As I try to think of which party I belong in I am reminded of a fun 80's song by Eddie Murphy. It is a bit of a stretch to connect this to this post, but since this is my blog I am going to do it anyway.
I wish we didn't live in a two party system, but in the United States that is what we have. There are of course other parties, but unless one wants to be left out of voting for individual candidates during the primaries then it is necessary to choose a party. This is the time a difference can be made in regards to who is going to hold office in California. The districts are so gerrymandered that after the primary the contest is basically decided based on whether the district is Democratic or Republican.
So the question left for me to answer is whether I consider myself a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat. I am pretty liberal when it comes to social issues such as gay marriage and legalizing marijuana. However, I am anti abortion which is socially conservative. Economically I believe in keeping a close eye on budgets and not spending any more then needs to be spent. I don't believe unions are nearly as necessary as they were in the early 20th century and may actually not be needed at all. At least when it comes to public employees there are serious issues. Of course it would be great if everyone could have an excellent retirement like with the public employee's and the teachers unions. In California the unions are so powerful that they can fight any legislation that tries to adjust their retirement many times under the auspices of doing what is best for children.
This leaves me back where I started which is trying to figure out where I fit in politically. It is not as important as I used to think. During college I was a member of the Young Democrats and I believed that someday I would run for political office. After I graduated and saw all the underhanded activities that are involved in politics I completely lost interest in being elected. One time when I was still considering running for office I had lunch with an elected official I knew. This individual proudly told me how he/she was able to find out details on a competitor by hiring a private investigator. After gathering some dirt he/she used the info to get the other candidate to drop out of the race. I was advised that with $300 I could find out whatever I wanted to about my competitors. Politics was much different than how I had naively thought and now I knew this was not meant for me.
I am currently registered as a Republican and after writing this post I feel I am going to stay that way for now. This is not a major decision as there are many contests that are non-partisan. Then there are many contests in which the incumbent is running unopposed. For the few where there is a choice of candidates I'll be voting for the most liberal of Republicans, but in this time of extreme politics I am probably going to be voting in the minority.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Why do I care so much about what other people do?
This video is from don Miguel Ruiz author of The Four Agreements and other books on Toltec wisdom. His books have helped me see my life more clearly.
When someone I am with comments with disdain about another person's choice of clothing, partner, or food I generally ask them "Why do you care?" Tonight I noticed that I am not good at practicing what I preach.
My friend Joe called me today because he had Angels baseball tickets (explanation given for my international readers and/or non sports enthusiasts) and asked me to accompany him. He actually didn't ask me to accompany him as that would have felt odd, but he did ask if I would go with him.
We drove to the stadium, parked across the street to save a few bucks and get some exercise, then proceeded to find our seat. From the time right before the game and throughout, a gentleman (not actually much of a gentleman, but trying to avoid calling names) started yelling to the players. Mind you we were in the right field bleachers five or so rows in front of the scoreboard so Bobby Abreu or any of the other outfielders could not be privy to this man's commentary. However, it was his prerogative to show his enthusiasm without using profanity which he did refrain from. I still found it unsettling that he felt these players could actually hear him from that far and if so that they were being affected by his taunts. He apparently was having a good time and the woman he was with seemed happy enough so why did this bother me so? I admit to occasionally saying words of encouragement to my favorite player, Ron Cey, like come on get a hit (I wasn't very original back then), but I didn't carry on a one sided conversation with him. It was more like a prayer or mantra or praying mantra (better than praying mantis), but why do I care?
Except for when he yelled so loud that I might have suffered ear damage or when he called a black player boy for not diving (doubt he would have yelled boy to a white player), this didn't need to affect me. However, I managed to get more and more annoyed as the game went on. He may have been bothered by the fact I sat there throughout and only let out an occasional modest cheer, but I doubt it. I like having a mellow experience and need to recognize that that is not what I will get at a ball game. If I want mellow I need to attend the symphony (except when they perform my favorite which is the 1812 overture by Tchaikofsky) or an Air Supply concert. Maybe, there is a bit of me that is jealous of his uninhibited boisterousnes, but I wish I was better at letting it slide off my back into a pool filled with marshmallow creme and coconut shavings.
