enough. You need drive, determination, perseverance, and a plan.    

For some people greatness seems to be their destiny, a path predetermined, chosen just for them. For others, like me, greatness is a conscience choice.  In the last year and a half I have studied the work of B.F. Skinner.  Skinner and his associates were of the mind that a behavior, once displayed in the environment, then operates based on the contingencies of that environment.  Using this as a base you could then determine that if the environment changed so would the behavior. Today this process is called operant conditioning. This research opens up countless possibilities for all living things that display behaviors. Being able to communicate with those who cannot, without the use of physical manipulation or other alternative means of therapy, is a refreshing concept. Operant conditioning is being used all over the world for both people and animals. My path to doing great things lies with helping adults, children, as well as animals that have been given up on. The working mom who thinks organizing her life is next to impossible, a “bad” dog set to be euthanized, the “problem” child, the developmentally delayed, and, most of all, Autistic children and their families will be my focus going forward. 

My journey through higher learning will most certainly take me to an M.S. in Applied Behavior Analysis, and with high probablility a doctorate. With this degree I will begin researching new and better ways to improve on the programs already in place for Autistic and developmentally delayed children, and develop new and better ways to alleviate the daily stressors that come with having these special children in your life.  Behavior Analysis will allow me to fulfill my dream of greatness. I am not in it for recognition or money; I am in it to make a difference.  I will do great things with my education, because I am driven to succeed in my quest, not for my sake, but for all living things that need hope. I am determined to make a difference in the world. I will persevere to bring to fruition the plan I have set out for my life regardless of the obstacles put before me.  Drive, determination, perseverance, and planning is what sets me apart from my peers; and these four attributes will see me through hardships that I will inevitably meet along the way. With faith in myself and the support of my loved ones my name may not be world renowned, but I am hopeful my work will be.

 

Dems Battle? it out in Austin….

This election season is quite possibly one of the more poignant of my time, and I think of even my parents time. While the Republicans have chosen their nominee for the presidential candidacy, the Democrats are still undecided. I caught about 3/4 of the debate last night after I got out of class, and what I saw really surprised me. Typical of debates are heated discussions that turn into arguments, that turn into bashing, that are eventually stomped out by the mediator- like I said typical. Last nights debate was anything but typical. Barack oozed with confidence and charisma reminiscent of, dare I say, Bill… While Hillary, still poised and confident on the issues, seemed less than her usual charismatic self.

The height of the debate was health-care reform, an issue that the two have little difference on. They quibbled about the execution of their plans, and how one was more realistic than the other. Truly trivial differences, when the likelihood of either candidate getting their plan passed after election time is small to say the least. Barack promoted change in how Washington operates, and Hillary,indeed agreed with that, but in order for that change to occur we need someone who knows how to work the system that is currently in place. All that talk of change brought out the accusation of Obama having plagiarized a portion of his speech. Hillary, unfortunately, reverted back to the old ways of cheap shots and personal affronts when she said “…that’s not change we can believe in, it is change we can Xerox.”I thought for a split second we were at a sporting event when the crowd that had gathered to listen to the debate actually “boo-ed” Hillary.

Texas, are you serious? You actually “boo-ed” someone during a debate? What are you all… twelve? Well that is a separate issue altogether I will leave for another time. Back to the subject…

Her experience in this type of venue was evident at the moment she was boo-ed, when her reaction was to merely shrug it off and move passed it. Experience. That was the foundation of Hillary’s argument last night. She has the experience to lead our country out of Iraq, the experience to stabilize the economy, and the experience to fulfill the needs of the less fortunate with universal health-care and aid for the prevention of foreclosed homes. Barack alluded to his lack of tenure being a catalyst for change, with a new approach and lack of ties to special interest groups. Hillary cited many of her accomplishments, and in doing so, did highlight Obama’s inexperience on the international level without any digs into his character.

The topics of Cuba, Kosovo, Iraq, and Venezuela were grazed over with Obama saying he is willing to sit down with our enemies providing there were “preparations”. This is a little different than prior statements he made implying he would sit down with our enemies without the forethought of them showing actions towards changing their practices. Hillary, as always, sailed through the international front regarding Cuba, standing firm on what she has always said which is “I’m going to be looking for some of those changes: releasing political prisoner[s], ending some of the oppressive practices on the press, opening up the economy”(Hillary Clinton,2/21/08 CNN/Univision debate).

