Guns, Politics, and Extremism

I was at the book store the other-day, when a book about the future of guns caught my eye. I don't remember the title, but I remember it promising an unbiased look about the future of guns. Opening the dust jacket to read the summary, I barely got two sentences in before I realized it was just another gun-totting, bible thumping conservative piece of propaganda designed to scare rather than to inform, and I can't help but think really, are guns really so important that any attempt to control them is met with, to paraphrase Charlton Heston, the attitude of if want to control guns you want to get rids guns, and if you want to get rid of guns then you're taking them from my cold dead hands.  

Yet there is nothing new under the sun. Politics of 19th century America were no less fractious. Not the least in clash between North and South in the Civil War, but even before that we Preston Brooks beating his fellow Senator Charles Summer on the floor of the senate, and even further back during the fateful year of 1804 the bitterness between two opposing politician came to head in the duel between Hamilton and Burr. So if fractious politics is nothing new, is possible to move past it. To actually come to some sort of compromise? I don't know, but I hope so.

Art Museums - What's the Point

I visited an Art Museum the other day, and as I was wandering the galleries of centuried works of European masters, ancient and not so ancient remnants of Greek, Egyptian, Asian, Native American, and Oceania, I couldn't help but ask what was the point? The point of a museum at least is to educate, therefore is it worthwhile to educate people about art? For the older pieces, distant in time and place, the answer is yes. Whether, Renaissance Masterpieces or Chinese Ink-paintings, they are representative of other cultures and times, and educating people about them opens new perspectives. Something that can only be a good thing. As for more modern pieces there is one question to ask, is the opening of new perspectives on our own culture and own time worthwhile? I believe the answer is yes.

Racism

I suppose this has been percolating in mind for a while. Race is a social construct. Biologically speaking differences between what would be called "races" are minor. If so where does racism as we now it come from? Certainly ethnocentrism, or the belief that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own, is practically as old as mankind. At what point ethnocentrism became racism is debatable, though many would attribute is to the Reconquista, where Spanish nobles proved their lack of mixing of their blood with their former Muslim and darker-skinned conquers by showing that their skin was pale enough to see their blue veins in, incidentally attributed as being the origin of blue blood as a term for nobility. As time marched on other social and historical factors added to the development of racism. Today, in America at least, the majority of people no longer consider race to be biological factor in determining race. Even so the legacy of racism has persisted.

Admiration of Creativity

Have you ever sat down and read, listened, or even watched something and just admired something about it that seemed creative. I myself have never set out to do so, I just occasionally find something, some turn of phrase that struck me. Still I find it helps me to appreciate the work people have to put into to something in order to make our entertainment. A basic paperback, cheaply bought off the shelf is thousands of hours worth of work for an hour, and your average Hollywood movie is probably 100,000s worth hours to put in our hands. It makes me sit, think, and appreciate creativity, even in mass media form.

Life is Passing By

Today, I had the sinking feeling of life passing me by. Then I couldn't help but ask how exactly do you seize the day. How do I make a day feel as if it had worth? The answer as far as I can tell is to work on my goals. The little things like learning Japanese. Even so I often feel lazy, like my motivation has gotten up and gone, which make working towards those goals hard. Its the paradox of life. On the one hand we want to give life meaning through doing something worthwhile, yet doing something worthwhile is hard, and we often just let life slip us by as we enjoy our pastimes.

Poltics and Acrimony

Today, I turned on the news and heard nothing, but about how the Democrats and Republicans are the bitterest of enemies. How they are completely incapable of compromise. Well they do have at least one thing in common they both want what is best for America. Their visions about what is best for the country may differ, and some may have more cynical motivations, but overall no one starts out to be a cynical leech on society. Still if they can't even agree on their good intentions, what can they agree on?

Today, I decided to set my finger to the keyboard and type whatever random and idle thought has entered my head.