Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Groupthink
Hello Everyone,
Here is an article I thought people would think is interesting. Usually I would just put a link, but this one I really think is worth seeing.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php? id=56a4b06e77oshwaiq5psszuc2gti5neb
Conservatives on college campuses scored a tactical hit when the American Enterprise Institute's magazine published a survey of voter registration among humanities and social-science faculty members several years ago. More than nine out of 10 professors belonged to the Democratic or Green party, an imbalance that contradicted many liberal academics' protestations that diversity and pluralism abound in higher education. Further investigations by people like David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, coupled with well-publicized cases of discrimination against conservative professors, reinforced the findings and set "intellectual diversity" on the agenda of state legislators and members of Congress.
The public has now picked up the message that "campuses are havens for left-leaning activists," according to a Chronicle poll of 1,000 adult Americans this year. Half of those surveyed -- 68 percent who call themselves "conservative" and even 30 percent who say they are "liberal" -- agreed that colleges improperly introduce a liberal bias into what they teach. The matter, however, is clearly not just one of perception. Indeed, in another recent survey, this one conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles, faculty members themselves chose as their commitment "far left" or "liberal" more than two and a half times as often as "far right" or "conservative." As a Chronicle article last month put it: "On left-leaning campuses around the country, professors on the right feel disenfranchised."
Yet while the lack of conservative minds on college campuses is increasingly indisputable, the question remains: Why?
The obvious answer, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is that academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. What allows them to do that, while at the same time they deny it, is that the bias takes a subtle form. Although I've met several conservative intellectuals in the last year who would love an academic post but have given up after years of trying, outright blackballing is rare. The disparate outcome emerges through an indirect filtering process that runs from graduate school to tenure and beyond.
Some fields' very constitutions rest on progressive politics and make it clear from the start that conservative outlooks will not do. Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African-American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies.
Other fields allow the possibility of studying conservative authors and ideas, but narrow the avenues of advancement. Mentors are disinclined to support your topic, conference announcements rarely appeal to your work, and few job descriptions match your profile. A fledgling literary scholar who studies anti-communist writing and concludes that its worth surpasses that of counterculture discourse in terms of the cogency of its ideas and morality of its implications won't go far in the application process.
No active or noisy elimination need occur, and no explicit queries about political orientation need be posed. Political orientation has been embedded into the disciplines, and so what is indeed a political judgment may be expressed in disciplinary terms. As an Americanist said in a committee meeting that I attended, "We can't hire anyone who doesn't do race," an assertion that had all the force of a scholastic dictum. Stanley Fish, professor and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, advises, "The question you should ask professors is whether your work has influence or relevance" -- and while he raised it to argue that no liberal conspiracy in higher education exists, the question is bound to keep conservatives off the short list. For while studies of scholars like Michel Foucault, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri seem central in the graduate seminar, studies of Friedrich A. von Hayek and Francis Fukuyama, whose names rarely appear on cultural-studies syllabi despite their influence on world affairs, seem irrelevant.
Academics may quibble over the hiring process, but voter registration shows that liberal orthodoxy now has a professional import. Conservatives and liberals square off in public, but on campuses, conservative opinion doesn't qualify as respectable inquiry. You won't often find vouchers discussed in education schools or patriotism argued in American studies. Historically, the boundaries of scholarly fields were created by the objects studied and by norms of research and peer review. Today, a political variable has been added, whereby conservative assumptions expel their holders from the academic market. A wall insulates the academic left from ideas and writings on the right.
One can see that phenomenon in how insiders, reacting to Horowitz's polls, displayed little evidence that they had ever read conservative texts or met a conservative thinker. Weblogs had entries conjecturing why conservatives avoid academe -- while never actually bothering to find one and ask -- as if they were some exotic breed whose absence lay rooted in an inscrutable mind-set. Professors offered caricatures of the conservative intelligentsia, selecting Ann H. Coulter and Rush Limbaugh as representatives, not von Hayek, Russell Kirk, Leo Strauss, Thomas Sowell, Robert Nozick, or Gertrude Himmelfarb. One of them wrote that "conservatives of Horowitz's ilk want to unleash the most ignorant forces of the right in hounding liberal academics to death."
Such parochialism and alarm are the outcome of a course of socialization that aligns liberalism with disciplinary standards and collegial mores. Liberal orthodoxy is not just a political outlook; it's a professional one. Rarely is its content discussed. The ordinary evolution of opinion -- expounding your beliefs in conversation, testing them in debate, reading books that confirm or refute them -- is lacking, and what should remain arguable settles into surety. With so many in harmony, and with those who agree joined also in a guild membership, liberal beliefs become academic manners. It's social life in a professional world, and its patterns are worth describing.
The first protocol of academic society might be called the Common Assumption. The assumption is that all the strangers in the room at professional gatherings are liberals. Liberalism at humanities meetings serves the same purpose that scientific method does at science assemblies. It provides a base of accord. The Assumption proves correct often enough for it to join other forms of trust that enable collegial events. A fellowship is intimated, and members may speak their minds without worrying about justifying basic beliefs or curbing emotions.
The Common Assumption usually pans out and passes unnoticed -- except for those who don't share it, to whom it is an overt fact of professional life. Yet usually even they remain quiet in the face of the Common Assumption. There is no joy in breaking up fellow feeling, and the awkward pause that accompanies the moment when someone comes out of the conservative closet marks a quarantine that only the institutionally secure are willing to endure.
Sometimes, however, the Assumption steps over the line into arrogance, as when at a dinner a job candidate volunteered her description of a certain "racist, sexist, and homophobic" organization, and I admitted that I belonged to it. Or when two postdocs from Germany at a nearby university stopped by my office to talk about American literature. As they sat down and I commented on how quiet things were on the day before Thanksgiving, one muttered, "Yes, we call it American Genocide Day."
Such episodes reveal the argumentative hazards of the Assumption. Apart from the ill-mannered righteousness, academics with too much confidence in their audience utter debatable propositions as received wisdom. An assertion of the genocidal motives of early English settlers is put forward not for discussion but for approval. If the audience shares the belief, all is well and good. But a lone dissenter disrupts the process and, merely by posing a question, can show just how cheap such a pat consensus actually is.
After Nixon crushed McGovern in the 1972 election, the film critic Pauline Kael made a remark that has become a touchstone among conservatives. "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won," she marveled. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." While the second sentence indicates the sheltered habitat of the Manhattan intellectual, the first signifies what social scientists call the False Consensus Effect. That effect occurs when people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. If the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way.
The tendency applies to professors, especially in humanities departments, but with a twist. Although a liberal consensus reigns within, academics have an acute sense of how much their views clash with the majority of Americans. Some take pride in a posture of dissent and find noble precursors in civil rights, Students for a Democratic Society, and other such movements. But dissent from the mainstream has limited charms, especially after 24 years of center-right rule in Washington. Liberal professors want to be adversarial, but are tired of seclusion. Thus, many academics find a solution in a limited version of the False Consensus that says liberal belief reigns among intellectuals everywhere.
Such a consensus applies only to the thinking classes, union supporters, minority-group activists, and environmentalists against corporate powers. Professors cannot conceive that any person trained in critical thinking could listen to George W. Bush speak and still vote Republican. They do acknowledge one setting in which right-wing intellectual work happensnamely, the think tanksbut add that the labor there is patently corrupt. The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Hoover Institution all have corporate sponsors, they note, and fellows in residence do their bidding. Hence, references to "right-wing think tanks" are always accompanied by the qualifier "well-funded."
The dangers of aligning liberalism with higher thought are obvious. When a Duke University philosophy professor implied last February that conservatives tend toward stupidity, he confirmed the public opinion of academics as a self-regarding elite -- regardless of whether or not he was joking, as he later said that he was. When laymen scan course syllabi or search the shelves of college bookstores and find only a few volumes of traditionalist argument amid the thickets of leftist critique, they wonder whether students ever enjoy a fruitful encounter with conservative thought. When a conference panel is convened or a collection is published on a controversial subject, and all the participants and contributors stand on one side of the issue, the tendentiousness is striking to everyone except those involved. The False Consensus does its work, but has an opposite effect. Instead of uniting academics with a broader public, it isolates them as a ritualized club.
The final social pattern is the Law of Group Polarization. That lawas Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of political science and of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, has describedpredicts that when like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs. In a product-liability trial, for example, if nine jurors believe the manufacturer is somewhat guilty and three believe it is entirely guilty, the latter will draw the former toward a larger award than the nine would allow on their own. If people who object in varying degrees to the war in Iraq convene to debate methods of protest, all will emerge from the discussion more resolved against the war.
Group Polarization happens so smoothly on campuses that those involved lose all sense of the range of legitimate opinion. A librarian at Ohio State University who announces, "White Americans pay too little attention to the benefits their skin color gives them, and opening their eyes to their privileged status is a valid part of a college education" (The Chronicle, August 6) seems to have no idea how extreme his vision sounds to many ears. Deliberations among groups are just as prone to tone deafness. The annual resolutions of the Modern Language Association's Delegate Assembly, for example, ring with indignation over practices that enjoy popular acceptance. Last year, charging that in wartime, governments use language to "misrepresent policies" and "stigmatize dissent," one resolution urged faculty members to conduct "critical analysis of war talk ... as appropriate, in classrooms." However high-minded the delegates felt as they tallied the vote, which passed 122 to 8 without discussion, to outsiders the resolution seemed merely a license for more proselytizing.
The problem is that the simple trappings of deliberation make academics think that they've reached an opinion through reasoned debate -- instead of, in part, through an irrational social dynamic. The opinion takes on the status of a norm. Extreme views appear to be logical extensions of principles that everyone more or less shares, and extremists gain a larger influence than their numbers merit. If participants left the enclave, their beliefs would moderate, and they would be more open to the beliefs of others. But with the conferences, quarterlies, and committee meetings suffused with extreme positions, they're stuck with abiding by the convictions of their most passionate brethren.
As things stand, such behaviors shift in a left direction, but they could just as well move right if conservatives had the extent of control that liberals do now. The phenomenon that I have described is not so much a political matter as a social dynamic; any political position that dominates an institution without dissent deterioriates into smugness, complacency, and blindness. The solution is an intellectual climate in which the worst tendencies of group psychology are neutralized.
