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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
"JAFBG" | Prompt ▼ While I do understand and appreciate the power of collective action, I'm not one of those people who thinks that climate change can be combatted by individual households giving up single-use plastic drinking straws, or using reusable shopping bags only, or going vegan. I think meaningful change to climate policy is going to have to come from high-level changes from large corporations and governments. That, unfortunately, is an opinion that a whole lot of people use to justify doing nothing, so I'm going to still try to attempt to answer the question of what I individually would be willing to give up when I don't think it's necessarily individual choices that will make the most difference. The two biggest things I can think of giving up would be, depending on the consumer good, low prices and/or convenience. The meat industry is a great example of one where I don't think personal choices (individuals not eating meat) make much difference but the industry as a whole is a major contributor to climate change (not to mention animal cruelty) due to current production standards which emphasize a cheap product over anything else. I would be willing to pay significantly more for meat if it meant changing the industry in a way where meat production was sustainable, environmentally friendly, and cruelty-free. I'd also be open to consuming meat alternatives more often if it meant combatting climate change. If we were in a world where a hamburger cost $20 instead of $5, I would consider that a reasonable tradeoff for making that industry greener and more forward-thinking. I realize the "It's fine, I'll just pay more" rationale is one that comes from a place of great privilege though, so I would also be willing to give up my greatest resource (time) if it meant better climate outcomes. Earlier this month, I read a Wall Street Journal article by Life & Work reporter Rachel Wolfe entitled "I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping ," which chronicled her drive from New Orleans to Chicago using an electric-only EV. Her big takeaway from that experience was that the EV was cheaper (she spent $175 on charging and would have spent an estimated $275 on gas with a traditional gas-powered vehicle), but the lack of EV charging infrastructure along the way meant that they spent a lot of time sitting around waiting for their car to charge.If I'm being completely honest, that's why the last car I bought (back in 2015) was a hybrid rather that a fully-electric EV. I was concerned that it would be a challenge to find charging stations and that would make the car impractical for long trips. I specifically drive from Orange County to Sacramento (a 500-mile drive) to visit family a few times a year, and the idea of stopping four or five times to charge the car for a couple hours at a time seems like a nightmare. That would turn a seven-ish hour drive into a literal all-day affair and, if you've ever been to central California, you know there's not a lot to see between Los Angeles and Sacramento!). But as climate change worsens and I see what little is being done about it, I really do think our next vehicle purchase will be an EV. Not just because battery technology and charging stations are getting better and better every year, but because - at this point - I'm prepared the take on the inconvenience of the EV charging grid if it means getting us farther away from our reliance on fossil fuels and the massive damage to the climate that the non-renewable energy industry is causing. |
Like a lot of people, I've been experiencing a lot of grief, anger, and frustration at what's been going on in our country over the last couple of weeks. And not just the wildly hypocritical decisions coming out of the increasingly politicized Supreme Court (we can tell state legislatures that they can't regulate guns but who are we to say that they can't regulate abortion?), but the fact that it seems like both sides of the aisle in state and federal governments seem oblivious to what everyday people are going through. One of our political parties seems to be increasingly hostile to generational concerns like income inequality and climate change and social justice, while the other seems to be weak and ineffectual whenever they do have the opportunity to make progress. I'm disillusioned with the system, but there has already been plenty of writing about current events. And as a financially comfortable white male in a progressive state, my opinions and perspectives aren't one that we need to be listening to right now. But I'm a writer, and the way I process the world around me is to write. So I thought it would be an interesting exercise to spend a little bit of time imagining what an effective system of government might look like. For this exercise, I'm going to take the three-branch governmental structure we currently have and pretend like I have the sole authority to modify it to my heart's content. If you're so inclined, give my fantasy government a read and let me know what you think! THE JUDICIAL BRANCH We'll start with the one that's been the most newsworthy lately. One of the biggest issues I have with the Supreme Court is how politicized it's become. I don't think anyone can seriously make a claim that this is a branch of government free from politics when every single vacancy itself has now become an openly political act. Lists of acceptable nominees by partisan organizations, vacancies held open (or rushed through) depending on which party is in power at the time, televised hearings packed with more drama than Court TV. The courts aren't impartial bodies anymore. One of the suggestions I really like on how to reform the Supreme Court was to take away the "celebrity" of SCOTUS justices, where so much is determined by the personalty and temperament of the individual justices. We could do that by expanding the Supreme Court (which is not the same thing as court packing, BTW) to include, say, all of the roughly 180 circuit court judges, with nine being "called up" to serve as SCOTUS justices on a decision-by-decision basis. So instead of the same nine people deciding every single legal decision that comes to the