noise polution

I thought the city was noisy... Living in the country is even more noisy. I have Hundreds of Canadian Geese flying over head honking and squakijng as they go. There must be Ten Thousand frogs in the irrigation ditch all croaking and what ever else they do at the top of their lungs and little bloaty throat sacks. On any given day there can be hundreds of little birds, Robins or small black birds all chirping away... There is an authentic Hooting Owl now and just tonight there a bunch of wild turkeys taken up residence some where near by... and they don't get along with the geese so very well... The Turf wars are noisy. There is also the fire season coming up and the fire suppression helicopters are flying in and sucking up water form the ponds at regular intervals. These are not small helicopters either. I am talking about the Ginormous Sky Crane helicopters.

rant alert…

Back story… I wrote a previous post but it was heavily self censored because as I said it was not coming out in print as well as it was intended. It sounded so profound, but I suspect that it was more of a 'laboratory' profundity than a profundity that could hold up under the weight of the real world.

A reader called me on what was clearly a less than authentic or well executed post and this was my response to her in an email. She encouraged me to post it here. I was a bit concerned about that in as much as it was in an email and I don't know all the ethical rules regarding posts and emails and all that. So here it is… Oh and I did include her comment for understanding of some of the references to stew and I did Dr. it up some for spelling and readability and the like.

This is the comment

Big Geek, it seems like you are playing fast and loose with the semantics of wording.

Acceptance; noun: a disposition to tolerate or accept people or situations.

Tolerance; noun: willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others.

I do not believe we are a melting pot at all. If you were to take several different metals and melt them down, the characteristics of those individual metals can no longer be distinguished. They are all blended together.

With people when acceptance and tolerance is used to appreciate the cultural differences between people we are more like a stew. Everyone still seen as individuals appreciating our own cultures and religious beliefs but each new person enhances the flavor and injects all new perspective to the dish.

So pour a glass of white or red wine and enjoy the stew!

This is my response: I have to say I am a little nervous about this... I was informed that she is going to re-comment on it because she love being challenged... I don't know if I should get some Preparation H or Aloe Vera for this.

Quite possibly you are right.

Like I said... it sounded so much better in my head while I was thinking about it than when I got it written out.

I used the Melting pot phrase in as much as it is a phrase that is thrown around all the time. I am not a fan of the phrase myself. It's too "quaint" (I think is the right way to explain how I feel about it.)

I should say that the post was leaning toward what you are about to read, assuming that you choose to read it, but I deleted the bulk of it several times and tried to just state the basic premise with no tonality and color painting. But this is just a whitewashing of the same old problems anyway, so as I said at the very end... never mind.

Now for the RANT

I think that too often cultural differences cause friction and tension that manifests itself in hate crimes and racism and whatever other bad result that comes to mind because so often there is no acceptance of differences. I imagine that religion is a part of it, but anymore everyone seems to be so touchy about their right to Not be offended any more. (See side bar warning) Somehow everone thinks "I have the right to... Insert cause here". There is no responsibility any more to the culture or the society it's all about ME. No one is willing to tolerate anything anymore. Everyone wants their apologies public, meaningless as they are.

The Shiites and the Sunnis and the Kurdish will, in my opinion, never get along with each other and by extension with the rest of the world because they are deeply steeped in their religion. How huge was the up roar over the Danish Comic strip? How often is Jesus slammed, shammed, defiled, mocked,satirized or displayed in an aquarium of urine? Does anyone die over that, did any one burn anything? I don't even think there was a law suit brought by any one. Before you say this about that I know that the wackjob Christian Fundamentalists blow up abortion clinics and that is hate full in the extreme and the Federal building thing in Oklahoma. Fundamentalist religious people are susceptible to that sort of thinking, but somehow I don't recall reading in the bible anywhere, where Jesus says to kill thy neighbor if their theology is mixed up or an irreverent cartoon is drawn by some none believer, and I never read any where Thou shalt blow things up? In general that was supposed to be left to God. "Vengeance is mine sayth the Lord", I think is the line.

This whole diatribe was a result of some news story I heard, about tolerance and quite frankly I have heard enough regarding how we all need to 'tolerate' this or that... shoot now I don't even recall the story. But the world is full of stories where in some "minority" feels slighted, diminished, ridiculed or oppressed somehow and EVERYONE has to accommodate their new "taste contribution" to the stew, especially the Muslims right now. It aggravates me no end that a Muslim family can take a School to court to force a first grade girl to stop using her "Winnie the Poo and Piglet Too" lunch box because there is a Muslim girl in her class who is twisted out of shape about seeing the pig on the lunch box. Unarguably Winnie the Poo and Piglet Too have been a part of American tradition for many decades and is a children's favorite. I still have my daughters Winnie The Poo bed sheets. Sears Makes Plenty of money on that franchise which implies that it is a Huge part of American traditional school age up bringing... but now suddenly Piglet is no longer tolerable because some "new" flavor has been added to the stew, which in my opinion renders the stew bitter and unpalatable, bordering on inedible.