That doesn't mean establishing affirmative action for conservative scholars or encouraging greater market forces in education -- which violate conservative values as much as they do liberal values. Rather, it calls for academics to recognize that a one-party campus is bad for the intellectual health of everyone. Groupthink is an anti-intellectual condition, ironically seductive in that the more one feels at ease with compatriots, the more one's mind narrows. The great liberal John Stuart Mill identified its insulating effect as a failure of imagination: "They have never thrown themselves into the mental condition of those who think differently from them." With adversaries so few and opposing ideas so disposable, a reverse advantage sets in. The majority expands its power throughout the institution, but its thinking grows routine and parochial. The minority is excluded, but its thinking is tested and toughened. Being the lone dissenter in a colloquy, one learns to acquire sure facts, crisp arguments, and a thick skin.
But we can't open the university to conservative ideas and persons by outside command. That would poison the atmosphere and jeopardize the ideals of free inquiry. Leftist bias evolved within the protocols of academic practice (though not without intimidation), and conservative challenges should evolve in the same way. There are no administrative or professional reasons to bring conservatism into academe, to be sure, but there are good intellectual and social reasons for doing so.
Those reasons are, in brief: One, a wider spectrum of opinion accords with the claims of diversity. Two, facing real antagonists strengthens one's own position. Three, to earn a public role in American society, professors must engage the full range of public opinion.
Finally, to create a livelier climate on the campus, professors must end the routine setups that pass for dialogue. Panels on issues like Iraq, racism, imperialism, and terrorism that stack the dais provide lots of passion, but little excitement. Syllabi that include the same roster of voices make learning ever more desultory. Add a few rightists, and the debate picks up. Perhaps that is the most persuasive internal case for infusing conservatism into academic discourse and activities. Without genuine dissent in the classroom and the committee room, academic life is simply boring.
Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts.
Here is an article I thought people would think is interesting. Usually I would just put a link, but this one I really think is worth seeing.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php? id=56a4b06e77oshwaiq5psszuc2gti5neb
From the issue dated November 12, 2004
Liberal Groupthink Is Anti-Intellectual
By MARK BAUERLEIN
Conservatives on college campuses scored a tactical hit when the American Enterprise Institute's magazine published a survey of voter registration among humanities and social-science faculty members several years ago. More than nine out of 10 professors belonged to the Democratic or Green party, an imbalance that contradicted many liberal academics' protestations that diversity and pluralism abound in higher education. Further investigations by people like David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, coupled with well-publicized cases of discrimination against conservative professors, reinforced the findings and set "intellectual diversity" on the agenda of state legislators and members of Congress.
The public has now picked up the message that "campuses are havens for left-leaning activists," according to a Chronicle poll of 1,000 adult Americans this year. Half of those surveyed -- 68 percent who call themselves "conservative" and even 30 percent who say they are "liberal" -- agreed that colleges improperly introduce a liberal bias into what they teach. The matter, however, is clearly not just one of perception. Indeed, in another recent survey, this one conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles, faculty members themselves chose as their commitment "far left" or "liberal" more than two and a half times as often as "far right" or "conservative." As a Chronicle article last month put it: "On left-leaning campuses around the country, professors on the right feel disenfranchised."
Yet while the lack of conservative minds on college campuses is increasingly indisputable, the question remains: Why?
The obvious answer, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is that academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. What allows them to do that, while at the same time they deny it, is that the bias takes a subtle form. Although I've met several conservative intellectuals in the last year who would love an academic post but have given up after years of trying, outright blackballing is rare. The disparate outcome emerges through an indirect filtering process that runs from graduate school to tenure and beyond.
Some fields' very constitutions rest on progressive politics and make it clear from the start that conservative outlooks will not do. Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African-American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies.
Other fields allow the possibility of studying conservative authors and ideas, but narrow the avenues of advancement. Mentors are disinclined to support your topic, conference announcements rarely appeal to your work, and few job descriptions match your profile. A fledgling literary scholar who studies anti-communist writing and concludes that its worth surpasses that of counterculture discourse in terms of the cogency of its ideas and morality of its implications won't go far in the application process.
No active or noisy elimination need occur, and no explicit queries about political orientation need be posed. Political orientation has been embedded into the disciplines, and so what is indeed a political judgment may be expressed in disciplinary terms. As an Americanist said in a committee meeting that I attended, "We can't hire anyone who doesn't do race," an assertion that had all the force of a scholastic dictum. Stanley Fish, professor and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, advises, "The question you should ask professors is whether your work has influence or relevance" -- and while he raised it to argue that no liberal conspiracy in higher education exists, the question is bound to keep conservatives off the short list. For while studies of scholars like Michel Foucault, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri seem central in the graduate seminar, studies of Friedrich A. von Hayek and Francis Fukuyama, whose names rarely appear on cultural-studies syllabi despite their influence on world affairs, seem irrelevant.
Academics may quibble over the hiring process, but voter registration shows that liberal orthodoxy now has a professional import. Conservatives and liberals square off in public, but on campuses, conservative opinion doesn't qualify as respectable inquiry. You won't often find vouchers discussed in education schools or patriotism argued in American studies. Historically, the boundaries of scholarly fields were created by the objects studied and by norms of research and peer review. Today, a political variable has been added, whereby conservative assumptions expel their holders from the academic market. A wall insulates the academic left from ideas and writings on the right.
One can see that phenomenon in how insiders, reacting to Horowitz's polls, displayed little evidence that they had ever read conservative texts or met a conservative thinker. Weblogs had entries conjecturing why conservatives avoid academe -- while never actually bothering to find one and ask -- as if they were some exotic breed whose absence lay rooted in an inscrutable mind-set. Professors offered caricatures of the conservative intelligentsia, selecting Ann H. Coulter and Rush Limbaugh as representatives, not von Hayek, Russell Kirk, Leo Strauss, Thomas Sowell, Robert Nozick, or Gertrude Himmelfarb. One of them wrote that "conservatives of Horowitz's ilk want to unleash the most ignorant forces of the right in hounding liberal academics to death."
Such parochialism and alarm are the outcome of a course of socialization that aligns liberalism with disciplinary standards and collegial mores. Liberal orthodoxy is not just a political outlook; it's a professional one. Rarely is its content discussed. The ordinary evolution of opinion -- expounding your beliefs in conversation, testing them in debate, reading books that confirm or refute them -- is lacking, and what should remain arguable settles into surety. With so many in harmony, and with those who agree joined also in a guild membership, liberal beliefs become academic manners. It's social life in a professional world, and its patterns are worth describing.
The first protocol of academic society might be called the Common Assumption. The assumption is that all the strangers in the room at professional gatherings are liberals. Liberalism at humanities meetings serves the same purpose that scientific method does at science assemblies. It provides a base of accord. The Assumption proves correct often enough for it to join other forms of trust that enable collegial events. A fellowship is intimated, and members may speak their minds without worrying about justifying basic beliefs or curbing emotions.
The Common Assumption usually pans out and passes unnoticed -- except for those who don't share it, to whom it is an overt fact of professional life. Yet usually even they remain quiet in the face of the Common Assumption. There is no joy in breaking up fellow feeling, and the awkward pause that accompanies the moment when someone comes out of the conservative closet marks a quarantine that only the institutionally secure are willing to endure.
Sometimes, however, the Assumption steps over the line into arrogance, as when at a dinner a job candidate volunteered her description of a certain "racist, sexist, and homophobic" organization, and I admitted that I belonged to it. Or when two postdocs from Germany at a nearby university stopped by my office to talk about American literature. As they sat down and I commented on how quiet things were on the day before Thanksgiving, one muttered, "Yes, we call it American Genocide Day."
Such episodes reveal the argumentative hazards of the Assumption. Apart from the ill-mannered righteousness, academics with too much confidence in their audience utter debatable propositions as received wisdom. An assertion of the genocidal motives of early English settlers is put forward not for discussion but for approval. If the audience shares the belief, all is well and good. But a lone dissenter disrupts the process and, merely by posing a question, can show just how cheap such a pat consensus actually is.
After Nixon crushed McGovern in the 1972 election, the film critic Pauline Kael made a remark that has become a touchstone among conservatives. "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won," she marveled. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." While the second sentence indicates the sheltered habitat of the Manhattan intellectual, the first signifies what social scientists call the False Consensus Effect. That effect occurs when people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. If the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way.
The tendency applies to professors, especially in humanities departments, but with a twist. Although a liberal consensus reigns within, academics have an acute sense of how much their views clash with the majority of Americans. Some take pride in a posture of dissent and find noble precursors in civil rights, Students for a Democratic Society, and other such movements. But dissent from the mainstream has limited charms, especially after 24 years of center-right rule in Washington. Liberal professors want to be adversarial, but are tired of seclusion. Thus, many academics find a solution in a limited version of the False Consensus that says liberal belief reigns among intellectuals everywhere.
Such a consensus applies only to the thinking classes, union supporters, minority-group activists, and environmentalists against corporate powers. Professors cannot conceive that any person trained in critical thinking could listen to George W. Bush speak and still vote Republican. They do acknowledge one setting in which right-wing intellectual work happensnamely, the think tanksbut add that the labor there is patently corrupt. The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and the Hoover Institution all have corporate sponsors, they note, and fellows in residence do their bidding. Hence, references to "right-wing think tanks" are always accompanied by the qualifier "well-funded."
The dangers of aligning liberalism with higher thought are obvious. When a Duke University philosophy professor implied last February that conservatives tend toward stupidity, he confirmed the public opinion of academics as a self-regarding elite -- regardless of whether or not he was joking, as he later said that he was. When laymen scan course syllabi or search the shelves of college bookstores and find only a few volumes of traditionalist argument amid the thickets of leftist critique, they wonder whether students ever enjoy a fruitful encounter with conservative thought. When a conference panel is convened or a collection is published on a controversial subject, and all the participants and contributors stand on one side of the issue, the tendentiousness is striking to everyone except those involved. The False Consensus does its work, but has an opposite effect. Instead of uniting academics with a broader public, it isolates them as a ritualized club.
