It’s that time of year again. The time when everyone is making or has made a resolution for the New Year. We resolve to do something that either helps ourselves or helps others and almost always we fail to deliver. We hear jokes about our resolutions and about keeping them; jokes we find funny because we can all connect with abandoning a resolution. Our resolutions normally have the life span of a marriage to Britney Spears (and for those of you that don’t get the reference, this means "short").
I’ve always found keeping resolutions is futile. That’s why I’ve never made one (or maybe I’ve never made one because I know I can’t keep it; either way I don’t make resolutions). We never keep our resolutions, so to me, I’d rather not waste my time trying to complete something that I’ll just abandon anyways. Yet every year we resolve to do something out of our norms that will help to better ourselves.
Here are the top 10 New Years Resolutions that I found when I did a quick internet search; (10) get organized, (9) help others more, (8) learn something new, (7) get out of debt, (6) quit drinking, (5) enjoy life more, (4) quit smoking, (3) lose weight, (2) get in better shape, and (1) spend more time with family and friends. Looking at this list, these are things we should constantly be trying to do, not resolving to do in a given year. I’m sure that people reading this can connect with at least one of the resolutions listed here; if not this year’s than in a prior year’s.
I understand the purpose of the resolution. It’s meant to give us the little extra incentive that we need to accomplish a big life goal. The start of the New Year presents an opportunity for new beginnings and subsequently, new behaviors. However, we are all creatures of habit and even with the extra push from a New Years Resolution, we still find ourselves at least coming up short or even giving up altogether. Sometimes we forget or sometimes our goals are just too hard to accomplish.
A very similar practice is found in the Catholic ritual of observing Lent; practicing Catholics will normally abstain from something for the duration of the 40 days of Lent and might also abstain from eating meat on Fridays. Although there are less Catholics that actually partake and follow through in this ritual, there are still some. I’m curious to know how successful they are because, to be honest, I think 40 days of abstaining from something is easier than changing habits for an entire year let alone for life.
I think there are two ways to be successful with your New Years Resolution; (1) do as I do and don’t make one (you can’t fail at something you don’t try) or (2) start small. By starting small and working on a small change in one’s life, it can really build momentum for next year’s resolution. To use an exercise analogy, you can’t just go out and run a marathon because you decide to. You first start by jogging a bit and working your way up to longer distances. Start with a small resolution for a short amount of time and then work your way up to larger goals and longer time frames. By completing the smaller resolutions, you will build synergy to take on larger resolutions and have a better chance of accomplishing them.
So this year, when you’re making your resolutions and trying to follow through, I hope you think about what I’ve written and take baby steps towards your goals in the hopes of accomplishing the big resolutions. You might just find the solution to your resolution.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Sports Obsession
The Sport Obsession
I was pleased when I learned that Bell County High School recently won the Class 4 A football state championship. I was even more surprised to see the overwhelming support of the team, not only from Bobcat fans, but from neighboring schools as well.
I think that sports teach very important life lessons; teamwork, hard work, discipline, and following directions to name a few. However with all the benefits that sports contribute to our society, there are some cases where our fascination with sports can lead to an obsession which can also be very detrimental.
Sports are ingrained into American and world culture. However, sometimes it feels like we can take things a little too far. We can have a tendency to act in an uncivil manner towards fans of opposing teams. I've seen eggs thrown at local high school football games, the cars of opposing players vandalized, and nasty sentiments expressed verbally regarding another team in the presence of children. There have been reports across the world of unruly soccer hooligans or rioting when someone's team wins a national championship, World Series, or Super Bowl. Sports seem to have the ability to bring out the best and worst in us.
I played sports in high school. I remember it being both fun and at the same time a lot of work. I was lucky enough to have a father that wanted me to have fun playing sports and did not force me to play. This was not the case with all of my teammates. I've heard and witnessed horror stories of fathers that force their sons to play sports, or even worse, will take an active role to ensure that their sons get the playing time "they deserve". I think we all at least know, or have seen, one of these fathers at a game.
Sporting events and merchandise are a major part of the economy today. Athletes are paid in the millions of dollars and it always seems to make major news when Scott Boras gets the big contract with all the perks. It creates a larger than life persona that often times lands these big name stars in the news headlines not only for the size of their contract, but also for the criminal charges they collect like trading cards. The merchandise rights, the advertisements, the spokesperson deals, and even the outrageous prices some of us pay to attend these sporting events goes to show you that sports are highly valued in America.
I am guilty of falling victim to at least some parts of the obsession. I myself am a diehard sports fan. I have my favorite teams that I will either watch on television or travel to see in person. It's just something I enjoy. However, at the end of the day, win or lose, I know it's just a game. I told myself that every time I play a game, whether it was varsity football or the occasional game of pick-up basketball. Sports are meant for recreation and enjoyment. It's when you start to take them too seriously that sports lose their meaning and we lose the important life lessons.
When Bell County did win the state championship, there was an online battle between one particular poster and what seemed like everyone else in Bell County. The person who was adamantly opposed to Bell County playing for the state title was an individual that took high school sports a little too seriously. This person was overly critical of the Bell County team and insisted that Bell did not deserve to be playing for the state title(amongst other concerns the person expressed online). This person took the game so seriously as to antagonize an entire county in order to "talk his trash". This is just one particular example of abusing sports to antagonize fights between rivals. In my opinion, let the kids play and enjoy the game. Don’t give your two cents worth if no one wants to give you a penny for your thoughts.
So to the Bobcats of Bell County, congratulations on a fantastic season of perfection! To Coach Hilton, congratulations on what you have accomplished and how you have shaped these young men into champions. Both players and the coaches deserve the credit on this one; the players for first off doing what the coaches tell them and secondly for putting forth all their effort. The coaches deserve some credit for knowing what to do in the first place. Not giving equal credit to both is like thanking the hands for doing a job and not thanking the brain for coordinating the hands. Coach Hilton is doing something right if he keeps winning in different schools (Bourbon and Bell) and goes deep in the playoffs each year. These accomplishments stand alone regardless of any "strength of schedule" concerns I’ve heard. The bottom line is, this team made it to the big dance and won it all. Simply because your team didn’t make the big dance does not give you a right to rain on their parade. Sports should be for recreation, not for obsession.
I was pleased when I learned that Bell County High School recently won the Class 4 A football state championship. I was even more surprised to see the overwhelming support of the team, not only from Bobcat fans, but from neighboring schools as well.
I think that sports teach very important life lessons; teamwork, hard work, discipline, and following directions to name a few. However with all the benefits that sports contribute to our society, there are some cases where our fascination with sports can lead to an obsession which can also be very detrimental.
Sports are ingrained into American and world culture. However, sometimes it feels like we can take things a little too far. We can have a tendency to act in an uncivil manner towards fans of opposing teams. I've seen eggs thrown at local high school football games, the cars of opposing players vandalized, and nasty sentiments expressed verbally regarding another team in the presence of children. There have been reports across the world of unruly soccer hooligans or rioting when someone's team wins a national championship, World Series, or Super Bowl. Sports seem to have the ability to bring out the best and worst in us.
I played sports in high school. I remember it being both fun and at the same time a lot of work. I was lucky enough to have a father that wanted me to have fun playing sports and did not force me to play. This was not the case with all of my teammates. I've heard and witnessed horror stories of fathers that force their sons to play sports, or even worse, will take an active role to ensure that their sons get the playing time "they deserve". I think we all at least know, or have seen, one of these fathers at a game.
Sporting events and merchandise are a major part of the economy today. Athletes are paid in the millions of dollars and it always seems to make major news when Scott Boras gets the big contract with all the perks. It creates a larger than life persona that often times lands these big name stars in the news headlines not only for the size of their contract, but also for the criminal charges they collect like trading cards. The merchandise rights, the advertisements, the spokesperson deals, and even the outrageous prices some of us pay to attend these sporting events goes to show you that sports are highly valued in America.
I am guilty of falling victim to at least some parts of the obsession. I myself am a diehard sports fan. I have my favorite teams that I will either watch on television or travel to see in person. It's just something I enjoy. However, at the end of the day, win or lose, I know it's just a game. I told myself that every time I play a game, whether it was varsity football or the occasional game of pick-up basketball. Sports are meant for recreation and enjoyment. It's when you start to take them too seriously that sports lose their meaning and we lose the important life lessons.
When Bell County did win the state championship, there was an online battle between one particular poster and what seemed like everyone else in Bell County. The person who was adamantly opposed to Bell County playing for the state title was an individual that took high school sports a little too seriously. This person was overly critical of the Bell County team and insisted that Bell did not deserve to be playing for the state title(amongst other concerns the person expressed online). This person took the game so seriously as to antagonize an entire county in order to "talk his trash". This is just one particular example of abusing sports to antagonize fights between rivals. In my opinion, let the kids play and enjoy the game. Don’t give your two cents worth if no one wants to give you a penny for your thoughts.
So to the Bobcats of Bell County, congratulations on a fantastic season of perfection! To Coach Hilton, congratulations on what you have accomplished and how you have shaped these young men into champions. Both players and the coaches deserve the credit on this one; the players for first off doing what the coaches tell them and secondly for putting forth all their effort. The coaches deserve some credit for knowing what to do in the first place. Not giving equal credit to both is like thanking the hands for doing a job and not thanking the brain for coordinating the hands. Coach Hilton is doing something right if he keeps winning in different schools (Bourbon and Bell) and goes deep in the playoffs each year. These accomplishments stand alone regardless of any "strength of schedule" concerns I’ve heard. The bottom line is, this team made it to the big dance and won it all. Simply because your team didn’t make the big dance does not give you a right to rain on their parade. Sports should be for recreation, not for obsession.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Medicalization of America
The Medicalization of America
There seems to be a pill for everything. Attention deficit disorder, acid reflux, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, low fiber, high cholesterol; you name it and it seems there is some kind of pill that can take care of the problem. Sometimes the pill causes more problems than it treats. We are quick to think that these pills are the cure-all for our problems, primarily because we have become a people that look for the solution that requires the least amount of work. We fail to take good care of ourselves and when our bodies breakdown from the inadequate care, rather than correct the bad habits we have managed to accumulate, we ask for the most effective medical solution. Rather than treat the problem, we are looking for a band-aid solution, eventually allowing more and more problems to pile up until finally we have become a slave to the pills we are taking. If only we treated our bodies better, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
So our society has become one where we look for solutions in pharmaceuticals and medical procedures. We ask for gastro-bypass surgery when all we needed was a little dedication to diet and exercise. We over diagnose attention deficit disorder and ask for Adderall when all we needed was a little self-discipline to focus on our studies or our work. But these are not the only case of shunning our responsibility.
There is a recent tendency to blame our actions on "diseases". An example would be that of alcoholism. We have been taught to believe that this is, in fact, a disease, when really it is a lack of self-control. Addicts of all natures (not just alcohol) are said to have a disease. Gamblers have diseases. Yet, these diseases are non-contagious and have no medicine to treat them. How then are they real diseases? Even AIDS and cancer respond to certain medications. Yet we have created these diseases to remove self-responsibility and replace it with acceptable excuses for inexcusable behavior. Here's an example: if someone trashes your house you are justified in getting mad at them. However, if someone is drunk and then trashes your house, for some reason it is more acceptable than the previous scenario. The reason being that inebriation creates an excuse for the behavior making the action more acceptable. We have created diseases to provide excuses for our behavior, called medicalization, so that we are not held accountable for our actions and our mistakes. We all have the ability to control ourselves; it's called willpower. When we refuse to exercise it, rather than take ownership for our mistakes we find ways to immune ourselves from blame. This is how we have become a medicalized society.
There have been repercussions of our medicalization. We are so quick to say that we have diseases and medical problems that now prescriptions are prescribed and advertised at alarming rates. We have all seen commercials on television or in our magazines that tell us to "ask our doctor about X" when we have no idea what X really does. Additionally, we have doctors in the area that over-prescribe medicine or even frivolously prescribe pills to people that are unnecessary. This has only helped increase the supply of drugs in the area, the same drugs that are being sold and causing law enforcement problems. Additionally, in some areas of the nation teenagers are holding "pharm parties" where participants collect drugs in their parent's medicine cabinets to be mixed and taken; the results are sometimes fatal. The problems are becoming widespread across all areas of society; a lack of personal accountability has indirectly led to increased supply of drugs for illegal sale and contributed to new types of drug experimentation for minors.
I am not saying that all drugs are bad. Some serve real benefits to the health of our society. Some people generally do have legitimate diseases that inhibit their self control mechanisms (being the exception and not the norm). However, there are many cases that if we just took better care of ourselves and exercised good discretion and hard work we would not be in the mess we are. I don't think that all prescriptions are bad and that all doctors over-prescribe, but obviously there are some problems with the status quo.
There seems to be a pill for everything. Attention deficit disorder, acid reflux, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, low fiber, high cholesterol; you name it and it seems there is some kind of pill that can take care of the problem. Sometimes the pill causes more problems than it treats. We are quick to think that these pills are the cure-all for our problems, primarily because we have become a people that look for the solution that requires the least amount of work. We fail to take good care of ourselves and when our bodies breakdown from the inadequate care, rather than correct the bad habits we have managed to accumulate, we ask for the most effective medical solution. Rather than treat the problem, we are looking for a band-aid solution, eventually allowing more and more problems to pile up until finally we have become a slave to the pills we are taking. If only we treated our bodies better, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
So our society has become one where we look for solutions in pharmaceuticals and medical procedures. We ask for gastro-bypass surgery when all we needed was a little dedication to diet and exercise. We over diagnose attention deficit disorder and ask for Adderall when all we needed was a little self-discipline to focus on our studies or our work. But these are not the only case of shunning our responsibility.
There is a recent tendency to blame our actions on "diseases". An example would be that of alcoholism. We have been taught to believe that this is, in fact, a disease, when really it is a lack of self-control. Addicts of all natures (not just alcohol) are said to have a disease. Gamblers have diseases. Yet, these diseases are non-contagious and have no medicine to treat them. How then are they real diseases? Even AIDS and cancer respond to certain medications. Yet we have created these diseases to remove self-responsibility and replace it with acceptable excuses for inexcusable behavior. Here's an example: if someone trashes your house you are justified in getting mad at them. However, if someone is drunk and then trashes your house, for some reason it is more acceptable than the previous scenario. The reason being that inebriation creates an excuse for the behavior making the action more acceptable. We have created diseases to provide excuses for our behavior, called medicalization, so that we are not held accountable for our actions and our mistakes. We all have the ability to control ourselves; it's called willpower. When we refuse to exercise it, rather than take ownership for our mistakes we find ways to immune ourselves from blame. This is how we have become a medicalized society.
There have been repercussions of our medicalization. We are so quick to say that we have diseases and medical problems that now prescriptions are prescribed and advertised at alarming rates. We have all seen commercials on television or in our magazines that tell us to "ask our doctor about X" when we have no idea what X really does. Additionally, we have doctors in the area that over-prescribe medicine or even frivolously prescribe pills to people that are unnecessary. This has only helped increase the supply of drugs in the area, the same drugs that are being sold and causing law enforcement problems. Additionally, in some areas of the nation teenagers are holding "pharm parties" where participants collect drugs in their parent's medicine cabinets to be mixed and taken; the results are sometimes fatal. The problems are becoming widespread across all areas of society; a lack of personal accountability has indirectly led to increased supply of drugs for illegal sale and contributed to new types of drug experimentation for minors.
I am not saying that all drugs are bad. Some serve real benefits to the health of our society. Some people generally do have legitimate diseases that inhibit their self control mechanisms (being the exception and not the norm). However, there are many cases that if we just took better care of ourselves and exercised good discretion and hard work we would not be in the mess we are. I don't think that all prescriptions are bad and that all doctors over-prescribe, but obviously there are some problems with the status quo.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?
Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?
We have become entirely too sensitive as a nation. We have become so politically correct that we are robbing individuals of their freedom to express themselves freely. Recent taboos have gone so far as to make it socially unacceptable for someone to say "Merry Christmas" to someone that may not be a Christian. So in order to circumvent the socially awkward moment, we are informed it is more appropriate to say "Happy Holidays" to respect others that may not celebrate Christmas. The same trend is true across the nation. We are so afraid of offending people that we walk on eggshells constantly, worried that a comment taken out of context might offend someone of a different religion or that something we say might offend a certain nationality. The trend has gotten so out of hand that we have people trying to remove "In God We Trust" from our currency, ban the Pledge of Allegiance, and as already mentioned trying to remove the Christian basis out of the holiday of Christmas. Just recently, Florida Gulf Coast University banned the use of Christmas decorations by University employees.
Let me make a distinction between hate speech and freedom of speech. Hate speech is not considered protected speech under ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. This means that spewing hate speech and ethnic slurs are outside of what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a right to speak freely and express ideas that make one unique and individual and are not intended to offend someone else. The problem is that courts and activists feel that ‘not intending to offend someone’ is not a stringent enough doctrine to protect everyone and they would rather everything be made bland and generic. Intentions, or lack thereof, are rarely regarded in these cases, but rather the main concern is protecting dissenters and the minority from being exposed to beliefs and practices contrary to their own. The last time I checked, this exposure was called diversity; the same diversity that the same activists demand. They argue their rights guarantee them equality and protect their "different" point of view and then argue from the other side of their mouth that when others exercise these same guaranteed rights, they are the victim of opinions and beliefs that are contrary to their own. Essentially, they want their cake and they want to eat it to.
What exposure is it that these individuals feel is so demeaning and uncomfortable? Seeing a Christmas tree or a sign that says "Merry Christmas"? How long will it be until these people request the removal of crosses or crucifixes that are displayed at the top of steeples on our churches because the sight makes them uncomfortable?
I understand that the government cannot respect and establishment of religion, but at the same time this principle does not mean an institution (governmental or quasi-governmental) should feel it necessary to ban any kind of celebration or anything that identifies a unique people, regardless of their majority status. The reason why we have institutions that like to ban Christmas celebrations and decorations is because of the associated legal liability. Let’s face it, lawsuits are all the rage now when you want to get what you want or just want a little cash for your "troubles". Institutions allow individuals to exploit them because of some of the faulty rulings from the Supreme Court or because the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) foams at the mouth for these types of cases to help protect the minority by making everyone worse off (or at least uncomfortable). So because we have a few individuals that have managed to win their cases and "secure their rights", at the same time the rights of others have been limited. This has had a chilling effect on other institutions to heavily regulate the rights of others to avoid a lawsuit. And it’s all comes back to having just a few touchy individuals that ruin it for the rest of us.
I remember one particular job that I had when I was in college where we were not allowed to wish patrons a Merry Christmas without receiving disciplinary action. We could wish them ‘Happy Holidays’ instead (a more generic term). Considering how timid the organization is, I was surprised to learn that we could wish patrons a Happy New Year (considering the Chinese New Year is much later than the American). It pained me to have to be so politically correct and personally I found it a great way to rob our staff of any Christmas Spirit we had.
Thank you, ACLU for helping to destroy the liberties of the many in favor of the few. Thank you to those that are so up in arms over a Christmas tree or a few signs that they decide they should ruin the party for everyone else. I think personally, these people that are so easily offended need to develop a thicker skin or just lighten up.
So will I be wishing people Happy Holidays this year? Probably not. For the most part, strangers that I see this holiday season will get the typical Merry Christmas I give in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and a Happy New Year between Christmas and January 1st. I do not like saying Happy Holidays based on principle and due to the generic nature of the sentiment. Let’s all lighten up and to those that celebrate it, have a Merry Christmas!
We have become entirely too sensitive as a nation. We have become so politically correct that we are robbing individuals of their freedom to express themselves freely. Recent taboos have gone so far as to make it socially unacceptable for someone to say "Merry Christmas" to someone that may not be a Christian. So in order to circumvent the socially awkward moment, we are informed it is more appropriate to say "Happy Holidays" to respect others that may not celebrate Christmas. The same trend is true across the nation. We are so afraid of offending people that we walk on eggshells constantly, worried that a comment taken out of context might offend someone of a different religion or that something we say might offend a certain nationality. The trend has gotten so out of hand that we have people trying to remove "In God We Trust" from our currency, ban the Pledge of Allegiance, and as already mentioned trying to remove the Christian basis out of the holiday of Christmas. Just recently, Florida Gulf Coast University banned the use of Christmas decorations by University employees.
Let me make a distinction between hate speech and freedom of speech. Hate speech is not considered protected speech under ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. This means that spewing hate speech and ethnic slurs are outside of what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a right to speak freely and express ideas that make one unique and individual and are not intended to offend someone else. The problem is that courts and activists feel that ‘not intending to offend someone’ is not a stringent enough doctrine to protect everyone and they would rather everything be made bland and generic. Intentions, or lack thereof, are rarely regarded in these cases, but rather the main concern is protecting dissenters and the minority from being exposed to beliefs and practices contrary to their own. The last time I checked, this exposure was called diversity; the same diversity that the same activists demand. They argue their rights guarantee them equality and protect their "different" point of view and then argue from the other side of their mouth that when others exercise these same guaranteed rights, they are the victim of opinions and beliefs that are contrary to their own. Essentially, they want their cake and they want to eat it to.
What exposure is it that these individuals feel is so demeaning and uncomfortable? Seeing a Christmas tree or a sign that says "Merry Christmas"? How long will it be until these people request the removal of crosses or crucifixes that are displayed at the top of steeples on our churches because the sight makes them uncomfortable?
I understand that the government cannot respect and establishment of religion, but at the same time this principle does not mean an institution (governmental or quasi-governmental) should feel it necessary to ban any kind of celebration or anything that identifies a unique people, regardless of their majority status. The reason why we have institutions that like to ban Christmas celebrations and decorations is because of the associated legal liability. Let’s face it, lawsuits are all the rage now when you want to get what you want or just want a little cash for your "troubles". Institutions allow individuals to exploit them because of some of the faulty rulings from the Supreme Court or because the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) foams at the mouth for these types of cases to help protect the minority by making everyone worse off (or at least uncomfortable). So because we have a few individuals that have managed to win their cases and "secure their rights", at the same time the rights of others have been limited. This has had a chilling effect on other institutions to heavily regulate the rights of others to avoid a lawsuit. And it’s all comes back to having just a few touchy individuals that ruin it for the rest of us.
I remember one particular job that I had when I was in college where we were not allowed to wish patrons a Merry Christmas without receiving disciplinary action. We could wish them ‘Happy Holidays’ instead (a more generic term). Considering how timid the organization is, I was surprised to learn that we could wish patrons a Happy New Year (considering the Chinese New Year is much later than the American). It pained me to have to be so politically correct and personally I found it a great way to rob our staff of any Christmas Spirit we had.
