Dictionaries Are Your Friend

I wrote this editorial that was published in the Newnan-Times Herald:


I think I’ve read the word ‘socialist’ a hundred times on this editorial page. Not once have I seen the word used in a context that gives the faintest clue the writer understands what the word means.

Here’s a quote from a once popular book, the dictionary: “Socialism: Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”

Notice the definition did not include, “Any policy a Liberal might endorse.”

Socialism is about collectivizing the means of production. For those who have used this word to describe the President but have never read a socialist or communist author, that means the government, or just the working class as a whole, would wrest property and capital from the few in a country who own it. That would mean seizing factories, business, bank accounts, whole banks, and land to use them in a collective, command and control economy to evenly distribute goods amongst society as a whole.


So, until someone in the Democratic Party starts talking about seizing our economy as a whole to be run by the government and distributing the goods equally, calling Liberals, or the president, ‘socialists’ only shows how disingenuous and childish the Right’s criticisms have become.


If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe this guy: “The question has been raised about whether or not our president is a socialist…But in the technical sense, in the economic definition of what a socialist is, no, he’s not a socialist.” That’s from one of the only consistent members of the GOP, Ron Paul, speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.


I think the Tea Baggers would get more use out of a pocket dictionary than a pocket Constitution.

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In a given week, about 3 or 4 of the editorials published in my local paper at least infer that the current presidential administration is leading our nation  to "socialism".  It's usually pretty obvious that the only places they have ever heard this word used is on conservative talk radio.  I can infer this because they always use the word incorrectly. 


These people seem to think anything the government has a hand in is some giant step towards socialism.  If the government bars by law the participation of any and every private entity in the production and distribution of some good or service, that's socialism, or at least deserves the label.  In order for our country to be "heading towards socialism", our government would have to be centralizing every single aspect of our economy.  Anyone with half a brain knows that's not happening.  Those who say it is are misinformed or disingenuous.


I wrote the editorial above to give my towns folk a working definition of the word and to see if my local paper would print the word, "Tea Baggers".  I laughed my ass off when I saw it!   

Our Trip to the Ichtucknee River and Gainesville, Florida

February 20, 2010

http://www.floridastateparks.org/ichetuckneesprings/

This weekend my wife, Whitney, and I went to Ichtucknee Springs State Park in Branford, Florida to do a little kayaking. The Ichtucknee is a very popular, spring-fed river about 3o minutes northwest of Gainesville, Florida.

We'd seen pictures of crystal blue water at the Spring Head, and read a couple of posts online about other people's experiences kayaking, but didn't know exactly what to expect. We didn't have our own shuttle, and couldn't get in touch with any one at the Park on the way down, so, a few miles from the park we consulted a local tube renter about the river and were told that the water level was so high that the river hardly had a current and that we could paddle upstream and our shuttle problem would be solved. It turns out that the park, and many of the local tube renters, offer shuttle during the peak season, but not in mid-February.

As we approached the river, the water looked black and brackish, but the appearance couldn't have been more deceiving. Once we were in our boats, we could see that the water was absolutely transparent, with at least 12 ft visibility. The black color is due to all the vegetation that grow on the bottom of the river.

The most southerly take out point (our put in) is surrounded by what we were told were live oaks covered in Spanish moss. The tuber renters were right about the current, it was basically non-existent. There were turtles all over the place. We were there for about four hours and probably saw 200 of them. The water was also teeming with gar fish. These fish are huge and evidently, this is there mating season.

We were very lucky and planned our trip on a weekend with near perfect weather. It was right around 70 degrees while we were on the river. Since the river is spring-fed, the water temp was right around 70 degrees as well.

About an hour into our paddle, we met some paddlers come towards us. They informed us that there was a manatee just ahead and a lady was swimming with it! We picked our pace, and within a few hundred yards we found the lady and manatee the people told us about. After taking a quick look at the large sea mammal, I parked my boat and jumped in.

The manatee swam after his original swimming partner a first, but soon came to check me out. He was very gentle and curious. It would swim up to me, let me rub it's back and side and stick his nostrils out of the water to exhale and inhale air. After snapping a few picks of me, getting her nerve up, and chasing the manatee down stream a little, Whitney got the same amazing experience I did. As Whitney and a couple of other boaters who came upon us swam, another manatee came out from a slew. These animals were probably close to a thousand pounds and totally wild. It was exhilarating and touching at the same time. An animal like that showing curiosity and playfulness like that, IN THE WILD, is an experience that words just can't capture.

The river opened up just beyond the half way point, where we found the manatee. We had to make it to our campsite about an hour away and have time to set-up before dark, so we didn't get to see the first half of the river.

The Ichtucknee River was an awesome experience, to say the least. We can't wait to go back and see the first couple of miles of the river.

We camped that night at Paynes Prairie State Park, just minutes from Gainesville on Hwy 441. Our campsite was nice, even though it was by no means secluded. We shared a little conversation a food with a couple of other groups that were camping there, but mostly kept to ourselves.