Later on in the game which was 2 to 0 from the 3rd inning on and finished that way many people began to leave. This started from the 7th inning on and this was a close game! I can see if it was a blowout or something, but other than that, why come to a game and not follow through with it. You have made it almost to the end, why not see it to completion? Again, I realize that I am there for the experience of seeing a game live. As long as there are thousands of fans still there it still will have intensity and excitement. The people that stayed need my attention more then those that have abandoned their seats to be clogged in traffic with others who left early. I wish I knew a simple clear cut answer. I think I may need a personal paradigm shift to see things in a more positive light. I have had 40 or so years of practice at seeing the negatives of what's there; it will take more than one night of revelation to see the positiveness of each and every experience.
When someone I am with comments with disdain about another person's choice of clothing, partner, or food I generally ask them "Why do you care?" Tonight I noticed that I am not good at practicing what I preach.
My friend Joe called me today because he had Angels baseball tickets (explanation given for my international readers and/or non sports enthusiasts) and asked me to accompany him. He actually didn't ask me to accompany him as that would have felt odd, but he did ask if I would go with him.
We drove to the stadium, parked across the street to save a few bucks and get some exercise, then proceeded to find our seat. From the time right before the game and throughout, a gentleman (not actually much of a gentleman, but trying to avoid calling names) started yelling to the players. Mind you we were in the right field bleachers five or so rows in front of the scoreboard so Bobby Abreu or any of the other outfielders could not be privy to this man's commentary. However, it was his prerogative to show his enthusiasm without using profanity which he did refrain from. I still found it unsettling that he felt these players could actually hear him from that far and if so that they were being affected by his taunts. He apparently was having a good time and the woman he was with seemed happy enough so why did this bother me so? I admit to occasionally saying words of encouragement to my favorite player, Ron Cey, like come on get a hit (I wasn't very original back then), but I didn't carry on a one sided conversation with him. It was more like a prayer or mantra or praying mantra (better than praying mantis), but why do I care?
Except for when he yelled so loud that I might have suffered ear damage or when he called a black player boy for not diving (doubt he would have yelled boy to a white player), this didn't need to affect me. However, I managed to get more and more annoyed as the game went on. He may have been bothered by the fact I sat there throughout and only let out an occasional modest cheer, but I doubt it. I like having a mellow experience and need to recognize that that is not what I will get at a ball game. If I want mellow I need to attend the symphony (except when they perform my favorite which is the 1812 overture by Tchaikofsky) or an Air Supply concert. Maybe, there is a bit of me that is jealous of his uninhibited boisterousnes, but I wish I was better at letting it slide off my back into a pool filled with marshmallow creme and coconut shavings.
Later on in the game which was 2 to 0 from the 3rd inning on and finished that way many people began to leave. This started from the 7th inning on and this was a close game! I can see if it was a blowout or something, but other than that, why come to a game and not follow through with it. You have made it almost to the end, why not see it to completion? Again, I realize that I am there for the experience of seeing a game live. As long as there are thousands of fans still there it still will have intensity and excitement. The people that stayed need my attention more then those that have abandoned their seats to be clogged in traffic with others who left early. I wish I knew a simple clear cut answer. I think I may need a personal paradigm shift to see things in a more positive light. I have had 40 or so years of practice at seeing the negatives of what's there; it will take more than one night of revelation to see the positiveness of each and every experience.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Why I am Anti-Abortion
The following is a song that I think of when I think of my daughter. The video is from youtube so I apologize for the misspelling of the word lose as loose.
I don't like the term pro life. Having people live is of course a positive thing, but more importantly I would rather people not have abortions. This opinion is coming from someone who as of 7 years ago considered himself pro choice. I have also always considered myself to be a social liberal. My philosophy on being a social liberal is that if what an individual is doing is not affecting another person then leave them alone. This includes but is not limited to supporting gay marriage and legalizing marijuana.
Let's start by identifying why I was pro choice. I believed that abortion was not a good thing, but it wasn't for me to say whether not another person should have one. However, I don't believe many people want to go through the physical and emotional pain of an abortion if it could be avoided. A former friend had told me about an abortion that she had over 30 years ago and she still imagined what the child would have looked and acted like. I can't imagine how difficult it is to live with this feeling.
What changed my mind? During the development of my only child there were a variety of reasons why it was an at risk pregnancy. This meant that from the early stages of her development before we even knew my daughter was a she we watched her in the womb via sonograms. As she grew and swam as I called it, I felt a connection right then with her. She was growing, but she was and is a person.