Thank you, ACLU for helping to destroy the liberties of the many in favor of the few. Thank you to those that are so up in arms over a Christmas tree or a few signs that they decide they should ruin the party for everyone else. I think personally, these people that are so easily offended need to develop a thicker skin or just lighten up.
So will I be wishing people Happy Holidays this year? Probably not. For the most part, strangers that I see this holiday season will get the typical Merry Christmas I give in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and a Happy New Year between Christmas and January 1st. I do not like saying Happy Holidays based on principle and due to the generic nature of the sentiment. Let’s all lighten up and to those that celebrate it, have a Merry Christmas!
Monday, November 24, 2008
A Time to Be Thankful
A Time to be Thankful
Let me begin by saying that I would like to dedicate this article to my wife. Normally I like to write very intense opinion articles, but given that we are currently in the holiday season, I thought I would deviate from that and write a sentimental article for the Daily News.
During the holiday season, we are often reminded of the blessings and gifts that we have in our lives. Not all these gifts can be purchased in a store or can be ordered over the internet. The gifts that I am speaking of are the gifts of friendship, family, love, and our relationships with one another.
We’ve all heard the line "Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men", and this is something that we are especially reminded of during the holidays that often we have a tendency to forget outside of the holiday season. We have a tendency to forget this when stuck in traffic or the lady ahead of us in the check-out line is shelling out 237 coupons that will save her a net $3.45. However, each one of us is capable of loving one another and being warm and courteous (even helpful) to complete strangers. Such is the essence of "Southern Hospitality" and is one of the most attractive qualities of the area. Absent the South, you hardly find people who are willing to help another or even openly accept a stranger as a new addition to their family. It happens sometimes, but not as frequently as the South; my travels have taught me this. I am, and always will be, touched by the good natured people of this earth, a majority of whom live in Southern states.
Some of us do not have the luxury of worldly riches. The world likes to measure our worth by the size of our retirement plan, how much we have in our checking account, and how many worldly possessions we have or do not have. I myself am not a rich man by the world’s standards. However, when I think about my friends and family and all they have done for me, I realized that if my wealth is measured by their love and their dedication, there is not a wealthier man than me. There’s just something about spending time with the family that really gives you the wholesome, warm feeling; a feeling that I have long associated with the holidays.
The holidays have been, and always will be, a time of remembrance for those loved ones that have passed, a time to laugh with my family and friends, and a time of thanksgiving for having them in my life. For my family, it is a time for not only reflection of lost loved ones, but a time to laugh and rejoice in their lives and the influence they had on each one of us. The Lawsons are a family of story-tellers and I would have it no other way. The stories that we tell define our family and the experiences that have made us unique and cohesive.
I’d like to pause and speak to those that have lost a loved one recently or will remember that loved one this coming holiday season. The holidays are often the hardest time to deal with the loss of a loved one. I know this from experience. However, their life is a testament to the love they had for you and the love you had for them. I know that every time the Lawsons gather at the dinner table for Thanksgiving and Christmas or we gather around the tree to exchange gifts, these ‘departed’ individuals are amongst us, laughing and rejoicing, smiling and nodding in approval. They live on through us and through our love for one another and the love we still have yet to give the next generation. I also take solace in the idea that when someone has departed, there is always room to welcome another; not to take their place because these people can never be replaced, but because families are meant to grow. Families, much like a tree, are meant to grow and can never be too large.
So this morning, when I was thinking about the holiday (along with my wife, family, and friends) and subsequently decided to write this article, I began to think about the following subjects and their purpose in our lives. I hope that the readers enjoy these thoughts and that somehow, someway, they resonates with you in some form or fashion.
Love. We are called to love each other and love ourselves. Love is essential today, yesterday, tomorrow, and all the days we live. Love is one of the most fundamental purposes we are here. Love without reservation and recklessly. The love you give can make someone’s day or even turn it around. Love how you see fit, but love nonetheless.
Faithfulness. Your faith to others is important. It builds trust into the relationships that rely on love as a foundation. A lack of faith erodes love. Put full faith in others and ask them to put full faith in you. If you have broken someone’s faith in you, resolve to them and yourself to correct this wrong. Faith and love are inseparable, so treat them both equally.
Charity. Give! Giving money to the Salvation Army bell-ringer is a noble action, but do not just give money in lieu of your time. The best charitable giving is doing something for others in person. This does not mean give up all charitable giving or that you should absolutely go volunteer for some cause, but give of yourself to others in need. Bring charity home to your neighbors, friends, and coworkers. Help out when needed or when you feel called to do so. The giving of oneself and one’s time is one of the best ways to show you care. One drip in the pool of humanity through a charitable contribution will set off a ripple effect for all.
Kindness. This can be the hardest one for some of us. Be kind to others. Be kind to agitator that pushes you. You never know the kind of day that he has had. Show kindness to others to show them love. Show kindness to others and restore some faith in humanity. Show kindness through charity. I am not condoning being a doormat for others, but one can be kind and care for their own self-interests at the same time.
Generosity. Be generous! This is different than charity in that charity is the giving of something whereas generosity is the habit of giving. Making a habit of giving of yourself to others will open them up to giving back to you and to others; it presents the perfect ‘pay it forward’ scenario. Just as when one drop of charity creates a ripple effect, generosity will wake the waters and everyone will feel the stirring.
Friendship. Enjoy your friends and make as many as you can. Friends are the brothers and sisters that you select. Good friends are the ones that are there through the good times and bad and help you laugh through it all. For me, friends are an extension of family and family can never be too big.
Kinship. Brothers and sisters are friends chosen for us. Mothers and Fathers provide us with much needed guidance and provide examples of how we are to model our behavior. Family provides us with the support, love, and encouragement that we need to develop and chase down our dreams.
Gratitude. Be thankful for what you have because things could always be worse. If things are as bad as they can get, then be grateful that things can only improve and make the changes necessary to improve your life. Be grateful for friends, family, your life, and more. My father always said, ‘Count your blessings...’ and when I do, I realize that I am very blessed. Show gratitude to others for their love, charity, and devotion.
Above all else, enjoy the upcoming holidays with your friends and family. I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas.
Let me begin by saying that I would like to dedicate this article to my wife. Normally I like to write very intense opinion articles, but given that we are currently in the holiday season, I thought I would deviate from that and write a sentimental article for the Daily News.
During the holiday season, we are often reminded of the blessings and gifts that we have in our lives. Not all these gifts can be purchased in a store or can be ordered over the internet. The gifts that I am speaking of are the gifts of friendship, family, love, and our relationships with one another.
We’ve all heard the line "Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men", and this is something that we are especially reminded of during the holidays that often we have a tendency to forget outside of the holiday season. We have a tendency to forget this when stuck in traffic or the lady ahead of us in the check-out line is shelling out 237 coupons that will save her a net $3.45. However, each one of us is capable of loving one another and being warm and courteous (even helpful) to complete strangers. Such is the essence of "Southern Hospitality" and is one of the most attractive qualities of the area. Absent the South, you hardly find people who are willing to help another or even openly accept a stranger as a new addition to their family. It happens sometimes, but not as frequently as the South; my travels have taught me this. I am, and always will be, touched by the good natured people of this earth, a majority of whom live in Southern states.
Some of us do not have the luxury of worldly riches. The world likes to measure our worth by the size of our retirement plan, how much we have in our checking account, and how many worldly possessions we have or do not have. I myself am not a rich man by the world’s standards. However, when I think about my friends and family and all they have done for me, I realized that if my wealth is measured by their love and their dedication, there is not a wealthier man than me. There’s just something about spending time with the family that really gives you the wholesome, warm feeling; a feeling that I have long associated with the holidays.
The holidays have been, and always will be, a time of remembrance for those loved ones that have passed, a time to laugh with my family and friends, and a time of thanksgiving for having them in my life. For my family, it is a time for not only reflection of lost loved ones, but a time to laugh and rejoice in their lives and the influence they had on each one of us. The Lawsons are a family of story-tellers and I would have it no other way. The stories that we tell define our family and the experiences that have made us unique and cohesive.
I’d like to pause and speak to those that have lost a loved one recently or will remember that loved one this coming holiday season. The holidays are often the hardest time to deal with the loss of a loved one. I know this from experience. However, their life is a testament to the love they had for you and the love you had for them. I know that every time the Lawsons gather at the dinner table for Thanksgiving and Christmas or we gather around the tree to exchange gifts, these ‘departed’ individuals are amongst us, laughing and rejoicing, smiling and nodding in approval. They live on through us and through our love for one another and the love we still have yet to give the next generation. I also take solace in the idea that when someone has departed, there is always room to welcome another; not to take their place because these people can never be replaced, but because families are meant to grow. Families, much like a tree, are meant to grow and can never be too large.
So this morning, when I was thinking about the holiday (along with my wife, family, and friends) and subsequently decided to write this article, I began to think about the following subjects and their purpose in our lives. I hope that the readers enjoy these thoughts and that somehow, someway, they resonates with you in some form or fashion.
Love. We are called to love each other and love ourselves. Love is essential today, yesterday, tomorrow, and all the days we live. Love is one of the most fundamental purposes we are here. Love without reservation and recklessly. The love you give can make someone’s day or even turn it around. Love how you see fit, but love nonetheless.
Faithfulness. Your faith to others is important. It builds trust into the relationships that rely on love as a foundation. A lack of faith erodes love. Put full faith in others and ask them to put full faith in you. If you have broken someone’s faith in you, resolve to them and yourself to correct this wrong. Faith and love are inseparable, so treat them both equally.
Charity. Give! Giving money to the Salvation Army bell-ringer is a noble action, but do not just give money in lieu of your time. The best charitable giving is doing something for others in person. This does not mean give up all charitable giving or that you should absolutely go volunteer for some cause, but give of yourself to others in need. Bring charity home to your neighbors, friends, and coworkers. Help out when needed or when you feel called to do so. The giving of oneself and one’s time is one of the best ways to show you care. One drip in the pool of humanity through a charitable contribution will set off a ripple effect for all.
Kindness. This can be the hardest one for some of us. Be kind to others. Be kind to agitator that pushes you. You never know the kind of day that he has had. Show kindness to others to show them love. Show kindness to others and restore some faith in humanity. Show kindness through charity. I am not condoning being a doormat for others, but one can be kind and care for their own self-interests at the same time.
Generosity. Be generous! This is different than charity in that charity is the giving of something whereas generosity is the habit of giving. Making a habit of giving of yourself to others will open them up to giving back to you and to others; it presents the perfect ‘pay it forward’ scenario. Just as when one drop of charity creates a ripple effect, generosity will wake the waters and everyone will feel the stirring.
Friendship. Enjoy your friends and make as many as you can. Friends are the brothers and sisters that you select. Good friends are the ones that are there through the good times and bad and help you laugh through it all. For me, friends are an extension of family and family can never be too big.
Kinship. Brothers and sisters are friends chosen for us. Mothers and Fathers provide us with much needed guidance and provide examples of how we are to model our behavior. Family provides us with the support, love, and encouragement that we need to develop and chase down our dreams.
Gratitude. Be thankful for what you have because things could always be worse. If things are as bad as they can get, then be grateful that things can only improve and make the changes necessary to improve your life. Be grateful for friends, family, your life, and more. My father always said, ‘Count your blessings...’ and when I do, I realize that I am very blessed. Show gratitude to others for their love, charity, and devotion.
Above all else, enjoy the upcoming holidays with your friends and family. I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Youth of the Nation
The Youth of the Nation
A trend that I have noticed recently, and briefly touched on in previous articles, is that today’s youth are radically different than the youth of prior generations. I am drawing this comparison from my interaction with today’s youth and my own experiences growing up.
Technology and communication have radically evolved since I was in high school so it seems logical that today’s youth are using technology differently than I did and is also seems that the youth are communicating in a radically different way than I did. Within the last 10 years the changes have been dramatic and in my opinion have helped build a very large communication gap between my generation and the current generation of youth.
We’ve all seen the commercial from AT&T where the girl speaks exclusively in text abbreviations to her mother ('IDK, my BFF Jill?', translated 'I don't know, my best friend forever Jill?'). This is meant to be an overexaggeration, but for the most part today’s youth have never known a time without text messaging or even a cell phone. Today having a cell phone and being a teenager are synonymous. I remember when I was growing up, Zack Morris from 'Saved by the Bell' had a cellular phone making him the 'coolest kid' at Bayside High School. Even when I was in high school, a teenager having a cell phone was the exception, not the rule. Eventually, I got one before I went off to college, but I didn’t get it to make a social statement or fit in with others; I got it to have a line of communication with friends and family back home. Today I still don’t use my Blackberry that much; the occasional (emphasis on occassional) text message, work related email (because sometimes things are that important), and of course keeping up with friends and family. Today’s youth (at least the ones that I am most familiar with) treat their cell phones (text messages and phone calls) as their lifeline to the outside world. They’re behavior regarding appropriate phone use and their communication styles as a result are changing dramatically.
I have noticed that today’s youth use text messages at an alarmingly high rate. A few particular individuals that I know of, if they are not being spoken to directly, will text endlessly to friends. Then if try to converse with them while they are in the process of texting, they only catch half of the information or what you were asking them. It appears that they prefer a text message conversation over a face-to-face conversation. Text messaging presents a new medium to gathering information without the need to actually have a face-to-face conversation. Thanks to the ease of texting today (with the use of full keyboards) it seems to be the preferred method of conversing with others. The value and importance of actually listening and connecting with another person face-to-face is dwindling as a result. Conversationalism is being lost in a generation, and is being replaced with text messages.
My greatest fear is that this change in communication amongst the youth is going to impact the success of the next generation when the new generation and the other, older generations meet in the workforce and the two cannot understand each other. Texting, in my opinion, is dumbing down our communication. Short, simple words are preferred to longer ones that not only exemplify more professionalism, but also more accurately convey a message. I remember that I received a lot of my diction from my father and then actively sought to increase my vocabulary. I wonder if this is the case for today’s youth or if they are content to rely on a very limited vocabulary and communicate in the easiest way possible? I certainly hope not.
With the public education system what it is today, I really cringe when I think about the future of today’s youth. I certainly hope that today’s youth is receiving some formal education on how to communicate effectively with others (and for that matter in the professional world). I hope they are receiving good instruction on vocabulary and it’s appropriate use. I know my education experience did not prepare me for college as adequately as my parents and I had hoped. I was lucky enough to have the self-determination to make something of myself and learn all that I could. I hope that schools have moved away from teaching for the CATS test, or whatever it’s called today, and more towards providing students with a good education foundation that will prepare them for whatever life decisions they make.
A trend that I have noticed recently, and briefly touched on in previous articles, is that today’s youth are radically different than the youth of prior generations. I am drawing this comparison from my interaction with today’s youth and my own experiences growing up.
Technology and communication have radically evolved since I was in high school so it seems logical that today’s youth are using technology differently than I did and is also seems that the youth are communicating in a radically different way than I did. Within the last 10 years the changes have been dramatic and in my opinion have helped build a very large communication gap between my generation and the current generation of youth.
We’ve all seen the commercial from AT&T where the girl speaks exclusively in text abbreviations to her mother ('IDK, my BFF Jill?', translated 'I don't know, my best friend forever Jill?'). This is meant to be an overexaggeration, but for the most part today’s youth have never known a time without text messaging or even a cell phone. Today having a cell phone and being a teenager are synonymous. I remember when I was growing up, Zack Morris from 'Saved by the Bell' had a cellular phone making him the 'coolest kid' at Bayside High School. Even when I was in high school, a teenager having a cell phone was the exception, not the rule. Eventually, I got one before I went off to college, but I didn’t get it to make a social statement or fit in with others; I got it to have a line of communication with friends and family back home. Today I still don’t use my Blackberry that much; the occasional (emphasis on occassional) text message, work related email (because sometimes things are that important), and of course keeping up with friends and family. Today’s youth (at least the ones that I am most familiar with) treat their cell phones (text messages and phone calls) as their lifeline to the outside world. They’re behavior regarding appropriate phone use and their communication styles as a result are changing dramatically.
I have noticed that today’s youth use text messages at an alarmingly high rate. A few particular individuals that I know of, if they are not being spoken to directly, will text endlessly to friends. Then if try to converse with them while they are in the process of texting, they only catch half of the information or what you were asking them. It appears that they prefer a text message conversation over a face-to-face conversation. Text messaging presents a new medium to gathering information without the need to actually have a face-to-face conversation. Thanks to the ease of texting today (with the use of full keyboards) it seems to be the preferred method of conversing with others. The value and importance of actually listening and connecting with another person face-to-face is dwindling as a result. Conversationalism is being lost in a generation, and is being replaced with text messages.
My greatest fear is that this change in communication amongst the youth is going to impact the success of the next generation when the new generation and the other, older generations meet in the workforce and the two cannot understand each other. Texting, in my opinion, is dumbing down our communication. Short, simple words are preferred to longer ones that not only exemplify more professionalism, but also more accurately convey a message. I remember that I received a lot of my diction from my father and then actively sought to increase my vocabulary. I wonder if this is the case for today’s youth or if they are content to rely on a very limited vocabulary and communicate in the easiest way possible? I certainly hope not.
With the public education system what it is today, I really cringe when I think about the future of today’s youth. I certainly hope that today’s youth is receiving some formal education on how to communicate effectively with others (and for that matter in the professional world). I hope they are receiving good instruction on vocabulary and it’s appropriate use. I know my education experience did not prepare me for college as adequately as my parents and I had hoped. I was lucky enough to have the self-determination to make something of myself and learn all that I could. I hope that schools have moved away from teaching for the CATS test, or whatever it’s called today, and more towards providing students with a good education foundation that will prepare them for whatever life decisions they make.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A Beacon of Morals
A Beacon of Morals
I remember hearing my parents and others talk about all the heros they used to look up to. These individuals served as role models to the baby boom generation. Individuals like James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Elvis Presley, and many others are some of the most notable American heros of yesteryear. But where are today’s stories of glory and where are today’s role models for tomorrow’s youth?
Today the media does not provide the "feel-good" media stories that it once used to. News coverage is saturated with negative sentiment and "celebrity watches" are littered with scandal and juicy details. The individuals that we used to look towards as our role models today are victim to an unrelenting, ever-scrutinizing media that unearth and make public the most intimate of details. And worse, the driving force behind the media’s (and paparazzi’s) digging is the public’s demand and interest in these matters. Our demand fuels the media’s intensity to report this information. The end result is that our former Hollywood and celebrity icons and role models have been exposed as being human and having flaws.
The media’s portrayal of our celebrity role models has left this current generation with little to cling to in terms of "Real American Heroes". Often children must turn to the realm of fantasy to find a hero without some a major character defect advertised by the media. For the previous generation, there were ample heroes to look towards probably because these celebrities were still entitled to some level of privacy not afforded today. Today I can only think of a few. Peyton Manning is one that comes to mind. Possibly Steve Young. I’m not asserting that American heroes are completely absent today, but they certainly are harder to find. Most celebrities and athletes today have some sort of scandal that has soiled their reputation. Think about some of the "squeaky clean" Disney stars that have either a current or past controversy/scandal; Vanessa Hudgens, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, Adrienne Bailon (from the Cheetah Girls) and still others. The point is that high quality role models are in high demand because they are in low supply.
So what does this mean for today’s youth that are in the market for a good role model? Scandals have left today’s youth without a nationally recognized beacon of morals to model one’s behavior after. Role models fulfill a very important role in the eyes of aging youth; they provide an example of how to live your life. With an absence of good role models (or beacons of morals) today’s youth look up to and mimic individuals whose behavior is simply not worth mirroring. I know I have watched some of the more popular shows that MTV produces (for as long as possible until I felt myself getting dumber by the minute), but I watched them long enough to see that the popular trend is to have an antagonist that creates tension and "drama" with the other characters. These are the people that receive the most attention on these shows; the villains. The youth see this and fail to see that these individuals (like Spencer on "The Hills") exhibit behavior that is not socially acceptable, yet still continue to feel the desire to mimic their behavior and start drama of their own. Even worse, the bad morals and behaviors that are depicted in these shows (promiscuity, drug/alcohol abuse, violence, rudeness, etc.) are becoming mainstream behaviors and more socially acceptable. The media has negatively influenced the upcoming generation not only through its depiction of these behaviors, but also by deconstructing good role models and constructed bad ones.
I remember when I was young (which was really not that long ago) that I had at least one Hollywood hero (Harrison Ford), but relied primarily on my hometown heroes. I looked up to (and still do) the examples set by my father and grandfather. They taught me the importance of being morally upright, justice, fairness, honesty, decency, and a plethora of other behaviors and beliefs that I steadfastly hold onto today. Without their influence (and the influence of others) it is uncertain how I would have turned out today. These hometown heroes provide a beacon of morals that our youth can and need to mimic. They are real, accessible, and present character that is not influenced by the watchful eye of the media. My role models passed on the values and morals that I have today and I can only hope that one day I will too be a beacon of morals to another generation.
I remember hearing my parents and others talk about all the heros they used to look up to. These individuals served as role models to the baby boom generation. Individuals like James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Elvis Presley, and many others are some of the most notable American heros of yesteryear. But where are today’s stories of glory and where are today’s role models for tomorrow’s youth?
Today the media does not provide the "feel-good" media stories that it once used to. News coverage is saturated with negative sentiment and "celebrity watches" are littered with scandal and juicy details. The individuals that we used to look towards as our role models today are victim to an unrelenting, ever-scrutinizing media that unearth and make public the most intimate of details. And worse, the driving force behind the media’s (and paparazzi’s) digging is the public’s demand and interest in these matters. Our demand fuels the media’s intensity to report this information. The end result is that our former Hollywood and celebrity icons and role models have been exposed as being human and having flaws.
The media’s portrayal of our celebrity role models has left this current generation with little to cling to in terms of "Real American Heroes". Often children must turn to the realm of fantasy to find a hero without some a major character defect advertised by the media. For the previous generation, there were ample heroes to look towards probably because these celebrities were still entitled to some level of privacy not afforded today. Today I can only think of a few. Peyton Manning is one that comes to mind. Possibly Steve Young. I’m not asserting that American heroes are completely absent today, but they certainly are harder to find. Most celebrities and athletes today have some sort of scandal that has soiled their reputation. Think about some of the "squeaky clean" Disney stars that have either a current or past controversy/scandal; Vanessa Hudgens, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, Adrienne Bailon (from the Cheetah Girls) and still others. The point is that high quality role models are in high demand because they are in low supply.
