Conservatives say gays are ruining this country…

… and as more and more of them are exposed as closet homosexuals, I can’t help but agree.

You got me this time, you waskally Wepublicans.

The key to getting some work done

My entire life I’ve struggled with doing my work.  I’m not very good at consistently sitting down and working on something steadily.  I’ve always been the type to hold back for a while and then explode outwards with a flurry of work all at once.

Needless to say this has gotten exhausting over the years.  Also, I can’t really afford to work like this anymore.  If my first semester of graduate school taught me anything, it taught me that I need to work steadily and plan my time efficiently.

I think I finally found the key.  After resting this past Christmas break, I was really ready to get back to my work (which I hadn’t enjoyed in a while due to being burned out).  However, I held myself to certain time limits.  After a while, I would stop looking at whatever I was doing regardless of how I felt about it.

Here’s what I discovered:  When I was having a lot of fun and I stopped what I was doing, I was really eager to go back.  I had never experienced that before — whenever I’m normally done with my work I’m so sick of it I never want to see it again.  The key is to keep myself from getting burned out; the key is to stop while I’m still enjoying myself.  This reminds me a lot of the old adage about  parties:  “Leave while you’re still having fun.”  The same exact principle applies.

Not sure if this is helpful to anybody but me, but hopefully it is.  I’m slowly getting in the swing of steady, concerted effort.  Maybe I’m getting the hang of this grad school thing after all.

Zen and the art of sittin’ on yo’ ass

Tonight I attended a Zen meditation seminar (the technique known as “zazen” was taught — for those who don’t know what zazen is, you basically sit down). I found out about it from a flyer on the bulletin board outside of my office. I couldn’t resist — who couldn’t use a dose of serenity and a clear, empty mind now and again?

Learning the basics of zazen was difficult, but it was one of the most beneficial things I’ve ever done for myself. I found it extremely hard to just sit down and think nothing at all — to exert effort towards simply being still opened a myriad of issues (why couldn’t I sit still? what compelled me to move? why couldn’t I just focus? why couldn’t I just not focus for a change?). Being fully present in my body at all times — being awakened — these things are incredibly difficult for me.

So yeah… I got together with a bunch of hippies tonight, sat facing the wall, and stared at it for like an hour. It’s incredible how much you can really get out of it. Letting thoughts roll into, through, and then out of your mind can be very therapeutic — it’s a huge act of decompression.It’s as if all of the lurking issues, emotions, thoughts, and other mental objects that seize your energy and resources are freed and flee before your awareness for a mere, brief moment. You nod, they go on their merry way, and you on yours. What a great process to go through.

Organization in the Pgh

Back in Pittsburgh and enjoying a nice (yet brief) vacation with my mother.  She seems to be having a really good time; she deserves it if anybody does.  It’s always good to get away for a while.

I’m working on restructuring and streamlining my life at the moment — both with my belongings and with my time.  It’s not that I have much of either, I’m just notoriously bad at managing them.  So far I’ve put things into nice little plastic containers I picked up from Wall Mart.  The nice thing about having small living accommodations is that you have to get creative with how you use your space.  The other nice thing is that you realize how little you really need to stay afloat (and comfortable while you’re at it).

Hopefully soon I’ll be tidy and organized.  I’m hoping that keeping my living space in order will help me keep my time in order as well.  I need a massive overhaul if this semester is to be productive, happy, and sane.

Asheville

Blaire and I visited Asheville this past weekend. We had a really great time; we drove along the Blueridge Parkway and checked out the Asheville downtown (along with a few of the really nice restaurants there). The selection of vegetarian food in Asheville is extensive and excellent.

There’s something nice about being up that high. I’m not sure what it is, exactly — maybe it’s the quality of the air, but being in the mountains makes the mind clearer. Perhaps the cuisine helped. Either way, we enjoyed ourselves. I always enjoy myself when I’m with her.

UFO’s and Little Green Men

I’ve always been guilty of being hooked on the History Channel. Sometimes, shamefully, I sit transfixed by the glowing TV. Armed with snack-food and more free time than any preacher might approve of, I have been known to watch the History Channel for stretches of greater than six hours before.

At any rate, they’ve been airing a lot of UFO shows recently and it got me thinking — how much evidence would be required to convince the public that extra-terrestrials have visited (or do visit) our planet? I’m not saying they actually have or actually do. However, I find the question extremely interesting.

There have been countless sightings, not only by toothless cow farmers, but also by highly trained (and hopefully reliable) military personnel from many countries (including the U.S. and, notably, including virtually all ranks — all the way up to Generals). There have been incidents such as the Phoenix Lights incident where thousands of people witnessed a UFO for extended periods of time. Additionally, there are more ex-government workers and ex-military personnel blowing the whistle on this issue than on practically any other out there. What I mean to say is — there are a whole bunch of UFO sightings around, and many of them are from trained personnel whose jobs are to observe accurately (many of the personnel in question were stationed at facilities that housed nuclear warheads at the time of the sightings — these are people we’d like to think are reliable both in their observational faculties and in their moral natures).