Imagine you have a close family member who is in a comatose state where they are unable to communicate with you. You have been told by the doctors as long as they get the nutrients from the I.V.'s and are given proper care; they will come out of the coma and have a fruitful life. Besides the I.V.'s imagine there are additional tubes connected to your family member. Now let's imagine that for some reason you decide that you no longer want to take care of this family member. Rather than finding someone else to step in and help care for them you decide to pull out the I.V.'s and the tubes. Your family member dies and you are charged with murder. Lets switch the situation to a child in the womb. In my opinion, it is no different.
Notice that I have made a concerted effort to refer to the one having the abortion as a person and not a woman. I know that of course women are the ones who carry a child so they are the ones having the abortions. To me though this is not a woman's or man's issue. It is a human issue. It is every human's responsibility to make life as comfortable for a woman carrying an unwanted pregnancy to full term. This includes simplifying the adoption process as access to quality prenatal care. I believe also that a DNA system should be set up so all men's information is accessible regarding the child. This means that the man will be held responsible for his participation in bringing the child into the world and also this solves the problem of having some men identified as parents of children that aren't actually theirs. There are privacy issues here which need to be worked out, but it is important that both the man and the woman are given help as well as being responsible for their actions.
I know this is a volatile issue and I am just stating my opinion. I hope my writing will encourage others to look into this issue more deeply. I don't anticipate changing tons of people's minds, but do feel the responsibility to bring up issues that others will find intriguing.
I don't like the term pro life. Having people live is of course a positive thing, but more importantly I would rather people not have abortions. This opinion is coming from someone who as of 7 years ago considered himself pro choice. I have also always considered myself to be a social liberal. My philosophy on being a social liberal is that if what an individual is doing is not affecting another person then leave them alone. This includes but is not limited to supporting gay marriage and legalizing marijuana.
Let's start by identifying why I was pro choice. I believed that abortion was not a good thing, but it wasn't for me to say whether not another person should have one. However, I don't believe many people want to go through the physical and emotional pain of an abortion if it could be avoided. A former friend had told me about an abortion that she had over 30 years ago and she still imagined what the child would have looked and acted like. I can't imagine how difficult it is to live with this feeling.
What changed my mind? During the development of my only child there were a variety of reasons why it was an at risk pregnancy. This meant that from the early stages of her development before we even knew my daughter was a she we watched her in the womb via sonograms. As she grew and swam as I called it, I felt a connection right then with her. She was growing, but she was and is a person.
Imagine you have a close family member who is in a comatose state where they are unable to communicate with you. You have been told by the doctors as long as they get the nutrients from the I.V.'s and are given proper care; they will come out of the coma and have a fruitful life. Besides the I.V.'s imagine there are additional tubes connected to your family member. Now let's imagine that for some reason you decide that you no longer want to take care of this family member. Rather than finding someone else to step in and help care for them you decide to pull out the I.V.'s and the tubes. Your family member dies and you are charged with murder. Lets switch the situation to a child in the womb. In my opinion, it is no different.
Notice that I have made a concerted effort to refer to the one having the abortion as a person and not a woman. I know that of course women are the ones who carry a child so they are the ones having the abortions. To me though this is not a woman's or man's issue. It is a human issue. It is every human's responsibility to make life as comfortable for a woman carrying an unwanted pregnancy to full term. This includes simplifying the adoption process as access to quality prenatal care. I believe also that a DNA system should be set up so all men's information is accessible regarding the child. This means that the man will be held responsible for his participation in bringing the child into the world and also this solves the problem of having some men identified as parents of children that aren't actually theirs. There are privacy issues here which need to be worked out, but it is important that both the man and the woman are given help as well as being responsible for their actions.
I know this is a volatile issue and I am just stating my opinion. I hope my writing will encourage others to look into this issue more deeply. I don't anticipate changing tons of people's minds, but do feel the responsibility to bring up issues that others will find intriguing.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Poll Position
Polls used to be conducted on a variety of items, but mainly for elections, products, and television shows. The costs of these polls were such that they occurred only when it was important enough and thus cost effective. The advent of the internet has changed all that. In some instances I know it has been beneficial to lessen the cost of conducting polls. Students at universities can illicit responses from a large enough group to make proper scientific conclusions at a fraction of the cost. The same goes for researchers working to identify causes of cancer, alzheimer's and other life destroying diseases. What bothers me is the other polls that occur all too often.