So what does this mean for today’s youth that are in the market for a good role model? Scandals have left today’s youth without a nationally recognized beacon of morals to model one’s behavior after. Role models fulfill a very important role in the eyes of aging youth; they provide an example of how to live your life. With an absence of good role models (or beacons of morals) today’s youth look up to and mimic individuals whose behavior is simply not worth mirroring. I know I have watched some of the more popular shows that MTV produces (for as long as possible until I felt myself getting dumber by the minute), but I watched them long enough to see that the popular trend is to have an antagonist that creates tension and "drama" with the other characters. These are the people that receive the most attention on these shows; the villains. The youth see this and fail to see that these individuals (like Spencer on "The Hills") exhibit behavior that is not socially acceptable, yet still continue to feel the desire to mimic their behavior and start drama of their own. Even worse, the bad morals and behaviors that are depicted in these shows (promiscuity, drug/alcohol abuse, violence, rudeness, etc.) are becoming mainstream behaviors and more socially acceptable. The media has negatively influenced the upcoming generation not only through its depiction of these behaviors, but also by deconstructing good role models and constructed bad ones.
I remember when I was young (which was really not that long ago) that I had at least one Hollywood hero (Harrison Ford), but relied primarily on my hometown heroes. I looked up to (and still do) the examples set by my father and grandfather. They taught me the importance of being morally upright, justice, fairness, honesty, decency, and a plethora of other behaviors and beliefs that I steadfastly hold onto today. Without their influence (and the influence of others) it is uncertain how I would have turned out today. These hometown heroes provide a beacon of morals that our youth can and need to mimic. They are real, accessible, and present character that is not influenced by the watchful eye of the media. My role models passed on the values and morals that I have today and I can only hope that one day I will too be a beacon of morals to another generation.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Green Movement
The Green Movement
Going Green is one of the hottest things to do recently. Everywhere you look you can see something describing either the benefit of going green or that an item you are purchasing is "green". Going green has become part of popular culture all of a sudden. It is one of the most common causes that Americans have adopted as a means of reducing their carbon footprint. Celebrities have endorsed the green movement, hybrid cars are selling in higher numbers than ever before, companies are focusing on making higher energy efficient merchandise, and even Hollywood productions (movies and television shows) have began stamping their products as being "green" (I personally don’t see how these television shows can be green, unless of course you count when stations "recycle" them with reruns). It seems to me that "going green" has become as popular as the furry Ug boots that some women wear (and they are called Ug boots for a reason; because they are Ug-ly). The trend is so popular even the Democratic National Convention went "green". It's obvious that the term as well as the change in lifestyle is penetrating American behavior.
Going green is a good idea, don't get me wrong. I personally love the environment and wooded areas surrounding Middlesboro. I think that taking a few steps out of my way to help "Mother Nature" is a good thing. However, just like the Ug boot fashion trend, I feel that maybe the going green trend is just that; a trend. What happens when the trend is no longer popular?
I don't want to sound like all those 1980's public service announcements, but for the most part they are right; we only have one planet. Everyone, to some extent, cares about the environment. However, most people will assume that the Green movement is something for those that connect with the Democratic Party and/or the liberal persuasion. The important distinction that people must remember is that both parties care for the environment to some degree; one just wants to safeguard the environment more than the other. People who identify as being either a conservatives or Republican still care for the environment, but maybe not as much as someone from "the other side of the aisle". However, when faced with the decision between economic progress and protecting the environment they will, more often than not, chose progress over saving the trees.
So we have celebrities and former politicians (most notably Al Gore) that adamantly support the green movement. They argue that by taking a little extra time and making a little conscious effort that we can help save the earth. They point to evidence of our carbon footprint like global warming (with movies like "An Inconvenient Truth") and describe our wastefulness. Rightfully so. We are a wasteful society. I think we can all concede that. There are a lot of people that have ample resources and often waste what they don't want or use. But what about those that don't have that much? It seems that those that don't have a lot are the ones that are least concerned about saving the earth. And why should they care about recycling or high energy efficient light bulbs when these individuals struggle to feed their families? Often times, going green means you have less green in your pocket. Basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing are your primary needs. Once these are met adequately and there are resources left over, then people can begin using their resources for their secondary needs (or things that they like but are necessary for survival). But if someone only has enough resources to provide for their primary needs, often they must forgo "saving the rainforests" of the world. They often have to make their dollar stretch by skipping on those high energy efficient light bulbs or the recycled garbage bags. Their concerns are getting through the day, not how much plastic and paper products they throw away.
The problem with the marketing strategy of the going green campaign is that the spokespersons are those that have more than enough resources and can more than afford to make charitable contributions to help save the environment. I dare the individuals responsible for the going green movement to try to find someone that is near the federal poverty line that is willing to use the few precious resources afforded to them to help save anything besides themselves and/or their families.
It just feels that individuals that are so proud of their effort to save the earth are the most smug. I feel that boasting one’s "green actions" is the new way of saying "I have more than enough money" or can be seen as a demonstration that they are better than "non-green" individuals. This demonstration of self-congratulation can work against the green movement. I know I do not want to be "that guy" that is so pleased with my actions that I look down on others for not living the same lifestyle. To me, the green movement is a form of class warfare; the rich demonstrate they are able and have ample resources to save the earth.
The green movement is a noble one but you shouldn't feel sucked into the pull of the hysteria surrounding it. Celebrity spokespersons often will build fads and trends that the rest of America is hard pressed to imitate. What happens when the economic recession tightens the budgets of middle-class Americans? They will begin to abandon the higher priced green items in favor of cheaper, more harmful products to stretch their resources. When this happens, the green movement will fade like the other trends before it.
Going Green is one of the hottest things to do recently. Everywhere you look you can see something describing either the benefit of going green or that an item you are purchasing is "green". Going green has become part of popular culture all of a sudden. It is one of the most common causes that Americans have adopted as a means of reducing their carbon footprint. Celebrities have endorsed the green movement, hybrid cars are selling in higher numbers than ever before, companies are focusing on making higher energy efficient merchandise, and even Hollywood productions (movies and television shows) have began stamping their products as being "green" (I personally don’t see how these television shows can be green, unless of course you count when stations "recycle" them with reruns). It seems to me that "going green" has become as popular as the furry Ug boots that some women wear (and they are called Ug boots for a reason; because they are Ug-ly). The trend is so popular even the Democratic National Convention went "green". It's obvious that the term as well as the change in lifestyle is penetrating American behavior.
Going green is a good idea, don't get me wrong. I personally love the environment and wooded areas surrounding Middlesboro. I think that taking a few steps out of my way to help "Mother Nature" is a good thing. However, just like the Ug boot fashion trend, I feel that maybe the going green trend is just that; a trend. What happens when the trend is no longer popular?
I don't want to sound like all those 1980's public service announcements, but for the most part they are right; we only have one planet. Everyone, to some extent, cares about the environment. However, most people will assume that the Green movement is something for those that connect with the Democratic Party and/or the liberal persuasion. The important distinction that people must remember is that both parties care for the environment to some degree; one just wants to safeguard the environment more than the other. People who identify as being either a conservatives or Republican still care for the environment, but maybe not as much as someone from "the other side of the aisle". However, when faced with the decision between economic progress and protecting the environment they will, more often than not, chose progress over saving the trees.
So we have celebrities and former politicians (most notably Al Gore) that adamantly support the green movement. They argue that by taking a little extra time and making a little conscious effort that we can help save the earth. They point to evidence of our carbon footprint like global warming (with movies like "An Inconvenient Truth") and describe our wastefulness. Rightfully so. We are a wasteful society. I think we can all concede that. There are a lot of people that have ample resources and often waste what they don't want or use. But what about those that don't have that much? It seems that those that don't have a lot are the ones that are least concerned about saving the earth. And why should they care about recycling or high energy efficient light bulbs when these individuals struggle to feed their families? Often times, going green means you have less green in your pocket. Basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing are your primary needs. Once these are met adequately and there are resources left over, then people can begin using their resources for their secondary needs (or things that they like but are necessary for survival). But if someone only has enough resources to provide for their primary needs, often they must forgo "saving the rainforests" of the world. They often have to make their dollar stretch by skipping on those high energy efficient light bulbs or the recycled garbage bags. Their concerns are getting through the day, not how much plastic and paper products they throw away.
The problem with the marketing strategy of the going green campaign is that the spokespersons are those that have more than enough resources and can more than afford to make charitable contributions to help save the environment. I dare the individuals responsible for the going green movement to try to find someone that is near the federal poverty line that is willing to use the few precious resources afforded to them to help save anything besides themselves and/or their families.
It just feels that individuals that are so proud of their effort to save the earth are the most smug. I feel that boasting one’s "green actions" is the new way of saying "I have more than enough money" or can be seen as a demonstration that they are better than "non-green" individuals. This demonstration of self-congratulation can work against the green movement. I know I do not want to be "that guy" that is so pleased with my actions that I look down on others for not living the same lifestyle. To me, the green movement is a form of class warfare; the rich demonstrate they are able and have ample resources to save the earth.
The green movement is a noble one but you shouldn't feel sucked into the pull of the hysteria surrounding it. Celebrity spokespersons often will build fads and trends that the rest of America is hard pressed to imitate. What happens when the economic recession tightens the budgets of middle-class Americans? They will begin to abandon the higher priced green items in favor of cheaper, more harmful products to stretch their resources. When this happens, the green movement will fade like the other trends before it.
The Promise of Hope
The Promise of Hope
Having stayed up to witness the concession of Senator McCain to President Elect Obama and to listen to the speeches delivered by both candidates, I can’t help but think this election is worrisome. I won’t go as far as to say that, "this is the beginning of the end for America" or that "the ‘antichrist’ was elected", but I do feel that the intentions of the voters that selected President Elect Obama were ignorant of the effect his promises and plan would have on America.
Normally I try to write from a neutral standpoint regarding politics. However, after reviewing some of the sentiment voiced by my peers, I just wonder if they really knew Obama’s policies before voting for him. To me at least, it seems they voted for a candidate that stood for "change" and "hope" rather than provide information regarding the substance of his plans, how he intends to achieve them, and any subsequent effect they may have on the nation. I hear people say, "tax breaks for the middle class" and "guaranteed health care for all" amongst the list of solutions Obama offered compared to his opponent. However, when I press them for details about these plans, little substance is left.
Obama’s tax breaks for the middle class and his rhetoric that McCain offered nothing for the middle class is complete malarkey. Obama planned on letting the Bush tax cuts expire. This means there will be a tax increase for 100% of Americans, not tax breaks for 95%. I know I used Obama’s tax calculator to determine how much of a "tax rebate" I would under his Presidency; to the sum of $1,000 annually. The thing is, this is far less than I would have received if the Bush tax cuts were still in place. Essentially, I would see my annual net taxes paid increase under his plan and I certainly qualify as middle-class (even with his decreasing threshold of what middle-class is). McCain decided that keeping the Bush tax cuts was a good idea, so essentially McCain was the real candidate for the middle-class as his plan would provide me with a larger check in April. Just one example of rhetoric offered by Obama.
Secondly, Obama will tax corporations to provide revenue for his social programs. Sounds good, right? Well, when you think about it economically, this works against the middle-class. When you raise taxes on corporations, they earn less profit. When corporations make less profit, they cut more jobs to increase that profit. Guess who corporations normally employ? You guess it; the middle-class. So how can Obama work for the middle-class when he already has two policies that leave less overall money in their pockets? This seems very contrary to his policies regarding "helping the middle-class".
As for healthcare, I believe that everyone needs some sort of insurance and that this will help bring down healthcare costs to some extent. The problem is, I cannot speak in an educated fashion as to what a nationalized healthcare plan will do to the insurance premiums paid by the middle-class and what this will mean for the quality of care given to individuals that are enrolled on this plan. Only time will tell. I will say that if we are lucky and more people are provided with health insurance, this might decrease healthcare costs overall if there are less uninsured individuals (whose health care costs are passed onto those that are insured).
Senator McCain was one of the people who called attention to these problems, much like he did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis happened. It seems his voice has went unheeded again.
So as for the election, I would like to think that President Elect Obama was selected for his policies but find it hard to do so. I think that Obama was selected because of the disapproval people have with current President Bush. People saw "change" and "hope" as someone of a different political party than President Bush. I also believe that race played a factor in this election, but in a way that most Kentuckians are not used to; some selected Obama simply because of the color of his skin and not the content of his policies. Still others voted for Obama because the thought of making 2008 a historic election year was too much to pass up. And still others selected Obama for one or two issues not discussed here. All this is completely fine with me; that’s their choice and their vote and they did with it as they saw fit.
I will however offer those of you who are McCain supporters this message of "hope". We are unsure if President Elect Obama will have the support, resources, and votes necessary to pass some of his policies. America may come around and realize the error of their ways. Or, Obama may pass his programs and policies and the proverbial "mess will hit the fan" and the American electorate will let him know in 4 years what they really think of his policies. Either way, depending on his actions in the next couple of years, we will see how his policies affect the nation and how the nation responds.
Despite the result of the election and given the current state of the nation, we all need to unite and work through our problems. I will take nothing away from President Elect Obama. He has achieved something that is nothing short of historic. Although I do not support his policies, I do support this nation. I am a patriot first and foremost and will act as such. My rights allow me to be both a patriot and a dissenter. I am exercising that right today.
Having stayed up to witness the concession of Senator McCain to President Elect Obama and to listen to the speeches delivered by both candidates, I can’t help but think this election is worrisome. I won’t go as far as to say that, "this is the beginning of the end for America" or that "the ‘antichrist’ was elected", but I do feel that the intentions of the voters that selected President Elect Obama were ignorant of the effect his promises and plan would have on America.
Normally I try to write from a neutral standpoint regarding politics. However, after reviewing some of the sentiment voiced by my peers, I just wonder if they really knew Obama’s policies before voting for him. To me at least, it seems they voted for a candidate that stood for "change" and "hope" rather than provide information regarding the substance of his plans, how he intends to achieve them, and any subsequent effect they may have on the nation. I hear people say, "tax breaks for the middle class" and "guaranteed health care for all" amongst the list of solutions Obama offered compared to his opponent. However, when I press them for details about these plans, little substance is left.
Obama’s tax breaks for the middle class and his rhetoric that McCain offered nothing for the middle class is complete malarkey. Obama planned on letting the Bush tax cuts expire. This means there will be a tax increase for 100% of Americans, not tax breaks for 95%. I know I used Obama’s tax calculator to determine how much of a "tax rebate" I would under his Presidency; to the sum of $1,000 annually. The thing is, this is far less than I would have received if the Bush tax cuts were still in place. Essentially, I would see my annual net taxes paid increase under his plan and I certainly qualify as middle-class (even with his decreasing threshold of what middle-class is). McCain decided that keeping the Bush tax cuts was a good idea, so essentially McCain was the real candidate for the middle-class as his plan would provide me with a larger check in April. Just one example of rhetoric offered by Obama.
Secondly, Obama will tax corporations to provide revenue for his social programs. Sounds good, right? Well, when you think about it economically, this works against the middle-class. When you raise taxes on corporations, they earn less profit. When corporations make less profit, they cut more jobs to increase that profit. Guess who corporations normally employ? You guess it; the middle-class. So how can Obama work for the middle-class when he already has two policies that leave less overall money in their pockets? This seems very contrary to his policies regarding "helping the middle-class".
As for healthcare, I believe that everyone needs some sort of insurance and that this will help bring down healthcare costs to some extent. The problem is, I cannot speak in an educated fashion as to what a nationalized healthcare plan will do to the insurance premiums paid by the middle-class and what this will mean for the quality of care given to individuals that are enrolled on this plan. Only time will tell. I will say that if we are lucky and more people are provided with health insurance, this might decrease healthcare costs overall if there are less uninsured individuals (whose health care costs are passed onto those that are insured).
Senator McCain was one of the people who called attention to these problems, much like he did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis happened. It seems his voice has went unheeded again.
So as for the election, I would like to think that President Elect Obama was selected for his policies but find it hard to do so. I think that Obama was selected because of the disapproval people have with current President Bush. People saw "change" and "hope" as someone of a different political party than President Bush. I also believe that race played a factor in this election, but in a way that most Kentuckians are not used to; some selected Obama simply because of the color of his skin and not the content of his policies. Still others voted for Obama because the thought of making 2008 a historic election year was too much to pass up. And still others selected Obama for one or two issues not discussed here. All this is completely fine with me; that’s their choice and their vote and they did with it as they saw fit.
I will however offer those of you who are McCain supporters this message of "hope". We are unsure if President Elect Obama will have the support, resources, and votes necessary to pass some of his policies. America may come around and realize the error of their ways. Or, Obama may pass his programs and policies and the proverbial "mess will hit the fan" and the American electorate will let him know in 4 years what they really think of his policies. Either way, depending on his actions in the next couple of years, we will see how his policies affect the nation and how the nation responds.
Despite the result of the election and given the current state of the nation, we all need to unite and work through our problems. I will take nothing away from President Elect Obama. He has achieved something that is nothing short of historic. Although I do not support his policies, I do support this nation. I am a patriot first and foremost and will act as such. My rights allow me to be both a patriot and a dissenter. I am exercising that right today.
Fair and Balanced
Fair and Balanced
This is an election year, surprise! Not only is this an election year, but it’s a historic election year. This is the first time in our nation’s history that an African American has been in serious contention for the White House (sorry, Al Sharpton does not count). This is also only the second time in American history that a woman has been nominated for the Vice Presidency for one of the major two political parties (see Geraldine Ferraro who ran with Walter Mondale in 1984). Unless you have cut off all lines of communication with anyone within the past 6 weeks, you’ve heard the news; Senator John McCain has selected the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his Vice Presidential running mate. The reason why you’d have to cut all lines of communication is because the media has literally treated this story with just as much frenzy as it did during the downward spiral of Britney Spears.
It seems that the media is running a smear campaign against Governor Palin. The media has portrayed her in the most negative of lights. It has focused on potential scandals that she may or may not be linked to and has disregarded her accomplishments in Wasilla, Alaska and during her current, albeit brief stint as Governor of Alaska. The media has sunk so low that they "uncovered" photos of Governor Palin during the bathing suit competition when she competed in the Miss Alaska pageant, in which she finished second runner up (or third place). These pictures were shown repeatedly on 24 hour news channels the weekend they were "released" to the public. Would they have done such a thing had Senator McCain selected a male as his running mate? Probably not. McCain’s pick was strategic and a brilliant move in itself. Here’s why:
McCain used his vice presidential pick to bring some excitement to his ticket. Too often he had been criticized by the media and his opponent, Senator Barack Obama, of being "more of the same", referring to the politics of President George W. Bush. The media and Democrats had blasted him for being "too old" and "out of touch" with today’s generation. He made the smartest move he could be selecting a candidate that has a track record of reform as well as a youthful vitality needed to not only generate buzz for his campaign but also sway undecided voters to his ticket. Democrats lamented that this move was nothing more than a shameful ploy to draw votes from former Clinton supporters that were still jaded from the nomination. I have heard people say that Governor Palin is nothing more than a straw man (or straw woman) being used by the Republican party to ensure at least 4 more years of policies similar to President George W. Bush. What they have failed to admit is that a Vice Presidential pick is intended to compliment weaknesses and minimize criticisms of the Presidential nominee. Senator Obama did the exact same thing by picking Senator Biden as his running mate. Senator Obama has been criticized as lacking experience in both tenure and foreign policy, two qualities that Senator Biden more than makes up for. In the same way, Governor Palin was selected for the youth and energy that she could bring to the campaign to make McCain more competitive for the youth vote; a voting cohort that political analysts say Obama had taken a great lead in. If you look closely at the two campaigns you will see that the candidates almost mirror each other; Palin to Obama and McCain to Biden. This was done intentionally to make each party as competitive with the other as possible and garner more votes.
But the media, as it always does, is playing a very influential role in the Presidential election. In much the same way that it painted a very elaborate picture of George W. Bush as incompetent, it is portraying Governor Palin as more of a "cheerleader" and without the necessary credentials to be Vice-President and potentially lead the nation. Katie Couric, a staunch Palin critic, put forth a great effort to make Governor Palin look as foolish as possible in their interview that has become an overnight sensation on YouTube. She painted a picture of Palin’s ignorance regarding McCain’s positions and track records and also chided her for her lack of executive experience as did the rest of the media following that interview. Has any major news media that interviewed Senator Obama really hit hard on his policies in order to make him out to seem a fool? Maybe Fox News, but that may be the only media outlet that has made such an effort. It seems that the media that has access to the Presidential nominees has painted Senator Obama as more of the "visionary", "savior", "new hope of our generation", and has portrayed Obama in the most positive light possible. Palin and McCain however, have been portrayed in the most negative by most media outlets. Still need more convincing?
Think about the "fluff" stories that have come out about the candidates. You have Oprah that welcomed Senator Barack and Michelle Obama to her show and did a very soft story to help him connect with the voters. That same Oprah refuses to have Governor Palin on her show until after the election. Does that seem fair? What about Us Magazine that published the fluff story about Michelle Obama entitled, "Why Barack Loves Her" and then a month later turns around and runs the following cover containing a picture of Governor Palin, "Babies, Lies, & Scandals". Does that seem biased? What about the media’s story about Senator McCain’s failed marriage proposal to the Brazilian dancer? What about media blogs have tried to create rumors that Governor Palin’s newborn baby Trig is not hers, but is rather her 17 year old daughter’s child. If you include the photos aired all weekend of Governor Palin in her bathing suit, the media has engaged in a smear campaign against not only the McCain/Palin ticket, but also against the second female Vice Presidential nominee for a major party. These attacks not only seem biased against the Republican ticket, but also sexist in nature. The last time I checked, the Presidential and Vice Presidential race were not selected based on the swimsuit competition.
But this is nothing new for the media. They have framed every presidential campaign starting back with Nixon and Kennedy. I’m not saying that Governor Palin is the most qualified candidate for Vice President ever. She clearly has her shortcomings, but then again all candidates involved do (even though she surpassed people’s expectations during the Vice Presidential debate). But that’s not the point. The point is that the media has unfairly portrayed one ticket in positive light over the other; their way of swaying the election. The media should have an obligation to be objective and not slant stories to one side of the political spectrum or the other. Reasonable access and equal time laws have been upheld to give political candidates equal access to the broadcast airwaves so that they can speak to their fellow citizens and ask for their vote. Maybe its about time that Oprah gets hit with another lawsuit so that she will provide at least reasonable access and equal time to Governor Palin, unless of course Oprah is above our laws (which very well could be the case).
This is an election year, surprise! Not only is this an election year, but it’s a historic election year. This is the first time in our nation’s history that an African American has been in serious contention for the White House (sorry, Al Sharpton does not count). This is also only the second time in American history that a woman has been nominated for the Vice Presidency for one of the major two political parties (see Geraldine Ferraro who ran with Walter Mondale in 1984). Unless you have cut off all lines of communication with anyone within the past 6 weeks, you’ve heard the news; Senator John McCain has selected the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his Vice Presidential running mate. The reason why you’d have to cut all lines of communication is because the media has literally treated this story with just as much frenzy as it did during the downward spiral of Britney Spears.