The final social pattern is the Law of Group Polarization. That lawas Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of political science and of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, has describedpredicts that when like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs. In a product-liability trial, for example, if nine jurors believe the manufacturer is somewhat guilty and three believe it is entirely guilty, the latter will draw the former toward a larger award than the nine would allow on their own. If people who object in varying degrees to the war in Iraq convene to debate methods of protest, all will emerge from the discussion more resolved against the war.
Group Polarization happens so smoothly on campuses that those involved lose all sense of the range of legitimate opinion. A librarian at Ohio State University who announces, "White Americans pay too little attention to the benefits their skin color gives them, and opening their eyes to their privileged status is a valid part of a college education" (The Chronicle, August 6) seems to have no idea how extreme his vision sounds to many ears. Deliberations among groups are just as prone to tone deafness. The annual resolutions of the Modern Language Association's Delegate Assembly, for example, ring with indignation over practices that enjoy popular acceptance. Last year, charging that in wartime, governments use language to "misrepresent policies" and "stigmatize dissent," one resolution urged faculty members to conduct "critical analysis of war talk ... as appropriate, in classrooms." However high-minded the delegates felt as they tallied the vote, which passed 122 to 8 without discussion, to outsiders the resolution seemed merely a license for more proselytizing.
The problem is that the simple trappings of deliberation make academics think that they've reached an opinion through reasoned debate -- instead of, in part, through an irrational social dynamic. The opinion takes on the status of a norm. Extreme views appear to be logical extensions of principles that everyone more or less shares, and extremists gain a larger influence than their numbers merit. If participants left the enclave, their beliefs would moderate, and they would be more open to the beliefs of others. But with the conferences, quarterlies, and committee meetings suffused with extreme positions, they're stuck with abiding by the convictions of their most passionate brethren.
As things stand, such behaviors shift in a left direction, but they could just as well move right if conservatives had the extent of control that liberals do now. The phenomenon that I have described is not so much a political matter as a social dynamic; any political position that dominates an institution without dissent deterioriates into smugness, complacency, and blindness. The solution is an intellectual climate in which the worst tendencies of group psychology are neutralized.
That doesn't mean establishing affirmative action for conservative scholars or encouraging greater market forces in education -- which violate conservative values as much as they do liberal values. Rather, it calls for academics to recognize that a one-party campus is bad for the intellectual health of everyone. Groupthink is an anti-intellectual condition, ironically seductive in that the more one feels at ease with compatriots, the more one's mind narrows. The great liberal John Stuart Mill identified its insulating effect as a failure of imagination: "They have never thrown themselves into the mental condition of those who think differently from them." With adversaries so few and opposing ideas so disposable, a reverse advantage sets in. The majority expands its power throughout the institution, but its thinking grows routine and parochial. The minority is excluded, but its thinking is tested and toughened. Being the lone dissenter in a colloquy, one learns to acquire sure facts, crisp arguments, and a thick skin.
But we can't open the university to conservative ideas and persons by outside command. That would poison the atmosphere and jeopardize the ideals of free inquiry. Leftist bias evolved within the protocols of academic practice (though not without intimidation), and conservative challenges should evolve in the same way. There are no administrative or professional reasons to bring conservatism into academe, to be sure, but there are good intellectual and social reasons for doing so.
Those reasons are, in brief: One, a wider spectrum of opinion accords with the claims of diversity. Two, facing real antagonists strengthens one's own position. Three, to earn a public role in American society, professors must engage the full range of public opinion.
Finally, to create a livelier climate on the campus, professors must end the routine setups that pass for dialogue. Panels on issues like Iraq, racism, imperialism, and terrorism that stack the dais provide lots of passion, but little excitement. Syllabi that include the same roster of voices make learning ever more desultory. Add a few rightists, and the debate picks up. Perhaps that is the most persuasive internal case for infusing conservatism into academic discourse and activities. Without genuine dissent in the classroom and the committee room, academic life is simply boring.
Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Just watched Brokeback
Weekends never seem to last long enough. There will be very few breaks for me for the next two years because of my new Masters program. So I never seem to choose the right movies to watch. Now I am watching Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I already know it is funny, nothing to worry about. Before this we were watching Brokeback Mountain. I didn't know that it would be that bad of a love story. The movie wasn't unbarable or anything. It was just that a few times you sit back and think, "What the hell happened here?"
Okay, the first sex/rape scene, I did not see that coming. There was no romantic build up. There was nothing. Just a couple of sheep hearders going about thier buisness. It looks like one of them accidently grabs the other in his sleep. I thought that the Heath Ledger character was going to kick his ass, but instead he does something else with it. That seems to be consistant. Heath Ledger just looks like he's pissed off through the whole movie. There is a definite look of disgust on his face that makes the movie kind of amusing.
I think the only reason this movie would ever get any awards is because of the agenda it has. You don't have to see the movie to really figure that out though. Most people I know have not seen it regardless of how much hype it created. It really didn't show at that many movie theaters either when it came out. Anyway, the hype it created was the only reason I bothered to see it in the first place . It just isn't a very good love story, or more of not a very convincing one. Its the second movie I've seen with a gay love story. I kind of knew from the first that I wouldn't really be thrilled about it. Maybe its part of being a conservative Catholic. Oh well, I won't worry too much about it. I'm tired.
Okay, the first sex/rape scene, I did not see that coming. There was no romantic build up. There was nothing. Just a couple of sheep hearders going about thier buisness. It looks like one of them accidently grabs the other in his sleep. I thought that the Heath Ledger character was going to kick his ass, but instead he does something else with it. That seems to be consistant. Heath Ledger just looks like he's pissed off through the whole movie. There is a definite look of disgust on his face that makes the movie kind of amusing.
I think the only reason this movie would ever get any awards is because of the agenda it has. You don't have to see the movie to really figure that out though. Most people I know have not seen it regardless of how much hype it created. It really didn't show at that many movie theaters either when it came out. Anyway, the hype it created was the only reason I bothered to see it in the first place . It just isn't a very good love story, or more of not a very convincing one. Its the second movie I've seen with a gay love story. I kind of knew from the first that I wouldn't really be thrilled about it. Maybe its part of being a conservative Catholic. Oh well, I won't worry too much about it. I'm tired.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
You have to see this!
Okay, I posted about Miami before...
You have to read this article!
One example of the craziness that is Miami. It will make you laugh:)
You have to read this article!
One example of the craziness that is Miami. It will make you laugh:)
Friday, November 24, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving
Late Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I am down in Texas for the time being. My parents moved to a new small East Texas town that I must see and do other such things. It is good to have this small break. It is about to be quite busy. I will be starting graduate school at the first of December and working fulltime. For some reason I think I will be much more successful with this schedule though. So, not much to write about at this point. I am alive and well. I just had a cancer scare, but found out that it isn't cancer at this point at least. Just found that out the day before yesterday. It gives me something to be thankful for at least. Well, I shouldn't keep myself on the computer for too long. I never see my parents. Till next time....
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Piercings
Did you know that there is an infection that can occur from a naval piercing that can cause heart failure? Look it up. I've had a few piercings and have taken them out before I got married. I went to the doctor the other day and he noticed a couple of my healed piercing scars and had to tell me all about the dangers of piercings. I have to admit I have no urge towards it anymore. I don't even wear earings anymore. Another story he told me was about a girl who had a nipple piercing and two weeks later removed it. She had an abscest grow in her breast that had to be removed. He relized while removing it that the abscest ended up replacing her entire breast and she really only had the outer skin left. She had to have it rebuilt. People should know that they can be extremely dangerous sometimes. I just read a short article(it is somewhere on that page) about a girl who had to have heart surgery from having a piercing. Luckily I have had no such problems. I just notice when you look up piercings there are mostly positive articles about it. People should be warned that there are major risks for something that is mostly just a fashion accesory.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Thoughts on upcoming election
Elections are on my mind, and it is interesting the amount of political advertising you see in our area. I guess that is the plus of living in a swing state. I have to say that on the side of political advertising, the democrats are winning. I see so much on the democrats it makes me sick. I think I'm going to vote straight ticket republican ticket just because how sick of them I am. Well, I was going to anyway.
Of course, I do worry about how republicans will fare in our area. I live in the congressional district of Mark Foley.... Yes, the same guy that was caught in this gay sex scandal of sorts. I had no clue who would be there to replace him till I looked it up online. Joe Negron is the man if anyone is interested. I think that most people that come to this blog are no where near where I live though. I wonder if those in other parts of the country are noticing the lack of republican advertising. Is it just because I am moving from a dominant Republican state to a swing state? I do not know.
Watching a few commercials have proved to me that it appears that the popularity of the Iraq war is waning. I was just wondering, how many Americans think it would be a good idea to pull out right now? Now I was not a big fan of the war at first, but from studying history you would have to be an idiot to think that it is a good idea to pull out now. We aren't loosing anything. We knew that it would be a long term thing. Also pulling out would create problems like there were in Afghanistan before. We have already trained them, they would start hating us for leaving and then the terrorism would grow much more popular in the area. Does that sound about right to you?
I listen to the news and to the adds and I think the country has about lost their minds. The news are writing opinion articles for news and the political adds are all saying PULL OUT NOW, PULL OUT NOW! Or there is also the case that the news prints opinion as news on Iraq. War is not a pleasant thing, but it is necessary for security. It is as simple as that, and do we really want to have the appearance of being so fickle? This seems to be the key issue that all are focusing on for this election and it is retarded to do so.
Other than that there is a focus on Bush's leadership skills. Do you really think our president is that dumb? I remember this guy on the news talking about the books that President Bush was reading at the time. He was reading Shakepeare at the time. The news guy commented on how our president discovered Shakespeare. Are you retarded? Do you seriously think that a Ivy league graduate would be just discovering Shakespeare in his 50s. I think he has thought to read it before in his life. My point is, if you are intelligent you can see how manipulative the news is. I guess I'm doing exactly what liberals usually do. They claim that only those with intelligence would vote democratic. It seems to be working for them so far. I think it is about time to turn it around on them. I personally think that if the regular person paid attention to the issues and voted the issues, that they would see themselves to be more conservative. I discovered that of myself, and I use to be a liberal. Republicans are not deceptive, they are not running the stupid and there is no reason to fear speaking out about something other than the popular opinion of the democratic party.