highest court, it's instead decided by a larger pool of judges and no one necessarily knows who will get assigned to what case. I'd also impose term limits on judges. Rather than lifetime appointments, I'd limit them to ten-year terms so that so much doesn't ride on who's in the White House at any given time; the entire judiciary in the above example (or even just the nine justices in SCOTUS' current form) would rotate out on a predicable schedule so every president had the opportunity to appoint the same number of vacancies (barring any deaths or retirements). I think both components above would have the effect of lowering the temperature on the winner-takes-all approach to nominating justices that we currently have, and all the politics surrounding who gets nominated and when. I think it would bring us back to a closer approximation of what this branch was intended to do, which is to make assessments on the specific legal merits of specific cases. THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH Term limits here too. I think five terms for the House (ten years total) and two terms max (twelve years total) for the Senate. I get the benefits of experience and wanting good people to stay, but our system has repeatedly shown that it entrenches power and enriches individuals more than anything. If you want to stay in public service, find a new way to do it after a decade. I would also reform campaign finance so that it's publicly funded. Give each candidate in a race the same amount of money and the same media access, so that elections aren't decided by who can raise and spend the most, and so that elected officials don't have to spend so much of their time raising money for their next election. Let them focus on doing their job rather than keeping their job. I'd give representation to all major U.S. territories and jurisdictions: DC, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They're affected by things our legislature does, so they should have a voice in said legislature. And with regards to the Senate, in particular, I would abolish the filibuster for the simple reason that I don't think the minority party should be able to prevent the majority, on a consistent basis, from enacting legislation. The filibuster has basically ensured that nothing ever gets done and although abolishing it would probably create a pendulum effect with legislation being enacted by one party and repealed by another, let that process play out (and all of its resulting effects on future elections) rather than having a legislature that barely does anything because partisanship means almost never getting 60% of the senators to agree on anything substantive. THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH Say goodbye to the Electoral College. It served a purpose, for a time, but in this day and age there's no reason why the popular vote shouldn't determine the outcome of an election, especially one as consequential as a Presidential election. If you're running for president and more people vote for you than your opponent, you should win regardless of which state your voters happen to live in. I would also codify all the norms into law. If the Trump presidency taught us anything, it's just how much of our expectations of the nation's chief executive are not actually a matter of law but just norms and best practices. Pass actual laws and assign criminal penalties to things like destroying presidential records, violating the Hatch Act, the peaceful transition of power, etc. OTHER RANDOM THINGS While I'm playing around with omnipotence, a few other odds and ends:  North Dakota and South Dakota are hereby a single state known simply as "Dakota." The two states combined have fewer people than the city of Phoenix, Arizona; they don't need four senators. In general, I think we need to look at the way our states (and territories, see above) are represented. The idea of an equal number of senators per state was a good idea at the time it was conceived, but I don't think the founding fathers ever imagined we would have a system where states like California (40 million residents) and Texas (30 million residents) have the exact same representation in the Senate as Wyoming (600,000 residents) and Vermont (650,000 residents). I would be fine with a more conservative-leaning judiciary if we could have a more progressive legislature. The idea of a legislature passing laws and reaching forward and pressing boundaries that are then guided and occasionally reigned in by a judiciary that is looking to temper extremism is a dynamic that would work better for progress as a whole, I think, than a conservative legislature who is trying to restrict progress, and an "activist" judiciary that's rebelling against that. Make laws that are then tempered by legal action, rather than taking legal action to push forward an issue that no one will agree to make a law about. Get rid of the debt ceiling and invest in this country again. There is very little economic research to support the idea that federal debt works in the same way as a household checkbook (a favorite comparison for many) or even state budget (which has to be balanced every year) works. With the obvious caveat that we shouldn't spend irresponsibly, we're too skittish about spending money in general, especially on things like new technology, infrastructure, education, etc. that will pay dividends later. If the federal deficit increases in the name of making meaningful, noticeable improvements to this country and the lives of its citizens, it's money well spent.Anyway, that's some random thoughts on things I think might start to improve our system of government and start making it work more in the interests of the people than in the interests of perpetuating the system that's already in power. I'm sure this will be a controversial blog post, so I'm interested to see who agrees, disagrees, and has other thoughts on what they'd like to see happen if they got to hold the omnipotence wand for a while. |
