Job-Hunting Advice

Good jobs are hard to find, now more than ever. Some retirees just don't understand, because they enjoy the generous pensions of their generation. They keep thinking that 2014 is the same as 1984. Well, guess what, old-timers, times have changed. Jobs are a lot harder to get and keep today than they were in the past. Employers expect their workers to deal with multiple tasks at once, handle technologically complicated tasks, work frequent overtime, and do all this for less money and less benefits and less opportunity than you received in 1984 with your cushy job sitting in an office all day drinking coffee laced with vodka, talking about the football game and managing nothing more complicated than a typewriter and a secretary.

I can relate with today's young people and others who are struggling to find a good job, because I've been there myself, and I have some relevant advice that can get real results.

1. Visit fiverr.com and pay $5 to have a pro refresh and revise your resume. They probably won't get it right, but they tend to have good ideas that you can then incorporate in your own revision.
2. Dress up in a suit and go to events and places where you can network with others and potentially find employment. Sometimes visiting places in person can make a difference, and at any rate it serves as a useful experience and confidence-booster. Hunting for jobs on the Internet can be a waste of time, and most of the jobs one finds on the Internet are of the less desirable variety, with high turnover, low pay and low benefits. That's the reason one continues to see the same companies offering the same positions, week after week.
3. Have business cards printed out at vistaprint.com or another site. I'm not being paid for a plug here, but I did use vistaprint myself, based on the recommendation of a business-savvy gay.
4. If you don't have enough money to meet your bills, go ahead and drop your home internet and just use internet at Starbucks or the local library for free like other people seem to do. In the U.S., home internet service is overpriced and slow. I'd drop my internet too, if I weren't such a geek.
5. While you're out there networking and socializing with a wide variety of different people, see whether you can strike a deal where you rent from another person in exchange for doing housework, cooking meals, running errands and answering phone calls. This arrangement is more common than you might think. Many elderly folks have a lot of disposable income but do not have a partner nor anyone that they can trust. That is a sad symptom of our disposable society where friends drop their friends on the silliest pretext, and families tend to be dysfunctional and split up as soon as the kids are out of the house. There are a lot of lonely people in the world, but some of them are willing to pay for a little help around the house. Being trustworthy and honest and having a nice personality means a LOT and is worth a LOT. Being gay-friendly is a plus, as is being plain old friendly to all kinds of people. I know someone who runs errands for an older man, cooks his meals, answers phone calls, performs yard work and cleans house. In exchange, he gets free room and board, car insurance, medical insurance, a car and a small monthly stipend. He also has enough time to work a separate part-time job on the side. I call that a good deal for both sides, don't you?

Past and Present, Good and Evil

The past is fast, while the present crawls. I can remember a lot of precise details that people hope I have forgotten. If someone says or does something that strikes me as extraordinary, then that is something I place in the vault. I may not say anything at the time. I may not remind them of it ever. It is enough for me to know. I do not need to share, not to them.

I think I am good judge of people and not easy to deceive. In those rare cases where I have been deceived, it has been someone I respected that did the deceiving. I had rendered myself vulnerable by suspending my good judgement. When the deception results in an injury to me, I castigate myself for being gullible. No one likes to feel like a fool.

I am really too hard on myself. Being deceived is not so bad. Nor is it uncommon. Everyone is deceived to an extent. People deceive themselves on a daily basis. Once betrayed, the advantage to me is that the betrayer is exposed. I can be betrayed once, but not often twice. I remember and will handle the betrayer in a different manner than I would someone I admire. My impression of a person decays rapidly after I know that they have been very dishonest with me.

Is trusting and loving worthwhile or not? To never trust or love certainly renders one highly resistant to deception. This seems to be the tact that some souls take. I suppose they are tired of encountering the tedious liars in our world, and so they withdraw into themselves, so as not to risk further injury.