First off, I know I don't have to answer any of the annoying polls or read them for that matter so nobody tell me that. Just cause I can ignore something doesn't mean I can't state my position on the matter. There are now polls about whether you think Tiger Woods will be back soon or later, what the chance of a certain team winning is, who you think will be kicked off a show, etc. These to me are such nonsense! Who are the people that respond? Are they close friends of members of the team so they know who is secretly injured? I highly doubt it. Most the people are just regular individuals who by clicking a button give their worthless opinion on a subject. If 80% of the respondents think the Lakers will win the championship does that mean they will? Of course it doesn't.
Scientifically speaking most the surveys are not accurate because the sample is not randomly chosen; instead they consist of those individuals that have internet and go to the particular site and have the desire to respond to the given question. I have the ability to conduct polls on this blog. I did do one, but at the time my readership was low and the response was very little. Now, I don't foresee having any more polls because I can get an idea about what people think by reading the comments and not by a silly poll.
There are still important polls out there. The most important one being when we go to the polls to cast our votes. Also, it is important to take a small poll like asking everyone in the office what topping do they like on their pizza.
I am going to make sorted effort to not respond to any polls online unless they are for a really valid reason. Whether I like to put my toilet paper with the paper coming over or under does not seem like a good use of my time. I would like to get comments from you so I can find out what is your poll position.
First off, I know I don't have to answer any of the annoying polls or read them for that matter so nobody tell me that. Just cause I can ignore something doesn't mean I can't state my position on the matter. There are now polls about whether you think Tiger Woods will be back soon or later, what the chance of a certain team winning is, who you think will be kicked off a show, etc. These to me are such nonsense! Who are the people that respond? Are they close friends of members of the team so they know who is secretly injured? I highly doubt it. Most the people are just regular individuals who by clicking a button give their worthless opinion on a subject. If 80% of the respondents think the Lakers will win the championship does that mean they will? Of course it doesn't.
Scientifically speaking most the surveys are not accurate because the sample is not randomly chosen; instead they consist of those individuals that have internet and go to the particular site and have the desire to respond to the given question. I have the ability to conduct polls on this blog. I did do one, but at the time my readership was low and the response was very little. Now, I don't foresee having any more polls because I can get an idea about what people think by reading the comments and not by a silly poll.
There are still important polls out there. The most important one being when we go to the polls to cast our votes. Also, it is important to take a small poll like asking everyone in the office what topping do they like on their pizza.
I am going to make sorted effort to not respond to any polls online unless they are for a really valid reason. Whether I like to put my toilet paper with the paper coming over or under does not seem like a good use of my time. I would like to get comments from you so I can find out what is your poll position.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Illegal Immigration
My great grandparents came to this country in the early twentieth century to avoid the pogroms in Russia. This is where the Russians were burning Jewish towns and killing the Jews. When they came to this country it was much easier to be able to go through the immigration process, but either way they did go through it. I believe our laws need to be adjusted so that they are reasonable and much more efficient, but I still believe in the concept of legal immigration.
Some people believe in the idea of no borders. This is a utopian idea that I believe is very dangerous in our time. If we open our country to allow anyone to come in and become a citizen we risk many consequences. An open border would allow terrorists or anyone else that wants to cause harm to our country and our people easy access to doing so. This also would make it tempting for other countries to open their jails and send their criminals to our country. It likely would also cause more harm to our social services including hospitals and schools. Hospitals could be serving foreigners that come over only to receive medical care and then head back to their country. The schools which are already challenged trying to educate the current student body would likely be inundated with students who come over for a short time and leave thus disrupting the flow of classrooms as well as putting extra strain on educators.
Another problem I find with illegal immigration is how illegals become basically second class citizens. Imagine that you are a worker who is in the country illegally and is dealing with poor working conditions. These could be things like unsafe work areas, sexual harassment, pay below the minimum wage, and more are situations that many illegals won't complain about for risk of being deported.
What are some solutions? Before I get into that there needs to be ground rules to discussions. The race card must be kept in the deck. It is unfortunate that right now according to stats on Wikipedia that 57% of illegal immigrants are from Mexico and another 24% from other Latin American countries. This makes it easy for immigrant activists to claim racism when illegal immigration is brought up. I am not naive so I understand that there are racists out there that use illegal immigration as a cover for their true feelings. However, from my experience there are many more of us that would like a reasonable immigration policy and we must allow for an intelligent discussion of it. My feelings on illegal immigrants is the same whether that immigrant is from Mexico or Russia or any other land. I hope this will be an issue we can discuss with intelligence because it is not going away any time soon.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Will I celebrate Easter in the future because it's fun?