"Take up Your Cross" | Prompt ▼ 1. The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) This parable about a Jewish traveler who is robbed, beaten, and abandoned on the side of the road being overlooked by others until a Samaritan (someone who's supposed to hate them) stops and helps him is the first Bible story that hit two different keynotes for me. The first is that this is the first passage I read that really resonated with me while I was still exploring my faith. I came to faith later in life and after a whole lot of skepticism about what the Christian faith is really concerned with. This was the first Bible passage I read where I thought, "Yes! This is what it's supposed to be! This is what I believe too!" The second is that it's the first passage that I really came to understand in different ways, and gave me an appreciation for the nuance and subtext of the Bible. On the surface level, it's a story Jesus tells his disciples to point out that the key to the "love your neighbors" commandment is to offer kindness to everyone, even those you don't like. But many pastors have also pointed out that it's a metaphor for the Christian life, where we're all the traveler on the side of the road, beaten and broken, and Jesus is the Good Samaritan who stops and, out of nothing but his abundant love, takes mercy on us even if we don't deserve it. This is the first passage where I thought about the different dimensions to it. 2. The Beginning (Genesis 1:1-2:3) I find the creation myth endlessly fascinating for many reason, not the least of which is who was witness to this process? It's also super interesting how different people have interpreted the timeline in this creation myth. Literalists will tell you that the timelines provided in the Bible mean that the universe is only about 6,000 years old, a premise which is mercilessly mocked by nonbelievers. Others will tell you that the language is meant to be metaphorical and God's "days" are in fact much longer we understand a "day" to be. So on the "third day" when He created land and seas and vegetation it wasn't over a 24-hour period, but could have instead been millennia, or eons. The pastor at much church actually mentioned this Bible story in a recent sermon and said something that struck me as really interesting. He said, "Science and the Bible aren't necessarily incompatible. Science will tell you that the universe started with a 'big bang' and Christians don't necessarily have any basis to dispute that... we just believe the 'big bang' was God saying 'let there be light'." 3. The Book of Job (Job 1:1-42:6) This Bible story is fresh in my mind because we were just discussing it in my Bible study group a couple weeks ago, and I'm consistently amazed at how complex this story is. There's the obvious message of consistent faith in God despite adversity, but there's so much more to unpack here. It's evidence that God and Satan aren't equal and opposite forces (Satan has to get permission from God to torment Job, he can't do it on his own), and it also raises a ton of questions about why a kind and loving God would allow Satan to torment one of his believers. It's a fascinating book that is packed full of more questions than answers, so it's been one of my favorite books of the Bible to look to time and again when I want to do some deep thinking about the nature of God, the world, etc. God is an infinitely complicated being that we can't even begin to fully comprehend and this Bible story is a frequent reminder that there are some things that will always be beyond our limited understanding. |
"JAFBG" | Prompt ▼ I'm really conflicted on this issue, and it stems from a conversation that my brother and I had. He asked me one time what the process was like to get certified as a foster caregiver/guardian in order to adopt our kids, and I was telling him about how we had to take a number of classes (about both requirements for foster parents and general child development to be aware of what foster kids placed with you might be going through), a social worker regularly coming out to check our home for safety concerns (cleaning products and sharp objects and alcohol locked up, child safety products like gates on stairwells and electrical outlet covers, etc.), a thorough vetting of our psychological and financial fitness to be parents, and a regular schedule of health evaluations, all meticulously documented. I then asked my brother how all that compared to having his biological kids, my two nieces, and he goes, "Wow, nothing like that. At the hospital we had the baby and they basically checked to make sure the baby was viable, then they handed 'em to us and sent us on our way." Since that conversation, I've often debated with myself about the right amount of parenting preparedness. Having been through the foster-to-adopt process, although I can definitely see the need for some initial safeguards and checks, the process is extremely onerous. That said, a lot of that process prepared us really well to care for our kids, and the idea of having a biological kid in a hospital and them just handing you the kid at some point after a few hours or days of observation and going, "Good luck!" seems crazy irresponsible, and I wonder if there shouldn't be just a little more proactive double-checking to make sure kids are going into safe environments with responsible parents. I'm hesitant to support the idea of licensing for parents because I generally don't like the idea of government deciding who does and does not deserve to be parents, or having any say in that process. But I do sometimes wonder if a simple administrative step would be helpful. There are lots of questions of infrastructure and reporting to be able to handle it, but what if there were a simple evaluation process for expecting couples where a social worker stopped by for a chat, took a look at the home, and had a conversation with the parents about basic fundamentals like providing for the child's needs and making sure they're mentally prepared for how their lives will change. For everyone that seems like they've got a handle on it, great... you check the box on the form and move on with your lives. But if the social worker had any specific concerns out of that meeting, they could recommend some of the steps we had to take as foster parents, to work with someone to establish healthy habits or discuss other options in advance of the child being brought into the world. It's one of those things that many people, especially Americans, react poorly to almost immediately... the idea of government reaching into our lives and "taking away" something we previously had the freedom to do without any oversight at all. But given all the atrocities in the foster care system today, which is to say nothing of the atrocities in private homes that don't even get brought to the attention of social services, I can't help but wonder if maybe a teensy bit of mild oversight would have a preventative effect on a lot of our current problems. I dunno... it seems to me like there has to be a sensible middle ground between, "We're going to watch you like a hawk every minute of this child's life" and "Your baby is two days old, we're discharging you from the hospital and wish you the best of luck over the next 18+ years!"  |