Perhaps love is worth the risk of being deceived and betrayed. The reward for trusting and loving can be found through another who is also capable of the same trait. Backstabbing liars must contend with their own kind after being exposed as such, and there is no honor among thieves. Still, there may not be any cosmic justice in the universe. I'm not really sure on that point. It seems to me that evil-doers get away with their evil, if they are persistent and determined. There are also advantages to good, some obvious and some subtle, and sometimes--don't be surprised--good wins. I feel I have no choice but to be good. I find the mere thought of evil distressing and depressing. Perhaps some people have the stomach for it, but I don't. If evil always wins, then eventually there will be no good left, and then the evil will have to feed upon the evil, and that in itself is cosmic justice.

The Deeper Wisdom of "I, Claudius"

There was a moral lesson in "I, Claudius," despite the overall depressing, even morbid storyline. Claudius survived a corrupt nest of snakes--the Roman palace--while the snakes fed upon one another until none were left. He was the survivor. Did he survive through courage? No. Did he survive through cunning? No. He survived by being a fool. To an extent, his was a calculated act, but he was born with a speech impediment and a twitch, minor deficiencies that were little understood in Roman times. They called him a fool, but he was wiser than they. Appearances deceive. Even in our times, there are many things that are misunderstood. The beginning of wisdom, I think, is to accept that everyone is a fool to an extent. The question is only--how much of a fool?

I sympathize with Claudius and even identify with him. I think he was an interesting character. He was the only Roman Emperor of the Julian family really and seriously concerned with intellectual subjects. He was a historian. The rest of them were concerned with power and debauchery. Claudius spent his time among old scrolls and old historians. He could have been a good Emperor if he had only pulled off a splendid succession. Instead, he permitted Nero to follow him, which was unfortunate for Rome. As portrayed in "I, Claudius," the Emperor Claudius died a drunkard, his half-baked plans for succession gone awry. Perhaps Claudius was indeed a fool, a learned fool, but still a fool.

It is human nature to procrastinate, and no one wishes to think of death, least of all their own. So plans that should be made are left unmade, and much is left to random chance or to the greediest and most ruthless of the heirs. Dysfunctional families reveal their stripes most of all when the spoils of inheritance are up for grabs. That is when the ugly truth of familial relationships becomes most apparent. Perhaps it is better to know the truth and never be deceived again. Wisdom and insight have real value. Claudius had his revenge, at least in the fictional world of "I, Claudius," if not the real world. The television show is supposedly based upon a recently discovered tell-all autobiography of the Emperor Claudius. If such priceless scrolls were found, academia would be turned upside-down. Many previous assumptions would be either confirmed or challenged. Of course such scrolls have not been found, at least not yet, but it is a pleasing fantasy of revenge for a sympathetic character, one of the few really good people in a nest of snakes. The revenge of Claudius for the many wrongs done to him was to write about his family. He told their dark and shocking secrets, some of which only he knew. That is an interesting method of revenge, but perhaps not quite so unusual. I think there have been many precedents.

Talking Cat

I used to wonder why my cat made odd, uncatlike utterances sometimes. When pressed by boredom, aggravated by the overwhelming desire to go outside, which is a constant craving, he will make a long, strange howling sound. I used to worry he was suffering from a physical ailment or temporary insanity. Today, I had the inspiration that he is trying to talk. It would be only natural to imitate a human practice that he has observed every day of his life and which brings us humans so many obvious benefits. We are able to communicate and cooperate effectively due to talking, and the cat is intelligent enough to grasp that and to desire this ability for himself. If he could talk, he could express his desires and perhaps even persuade us to do his bidding. He has not enough brain development to manage any words. I have never recognized any syllables.

I wish that such a cat could be bred through successive generations for hundreds of years in a nurturing environment that encouraged the development of intellectual gifts. It would be interesting to observe the end result. Maybe Heinlein's talking cat is not such a far-fetched notion after all.

Penetration

Meditation means different things to different people. To me it means sitting and thinking, occasionally with the assistance of mystical herbs. It is also possible to not think and just do. One is more productive that way, but what is the end result of this productivity? It is possible to be very productive and also wrong. Animals just do.

Richard Dawkins is widely misunderstood. I cannot even begin a discussion about Dawkins with some people, because they have already made up their mind. They have gathered enough falsehoods and exaggerations to inflame their passions against the man. They believe he espouses selfishness and capitalism. They will not listen. Those who do not listen cannot hope to understand. I do not bother discussing things with those who will not listen. They have ceased to possess a thinking mind. They are tools of another's thought.

I agree with Richard Dawkins in believing humans have a golden opportunity, because of our brains, to do other than what our selfish genes want. As Sarah Connor said in "Terminator 2," "There is no fate but what we make." No fate means liberation. Dawkins preaches a message of hope.

We can reflect upon things and try--but not necessarily succeed--to learn what is real and what is false. Everyone has opinions about things, but how often is it that one questions these assumptions? Perhaps a rule of thumb is true up to a certain point, but then the truth unravels upon further examination. Then the assumption must be cut back, reduced to reflect a deeper understanding. Thinking is the way and the light. Doing is of uncertain value without thinking.

What is true? What is untrue? These are difficult questions.

Where is safety? Where is danger? What are the threats, obvious and hidden? Some people never think about these things. From watching "I, Claudius," it is clear that Augustus was not a reflective man. He did not note the threats in his own palace until the threats bore fruit, and at the end for him, they bore literal fruit in the form of poisoned figs. Rome suffered as a consequence. Perhaps Rome was composed of fools. Romans, of course, were always doing, weren't they? Marching this way and that, shedding blood, teaching their neighbors to fear and hate and thirst for vengeance. How much thinking did they do? Rome imported its ideas from other places--Christianity, Hellenistic culture. Eventually, Rome collapsed due to bad ideas. That's the trouble with doing all the time and never bothering to sit down and think.

Avoidance

Negative people try to drag one down into the mud for a wallow. Usually, I find I have a choice. I look down, and there they are, my two feet. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other and just walk away. Sometimes life really is that simple.

I, Claudius

"I, Claudius" is an interesting 1976 BBC miniseries with twelve episodes. Its success provided an incentive for the later epic, big-budget "Rome" of the twenty-first century. The 1976 show is not nearly as refined as "Rome," but the acting and writing is at least as good, if not better.

The show is close, I think, to certain historical texts, although Robert Graves did make some assumptions. I wondered whether Augustus was really as gullible as he is portrayed in "I, Claudius." The main facts are that he did indeed imprison his own daughter, and his favorites died one by one under mysterious circumstances. One cannot conclude that he was a good judge of character. I think that Augustus was an abject failure as an Emperor, because he botched his succession. Instead of appointing anyone worthy, he permitted others to choose Tiberius, which was disastrous for Rome. Tiberius was followed by an even worse Emperor, Caligula. These two mismanaged affairs of state very badly.

I think Augustus deserves at least some of the blame for the bad things that happened under his reign. Robert Graves implies that all the evil was the fault of his wife. However, Augustus was the one with real power. I doubt he was as gullible as portrayed in the show. I think he relied upon his wife for advice and intelligent ideas, which were sometimes useful, but he failed to perceive when she was manipulating him for her own ends.

The problem with "I, Claudius" is the loud, screeching theme music that accompanies both the beginning and the end. Whoever came up with that abominable sound should have been fired. A viewer would be prudent to mute the first and last minute of each episode.

Almost every woman on the show breaks down into tears and sobbing whenever there is a crisis. In my experience, this is not how women behave, but this is how women were portrayed in film due to the notions of the men that produced the films. I think that this more than anything else dates the show. I have to wonder why those actresses behaved so. Perhaps the director put them up to it, and the fault was all his. Perhaps the producers felt they had to meet audience expectations. The only really good actress on the show was the arch-villain, Livia, but "cold snake" seemed the limit of her range. At least she didn't burst into tears every time bad news arrived. I really doubt that ancient Romans behaved so, because they dwelt in a world of sudden death, unexplained mysteries, injustice, corruption and cruelty.

I Carried a Pocket Knife

A no-brainer news article points out that victims of bullies are more likely to carry weapons to school. Duh. When a person finds that their safety and well-being are at risk, that person will do whatever it takes to protect themselves. The principal is one of self-preservation.

Long ago, when I suffered from bullying, and the P.E. teacher made clear he would do nothing about it--other than punish me for complaining--I started carrying a pocket knife to school. But the little knife was not enough. I fantasized about carrying my gun and using it against the bully and the P.E. teacher. They deserved punishment for their actions, but on the other hand, I deserved only the best in life, and so I spared them. The same principal of self-preservation that led me to carry a pocket knife led me not to use it.

The desire for vengeance must be balanced with the potential cost. Sometimes, however, people are driven to such extremes that they no longer care about the cost. I fear some of the young killers of today lack the intellectual assets to calculate the costs. They are throwing away the best part of their lives and in some cases killing innocents, which is ugly and senseless and without any sense of honor at all. To harm innocents is to become a bully, to be just like the ones you hate.

The young killer's awareness about the world and about society is so impaired that he cannot predict the outcome of his deeds. I found it helpful to role-play with cold clarity and precision. This is the way to avoid grave errors that cannot be remedied. Role-play. The human animal has developed fantastic powers of imagination, because it is useful to predict the outcomes of actions. One can imagine the different futures arising from different strategies.

Many times, I imagined killing my enemy, the brutal and arrogant bully, using a variety of means. I imagined killing the cruel and heartless P.E. teacher. I imagined killing them both on the same day. I calculated the probabilities of success and the possibilities that something unexpected might happen. I imagined what would happen in the next minute, the next hour, the next day, and the years to come. I did not like what I saw. I also did not like the idea of violence. Vengeance is one thing, but violence is another. Violence is disturbing to me whether I am being hurt or hurting. It goes against everything ingrained in my personality and upbringing. The idea of committing a real crime and receiving the disapproval of others seemed worse to me than the idea of enduring further abuse.
 
Our society is pacifist. The only accepted outlet for violence is war, and wars happen overseas, far away. Most people are like me. We are taught to abstain from violence. There are consequences for people who engage in illegal acts of violence. There is no legal concept that permits premeditated vengeance.

In Viking society, the outcome would have been different. Vikings did not leave much in the hands of karma. Vikings were about vengeance. Vikings were about blood. There is something satisfying about that, something genuine, something that appeals to our animal nature. That does not make it right, but it does explain why the History Channel's "Vikings" is such an entertaining show. It seems to me the show is all about vengeance.

I do think it is important to eliminate bullying in schools, because violence is like a virus. Violence has a way of spreading, and not everyone calls upon their power of imagination to abstain from vengeance. Nor is everyone scrupulous in limiting collateral damage.

A Safe Place

Safe places are a pleasant refuge for the mind, remembered locations or people that have a calming influence. On those occasional nights when I have trouble sleeping, sometimes I remember lunch at a dead friend's house. She and I had been friends a long time, but were not intimate friends, although we could discuss many topics, because she was well-educated and a real lady of the world. She was a Republican, and I have noticed that I do tend to get along really well with some Republicans, which leads me to conclude that politics are not very important in regard to friendships, not nearly as important as personality, style and taste. People of compatible personalities get along well whatever their politics.

We could hang out together at lunch time and just be. Sometimes we went for a walk, and other times we would just eat and then read the paper. I never watched television, although she kept it on all the time, I think because it filled her otherwise quiet house with the noise of other humans. Sometimes I discussed things with her, such as how my studies progressed, my job prospects, medicine and science, and occasionally politics. She was anti-war, for gay rights and for legalization of marijuana. I think she was Republican mainly for tribal reasons or possibly through inertia, because she had been Republican for so long and did not feel like going to the trouble of changing. The Republican party has changed a lot since back in the day. She expressed disapproval of the young upstarts, but identified with the old guard of the party.

She let her boundaries be known, and it was easy for me to respect those boundaries. Is it flirting to set one's dinner plate on the adjoining side of a table next to a friend, instead of setting one's dinner plate ten feet away at the opposite end of a table? A rare time she scolded me was when I did so. She said she did not want me to sit so close. I thought it was a good distance for talking, but I am used to smaller dinner tables, where everybody gathers around. I did like her, and the feeling was strong, even related to love, but I don't think it necessarily translates into anything of a physical nature. Maybe she saw things I did not see. At any rate, once I demonstrated strict observance of such boundaries as she chose to impose, the obstacle was removed. There was no tension of a sexual nature, the kind that poisons relationships between people. I admired her style and her way of looking at things, and I think my good manners is what she liked most about me.