No wonder the race is statistically so close, “It was a very odd debate — the questioners had to beg them to differ with each other,” said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider. That is really the way it seemed. Neither candidate really hit it out of the park, but neither gained any momentum either. After watching this debate, I am convinced more than ever that Hillary is the better candidate, if for no other reason than her economical track record and international savvy. Both topics are high on the list of priorities for voters. It all comes down to Experience versus Innovation… Clinton or Obama. While Obama’s innovation may be refreshing, Hillary’s experience is what we need to get out of this mess we are in. Do I think Obama will do a poor job? No, definitely not. I do however think Hillary’s experience will only help her in making the greatest use of the time she would have in office. When it all comes down to it I vote Hillary in the coming primary, but I don’t think either candidate is a bad choice… Come on people GET OUT AND VOTE! IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE!

 

The Case for the Non-Saggation of Britches

I can just imagine what my grandmother would say if one of my brothers walked into the house with their pants sagging… “Oh mercy. For heaven’s sake pull your pants up!” This seems to be a running theme present in all generations, but not all genres. We have all witnessed the anomaly that has ruffled the feathers of Dallas Deputy Mayor Caraway, school board trustee Price, and many of the local community members. “I think it’s disrespectful, it’s dishonorable and it’s disgusting,” said Price (The Herald Democrat). Is it really disrespectful, dishonorable, and disgusting to sag your pants? Let us discourse about these attributes a little.

To be disrespectful is to lack courtesy or esteem. The perception of lack of respect from the younger generations to the older generations is a conundrum older than the current phenomenon of baggy pants. In the 30’s it was the zoot suit with their extra long jackets and double cuff pants, in the 40’s came the high waisted cinch pants of the 30’s zoot suit without the cuff called “baggies”, in the 50’s the ever popular cigarette box rolled in the sleeve of a plain white undershirt, in the 60’s men liked their shirts to show off their chests, the 70’s affinity for spandex, the 80’s cut off everything… And so I have made my point that in every decade of fashion there is always something someone from another generation or genre won’t like and find offensive- thus labeling the trend as disrespectful. Meaning that if I don’t like what you are wearing, doing, or saying, you must not have any respect for me because you do not fit my idea of what is proper… I find people that wear pants that are too small offensive. Am I so arrogant and presumptuous to think that they must go purchase pants two sizes larger to appease me? No, certainly not, nor would I throw a fit and demand they respect my wishes by hiding their “curves” under some rectangular article of clothing, namely a poncho. And I would never dream of trying to legislate fashion. We are all free to have our own sense of style. Who am I to tell you something doesn’t look good…

Dishonorable. What defines honor that Mr. Price thinks he can call the adorning of pants that are far too large for the occupant the dishonorable thing? In my mind, and I am sure many more logical and level headed people, honor is something intangible. To do the honorable thing is to do the right thing, to stand up for what you believe in, to keep your word, and to live your life with dignity. If a young man in his twenties joins the Army and goes to war, and comes home on leave and finds the comfort, style, and proper ventilation, not to mention, the fashion statement a pair of ultra baggy jeans offers, is he then dishonorable or is it dishonorable for him to sport the trend just because someone else doesn’t care for it? Does it speak to his morals, ethics, integrity, or sense of duty to his country? I think not.

Disgusting to me describes this society’s haste to pass judgment on someone’s character by using such adjectives as dishonorable and disrespectful. Disgusting is the fact that the deputy mayor of Dallas is spending tax payer funds to try to legislate a bill to outlaw a person’s right to dress in a manner that is comfortable and expresses their sense of style. What is disgusting is this same deputy mayor plans to enforce this legislature by tying up already exhausted police resources with citing citizens of Dallas with tickets for sagging their pants. I am not a personal fan of the style, nor do I understand how walking around holding up the crotch of your pants is cool, but it isn’t for me to say what works for someone else. I do not propose to pass judgment on the character of anyone that partakes in the fashion trend. I agree with it being ruled out of schools, if for no other reason than safety. If Deputy Mayor Caraway does succeed in even passing a city ordinance regarding the non-saggation of britches, let us hope Mr. Deputy Mayor Caraway is not in need of the boys in blue when they are too busyfulfilling their new found positions as fashion police citing the fine citizens of the city of Dallas for the failure to comply with the ordinance.