It seems that the media is running a smear campaign against Governor Palin. The media has portrayed her in the most negative of lights. It has focused on potential scandals that she may or may not be linked to and has disregarded her accomplishments in Wasilla, Alaska and during her current, albeit brief stint as Governor of Alaska. The media has sunk so low that they "uncovered" photos of Governor Palin during the bathing suit competition when she competed in the Miss Alaska pageant, in which she finished second runner up (or third place). These pictures were shown repeatedly on 24 hour news channels the weekend they were "released" to the public. Would they have done such a thing had Senator McCain selected a male as his running mate? Probably not. McCain’s pick was strategic and a brilliant move in itself. Here’s why:
McCain used his vice presidential pick to bring some excitement to his ticket. Too often he had been criticized by the media and his opponent, Senator Barack Obama, of being "more of the same", referring to the politics of President George W. Bush. The media and Democrats had blasted him for being "too old" and "out of touch" with today’s generation. He made the smartest move he could be selecting a candidate that has a track record of reform as well as a youthful vitality needed to not only generate buzz for his campaign but also sway undecided voters to his ticket. Democrats lamented that this move was nothing more than a shameful ploy to draw votes from former Clinton supporters that were still jaded from the nomination. I have heard people say that Governor Palin is nothing more than a straw man (or straw woman) being used by the Republican party to ensure at least 4 more years of policies similar to President George W. Bush. What they have failed to admit is that a Vice Presidential pick is intended to compliment weaknesses and minimize criticisms of the Presidential nominee. Senator Obama did the exact same thing by picking Senator Biden as his running mate. Senator Obama has been criticized as lacking experience in both tenure and foreign policy, two qualities that Senator Biden more than makes up for. In the same way, Governor Palin was selected for the youth and energy that she could bring to the campaign to make McCain more competitive for the youth vote; a voting cohort that political analysts say Obama had taken a great lead in. If you look closely at the two campaigns you will see that the candidates almost mirror each other; Palin to Obama and McCain to Biden. This was done intentionally to make each party as competitive with the other as possible and garner more votes.
But the media, as it always does, is playing a very influential role in the Presidential election. In much the same way that it painted a very elaborate picture of George W. Bush as incompetent, it is portraying Governor Palin as more of a "cheerleader" and without the necessary credentials to be Vice-President and potentially lead the nation. Katie Couric, a staunch Palin critic, put forth a great effort to make Governor Palin look as foolish as possible in their interview that has become an overnight sensation on YouTube. She painted a picture of Palin’s ignorance regarding McCain’s positions and track records and also chided her for her lack of executive experience as did the rest of the media following that interview. Has any major news media that interviewed Senator Obama really hit hard on his policies in order to make him out to seem a fool? Maybe Fox News, but that may be the only media outlet that has made such an effort. It seems that the media that has access to the Presidential nominees has painted Senator Obama as more of the "visionary", "savior", "new hope of our generation", and has portrayed Obama in the most positive light possible. Palin and McCain however, have been portrayed in the most negative by most media outlets. Still need more convincing?
Think about the "fluff" stories that have come out about the candidates. You have Oprah that welcomed Senator Barack and Michelle Obama to her show and did a very soft story to help him connect with the voters. That same Oprah refuses to have Governor Palin on her show until after the election. Does that seem fair? What about Us Magazine that published the fluff story about Michelle Obama entitled, "Why Barack Loves Her" and then a month later turns around and runs the following cover containing a picture of Governor Palin, "Babies, Lies, & Scandals". Does that seem biased? What about the media’s story about Senator McCain’s failed marriage proposal to the Brazilian dancer? What about media blogs have tried to create rumors that Governor Palin’s newborn baby Trig is not hers, but is rather her 17 year old daughter’s child. If you include the photos aired all weekend of Governor Palin in her bathing suit, the media has engaged in a smear campaign against not only the McCain/Palin ticket, but also against the second female Vice Presidential nominee for a major party. These attacks not only seem biased against the Republican ticket, but also sexist in nature. The last time I checked, the Presidential and Vice Presidential race were not selected based on the swimsuit competition.
But this is nothing new for the media. They have framed every presidential campaign starting back with Nixon and Kennedy. I’m not saying that Governor Palin is the most qualified candidate for Vice President ever. She clearly has her shortcomings, but then again all candidates involved do (even though she surpassed people’s expectations during the Vice Presidential debate). But that’s not the point. The point is that the media has unfairly portrayed one ticket in positive light over the other; their way of swaying the election. The media should have an obligation to be objective and not slant stories to one side of the political spectrum or the other. Reasonable access and equal time laws have been upheld to give political candidates equal access to the broadcast airwaves so that they can speak to their fellow citizens and ask for their vote. Maybe its about time that Oprah gets hit with another lawsuit so that she will provide at least reasonable access and equal time to Governor Palin, unless of course Oprah is above our laws (which very well could be the case).
Progress: The One Stop Solution
Progress: The One Stop Solution
This is meant to be a follow up to the opinion piece called, "Progress: Booze or Lose". I was very pleased with the online community’s debate on the subject of legalizing alcohol sales in the area. I’d like to address something else that needs to be said. This is something I realized when I have talked with people that have read the article.
Alcohol is not a one stop solution to the economic problems in Middlesboro and Bell County. I never said it was. I always stated this is just one step in the progress of the area. There are many other decisions and actions that need to be taken in order to aid the area's development. The future economy of Middlesboro and Bell County depends on decision makers to take action and work for the progress of the area.
That being said, one solution to the economic problems in the area is to get new people in public office that are willing to break the status quo and adopt a progressive (not necessarily liberal, but progressive) view and work for progress and change in the area. I am not saying that the current elected officials are unwilling to do the job, but I certainly think that something has caused the economy to go stagnant. I feel the current decision makers have been idle in their actions to rectify these problem.
Another solution is to get involved. Find out who your councilman or councilwoman is and put pressure on them to take corrective action regarding the local economy. Contact the Mayor directly. Write them letters, make phone calls, do something. Put pressure on them to make decisions that best reflect your interests, your values, and your thoughts about what should be done in the area. They are elected by you and work for you. They have a responsibility to do what is best for the area and are ultimately held accountable by you.
As for the religious groups that are perceived as holding back the area; they are currently able to influence our elected officials because they are organized by a dynamic leader. The difference between those religious groups and most people in Bell County and Middlesboro is organization. Collective voices represent collective votes that are necessary to stay in office. If collectively Bell County and Middlesboro residents united and called their elected officials to demand change or even held rallies for a particular cause (think Nehemiah Action), these officials have no choice but to heed the demands of the people. As far as I can tell from reviewing the online community’s postings, it seems that there is overwhelming support for legalizing the sale of alcohol. If this is the case, then the voices of the majority should drown out those of the minority. No one should fall victim to the "tyranny of the minority".
What I am advocating for is getting involved, taking action, getting organized, and doing something. The time for action is now. This is the first step in reaching a solution. Let your voice be heard. I am just a single voice speaking the thoughts of those that have yet to speak up. I am not the first and I shall not be the last. Speak up, let others hear you. You have a right to be heard and a right to your opinions regardless of religious persecution that may come your way. The decision is, and should be, yours on how the area progresses. In the words of Mahatma Ghandi; "Be the change you want to see in the world".
This is meant to be a follow up to the opinion piece called, "Progress: Booze or Lose". I was very pleased with the online community’s debate on the subject of legalizing alcohol sales in the area. I’d like to address something else that needs to be said. This is something I realized when I have talked with people that have read the article.
Alcohol is not a one stop solution to the economic problems in Middlesboro and Bell County. I never said it was. I always stated this is just one step in the progress of the area. There are many other decisions and actions that need to be taken in order to aid the area's development. The future economy of Middlesboro and Bell County depends on decision makers to take action and work for the progress of the area.
That being said, one solution to the economic problems in the area is to get new people in public office that are willing to break the status quo and adopt a progressive (not necessarily liberal, but progressive) view and work for progress and change in the area. I am not saying that the current elected officials are unwilling to do the job, but I certainly think that something has caused the economy to go stagnant. I feel the current decision makers have been idle in their actions to rectify these problem.
Another solution is to get involved. Find out who your councilman or councilwoman is and put pressure on them to take corrective action regarding the local economy. Contact the Mayor directly. Write them letters, make phone calls, do something. Put pressure on them to make decisions that best reflect your interests, your values, and your thoughts about what should be done in the area. They are elected by you and work for you. They have a responsibility to do what is best for the area and are ultimately held accountable by you.
As for the religious groups that are perceived as holding back the area; they are currently able to influence our elected officials because they are organized by a dynamic leader. The difference between those religious groups and most people in Bell County and Middlesboro is organization. Collective voices represent collective votes that are necessary to stay in office. If collectively Bell County and Middlesboro residents united and called their elected officials to demand change or even held rallies for a particular cause (think Nehemiah Action), these officials have no choice but to heed the demands of the people. As far as I can tell from reviewing the online community’s postings, it seems that there is overwhelming support for legalizing the sale of alcohol. If this is the case, then the voices of the majority should drown out those of the minority. No one should fall victim to the "tyranny of the minority".
What I am advocating for is getting involved, taking action, getting organized, and doing something. The time for action is now. This is the first step in reaching a solution. Let your voice be heard. I am just a single voice speaking the thoughts of those that have yet to speak up. I am not the first and I shall not be the last. Speak up, let others hear you. You have a right to be heard and a right to your opinions regardless of religious persecution that may come your way. The decision is, and should be, yours on how the area progresses. In the words of Mahatma Ghandi; "Be the change you want to see in the world".
Part II: Sanctity of Marriage, Homosexual Marriages
Part II: Sanctity of Marriage
This is the second part of my opinion regarding the sanctity of marriage. I recently attended a church service that spoke specifically to the sanctity of marriage and about gay marriage. I liked what I heard so much, I thought I would address the topic and add a few of my own thoughts.
There is a huge debate about gay marriage today. There have been three states that through court rulings have made gay marriage legal in their state; these are California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In Part I of this topic, I argue that marriage is a Godly sacrament that requires more of a hands-off approach to marriage. I am not in favor of a complete hands-off approach to marriage because there is a state interest to protect and prevent certain marriages (most notably minors and kinship). However I think that the institution of marriage is something that the government should play less of a role in regulating and the church should play a bigger role. Marriage is a religious institution, therefore the church should have a vested interest and the major role in ensuring that marriage is something that follows the will of God.
So now lets talk about gay marriage. One of the most important questions to ask is, "what does God think about homosexuality?" Nowhere in scripture is homosexuality referred to in a positive or even in a neutral way. It’s always referred to as a sin, and it is condemned by God. Think about Sodom and Gomorrah. Here’s the scriptural basis for God’s feelings regarding homosexuality: Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Timothy 1:8-11; Jude 1:7.
Homosexuality goes against God’s original design for the family. Homosexuals may find pleasure and intimacy with each other, but they cannot be married, bear children, and raise children the way God intends. Homosexuality goes against God’s design for intimacy; intimacy is something shared between man and wife, therefore intimacy outside of this relationship is immoral and unnatural in the church’s belief.
So since it is obvious from scripture that God abhors homosexuality and considers it a sin, why should two people be joined in a religious ceremony that is presided over by God? Why should we pervert the marriage ceremony by joining two people in sin?
[Let me state that God does not hate homosexuals, He hates homosexuality and views homosexuality as a sin that should be repented. However, taking one of the Godly sacraments and perverting it to the will of people (those that view homosexuality as acceptable) is a violation of God’s will.]
Not all of us view homosexuality as a sin. The media however is desperately trying to make us more acceptable of these "alternative lifestyle choices". It’s almost the same as "Desperate Housewives" positively influencing our view of adultery by making it appear more prevalent and glorious than it is. By increasing positive exposure to homosexuality is influencing the perception of the act that the church and God consider sins. It’s not entirely the media’s fault. We have let the media frame and influence our views regarding homosexuality.
So should we have "gay marriage"? In my opinion we cannot join two people in sin in a Godly union. I realize that this same rule should be applied consistently to other sins, most notably pre-marital sex. Premarital sex is a sin as well (at least biblically; see comment about intimacy between husband and wife only). However, anyone can ask forgiveness for their sins. The thing about premarital sex and marriage is, once your married, you’re no longer sinning. If two homosexuals are married, they continue to sin. I know I have my own personal ideas for a solution to the gay marriage issue, but that is something I won’t discuss here. All I can say is that in my opinion the sacrament of marriage is best left between man and woman.
I know my opinions regarding marriage will land me in trouble with some people and I’m alright with that. As always, I say controversial things and take hard stances to stir debate in the area.
This is the second part of my opinion regarding the sanctity of marriage. I recently attended a church service that spoke specifically to the sanctity of marriage and about gay marriage. I liked what I heard so much, I thought I would address the topic and add a few of my own thoughts.
There is a huge debate about gay marriage today. There have been three states that through court rulings have made gay marriage legal in their state; these are California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In Part I of this topic, I argue that marriage is a Godly sacrament that requires more of a hands-off approach to marriage. I am not in favor of a complete hands-off approach to marriage because there is a state interest to protect and prevent certain marriages (most notably minors and kinship). However I think that the institution of marriage is something that the government should play less of a role in regulating and the church should play a bigger role. Marriage is a religious institution, therefore the church should have a vested interest and the major role in ensuring that marriage is something that follows the will of God.
So now lets talk about gay marriage. One of the most important questions to ask is, "what does God think about homosexuality?" Nowhere in scripture is homosexuality referred to in a positive or even in a neutral way. It’s always referred to as a sin, and it is condemned by God. Think about Sodom and Gomorrah. Here’s the scriptural basis for God’s feelings regarding homosexuality: Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Timothy 1:8-11; Jude 1:7.
Homosexuality goes against God’s original design for the family. Homosexuals may find pleasure and intimacy with each other, but they cannot be married, bear children, and raise children the way God intends. Homosexuality goes against God’s design for intimacy; intimacy is something shared between man and wife, therefore intimacy outside of this relationship is immoral and unnatural in the church’s belief.
So since it is obvious from scripture that God abhors homosexuality and considers it a sin, why should two people be joined in a religious ceremony that is presided over by God? Why should we pervert the marriage ceremony by joining two people in sin?
[Let me state that God does not hate homosexuals, He hates homosexuality and views homosexuality as a sin that should be repented. However, taking one of the Godly sacraments and perverting it to the will of people (those that view homosexuality as acceptable) is a violation of God’s will.]
Not all of us view homosexuality as a sin. The media however is desperately trying to make us more acceptable of these "alternative lifestyle choices". It’s almost the same as "Desperate Housewives" positively influencing our view of adultery by making it appear more prevalent and glorious than it is. By increasing positive exposure to homosexuality is influencing the perception of the act that the church and God consider sins. It’s not entirely the media’s fault. We have let the media frame and influence our views regarding homosexuality.
So should we have "gay marriage"? In my opinion we cannot join two people in sin in a Godly union. I realize that this same rule should be applied consistently to other sins, most notably pre-marital sex. Premarital sex is a sin as well (at least biblically; see comment about intimacy between husband and wife only). However, anyone can ask forgiveness for their sins. The thing about premarital sex and marriage is, once your married, you’re no longer sinning. If two homosexuals are married, they continue to sin. I know I have my own personal ideas for a solution to the gay marriage issue, but that is something I won’t discuss here. All I can say is that in my opinion the sacrament of marriage is best left between man and woman.
I know my opinions regarding marriage will land me in trouble with some people and I’m alright with that. As always, I say controversial things and take hard stances to stir debate in the area.
Sanctity of Marriage
Sanctity of Marriage
We’ve all seen it. In today’s society and media coverage, we have all seen someone’s marriage fall apart. In the particular cases where adultery is involved, all eyes are tuned into the soap opera of cheating, mistresses, temptresses, lies, and deceit. But infidelity is not the only reason why marriages dissolve today. Sometimes it’s because there were irreconcilable differences. Sometimes it’s just because someone falls in love with another. Whatever the reason, marriage today has it’s sacred state. It’s best evidenced by the historic high in American divorce rates. The media reports that the American divorce rate is approximately 50%. I’m already at the age where my friends are getting divorced and in some cases starting their second marriage. I’m not even that old! What ever happened to the sanctity of marriage and "til death do us part"?
In much the same way that the media has perverted holidays and biased the view of certain political candidates (see my previous articles published in the Daily News), it makes sense that the media has also played a role in changing our perception of marriage. I really can’t recall when it became essential to know every detail about my favorite celebrity’s life. I can at any time of day know who my favorite celebrity is dating, and receive up to the minute updates if that person is being unfaithful to his or her wife/husband, if they are getting divorced, how many kids they’re having, and the like. I can go on and on about the press given to celebrity "marriages". In my opinion, the media’s happenstance approach to marriage, and worse, Hollywood’s elite lack of marital dedication, has perpetuated and somehow influenced our society’s perception of marriage.
Now I don’t go blaming the media for everything. I do blame them for a lot, but I cannot fault them entirely. In much the same way that I don’t think we can blame gun manufacturers for someone’s death by gunshot, I cannot fully blame the media for the downfall of marriage in American society. I will say that there is a personal responsibility issue in taking responsibility for one’s actions, but I do sincerely hope that no one looks to Hollywood for role models, especially when it comes to relationships and "happily married" couples. Hollywood love-life is as volatile as the current stock market. The approach that celebrities have taken towards marriage, and the media’s coverage of the ensuing soap-opera, have inadvertently ingrained new, inappropriate perceptions and ideas about marriage into our minds. I’d like to debunk these ideas.
Marriage is a union before God between a man and woman. I think that some of the problem with American society has become our disposition of "irreligion" (or lack of religion). This lack of religion and dedication to God has weakened our dedication to one another (friendships, treatment of strangers, and in our marriages). I understand that our government is not to "respect and establishment of religion", but I have never seen a provision in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that requires me to worship God or speak of God in private out of the fear upsetting others. This new "right" to reside in a society absent of God has transcended the sanctity of marriage making it another step in the "relationship game" (meeting, courtship, dating, engagement, marriage and then return to the start). Marriage was and is intended to be the final destination point as evidenced by the vows exchanged during the ceremony, however for some reason it is commonplace for people to marry several times within their lifetime. Marriage vows are plain and simple; "til death do us part" cannot be interpreted as "til irritability, differences, or incompatibility do us part". I think that some of us have forgotten this. The problem is, I cannot pinpoint one exact moment where sanctity was divorced from marriage (pun intended).
Marriage is not a convenient arrangement. It is a covenant between man, woman, and God that requires work, dedication, perseverance, and above all else, love. It has never been permissible to end a marriage because you have "fallen in love with another". I have heard some argue that you should marry your one true love no matter when you find them in life and regardless of your current marital status. This sentiment has already bred problems with infidelity today. This is going to sound rather cynical, but hear me out: the principal behind marriage is not to jump ship in the hopes of being happier with someone else. When you get married, you publicly tell everyone and promise your partner (before God, mind you) that no matter what happens in life, no matter who comes along, you chose your spouse every time until death parts the two of you.
There are some exceptions to the rule that are made clear in scripture. The Bible states two acceptable reasons (in the eyes of God) for the dissolution of marriage; adultery and death. Matthew 5:31 is very clear on this, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery". The passage explains to us that marital unfaithfulness is a justifiable reason for divorce (for the victim). However, there is also something to be said about divorce that stems from abuse. Husbands or wives that file for divorce because of substantiated claims of abuse, in my opinion, are not adulterers. My main logic is that when reciting wedding vows to each other at the wedding ceremony (the pact between the husband and wife made before God) both have promised to love, honor, and cherish the other. Abuse violates these vows. It does not honor or cherish the victim. These reasons, to me, are the only acceptable reasons to divorce. All other reasons (like sexual incompatibility, lack of maturity, lifestyle differences, irreconcilable differences, or whatever the state allows as a justifiable reason for divorce) have only aided and abetted those guilty of committing adultery. Mind you, I am not passing judgment on anyone. I am just expressing my opinion and belief on divorce using a Biblical reference.
One point that I would like to make is that government has intervened in the Godly sacrament of matrimony. It has placed rules and regulations into a covenant that government has no business in. I strongly believe that there should be a separation between church and state; not to protect the government from religion, but to protect religion from the government. Government is not allowed to respect an establishment of religion, but shouldn’t something be said about government not being able to change the religious establishment of marriage?
There are some benefits to having government involved in marriage, though. Government regulation of marriage ensures that minors are not exploited through arranged marriages and that individuals of close kinship cannot be united, either. States are given discretion to determine regulations regarding marriage (age, sexual orientation, kinship restrictions, etc.). However, and this may be the pragmatist in me, I would like to think that if government took a laissez faire (hands-off) approach to marriage that responsible clergy would not abuse marriage by joining two people that do not belong together (brother-sister, minor-adult, etc.). But again, I might be overly optimistic on that point. I sometimes put too much faith in the intentions of others and have already been proved wrong by the states of California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. But I digress...
Marriage, more specifically Holy Matrimony, is something that is best left to the church. Government first intervened in the sacrament to recognize unions for economic and estate benefits (amongst others). Marriage regulations have dramatically changed the "institution of marriage" into just plain "marriage"; absent meaning, absent purpose. When you look up the word "institution" (specifically, the "institution of marriage") it means, "a custom that is an important feature of some group or society". "Institution" also means "having purpose". Marriage today, thanks to the unwillingness of individuals to endure (1) sickness, (2) bad times, (3) poverty, (4) sadness, (5) self-sacrifice, and (6) unrelenting devotion until death, has been cheapened to something gossip magazines scour for. Marriage is divorced from purpose and divorced from importance (pun intended again).
This is what I feel I have observed as the trend in marriage today. Personally, I want everyone to be happy, but I also want people to be understand the solemnity of marriage. Marriage is not a toy. It is not just a New Year’s Resolution. There’s no crossing fingers and there’s no turning back. Marriage is, and always has been intended for life once those vows are taken. The divorce trend has been boiling up for a while but what we need today are people that are willing to realize that marriage is a life-altering, permanent decision and treat is as such. I know I do. I hope everyone reading this does, too.
We’ve all seen it. In today’s society and media coverage, we have all seen someone’s marriage fall apart. In the particular cases where adultery is involved, all eyes are tuned into the soap opera of cheating, mistresses, temptresses, lies, and deceit. But infidelity is not the only reason why marriages dissolve today. Sometimes it’s because there were irreconcilable differences. Sometimes it’s just because someone falls in love with another. Whatever the reason, marriage today has it’s sacred state. It’s best evidenced by the historic high in American divorce rates. The media reports that the American divorce rate is approximately 50%. I’m already at the age where my friends are getting divorced and in some cases starting their second marriage. I’m not even that old! What ever happened to the sanctity of marriage and "til death do us part"?
