Self-Awareness Through Irritation

I like this.  It shares my thoughts which were arrived at by someone before I was born.  And I like the presentation; the torn, battered leaf is like a life.  If one leaf begins to look down on another leaf, because the latter is tattered, worn, brown, then, the first is, in all reality, looking down on  itself.

If we are bothered by something, we should make sure that we do not have that something living in our hearts before we hastily judge others.

The links to the source are below the image.  Clicking the image itself will take you to the same.

Source: tower-in-the-sky.tumblr.com via Ann on Pinterest

Think About It

Too Good Not To Share!

I wanted to share this letter from this Huffington Post article.  This is too good not to share.  

Dear Governor Romney, 

I’d like to say congratulations on winning the republican nomination. But, I wish you stayed in Massachusetts. You’re plan for America isn’t what we need, and would hurt us more than it would help.

First, repealing Obama care and other health plans he’s put in place have helped families across America, including mine. I live in a middle class family, and two years ago my little sister; Kennedy was denied insurance because of her pre-existing condition. This was a huge emotional stress and financial burden on my entire family. Under Obama Care, insurance companies can no longer deny Kennedy and kids like her, the coverage they need and deserve. Because of Obama care my little sister was able to have the several surgeries she needed that helped save her life. Once the President was elected he put Obama Care into action, just like he promised and made it so that you could get insurance with pre-existing conditions. This has made a direct impact on my family. My family is with out a doubt better off now, than we were four years ago!

It is to my understanding that you stated that you were going to repeal Obama Care, including the part I have mentioned, which will take away the insurance we have and need for my sister Kennedy. Why do you think she doesn’t deserve health care? Also, when you were interviewed on “Meet the Press”, you stated that you would NOT repeal this part of Obama Care, but then your campaign backpedalled and on the “Tonight show with Jay Leno”, you said that you WOULD repeal this. 

Also, you’re domestic plans (birth control, gay rights etc.) are horrible! Women should get to manage their own health, and if you wonder why you’re not appealing to many women voters, rethink your birth control and women’s’ rights plans. And people should be able to marry whom they want. We built this country so people could have freedom, and not have religious beliefs control them to that length. This country was in no way built on any religion, so we should not create laws that repress the American people in a religious way and hurt our most vulnerable.  

Sincerely, 

Jackson Ripley, age 12

You can read the entire article here.

Enjoy!

Romney's Falseness Revealed

Mitt Romney never had my vote, but today he showed the world who he really is: "Romney already has trouble relating to the public and convincing people he cares about them. Now, he's been caught on video saying that nearly half the country consists of hopeless losers."

"On the tape, Romney explains that his electoral strategy involves writing off nearly half the country as unmoveable Obama voters. As Romney explains, 47 percent of Americans 'believe that they are victims.' He laments: 'I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.'"

These people he's talking about are responsible, or are trying very hard to be in this economic environment.  I know from experience that it is difficult to "care for your life" if you can't make enough money to do that; or if you're disabled (i.e. unable to work) and can't even afford the medical care you need.  Romney has an over-inflated self-opinion.  And worse, he doesn't care about others.  What's sad is that many of the people who will vote for him feel the same way. 

It's interesting to me that those who have never had to struggle to make ends meet, who have never had to work from dusk till dawn trying to keep a roof over their family's heads, who have never had to wonder what they would do if they became sick and unable to work and medical bills started mounting: it is interesting that they think all the people who need help are lazy losers. 

The people who need help are human beings. 

They are human beings.

This arrogant man needs to get off of his high and mighty pedestal and realize that. Sadly, he won't.  He's convinced that he is better than those people on welfare, those people on disability, those people on Medicaid or Medicare, even those people who will cast their precious vote for him.  

They are human beings; many of them are proud, they have their dignity, and don't want to ask for help; they struggle between swallowing their pride (which they only have because of thinking like Romney thinks: i.e. anyone who needs help is a loser) and letting themselves or family members go hungry, lose their homes, or die from treatable illnesses because they can't afford to live in this America we have all made. 

I'm much angrier than I may sound here; I am watching my language, because I want people to read this and especially to think about it.  Please, just seriously think about it.

Article by Josh Barro on Bloomberg which spawned this post and from which I quote above: "Today, Romney Lost the Election."

Think About It!

Reading Genius

"The genius of our brain's construction is not that it contains 

a lot of hardwiring but that it doesn't." 

- Nicholas Carr, The Shallows, 31.

It's not bad enough that television kicked our attention spans' collective asses, but it prepared the way for an all out annihilation to it, which has come in the form of the internet.  Email, social media, IM: these all play a part in distracting our minds from whatever productive task we have on our TO DO lists.  Cory Doctorow, as quoted by Carr, writes that "leaving your IM running is like sitting down to work after hanging a giant 'DISTRACT ME' sign over your desk, one that shines brightly enough to be seen by the entire world."  When I think of the telephone ringing, the doorbell sounding, the dogs barking at something only they can hear, the thought of having another potential distraction is more than irksome.

I'm going to say that Carr, in The Shallows, makes some rather sobering points regarding the internet's changing of the human brain.  And, as he passingly mentions, the answer is obviously not to stop using the internet at all costs.  Luddites have a difficult time uniting, with their lack of technology, which is the reason their way of thinking is an exception to actual social acceptance of the  technology they fear and loathe. But I, for one, don't want my brain to be changed in such a way that I am unable to read long, difficult works of literature, and I hope you don't want that for your brain, either.

A good idea, then, is to follow the Buddha; i.e. follow the middle path.  Use the internet to skim information, to grasp the main points of knowledge and to share our own knowledge with others; but, use books and other less distraction prone media for developing depth.  Old fashioned books for depth; new fangled internet for breadth.

Otherwise subsequent generations' attention spans won't be as long as their eye-blinks.

LINKS: Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction