Thought for the day

Concrete workers of the world, hear me: you must reduce your expansion gaps by a few millimeters. The current distance between slabs seems to be exactly equal to the diameter of the average cigarette filter, thus ensuring that every discarded butt in creation ends up permanently wedged in my sidewalk.

Thoughts on pessimism

My mother gave me a magazine article today, detailing the bad things that can happen to pessimistic people. I steeled myself, took a deep breath, and tried to take it seriously. As it happens, the reason that she gave me article in the first place is that I am, by nature, rather prone to a negative outlook, and tend to be dismissive of anyone who tells me anything thematically close to “cheer up”.

In fact, this particular article wasn’t the syrupy-sweet fluff piece I feared; it simply presented statistics and medical opinions about the long-term consequences of a grim worldview. I was mildly impressed: I didn’t find anything immediately annoying about the article.

Of course, I couldn’t just smile and get happy, either. A few minutes after reading, my most powerful impression was this:

FROM THE ARTICLE (paraphrasing): Pessimistic people tend to think that all problems are permanent, and give up too easily.

MY RESPONSE: You know who else thinks problems are permanent? People who have legitimately permanent problems, and have accurately assessed their circumstances. A young telegraph operator in the 1980’s, for example, shouldn’t be called a quitter or pessimistic for examining the marketplace and deciding that his chosen field is doomed– quite the contrary; he’d be a fool to “tough it out” and “fight the good fight” in a dying industry.

Too many “every cloud has a silver lining” types cry pessimism at the first hint of a non-positive observation. To them, I say this: a negative statement is only pessimism if it is ill-considered, wrong, and unhelpful. If I tell you something unpleasant, it’s very probably something I feel is both important and true; I’m seriously not trying to be a dick.

(Okay, sometimes I am trying to be a dick. That’s probably your fault for goading me into it.)

(PODCAST) Episode 1 Now Available!

Episode 1 of the X-Ray Visions Podcast is now available for download:

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IN THIS EPISODE: Introduction to the X-Ray Visions Podcast / Car Horns ≠ Social Tools /  On Ogrish Poetry / Rights As Wrongs / Excerpts From the Book of Surliness / What’s In a Name? Pure Evil. / Degrees of Conceit / The Postmaster’s Door

CONTENT ADVISORY: This podcast, much like this blog, contains some strong language. On the off chance that your kids would want to listen to something like this… well, don’t let them. If they insist that they can’t get along in life without the half-crazed ramblings of a middle-aged Ohioan in their earbuds, the clean version bleeps out most of the naughty words (though it’s that half-bleeping, like South Park does, where you hear “f(BLEEP)ck” and can sort of guess what’s in the middle).

If you’re not yet acquainted, this program is, in essence, me reading some of (what I feel are) the more compelling posts from this blog, along with some new, previously unpublished, material. I must say: as strange as it is to reread some of the stuff I’ve written, it’s even more unusual to hear my own voice reading it back.

Special thanks to Atticus Hyde for loaning me some of their original music for the show.

What’s In a Name? Pure Evil.

When I’m Supreme Ruler of All I Survey, the first thing I’ll do is confiscate a great deal of wealth for my own personal pleasure. (I’d like to pretend I’m a better person than this, but hey, I’m Supreme Ruler and that means perks, baby.) Some time shortly thereafter, I’ll get down to the business of making everybody’s lives much better with my second order of business: I shall forbid congress to name their bills.

No names, not ever. Date-time stamp them (“House Bill 200802131306″), or assign them ascending prime numbers (“Senate Bill 6637″), or maybe even just use whatever numbering system you already have in place, but don’t tack on any helpful descriptions, thank you very much. I don’t care if that makes individual pieces of legislation difficult to distinguish; every last one of you congressional types have laptops and assistants and freaking pens and paper, so take some notes and sort it out.

The problem with giving bills nicknames is that politicians, clever and resourceful creatures that they are, have a talent for naming their bills in a manner that makes other politicians look like assholes for voting them down:

…You don’t want military recruiters to have greater access to our children and their personal information? That’s all well and good, but you’ll have to vote against the No Child Left Behind Act… and that makes you a bad person who wants to leave children behind. Look, voters: see those children wandering around the parking lot, panicked and crying? It’s ’cause this guy voted to leave them behind!

…Want to prevent potentially abusive wiretapping of American citizens? All right, but that makes you an opponent of the Patriot Act, not to mention the Protect America Act. That’s right: I said you’re anti-patriotic person who wants to leave Americans unprotected, you damn dirty commie!

…You think restrictions on firearms infringe on important constitutional rights? Well, that’s your opinion, but I hope you’re prepared to vote down the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Of course, a “no” vote on this means you A) absolutely adore handgun violence, and B) think that Jim Brady deserves to be confined to a wheelchair. You just hate cripples, don’t you?

If bills were designated only by ugly chunks of nondescriptive text, legislators and their constituents wouldn’t get hung up on the emotional baggage of words like “Children” and “Protect” and “Freedom” and “Puppies” (you do remember the “Vote For This Or You Hate Little Puppies Act” of 1986, don’t you?). Congress could finally debate and vote for bills solely on the content of the proposed law.

(For the record, the last law with a name would be the “Okay, I Officially Declare An End To Naming Bills, But Not Until After This Bill Is Signed Into Law” law of 2008).

Rights as Wrongs

Pedestrians have the RIGHT of way… but it is WRONG to walk out into traffic. That’s you, (probably young) person casually sauntering through the “DON’T WALK” signal.

You have the RIGHT to voice your opinion… but it is WRONG to call an ugly person ugly to his face, or inform a 300-pound woman that she’s fat. A-hole.

You have the RIGHT to move very slowly, or even stop moving entirely, pretty much whenever and wherever you like. It is WRONG of you to do so in chokepoints that obstruct the movements of others. This means you, old ladies hobbling two and three abreast through narrow grocery store aisles, and you, kids braking in the middle of the road to chat with the (similarly immobile) driver in the next lane.

–Ray

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