Like I said at the first of the post, elections are on my mind and I am sick of the democrats. I went from being a liberal democrat, to independent who was embarrassed of saying anything of my political opinions, to a definite conservative republican. I had help along the way, but I will say definitely that the democrats are brainwashed. I am not. Flame if you want, I won't pay attention to it unless you can actually post a comment to convince me of something. If you don't know who I am, I have done plenty of research to come to my current political beliefs. Right now, I'll be surprised if anyone comments though. I can't help but post my political thoughts every once and awhile. What else is there to write on at this time of the year?
Monday, October 09, 2006
Its morning and I'm tired
I hate waking up this early. It seems that it is my curse though. I'm not a morning person, so every job I've had demands that I get up before everyone else. I have to be at work at 7am. Its better than 4am. I had to get up at that time for United. I just simply do not understand the work schedule that I do. For one, I am doing 9 to 10 hours of work a day rather than the tpical 8 hours. What is the reason? I'm not paid outstandingly for it. The work amuses me. But why go past the typical work day?
I was talking with Arthur about it. He did a 7 to 3 work schedule before, and he enjoyed that schedule. I would enjoy that schedule too. Do you know that the typical work day was 9 to 5? I never knew that. I always thought it was 8 to 5. I guess some places just demand longer. Lunch counts for nothing. Nothing to quit your job over. What does it matter. The place does it to keep up with compatition. I just hope we don't end up like the Japanese and killing ourselves early from so much work. Ah... Oh well, it will happen anyway.
I've wasted enough time. Now I have to go. Just wanted to get something up. I noticed I only posted once last month. September went by in a flash. I expect the same of October. Well, that is it for now. I have to go to work. Can't be late.
I was talking with Arthur about it. He did a 7 to 3 work schedule before, and he enjoyed that schedule. I would enjoy that schedule too. Do you know that the typical work day was 9 to 5? I never knew that. I always thought it was 8 to 5. I guess some places just demand longer. Lunch counts for nothing. Nothing to quit your job over. What does it matter. The place does it to keep up with compatition. I just hope we don't end up like the Japanese and killing ourselves early from so much work. Ah... Oh well, it will happen anyway.
I've wasted enough time. Now I have to go. Just wanted to get something up. I noticed I only posted once last month. September went by in a flash. I expect the same of October. Well, that is it for now. I have to go to work. Can't be late.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
What I want to be when I grow up
When looking for a job in the past I had a tendency to look too much into what I wanted to be later on in life. It took me awhile to relize that I should just go for whatever the hell I can get... minus Job Coach. I don't want to do that again. I feel like I've been constantly looking for work for the past year. Its not that I've been unemployed that whole time either. I've been told I'm the expert in the family on looking for jobs. That is what I spend my spare time doing, filling out job applications and writing cover letters. I've been to about seven job interviews in the past few weeks as well. I do have a job set up to where I only have a week off from the one I just quit and then I start again at a new place. Of course, I did this again because I moved to a new area... I'm not close enoough to Miami to work there. I still have this part of me that wants to be somewhat involved with "what I want to be when I grow up" sort of thing. That was why I worked for United Airlines for awhile. Anyway, at the same time there hasn't been one area specifically that I wanted to go into when I grow up. I'll give you an example:
1. Professor/Teacher- This is what my parents do and this is what most people know what I want to do. I've always thought I was a natural at teaching. I do well at job interviews where the position requires something to do with teaching as well. There are a couple of things keeping me from any such position, an upper level degree or a teaching certificate. I'm still attempting to get into a Master's program. I'll see how that works.
2. FBI/ Federal Agent- Okay, this one is a little sillier because I first wanted to go into doing this from growing up watching X-Files. I was a little too obsessed with that show. Still, I have attempted to get federal jobs. I don't think it will work. Well, they require good credit and to be in some sort of shape... Yep, like I said, I don't think its going to work out.
3. Pilot- I think this is one of the most far fetched one of them all. That is why I went into working at United Airlines, at least I had the opportunity to fly alot. I think I would also need that surgery to correct my vision or something to be a pilot. I don't know. I really gave up on that one a long time ago.
4. Astronaunt- This is the most far fetched one of them all. But now you see why I wanted to be a pilot? I loved astronomy. I wanted to have some opportunity to go into space. Hey, it could happen. Millionares can do it now. So that is all I need, to become a multi-millionare.
5. Virologist- Once upon a time I was a biology major and this was why. I wanted to study viruses. I still think they are fasinating, but I discovered that chemistry is hard. So that dream has dies. I don't put this one as far fetched though. I keep thinking that if I try one more time that I could pass chemistry.... I just would just need to go back to college. Maybe later.
6. Political Cartoonist- Still a possibility, I think I just have the problem of not being original enough. I can draw, but no ideas. That is why I post others political cartoons. Granted that I think most political cartoonists are unoriginal and liberal assholes, but I couldn't follow that model. It just wouldn't be right.
I think that is enough for now. But I have a question, who actually thinks that they want to be a clerical worker or an HR assistant when they grow up? I personally am a little biased against HR at this point. I think HR is a nonsense position. I would think that most people would want more interesting positions. But more than likely, I will be an administrative assistant soon enough. Not HR, they actually have a degree for that. Have you ever heard of anything more bullsh*$t than an HR degree?
1. Professor/Teacher- This is what my parents do and this is what most people know what I want to do. I've always thought I was a natural at teaching. I do well at job interviews where the position requires something to do with teaching as well. There are a couple of things keeping me from any such position, an upper level degree or a teaching certificate. I'm still attempting to get into a Master's program. I'll see how that works.
2. FBI/ Federal Agent- Okay, this one is a little sillier because I first wanted to go into doing this from growing up watching X-Files. I was a little too obsessed with that show. Still, I have attempted to get federal jobs. I don't think it will work. Well, they require good credit and to be in some sort of shape... Yep, like I said, I don't think its going to work out.
3. Pilot- I think this is one of the most far fetched one of them all. That is why I went into working at United Airlines, at least I had the opportunity to fly alot. I think I would also need that surgery to correct my vision or something to be a pilot. I don't know. I really gave up on that one a long time ago.
4. Astronaunt- This is the most far fetched one of them all. But now you see why I wanted to be a pilot? I loved astronomy. I wanted to have some opportunity to go into space. Hey, it could happen. Millionares can do it now. So that is all I need, to become a multi-millionare.
5. Virologist- Once upon a time I was a biology major and this was why. I wanted to study viruses. I still think they are fasinating, but I discovered that chemistry is hard. So that dream has dies. I don't put this one as far fetched though. I keep thinking that if I try one more time that I could pass chemistry.... I just would just need to go back to college. Maybe later.
6. Political Cartoonist- Still a possibility, I think I just have the problem of not being original enough. I can draw, but no ideas. That is why I post others political cartoons. Granted that I think most political cartoonists are unoriginal and liberal assholes, but I couldn't follow that model. It just wouldn't be right.
I think that is enough for now. But I have a question, who actually thinks that they want to be a clerical worker or an HR assistant when they grow up? I personally am a little biased against HR at this point. I think HR is a nonsense position. I would think that most people would want more interesting positions. But more than likely, I will be an administrative assistant soon enough. Not HR, they actually have a degree for that. Have you ever heard of anything more bullsh*$t than an HR degree?
Friday, August 04, 2006
Dear Diary
I have kept diaries since I was in middle school. At least I have on and off. I have always enjoyed the act of journaling and I treat it like an old friend. I recently came across one of my oldest diaries. I let my husband read it. What did it really matter, it is the thoughts and actions of a 14 to 15 year old girl, or maybe I was 16. I don't really remember. He really gets into reading those things, like he loves studying me. Now I see one of consequences from doing such a thing. I picked up a new diary. A leather bound book of blank pages, I love them. I couldn't help it. I came home and started writing in it. My journaling had stopped with the blog and I need to start that again. I mean it's not like I can really do the same thing online. You can't really share your heart and your raw emotion to anyone who could possibly want to simply stop by your web page. After I finished writing he looked over and asked if I wrote how I was sorry for not writing to the diary before because I hadn't purchased it before now. Yes, that sounds about what I would usually do. Hey, like I said I write to them as an old friend. I've read diaries where the person writes simple and basic info of their day. That is so boring! I can't take that. One thing that I love more than anything else is letters. I love reading old letters and such. Sometimes I miss the fact the act of letter writing is more or less dead, taken out by email. I write the diary like a letter. I think it makes it so much more interesting when you look back. Maybe that is why Arthur was drawn in? I don't know. Hmm.... I just know I must sleep. Diary and then blog is a little much, but on the weekend I have time. What can I say? Laters.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Moving as a pack rat
When I finally get unpacked I will be extremely happy. Part of me wonders when the hell that could possibly happen at this point. We moved as I wrote in my last post. The movers were assholes and were not very good with my stuff. For instance, the grand piano... My most precious possession, is unplayable. I'm not sure when we will be able to get someone out here to make it playable again. It is painful seeing it like that. They put the thing together without me being in the room. So I was extremely pissed. I was getting ready for a job interview and my husband was the first one to notice there was something wrong with the keys. They won't go down. So it makes it difficult to play it. I yelled at the movers as I left to not touch another damned thing as I walked out the door, and that is what they did. The furniture is together, but everything else is in boxes.
This is not my first time to move. I've understood how painful it is for me to move from my previous moves within Texas: Terrill to Paris, moves within Paris, Paris to Amarillo, moves within Amarillo, Amarillo to San Marcos, San Marcos to Brenham, Brenham back to San Marcos, San Marcos to San Antonio and now finally down here to the treasure coast of Florida... I think that is what it is called. Most of those moves are from the point I started college to this point, and I think some of my boxes have not been unpacked since highschool. That is the main reason I say "painful" in describing moving, I am a pack rat. I keep everything, and I think I feel it more in this move than any other. I finally have decided, why do I need a full collection of RL Stine Fear Street books from when I was in elementary school? That is just one example. Then there are the ones that I keep questioning "what the hell do I do with them", but I can't get myself to thow them away. I have college newspapers from when I was an editor. I have trophies from playing soccer in elementary school (I threw them away because they were destroyed anyway). I start to argue with myself about these possessions. What if I want them in the future for some reason? Am I hurting myself by throwing them away? Yes, I start the process of putting them in give away boxes, and then question if they will ever leave my living room floor.... I get attached to possessions too much. It is a problem.