It is my fervent belief that if you decide to move to America you should understand what it is you are signing up for. If you have a belief/idea/thought that is outside the norm it is YOU who has to do the tolerating not the rest of the world around YOU. And if you have a belief that is illegal in this country I feel that if You are moving here and want to BE here You should be resigned to give that up... ritual sacrifice and the like. If you move to any other country in the world, Mexico for example, You have to learn Their language. The Mexican government is not going to have English speaking teachers for your kids so they can understand what is being taught. The Mexican Government is not going to provide you with Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Brazilian, Ecuadorian, Honduran or any other of the two dozen or more languages that our government prints driver's license paperwork. YOU better have your papers on you and in order every minute of every day because if you do not and are picked up for even the slightest infraction, even if the infraction is imagined and NOT real you are... well unpleasantness shall befall you in a great hurry and relief is not coming in great hurry. The same conditions exist in any other nation on the planet. I am DOUBLE sure that is the case for EVERY Muslim country like say Saudi Arabia and I am Triply sure about Iran! I happen to know about Korea and Algeria... do not get sideways with those law enforcement agencies!

In the past when you moved to America you wanted to be an American and all that comes with it. You wanted to embrace the culture the holidays including Christmas, the work ethic, the language and… well all else that comes with being an American. If you were going to add your flavor to the stew you didn't do it by JAMMING it down the throats of your neighbors with legal action at every turn. This very much spoils the stew and leaves a bitter taste on everybody's pallet. If you want your heritage on display or preserved You opend a restaurant or a shop or have a festival celebrating Your cultural heritage by INVITING people to Participate. ***I say all that...about the America typified by the industrial age beginning shortly after we finally did away with the natives that were here LONG before we hit the Rock at Plymouth to make some beer because we ran out of water on the boat. Another rant for another time.***

The whole gay rights thing another area where "Tolerance" is called for/demanded. It is something that I am softening up on rather quickly. I have read the bible and So far as I recall there was only one reference to homosexuality, and it was strictly speaking not a very direct reference. I was anti gay marriage for a long time, hanging my belief on the idea that Marriage is a religious thing and that the bible and by extension God was anti gay-ness... I don't see that so black and white any more. And marriage is principally a government sponsored thing anymore anyway. You just have look at the divorce rate to see that. It's been said that Gay people should be able to share in the heart break and misery of divorce as much as anyone else. In general Marriage has become a meaningless institution anymore any way. Which is a shame because many people take it very seriously but not from a religious point of view… I don't think.

SOOoooo...I was trying to change, somehow, the reference to "Tolerance" because in my mind to "tolerate" something is to put up with no recognition or acceptance of differences or respect of any kind because you are forced to by some outside influence, law or threat of harm or terror, to put up with the situation.

When I look up Tolerate I find words like endure and discomfort and bear all of which imply the idea that you would much rather NOT be tolerating this whatever IT is. Tolerate has a much more of a negative connotation and or distasteful word in my opinion. (color painting)

When I look up accept I find words like willingly, approval, favorable all of which implies that this is a softer more fitting/hopeful word for this situation. Accept has a much more positive connotation, again, just my opinion. (more color painting)

But again in the final analysis it was just a whitewashing of this idea/concept any way. It was my feeble attempt to say that if we explained our differences to, say, Osama B. that he would say "OH now I get it, So you're not the Devil. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, lets have a beer on me... sorry about the whole Trade Towers thing. I had no idea that would happen. I really got my moneys worth out of that little joke didn't I, never mind then." and turn himself in for trial. Aint a gonna happen.

And again like I said at the head of this thing and the post... it sounded so much more profound while I was thinking about it than after I got it written... same with this I guess.

Thank you for calling me on this... It forces me to think through more thoroughly the ideas.

Big Geek.

Tolerance VS Acceptance

I think that "tolerance" is crap. In out not so brave new world of Enforced Tolerance I find a huge wave of resentment building up and spilling over in lots of places.

From my perspective we should not be teaching and preaching "Tolerance". In my opinion if you are forced to tolerate something it breads resentment. Resentment build and builds and… well explodes in little things like hate crimes and race riots and bigotry and Jihads and lots of other ugly manifestations.

What I feel should be "taught", is acceptance and understanding. Education for understanding and acceptance of one another's differences.

Having said that there are some/many instances where that just does NOT work.

In this multicultural melting pot of a world everyone is just going to have to get over themselves a little bit.

I thought this was going to be such a profound topic… but it sounds ridiculous when I read it. I guess the point of this is that I am sick and tired of Political Correctness and the 'T' word being thrown around like it really means something.

Oh well… never mind.

muffins

I don't know for sure what women are looking for in clothing but I assumed that they looked for clothing that would minimize bulges and rolls and bumps. I hear that all the time on TV commercials. But I see something totally different. For some time now women have been buying low wasted pants, tight low wasted pants. These pants create the "muffin top" phenomenon. It's the roll that spills out over the top of their pants that are too low and too tight. They bite right in to her hips below the iliac crest. Some women can get away with this because they have a very shallow pelvic bowel. I , rightly or wrongly attribute this fashion phenomenon to Britney Speers. When she had her head shaving psychedelic freak-out. I hoped that she was gone and her hip hugging pant stylings were gone with her. My daughter had a high waste and it was ooOH so Difficult to get her pants that fit even remotely well.

Any way… how is it that women have bought into this fashion trend.

Is it that they have bought into it or is it that like my daughter there is just nothing else because "Fashion Designers", who are designing for their 13 year old shaped gay boy friends, are just not interested in what looks good on women?