Carl Sagan: The Pale Blue Dot

Democrats are the new Republicans

Bill Maher (after the short intro) takes on the Democrats:



I voted for Nader for a reason.

New York Gay Marriage

Obama - The New Militant President

Maddow calls the Obama Adminstration on their Iraq plan:



I caught so much crap for voting Nader, knowing this was going to happen, and now its proving that I'm right. "Change" my ass.

Mumia Abu Jamal - Obama, Change, and the Shade of Politics

Rights and responsibilities.

Alot of us do an awful lot of bitching about our "rights". If you know me, you certainly know my complaints about the violations of our rights that are guaranteed in the first ten Amendments to the Contitution, not to mention other rights that aren't even labeled as "rights" (for example, the right to adequate housing, and the right to healthcare). Though, I've quickly begun coming to a revelation on the idea of "rights", and the nature of our entitlements to them.

Alot of people get up in arms about their "rights" being violated. People expect the government and society owes them. And while society does owe us a fair amount of liberties and entitlements, this certainly does come with a cost. We owe society the fulfillment of our responsibilities, if we really are in a position where we have the entitlement to bitch about our rights. Responsibilities most of us irresonsibly and immorally try to skate out of while still feeling we are in a position to complain about how society doesn't provide us what it should.

For example, many people I've talked to, myself included, have made comments in the past about jury duty. How, "well, if you fabricate some rediculous racist/idiotic/arrogant opinion, you won't be selected". Now, if I feel entitled to vote, do I not also owe the responsibilities which pay for a free society? In this case, a fair trial based on a jury of our peers?

That example, while applying to numerous people, also doesn't include many others. Here's a question - what do you do to improve your community? Words carry weight, certainly, but aren't comparable to action. With so much focus on rights in our society - how many of us focus on our responsibilities to it?

I'm going to admit I'm just as guilty as many other people. I live in my own sheltered, boxed in, individual world. When it comes to engaging in my community and trying to make it a better place, I fail miserably. And with this revelation, I plan on swiftly changing that.

Nearly ALL of us are in a position where we can do something to improve the community. Whether it be volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, or the simpler things, shoveling our neighbors sidewalk simply because its the right thing to do. Even if it means giving a fraction of our "blow on entertainment" money to those less fortunate, if we have that money, we have the responsibility to use whatever means we have.

At this juncture - there is WAY too much talk about rights, and not NEARLY enough about responsibilities. If you are in a position where you can do anything to improve the lives of others or provide SOME level of uplift to the world around you, and you aren't, you have no right to bitch. Period. I haven't been, so I am not trying to hold myself on some high horse and look down upon anyone else. But I am going to make the changes necessary. I have to, as do most of us.

We can not expect our society and institutions to provide us with a just world when we do not work to contribute to it ourselves.

This is piss.

This is piss. On the sidewalk of Front St, in Binghamton, right across from the high school.

It isn't my piss. Sorry to let you down. And surprise you.

No, I was walking back to my car today, it was shortly after three. About thirty to fourty feet in front of me scuffled an obviously homeless woman. She was quite overweight, wearing horribly raggedy clothes and hopelessly carrying a plastic bag. She was wearing some kind of skirt that would be more appropriate for a peasant in Soviet Russia. It probably hadn't been washed since that regime fell. Suddenly, she slowly crouched backward. Now, I think I knew deep down what was about to happen, but I wasn't quite ready to assess the situation as being such. But really, I didn't have much time to think about it.

Suddenly, I heard the distinct sound of trickling piss smack against the sidewalk. The sound was much more distinct than the visual, it being either my unperfect vision or the fact that it was a thin stream of piss. Regardless, it stopped me in my tracks. Some of the more absurd or less than usual yet unimportant things in life are usually the ones that really make you stop to contemplate.

A few questions came to my head. Is this woman mentally ill? Well, I would assume so. Homeless or not, mentally stable people at least piss in privacy. Why isn't she getting mental health services? I'm going to guess shes obviously not on some kind of government aid, such as Medicaid, nor engaged with the Broome County Mental Health Department. She's probably not with it enough to go for that herself. Why is this happening? Well, I think this is the big question. I'm not asking "why is she pissing," biology isn't relevant to this commentary. But why is it possible, in the richest nation in human history, that we have mentally ill people pissing in the street and nothing is really being done about the more general and real condition that women and men like this lady face?

I could say that the sole issue is that our economic structure and institutions need to be radically changed, and from my own perspective, I'm obviously right. But there is a deeper moral conundrum here. The social moral decay which, without its foundations, absolutely no social structure can truly work. But thats for another post. But a world of great wealth that allows the sick to wander aimlessly without a home, pissing on sidwalks, is a world in moral decay.

We all need to do what I've done here - ask questions. I need to ask more questions. We need to let ourselves become far more disturbed by these kinds of things, and apply it to a burning desire... a necessity within ourselves to radically change the world into one where nobody suffers where they don't have to. Where people aren't homeless. Especially where unloved and mentally ill people aren't pissing on the street with nothing being done to help them.

Today, I saw a homeless lady piss on the sidewalk. It says everything about the world around me.