"JAFBG" | Prompt ▼ I would 100% shelter a refugee in my home, no question. I can't imagine a scenario where, generally speaking, my answer to the question of, "Would you help someone in need?" would be, "I don't think so, no." That said, the circumstances would definitely play a big part in what specific way I thought I would best be able to help and it's not a one-size fits all problem, so the second two questions in this prompt are critical. What factors would you have to consider? My family lives in a townhouse, and with two kids running around, space always seems to be in short supply. The needs of the prospective refugee(s) would have to be a factor. Is it a single person? Is it a family? Would they be comfortable in a small room that doubles as an office, even if we moved the office stuff out? Would my kids have to share a room in order for everyone to have the space they need? Timeframe would also be a consideration. Is this for a limited amount of time while they work through a more formal resettlement process? Do they need a permanent new residence? The biggest considerations I'd have to make are mostly logistical, making sure that the space we have to offer is a good fit for their needs and something that my family could work with for however long was needed. What might make you say no? Obviously the biggest red flag would be anything that might put my own family at risk. If the refugee were some sort of a violent criminal, or was the subject of active pursuit where there was a chance my family would be in danger. That would be a nonstarter. Another would obviously be a scenario where we just couldn't make the logistics work. I would probably also say no in cases where, more generally, actually living with us in Southern California wasn't an ideal situation... like if we were only taking one family member while the others were in different cities or states. Or where someone needed permanent resettlement. In cases like those, I would probably be more inclined to help in other ways, by finding acquaintances with the appropriate accommodations, or helping them financially or otherwise to get set up for success on their own. I suppose the TL;DR version of this blog post is that I can't think of very many scenarios in which I wouldn't absolutely help a refugee in need. But there would be some real questions about whether staying with us would be the best thing for all involved. But would I hesitate to give someone in need a place to stay if it were in my power to do so and they needed one? Absolutely not. Refugee crises are only going to increase in the coming decades and I think it's a moral obligation of every human being to help other humans in need. If we were being displaced from our own home country for some reason, we would want to be able to rely on the kindness, compassion, and generosity of someone in another country to help us resettle. The least any of us can do is extend that courtesy to someone else. |
Explainer ▼ Movies  The Muppets (2011) Muppets Most Wanted Snake EyesTelevision  Barry (Seasons 2 & 3) Bosch: Legacy (Season 1) The Boys (Season 1) Ms. MarvelFor some reason, I had never gotten around to watching the two most recent Muppets movies until now. We watched them last weekend with the kids and I was shocked at how funny they were. Not just kid humor, but tons of inside jokes about show business that are meant for grown-ups. As cheesy as the movies are, they were genuinely fun and I find myself wanting to revisit a bunch of the other Muppets properties with the kids that have been created over the years. Snake Eyes, on the other hand, is yet another entry in the "nobody knows how to make a good G.I. Joe movie" genre. If you're familiar with the property, Snake Eyes is the good ninja that works for the Joes. Storm Shadow is the evil ninja that works for COBRA. And somehow, inexplicably, they made this a movie where Snake Eyes is a complete garbage person who is welcomed in by Storm Shadow, treated like a brother, and betrays him at every single step along the way. By the end of the movie, Snake Eyes has basically taken Storm Shadow's place in his own family, and when he stalks off and joins COBRA it's kind of like, "Yeah, no wonder why." Also, Henry Golding may be pretty to look at, but he's clearly terrible at stunts and fight training.  On the television front, I watched our new series Ms. Marvel that comes out in June, as well as the new Bosch: Legacy spinoff series which I love, don't get me wrong (because the original Amazon Prime series is great), but for the life of me I can't figure out why they made it. It was made for Freevee, a streaming service that used to be IMDb TV which is owned by... Amazon. So Amazon basically has a completely secondary streaming service for which they're... creating new spinoff shows based on shows Amazon Prime itself has canceled. I finally got caught up on Barry which is excellent (although Season 3 takes a real turn in a lot of ways and it's a little jarring compared to what came in the two seasons before), and I fell in love with The Boys which is an irreverent take on superheroes (specifically super teams like the Justice League) and what would happen in a world where they're complete assholes, narcissists, and have the same mental problems the rest of us have. Honestly, if you're at all a fan of superhero fare and you don't mind a darker twist on in, this is a great show that turns a lot of tropes on their head. It's delightfully dark and twisted.  TOP PICK: The Boys |
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