So we will see how long the place will remain in this state. Our main stuff is unpacked right now. I just wonder if there is room for all my junk. I may need Art's assistance in throwing things away. Yes, it can be painful to go through this process. Well, now I must get ready for work. I will write later.
This is not my first time to move. I've understood how painful it is for me to move from my previous moves within Texas: Terrill to Paris, moves within Paris, Paris to Amarillo, moves within Amarillo, Amarillo to San Marcos, San Marcos to Brenham, Brenham back to San Marcos, San Marcos to San Antonio and now finally down here to the treasure coast of Florida... I think that is what it is called. Most of those moves are from the point I started college to this point, and I think some of my boxes have not been unpacked since highschool. That is the main reason I say "painful" in describing moving, I am a pack rat. I keep everything, and I think I feel it more in this move than any other. I finally have decided, why do I need a full collection of RL Stine Fear Street books from when I was in elementary school? That is just one example. Then there are the ones that I keep questioning "what the hell do I do with them", but I can't get myself to thow them away. I have college newspapers from when I was an editor. I have trophies from playing soccer in elementary school (I threw them away because they were destroyed anyway). I start to argue with myself about these possessions. What if I want them in the future for some reason? Am I hurting myself by throwing them away? Yes, I start the process of putting them in give away boxes, and then question if they will ever leave my living room floor.... I get attached to possessions too much. It is a problem.
So we will see how long the place will remain in this state. Our main stuff is unpacked right now. I just wonder if there is room for all my junk. I may need Art's assistance in throwing things away. Yes, it can be painful to go through this process. Well, now I must get ready for work. I will write later.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Moving
We went to our new place to get ready to move. Here is another picture that I took of the beach. It was cloudy, but it is cloudy every day. Regardless, there were still people out playing at the beach. I can't wait till we are settled down in our new place.
This is a picture I found online of the lighthouse in the area. There will probably be plenty of drawings of this once I have enough time to draw. Anyway, wish me luck! Hopefully we will have everything ready in our place by the end of the next week:)
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Corinthians 8: 7, 9, 13 - 15
Now as you excel in everything -- in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love for us -- see that you excel in this gracious work also.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality.
As it is written, "He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack."
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality.
As it is written, "He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack."
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Anne Rice's new book and other thoughts
I started to read Anne Rice when I was in middle school. Since then I have read most of her Vampire Chronicles and some of her Mayfair Witch books. As a result, I did have a slight obsession with vampires through high school. When I heard about her newest book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt I had to read it. It took me awhile to get through it, though it is a short book. I think the main reason is because I read it during a time in my life of constant change. Art and I got married, moved out of Texas and then I went through the process of finding a new job while staying at my inlaws. But I was happy when I finally was able to spend an afternoon to read through it.Like all of her work, it was easy and quick read. I get pulled into her work very easily. What I find amazing about this particular work is how she pulls you into the life of the Jewish community in Nazareth during the time of Jesus' childhood. You can tell she did her research. There are details of how the people reacted to each other in day to day life, how they practiced religious life and the political situations from the time of Herod's life. I found it all together amazing reading the details of how Jews lived at the time of Jesus. I know that it is fiction, but there appears to be truths to the everyday actions of those different characters in the book. In fact in the last of the book she wrote about how much research she did for the book.
The main part of the book which I found quite amazing is when his older brother goes to the temple goes to give a sacrifice. I'm sure that most of you have no idea of what I am talking about, but it was a description of this ceremony of the Jews where they went to Jerusalem to give sacrifice for their sins. The way she described it (I believe, I read it a couple of weeks ago and I don't have it in front of me) is that they brought two animals to be sacrificed. One was killed and the other was wet free into the woods. It was a way of God releasing one's sins. To me it seemed that there was a direct relation to this ceremony and the idea of the purpose of Jesus' life. Jesus was born of God to sacrifice his life for us all. He was born as a sacrifice. He was the one who released us from our sin. Not saying that he was born strictly for the sacrifice. He was also an example for us all. Jesus lived his life as a human and had the same feelings of a human. He was the human part of God.
Later on I talked with Art on a subject that made me think more of the book. He asked since Jesus received the Holy Spirit as all of us did, how is he really that different from us? Why is it that we do not have the same capability as him? When I was thinking about it I realized that there really was a stronger relation between us and Jesus than I had really thought of before. The main difference is that he was directly from God as His son. Though he was still born of Mary. Mary was human and was a good woman, but was a woman. She created the human part of Jesus. She is the reason that we have so much in common with Jesus. So in a sense we are not that different from him. We have the guidance of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus did. Am I wrong in this assumption? That is not something that came from Anne Rice's book, but just something on my mind as a result of reading her work.
I think of Jesus as the most important figure in history. From the religious position that he maintains it seems to escape most that he was still human. I really loved that Anne Rice decided to write a book on Jesus, and from what I read it seems that she is going to write an entire series of books on his life. I think that it is quite a character to take on to write about and she did it well. I'm also glad to see that she came back to the faith of her childhood and using her talent in such a way.
The Best Spiritual Book of the Year
Part 2: Nazis and Republicans do not mix
I was listening to the radio on the way home from work the other day. It is an hour drive so I either listen to comedy or the news so I don't start nodding off. I love satellite radio! Anyway, I heard something about how there was a group that was trying to pass through a fat tax. It would be a tax to encourage good health and to discourage the consumption of fatty foods. I don't remember what exactly they are wanting to tax, but the point is to enforce health standards for the community. To have the state in charge of the promotion of healthy living. This made me think of my last post on Nazis and Republicans. The point that I was getting at was that there are more comparisons between the Democratic party and the Nazis than the Republican party. The main reason is because that the Nazis were socialists. In that earlier post I put up some of the 25 points that Hitler went by. One of them reminded me of the fat tax....
It is not exactly same thing as the fat tax, but the basis of the ideas are the same. Hitler believed greatly in the promotion of physical health. It is also a known fact that he was avidly against smoking. He made it the state's responsibility to keep people in physical health. The idea behind the fat tax is the same thing. The idea is to find a way to keep people on a national level from consuming fatty foods. I found an article that said the main reason that Bush was against this fat tax was because it went against personal responsibility. In this article it said that this was something that the WHO (World Health Organization) was promoting, for the state to regulate people's health in that way. The point is that this is a socialist idea, and not something that conservatives encourage.
I'll continue with another point that I put up....
This one was the main one that I wished to discuss. I was reading about the Anglicans and their dispute with homosexuality. Art told me how there seemed to be so much contraversy over this that it seemed that there might be a split into a American Anglican Church. We were talking about how it seemed that there was a trend of churches splitting in American society. I know that there were problems in the American Catholic community with giving communion to politicians that are known to be pro-choice. There is a trend of people trying to force homosexuality and women priests on the Catholic Church, and I know it is happening with others as well. Positive Christianity has its similarities. It was a promotion of how Jesus as an "Aryan". Also, according to Wikipedia...
This was only after the Positive Christianity movement seemed to not catch on. It ended in 1945. Now how many times have you heard reference to Jesus being gay or think of how the ideas of women leadership in the Catholic Church are promoted with either Mary Magdalene or Mother Mary. The point is the distortion of the ideas of Christianity to the personal goals of the state. When they do not conform there is this eradication of the church. United States was referred to as a Christian Nation at one point, but it seems to be widely accepted today that we are secular. In a socialist country it is difficult to keep with the ideas of Chistianity because it promotes the importance of the individual within the community. It does not promote the supreme importance of the state. I was taught at one point about the points of government structure in the Old Testament. Even within that structure there were levels of checks and balances that made sure that God was being followed. I think it should be noticeable how the Democratic party goes along with this. There seems to be a movement in this country to both eradicate Christianity from public view and to change the church to go along with other's political agenda.
Well, I wouldn't say that the Democratic party is the same as the Nazis, but the point is that they are socialist. One thing that I was taught from my first political science class in high school is that the difference between the main two countries in our country is one believes in more control of the state and the later the control of the individual. It is known that the Republican party is for reducing taxes and not for promoting more and more social programs. The democrats are for the central power of the state. They inherently do not trust people to take responsibility for what they do. With that comes welfare programs and the regulation of the day to day things of society. The main difference is that the Democrats are anti-military. Is there a situation which the liberals would be for military action? That is good question that is for another post at another time.
Well, I'm just finishing up on what I started a week ago. I can't stand the remarks of conservatives being Nazis. Maybe you guys can give me a better idea of how the Republicans could be seen as Nazis. Of course that means proposing an argument, not calling me a dumbass... So let me know. I'll actually comment back this time.
The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
It is not exactly same thing as the fat tax, but the basis of the ideas are the same. Hitler believed greatly in the promotion of physical health. It is also a known fact that he was avidly against smoking. He made it the state's responsibility to keep people in physical health. The idea behind the fat tax is the same thing. The idea is to find a way to keep people on a national level from consuming fatty foods. I found an article that said the main reason that Bush was against this fat tax was because it went against personal responsibility. In this article it said that this was something that the WHO (World Health Organization) was promoting, for the state to regulate people's health in that way. The point is that this is a socialist idea, and not something that conservatives encourage.
I'll continue with another point that I put up....
We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.
This one was the main one that I wished to discuss. I was reading about the Anglicans and their dispute with homosexuality. Art told me how there seemed to be so much contraversy over this that it seemed that there might be a split into a American Anglican Church. We were talking about how it seemed that there was a trend of churches splitting in American society. I know that there were problems in the American Catholic community with giving communion to politicians that are known to be pro-choice. There is a trend of people trying to force homosexuality and women priests on the Catholic Church, and I know it is happening with others as well. Positive Christianity has its similarities. It was a promotion of how Jesus as an "Aryan". Also, according to Wikipedia...
They attempted to separate Nazi officials from church affiliations, banning nativity plays and calling for an end to daily prayers in schools.