The next day we checked out the visitor's center at the State Park and took a hike. While in the park we saw a white-tailed deer, a lot of curious squirrels, and many varieties of birds. We seemed to be surrounded by red-headed woodpeckers (the same was true at the Ichtucknee) and, as we were ending our hike, a fellow hikers pointed out a bald eagle. The picture below is not very good, but that's a bald eagle perched in the top of a dead tree, the first one I've ever seen in the wild.

After our hike, we ate, showered, and readied ourselves for a trip into Gainesville to see one of our favorite bands: AGAINST ME!

http://www.againstme.net/

I've probably seen AGAINST ME! live six times, counting this one. The venue was called Common Grounds, and definitely the smallest place I've seen them perform live. The show was awesome. They have a new album coming out soon called White Crosses. They played three or four tracks off of it, and they all sounded great. Hopefully they'll have some of the new stuff on their website to listen to soon.

We went back to Paynes Prairie to camp for one more night, and left late the next morning.

I think Whitney and I agree that this was one of the best trips we've ever taken. Hope you enjoyed hearing about it!

It's been well over a year since my last post. My first attempt didn't last long. I plan to post again very soon...as soon as I decide to write about something. Lots going on in politics. This blog missed the whole 08 election and its aftermath, so, maybe that will be the first topic...who knows?

A Good Piece From Slate.com

I subscribe to the Slate Daily podcast, where they read articles from Slate.com, and I heard this piece called "Meatless Like Me". The article debunks some myths and stereotypes about people who don't eat meat and tries to make the point that vegetarians are just like everyone else...they just don't eat meat. Here's some examples:
1) Most vegetarians don't think everyone who eats meat is a stupid assholes,
2) Most vegetarians won't try to get you to stop eating meat,
3) Most vegetarians would eat meat if they needed to in order to survive,
4) Most vegetarians don't support the views and actions of PETA,
5) Most vegetarians get all the nutrition they need from a meatless diet, etc, etc, etc,

Many may think these little nuggets would occur to anyone with good common sense, but they do not. There are a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes about people who choose not to eat meat. Lots of smart and otherwise open-minded people wig out when you tell them you don't eat meat and come up with the most retarded questions you could possiblly think to ask. That's why pieces like the one from Slate.com are important and helpful for people of my persuasion.

Here's a link to the article...

http://www.slate.com/id/2190872/

Eating Meat

I don't think there is a more acceptable act in American culture than eating meat. I became a vegetarian four years ago for many reasons, one of them being the costs to the environment of the production of meat. The production of meat wastes food, water, energy, and land in the process of production.

Meat is very inefficient. We have to feed animals plant protein to get flesh protein out of them. In every case, we put more plant protein into animals than we get out in flesh protein. For example, it takes between 16-21 pounds of plant protein to get one pound of protein from beef. It also takes around 12,000 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef as opposed to a number in the low hundreds, or less, for a pound of plant foods (depending on the plant). My basic point is that we grow plants to feed animals when we could just eat the plants.

Some may say that the food fed to animals is not fit for human consumption. This is true in some cases. However, the land used to grow food for animals could be used to grow food that humans could eat. Which brings me to my next point...The land wasted on animal production, raising the animals themselves and the food to feed them, could be used much more efficiently by using that land for to grow crops people could eat. This, like the last point, is not complicated or hard to understand. You can produce more food from growing plants than you can from "raising" animals in the same amount of space. It's just that simple.

The above points have been made without consideration of the current realities of "farming" or raising animals for food. Billions (literally) of cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys are "raised" every year in the US. Unfortunately, many of these animals are not raised on mom and pop farms. Many are raised on what have come to be known as factory farms. Factory farms are large scale, industrialized farms. The number of farms in the US has been in rapid decline for the past few decades while production of animals has been increasing and concentrating in fewer, yet larger, factory farms.

The industrialized production of animals leads to some very negative consequences. One of the major consequences is pollution. Factory farms can have tens of thousands of animals in a very small area. What happens when you feed these animals food? They poop. Though dung from vegetarian animals can be used as fertilizer, most of it is just dumped in "lagoons" near the production facility. Too much animal dung in one place is horrible for the environment. It can ruin the land in which the lagoon sits, it can seep into the ground water of the surrounding area, and the methane from the dung can be harmful to humans and the climate.

Also, when you have that many animals in such close quarters, with poop everywhere, factory farms become a breeding ground for disease. So, those who run these farms give the animals antibiotics to strengthen their immune systems. Antibiotics used in these conditions can find their way into our bodies, or help create more resistant strains of bacteria. Producers in industrialized farms may also use steroids to make the animals reach maximum size faster. These antibiotics and steroids remain in the flesh of the animals and are passed on to humans.

This topic cannot be discussed without addressing what happens to animals in the process of turning them into food. While traditional farming techniques are not so harmful to animals (except the slaughter part), modern industrialized farming techniques are barbaric. In factory farms, animals can live their entire lives indoors in conditions not fit for any living being. For different animals the circumstances are different. Pigs can be confined to "crates", most of the chicken consumed is raised in "battery cages" that have been banned in other countries, and cattle can been raised on cement floors. I will do a post later on about the horrors of modern farming, but modern farming can't be discussed without at least acknowledging this point.