In much the same way that the media has perverted holidays and biased the view of certain political candidates (see my previous articles published in the Daily News), it makes sense that the media has also played a role in changing our perception of marriage. I really can’t recall when it became essential to know every detail about my favorite celebrity’s life. I can at any time of day know who my favorite celebrity is dating, and receive up to the minute updates if that person is being unfaithful to his or her wife/husband, if they are getting divorced, how many kids they’re having, and the like. I can go on and on about the press given to celebrity "marriages". In my opinion, the media’s happenstance approach to marriage, and worse, Hollywood’s elite lack of marital dedication, has perpetuated and somehow influenced our society’s perception of marriage.
Now I don’t go blaming the media for everything. I do blame them for a lot, but I cannot fault them entirely. In much the same way that I don’t think we can blame gun manufacturers for someone’s death by gunshot, I cannot fully blame the media for the downfall of marriage in American society. I will say that there is a personal responsibility issue in taking responsibility for one’s actions, but I do sincerely hope that no one looks to Hollywood for role models, especially when it comes to relationships and "happily married" couples. Hollywood love-life is as volatile as the current stock market. The approach that celebrities have taken towards marriage, and the media’s coverage of the ensuing soap-opera, have inadvertently ingrained new, inappropriate perceptions and ideas about marriage into our minds. I’d like to debunk these ideas.
Marriage is a union before God between a man and woman. I think that some of the problem with American society has become our disposition of "irreligion" (or lack of religion). This lack of religion and dedication to God has weakened our dedication to one another (friendships, treatment of strangers, and in our marriages). I understand that our government is not to "respect and establishment of religion", but I have never seen a provision in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that requires me to worship God or speak of God in private out of the fear upsetting others. This new "right" to reside in a society absent of God has transcended the sanctity of marriage making it another step in the "relationship game" (meeting, courtship, dating, engagement, marriage and then return to the start). Marriage was and is intended to be the final destination point as evidenced by the vows exchanged during the ceremony, however for some reason it is commonplace for people to marry several times within their lifetime. Marriage vows are plain and simple; "til death do us part" cannot be interpreted as "til irritability, differences, or incompatibility do us part". I think that some of us have forgotten this. The problem is, I cannot pinpoint one exact moment where sanctity was divorced from marriage (pun intended).
Marriage is not a convenient arrangement. It is a covenant between man, woman, and God that requires work, dedication, perseverance, and above all else, love. It has never been permissible to end a marriage because you have "fallen in love with another". I have heard some argue that you should marry your one true love no matter when you find them in life and regardless of your current marital status. This sentiment has already bred problems with infidelity today. This is going to sound rather cynical, but hear me out: the principal behind marriage is not to jump ship in the hopes of being happier with someone else. When you get married, you publicly tell everyone and promise your partner (before God, mind you) that no matter what happens in life, no matter who comes along, you chose your spouse every time until death parts the two of you.
There are some exceptions to the rule that are made clear in scripture. The Bible states two acceptable reasons (in the eyes of God) for the dissolution of marriage; adultery and death. Matthew 5:31 is very clear on this, "anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery". The passage explains to us that marital unfaithfulness is a justifiable reason for divorce (for the victim). However, there is also something to be said about divorce that stems from abuse. Husbands or wives that file for divorce because of substantiated claims of abuse, in my opinion, are not adulterers. My main logic is that when reciting wedding vows to each other at the wedding ceremony (the pact between the husband and wife made before God) both have promised to love, honor, and cherish the other. Abuse violates these vows. It does not honor or cherish the victim. These reasons, to me, are the only acceptable reasons to divorce. All other reasons (like sexual incompatibility, lack of maturity, lifestyle differences, irreconcilable differences, or whatever the state allows as a justifiable reason for divorce) have only aided and abetted those guilty of committing adultery. Mind you, I am not passing judgment on anyone. I am just expressing my opinion and belief on divorce using a Biblical reference.
One point that I would like to make is that government has intervened in the Godly sacrament of matrimony. It has placed rules and regulations into a covenant that government has no business in. I strongly believe that there should be a separation between church and state; not to protect the government from religion, but to protect religion from the government. Government is not allowed to respect an establishment of religion, but shouldn’t something be said about government not being able to change the religious establishment of marriage?
There are some benefits to having government involved in marriage, though. Government regulation of marriage ensures that minors are not exploited through arranged marriages and that individuals of close kinship cannot be united, either. States are given discretion to determine regulations regarding marriage (age, sexual orientation, kinship restrictions, etc.). However, and this may be the pragmatist in me, I would like to think that if government took a laissez faire (hands-off) approach to marriage that responsible clergy would not abuse marriage by joining two people that do not belong together (brother-sister, minor-adult, etc.). But again, I might be overly optimistic on that point. I sometimes put too much faith in the intentions of others and have already been proved wrong by the states of California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. But I digress...
Marriage, more specifically Holy Matrimony, is something that is best left to the church. Government first intervened in the sacrament to recognize unions for economic and estate benefits (amongst others). Marriage regulations have dramatically changed the "institution of marriage" into just plain "marriage"; absent meaning, absent purpose. When you look up the word "institution" (specifically, the "institution of marriage") it means, "a custom that is an important feature of some group or society". "Institution" also means "having purpose". Marriage today, thanks to the unwillingness of individuals to endure (1) sickness, (2) bad times, (3) poverty, (4) sadness, (5) self-sacrifice, and (6) unrelenting devotion until death, has been cheapened to something gossip magazines scour for. Marriage is divorced from purpose and divorced from importance (pun intended again).
This is what I feel I have observed as the trend in marriage today. Personally, I want everyone to be happy, but I also want people to be understand the solemnity of marriage. Marriage is not a toy. It is not just a New Year’s Resolution. There’s no crossing fingers and there’s no turning back. Marriage is, and always has been intended for life once those vows are taken. The divorce trend has been boiling up for a while but what we need today are people that are willing to realize that marriage is a life-altering, permanent decision and treat is as such. I know I do. I hope everyone reading this does, too.
Judgmental Christians
Judgmental Christians
"Judge not, lest ye be judged", Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", John 8:7. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?", Matthew 7:3.
This is some of the most prominent scripture in the New Testament regarding judging others. Jesus Christ was very straight-forward in His words: do not judge others. This is something that is left to God. However, in my encounters with some people in Bell County and Middlesboro, this is something that is not well practiced.
Now I know that using the Bible and trying to have an opinion on religion and Christianity in Bell County is like shaking a stick in the face of a rattlesnake. Not a lot of smart people would do so as there is wide variance amongst the represented beliefs. However, I feel that it’s something that has weighed heavily on my mind.
I have had my own experiences with judgmental Christians. It’s not a pleasant event. For some reason these people feel the need to pass judgment on others "to hold them accountable" to their Christian beliefs. In one personal experience, the individual(s) that passed judgment on me revealed themselves to by hypocrites soon thereafter. In another instance during my days in school, if I did not attend First Priority meetings but claimed I was a Christian, this set a bad example to my faith. However, what no one knew was that I avoided these meetings because this "non-denominational" group was far from it. It was heavily concentrated by a particular denomination and a particular church I did not agree with. Because of the interactions I had with certain First Priority members and my lack of attendance to their meetings, for the longest time I was turned off to organized religion (except for my family’s church). These Christians, I feel, meant well in their intentions but were unaware as to how their actions affected how the church is received by non-Christians.
Bell County does not have the problem with irreligion (lack of religion) like other places in the world. However, if the actions of judgmental Christians has the ability to turn one of it’s most devout followers off to religion (but not Christianity in my case), think about what it can do to non-believers. When outsiders see how we treat each other (Christians), what incentive do they have to come to a church and receive judgment for the sinful actions other church goers might have witnessed? Why should they come to church and feel shame and guilt for past actions? This is no incentive to increase church attendance. The church should be a welcoming place where no one is judged on their deeds. Is this the case in our churches today?
I have since gotten over my feelings toward organized religion. I realize that organized religion is an essential part of being a Christian. I see accountability as being very important to remaining "clean", however I feel that accountability is best shared between people that you want (emphasis on want) to hold you accountable for your actions and should not be left to just anyone that feels the need to weigh in. I have my own accountability partners in my faith and my actions; they are my family, my close friends, and my wife. No one else. They support me in my walk with God and how I live my life as a testament to His love. They do not try to chastise me in public regarding my actions, but if I slip, they are there to lift me up (and do not use the fear of public embarrassment to keep me from slipping).
Being a Christian means loving and supporting your brothers and sisters in Christ. Not working to keep them honest out of fear of public embarrassment. We as Christians are not called to judge others, but to help others in their walk with God.
So to those Christians that passed judgment on me and turned me off to organized religion (but not to God), let me thank you for making me stronger. Thank you for changing who I am as a person so that I can love others and not pass judgment on them for their actions. Thank you for showing me that I can be a testament to God’s love by loving those who fall short rather than humiliating them. Thank you for being a good example of the type of Christian I do not want to be.
Not to pass judgment, but I’d like to close with a good Bible verse. Taken in context it refers to actually being clean and not just keeping the appearance of being clean;
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Bling Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean", Matthew 23:25-26.
"Judge not, lest ye be judged", Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", John 8:7. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?", Matthew 7:3.
This is some of the most prominent scripture in the New Testament regarding judging others. Jesus Christ was very straight-forward in His words: do not judge others. This is something that is left to God. However, in my encounters with some people in Bell County and Middlesboro, this is something that is not well practiced.
Now I know that using the Bible and trying to have an opinion on religion and Christianity in Bell County is like shaking a stick in the face of a rattlesnake. Not a lot of smart people would do so as there is wide variance amongst the represented beliefs. However, I feel that it’s something that has weighed heavily on my mind.
I have had my own experiences with judgmental Christians. It’s not a pleasant event. For some reason these people feel the need to pass judgment on others "to hold them accountable" to their Christian beliefs. In one personal experience, the individual(s) that passed judgment on me revealed themselves to by hypocrites soon thereafter. In another instance during my days in school, if I did not attend First Priority meetings but claimed I was a Christian, this set a bad example to my faith. However, what no one knew was that I avoided these meetings because this "non-denominational" group was far from it. It was heavily concentrated by a particular denomination and a particular church I did not agree with. Because of the interactions I had with certain First Priority members and my lack of attendance to their meetings, for the longest time I was turned off to organized religion (except for my family’s church). These Christians, I feel, meant well in their intentions but were unaware as to how their actions affected how the church is received by non-Christians.
Bell County does not have the problem with irreligion (lack of religion) like other places in the world. However, if the actions of judgmental Christians has the ability to turn one of it’s most devout followers off to religion (but not Christianity in my case), think about what it can do to non-believers. When outsiders see how we treat each other (Christians), what incentive do they have to come to a church and receive judgment for the sinful actions other church goers might have witnessed? Why should they come to church and feel shame and guilt for past actions? This is no incentive to increase church attendance. The church should be a welcoming place where no one is judged on their deeds. Is this the case in our churches today?
I have since gotten over my feelings toward organized religion. I realize that organized religion is an essential part of being a Christian. I see accountability as being very important to remaining "clean", however I feel that accountability is best shared between people that you want (emphasis on want) to hold you accountable for your actions and should not be left to just anyone that feels the need to weigh in. I have my own accountability partners in my faith and my actions; they are my family, my close friends, and my wife. No one else. They support me in my walk with God and how I live my life as a testament to His love. They do not try to chastise me in public regarding my actions, but if I slip, they are there to lift me up (and do not use the fear of public embarrassment to keep me from slipping).
Being a Christian means loving and supporting your brothers and sisters in Christ. Not working to keep them honest out of fear of public embarrassment. We as Christians are not called to judge others, but to help others in their walk with God.
So to those Christians that passed judgment on me and turned me off to organized religion (but not to God), let me thank you for making me stronger. Thank you for changing who I am as a person so that I can love others and not pass judgment on them for their actions. Thank you for showing me that I can be a testament to God’s love by loving those who fall short rather than humiliating them. Thank you for being a good example of the type of Christian I do not want to be.
Not to pass judgment, but I’d like to close with a good Bible verse. Taken in context it refers to actually being clean and not just keeping the appearance of being clean;
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Bling Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean", Matthew 23:25-26.
Halloween
Is Halloween Really the Devil’s Holiday?
Halloween is easily one of my favorite holidays. However, for as long as I’ve lived in Middlesboro, there has always been a rift in the town regarding the holiday. Either you believe that Halloween is a harmless holiday that allows children to collect candy while masquerading as their favorite character, or that Halloween is the "Devil’s Holiday". I think we all have seen at least one sign or some individuals condemning those that participate in the festivities, but is there really any reason to fear damnation?
I enjoy writing about more controversial issues that are discussed in the area. I’d like to think that at least by addressing these issues that it can stir some debate which, in my opinion, is a good thing. To start off, I’d like to review the historical basis behind the American version of Halloween.
The North American version of Halloween is largely influenced by Irish immigration, not by witches, goblins, or Satanists. Most of the people I know in Middlesboro, and for that matter Bell County, have Irish ancestry. In essence then, this is part of the area’s cultural heritage before it would be part of any kind of Satanic rite. Halloween has its origin in the Celtic festival of Sam Hain, which was a celebration to commemorate the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The festival was used as a time to stockpile supplies and slaughter livestock for the coming winter. The Gaelic people (whom some were Celtic) did believe that during this time the boundary between the living and the dead weakened, but believed that the dead were dangerous to the living and could potentially damage crops (note: they did not worship them). During the Sam Hain festival, masks were worn to ward off these spirits that could damage crops or even bring harm to themselves and families. Having reviewed the historical beginnings of the celebration, clearly this is not a Satanic holiday. To this day, Halloween is an extremely popular holiday in Ireland.
Halloween even has a history of altruism and philanthropy; two foundations of the Christian Church. During the Great Depression, people would go door-to-door on "beggar’s night" to ask for food or other goods that would help support themselves and their families. Houses that pass out candy see it as a sort of charity; giving candy in good spirits to children that visit them. Today, UNICEF is involved in Halloween and collects donations for underprivileged children.
So now that we’ve reviewed the history behind Halloween, how is it that the holiday has become regarded by some as the Devil’s Holiday?
The media, specifically movie producing Hollywood, has helped to change our perception of Halloween. Movie-makers capitalized on the holiday and the season as the time most prime for scares, witches, goblins, and ghouls. Movies have especially been creative with horrifying themes during the Halloween season, often scaring people to the point of changing their normal pattern of behavior. These portrayal of Halloween glamorized by movies has helped shaped the public’s perception of the holiday. (Specifically, one scene from the movie "Halloween II" sticks out in my mind; the scene with the child in the Emergency Room that has bitten into a piece of candy containing a razor blade placed there by a sadist. At the time, this was a very popular urban myth which was believed to be much more rampant than actually occurred.) Halloween is synonymous with horror movies, and horror movies are synonymous with violence, sex, and at times Satanism. It’s easy to see how the Satanism can be confused with Halloween from the way that Hollywood helps depict the holiday. The simple suggestion from a movie that Halloween is a time for Satanic sacrifices and rituals may be all that is needed for someone to spread the false idea that Halloween is the Devil’s Holiday.
Still, it’s easy to see how we have helped perpetuate someone’s perception of Halloween as the Devil’s Holiday. Halloween has evolved into a day where it’s acceptable for women to dress provocatively and for everyone to don horrific or even risque costumes. These practices, at least in my view, are the work of the film industry constantly pushing the envelope on material in their films (50 years ago, you would never have seen women in the outfits they wear today, especially on Halloween, but the proponents of this style of dress call it "sexual liberation"). The material Hollywood includes in their films has increasingly become more graphic over the decades; this is a verified fact. The portrayal of these images has influenced what was once a cultural practice into a day with a solid R rating and moving closer to an NC 17. We have seen these images and are working to transform the holiday into something it was not intended to be (more of a sin free-for-all). On Halloween women engage in provocative dress (more so than any other day) to attract attention to themselves and still others will take detestable actions to bring harm to others (see sadist example above). The actions of a few have begun to evolve the perception of the holiday as being that for the wicked, when the festival and the celebration is intended to be an enjoyable experience for all. For this reason I cannot completely fault individuals for believing that Halloween is the Devil’s Holiday. I believe their perception is wrong, but we as a society are not doing anything to put their concerns to rest.
So is Halloween the Devil’s Holiday and are you going to Hell for celebrating it? In my opinion, no. The holiday is clearly not the Devil’s work and is not meant to worship Satan at all, however we as a society have given them a right to be justified in their perception of the holiday. In my opinion Halloween is fun until spoiled by those that regard the day as something more than it’s intended playful nature. So for the sake of those around you and for those who genuinely enjoy the holiday, be responsible this Halloween with your celebration. Respect yourself and respect others. I wish everyone a safe, pleasant, and above all else fun Halloween.
Halloween is easily one of my favorite holidays. However, for as long as I’ve lived in Middlesboro, there has always been a rift in the town regarding the holiday. Either you believe that Halloween is a harmless holiday that allows children to collect candy while masquerading as their favorite character, or that Halloween is the "Devil’s Holiday". I think we all have seen at least one sign or some individuals condemning those that participate in the festivities, but is there really any reason to fear damnation?
I enjoy writing about more controversial issues that are discussed in the area. I’d like to think that at least by addressing these issues that it can stir some debate which, in my opinion, is a good thing. To start off, I’d like to review the historical basis behind the American version of Halloween.
The North American version of Halloween is largely influenced by Irish immigration, not by witches, goblins, or Satanists. Most of the people I know in Middlesboro, and for that matter Bell County, have Irish ancestry. In essence then, this is part of the area’s cultural heritage before it would be part of any kind of Satanic rite. Halloween has its origin in the Celtic festival of Sam Hain, which was a celebration to commemorate the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The festival was used as a time to stockpile supplies and slaughter livestock for the coming winter. The Gaelic people (whom some were Celtic) did believe that during this time the boundary between the living and the dead weakened, but believed that the dead were dangerous to the living and could potentially damage crops (note: they did not worship them). During the Sam Hain festival, masks were worn to ward off these spirits that could damage crops or even bring harm to themselves and families. Having reviewed the historical beginnings of the celebration, clearly this is not a Satanic holiday. To this day, Halloween is an extremely popular holiday in Ireland.
Halloween even has a history of altruism and philanthropy; two foundations of the Christian Church. During the Great Depression, people would go door-to-door on "beggar’s night" to ask for food or other goods that would help support themselves and their families. Houses that pass out candy see it as a sort of charity; giving candy in good spirits to children that visit them. Today, UNICEF is involved in Halloween and collects donations for underprivileged children.
So now that we’ve reviewed the history behind Halloween, how is it that the holiday has become regarded by some as the Devil’s Holiday?
The media, specifically movie producing Hollywood, has helped to change our perception of Halloween. Movie-makers capitalized on the holiday and the season as the time most prime for scares, witches, goblins, and ghouls. Movies have especially been creative with horrifying themes during the Halloween season, often scaring people to the point of changing their normal pattern of behavior. These portrayal of Halloween glamorized by movies has helped shaped the public’s perception of the holiday. (Specifically, one scene from the movie "Halloween II" sticks out in my mind; the scene with the child in the Emergency Room that has bitten into a piece of candy containing a razor blade placed there by a sadist. At the time, this was a very popular urban myth which was believed to be much more rampant than actually occurred.) Halloween is synonymous with horror movies, and horror movies are synonymous with violence, sex, and at times Satanism. It’s easy to see how the Satanism can be confused with Halloween from the way that Hollywood helps depict the holiday. The simple suggestion from a movie that Halloween is a time for Satanic sacrifices and rituals may be all that is needed for someone to spread the false idea that Halloween is the Devil’s Holiday.
Still, it’s easy to see how we have helped perpetuate someone’s perception of Halloween as the Devil’s Holiday. Halloween has evolved into a day where it’s acceptable for women to dress provocatively and for everyone to don horrific or even risque costumes. These practices, at least in my view, are the work of the film industry constantly pushing the envelope on material in their films (50 years ago, you would never have seen women in the outfits they wear today, especially on Halloween, but the proponents of this style of dress call it "sexual liberation"). The material Hollywood includes in their films has increasingly become more graphic over the decades; this is a verified fact. The portrayal of these images has influenced what was once a cultural practice into a day with a solid R rating and moving closer to an NC 17. We have seen these images and are working to transform the holiday into something it was not intended to be (more of a sin free-for-all). On Halloween women engage in provocative dress (more so than any other day) to attract attention to themselves and still others will take detestable actions to bring harm to others (see sadist example above). The actions of a few have begun to evolve the perception of the holiday as being that for the wicked, when the festival and the celebration is intended to be an enjoyable experience for all. For this reason I cannot completely fault individuals for believing that Halloween is the Devil’s Holiday. I believe their perception is wrong, but we as a society are not doing anything to put their concerns to rest.
So is Halloween the Devil’s Holiday and are you going to Hell for celebrating it? In my opinion, no. The holiday is clearly not the Devil’s work and is not meant to worship Satan at all, however we as a society have given them a right to be justified in their perception of the holiday. In my opinion Halloween is fun until spoiled by those that regard the day as something more than it’s intended playful nature. So for the sake of those around you and for those who genuinely enjoy the holiday, be responsible this Halloween with your celebration. Respect yourself and respect others. I wish everyone a safe, pleasant, and above all else fun Halloween.
Progress: Booze or Lose
Booze or Lose
There’s nothing quite like the taste of an ice-cold beer while watching a good football game in the fall. That is one of my personal favorites. However, I may be alone in my love of the occasional alcoholic beverage, as Bell County is a dry county. This, as I’m sure most of us are aware, means that we cannot purchase alcohol at any establishment in Bell County (at least legally or without a membership to an exclusive club). I find this rather upsetting especially whenever I run out of alcohol. I have to get in my car and travel through the tunnel to Virginia in order to stock up and avoid another trip for as long as possible. This, to me, is annoying.
I have heard it all from people in the area regarding my personal choice to responsibly consume alcohol. I have been told that consuming alcohol is a sin and that I am not being "a good witness" of my Christian faith. I have at times engaged in friendly debate with these individuals about why and how alcohol came to be considered a sin against God. The problem with these friendly debates is that when I do debate with someone opposed to alcohol consumption, the person I’m speaking often is too stubborn and refuses to listen to my argument. I’ve heard it all; every type of outlandish attempt to refute my logic. "Jesus never drank wine... it was fermented grape juice" is one of my personal favorites. (Note: The last time I checked, fermented grape juice was and is wine that does, in fact, contain alcohol). I personally feel that letting a few people in the area openly influence the county’s alcohol policy is severely retarding the economic growth in the area. It’s not just a matter of convenience for me when I run out, it’s also a matter of creating jobs.