I watched and listened carefully, because she would sometimes indicate things in a subtle manner, very indirect, and I had to be on my toes to know her feelings and predict her thoughts, but I became better with practice. I liked the challenge of that, and her refinement and sophistication endeared me to her. I could talk to her about things. Nothing that was a problem to other people was a problem to her. She interpreted the world on her own terms.
 
She was just always nice, welcoming, friendly, thoughtful, and in a word, safe. I had many lunches at her house, just her and me together, and it was very pleasant. She enjoyed my company as well. I wish I had stayed in contact after school ended, but the idea that she would want to stay in contact seemed presumptuous.  She did not give sufficient encouragement to maintain and nourish the friendship. She probably had similar concerns.

Death has only made her safer, because the memories are impervious to change. So it is to her that my thoughts turn some nights. She was concealing, even then, I believe, the illness that just two years later took her life. I was then studying biology in college. A great irony is that I discussed cancer with her, expressing my amazement at how it uses the cells of the body against the body. I remember she had a poker face, as she often did, devoid of strong expression, but that she searched my eyes. She knew, and she was correct that I would have summoned help, had I known. I would not have let the secret lie untold, but would have contacted her family, because everyone thinks that it is the right thing to do, and I am no exception. Perhaps she had other plans. Perhaps she had an opinion that she knew was unpopular. I do wish I had been intuitive enough to perceive what was then concealed. I would have liked to discuss her decision with her.

Firefox Wants to be Like Chrome

I was using Firefox because it did not look like Chrome.

With version 29, it is plain that Firefox wants to look just like Chrome. Fine. What's the advantage in using Firefox, again?


I think Mozilla has lost its way. If they would develop some real features for Firefox, it might regain market share. Instead, they just continue to make unfortunate design blunders that will drive existing users away from Firefox.

Cluelessness is evident here. Chrome will always be the best Chrome. If you want to become just like Chrome, guess what, users will choose the real Chrome.

I've made a decision.

Whenever I install a new system for my users, I'm going to install Chrome, whether the system is Windows or Linux. No need to mess around with Firefox anymore, because Firefox is just a Chrome wannabe, without the good Flash support.

It puzzles me why a big software company like Mozilla would go out of its way to render its flagship browser ugly and user-unfriendly. But then again, as demonstrated by their recent choice of CEO, clearly those people do not have the best judgement when it comes to strategy.

Elizabeth Warren

I watched the Daily Show with the interview with Elizabeth Warren. She was eloquent and intelligent, with a certain power of persuasion. I believe what she says about the need for financial reform. I would vote for her if she ran for President.

I think it is likely that the next President will be female. It is time, and I think it is the right thing to do. It would give a boost to women. Either Warren or Clinton would make a good candidate for the Democrats.

Speak Softly

For me, anger is an artifact of youth. I was a spirit of fire. As well as being enthusiastic and zealous in love and friendship, I was quick to wrath and slow to cool. In fire, I saw kinship. I am not sure, but I think this was because I encountered so many other spirits of fire in school, in my neighborhood and in my own family. Of course my thirsty young mind drank deeply of their knowledge, ideas and opinions, absorbing their poisons like a plant growing in polluted water, and so I practiced what I learned.

One of the lessons I've learned with advanced age and from the influence of my good friends is to speak softly. Anger still occurs to me as a potential method of handling grievances and disputes, but I feel it is counter-productive, not necessarily to those I'm angry at, but to myself. My heart hates anger and loves to love. I like to love and hate to hate. I don't like getting angry and don't feel that there is much in the world worth getting angry about. Perhaps it is worth getting angry about something that threatens the well-being of a loved one, but such occasions are few. Most disputes I like to handle with a soft touch nowadays. I think of this as getting in touch with the deeper self, the true self, my full potential.

I find that understanding and empathy, which I am lucky to be endowed with, score points with people and gain me more in friends and allies than would anger. I have powers of negotiation that continue to astonish me in their achieved results. Speaking softly with kindness and understanding in one's eyes can influence others and can even change hearts and minds. Anger, by comparison, is a crude instrument, useful only for a limited set of circumstances.

