Category: Society

NaPoWriMo Day: 14 Common Ground

On By WinstonIn Discrimation, NaPoWriMo, Personal, Personal Responsibility, Society, Values1 Comment

As I sneak up on the midpoint of the NaPoWriMo challenge, I wanted to get a bit more personal again. I’ve been the person who assumed their view was the only one. Fortunately, I’m slowly growing out of it. This poem is about the need to make that change, both as individuals and a society.

Common Ground

When I was young I thought I knew
So much more than I did.
But that is often how it is
When you are just a kid.

As I’ve aged my views have changed
As every viewpoint should.
I’ve learned to see a wider world
I wish more people would.

There’d be less strife, less needless hurt
If we just tried to see.
That person there might have a point
The problem could be me.

So spare a moment and a thought
And take a look around.
For when you open up your mind
You’ll find more common ground.

Cheers, Winston

NaPoWriMo Day: 12 Two Sided Story

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, NaPoWriMo, Politics, Society, Uncategorized, WarfareLeave a comment

I’ve been reading a fair bit about the ongoing drone war controversy. I don’t agree with the idea of murdering people because they might be a threat to your “interests” somewhere down the road. Let’s not kid ourselves. If you kill someone without due process of law, that’s murder. Even more so when the dead are “collateral damage” in something as vague and useless as a “War on Terror”.

So NaPoWriMo Day 12 looks at it from two different perspectives. The receiver is in a normal font. The sender in italics.

Enjoy!

Two Sided Story

I was sitting in a cafe
Somewhere that has no name
Drinking coffee with a good friend
The day the drone strike came.

I was sitting in a soft chair
Away from those I killed
I’d received a big promotion
Because I am so skilled.

Others were there with us that day
A dozen maybe more
When it was done the final count
Survivors, we are four.

It’s not my fault don’t try to blame
Me for the things I hit
I’m not the one who makes those calls
Just try to do my bit.

The smell of blood and burning flesh
Strong as the day they died
It’s never gotten easier
For all the tears I’ve cried.

They say here is your target site
Inside a terrorist
I ask if there are others there
I ask but don’t insist.

There’s some who say I should strike back
A part of me agrees
Yet then I know they’ll have their turn
Then us, like some disease.

Sometimes when I close my eyes
The mangled strangers there
Will reach for me, scream “I accuse!”
Or sometimes they just stare.

I know that some will choose revenge
That is their path to seek.
I choose to walk a different path
Some say this makes me weak.

But still I go to work each day
This is my path in life.
This pain the price I must pay to
Prevent a wider strife.

But I endure still seeking peace
Despite the odds I face.
I still believe in truth and good
And in the human race.

I hope one day that I won’t need
To do these awful things.
I hope we all can be at peace
Enjoy all that it brings.

Cheers, Winston

NaPoWriMo Day: 11 The Gamer

On By WinstonIn Humor, NaPoWriMo, Pop Culture, Society, Uncategorized, Video GamesLeave a comment

As a gamer, it bugs the crap outta me when some people announce that violent games and movies are more to blame than “gun culture” for mass shootings. I live in Canada. That means I’m exposed to all the same violent games and media as my southern neigbours. On the other hand, we experience a tiny fraction of the gun violence. Are we just inherently nicer? I don’t think so. We’re just less inured to the idea that shooting someone is a valid form of conflict resolution.

Today’s NaPoWriMo entry covers my feelings on the subject succinctly… and with a pinch of humour.

Enjoy!

The Gamer

I’ve blown something up again
I’ve crashed another car.
I’ve pulled out both my forty – fives
Shot up a crowded bar.

So now you think I am quite bad
Just rotten to the core.
But wait a sec, don’t judge me yet
There’s more oh so much more.

I’ve stolen cars and driven drunk
Hit people in the street.
The guns and bombs are very fun
But knifing is a treat.

You’re edgy now you back away
But you don’t understand.
All that stuff and more lives in,
Imagination land.

There’s dragons here and UFOs
And Nazis by the score.
There’s gangsters, grifters, cowboys too
And skeletons and more.

I drive a car I’ll never own
And save a galaxy.
I’m someone else with firmer abs
Than mine will ever be.

So blame my games for all your crime
If that’s what helps you sleep.
Just bear in mind that you are wrong
You foolish, foolish sheep.

Cheers, Winston

NaPoWriMo Day:8 Religious Dissenter

On By WinstonIn NaPoWriMo, Personal, Religion, Society, Uncategorized, ValuesLeave a comment

I’ve got a good friend who happens to be gay. He is also one of the finest human beings it has been my privilege to know. He has literally spent his life working to help others. So when I see hear people saying “God hates gays!”, or “Same sex marriage is against God’s law!”, it makes me ill. Then it makes me angry.

For all those bigoted, hateful people…… this one’s for you.

Enjoy!

Religious Dissenter

Who is this “God” whom you declaim
So loudly in the street.?
Where is your proof for all you say?
As you so proudly bleat.

Your “God says so” is such a crock
To everyone but you.
You talk of love but act from fear
In so much that you do.