Let’s look at alcohol from an economic standpoint. Alcohol creates the possibility of jobs. Bell County is currently dry. Businesses that make money from alcohol sales cannot move into the area because, well, they cannot sell alcohol. This includes restaurants and bars. I have heard people complain about the lack of dining options in the area. Most people will leave the area and travel to New Tazwell, Knoxville, or other places to dine because of the lack of better options. Ryan’s and J. Milton’s have an oligopoly (or fewness of sellers) in the city of Middlesboro, which means that because of a lack of competition, they can essentially charge what they want and sacrifice quality to equal that of their closest competitor. Oligopolies, like monopolies defy capitalism and free market competition to keep prices down and keep quality up. Not to take anything away from these restaurants, but I find myself venturing out of state for my dining since my past few experiences with both restaurants have been less than enjoyable. By going wet, Middlesboro can attract new restaurants like Applebee’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, or other restaurants that sell alcohol. The key phrase in that last sentence is "can" because to entice these businesses, the Middlesboro City Council must also create some kind of tax break/incentive for these companies as well. New restaurants within the city mean new jobs and money staying in the area. People that travel out of the city to patron other restaurants take their money with them and deposit it into another community when that money could be spent here in town. The city and county are losing revenue from displaced business and sales.
Additionally, for new businesses to locate to an area (not just restaurants) there normally must be an adequate quality of living for their potential employees. Businesses will not move into an area if they cannot recruit and retain high quality candidates due to a low quality of living (most often referred to as "things to do"). Middlesboro has a relatively low quality of living. However, there are other resources that currently make the area attractive to businesses. Middlesboro is sandwiched between a university (LMU) and a college (Union), and even has a vocational school located within the city limits (SECC). Businesses can easily pull from these institutions to high capital employees. Bell County is ripe for businesses to move in if the quality of life were improved. Allowing alcohol to be sold increases the chances of improving the quality of life in the area so that businesses have additional incentive to move in.
Now let’s talk about bars. I believe allowing bars to locate in Middlesboro would be a benefit overall. Think about all the 20 year olds that have nothing to do in town. They will often go to the Oasis in Harrogate to have some pizza and a beer, travel to a bar in Tennessee, loiter in former Rose’s parking lot, or even travel to Barbourville to cruise the strip. These are some of the more tame scenarios. Three of the four scenarios mentioned involve leaving town and spending money outside of Middlesboro. By allowing a bar to locate in town, this allows a place unlike neighboring Lee County, Virginia or Knox County to compete. It would draw clientele from Middlesboro, greater Bell County, some from Knox County, and even people from Virginia and Tennessee. It keeps more money in the community and again provides more jobs. Bartenders and bouncers would be required creating a few more jobs in the area and owners would be required to pay property taxes, income taxes, and sales tax; all good things for the area.
Continuing with the idea of job creation from alcohol sales, allowing alcohol to be sold in the area would have a dynamic economic impact. I have heard people argue that allowing alcohol to be sold again in Middlesboro or Bell County would raise the crime rate. I will not try to refute this. However, there is a problem with drugs in the area as well. The main difference between legalized alcohol sales and illegal drugs is that you can taxes you can collect on the sale of alcohol. Since illegal drugs are sold on the black market, and hence illegally, there is no way to regulate their sale or collect taxes to help defray the costs of regulating the market. Taxing alcohol provides revenue to regulate sales and help increase the local police force to control potential problems. Regulating alcohol sales would require more police and inspectors that would be funded through sin taxes on alcohol amongst other revenue generated from new businesses that could locate to the area. These new jobs also offer a way to keep more money in the community and additional revenue from local income taxes. Also, by legalizing the sale of alcohol, the bootlegger market would dry up similar to how organized crime stopped selling alcohol when Prohibition ended. Cheaper prices offered by major retailers undercut sales in the alcohol black market and no longer make it profitable for bootleggers (as it did so for mobsters after Prohibition was repealed). Any increase in crime would be offset by the decrease in crime from bootleggers leaving the market.
Sin taxes are great things. It allows government to tax (at their discretion) anything that some feel are sinful. It has the intended consequence of increasing revenue to the taxing authority, but also has the effect of decreasing purchase and consumption because of the higher price on the good associated with the tax. This is currently the case with tobacco. A tax on tobacco raises the price as an incentive to get the consumer to purchase it less. As goods get more expensive, people demand less of them. Middlesboro and Bell County would be able to place a tax specifically on the sale of alcohol at a rate that can help regulate the consumption of the good. A sin tax, in addition to revenue generated from business transactions at restaurants and bars, would provide more revenue to the area.
What about drunk driving offenses? My belief is that if alcohol is sold legally in Bell County it would decrease not only drunk driving, but any fatalities from drunk driving. Here’s my reasoning; if people don’t have to drive as far to get alcohol (or even have to travel to bars outside of the city) they are less likely to attempt to drive home drunk. This convenience factor would help to reduce drunk driving in the area. I’m not saying it’s going to eliminate the problem, but I certainly think it will reduce it to some extent. I have no evidence to support this claim, but certainly feel this would be the case. However, it should be noted that regulating drunk drivers is already within the scope of duties of the local police. If, for some reason, there are additional drunk driving offense that result with the legalized sale of alcohol, this would already be accounted for with an expansion of the police force. The logic is that allowing the sale of alcohol will help fund the solution to problems caused alcohol so that any negative impact is either minimized or offset.
So if Bell County goes wet, will we see an increase in crime and public intoxication offenses? I certainly don’t think so. People already have the ability to purchase alcohol elsewhere and bring it into Middlesboro for consumption. There are no roadblocks into the county to stop alcohol from crossing the line. Since this is already the case, we have no reason to believe that allowing the sale of alcohol in Bell County will increase crimes associated with alcohol. Simply put, we would be increasing our revenue by taxing and regulating the sale of alcohol and detracting this revenue from our neighbors that already benefit from alcohol sales.
I always hear people complaining that Bell County does not having enough jobs or that there are not enough jobs for people to be removed from welfare payrolls. These are often the same people that argue that Bell County should remain dry. Allowing alcohol to be sold in Bell County would create the possibility for new jobs in the area and provide new opportunities for people to support themselves. In my opinion, the sale of alcohol is essential for the economic survival of Bell County and Middlesboro.
I’ll close with a little Biblical perspective. How can God be opposed to consuming alcohol when Jesus turned water into wine at a party? When He blessed a cup of wine and called it His blood? This, to me, demonstrates that if you believe Jesus is God’s Son, then you should think that God condones the responsible consumption of alcohol, but you have your right abstain from its consumption.
There’s nothing quite like the taste of an ice-cold beer while watching a good football game in the fall. That is one of my personal favorites. However, I may be alone in my love of the occasional alcoholic beverage, as Bell County is a dry county. This, as I’m sure most of us are aware, means that we cannot purchase alcohol at any establishment in Bell County (at least legally or without a membership to an exclusive club). I find this rather upsetting especially whenever I run out of alcohol. I have to get in my car and travel through the tunnel to Virginia in order to stock up and avoid another trip for as long as possible. This, to me, is annoying.
I have heard it all from people in the area regarding my personal choice to responsibly consume alcohol. I have been told that consuming alcohol is a sin and that I am not being "a good witness" of my Christian faith. I have at times engaged in friendly debate with these individuals about why and how alcohol came to be considered a sin against God. The problem with these friendly debates is that when I do debate with someone opposed to alcohol consumption, the person I’m speaking often is too stubborn and refuses to listen to my argument. I’ve heard it all; every type of outlandish attempt to refute my logic. "Jesus never drank wine... it was fermented grape juice" is one of my personal favorites. (Note: The last time I checked, fermented grape juice was and is wine that does, in fact, contain alcohol). I personally feel that letting a few people in the area openly influence the county’s alcohol policy is severely retarding the economic growth in the area. It’s not just a matter of convenience for me when I run out, it’s also a matter of creating jobs.
Let’s look at alcohol from an economic standpoint. Alcohol creates the possibility of jobs. Bell County is currently dry. Businesses that make money from alcohol sales cannot move into the area because, well, they cannot sell alcohol. This includes restaurants and bars. I have heard people complain about the lack of dining options in the area. Most people will leave the area and travel to New Tazwell, Knoxville, or other places to dine because of the lack of better options. Ryan’s and J. Milton’s have an oligopoly (or fewness of sellers) in the city of Middlesboro, which means that because of a lack of competition, they can essentially charge what they want and sacrifice quality to equal that of their closest competitor. Oligopolies, like monopolies defy capitalism and free market competition to keep prices down and keep quality up. Not to take anything away from these restaurants, but I find myself venturing out of state for my dining since my past few experiences with both restaurants have been less than enjoyable. By going wet, Middlesboro can attract new restaurants like Applebee’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, or other restaurants that sell alcohol. The key phrase in that last sentence is "can" because to entice these businesses, the Middlesboro City Council must also create some kind of tax break/incentive for these companies as well. New restaurants within the city mean new jobs and money staying in the area. People that travel out of the city to patron other restaurants take their money with them and deposit it into another community when that money could be spent here in town. The city and county are losing revenue from displaced business and sales.
Additionally, for new businesses to locate to an area (not just restaurants) there normally must be an adequate quality of living for their potential employees. Businesses will not move into an area if they cannot recruit and retain high quality candidates due to a low quality of living (most often referred to as "things to do"). Middlesboro has a relatively low quality of living. However, there are other resources that currently make the area attractive to businesses. Middlesboro is sandwiched between a university (LMU) and a college (Union), and even has a vocational school located within the city limits (SECC). Businesses can easily pull from these institutions to high capital employees. Bell County is ripe for businesses to move in if the quality of life were improved. Allowing alcohol to be sold increases the chances of improving the quality of life in the area so that businesses have additional incentive to move in.
Now let’s talk about bars. I believe allowing bars to locate in Middlesboro would be a benefit overall. Think about all the 20 year olds that have nothing to do in town. They will often go to the Oasis in Harrogate to have some pizza and a beer, travel to a bar in Tennessee, loiter in former Rose’s parking lot, or even travel to Barbourville to cruise the strip. These are some of the more tame scenarios. Three of the four scenarios mentioned involve leaving town and spending money outside of Middlesboro. By allowing a bar to locate in town, this allows a place unlike neighboring Lee County, Virginia or Knox County to compete. It would draw clientele from Middlesboro, greater Bell County, some from Knox County, and even people from Virginia and Tennessee. It keeps more money in the community and again provides more jobs. Bartenders and bouncers would be required creating a few more jobs in the area and owners would be required to pay property taxes, income taxes, and sales tax; all good things for the area.
Continuing with the idea of job creation from alcohol sales, allowing alcohol to be sold in the area would have a dynamic economic impact. I have heard people argue that allowing alcohol to be sold again in Middlesboro or Bell County would raise the crime rate. I will not try to refute this. However, there is a problem with drugs in the area as well. The main difference between legalized alcohol sales and illegal drugs is that you can taxes you can collect on the sale of alcohol. Since illegal drugs are sold on the black market, and hence illegally, there is no way to regulate their sale or collect taxes to help defray the costs of regulating the market. Taxing alcohol provides revenue to regulate sales and help increase the local police force to control potential problems. Regulating alcohol sales would require more police and inspectors that would be funded through sin taxes on alcohol amongst other revenue generated from new businesses that could locate to the area. These new jobs also offer a way to keep more money in the community and additional revenue from local income taxes. Also, by legalizing the sale of alcohol, the bootlegger market would dry up similar to how organized crime stopped selling alcohol when Prohibition ended. Cheaper prices offered by major retailers undercut sales in the alcohol black market and no longer make it profitable for bootleggers (as it did so for mobsters after Prohibition was repealed). Any increase in crime would be offset by the decrease in crime from bootleggers leaving the market.
Sin taxes are great things. It allows government to tax (at their discretion) anything that some feel are sinful. It has the intended consequence of increasing revenue to the taxing authority, but also has the effect of decreasing purchase and consumption because of the higher price on the good associated with the tax. This is currently the case with tobacco. A tax on tobacco raises the price as an incentive to get the consumer to purchase it less. As goods get more expensive, people demand less of them. Middlesboro and Bell County would be able to place a tax specifically on the sale of alcohol at a rate that can help regulate the consumption of the good. A sin tax, in addition to revenue generated from business transactions at restaurants and bars, would provide more revenue to the area.
What about drunk driving offenses? My belief is that if alcohol is sold legally in Bell County it would decrease not only drunk driving, but any fatalities from drunk driving. Here’s my reasoning; if people don’t have to drive as far to get alcohol (or even have to travel to bars outside of the city) they are less likely to attempt to drive home drunk. This convenience factor would help to reduce drunk driving in the area. I’m not saying it’s going to eliminate the problem, but I certainly think it will reduce it to some extent. I have no evidence to support this claim, but certainly feel this would be the case. However, it should be noted that regulating drunk drivers is already within the scope of duties of the local police. If, for some reason, there are additional drunk driving offense that result with the legalized sale of alcohol, this would already be accounted for with an expansion of the police force. The logic is that allowing the sale of alcohol will help fund the solution to problems caused alcohol so that any negative impact is either minimized or offset.
So if Bell County goes wet, will we see an increase in crime and public intoxication offenses? I certainly don’t think so. People already have the ability to purchase alcohol elsewhere and bring it into Middlesboro for consumption. There are no roadblocks into the county to stop alcohol from crossing the line. Since this is already the case, we have no reason to believe that allowing the sale of alcohol in Bell County will increase crimes associated with alcohol. Simply put, we would be increasing our revenue by taxing and regulating the sale of alcohol and detracting this revenue from our neighbors that already benefit from alcohol sales.
I always hear people complaining that Bell County does not having enough jobs or that there are not enough jobs for people to be removed from welfare payrolls. These are often the same people that argue that Bell County should remain dry. Allowing alcohol to be sold in Bell County would create the possibility for new jobs in the area and provide new opportunities for people to support themselves. In my opinion, the sale of alcohol is essential for the economic survival of Bell County and Middlesboro.
I’ll close with a little Biblical perspective. How can God be opposed to consuming alcohol when Jesus turned water into wine at a party? When He blessed a cup of wine and called it His blood? This, to me, demonstrates that if you believe Jesus is God’s Son, then you should think that God condones the responsible consumption of alcohol, but you have your right abstain from its consumption.
The Economic Bailout
Understanding the Bailout
It seems that no one really understands the bailout. This is not free money for banks. The problem stems from the housing collapse. Banks have locked up money in houses which normally, if someone foreclosed on, the bank could sell in a foreclosure and make the money back. Since no one wants to buy a house anymore, banks can't get capital (cash, in other words) to make more loans to other people for things like home improvement, cars, etc. Since they can't do this, and there have been bad debts from where people have just stopped paying their mortgages, the banks cannot try to make their losses back on the interest paid on loans. Without loans for businesses to expand, we run the risk of a recession (no new jobs, and I always hear people complaining about welfare and unemployment). The bail out, like I said, is not free money. It's the equivalent of the federal government buying into the stock of these banks so they have capital. The federal government will actually be buying up the bad debt, and once the housing market corrects itself (which it will), the feds will eventually get their money back with interest!! This means the government could profit from this move (stressing could). The bailout plan has called that any earnings above principal should be used for low income housing.
The thing is, the bailout would benefit the hard working people in America. These are the people who locked in their retirement on the stocks of the banking companies. Does anyone remember Enron? Do you only remember the CEO's that made away like thieves? What about the workers that lost their retirement savings? The bailout will help them at least be able to afford to retire instead of losing their entire pension and living in poverty.
These banks did a poor job of checking credit. The whole problem comes from a government mandate for cheap mortgages started by Jimmy Carter and reauthorized by Bill Clinton. This mandate was directed at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The banks had their money locked into assets (houses) and claimed these houses as assets on their balance sheets and financial reporting. This showed that these banks were doing extremely well financially, creating incentive for other financial institutions to make the same loans available to profit off the same housing boom. The problem is that private financial institutions are not backed by the federal government like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
George W. Bush and John McCain warned us about the pending problem as early as 2005. No one listened. The policies that were started and reauthorized by Clinton were noble; everyone deserves to own a home. However, when other lending institutions other than Freddie and Fannie Mac got involved, as soon as the housing market burst, it presented a huge problem for these high risk loans that were not going to be repaid. Seriously, "no money down, no credit, no problem"... does that sound like sound lending practices? That spells financial disaster when everyone is handing out these loans and then recipients default on them.
I will admit that one problem was a lack of bank oversight. The other problem was when individuals were buying houses they could not afford. People saw the "interest only" payments on their houses for the first 5 years under an Adjustable Rate Mortgage and then their house payments would dramatically increase in the following years in order to start paying back principal, too.
The real problem is we are a buy now, pay later generation/economy. If we only exercised some personal responsibility and self-control, we wouldn't be in this mess.
It seems that no one really understands the bailout. This is not free money for banks. The problem stems from the housing collapse. Banks have locked up money in houses which normally, if someone foreclosed on, the bank could sell in a foreclosure and make the money back. Since no one wants to buy a house anymore, banks can't get capital (cash, in other words) to make more loans to other people for things like home improvement, cars, etc. Since they can't do this, and there have been bad debts from where people have just stopped paying their mortgages, the banks cannot try to make their losses back on the interest paid on loans. Without loans for businesses to expand, we run the risk of a recession (no new jobs, and I always hear people complaining about welfare and unemployment). The bail out, like I said, is not free money. It's the equivalent of the federal government buying into the stock of these banks so they have capital. The federal government will actually be buying up the bad debt, and once the housing market corrects itself (which it will), the feds will eventually get their money back with interest!! This means the government could profit from this move (stressing could). The bailout plan has called that any earnings above principal should be used for low income housing.
The thing is, the bailout would benefit the hard working people in America. These are the people who locked in their retirement on the stocks of the banking companies. Does anyone remember Enron? Do you only remember the CEO's that made away like thieves? What about the workers that lost their retirement savings? The bailout will help them at least be able to afford to retire instead of losing their entire pension and living in poverty.
These banks did a poor job of checking credit. The whole problem comes from a government mandate for cheap mortgages started by Jimmy Carter and reauthorized by Bill Clinton. This mandate was directed at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The banks had their money locked into assets (houses) and claimed these houses as assets on their balance sheets and financial reporting. This showed that these banks were doing extremely well financially, creating incentive for other financial institutions to make the same loans available to profit off the same housing boom. The problem is that private financial institutions are not backed by the federal government like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
George W. Bush and John McCain warned us about the pending problem as early as 2005. No one listened. The policies that were started and reauthorized by Clinton were noble; everyone deserves to own a home. However, when other lending institutions other than Freddie and Fannie Mac got involved, as soon as the housing market burst, it presented a huge problem for these high risk loans that were not going to be repaid. Seriously, "no money down, no credit, no problem"... does that sound like sound lending practices? That spells financial disaster when everyone is handing out these loans and then recipients default on them.
I will admit that one problem was a lack of bank oversight. The other problem was when individuals were buying houses they could not afford. People saw the "interest only" payments on their houses for the first 5 years under an Adjustable Rate Mortgage and then their house payments would dramatically increase in the following years in order to start paying back principal, too.
The real problem is we are a buy now, pay later generation/economy. If we only exercised some personal responsibility and self-control, we wouldn't be in this mess.
The Politics of Apathy
The Politics of Apathy
We as a nation have become extremely lazy when it comes to our vote. Most of us will select a political candidate based on the political party alone, never having done any research into their actual political positions or policy proposals. Others of us will actually listen to what a candidate has to say and vote based on that. Still, most of those that listen to one candidate will do just that, listen to only one candidate and never bother to listen to the policies and positions of the other (or others depending on your taste in parties). Then there will be some that actually listen to both, watch the debates, do their research, ask questions, and even discuss with others to get a spectrum of opinions of the candidates. Which of these scenarios do you think that the founding fathers would have found most favorable?
Well, for those of us that have actually met and talked with the founding fathers, we would know that we should look at both candidates, weigh our decision carefully, watch the debates, and talk amongst ourselves. The only person alive today that actually talked with the founding fathers is Senator John McCain, so we should just ask him. I am joking of course. However, the founding fathers did want the American electorate to be knowledgeable of the candidates and their positions. Why else do you think that they originally wanted to limit the voting rights to white, male, property holders? Their logic was that these people were "in the know" when it came to politics; they possessed higher levels of education and therefore would be better able to understand policies and positions. The founding fathers’ greatest fear was an uneducated electorate. Eventually (and rightfully so) we expanded voting rights to other groups. Blood, sweat, and tears have been shed for the right to vote and we so quickly disregard this right as little more than "annoying". A true patriot not only votes, but they take it one step further and vote smart (smart meaning educated on the issues and candidates running for office). How many of us can actually say that we do that?
I for one can say that this is my first election voting smart. Studies suggest that we will more-often-than-not vote similar to our parents. I did. I voted identical to my parents when I reached voting age. I would often ask my parents who they were voting for, although it really didn’t matter, they were going to for one political party consistently every time. It really would not surprise me to know that they voted straight ticket in every election. My father watched news reports intently during election time and has always been openly critical of new reports. He did his research. I failed to. I was using what are called heuristics. Heuristics are things that we use to kind of skip over the fact finding process; it speeds up decision making. My heuristic was my parent’s political party identity. I knew how they voted and thereby thought that was the candidate that rightfully deserved my vote. I did not have to spend a lot of time researching their positions or promises. Did I make a good use of my time? At the time it certainly felt like it was a good use of my time. I did my patriotic act, but not as well as I could have. In my defense, it was better than the individuals that did not vote at all.
But I digress, we all use heuristics. At some point in time, we have learned something and later in life, if in a similar situation, we have a basis of knowledge on how to approach the situation. If you burn your hand when pulling a pot off the stove because you don’t have a pot holder, then next time you use a pot holder. In much the same way, I think that there are a lot of people out there that feel burned by the current administration. Before you go out and vote November 4th for your picks for President, Vice President, Senate, House, etc., etc., maybe we should all do some research to see who the real candidate for change is. Ask questions. Go online and look up policy positions. Read the policy positions of both candidates. Don’t just select a Democrat or Republican because you think they offer hope, select them because you know they offer hope. Find one that fits best with your opinions and ideas. Impress your friends with how much you know. Go to the polls and cast your decision. Then stand behind whoever wins that night (or in a few months in the case of the 2000 election) because this person inherits a lot of problems that have no easy solutions. With the current state of things; declining economy, credit crisis, terrorism, war, bankruptcy, social security, medical costs, increasing national debt (just to name a few), can we really afford not to?