Now the men I knew back in the day scorned empathy and understanding and thought such things were feminine and weak. They thought anger was being a man and could not divorce the idea of manliness from violence, vengeance and wrath. A man must avenge every slight to protect his honor. What a weak notion this honor is, then, if it is so fragile. I think now that those men were weak, because they were not willing to try alternative, effective strategies at getting what they want. They were close-minded, petty, and stupid like animals. Anger got them trouble, that is what anger got them. Some slights are not slights, others can be ignored, and still others can be handled with subtlety, in an indirect fashion.

So now I am no more a spirit of fire but one of air, and I aim to be as light as air.

Opacity Bests Candor

Society has for a long time favored opacity over candor, probably to my detriment. I'm expressive and like to share my opinions, for better and sometimes for worse.

Sometimes when people don't agree with you, instead of debating, they look for angles where they can hurt you. They are also less likely to give the benefit of the doubt. I remember an old supervisor that was a conservative Christian. One day a book of hers went missing. I knew she thought I stole it, because the accusation was in her stare and in her entire body language. But in truth I never did steal anything of hers. I was not even aware of that book. It was just another case where prejudice let her to assume that, because I was not a married heterosexual, I must therefore be a thief as well, among other vices. Only as the years went by did she gradually come to accept that I had few vices. I do have a weakness for candy, as she discovered. I think she turned around and accepted that I was a moral being. But one never knows. That is only a hunch.

The media raked gays over the coals for criticizing Mozilla's choice of CEO, due to his donation to a cause that fights against marriage rights for gays. This was viewed as "hindering freedom of speech" and "undemocratic" and even "not liberal." Sources from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times defended the guy who doesn't want me to be married.

I don't know why. I guess because they think my marriage isn't important. They would care if their marriages were involved, I'm sure.

The media is playing a different tune today regarding an owner of an NBA team whose ex-girlfriend is shopping around a recording she made of a private phone call. Some girlfriend. I think this illustrates the danger of older people pursuing younger lovers. It's a bad idea, about ninety-nine times out of a hundred. There may be exceptions, but not that many, I think.
 
In his private conversation, he expressed racist views. And yes, racism is bad.
 
I think that the difference in the media's reaction between this case and the one involving gays is very telling. On the one hand, a guy wants to interfere in the private lives of gays, and donates $1,000 to that end, as a matter of public record. On the other hand, a guy expresses his racism to his girlfriend in what he thought was a private conversation, and he should be forced to sell his team because of that. This is crazy.

I probably wouldn't want to know Sterling's opinions on gays. I would imagine they are just as negative as his opinions on blacks. The manner in which his views became public seems underhanded. If everyone's thoughts became known, I think no one could ever get along, because offensive thoughts occur to everyone at some time or another.

People need to be very careful what they say over the telephone nowadays. I bet the only reason Sterling was ensnared is because he's a clueless old man who hasn't updated his knowledge of technology, let alone his understanding of culture. He's still living in the 1950's. My preference would be to let him be unless he really does something, like donate money to a racist organization or say something on the record.

I have known racist old folks in my day. They are not going to learn a lesson or improve or change. I don't think there is value to be gained in digging them out of the woodwork and trying to punish them or make an example out of them. They may even win sympathy based upon poor health and poor mental status. Sterling was stupid but ultimately, his private chat only harmed his own interests, not those of anyone else.

TIME Magazine Kisses the Koch Brothers' Behinds

The latest issue of TIME (May 5th/12th, 2014) includes a puff piece praising the Koch brothers as "patriots" who apparently crap gold bricks and wear halos twenty-four hours a day while flying around the country solving crime. That's the issue that motivated me to call up and cancel my subscription.

I've always hated TIME, and I don't know why it started showing up in my mailbox again, but I do plan to call in and cancel whatever subscription someone gave me. If it is free, I still want to cancel, because I do want their subscriber base to be reduced by one.

TIME offers right-wing propaganda, advertising disguised as news, and pure poppycock. It is pure garbage and never spends more than a few moments in my possession before winding up in the proper receptacle.