With every “God hates…” that you speak
You show how wrong you are.
The God I know would surely ask
Just how you fell so far.

You sit and judge when what you quote
Says that is your God’s role.
And anyone who plays at God
Must forfeit their own soul.

But in your mind you have God’s grace
To reinterpret it.
You twist and bend the meaning there
Your “faith” to make it fit.

So keep your “faith” you have that right
But keep it far from me.
There’s too much hate too little love
There’s no God I can see.

Cheers, Winston

You Just Got A Little More Equal. Enjoy.

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, Politics, Society, Uncategorized, Values, WarfareLeave a comment

In a recent story by the Atlantic Wire, Adam Clark Estes raises the alarm over a clause in the drone war policy that allows the U.S. government to kill Americans too. It seems Predator attacks are only fun to watch on CNN when the person on the other end is a foreign national. So now that it’s not just for random others, concerned groups like ACLU are up in arms over it.

The short version, the government has given itself authority to murder anyone

who “presents an imminent threat to the United States.

” They also don’t have to possess evidence that a specific attack against U.S. persons or interests is going to happen in the near future. Basically, if they think you or someone you are associated might at some point take an action which the government feels may pose a threat to the U.S. or its interests, they can send in a drone and blow Uranus halfway to Pluto. Oh yeah… They can also take out anyone near you just for good measure.

Again the irony lies in the fact that the outrage is over the inclusion of American citizens. It’s fine so long as it’s the people of Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, or somewhere in Central America. Once it hits home however, it’s a different story. Then the narrative changes from “Yeah, whatever.”, to “You can’t do that to Americans!”. As though they are somehow special and should be immune to their own peculiar brand of justice.

Well, as my mother was fond of saying when we were kids, “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”. It means if it’s okay to do it to one person, it’s okay to do it to everyone. America tends to talk to other countries about “equality under the law”. Well congrats people. You just got a little more equal. Enjoy.

Cheers, Winston

Psychological Torture For Fun & Profit

On By WinstonIn Bullying, Media, Personal Responsibility, Pop Culture, Psychology, Society, Uncategorized, Values3 Comments

There is a program on A&E called “Beyond Scared Straight”. The premise is as simple as it is ridiculous. Troubled teens are forced to spend a night in an adult prison where it is the job of staff and inmates to abuse and terrify them. This is intended to deter them from their current lifestyle and steer them onto the “straight and narrow”. As part of this “process”, they are hand-cuffed, locked in cells with actual inmates, threatened and verbally abused.

All of this is based on “tough love”. This of course is a misnomer. There is nothing about this which is loving. It is a purely punitive act based not on love, but on fear. The larger issue has to with results. More to the point, the stunning lack of them. “In fact, a Cochrane review — the gold standard for evidence-based medicine — concluded that kids sent to Scared Straight were 68-71% more likely to commit crimes than those randomized to receive no intervention at all.” That quote comes from a recent Time article on the subject.

The truth is, there has not been a single clinical trial that indicated any positive results from any of the tough love style treatments for anything. None. Ever. Never.

Now I’m going out on a limb here and assuming the executives at A&E and the staff behind “Beyond Scared Straight” are not collectively stupid as oak posts. I know it’s a stretch, but I’m going to run with it. Based on that I’m guessing that someone looked at the results of Scared Straight and similar “tough love” programs and saw the massive failure rate. Why then did they go ahead and promote something so clearly delusional, damaging, degrading and downright stupid?

The word you’re looking for is Profit. That’s the motivator for anything that shows up on advertising funded TV. Not that I have anything against A&E making a profit. That is after all what they’re in business for. What I object to is teenagers being abused and exploited just to drive those profits. If there was any indication that such brutality has any beneficial effect it might be slightly justifiable. The opposite is true. This program of abuse, humiliation and cruelty has no measurable benefit and as such is nothing but reprehensible.

The other part of this equation is the fan base. Those who tune in week after week to watch these “terrible” people get a taste of what they can expect if they don’t get their acts together. They don’t know it doesn’t work. They don’t care. All they want is to watch brutal, Old Testament, frontier justice at work. They’re tired of the liberal wimps mollycoddling young offenders. They believe these kids need just this kind of wake up call. Unfortunately, they’re wrong. What these kids need isn’t more abuse, it’s less. They need years of counseling, therapy, training and all that boring, non-telegenic stuff.

Of course, there’s nothing in that to build a sensationalist TV show off of. Then again that’s probably not a bad thing. Not unless you’re the sort of person who enjoys watching psychological torture for fun & profit.

Cheers, Winston

Salon’s Anonymous Love-In

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, Media, Occupy Movement, Personal Responsibility, Pop Culture, Society, Uncategorized, ValuesLeave a comment

Salon.com ran an article entitled “Anonymous Big Year”. It is essentially a celebration of the self-styled hacker collective. But let’s try for some actual balanced coverage here.

Sure they made a big fuss about SOPA/PIPA and they help organize protests when it’s something like the horribly useless Occupy movement. On the other hand, they cost hundreds of millions of dollars and deny ordinary citizens access to services. They also endanger lives by releasing names and addresses of at risk targets.