This was only after the Positive Christianity movement seemed to not catch on. It ended in 1945. Now how many times have you heard reference to Jesus being gay or think of how the ideas of women leadership in the Catholic Church are promoted with either Mary Magdalene or Mother Mary. The point is the distortion of the ideas of Christianity to the personal goals of the state. When they do not conform there is this eradication of the church. United States was referred to as a Christian Nation at one point, but it seems to be widely accepted today that we are secular. In a socialist country it is difficult to keep with the ideas of Chistianity because it promotes the importance of the individual within the community. It does not promote the supreme importance of the state. I was taught at one point about the points of government structure in the Old Testament. Even within that structure there were levels of checks and balances that made sure that God was being followed. I think it should be noticeable how the Democratic party goes along with this. There seems to be a movement in this country to both eradicate Christianity from public view and to change the church to go along with other's political agenda.
Well, I wouldn't say that the Democratic party is the same as the Nazis, but the point is that they are socialist. One thing that I was taught from my first political science class in high school is that the difference between the main two countries in our country is one believes in more control of the state and the later the control of the individual. It is known that the Republican party is for reducing taxes and not for promoting more and more social programs. The democrats are for the central power of the state. They inherently do not trust people to take responsibility for what they do. With that comes welfare programs and the regulation of the day to day things of society. The main difference is that the Democrats are anti-military. Is there a situation which the liberals would be for military action? That is good question that is for another post at another time.
Well, I'm just finishing up on what I started a week ago. I can't stand the remarks of conservatives being Nazis. Maybe you guys can give me a better idea of how the Republicans could be seen as Nazis. Of course that means proposing an argument, not calling me a dumbass... So let me know. I'll actually comment back this time.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Part 1: Nazis and Republicans do not mix
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Nazis? I'll give a few that come to my mind: Hitler, World War II, The Holocaust, The Third Reich, The SS, and ethnic cleansing. There are a couple that I read recently that are new to me: The Nationalist Socialist Program and Positive Christianity. The only reason that I have come across these sites is because of my curiosity in why there are constant references between the Republic Party and The Nazis. I'll give examples here and here:
If you look it up online or just go to various liberal political blogs you will find plenty of remarks of comparing Bush and other republicans to Nazis. The reasons I see for these comparisons so far are because republicans are accused of being fascists, racists (homophobes as well), militaristic and nationalists. The reasons for using the comparison between Hitler and Bush seems to be solely on the shear hatred that people on the left have for him and there are references to his grandfather being connected to Nazi Germany. That is also including the other reasons above that are associated with all republicans or conservatives. The only one I will not respond to is the referece to his family connection. Do you take on the burden of your grandfather or even your father's sins? Why should he?
So to start off. What are the Nazis? They were the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party. According to Wikipedia (which I love to use if you cannot already tell):
I'll give an idea of what some of the 25 points were. All know that the party believed in the superiority of thier race and were not a fan of foriegners. Here are others...
Basically, you could take these points from any socialist platform. Germany was a democracy that optionally gave over to a socialist party. I like this explanation of the Nazis. Hitler was avidly against the use of tobacco and rose to power in support of the working class. He was for nationalization. In what way is this possibly conservative?
I'll split this one up into more than one post. I'm big on research and I couldn't in good conscience continue with any argument without some sort of backing. The next post I will continue on how some of the ideas of Nazi party are still alive today, but it is not with the conservative or religious right population. The reason... moral relativism. I'll update soon.
If you look it up online or just go to various liberal political blogs you will find plenty of remarks of comparing Bush and other republicans to Nazis. The reasons I see for these comparisons so far are because republicans are accused of being fascists, racists (homophobes as well), militaristic and nationalists. The reasons for using the comparison between Hitler and Bush seems to be solely on the shear hatred that people on the left have for him and there are references to his grandfather being connected to Nazi Germany. That is also including the other reasons above that are associated with all republicans or conservatives. The only one I will not respond to is the referece to his family connection. Do you take on the burden of your grandfather or even your father's sins? Why should he?
So to start off. What are the Nazis? They were the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party. According to Wikipedia (which I love to use if you cannot already tell):
"The National Socialist program also contained a number of points that supported democracy and even called for wider democratic rights. These, like much of the program, lost their importance as the Party evolved, and were ignored by the Nazis after they rose to power".
I'll give an idea of what some of the 25 points were. All know that the party believed in the superiority of thier race and were not a fan of foriegners. Here are others...
"All citizens must have equal rights and obligations".
"Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery".
"In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits".
"We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries". "We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare".
"The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession".
"The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young".
"We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility".
Basically, you could take these points from any socialist platform. Germany was a democracy that optionally gave over to a socialist party. I like this explanation of the Nazis. Hitler was avidly against the use of tobacco and rose to power in support of the working class. He was for nationalization. In what way is this possibly conservative?
I'll split this one up into more than one post. I'm big on research and I couldn't in good conscience continue with any argument without some sort of backing. The next post I will continue on how some of the ideas of Nazi party are still alive today, but it is not with the conservative or religious right population. The reason... moral relativism. I'll update soon.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Its that time again....
Yes, I know that hurricane season started a few days ago and I don't know if the rest of the country is receiving the predictions like we are down here. I assume you are based on the cartoon, but we had a special program on it the other night on the weather. There is no doubt that it is time to prepare. I've decided from my last experience with Katrina that what I want more than anything else is a battery powered fan. I'm not sure where I can get one, but I believe that is essential to surviving the Miami heat when the electricity is out. It gets very very hot, and they take days to turn back on the electricity. I just think it is kind of funny that everyone thinks that this season will be devastating. I personally think things should be good if you take history as a guide. Before last season the last time there was a major hurricane to hit south Florida was Andrew. I'm not too worried... But I'm still getting the fan. We will also be as prepared as anyone else. I think. If you are interested at all in what will happen this hurricane season, even if you are not, then you should read this article. It is Carl Hiaasan and it is about a guy who does quite well in predicting hurricanes, but has a real unconventional way of doing it. And if you do live near the coast it is always good to be prepared for such events, but you know already that it is just part of the normal life of your home.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Friday, June 02, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Nothing really happened
So we drove to Key Largo this afternoon. It is still amazing to me to live so close to the water. Of course, it is impossible to make it to the water. The beach is blocked off to public except for certain sections. We were driving just so I could see my new home. I haven't been to the beach since I've moved here. I went out to eat at South Beach once, but I really didn't feel like going down to the water. So I guess it just hasn't really hit me where I live. The keys are close. They are accessible. I remember going to the Keys when I was a little girl. I loved Florida and thought it was the coolest state ever. Of course I remember thinking that Miami was ugly.... That really hasn't changed much. Florida was also only the third or fourth state I had seen at that time.
So we are driving down and I'm hearing constant complaints from my husband about how ugly Florida is and how it there is nothing but green. This whole time I'm looking to the side of the car in amazement about how dense the trees were around us the whole way. I know its been years since I have lived in Amarillo, but my appreciation for trees hasn't died yet. I remember first moving to San Marcos, I thought it was paradise in comparison. I think I vowed to never underestimate how my surroundings effects my moods, and to never allow myself to move to a grassland/desert area again. The general dryness just sucks. Well, I'm definitely don't have to worry about being dry here. It certainly is not ugly, at least the vegetation. Art also points at the downtown area about the beauty of skyscrapers. I can't help but look at them blankly. I think historic sections of cities are pretty sometimes, but I don't really care for skyscrapers.
Oh well, it was a nice drive today none the less. I need to go to sleep:)
So we are driving down and I'm hearing constant complaints from my husband about how ugly Florida is and how it there is nothing but green. This whole time I'm looking to the side of the car in amazement about how dense the trees were around us the whole way. I know its been years since I have lived in Amarillo, but my appreciation for trees hasn't died yet. I remember first moving to San Marcos, I thought it was paradise in comparison. I think I vowed to never underestimate how my surroundings effects my moods, and to never allow myself to move to a grassland/desert area again. The general dryness just sucks. Well, I'm definitely don't have to worry about being dry here. It certainly is not ugly, at least the vegetation. Art also points at the downtown area about the beauty of skyscrapers. I can't help but look at them blankly. I think historic sections of cities are pretty sometimes, but I don't really care for skyscrapers.
Oh well, it was a nice drive today none the less. I need to go to sleep:)
Friday, May 19, 2006
Postmodernism
I have a question for my small audience. Is there anyone who truly understands the meaning of postmodernism? I know no other term that within the definition it says that this is a hard word to define. But there it is hovering over all of us as a defining point of our way of thinking. More of a defining point of our generation. It seems impossible to get rid of because of it having no real position. And why do I feel there is a need of getting rid of it? That is simple, there is nothing positive about it. It shifts with all positions, because its position is that there is no "right" and "wrong"; there is only the moment, or only an opinion. At least that is what I understand of it. Knowing that it is hard to define, I will give in to the possibility that I might be mistaken. All I know is that it is something the sucks beauty from art and meaning from philosophy. What I find sacred, with postmodernism turns simply into a cultural querk or a "point of view". It really gives a hollowness to everything, because there can only be what you are thinking now. There is nothing else.
If I am going about this in the right way I will go further with my questioning. How can people stand for this? How can people fall into this trap? To me it seems that the political correctness of today is greatly related to postmodernism. No one can say to a group, "what you are doing is wrong." Political correctness has the stance that morals are relative and that we have no place to judge. Where else could this have come from other than postmodernism? There are so many people that simply go along with this. I have to admit that I am silent on issues most of the time simply from fear of being berated. I have also always wanted to see myself as "openminded". One thing I always have to keep in mind is that it is one thing to be openminded, but something entirely different to be moral relativist. You can hear all views, but what means do you have to judge by if you lack the belief in "right" and "wrong"?
But it is wrong to think that there is this objective morality to postmodernism. I would think that belief in objective morality, more of a belief in God could do away with this... this... philosophy. But maybe not. Would you consider this continuing division of faith and personalizing of faith to be part of postmodernism? There is the belief in God, but it is more of a belief of God "on my terms". I can't tell how many times I have heard someone say that they believe in God, but they do not believe in any organized religion. I know many Catholics that pick and choose at what beliefs they wish to go by. Maybe I'm not too far off from them myself since I did not get married in the Catholic church. But then, how far off is Catholicism from postmodernism since it has accepted marriages of other faiths as valid?