Justice: Hire More Geeks

+1 to the American justice system for being pretty fair, although biased toward the rich like everything else.

-1 to the American justice system for being slow as molasses and inefficient.

I drove a hundred miles and spent six hours in court today just to get a chance to present documentation that proved that I was innocent of a misdemeanor charge, as indeed I was. By twiddling my thumbs for six hours, I saved about $130. Was it worth my time? Yes, based upon my current income. Could I have improved the efficiency of the courtroom? Yes, by thinking about their problem of chronic inefficiency for a single day, I could have made changes that would have increased their processing speed 500 - 1000% at little or no cost. I saw a lot of court employees, about ten as a matter of fact, standing around doing little or nothing but looking bored and counting the minutes to quitting time. Those cannot be happy employees, because time slows down when one has nothing to do. Employees generally prefer to be doing something productive with their time, or at least that is my general impression. They could have been busy gathering information from people. Simple communication with defendants would reduce waiting time dramatically and allow the court employees to go home earlier. I do not know why I had to appear in court to begin with. I could have faxed or emailed my documentation to court employees and saved myself a trip, if they had offered that option. But the court system has remained about fifty years behind the times for no reason other than mere incompetence on the part of the people running the system. This has to be the fault of the Republicans, who are always cutting budgets and never willing to invest a penny in government. Since poor people are the main ones to wind up in the court system, the Republicans let the court system rot from neglect, because they hate the poor.

The judge played a video with a speech by another judge that said there would be no negotiation of fines, which means no mercy for the poor, many of whom paid fines of over $400 for such offences as "improperly equipped vehicle," whatever that means.

About two hours after I took my seat, a guy dressed in an expensive suit walked into court. He looked like either a lawyer or a politician. I sat on the front row and watched him carefully. He breezed past the clerks and court officers and talked with the solicitor without waiting his turn. It was obvious he was connected. The judge heard him next and began speaking in a very soft tone, but I heard enough. "I'm sorry to meet you under these circumstances," the judge said, before shaking hands with the defendant. He pled guilty to the same offence I waited six hours to prove myself innocent of. Instead of paying $130 like everybody else, he paid half that amount. Then he said bye-bye to the judge and walked out. No wait or worry for Mr. Expensive Suit. Everybody else, that is, those who have to work for a living, had to sacrifice the mandatory 6 to 9 hours of time, whether guilty or innocent, and pay the full fine if guilty.

Weed and Heart Health

Recent media reports link marijuana use with cardiovascular disturbances. NORML exposed this media brouhaha for what it was, much ado over nothing. The media will go out of its way to print anything to make marijuana look bad. It reminds me of the day when the newspapers printed lies against gays. It is because of ignorance and the presence of an agenda among the media owners.

However, I have found that cannabis does increase heartbeat. The same holds true for coffee or any substance with caffeine. Too much can cause accelerated heartbeat and other problems. Too much marijuana, or rather too much of the active ingredient, THC, can have a similar effect. Moderation in all things is key. Some people, especially those with addictive personalities, have trouble moderating their intake of substances. They suppose that if a little bit is good, then a lot is going to be great, but that is not necessarily the case.

I secretly dreaded the mainstreaming of marijuana, because I felt that there would be reports of addictive people overindulging in marijuana, as so many other substances are overindulged in. There are countless cases of people drinking themselves to death, overdosing on pills, and the list goes on, and as marijuana increasingly becomes legal and prescribed medicine, there will be cases of people misusing that substance as well. It seems everything under the Sun, some humans find a way to misuse, and then there are people who want to pass a law to ensure they don't misuse, and then some people break that law, and a whole cycle of non-productive nonsense and craziness ensues.

No substance is without potential and theoretical danger. Too much of anything tends to be harmful. I am a bit suspicious of the media's motives in pointing out rather obvious "pitfalls" in marijuana. If one sits on a bale of marijuana and lights it up, then one will burn to death. If one were force-fed a kilogram of dry marijuana, one would suffocate. If one smoked reefers nonstop for twenty-four hours, probably ill effects would arise there as well. These things are rather obvious. There is an expectation in our society that an adult will exercise a certain amount of common sense and not engage in foolish, ill-advised actions.

