pura vida

If you know what that means, beyond "pure life"--sweet.

If you know what that means in a more...uh...intimate way--you rock.

And if you can relate to that more intimate knowledge--you rock my face off :)

headphones

I'm looking for a decent pair of headphones...any suggestions?

terrible

Back in the day, GM bought up street car companies and closed them down. In 1950, the company was convicted of criminal conspiracy, but was only fined $5,000. Ridiculous.

If only a reasonable percentage of the money that has been spent on roads was spent on public transportation...

good gifts

I dislike gift shopping. Many of the people I "have" to shop for have "everything", and I don't like buying things that won't be used. At the same time, I dislike all the consumerism that goes along with Christmas, (check out Advent Conspiracy) and don't want to buy gifts just for the sake of buying gifts. I like the idea of buying a goat for a poor family in someone's name, but don't feel that many people are terribly appreciative of having goats given in their name rather than receiving a gift. Enter The Hunger Site. I told you about them before-click there every day and they use the money from ads to give food to people-awesome. They also have a store! This is awesome because:
1. The purchase of gifts in the store help The Hunger Site give food to more people.
2. They have some awesome and creative gifts.
3. They have a large fair trade section.
I plan to buy at least some of my gifts from this site and encourage you to do the same. Anyone else have ideas like this they can share?

reaction to Joshua's comment on Ron Paul

Thanks for the thoughts, I appreciate your feedback.

I would agree that the government is pretty wasteful at times, but there are not enough rich people in the world who choose devote their resources to fighting social injustices, and inefficiency is better than nothing. A well run welfare program can take care of those who get screwed by the system. Even if we were to privatize more things (for instance, the school could probably run more efficiently if it were privately run and schools had to compete for students), that money would still have to come from somewhere. Government funded, privately run programs could solve some of the problem of inefficiency. (I understand this doesn't always work all that well, look at contracts for Iraq for instance.) But if we the people hold our representatives to higher standards, that could change too. As for those new trucks-the people of your city should protest if the government is spending their tax dollars irresponsibly, and we need to take advantage of our opportunities to vote and decide who is going to be making our decisions.

I know the government hasn't been so good with racism in the past, but now that most people seem to have their heads on straight, the government has the ability to do something about it. I just heard a report on NPR the other day about how African American students perform worse than white students, regardless of economic background--due to racism. There aren't enough people who are committed to fighting this racism, but the government can do something about it.

Some wealth is created by productive citizens, but most of it is created by citizens who had some pretty good resources to begin with. Some people don't have these resources, and need the government to look out for them, by redistributing some of the wealth of the very wealthy.

Gun control? Places that don't allow handguns are much safer than those that do.

I agree that our military presence around the world is not such a good thing, but we can't chose to ignore bodies like the UN, ICC and WTO.

postsecret

Check out postsecret.blogspot.com. It's intense.

Ron Paul (not what you're expecting)

A couple friends of mine encouraged me to check out Ron Paul, so I went to his website and read some of what he has there. Here are my reactions.

Racism: Paul thinks that liberty is the solution to racism, because part of liberty is free-market capitalism which rewards individual achievement and not skin color. This might work...if we were living 400 years ago. As it is, we are living in a society that has been shaped by racism, and free-market capitalism can't change 400 years of social constructs. Free market capitalism doesn't only reward individual achievement, it rewards those who have money and opportunity. It is far easier to achieve when you are handed money and opportunity. Government needs to be proactive in righting the drastic inequalities in our nation. A poor child who is a student in a poor school system will have little chance of attending college, and free-market capitalism isn't going to change that, so that person's children will also grow up poor and without opportunity, and is more likely to end up in prison.

Taxes: Ron Paul is for lower taxes. Well, that sounds good. He thinks the government wastes a lot of money. I agree. But I don't think that all people should have their taxes lowered, sorry to any rich people reading this, but I think you should pay more. America used to be that way, and it worked pretty well, our economy and society were quite healthy back in those days. I just read an article in Time magazine about Denmark. Denmark has considerably higher taxes than we do, they also have 3% unemployment, 5 weeks paid vacation, a dynamic economy, and a generous welfare state.

Immigration: Paul wants to lock down the borders, kick out all "illegal" immigrants, and make it harder for people to get here legally. The reason we have so much illegal immigration in the first place is that it's hard to get here legally. Why do people want to come here? Their lives are hard. Instead of spending so much money on wars, why don't we use some of that to better living conditions in the countries that these illegal immigrants are coming from? If the government isn't doing it, why don't we work toward it as citizens. Tomorrow, we will spend enough money to provide clean drinking water to everyone in the world. Wow. If we right some of the social injustices around the world, people would be happier staying where they're at.

Ron Paul claims he is strongly pro-life, and it seems that he is fighting abortion as much as he can, but he is opposed to any form of gun control, including measures outlawing assault weapons and handguns. If unborn lives are so important, shouldn't born lives be at least as important? How can you justify letting people carry handguns and own assault weapons when they take so many lives, both intentionally and accidentally?

Ron Paul wants us out of the United Nations. The organization may not be perfect, but that is at least partially our fault, for expecting others to follow their rules, but obeying them ourselves and instead doing whatever we feel like. Leaving the UN would give the US even less global credibility and respect. We should try to work with the UN, instead of doing things that undermine their influence.

Paul doesn't want the US to be a part of anything bigger than the US. No UN, no trade agreements, nothing. He doesn't like the WTO "imposing" regulations on us. He doesn't want the ICC to bring our soldiers to trial. I'm scared for what would happen to international relations if he was elected. Does Paul not realize that globalization has been going on for some time now, and the United States is incapable of being 100% independent? If we ignore everything the international community thinks that we should do, it won't help our trade, it will hurt it. And it certainly won't make us any safer, it will make us more liable to terrorist attacks.

poem?

Who commented on the poem? I can't for the life of me figure out who you are, and I'm a very curious person.

farm bill

"It's also a horrible deal. It redistributes our taxes to millionaire farmers and millionaire "farmers" like David Letterman, David Rockefeller, and the owners of the Utah Jazz. It contributes to our obesity and illegal-immigration epidemics and to our water and energy shortages. It helps degrade rivers, deplete aquifers, eliminate grasslands, concentrate food-processing conglomerates and inundate out fast-food nation with high-fructose corn syrup. Our farm policy is supposed to save small farmers and small towns, instead it fuels the expansion of industrial megafarms and the depopulation of rural America. It hurts Third World farmers, violates international trade deals and paralyzes our efforts to open foreign markets to the non-agricultural goods and services that make up the remaining 99% of our economy."
-Time Magazine "Down on The Farm" Nov. 12

"Obama would be the first globalized American leader, the first leader in whom internationalism would not be a credo, it would be in his veins."

Check out this article on Obama. Good points. Anyone have feedback? Why do or don't you like Obama?

"Obama, in many ways, is where the world is going. He embodies interconnectedness where the Bush administration has projected separateness."

I've loved you since your freshman year
Loved might be too strong a word. Adored
and admired maybe but how can I
say I've loved you when I never really got to know you
IwishIwouldhavegottentoknowyoubetter
Why didn't I
What was I afraid of
I just wanted you to know
that you're beautiful
and special

poetry

I need to write
more
I need to write
now
I say I'll do it
someday
but someday
never comes

Why aren't we taught more creative things in school? Our schools focus on teaching us things that will make us money, but wouldn't the world be a better place if we all spent a little more time writing and reading poetry?

Not that you have to be good at it, I certainly don't view myself as a poet, but I pledge to start reading and writing more poetry. Hold me to that.