I feel myself writing into a disorienting series of of facts and questions. All I've been thinking of is how to define and categorize postmodernism. It seems like that is critical in moving past it. But then again, maybe postmodernism is simply a product of globalization that cannot be moved past until we continue on to the next stage of human development. It survives on the fact that all cultures believe that they are right, and that there is none superior over another. But maybe in the last sentence is the answer to the end of postmodernism. The idea that there is one group out there that has it right. There is a possibility that there are cultures inferior to others. Why is that so wrong?
God help me I'd continue on this if I weren't so tired and disoriented right now. This emerged from a conversation in the car. Now I need sleep and peace of mind.... Well, at least sleep. I am sorry for the spelling, grammer and other nonsense that might appear in the post. As I said, I need sleep. Good night, or good morning:)
If I am going about this in the right way I will go further with my questioning. How can people stand for this? How can people fall into this trap? To me it seems that the political correctness of today is greatly related to postmodernism. No one can say to a group, "what you are doing is wrong." Political correctness has the stance that morals are relative and that we have no place to judge. Where else could this have come from other than postmodernism? There are so many people that simply go along with this. I have to admit that I am silent on issues most of the time simply from fear of being berated. I have also always wanted to see myself as "openminded". One thing I always have to keep in mind is that it is one thing to be openminded, but something entirely different to be moral relativist. You can hear all views, but what means do you have to judge by if you lack the belief in "right" and "wrong"?
But it is wrong to think that there is this objective morality to postmodernism. I would think that belief in objective morality, more of a belief in God could do away with this... this... philosophy. But maybe not. Would you consider this continuing division of faith and personalizing of faith to be part of postmodernism? There is the belief in God, but it is more of a belief of God "on my terms". I can't tell how many times I have heard someone say that they believe in God, but they do not believe in any organized religion. I know many Catholics that pick and choose at what beliefs they wish to go by. Maybe I'm not too far off from them myself since I did not get married in the Catholic church. But then, how far off is Catholicism from postmodernism since it has accepted marriages of other faiths as valid?
I feel myself writing into a disorienting series of of facts and questions. All I've been thinking of is how to define and categorize postmodernism. It seems like that is critical in moving past it. But then again, maybe postmodernism is simply a product of globalization that cannot be moved past until we continue on to the next stage of human development. It survives on the fact that all cultures believe that they are right, and that there is none superior over another. But maybe in the last sentence is the answer to the end of postmodernism. The idea that there is one group out there that has it right. There is a possibility that there are cultures inferior to others. Why is that so wrong?
God help me I'd continue on this if I weren't so tired and disoriented right now. This emerged from a conversation in the car. Now I need sleep and peace of mind.... Well, at least sleep. I am sorry for the spelling, grammer and other nonsense that might appear in the post. As I said, I need sleep. Good night, or good morning:)
Monday, May 15, 2006
Weird Miami
I have yet to feel any pride or enthusiasm in regards to my recent move from central Texas to south Florida. There is the fact that I have only lived in the place for two weeks, but think about it... The most important news event from my new home recently is the gator attacks. What can I say, maybe you should take a break from your daily jog next to the canals during the gator mating season. Yes, we live close to big dangerous reptiles. I imagine it couldn't be too hard to avoid them. But it is things like this that stand out in my mind when I think of my new home: it is a strange place. Now Texas has its weird places and such, but it does not have a city that was originally settled by Russian circus midgets or a famous retirement area for Latin American dictators ("dictator's row"... I may wrote more on it later). Yes, these are true facts and I'm surprised that they don't advertise more on their circus midget history. I no longer have to wonder how comedic writers such as Carl Hiaason and Dave Berry get their material. They could get a majority of it simply by driving down the Palmetto or picking up the Miami Herald. Hell, thinking of midgets, I have a short comedic story for you just from going the store the other day. We have been sick for the past week. I was blessed by getting an interview because of a hook up through one of Arthur's friends, but unfortunately that same person gave me a cold that I have yet to fully recovered from. I'll have to remember to thank her, but I digress. We were on one of many trips to the store when we both noticed two people suspiciously crawling out of a fence. Right when they made it to the side walk a midget came up quickly on a chopper/small motor bike and almost ran them over on the side walk. The only thing I could think to say is, "Was that a midget?" Arthur and I just looked at each other and laughed. Short, but it was amusing at the time. Oh yes, in regards to my previous post on Baskin Robins... I have discovered that this sort of thing is common in Miami. As in Art's comment, I agree we hadn't been to enough places yet to notice most people in Miami seem incapable of customer service. We went out to eat on South Beach for my birthday and it took them an hour to get out the food because they had put the order in, but it was somehow lost. There are two things you can expect from stores in Miami: no english and no service... There is the exception of some tourist areas. Well the one thing I can give the city is that it is unique, backwards... But unique. Maybe that is the positive part of the city, the fact that it is so damned weird. If nothing else it does make it an interesting place to visit. I am still rationalizing how it makes it a good place to live. I go back to what Arthur had me watch before I came down to Miami, Big Trouble. I could believe that this story is based off of truth. If you don't believe it still just look up the terrorist group Alpha 66 (as shown in picture... Pretty much the regulars of Miami). I drove past its headquarters the other day in Little Havana. Good night!
Friday, April 28, 2006
Baskin Robbins( why you should be wary eating it in Miami) and my luck with the job market
I've got two stories for you. The first happened tonight just a little while ago. First, how many people at Baskin Robbins does it take to make a sundae? Well, my first response would be one, but tonight I had three people attempt to make one and they all FAILED. I walk in and point out this sundae that I want with bananas. The guy looks at me and says that he doesn't know how to make it. I looked at him in suprise. I called over my husband to tell him. I couldn't believe that there was someone so stupid that he couldn't make a sundae. Then he went over and got a second person. That guy cut up the banana and told the other to get three scoops of ice cream. The ice cream was new and after of five minutes of him banging one scoop into the other to get into the ice cream, I leaned over the counter and told him he might want to run the scoop through hot water. It took him probubly another few minutes to get the cup half full with ice cream. Then he went over to chat with the other guy about how to put bananas into the sundae, which neither of them knew how to do. Then they told me that the carmel was out and the hot fudge was burnt, and by the way "we don't know where the cherries are". By that point I gave up. We had been there for at least twenty minutes and the manager was over there trying to help them. I have to say she was getting no where. So we said, "refund our money". Of course, I made a few comments about how ridiculous this was and my husband got back the money. As we walked out the guy told my husband to go f*ck himself. I would have cussed the guy out if I had heard it, but I was already outside and didn't know why Art was still inside. Anyway, I have to say that was my worst experience at an ice cream place ever! These people were not mentally ill or anything either. They were just lazy idiots. I simply went somewhere else and got my sundae in 30 seconds. I had to get that out of my system and I hope this pops up on google when someone looks up Baskin Robbins:)
Now for what I refered to yesterday. I am once again unemployed. I worked for the airlines industry for three months. It was a pretty cool job if you are good at customer service. There is never a boring day. I guess that is why Southwest has a show on it (I worked for United though, never Southwest!). Unfortunatly I needed to leave that position so that Art and I could go on to our new home. But this means I am on the job search once again. And there is something that I must warn all my fellow unemployed bloggers in their common search for employment. Beware of scam jobs! I know this is everywhere. I had a similar problem in College Station, but now I'm in a big city it is much more prevelant. These jobs will contact you before anyone else. In my situation an hour after I sent my resume through monster. They also have a ton of adds that do not say what the job is about. When you talk to them at the interview they usually say something about sales for fortune 400 company. The two I have encountered here are the Niko group and Miamimarketingworks. I'll let you know if I find anymore. They lie about benefits and have horrible pay. From what I have heard their product is no good either. A good way to find this information out, and how I discovered this was looking the company up on ripoffreport.com. Here is also a list of how to avoid jobs scams. I unfortunatly wasted my time with my first interview with one of these companies. I only discovered it was a scam after looking it up later. At least I got the experience of driving in the city. But still, no job and more interviews next week. It is looking promising though. It is definatly going quicker than in San Antonio!
So, no idea on what I will write on next time.... I'm sure something will come up:)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
How is Miami?
I have to admit I have not had the best image of Miami. When Arthur and I decided to move here I was not jumping up and down and screaming in joy. On the contrary, I told my then future husband, "Please, just tell me something positive about the place". All I asked was to feel better about the place I was going to move to. I'll tell you what I have learned of Miami from those native to the city. First of all, the place is over run with Cubans and other latin immigrants. Now this did not mean much to me when I first heard this. I have one friend that is half Cuban and from DC. All I know is that he spends every summer in Miami and when I visited his home his mom was certain to teach me the evils of Castro. She thinks it is an important thing that all people should know. Since then I have been told everything else about this group, and the most important thing is that there is great amount of them that don't bother to learn english. I won't bother to go into the other stereotypes of this group in Miami. Though they involve illegal activities and too much government support. Since I have been here I have noticed that there are many different immigrants here that don't speak english, but I've honestly even now do not have much experience within this city. There is also the matter of driving within Miami. It has been said, I don't remember by who, that in Miami that everyone drives according to thier country of orgin. My dear husband has also had several stories to back this up. I heard so many stories on this that for my first job interview yesterday, I felt worse about having to drive by myself for the first time than the actual interview. Though after it was done I found it to be about as bad as driving in any other city. The truth is I am still very unsure of what to think of my new home. The people who are from here don't exactly paint the best picture of place, and with the hurricane I went through the last time I am still very unsure. What I am hoping is that the city is not as bad as everyone says, like the driving within the city. Well, we will see how it is driving for the second time. I'll do that for my second job interview...
Next topic is on finding a job within this city. Hopfully it will be done tommarow, but there are warnings that everyone should here. Consider it a continuation of my unemployed blogger ideas:) Till then!
Next topic is on finding a job within this city. Hopfully it will be done tommarow, but there are warnings that everyone should here. Consider it a continuation of my unemployed blogger ideas:) Till then!