If one is unfamiliar with a substance, then it is a good idea to expose oneself to it gradually in small amounts. One should be aware of potential side effects and learn methods of countering them. By the same token, doctors prescribe small amounts of opiates to new patients, only ramping up after the patient grows accustomed to the drug. Certainly no one maintains that marijuana is worse for heart function than opiates, which can stop a beating heart! Indeed, one popular method of suicide is to overdose on opiates. Marijuana is scorned by suicides, because it has no ability to kill.

Where marijuana is concerned, the occasional "bad trip" can be countered by eating. I think the increase in appetite is the body's way of countering the influence of marijuana, and the more one eats, the less "high" one feels. Drinking water also helps. Some bad trips can simply be slept off. I have had many bad trips in my day, usually of the paranoid variety, because I am the type of person who analyzes, which is to say I'm a worrier, which made me a rather good engineer, because I anticipate problems rather than waiting for them to pop up. Marijuana offers a journey into the shadow world of the spirit. Bad trips are not without merit. Sometimes a bad trip accompanies an insight, a moral lesson that otherwise may not be received. Sometimes I view an unpleasant experience as divine direction to cease use, to go on a vacation from marijuana for a period. I am a strong believer in periods of abstinence and clarity. I like to emerge and reattach to the material world and feel its intensity all anew.

Doctors Have It Rough

I read today that the Afghan security guard who killed three American doctors went into surgery at the same facility after the shoot-out. I imagine the dead doctors' colleagues were the ones who fixed him up. What a rough job that must be, psychologically. On the one hand, it is only human nature to want to strangle the guy that killed your friends (or even coworkers/acquaintances). On the other hand, doctors swear the Hippocratic Oath and must treat good and bad alike.

I really cannot relate with the Taliban. They seem determined to project an image of absolute evil. Targeting doctors is weak, barbaric, and the list of negative adjectives goes on without end. The last person that should ever be targeted in any conflict is medical staff. They are the caregivers to humankind.

If the Taliban had the sense God gave a goose, they'd buckle down and try to rebuild their country instead of fighting a pointless war trying to turn back the clock to the Middle Ages.

On the other hand, it may be that just enough Afghans are so foolish they actually support the Taliban and that the Taliban will one day return to power. That may be the case. Afghanistan may be the designated septic tank of the world where all the bad things happen. But should we be pouring a lot of money into that place? No. Money down the drain.

A Choice of Political Parties for Gays

Yes, Republicans, it would be nice as a gay person to have a choice of political party. For my whole life, I've felt like I did not have a choice. I had to vote Democrat, because Republicans were always against the gays and said a lot of ignorant nonsense. Just look up Jesse Helms if you want to see what gays of my generation encountered from the Republican party. What hateful things that man said about things he did not understand!

If Republicans change and become inclusive of gay people, I will continue voting Democrat, because I'm a liberal anyway. But that is not the case with all gays, so the Republicans stand to pick up some support here and there. Perhaps some gays won't bother going to the polls if both parties are gay-friendly. I would estimate about one in five gays would vote Republican if they felt like they weren't voting against their own interests. Gays tend to be more liberal due to our minority, outsider status, or maybe we just have found friendlier folks among the liberals. I relate more to liberal positions, because they seem based more upon reason and compassion, two values that I hold dear to my heart. Reason leads to compassion, because compassion has many benefits, some obvious and some subtle.

A Planned Departure

An elderly man's meticulously planned suicide almost went OK, but the one area where he erred was in using a substance that alarmed the first responders and his neighbors. I am not really familiar with substances like potassium cyanide, but it may be that there was concern over the fumes. Of course, using poison is better than using a firearm, the typical choice for men, because after a bullet exits a gun, there's no telling where it might ricochet, and the mess is unpleasant, not something anyone should be forced to clean up. Personally, I think the man made a creative political statement as his last act. It was creative in the sense he took precautions not to harm anyone and did not harm anyone besides himself. He must have had a flair for the dramatic. It is a very unusual case.

Former Justice Stevens

Former Supreme Court Justice Stevens, now 94, had a good interview with PBS recently. I agree with his proposals, at least to the extent he described them.