We as a nation have become extremely lazy when it comes to our vote. Most of us will select a political candidate based on the political party alone, never having done any research into their actual political positions or policy proposals. Others of us will actually listen to what a candidate has to say and vote based on that. Still, most of those that listen to one candidate will do just that, listen to only one candidate and never bother to listen to the policies and positions of the other (or others depending on your taste in parties). Then there will be some that actually listen to both, watch the debates, do their research, ask questions, and even discuss with others to get a spectrum of opinions of the candidates. Which of these scenarios do you think that the founding fathers would have found most favorable?
Well, for those of us that have actually met and talked with the founding fathers, we would know that we should look at both candidates, weigh our decision carefully, watch the debates, and talk amongst ourselves. The only person alive today that actually talked with the founding fathers is Senator John McCain, so we should just ask him. I am joking of course. However, the founding fathers did want the American electorate to be knowledgeable of the candidates and their positions. Why else do you think that they originally wanted to limit the voting rights to white, male, property holders? Their logic was that these people were "in the know" when it came to politics; they possessed higher levels of education and therefore would be better able to understand policies and positions. The founding fathers’ greatest fear was an uneducated electorate. Eventually (and rightfully so) we expanded voting rights to other groups. Blood, sweat, and tears have been shed for the right to vote and we so quickly disregard this right as little more than "annoying". A true patriot not only votes, but they take it one step further and vote smart (smart meaning educated on the issues and candidates running for office). How many of us can actually say that we do that?
I for one can say that this is my first election voting smart. Studies suggest that we will more-often-than-not vote similar to our parents. I did. I voted identical to my parents when I reached voting age. I would often ask my parents who they were voting for, although it really didn’t matter, they were going to for one political party consistently every time. It really would not surprise me to know that they voted straight ticket in every election. My father watched news reports intently during election time and has always been openly critical of new reports. He did his research. I failed to. I was using what are called heuristics. Heuristics are things that we use to kind of skip over the fact finding process; it speeds up decision making. My heuristic was my parent’s political party identity. I knew how they voted and thereby thought that was the candidate that rightfully deserved my vote. I did not have to spend a lot of time researching their positions or promises. Did I make a good use of my time? At the time it certainly felt like it was a good use of my time. I did my patriotic act, but not as well as I could have. In my defense, it was better than the individuals that did not vote at all.
But I digress, we all use heuristics. At some point in time, we have learned something and later in life, if in a similar situation, we have a basis of knowledge on how to approach the situation. If you burn your hand when pulling a pot off the stove because you don’t have a pot holder, then next time you use a pot holder. In much the same way, I think that there are a lot of people out there that feel burned by the current administration. Before you go out and vote November 4th for your picks for President, Vice President, Senate, House, etc., etc., maybe we should all do some research to see who the real candidate for change is. Ask questions. Go online and look up policy positions. Read the policy positions of both candidates. Don’t just select a Democrat or Republican because you think they offer hope, select them because you know they offer hope. Find one that fits best with your opinions and ideas. Impress your friends with how much you know. Go to the polls and cast your decision. Then stand behind whoever wins that night (or in a few months in the case of the 2000 election) because this person inherits a lot of problems that have no easy solutions. With the current state of things; declining economy, credit crisis, terrorism, war, bankruptcy, social security, medical costs, increasing national debt (just to name a few), can we really afford not to?
Generation Facebook
"Generation Facebook"
Facebook is the second largest social networking site in the world, surpassed only by myspace.com. Facebook is the brainchild of Mark Zuckerburg and went live on February of 2004. Since that day it has dramatically revolutionized the face of social interaction and networking as we know it. People can now with the mere click of a mouse and some simple searching/browsing view the lives of their closest friends, family, coworkers, or even complete strangers within their "network".
Originally, facebook was intended as a means of allowing college students (and only college students) the means to network and communicate with each other. It was a digital version of the freshman facebooks that one could order during the first year of college in order to acquaint yourself with your peers. It allowed college students to escape from hectic class schedules, exam preparation, and term paper writing by socializing online with friends. I know this because I have been a facebook user since the fall of 2004. Facebook offered simple, yet humorous, functions that could be used to illicit positive reactions from online friends. For example, the "poke" function that is still available on facebook has been a staple of the website and serves no other purpose except as a way to play online tag.
Eventually facebook would be expanded into new markets. When facebook was opened up to high school students, there was an uproar from the current website using population. The idea of expanding the facebook population would soon allow everyone else in the world the ability to join the website. There seemed to be an almost elitist perspective of the facebook population at that time that high school students should not be allowed to create accounts until they reached college. Facebook, during it’s years before it was opened up to high school students required an email address ending in ".edu" in order to establish an account. By removing this requirement, some feared that eventually everyone would be able to obtain a facebook account. Eventually this fear was realized when facebook decided to open publicly amidst the outcries of the website’s users that this would change facebook more into myspace. The elitist mentality of facebook, whether realized or not realized, was that account holders had to at least have similar higher education goals which can be equated to similar values in life.
Well, so what? Why should any of this matter? Myspace has long been under scrutiny for hosting a large amount of sexual predators that are able to add underage individuals as their friends and communicate with them via wall posts or messages. This communication can be, and at times has proven to be, graphic. The ability for sexual predators to communicate graphically with minors one can reasonably assume that there are problems with the online social networking community. Having such low criterion for obtaining an account that allows you to (1) see at least one picture of the person you’re communicating with (profile pictures) or (2) completely falsify your identity to communicate with individuals of your choosing ("I may be 33, but myspace says I’m 13") can result in corrupting minors on the website past the corruption they bring upon themselves. The possibilities are endless for how these users can be corrupted. Allowing them to advance in the online world allows them to be corrupted and exposed to new ideas and experiences they would have never obtained (or at least not obtained until later in life) without the advent of these social networking sites.
But like I said, I too am a facebook user. And gasp, I even use myspace! So maybe I’m just being hypocritical by chastising these social networking sites for leading to the defamation and corruption of the youth of the world. However I do not blame these websites when only a few people abuse them and for the most part they are used for their intended purpose by many. Blaming the websites is like blaming guns for killing people and trying to regulate guns. It’s not the object that is the problem so much as it is the person using the object that creates the problem. Taking a very top level approach by attacking a solo source (the website) rather than the numerous sources of the real problem (misguided persons) is a much more efficient approach and requires less time, hence why it might seem more popular. Apply that same sentence and insert "gun manufacturers" for "the website" and see if that same concept fits current debate in Washington. That’s what this chapter is about. This chapter looks at the social phenomenon of facebook and how it has dramatically changed our society. You be the judge whether it was for the better or for the worse, but I’ll give you a hint, it’s not for the better!
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I fought the idea of using facebook jargon when I was writing this chapter, but then I realized that the jargon just adds to the uniqueness of facebook. Not that facebook had any hand in forming these words, but still these are worth noting because they have been created by those that use the website. These slang terms were taken from not only urbandictionary.com, but also from my own conversations with individuals in the Midwest.
Facebook stalking. This means using facebook to learn more about a person that you may know personally or not well at all. Facebook stalking also entails knowing what is currently going on in a person’s life due to the highly popularized new addition of "status" updates, where one can post what one is doing at that point in time, a witty comment, or even one’s emotions. Facebook stalking became easier when can check for not only updated statuses for all friends, but also when you could see which of your friends had recently updated their profiles or pictures by selecting "friends" and looking under status or recently updated profile tabs. This allows someone to keep easy tabs on friends.
Facebook whore/slut. This is an individual that is addicted to facebook and spends an inordinate amount of time on the website searching for friends, facebook stalking (see above), messaging friends, or even poking people. Who knows, right? They just spend a lot of time on facebook. We all know at least one, and you might even be one, too.
Facebooking. The actual practice of using facebook to communicate or being logged onto facebook. Pretty simple.
Checking one’s vitals. Checking one’s vitals is a way of saying that you have to get to a computer and check you email, facebook (or other social networking site), instant messenger, blog, text messaging, etc. You get the idea. Checking some form of communication that does not require face to face interaction, but rather computer interaction.
Tag. This word has lost the sexual connotation that it once held in the late 90's and early 2000's with the advent of facebook. It now means tagging someone in a picture or note. Tagging is a way to indicate that a friend on facebook is in a picture or included in a narrative created by an individual (called a "note", similar to a facebook blog). It allows the "tagee" (the person tagged in the photo) to have more photos on his or her profile and thereby subvert their popularity with others (only if more pictures = more popular). "Detagging" is the opposite of tagging, it is removing one’s identification from a picture or note so that non-mutual friends between the taggor and the taggee cannot see the pictures. Well to be honest, the taggor’s friends can still see the pictures on the taggor’s profile, but the taggee’s friends will not be able to if the tag is removed. Confused yet? I certainly hope so. Read that last part a few more times and try not to let blood shoot out your nose.
"Facebook me". An exclamation or request made by a real life friend to another real life friend asking them to contact them via facebook. Similar to the phrase that was popular at one point in time, (maybe in the 80's with a popular song by Blondie) "Call me".
Facebook creeper. From my understanding this is a little more harsh of a phrase than facebook stalking included above. This is the act of using facebook for less than noble intentions like looking up random people on facebook, reading through visible wall posts, and reviewing all their pictures. This may also be used in conjunction with someone who is rather old and using facebook to contact people much younger than said user.
Facebooked. Looking someone up on facebook or asking someone to be your friend. "I facebook Jim and he accepted my friend request".
Facebooker. Someone that uses facebook.
Facebook friends. Two people that for all purpose and intent are friends only on facebook or became friends through facebook. The friendship either (1) does not exist in real life or (2) exists only because of facebook.
Facebook syndrome. When your facebook account is not truly reflective of who you are by either being falsified with wrong information or making you look better than you really are with flattering pictures.
Facebook terrorism. Using facebook to hurt or terrorize someone.
Facebook slam. Denying someone’s request to be your friend on facebook.
Facebook pimp. Someone who is so socially inept that they cannot obtain a girlfriend or boyfriend via normal social interaction and resort to facebook to obtain a significant other.
Facebook Effect. This is the feeling of deja vu one gets when you meet a person face to face, having already befriended them on facebook, but having never met in person.
So now that you’ve gone through facebook 101, it’s time to move onto the more insightful parts of this chapter. Now I won’t feel as guilty for using facebook jargon if you have definitions provided in print for your benefit! Now onto the real synopsis of how facebook has been changing the culture of our youth.
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Facebook has had this innate ability to change the way that today’s youth interact with each other. Older people who learn of facebook are often weary of a website where one can post intimate details of one’s life for all to see and rightfully so. In an age where sexual predators can now stalk others from the privacy of their own home, it would make sense to be weary of anything that would make it easier for someone to learn about and ogle complete strangers. Yet for some reason we continue to post to our accounts the most intimate of details and the most embarrassing of photos. Why?
Facebook has created a culture that stems from our adolescent years. The tired "everyone is doing it" mentality has aided in millions of people logging onto facebook because it’s the thing that all the cool kids do. Think about how you signed up for facebook (if you did) or how many times you’ve been asked if you have facebook, or even asked by others to join facebook. There is a degree of peer pressure that is exerted on individuals to join facebook. If not peer pressure, then we can be sure that sheer curiosity has propelled us to type in http://www.facebook.com and register for an account (or even http://www.thefacebook.com, depending on when you joined). And then once you joined the site, you immediately began looking for friends to add them. Facebook has made it even more easy to add people by allowing you to sign onto your email account, import your email contacts, and add them via "friend finder".
Then what? You begin to communicate with these individuals and learn about their lives. Every intimate detail that they choose to publish on facebook and allow others to see is there for your amusement. We, being social creatures, for some reason love learning about other people. That’s mostly the reason why gossip is so much fun to engage in and hear. You are being provided or providing information to someone who otherwise would have no knowledge of what you are telling/hearing. All of the additional features on facebook like status updates, updated profiles, relationship stories, or even wall posts help to create a nice little social gossip network going that both interests and excites users to a degree that they can spend a majority of their time on the website during the day (creating facebook whores, sluts, and creepers mentioned above).
At this current point, I have no quantitative or qualitative evidence to support this next idea, but it seems that facebooking has the ability reduce one’s ability to communicate with individuals outside of the online community. I’m not trying to throw in so much nostalgia into this chapter, but when most of us think about earlier decades, human interaction was much higher than it is right now. We can perform a great deal of tasks with the aid of the internet. Our need to leave the safety of our homes is greatly decreasing with increasing capabilities of technologies and companies changing marketing and distributing strategies to meet the demands of their customers.
But then in defense of facebook, I offer that today’s urban areas are much larger (population) than they have been in the past and that maybe offering social networking tools is just an adaptation to allow people to feel more comfortable in their respective networks. Think about how hard it is at times for people to meet others in a new city or at college campus. The fear of rejection is just enough to compel people to not talk to anyone. But then again, we all know that person who can talk to anyone and has thousands of friends. But let’s not talk about that guy. He’s the exception.
Most of us are shy individuals but feel the need to socially interact without the fear of rejection. We also love to learn more about others but the thought of having to reciprocate intimate details about ourselves in person and having others judge us can at times be too much. Allowing a method for people to learn about others and socially interact (facebook is in fact some form of social interaction, you must agree) without at the same time facing fear of rejection or judgment provides the perfect, addictive medium for people to use to fulfill their guilty pleasures.
I once had a friend tell me about the history of the backyard and the front yard. Apparently when houses were first being settled and people still used outhouses, people would spend a lot of time on their front porches (because retreating to the backyard was less the pleasurable, obviously). During these times people were very social with their neighbors and often knew everyone on their block. With the advent of indoor plumbing, people eventually began to congregate less on the front yard and more in the backyard (due to the absence of the outhouses). This slight technological change had the unintended affect of making neighborhoods less social when people began to retreat to the backyard. I’m not saying they were asocial, I’m just asserting they became less social. The backyard can be a closed off place where you can hide from the eyes of people that pass by on the sidewalk. It has a degree of privacy that is not the same as the front yard. Before when it was common place for people to know all the people on their street, now it has become an abnormality for people to even know their immediate neighbors!
So why did I tell you that stories about the outhouse? It seems that with the slightest invention, social patterns and interaction change dramatically. There are other examples. With the invention of the telephone, people were able to talk to individuals that lived far away and keep in close contact with someone (immediate contact rather than communication through mail correspondence) making it easier to keep strong ties across great lengths. Now take that wonderful invention a few steps further. With the invention of cellular phones, people were able to me reached at any point in time with a phone call (if someone had enough day time minutes, that is). The cell phone is such an intrusive, yet handy invention to have. On the positive, you can reach anyone anytime you want, and on the negative you can be reached at anytime as well. Cell phones changed the way we communicate with each other into a less face-to-face interaction and more text messaging, more emailing at all hours of the day, multi-media messages, walkie-talkie minutes, and mobile chat (for Blackberry users). Who needs to actually talk to friends on the phone when you can send a text and not have to bother with the dynamics of conversation? Haha. Conversations have become a thing of the past.
How many times have you gone a day without your cell phone in a panic? When was the last time that you went on vacation without your cell phone? I’ve seen people at the beach emailing and texting on their cell phones. I’ve seen people with lap tops in a pool glider chatting with people from home while on vacation. Today if a hotel doesn’t have wireless internet... well let’s stop there. All hotels have wireless internet. But you get the idea. If it doesn’t have wireless internet it can’t compete with other hotels because everyone expects free wireless internet because most of their customers will have their laptops available and cannot forgo one day of internet communication.
So how does this apply to facebook? Facebook was intended to be a "social utility". A utility is a software program that functions for a particular purpose. In this case its function is for social interaction. People very quickly took to this website and like any society (be it internet or real life) began constructing social mores or rules that would govern it outside of what the founders had installed. If you look at some of the options that you have on facebook, for instance what you are on facebook for (see "looking for" in the edit your profile section), you can select anything from "networking" (ok), "friendship" (still understandable), "a relationship" (this is where it starts to get a bit creepy in a free eHarmony type way), "random play" (what is this????), or even the dreaded "whatever I can get". Although facebook offers these options, it is very unrealistic for anyone to actually try to date you via facebook. That is quite possibly facebook more #1; never accost anyone on facebook for a date if you don’t know them. However, just like in regular society there are exceptions to this rule. Normally this happens when the accosting party is very attractive to the accosted, or the accosted and the accostor are both desperately lonely. Pick your poison.
Facebook also has the ability to allow people to know about the lives of complete strangers. Relationships, hobbies, interests, activities, other friends, and other personal information including residence or a contact phone number. Used irresponsibly, or if not guarded closely by the account holder, this information can be used in a detrimental manner. Essentially, facebook and other social networking sites can easily be used for stalking individuals, both online and in person.
For instance, when facebook was still relatively new and had just added the "make your profile private" function (so that only friends could see your profile), a "friend" of mine (a former friend whom I no longer speak to) would browse through female profiles looking for cell phone numbers to make prank phone calls. He was successful on numerous occasions by making contact and harassing these individuals in what he considered to be "good fun". Given that he posed no real threat to these girls (that I was aware of, but then again who knows?), the possibility exists for someone else to abuse these websites. Remember, I’m not saying it will happen, I’m saying it might. Keeping your profile safely guarded and private is something that should always be considered with as many sexual predators lurking online as there are currently. The point is that facebook has not only helped redefine our culture, but it has also had the unintended consequence of making it easier (not easy) for anyone to learn all about us in the time it takes to read through one’s profile.
So now to relate facebook into the destruction of our culture. I’ve briefly hit on some points while providing a slight narrative of some of the experiences I and others have had with facebook. The major change that facebook has made in our culture is that it is increasingly easy to learn about people in a short amount of time without really having to put a lot of personal information out there (if we so choose) or even taking the time to learn about someone. We can make judgments as to a person’s character based upon the groups that he or she belongs to, the visible wall posts that we can read, the pictures that have been taken of the person in question, any of the personal information included on a profile, status updates, common friends, or any other information that we can derive from applications an individual has added to their profile. It has dramatically changed the effort that is needed to communicate in person which has both benefits and drawbacks. One benefit is that we can keep in touch with friends that move away relatively easy and avoid running up phone bills or spending an inordinate amount of time talking on the phone with short facebook messages or wall posts. However, and believe me I’m trying to avoid a slippery slope argument here, it can change the way that we are able to communicate on a personal basis with others. Hear me out now and just let me finish before you stop reading entirely. Through my own observations, it seems as if some of today’s youth who have become so ingrained in the facebook culture have difficulty communicating in person. Most of us (a majority of us, actually), remember what it was like to communicate and to converse intimately in public before the advent of facebook. Every young person that I’ve met that is either fresh into college or still in high school, seems to have some difficulty communicating effectively or in a pattern that I am familiar to. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances I am unaware of, or maybe it’s a generational thing. Who knows? Either way, my fear is that facebook has become so ingrained in this upcoming generation that they will be more inept than prior generations at communicating effectively.
Personally, I want to come back and read this in 20 years and laugh at either how correct I was with the last paragraph or at how erroneous I was. Will facebook make it further into the future? How far will it go? Will it really have any affect on our culture and society that can be quantified? What will become of the generation that relies so strongly on facebook, the generation I call the "facebook generation"? Only time will tell, I guess.
II Destructive Cultures
The second section of this book relates to destructive cultures. These are the observations and cultural values that have somehow been ingrained into certain cultures that pose serious threats to the success of any member of these cultures. Information, observations, and opinions provided in section is not meant to offend anyone or even be taken as racist, sexist, or any kind of "ist" you can think of.
Observations for this section will range widely across the American spectrum.
Part i: African American Culture
Writing my observations about the self-destructive African American culture is a very touchy subject in this country. Race in general is. I’ve contemplated on exactly how to go about doing this in both a tactful and respect way. The problem with writing anything about another race in American, and especially doing it if you’re white, is that you run the risk of being called a racial bigot, a racist, and being stigmatized by others for the rest of your life. Yet racism is something that for some reason or another has managed to continue through generations and penetrates the speech of even the most educated of American citizens.
Has anyone ever thought about how racism is still perpetuated in society today well past the years of slavery and long after hard-fought wins for civil rights? Let’s actually expand the horizon and include all races, not even just African Americans. Racism still exists for all forms or race outside of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Some forms of racism have cooled in recent decades (Catholics, Jewish, Japanese, interracial marriages, etc.) but still racism generally still exists today.
Most of the time we will hear racism come forth through friendly conversations or even racist jokes told around groups of same-race friends. Myself being white, I must admit that I have never heard a white joke before in my life. One can only wonder if members of different races have white jokes they tell amongst themselves and away from earshot of anyone who might be white, or maybe if other races even engage in telling jokes about people of other races. Maybe one of you can email me and let me know if this is the case.
Carlos Mencia’s comedy is deeply rooted in racial observations. His stand up often relies on stereotypes of the different races that everyone is aware of. I have been a fan of Carlos since I saw his first stand up special on Comedy Central shortly after the 9/11 attacks. It moved me how he told racially based jokes about all the races and gave each of them equal opportunity (a really bad pun, I apologize). Yet for some reason, no one gets mad at him. This has always intrigued me. How can someone of one particular race make jokes about all the other races and not excite the masses? Is it his delivery? Is it his material? Is it because he’s a comedian? Is it because he is of a non-white race? Is it because he is a comedian who is of a non-white race? I have no idea, but for some reason he does a fantastic job of observing how race is still very much noticed today.
Carlos makes a lot of good points in his stand up comedy. He often at times has stated that white people have been so stigmatized by such historical events like slavery that they feel they cannot laugh in public at jokes people make that are race based. He has at times stated that in public white people are conscious of people of other races in the audience that might become mad if a white person laughs at jokes Mencia is telling about them. He goes on to describe that, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘that as soon as you guys leave the show you can’t wait to tell all your white friends around the water cooler all the jokes that Carlos said last night’. This for the most part is true. White people really cannot tell jokes about other races except within the company of close friends they trust with whom they are from a similar race.
But I digress. I have observed that this phenomenon is true in our culture. We cannot make jokes about other races in front of other races if we are from a different race. Was that confusing enough for you? In much the same way that jesting about other races is off limits if you are from another race, the same is true for making helpful observations about other races.
Now I’m not talking about anything that is meant in malfeasance. What I’m talking about are my observations about a culture that is ingrained in the African American race itself (but there are always exceptions to the rule).
Throughout my life I have noticed that African American culture has always been different than that of white culture. I respect these differences. But not all parts of the culture seem to be beneficial to the race. Certain parts are self-destructive and are a cancer that threatens the success of the race. Those that fall victim to this culture are easily discernable for others that have not. Some parts of this self destructive culture are even visible in other cultures and are not so much the product of the race, but of the times and of the media.
