The only thing we have to fear is...

... life.

Going to a movie.  Going to the midnight showing of a new movie.  Not expecting there to be a lunatic armed to the teeth and prepared for combat (armor, including throat and groin protection, and a gasmask for the smoke bombs he would set off).  As of this writing there are twelve innocent people dead, just watching the wrong movie in the wrong theater on the wrong night.

And to think Fred Willard was cited for lewd conduct in a theater just a day earlier.  Shows you where our priorities lay.

This was a tragedy waiting to happen in that the laws we have regarding gun control have been written by special interest groups promoting a gun ownership agenda because it increases profits.  It's a sad day in America when we put profit over lives, but it happens... whether we're watching it or not.

I love guns.  I don't own any, as I have a 4 year old whom I don't trust with the telephone let alone a firearm.  I have fired guns before, and enjoy it.  Hell, I think I'm a pretty decent shot.  But I wouldn't mind sitting through a background check in order to purchase a weapon when the time comes.  And I would DEFINITELY feel safer having everyone else, regardless of state they're from, go through a background check.  This includes private purchases as well, like at gun shows.  It may slow down people's profit but in the interest of public safety I think this is fair.  In fact, sell just about any type of weapon.  Just have a sliding scale of intensity for background checks.

Right now, we as a country are fracturing along political lines.  Even in our family there are people we cannot have civil political discourse with because we are too liberal in their eyes.  To me that's a real tragedy, because it's in our discussions we can achieve comprimise.  And what do we have to fear from comprimise?  Fear itself.

Additional reading links:

Federal Observer - "Criminals use loophole to get guns"

Washington Times - "'Straw Buyers' plead guilty to dealing guns"

The Chamber of Secrets

  "Politics is the control of wealth and power.  You are being conditioned to condemn politics as petty & boring thus granting all the more control to the powers that be.  You are either a part of the problem or a part of the solution." - liner notes of Corrosion of Conformity's album Blind

  As most people who truly know me already have observed, I have a tendency to get on the political soapbox.  In this election, this midterm that is truly as important as any other election in a major election year, there has been a paradigm shift.  After the Supreme Nutcases... I'm sorry, the Supreme Court... decided that corporations have every right to spend as much as they want in an election and not have to tell anybody where the money came from but instead to "trust them" that they have safeguards preventing the foreign money they collect to influence our American elections, there have been a glut of advertisements focusing on Democrats and supporting Conservative candidates.

  I can't call them Republican candidates, as many of them are "Tea Party" candidates that aren't truly Republicans.  I'll allow others to differentiate between Republicans and Tea Party people.

  This has never been so evident as for the "company" that labels itself as the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce.  Everyone knows what their local Chamber of Commerce does, and this shell organization should NOT be confused with those wonderful organizations.  Instead, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has offices in many countries besides the United States and mingles those monies they collect from foreign corporations with the monies they use to influence our elections this year.  Their goal is to help businesses become bigger businesses - no matter where those companies hire their employees.

  The "U.S." in their title is a misnomer - they couldn't care less about the United States.  Instead, they use the "U.S." to get the average uneducated citizen to trust that they know what's best for our country.  Most people buy in to the concept of the Chamber of Commerce and therefore buy in to the ads that they are running.  Recently, they've been running anti-Barbara Boxer ads (and, consequently, pro-Carly Fiorina ads) showing that Boxer has stopped job creation in the United States with her policies.

  Let me remind most of you out there that it was the pro-business administration of Dubya that caused the current economic recession out of the surplus Clinton had created.  Our government allowed businesses to dictate what our government did in relation to regulation, repealing failsafes put into place after the Great Depression... in an effort to stop a repeat of the shenanigans that led to the last Depression.  Considering that it was Obama's policies (and our choice as a nation to trust him over McCain) that stopped the Depression from happening, maybe he didn't do as bad of a job as many are claiming.

  On a related tangent, this recession was not created in 2 years, and the solution will not be that short either.  Patience is the key.  Considering I'm completely unemployed, I should be one of the loudest voices bitching about the state of the economy.  Instead, I'm supporting what's currently going on and believe if we give the reins back to the Conservative Party we'll watch them lead the horses once again to the chasm - as they really are there for the rich and not for the middle- or lower-class citizens such as myself.

  Carly Fiorina, Barbara Boxer's opponent for the Senate here in Cali, was head of Hewlett-Packard.  She shipped jobs out of California and to other countries, helping the stock price of her company.  Not helping the economy of her country, but helping the bottom line of her corporate masters - the stockholders.  Keep this in mind when you see commercials from the Chamber of Commerce talking about how Barbara Boxer destroys jobs in Cali... as Fiorina has done worse.

  Other candidates are being attacked by this corporation that has no stake in the success of our country but has a stake in the success of the businesses and countries that give money to them in the form of dues.  Whether or not the United States succeeds in coming out of this recession is irrelevant.  The only master they answer to starts their name with a dollar sign.  For now, anyways... the dominant currency could just as easily be the Yen, or the Euro... or the Chinese Yuan.

Life, the Universe, and Something More

  It seems to me that no matter what, change is constantly a part of my life.  No big surprise, as that's the only constant to the universe.  I have noticed, however, that despite change being ever-present, it does tend to fall into patterns.  It's these patterns that tend to get discouraging for me, sometimes throwing brick walls in my path and making me question everything I have been doing.  As Randy Pausch said in The Last Lecture, the brick walls are only there to keep everyone else out... to prove how badly you want something.  And Richard Bach, in his book Illusions, said that there is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands... we seek problems because we need their gifts.  Even with those gems of wisdom, it leaves little comfort in the here-and-now where I reside.

  It's also frustrating that I'm such a creative person, with music, writing, cooking, comedy, even designing worlds for video games, that I can't seem to find a job in those fields.  I'm whining about it in the hopes that someone I know may be able to refer me to someone they may know in the field I want to get into.   I have so many great ideas and such a hard time focusing my attention on one of them, for fear of missing out on another opportunity.  Worse than that, it is in the creative fields that it is hardest to make money on a consistent basis, especially before you are established.

  It could drive a Wookiee to drink diet soda.


 I'm doing what I can to avoid discouragement and to concentrate on what I can work on - currently, a cookbook for single guys to impress their chosen mate when they're afraid they'll burn ice cream.  Please let me know if you want to try some of the recipes - I need people to sample and try to cook using my directions.  I've also been recording music and doing what I can to make a demo disc.  I may have stumbled across some musicians willing to jam with an old fuddyduddy such as myself.
  Regardless of the dilemmas and underemployment (my job decided to schedule me 1 day for the entire month), I am happy.  Stressed, but happy.  It's the stress that helps me focus my creativity to a laserlike beam that will guide me through all the turbulence and strife.