Another aspect of this topic that must be mentioned are the health effects of the amount of meat Americans consume. We eat a lot of f*ckin meat, more than most other cultures, and this American tradition has become a problem. Consuming so much meat, and neglecting other foods (like fresh fruits and vegetables), has led to high rates in preventable diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and other, equally preventable illnesses.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg.  This is just an overview of some of the reason I choose not to eat meat.

Here are some helpful links for those interested:
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?142

http://bigteaparty.com/2008/02/08/environmental-effects-of-meat/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_meat_production
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer02.htm
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1826
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=103

The Cost of "Life in the 'Burbs"

The link below is to an NPR story about an Atlanta family's choices and how they have effected their cost of living and the environment. A lot of us make choices without considering the environmental impacts. I think this will be the first in a series of posts about lifestyle choices and environmental degradation. I heard this story and thought people in the area might like to hear how Atlanta is referenced in relation to the rest of the country...It's pretty telling.


"Life in the 'Burbs: Heavy Costs for Families, Climate"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89231809

Here's another story (you actually have to read this one) about Atlanta's pollution and why it is so bad even when compared to larger cities.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2001/2001-01-31-atlanta-pollution.htm

Barack Obama and Race

“Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he weren’t black.” People who believe this display an inability to critically analyze the politics of this primary election process that has left them with an opinion that discounts those who voted for Obama as mindless liberals who can’t help but vote for a “black” candidate as well as an opinion that fails to acknowledge the politics of race that are present elsewhere in our electoral system.

To the first point, Obama has done so well among voters of all ethic backgrounds because of his policy plans and ideas on how to deal with America’s current and future problems, not because he is “black”. Without a doubt, some voters will vote for him simply on the basis of his race, but the vast majority of the people I’ve spoken to and heard from on media outlets have not. To assume this is bias is to steal the free will and reasoning of thirteen million people and replace it with an inability to think beyond race. That, to me, is absurd. Many believe that Obama has no policy plans or ideas. For them, I suggest they go to his website, take a couple of days off work, and go through all of his plans on all the issues he addresses.

To my second point, I would like to ask those who believe that Obama is where he is because he is “black” one question: Where would John McCain be if he weren’t white? Do you think a black man with McCain’s record could ever be the GOP’s presidential pick? The answer is NO. People are quick to say Obama’s “blackness” gives him an edge, but recoil at the suggestion that anyone’s whiteness is an advantage. This denial is part of what makes race a continuing problem in the US.

The above posting is another editorial to the Newnan Times Herald. I think I'd like to expand on these ideas a little:

A lot of people say, of both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, that they have no "ideas". By "ideas" I think people mean policy plans. To think this is way off base. As I stated in the editorial, anyone who thinks this needs to take some time to mine the two candidates web sites and see what their plans are on individual issues. The reason we hear so little about what their policy plans are is because the two candidates are very similar in this respect. When choosing between two candidates you don't pay any attention to what is similar about them, you choose (vote) on the basis of differences. I think this is why the media has latched on to race and gender in the latter part of this primary. I also think Clinton has played both the race and the gender card in a very two faced way (for full disclosure, I voted for Obama). Either way, in the search for characteristics that differentiate these two candidates, race, gender, and personality are all the media can write about and keep an audience's attention.

On the other more important, and complex, point, race in America is all about denying Caucasians have a race at all. The race issue is discussed on a white background so that the only race that is noticed is the race of those who aren't "white". It wasn't that long ago in American history that differences were made among "white" people. Irish, Russian, Polish, etc: These all used to be considered to be different ethic groups and all these groups faced ridicule based on their "race". In my hometown paper, the Times-Herald, I once read an editorial by one of their regular contributors, Alex McRae, that made race relations among WASP's and other European immigrants to America seem like some kind of fairy tale where everyone got along and no prejudice ever existed. This is far from the true history of these later immigrants to this country. Today, all these groups are colectively called "white", especially here in the South
.
Obama's race is considered an asset to him while John McCain's advantage of being "white" is completely ignored. This point is made even more important by the fact that most of the people making this claim come from the right side of the isle, those who have shown themselves unable and/or unwilling to elect black leaders of any kind. There are some exceptions. There are some black Republicans who have been elected to office, but they are few and far between. This denial of favor towards whites and the advantages of being white is at the heart of the race issue in America.

I see racism towards non-whites by whites almost on a daily basis. At work, among people I know, and among family members. However, these same racists will deny that whites have any advantages in our society.  On the contrary, they usually argue that people of other races have an unfair advantage over them. The say this despite their own racism as well as the glaring evidence that it is not true (no non-white president, few non-white senators in history, few non-white CEO's, etc). 

As a white person, I feel that most of the progress made in race relations has come from the legal realm, and not the social realm. The social realm is the only place real racial reconciliation can be made. Though non-whites are no longer denied the right to vote they are still in large part misunderstood by whites.

I wish I knew more about non-white racism.  Racism towards whites is just as offensive as any other form of racism.  That being said, in America, non-white racism has never taken the form of social and political oppression.  It has never been intergrated into our laws and ways of life.  That's why people notice Obama's race and not McCain's.