The media today portrays a culture where individuals consume and consume merchandise. Viewers see this as a means of expressing to the world that one is successful. Our outward expression of ourselves now is more important than our internal character. I say this in confidence because the media today has made over-consumption popular. Most of our reality TV programming involves viewing how the rich live and witnessing their extraordinary purchasing power. This sub-reality makes it easy for us to fall victim to the sense that we too must have wildly exotic consumer goods to distinguish ourselves from others (and to differentiate ourselves as ‘better’). Our lust for objects has grown at such an alarming rate that the most current trend in commercials that we see on TV is for debt consolidation, credit report checks, and other ways to relief the massive amount of debt we have obtained from living beyond our means. For us, stuff equals success, success equals more friends, and more friends equal happiness. We are so consumed with trying to buy our happiness like we see in media when people who hold certain material possessions present a happy look on their faces. But after the item is bought, and the happiness has been replaced with the credit card bill and the realization that amounting debt is pushing us further to bankruptcy, where do we stand now? Have we made ourselves more attractive to the other sex? Have we earned the respect and adoration of our neighbor? Why is competition so ingrained in our culture? Keeping up with the Jones’s is no longer good enough. Now we’re "Keeping up with the Cardassians".
If I could pick any one media outlet that is responsible for how the youth have fallen under this spell of consuming lust, I would have to pick MTV. That’s right, I said it. MTV portrays a culture that is not only destructive to the youth (more about this later), but is self-destructive to African American culture. Music videos degrade women as mere sex objects and sex objects cannot garner respect from anyone. Music videos show musicians with a larger than life where one’s quality of life is measured by how much "bling" you have around your neck or in your mouth. It’s defined by what you drink, be it Courvoisier Cognac or Christal Champagne. Penthouse suites, larger than life sport utility vehicles, a plethora of barely used shoes, designer label clothing,
Facebook is the second largest social networking site in the world, surpassed only by myspace.com. Facebook is the brainchild of Mark Zuckerburg and went live on February of 2004. Since that day it has dramatically revolutionized the face of social interaction and networking as we know it. People can now with the mere click of a mouse and some simple searching/browsing view the lives of their closest friends, family, coworkers, or even complete strangers within their "network".
Originally, facebook was intended as a means of allowing college students (and only college students) the means to network and communicate with each other. It was a digital version of the freshman facebooks that one could order during the first year of college in order to acquaint yourself with your peers. It allowed college students to escape from hectic class schedules, exam preparation, and term paper writing by socializing online with friends. I know this because I have been a facebook user since the fall of 2004. Facebook offered simple, yet humorous, functions that could be used to illicit positive reactions from online friends. For example, the "poke" function that is still available on facebook has been a staple of the website and serves no other purpose except as a way to play online tag.
Eventually facebook would be expanded into new markets. When facebook was opened up to high school students, there was an uproar from the current website using population. The idea of expanding the facebook population would soon allow everyone else in the world the ability to join the website. There seemed to be an almost elitist perspective of the facebook population at that time that high school students should not be allowed to create accounts until they reached college. Facebook, during it’s years before it was opened up to high school students required an email address ending in ".edu" in order to establish an account. By removing this requirement, some feared that eventually everyone would be able to obtain a facebook account. Eventually this fear was realized when facebook decided to open publicly amidst the outcries of the website’s users that this would change facebook more into myspace. The elitist mentality of facebook, whether realized or not realized, was that account holders had to at least have similar higher education goals which can be equated to similar values in life.
Well, so what? Why should any of this matter? Myspace has long been under scrutiny for hosting a large amount of sexual predators that are able to add underage individuals as their friends and communicate with them via wall posts or messages. This communication can be, and at times has proven to be, graphic. The ability for sexual predators to communicate graphically with minors one can reasonably assume that there are problems with the online social networking community. Having such low criterion for obtaining an account that allows you to (1) see at least one picture of the person you’re communicating with (profile pictures) or (2) completely falsify your identity to communicate with individuals of your choosing ("I may be 33, but myspace says I’m 13") can result in corrupting minors on the website past the corruption they bring upon themselves. The possibilities are endless for how these users can be corrupted. Allowing them to advance in the online world allows them to be corrupted and exposed to new ideas and experiences they would have never obtained (or at least not obtained until later in life) without the advent of these social networking sites.
But like I said, I too am a facebook user. And gasp, I even use myspace! So maybe I’m just being hypocritical by chastising these social networking sites for leading to the defamation and corruption of the youth of the world. However I do not blame these websites when only a few people abuse them and for the most part they are used for their intended purpose by many. Blaming the websites is like blaming guns for killing people and trying to regulate guns. It’s not the object that is the problem so much as it is the person using the object that creates the problem. Taking a very top level approach by attacking a solo source (the website) rather than the numerous sources of the real problem (misguided persons) is a much more efficient approach and requires less time, hence why it might seem more popular. Apply that same sentence and insert "gun manufacturers" for "the website" and see if that same concept fits current debate in Washington. That’s what this chapter is about. This chapter looks at the social phenomenon of facebook and how it has dramatically changed our society. You be the judge whether it was for the better or for the worse, but I’ll give you a hint, it’s not for the better!
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I fought the idea of using facebook jargon when I was writing this chapter, but then I realized that the jargon just adds to the uniqueness of facebook. Not that facebook had any hand in forming these words, but still these are worth noting because they have been created by those that use the website. These slang terms were taken from not only urbandictionary.com, but also from my own conversations with individuals in the Midwest.
Facebook stalking. This means using facebook to learn more about a person that you may know personally or not well at all. Facebook stalking also entails knowing what is currently going on in a person’s life due to the highly popularized new addition of "status" updates, where one can post what one is doing at that point in time, a witty comment, or even one’s emotions. Facebook stalking became easier when can check for not only updated statuses for all friends, but also when you could see which of your friends had recently updated their profiles or pictures by selecting "friends" and looking under status or recently updated profile tabs. This allows someone to keep easy tabs on friends.
Facebook whore/slut. This is an individual that is addicted to facebook and spends an inordinate amount of time on the website searching for friends, facebook stalking (see above), messaging friends, or even poking people. Who knows, right? They just spend a lot of time on facebook. We all know at least one, and you might even be one, too.
Facebooking. The actual practice of using facebook to communicate or being logged onto facebook. Pretty simple.
Checking one’s vitals. Checking one’s vitals is a way of saying that you have to get to a computer and check you email, facebook (or other social networking site), instant messenger, blog, text messaging, etc. You get the idea. Checking some form of communication that does not require face to face interaction, but rather computer interaction.
Tag. This word has lost the sexual connotation that it once held in the late 90's and early 2000's with the advent of facebook. It now means tagging someone in a picture or note. Tagging is a way to indicate that a friend on facebook is in a picture or included in a narrative created by an individual (called a "note", similar to a facebook blog). It allows the "tagee" (the person tagged in the photo) to have more photos on his or her profile and thereby subvert their popularity with others (only if more pictures = more popular). "Detagging" is the opposite of tagging, it is removing one’s identification from a picture or note so that non-mutual friends between the taggor and the taggee cannot see the pictures. Well to be honest, the taggor’s friends can still see the pictures on the taggor’s profile, but the taggee’s friends will not be able to if the tag is removed. Confused yet? I certainly hope so. Read that last part a few more times and try not to let blood shoot out your nose.
"Facebook me". An exclamation or request made by a real life friend to another real life friend asking them to contact them via facebook. Similar to the phrase that was popular at one point in time, (maybe in the 80's with a popular song by Blondie) "Call me".
Facebook creeper. From my understanding this is a little more harsh of a phrase than facebook stalking included above. This is the act of using facebook for less than noble intentions like looking up random people on facebook, reading through visible wall posts, and reviewing all their pictures. This may also be used in conjunction with someone who is rather old and using facebook to contact people much younger than said user.
Facebooked. Looking someone up on facebook or asking someone to be your friend. "I facebook Jim and he accepted my friend request".
Facebooker. Someone that uses facebook.
Facebook friends. Two people that for all purpose and intent are friends only on facebook or became friends through facebook. The friendship either (1) does not exist in real life or (2) exists only because of facebook.
Facebook syndrome. When your facebook account is not truly reflective of who you are by either being falsified with wrong information or making you look better than you really are with flattering pictures.
Facebook terrorism. Using facebook to hurt or terrorize someone.
Facebook slam. Denying someone’s request to be your friend on facebook.
Facebook pimp. Someone who is so socially inept that they cannot obtain a girlfriend or boyfriend via normal social interaction and resort to facebook to obtain a significant other.
Facebook Effect. This is the feeling of deja vu one gets when you meet a person face to face, having already befriended them on facebook, but having never met in person.
So now that you’ve gone through facebook 101, it’s time to move onto the more insightful parts of this chapter. Now I won’t feel as guilty for using facebook jargon if you have definitions provided in print for your benefit! Now onto the real synopsis of how facebook has been changing the culture of our youth.
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Facebook has had this innate ability to change the way that today’s youth interact with each other. Older people who learn of facebook are often weary of a website where one can post intimate details of one’s life for all to see and rightfully so. In an age where sexual predators can now stalk others from the privacy of their own home, it would make sense to be weary of anything that would make it easier for someone to learn about and ogle complete strangers. Yet for some reason we continue to post to our accounts the most intimate of details and the most embarrassing of photos. Why?
Facebook has created a culture that stems from our adolescent years. The tired "everyone is doing it" mentality has aided in millions of people logging onto facebook because it’s the thing that all the cool kids do. Think about how you signed up for facebook (if you did) or how many times you’ve been asked if you have facebook, or even asked by others to join facebook. There is a degree of peer pressure that is exerted on individuals to join facebook. If not peer pressure, then we can be sure that sheer curiosity has propelled us to type in http://www.facebook.com and register for an account (or even http://www.thefacebook.com, depending on when you joined). And then once you joined the site, you immediately began looking for friends to add them. Facebook has made it even more easy to add people by allowing you to sign onto your email account, import your email contacts, and add them via "friend finder".
Then what? You begin to communicate with these individuals and learn about their lives. Every intimate detail that they choose to publish on facebook and allow others to see is there for your amusement. We, being social creatures, for some reason love learning about other people. That’s mostly the reason why gossip is so much fun to engage in and hear. You are being provided or providing information to someone who otherwise would have no knowledge of what you are telling/hearing. All of the additional features on facebook like status updates, updated profiles, relationship stories, or even wall posts help to create a nice little social gossip network going that both interests and excites users to a degree that they can spend a majority of their time on the website during the day (creating facebook whores, sluts, and creepers mentioned above).
At this current point, I have no quantitative or qualitative evidence to support this next idea, but it seems that facebooking has the ability reduce one’s ability to communicate with individuals outside of the online community. I’m not trying to throw in so much nostalgia into this chapter, but when most of us think about earlier decades, human interaction was much higher than it is right now. We can perform a great deal of tasks with the aid of the internet. Our need to leave the safety of our homes is greatly decreasing with increasing capabilities of technologies and companies changing marketing and distributing strategies to meet the demands of their customers.
But then in defense of facebook, I offer that today’s urban areas are much larger (population) than they have been in the past and that maybe offering social networking tools is just an adaptation to allow people to feel more comfortable in their respective networks. Think about how hard it is at times for people to meet others in a new city or at college campus. The fear of rejection is just enough to compel people to not talk to anyone. But then again, we all know that person who can talk to anyone and has thousands of friends. But let’s not talk about that guy. He’s the exception.
Most of us are shy individuals but feel the need to socially interact without the fear of rejection. We also love to learn more about others but the thought of having to reciprocate intimate details about ourselves in person and having others judge us can at times be too much. Allowing a method for people to learn about others and socially interact (facebook is in fact some form of social interaction, you must agree) without at the same time facing fear of rejection or judgment provides the perfect, addictive medium for people to use to fulfill their guilty pleasures.
I once had a friend tell me about the history of the backyard and the front yard. Apparently when houses were first being settled and people still used outhouses, people would spend a lot of time on their front porches (because retreating to the backyard was less the pleasurable, obviously). During these times people were very social with their neighbors and often knew everyone on their block. With the advent of indoor plumbing, people eventually began to congregate less on the front yard and more in the backyard (due to the absence of the outhouses). This slight technological change had the unintended affect of making neighborhoods less social when people began to retreat to the backyard. I’m not saying they were asocial, I’m just asserting they became less social. The backyard can be a closed off place where you can hide from the eyes of people that pass by on the sidewalk. It has a degree of privacy that is not the same as the front yard. Before when it was common place for people to know all the people on their street, now it has become an abnormality for people to even know their immediate neighbors!
So why did I tell you that stories about the outhouse? It seems that with the slightest invention, social patterns and interaction change dramatically. There are other examples. With the invention of the telephone, people were able to talk to individuals that lived far away and keep in close contact with someone (immediate contact rather than communication through mail correspondence) making it easier to keep strong ties across great lengths. Now take that wonderful invention a few steps further. With the invention of cellular phones, people were able to me reached at any point in time with a phone call (if someone had enough day time minutes, that is). The cell phone is such an intrusive, yet handy invention to have. On the positive, you can reach anyone anytime you want, and on the negative you can be reached at anytime as well. Cell phones changed the way we communicate with each other into a less face-to-face interaction and more text messaging, more emailing at all hours of the day, multi-media messages, walkie-talkie minutes, and mobile chat (for Blackberry users). Who needs to actually talk to friends on the phone when you can send a text and not have to bother with the dynamics of conversation? Haha. Conversations have become a thing of the past.
How many times have you gone a day without your cell phone in a panic? When was the last time that you went on vacation without your cell phone? I’ve seen people at the beach emailing and texting on their cell phones. I’ve seen people with lap tops in a pool glider chatting with people from home while on vacation. Today if a hotel doesn’t have wireless internet... well let’s stop there. All hotels have wireless internet. But you get the idea. If it doesn’t have wireless internet it can’t compete with other hotels because everyone expects free wireless internet because most of their customers will have their laptops available and cannot forgo one day of internet communication.
So how does this apply to facebook? Facebook was intended to be a "social utility". A utility is a software program that functions for a particular purpose. In this case its function is for social interaction. People very quickly took to this website and like any society (be it internet or real life) began constructing social mores or rules that would govern it outside of what the founders had installed. If you look at some of the options that you have on facebook, for instance what you are on facebook for (see "looking for" in the edit your profile section), you can select anything from "networking" (ok), "friendship" (still understandable), "a relationship" (this is where it starts to get a bit creepy in a free eHarmony type way), "random play" (what is this????), or even the dreaded "whatever I can get". Although facebook offers these options, it is very unrealistic for anyone to actually try to date you via facebook. That is quite possibly facebook more #1; never accost anyone on facebook for a date if you don’t know them. However, just like in regular society there are exceptions to this rule. Normally this happens when the accosting party is very attractive to the accosted, or the accosted and the accostor are both desperately lonely. Pick your poison.
Facebook also has the ability to allow people to know about the lives of complete strangers. Relationships, hobbies, interests, activities, other friends, and other personal information including residence or a contact phone number. Used irresponsibly, or if not guarded closely by the account holder, this information can be used in a detrimental manner. Essentially, facebook and other social networking sites can easily be used for stalking individuals, both online and in person.
For instance, when facebook was still relatively new and had just added the "make your profile private" function (so that only friends could see your profile), a "friend" of mine (a former friend whom I no longer speak to) would browse through female profiles looking for cell phone numbers to make prank phone calls. He was successful on numerous occasions by making contact and harassing these individuals in what he considered to be "good fun". Given that he posed no real threat to these girls (that I was aware of, but then again who knows?), the possibility exists for someone else to abuse these websites. Remember, I’m not saying it will happen, I’m saying it might. Keeping your profile safely guarded and private is something that should always be considered with as many sexual predators lurking online as there are currently. The point is that facebook has not only helped redefine our culture, but it has also had the unintended consequence of making it easier (not easy) for anyone to learn all about us in the time it takes to read through one’s profile.
So now to relate facebook into the destruction of our culture. I’ve briefly hit on some points while providing a slight narrative of some of the experiences I and others have had with facebook. The major change that facebook has made in our culture is that it is increasingly easy to learn about people in a short amount of time without really having to put a lot of personal information out there (if we so choose) or even taking the time to learn about someone. We can make judgments as to a person’s character based upon the groups that he or she belongs to, the visible wall posts that we can read, the pictures that have been taken of the person in question, any of the personal information included on a profile, status updates, common friends, or any other information that we can derive from applications an individual has added to their profile. It has dramatically changed the effort that is needed to communicate in person which has both benefits and drawbacks. One benefit is that we can keep in touch with friends that move away relatively easy and avoid running up phone bills or spending an inordinate amount of time talking on the phone with short facebook messages or wall posts. However, and believe me I’m trying to avoid a slippery slope argument here, it can change the way that we are able to communicate on a personal basis with others. Hear me out now and just let me finish before you stop reading entirely. Through my own observations, it seems as if some of today’s youth who have become so ingrained in the facebook culture have difficulty communicating in person. Most of us (a majority of us, actually), remember what it was like to communicate and to converse intimately in public before the advent of facebook. Every young person that I’ve met that is either fresh into college or still in high school, seems to have some difficulty communicating effectively or in a pattern that I am familiar to. Maybe there are extenuating circumstances I am unaware of, or maybe it’s a generational thing. Who knows? Either way, my fear is that facebook has become so ingrained in this upcoming generation that they will be more inept than prior generations at communicating effectively.
Personally, I want to come back and read this in 20 years and laugh at either how correct I was with the last paragraph or at how erroneous I was. Will facebook make it further into the future? How far will it go? Will it really have any affect on our culture and society that can be quantified? What will become of the generation that relies so strongly on facebook, the generation I call the "facebook generation"? Only time will tell, I guess.
II Destructive Cultures
The second section of this book relates to destructive cultures. These are the observations and cultural values that have somehow been ingrained into certain cultures that pose serious threats to the success of any member of these cultures. Information, observations, and opinions provided in section is not meant to offend anyone or even be taken as racist, sexist, or any kind of "ist" you can think of.
Observations for this section will range widely across the American spectrum.
Part i: African American Culture
Writing my observations about the self-destructive African American culture is a very touchy subject in this country. Race in general is. I’ve contemplated on exactly how to go about doing this in both a tactful and respect way. The problem with writing anything about another race in American, and especially doing it if you’re white, is that you run the risk of being called a racial bigot, a racist, and being stigmatized by others for the rest of your life. Yet racism is something that for some reason or another has managed to continue through generations and penetrates the speech of even the most educated of American citizens.
Has anyone ever thought about how racism is still perpetuated in society today well past the years of slavery and long after hard-fought wins for civil rights? Let’s actually expand the horizon and include all races, not even just African Americans. Racism still exists for all forms or race outside of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Some forms of racism have cooled in recent decades (Catholics, Jewish, Japanese, interracial marriages, etc.) but still racism generally still exists today.
Most of the time we will hear racism come forth through friendly conversations or even racist jokes told around groups of same-race friends. Myself being white, I must admit that I have never heard a white joke before in my life. One can only wonder if members of different races have white jokes they tell amongst themselves and away from earshot of anyone who might be white, or maybe if other races even engage in telling jokes about people of other races. Maybe one of you can email me and let me know if this is the case.
Carlos Mencia’s comedy is deeply rooted in racial observations. His stand up often relies on stereotypes of the different races that everyone is aware of. I have been a fan of Carlos since I saw his first stand up special on Comedy Central shortly after the 9/11 attacks. It moved me how he told racially based jokes about all the races and gave each of them equal opportunity (a really bad pun, I apologize). Yet for some reason, no one gets mad at him. This has always intrigued me. How can someone of one particular race make jokes about all the other races and not excite the masses? Is it his delivery? Is it his material? Is it because he’s a comedian? Is it because he is of a non-white race? Is it because he is a comedian who is of a non-white race? I have no idea, but for some reason he does a fantastic job of observing how race is still very much noticed today.
Carlos makes a lot of good points in his stand up comedy. He often at times has stated that white people have been so stigmatized by such historical events like slavery that they feel they cannot laugh in public at jokes people make that are race based. He has at times stated that in public white people are conscious of people of other races in the audience that might become mad if a white person laughs at jokes Mencia is telling about them. He goes on to describe that, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘that as soon as you guys leave the show you can’t wait to tell all your white friends around the water cooler all the jokes that Carlos said last night’. This for the most part is true. White people really cannot tell jokes about other races except within the company of close friends they trust with whom they are from a similar race.
But I digress. I have observed that this phenomenon is true in our culture. We cannot make jokes about other races in front of other races if we are from a different race. Was that confusing enough for you? In much the same way that jesting about other races is off limits if you are from another race, the same is true for making helpful observations about other races.
Now I’m not talking about anything that is meant in malfeasance. What I’m talking about are my observations about a culture that is ingrained in the African American race itself (but there are always exceptions to the rule).
Throughout my life I have noticed that African American culture has always been different than that of white culture. I respect these differences. But not all parts of the culture seem to be beneficial to the race. Certain parts are self-destructive and are a cancer that threatens the success of the race. Those that fall victim to this culture are easily discernable for others that have not. Some parts of this self destructive culture are even visible in other cultures and are not so much the product of the race, but of the times and of the media.
The media today portrays a culture where individuals consume and consume merchandise. Viewers see this as a means of expressing to the world that one is successful. Our outward expression of ourselves now is more important than our internal character. I say this in confidence because the media today has made over-consumption popular. Most of our reality TV programming involves viewing how the rich live and witnessing their extraordinary purchasing power. This sub-reality makes it easy for us to fall victim to the sense that we too must have wildly exotic consumer goods to distinguish ourselves from others (and to differentiate ourselves as ‘better’). Our lust for objects has grown at such an alarming rate that the most current trend in commercials that we see on TV is for debt consolidation, credit report checks, and other ways to relief the massive amount of debt we have obtained from living beyond our means. For us, stuff equals success, success equals more friends, and more friends equal happiness. We are so consumed with trying to buy our happiness like we see in media when people who hold certain material possessions present a happy look on their faces. But after the item is bought, and the happiness has been replaced with the credit card bill and the realization that amounting debt is pushing us further to bankruptcy, where do we stand now? Have we made ourselves more attractive to the other sex? Have we earned the respect and adoration of our neighbor? Why is competition so ingrained in our culture? Keeping up with the Jones’s is no longer good enough. Now we’re "Keeping up with the Cardassians".
If I could pick any one media outlet that is responsible for how the youth have fallen under this spell of consuming lust, I would have to pick MTV. That’s right, I said it. MTV portrays a culture that is not only destructive to the youth (more about this later), but is self-destructive to African American culture. Music videos degrade women as mere sex objects and sex objects cannot garner respect from anyone. Music videos show musicians with a larger than life where one’s quality of life is measured by how much "bling" you have around your neck or in your mouth. It’s defined by what you drink, be it Courvoisier Cognac or Christal Champagne. Penthouse suites, larger than life sport utility vehicles, a plethora of barely used shoes, designer label clothing,
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