Saturday, April 22, 2006
New Home
Well, we're not in our new home just yet. That'll probably happen in a month or so, but I made it to Miami. A two and a half days car trip with a St. Bernard in the back seat. I have to admit that Sebastien is a great dog and really easy to travel with, but I don't recommend such a long trip with a large dog. You can't really stop and do anything. We were originally planning to go through Savannah, Georgia, but Seby doesn't do too well in strange places by himself. Plus, no place really allows St. Bernards. The first place we stayed at was in Mississippi, and we were told that there is a 15 pound limit but no one checks. The second place we stayed at was about 100 miles out of Miami and the guy was new and let us take him in. So it was luck both times.
Other than that we stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi for the Military Park for the Seige of Vicksburg. I've only been to three battlefields so far and I have to say that I am very impressed with this one. Arthur pointed out that it was probably because this was one where the union won. I really need to see Gettysburg, I'm that one would be even better. I may have pictures up from it after awhile. Though I accidently packed my digital, so I have to use my regular camera till then.
So... now I'm in Miami. It is wierd thinking that this isn't a place that I'm moving for my parents or for school. I'm not sure how its going to be. Honestly the city scares me. It takes me awhile to have any city grow on me. I am much more of a small town girl. Well... I guess I will update on what happens from this new move. It is too early to write anything about it now. We are just incredibly happy to be out of the car. Till next time:)
Thursday, April 20, 2006
I'm leaving Texas
I am doing what I usually do before I leave Brenham, or in this case leaving Texas... look at photos. Tommorow we are taking off with the St. Bernard and are driving to Miami. Quite a car trip, and I'm curious how the dog will take it. Anyway, these are the old pictures I managed to scan. This is so I don't have to take the album with me in the car.
That's it for now. Goodnight! I'll write again in Miami:)
That's it for now. Goodnight! I'll write again in Miami:)
Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Alamo Street Victorian Inn
When I imagined myself getting married as a little girl, I have to say that this was not the place I thought of. No disrespect to the owner, but its a bed and breakfast and I am a Catholic. But when such things as annulments get in the way you must think of an alternative. I know God must have forgiven Arthur and I for this though, because everything was beautiful. It went off so well that I've had a request for everyone to meet up at the same location for our one year anniversary. This would be strange considering we won't even be in San Antonio at that time, but I did greatly appreciate the compliment. The weather was perfect, it was in the 70s and not a cloud in the sky. Nothing went wrong the whole day. I was just suprised how quickly it went. In the morining I was getting my hair, makeup, manicure and peticure done. I was wondering around the spa talking with my mom and the other bridesmaids. I got several comments about how calm I was. My nerves didn't get to me till right before it was time to walk down the aisle, and that was my usual nervousness of having to do something in front of people. After I made it to Arthur, I calmed down. Everyone was suprised that I didn't laugh or cry through the ceremony. Only reason I can give is because everything was kind of sureal to me and I hate showing too much emotion in public. The wedding was small. I have to say no more than 40 people were there. It was perfect for me. I was afraid that too many people would show honestly. The bed and breakfast fit everyone comfortably. It was a nice little place with antiques all around. I chose it because it was comforting like my grandmothers house that I grew up in. I was glad to find that the rest of the guests loved it just as much. The only thing I was upset by was that I hardly ate anything. Arthur and I met up with the family later on though to eat on the riverwalk. It was a good idea to have everything near the downtown area. So if you do have your wedding in San Antonio, I do recommend this place. It is especially good if you don't want to handle every little detail yourself. Now I get to enjoy being a newly wed, but not in Texas. I am moving. Actually our stuff is already packed up and is probably on its way now to Miami. We will be going down after spending the holidays with my family. So, Happy Easter to everyone!
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
To all people in Texas...
What you should see from the Huffington Post. Just to let you know there are eight pages of comments.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Friday, March 24, 2006
Who knows:)
So I had this image come to mind. It is me, standing naked in... Where? Maybe I'm just sitting on my bed. Anyway, I have my glasses on and my hair is tied back as I do most of the time now a days. The front of my body is opened up like a doll house. In fact it looks exactly like a doll house inside my chest area. I am looking down inside myself and am setting up little chairs. Nothing stressful, just playing. I'm kind of layed back with my legs crossed and leaning my weight on one of my hands. For some reason that makes me think of Frida. Does she have something similar? I just remember she loved painting herself. Sometimes I wish that I had better images come to mind. I've tried to do landscapes recently. I'm not sure how well that is working for me. I need some kind of art class. I wish I had more beautiful images that would come to mind. At least I have no more disturbing images. Instead they are rather simple. Usually I just think of a bride trying on her dress or something similar. That should be no suprise. Till I have my wedding those images will remain. Till recently I would not actually see myself in these images. Yeah, I know it is usually some weird naked chic and a muscular guy. My mom is disturbed by my naked people art. I've just had this idea that drawing these people naked gives them more vulnerability. It shows what is real on the inside and there are no possibility of masks. Funny to think my main drawing where there are clothes the characters are wearing masks:) Where was I? Yes, till recently the images that came to mind were rarely actually of me. Now it seems that all of them are of me. I'm not sure if will actually get myslef to draw them. The only drawing I've done recently is the one that is up of the bride and groom kissing, or Art and I. Maybe I'll draw this image that is in my mind later. At least I have this post to remind me of it. I must get to bed now. I have to wake up for work in a little over five hours.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
A painting and a dream
I stepped out of the elevator and saw a man who was sickly and lying on the floor with a bandaged face. Another man was with him to help him along. I walked up to him and took off his bandage and he was healed shortly after that. I don't remember what I said to him. He rose to stand on his own. He asked me what would he have to do for this gift? I said to him, 'Love God'. He laughed at me. He said it was pointless, or something like that. I pointed at him and he went back to his sickly state. He sulked and I didn't give him anymore attention. I felt sad, but went back to the elevator.
Just another dream. My wedding is coming up soon. The dream has nothing to do with the picture. I did this awhile back. I'll write more later:)
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Happy Texas Independence Day!
This is my picture from Washington on the Brazos from this past Christmas. This is the place of Texas independence from Mexico on this day in 1836.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Training with Bob
I am in a classroom setting most of the time recently. Shouldn't I be use to it by now? It feels more like high school than college. That could be what is getting to me. I think its just the way people treat each other. I'll give an example. There is this one older gentleman, I'll call him Bob. Bob has been with the company for years. He thinks he is superior to everyone else in the class. He makes a point to mumble the answer to everything that the instructor says just to prove that he already knows everything. I know this because I usually get stuck next to him. Let's just say Bob has a big mouth in general. I think he uses it mostly to make himself look superior. There was a lady that was fired a couple of days ago because she tried to do her college classes with the classes here, and she didn't make it in one day... maybe two, doesn't matter. Bob made a point to yell about how much of a "stupid ass" she was for taking this job and wasting the company's money if she was going to put her school work over this. Another instance today Bob told us in class that we were wasting his precious classroom time. We were questioning the instructor about the company, and it was not interesting enough for Bob since he has been with the company for years. Of course, I don't understand how Bob can feel so important when at his age he is going into the same position as I am after working for this company for years. Well, Bob is one of several people that make me feel like I'm in high school. I go along with my mouth shut most of the time. I just hope I don't pop on someone... especially during class. If I get too pissed I have a tendancy to do that. And what if Bob ends up being my supervisor later on? I think it is best to keep quiet because of that. I just dump everything that is bothering me on Art. I need to be the usual quiet sweet little girl that I am. I use my cheerleader smile and go on with my day. I just wish they could of had the training at home.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
I'm looking for a car
| You Should Drive a Jaguar XK 4.2 |
 You don't care how you get there as long as you get there with class. And having a little power doesn't hurt either! |
My fiance drove my car and decided that I need a new car as soon as it is possible for us to get one. I have to admit mine is not the most comfortable car out there. It doesn't have cruise control or even power windows. In fact you really don't have any control over the volume in the car. When you slow down the volume goes down, and then when the music is really bad it decides you should listen to it at a volume that would bust your ear drums. I actually am okay with the car. As long as I have little travel time, I don't care much about what I drive. The air conditioning works and it doesn't have random acceleration like one of my brother's older cars had. But it isn't like I am going to refuse the offer of getting a new vehicle either. We went to look at cars and I have to admit something, GPS is the best. One of the first cars that I test drove had a GPS system that you could talk to. From there on out I compared every car to it. I would hear of all the benefits and then I would ask, "Yeah, but can you talk to it?" Well, I'm not sure what I'll get or when. I have a feeling it won't be a Jaguar. I am looking at a BMW, but I don't think we could get one that I could talk to. Damn that one car was a spoiler!
I'm not very observant
| Your Observation Skills Get A C- |
 You tend to notice the big things in life... But the details aren't exactly your forte |
I was honestly suprised I even passed. I've been told before that I could be a decent absent minded proffesor. Hell, that use to be my goal in life. Pretty cool quiz though.
Monday, February 06, 2006
God save me
Stupid people. I can live with them, but at times I can't stand them. I know they are a regular occurance in whatever area you work in and in whatever area of the world you live in. Hell, I'm sure there is one or two of you out there reading this blog. Still, that doesn't make thier existence any less annoying. This is especially the case when they are together in large numbers, because their logic becomes dominant regardless of them being right or wrong. I'll give an example. I can tell you that the company that I work for has part of their customer service in India. I have to admit this usually annoys me. Whenever I call for service and I hear that Indian accent I get the impression that the company does not care for their customers. I think it really effects the quality of service that is given and it is a horrible trend for companies to take. This was a discussion in class today. Those were the reasons that I saw for it being a negative thing, but the class spent a few hours discussing the poor Indians making the same amount of money in India that we make in an hour here in the US. These people are not working in sweat shops either. They have benefits of working for our company and are payed a reasonable amount for where they live. That wasn't good enough for my genius instructor and the class that followed. They wanted the people in India to make the same amount. "How would those poor Indians feel if they came here and noticed they make so much less than we do here in the US?" Also, "Isn't it horrible that they have them use American names for their job". The instructor's response, "I refused to go train them in India when I was asked. I thought it was just wrong." Isn't that great for the company. Think about how much money the company is saving from doing this. What are they wanting, to inflate the economies in the rest of the world so they can be just as outragious as California. I think the most annoying part of this is the length of time they spent on this subject, and me saying anything contrary to them makes me look like a jack ass. I just need some rest. I'll be dealing with people like this for the rest of my life. I thought I'd be use to them by now. I need sleep.
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