My 5 1/2 year old daughter told me on Easter that she wanted me to celebrate Easter because it's fun. I am a Unitarian Universalist which is a liberal religion that includes peoples of Christian, Jewish faith, atheists, and others within it. This is a belief system I have been searching for my entire life and now I feel quite comfortable with it. I grew up being Jewish and still believe in the basic tenets of the religion thus I have continued to observe many of the holidays. My daughter's comment threw me for a bit of a loop.
I am a divorced father with one child who I share with my ex-wife. She lives with my ex and I see her every Tuesday and every other Sunday. The Sunday of my recent visit happened to be Easter. Since our family is Jewish we didn't celebrate Easter with Hannah as she was doing that with her mother and her family. Now from all I know from my ex throughout our marriage and since the divorce, she is merely a secular Christian. Hannah has never attended church with her mom nor with me except for an after church barbecue we attended to eat and play with friends. I remember being in school and dying eggs then I believe we would also hunt for hidden eggs. This was a fun activity and I didn't think twice about the religious history of it all. I would not expect my daughter to delve into that now either, but since I am an adult who has where does that leave me?
I wrote this post because I truly wasn't sure what I wanted to do. It wasn't until the end of the previous paragraph that I came to a conclusion. I can have fun and celebrate with my daughter like she wants me to. As she grows and asks questions about the holidays and what they mean then I can let her know how I see things and encourage her to make up her own mind. This is what works for me. I know whether my daughter is trying to gather acorns at Atlantis park, rocks at Balaeric, or Easter eggs anywhere; what matters is seeing that beaming smile on her lovely face.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Friends???
Recently I removed over 260 of my Facebook "friends" in order to reduce the list to the people I have contacted over the last year or so and am strongly connected to in one way or another. I didn't start out trying to get a large group of friends as some way of feeling good about myself. My friends list expanded mainly because I attempted to put on an all class reunion for my high school and it evolved into me adding those that I talked to about the reunion. The reunion didn't pan out, but I kept these "friends" still on my list. I must admit that at times seeing 338 people listed felt kind of cool, but then I thought who are all these people? Many of them I am sure are very nice, but I could not tell you one thing about them. It became tedious having to create groups so I could see what was happening with the people I really knew and thus truly wanted to know what they were doing. I can't tell you how much better it feels. It is like a little weight off my back. Pretty much nobody that is off my list commented on any of my postings as they probably have large lists themselves and I clearly was not a priority. This is completely fine as I don't need affirmation from near strangers to know that I am okay. I've got 76 true connections right now that I can better keep up with. Also, I have my parents, sister, fiancee, and my daughter who when she gives me a hug makes everything seem alright.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Freedom of Speech has a volume dial
Originally I planned on writing about the various political and religious comments on Facebook and how they bug me. I then realized how hypocritical that would be of me as I just proudly shared Anna Paquin's announcement that she is a bisexual. What this comes down to is that we all have freedom of speech as well as the freedom to not listen or pay attention. If my socially liberal views that I espouse continually bother a "friend" on Facebook, they have every right to remove me from their friends' list or hide all posts from me. This is true of me with regards to religion exclamations from enthusiastic Christians. I don't have the same views as them so that leaves me a few choices. I can continue to have them on my friends' list and ignore their writings, make comments on their status as to why I don't see things as they do, or remove them from my lists.
The first choice which is to ignore their writings on religion works for me if I am close to the person and the majority of their writings discuss other topics. However, if the majority of the discussion is of a religious or political nature then I move on to the next option. I respect everyone's right to their own religious belief and since I can't claim to have the answer of which if any religion has it right; I will not comment on a religious comment. This has led me to remove some "friends" who share mostly on their religion because it is not of interest to me and I have limited hours in my day. Lastly, I mentioned removing people from my list. This I have done mostly in cases where a person was constantly making what I perceive to be cynical comments on the state of the world. Every individual has the right to be a cynic, but I have the right to not want to hear more than the ones I already hear.
A discussion on the positive and negatives of a certain candidate or politician is interesting for me to read about. I get to see other points of view and learn a lot. However, reading someone call our president names like Obamanation or Obamarama or whatever does me no good and in my opinion is disrespectful. I didn't agree with much of President George W. Bush's policies, but see no reason to lower myself to the level of mocking his name. Doing so would truly be bush league.
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