I Can't Bear It

Please compare this and this. Are we talking about the same person?!

Post Script - A "Hotness Total" of two?! What the hell is that?!

Problems with Democracy

I came across an interesting article whilst searching for things on the recent Ukranian debacle. I intended to do a little internet research to write an article for the upcoming Irvine Regressive, (a tentative name, perhaps) a paper John and company are starting. The article that I came across might actually impact what I write for the Regressive, but, since I have not blogged in ages, I thought I should post it here first.

The article is from the BBC website, and it concerns Turkmenistan's recent election. Apparently, the Turkmen government conducted a poll and found that 80% of the population took part in a parliamentary election where there was no opposing party. The article reads, "... all 131 candidates offered support to President Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi or Leader of Turkmens." This "Turkmenbashi" certainly has bashed all opposition in Turkmenistan, a country used to the ways of dictatorship.

But, if there was no opposing party to vote for, what's the point of voting? Indeed, the article admits that the election was a "hollow process," and the poll was a "sham," and was quick to say that Turkmenistan was becoming an "ever-more authoritarian state." However, it gave the ultimate reason why 80% of the population cast their ballots for the only party running: "To most, going to vote is an expression of conformity. To stay away could mean reprisals, our correspondent says."

Interesting...

"Democracy" has blended, at least in Turkmenistan, with the authoritarian or totalitarian state. The president controls minor details in his constituent's lives, like the smoking habits of airline pilots, or the exportation of sheep (which leads to banishment, according to the article). And, while it is easy for the BBC, and nearly any person, to view Turkmenistan as authoritarian, exactly how different is Turkmenistan's government from the United States'? I admit that the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties are few and minor, and that the state has an ever-increasing role in the minor details of everyone's lives. And, with television stations such as MTV encouraging voting, it seems there is a desperate attempt to make voting a norm; to have people conform individual values into either one of the major parties. So what makes Turkmenistan an authoritarian state and the United States a democracy?

I will not (and cannot) answer that question, at least for now. I might toy around with the idea and see what comes up for the first issue of the Regressive.

Burgess' Burgeoning Genial Genius

" 'Life,' so went Quedgeley on, 'is in a sense all lies. We watch ourselves act every day. Philip drunk and Philip sober. One is inside the other watching the other. And so I am John Quedgeley and Jack Quedgeley and Jockey Quedgeley and Master Quedgeley, Justice of Peace, and all. It is all acting.' And WS saw that this was true, revolving it in the murk of the bottom of his cider-tankard. Had he not himself watched WS and WS watched Will? Where was truth, where did a man's true nature lie? There was, as it were, an essence and there was also an existence. It was, this essence, at the bottom of a well, of a Will."

~Anthony Burgess. Nothing Like the Sun. p.51

Atlanta Started Writing...

I dropped my parents off at the airport this morning; they're heading off to Atlanta. I'm not exactly sure why they're going, but we do have family there. My father also mentioned going to some conference. It's all a big mystery-- I didn't find about it until two days ago.

So it is going to be me, my younger sister, my younger brother, and my grandfather at the Thanksgiving meal. We're probably going to have spaghetti (didn't Massasoit or Squanto teach the pilgrims how to make spaghetti?). I do not care all that much, because I found an article by Martha Brockenbrough on-line that gives me reason to care not for this tradition.

Now, she does lie to us at the outset of the article, but the part I'm interested in comes after the line: "So without further fibbing (I promise!), here's the truth about three widely heldThanksgiving myths." That just screams of honesty.

And then Martha tells us under Myth #2 that "George Washington declared a Thanksgiving in 1789 after the United States first established a government, but Thanksgiving didn't go national until the mid-19th century. This was largely the work of magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale, who conducted a letter-writing campaign calling for Thanksgiving to be declared a national holiday. President Lincoln [italics mine] responded, issuing a Thanksgiving proclamation that set aside the last Thursday in November of 1863 for gratitude.

In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt [my italics again] touched off a two-year squabble when he moved the holiday to the third Thursday to give store owners a leg up on holiday shopping. Detractors dubbed the relocated holiday 'Franksgiving,' and in 1941 Congress finally made the fourth Thursday in November the official day. So, in truth, it took 320 years to make Thanksgiving stick."

Lincoln and Roosevelt's mandates are reason enough to be nothing more than apathetic about the Holiday. At least Washington let us choose when we wanted to be thankful. Roosevelt even had the sinister undertone of changing the holiday for shopping. Ugh.

But towards the end of the article I find the clincher of why Thanksgiving isn't such a big deal: "...Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation expressed thanks that the Civil War had not destroyed the country." Ha. I would be thankful too if the Civil War had not destroyed the country.

The only other thing that I want to mention on this state mandated holiday is that I shaved my grandfather's head.

Happy Franksgiving everyone.

Here He Is...

I finally have a blog. What better day than on the eve of obtaining "Let's Talk About Feelings"? Well, maybe May 16th would be a better day. Anyway, I would post some more stuff, but "The Simpsons" are almost on. So enough is enough is enough.