ultimatesean

11:15 am: All hail Emperor Spider-man!
I've always said that responsibility and authority must go hand in hand.  If given responsibility over something you must be given due authority to oversee it properly.  But when I cross reference that philosophy with Stan Lee's famous statement "with great power comes great responsibility", then the commutative property of math tells me that "with great power comes great authority.  "

That's....a little scary.  Uh...someone please tell me that DOESN'T equal "might makes right"?  How can Stan Lee be wrong?!?!

12:46 pm: Autobots! Let's RooohhhmyGooooood!
No shit, there I was on the Woodhaven road exit of 95N with Suzanne. Driving around a bend on a ramp about 30something feet above the ground we saw some emergency vehicles on the shoulder up ahead. No big deal, a fairly common sight nowadays, until we saw the source of the disturbance.

There was a full sized big-rig, tractor trailer truck flipped over, lying on it's back on the shoulder. But the topper - ONLY THE CAB WAS ON THE SHOULDER, THE TRAILER WAS HANGING DOWN OFF THE SIDE!!!!!

I kid you not, it looked like Optimus Prime got body slammed by Voltron.

I though for a moment that Michael Bey was shooting a sequel, but then I noticed that the truck wasn't actually on fire and there weren't Dawson's Creek refugees running around taking all the attention away from the giant talking robots.

10:53 am: Feet of clay!
John Stewart said this on his show, but he didn't say it on my LJ so I will. Why is it that when Reverend Hagee and a dozen other religious-right nuts go on about how New Orleans was punished by God for being sinful and 911 was punishment to America for being sinful, that we somehow DESERVED this, politicians still line up for their endorsements and their money. But Reverend Wright unleashes his particular brand of koo-koo-loony and Obama will never live it down.

Shenanigans!

03:40 pm: Is it me?
When I hear that a police officer has been killed, it doesn't bother me any more than when I hear ANYBODY has gotten killed. It's not based in any particular attitude toward law enforcement, I've just always been that way.

Am I missing something? Is there a certain point of view I haven't seen in this issue?

Interesting fact - Officer Daniel Faulkner, the cop allegedly killed by Mumia Abu-Jamal, lived in my neighborhood when I was a kid. I went to school with his kids. I was about 7 when it happened, I remember people talking about it, but it was many years before I remember hearing Mumia's name all over the news. No opinion on the case, just remembering....

11:43 am: Happy Uno de Mayo!

From Jonathan Coulton and Robin Red-Breast.

Ooooh, child........

04:05 pm: Patriotic peer pressure
I recently attended a high school drumline exhibition for Suzanne's cousin Josh.  It was crazy awesome, people were twirling sabers and rifles and flags, there were xylophones, dozens of drummers with their drums strapped to their bodies and the show closed with a guy and his drumset fixed into a gyroscope thingy and he played while spinning in three directions!  Much more impressive than I could have expected.

Anyway, just before the first team went on, the whole crowd did the "stand up, hand on heart, face the flag" thing while the national anthem was played.  Now, I never go to any kind of sports events or things like that so I haven't been in that position in many years.  Hard to believe, yes, it took me by surprise too.

But what really hit me was how uncomfortable I felt with the whole thing.  The bottom line was I just didn't want to do it.  I ended up standing withOUT my hand on my heart and sort of mumbling through the words, (though I do in fact know the words) and even that felt a little silly.  

I'm a big fan of my country, wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but that kind of display just feels so false and drone-like.  Do I dare just sit quietly while hundreds of people around me sing the anthem or recite the pledge of allegiance?  Is it better to honestly make the choice not to join in or to falsely recite out of obligation and the fear of the crowd's evil eye?  It bothers me that children are forced to say the pledge of allegiance every morning, if you need to sell your country to it's citizens by sheer brain-washed indoctrination it doesn't show much faith in your product.  

Much like prayer, I get the distinct impression that so many people use these old familiar recitations to convince others that they are patriotic and pious rather than out of a sincere desire to express true patriotism and piety.

It just bugs me.

12:05 pm: The race card....?
So....I like Barack Obama.  Don't know if he'll have my vote yet, but I like what I've seen so far.  But he reminds of something that has bugged me for a long time.

Why is it that someone who is half white (some kind of european presumably) and half something else (insert race with typically darker skin color) that person is considered to be a member of the non-white race?  When I want a black & white milkshake I don't ask for a "light-toned chocolate" shake.  My sister's half poodle, half cocker spaniel dog isn't a "slightly more curly" spaniel.  It's a cockapoo.  Yeah, I like using that word, but that's not the point.  What if he were Black-hispanic, would people just pick one and call him that?  I'm not a "slightly more alcohol prone" italian, I'm irish italian.  Geez.

So unless somebody can give me a useful reason to classify people that way, I think we should call Obama white from now on just to piss people off.  It's just as valid as calling him black. 

12:10 pm: Hybrids are cool

Through the Philly Car Share program I drove a Toyota Prius last night.  It was totally futuristic.  There is an "ignition" key, but nowhere to put it.  It fits inside the "boop-boop" unlocking button control thingy, which you then insert into a slot beside the steering wheel.  Then you press the brake pedal all the way down and hit the Power button.  Yup, you turn the car on with a power button.  It has the circle/line icon and everything.  Madness.

All the controls for climate and radio and stuff are accessed with a touch screen on the dash.  When you're not using any of those controls it defaults to a diagnostic screen that shows like power distribution to the wheels and changing MPG and stuff.  There's a dinky little gearshift joystick on the dash too, which was a bit tricky to manipulate.  Insert size joke here if you must.

I was tempted to say "computer?" more than once while driving.

Pretty sweet car overall.  But still, I want my jetpack.

11:53 am: Why is it that when it comes to the reason for fighting a particular war, soldiers are supposed to just shut their mouths and do as they're told.  But tell a guy to fight next to a homosexual and suddenly he's Rosa Parks!  What happened to "ours is not to reason why"?  Either you follow orders or you don't.  

On a different topic, what do I do if I get addicted to cold turkey?  Should I ween myself off it slowly, or just go "crack pipe" and stop altogether?

10:46 am: We can dream, can't we?
 So I'm looking at http://www.howstuffworks.com/, which is one of my favorite websites, and I see this article about the idea of a five day weekend.   http://money.howstuffworks.com/five-day-weekend.htm

Very interesting, no doubt it could prompt endless online debate, blah blah blah.  And maybe it wouldn't work, but if only for the sake of open-mindedness couldn't we at least get our feet wet with say.....a three day weekend.  A pilot program, if you will.  We owe it to the children.  THE CHILDREN!!!