I’m not saying little green men are visiting our planet; clearly, however, something is happening that is causing these people to see things. Here’s an interesting idea, though: suppose the reports are true. What level of evidence would the public need to believe them? For example: if the Phoenix Lights incident was truly caused by extra-terrestrial visitors, then it seems like clear-as-day evidence of this has been completely ignored by the public. When people don’t believe the Phoenix Lights were aliens, they don’t believe it based on the evidence or the government’s explanation of it. An unreliable government comprised of habitual liars claimed that the lights were caused by flares dropped in military training exercises. The full range of phenomena reported by people could not be explained by flares. Therefore, people do not reject the report based on any strong reason, and they do so, perhaps, in spite of the evidence.

I talked to my dad about this some today and he made a point I’ve heard quite a lot. What he said was the following: “how could a government that can’t keep any secrets at all keep such a huge secret as this for multiple decades?” The only answer I had for him is “they haven’t been able to keep it secret at all.”

Whether the reports of alien visitors are true or not is beside the point — you can’t claim that the government has been able to keep anything silent at all in these cases. If aliens really have been visiting us, then the government has done an awful job keeping it quiet; there have been way too many whistle-blowers running around trying to sell their stories.

The government hardly needs to keep anything secret at all, in fact. People buy the ridiculous explanations they give for hard-to-explain UFO sightings (swamp gas, weather balloons, mass hallucinations, flares, etc). People who claim to see UFO’s are deemed mentally unstable or liars out to gain attention or make a buck (although this is true in many cases, why should we automatically assume each case is like this?).

I have no idea how much evidence would be required to convince myself or the public at large that aliens are afoot. Perhaps something like a government admission and declassification of UFO footage would do the trick. The Mexican government did this with footage of 11 UFO’s taken by one of its aircraft, and the British government is supposedly declassifying a bunch of UFO documents this coming year. Even then, however, will people be convinced? Will I? I’m still skeptical on both counts.  All of it’s pretty hard to swallow.

The Jesus-Pimp

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/12/23/huckabee-unapologetic-for-religious-tone/

The gist of this news story: Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee name-drops Jesus into a televised “Merry Christmas” message to score some easy points with the evangelical right-wing base.

Here’s what Huckabee’s message said:

“Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you’ve been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don’t blame you. At this time of year sometimes it’s nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends. And I hope that you and your friends will have a magnificent Christmas season. And on behalf of all of us, God Bless and Merry Christmas. I’m Mike Huckabee and I approved this message.”

After drawing a fair amount of heat for the message, here’s how he responded during his campaign-stop at Cornerstone Church:

“I got in a little trouble this last week because I actually had the audacity to say ‘Merry Christmas.’ Isn’t that an odd thing to say at this time of year?”

Gee Mike, maybe people aren’t angry that you had the audacity to say “Merry Christmas”. Maybe they’re angry that you had the audacity to pimp out Jesus Christ for political capital. Did that thought ever cross your mind?

I don’t recall Huckabee sending out televised Merry Christmas messages in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina before he started campaigning for president. Also the choice of states is quite interesting given the “non-political” nature of the spot.

It’s all-in-all sickening. How this sort of thing fails to offend most Christians escapes me. The fact that I would want to protect and respect Christ’s memory more than somebody who actually thinks that he is God baffles me.

War imagery in our society

This is just a brief observation on my part — there have probably already been studies on this, and if not, there should be. War imagery in our society is especially prevalent; people desire to identify themselves as part of a harsh, violent struggle, either figuratively or literally.

Some salient examples: the perceived “War on Christmas”, the “War on Drugs”, the “War on Poverty”, the “Culture War” (along with Bill O’Reilly’s book Culture Warrior), the “War on Terror”, the popular hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers”, and so on and so forth. There are probably plenty more examples than that. People are proud to be a part of a fight, a struggle, and beyond that, a good old-fashioned war. It’s as if wanting to start a war over something is the highest mark of seriousness an issue can achieve in this country.

It’s easy to associate this phenomenon solely with conservatives, but I think that simplifies the issue — the trait seems to be an overall American trait. Take the “War on Poverty” for instance. It’s as if liberals have to say “look, our cause is as important as yours … important enough to be a war, even!” as if it were a good thing.

I wish peace were more of a virtue. I mean, even proposed programs at ending poverty are identified as part of a “war” effort. How sad.

First post.

Here’s a place to write, something I desperately need. I keep starting blogs and stopping them — hopefully this time it’ll be different (or so I keep telling myself). Either way, I need a place to write a little bit every day; I’ve had a hard time maintaining any skill with writing whatsoever as I don’t stay in practice.

Anyway — here’s something I’ve been doing lately: reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, which is a volume containing the entire Hitchhiker’s Guide series by Douglas Adams. There have been a million reviews on these works by a million people, so writing out my full opinion thus far as not a wise use of time. However, this is my second time through the series, and I have to say it’s extremely fun (even the second time through). I’m currently unwinding after a hard semester at grad school, and a fun read like this is just what the doctor ordered. It’s a fast read and takes little effort to get through, but it’s fun, silly, witty, and Adams knows how to make his readers smile. All in all: quality.