Ultraparadoxical

“Success” in America has less to do with actual talent than any time in recent history.  We have forsaken competence, responsibility and intelligence in our country and replaced those attributes with shallow illusions of each.   It has been all around me lately in my workplace, in popular entertainment, and watching the government in action.  It aggravates me at times but mostly I just join in with a sense of apathy and embarrassment.  Incompetence and stupidity are part of every day life and in some aspects is accepted and embraced as a positive thing.  I cannot speak for much of the past as I have only experienced the last 30 years personally but it seems to me like talent, perseverance and commitment used to be things that guided Americans.  Now attitudes seem to be different. read more »

What is it about music that makes people say they are interested in all types and really “don’t like any specific style”?  A guaranteed response from anyone who you ask “What type of music do you like?”, will be, “Nothing specific really, I like everything except maybe X style and Y style of music.”  No other medium is like that.  The question is usually phrased differently if it is posed regarding movies, books or TV shows, however, most people are more reluctant to commit to any specific genre in respect to music.  Most people can’t even come up with a favorite band if you ask them, however, in general people can tell you what their favorite movie is without a problem.  Are people’s musical tastes much more all inclusive than any other medium or is it that most are reluctant to be included into a social category that certain musical tastes connote? read more »

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/10/carter.torture/index.html

Finally, a sane person saying sane things.  Now to see if anyone will listen to him.  American agents are torturing people.  Period.  End of statement.  The fact that Americans are not vocal in opposition to this is disheartening.  Hopefully more influential people will speak out to this fact and things can be changed.  At least this is a start.

http://www.architecture2030.org/current_situation/coastal_impact.html 

I showed this to some friends and the first thing that they said was, “I wonder what that would do to the economy”.  The first reaction that most people are trained to respond with to this type of ominous environmental information is by relating the situation to money.  Apparently that is going to be the only way to get people to do anything about mitigating the effect of humans on the environment, by monetizing it.  Hopefully that day comes soon as there is not much time left before there are changes made to the makeup of the planet that can not be reversed without major suffering across the globe.