When they took Sony’s Playstation Network of line for months, that company’s alleged “crime” was its refusal to release the tools to hack their new PS3 console. To punish them, they hacked Sony’s database and stole the personal information of millions of members. This forced Sony offline until the Japanese government was convinced the security issue was solved. It cost the company millions in lost revenue and millions more in legal costs.

In 2011, Anonymous posted the names and addresses of members of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Force. This was in response to what they viewed as the wrongful shooting of a homeless man. One officer (cleared of any wrongdoing) made a judgement call so every officer on that force, and their families were put at risk of reprisals.

This is the group that Andrew Leonards article lavished such praise on. It is they who he is so happy his son supports. So let’s take a moment to realize this. These people aren’t selfless heroes keeping the digital frontier save for you and I. They are no better, and in some cases worse than those they claim to be protecting us from.

I’m not saying every member of Anonymous is a villain, but that’s the chance you take. If you want to bask in the glory of the best, you will also be tarred with the same brush as the worst. That’s the chance you take when you hide, shouting from the darkness. If you lack the confidence to publicly stand up for what you believe in, maybe you need to look at how strong that belief is.

Anonymous rails against faceless, unaccountable corporations and governments, yet they are the epitome of faceless unaccountability. It’s a little disingenuous claiming the moral high ground when you’re in the same mud as those you are looking to vilify.

These are just some of the many reasons I was so annoyed by Salon’s Anonymous love-in.

Cheers, Winston

Viva La Gun!

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, Politics, Pop Culture, Rants, Society, Uncategorized, ValuesLeave a comment

Dear Crazy NRA Spokesperson. Rather than placing armed guards in every school in the country, I’ve come up with an even better plan. At first glance, it might seem “a little out there”, but once you think it over in sure you’ll like it.

Why don’t we just arm the students. Paying police, or hiring and training armed security for all those schools would be cost prohibitive. Let’s cut out the middleman and put the guns where they belong.

There’s no reason these kids shouldn’t be learning how to defend themselves. Judging by some of the youth-oriented shooting competitions, it’s never too early to start training them.

I realize that some bleeding-heart liberal types are going to whine and complain… let ’em. It’s their ultra-violent video games and movies that have laid the foundation for this.

Violent media have already turned them into killers in waiting, why let all that potential go to waste? I mean really small caliber handguns are tailor made for young hands. Let the junior killers sort out the senior ones.

We save a ton of money on security. We get more guns into schools, and we make a boatload of cash for gun manufacturers and retailers. Seems like a sweet deal to me.

So Wayne… Let me know what you think. I figure this plan may just be psychotically delusional enough to appeal to you. It may be a tad whimsical and cheery for you, but we can work out the details.

Viva La Gun!

Cheers, Winston

Mr. Fischer, Mr. Huckabee, This Means You

On By WinstonIn Education, Media, Politics, Religion, Society, Uncategorized, Values1 Comment

Bryan Fischer, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and those like them have no clue how Christianity works. I’ll tell you why I say that. These are the people trying to link the Sandy Hook shootings to a lack of prayer in schools. That’s just plain stupid.

Anyone who actually takes the time to look at the Bible knows the only place Jesus needs an invitation to is a persons heart. It doesn’t say you have to pray in school, or at work, or on TV. In fact, it says quite the opposite. Jesus himself is quoted instructing his followers not to make a big public display of their faith, rather to keep their prayers private and just between them and God.

As for Mr Fischer claiming that we’ve “kicked God out of our schools”. That’s not really possible. You see God doesn’t live in our schools, or offices or even our churches. God lives in our hearts. Where ever there is someone who believes in God, God is there. You can drop a person in the deepest, darkest hole there is and carve “NO GOD ALLOWED” in ten foot high letters on every surface. If that person believes, God will be in there with them.

So Mr. Fischer, Mr. Huckabee and all those like them need to understand this. The children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary didn’t die because they didn’t pray in class that morning. They died because a disturbed person had too easy access to guns. Not everyone believes what you do (which is a good thing in your case) so they may not want their children subjected to your beliefs every morning. They have that right.

Please stop trying to use this horrible crime to score cheap points with your fan base. Those who died were actual people, not pawns in your twisted game of religious extremism. Contrary to your nasty little delusions, you can’t kick God out of anyone else’s life. You can only kick him out of your own by being vile, self-serving, scumbags.

Mr. Fischer, Mr. Huckabee thus means you.

Cheers, Winston

Shut Up And Fix It

On By WinstonIn Media, Movies, Personal Responsibility, Politics, Pop Culture, Society, Uncategorized, Values, Video GamesLeave a comment

It took a week, but the NRA (National Rifle Association) has finally decided how to respond to the Newtown, Connecticut shooting. According to them, it had nothing to do with the shooters ease of access to high capacity semi-automatic weapons. Of course not. It was his exposure to violent video games and movies.

We know this is true because it’s the argument that gets trotted out every time people don’t want to look at a real problem. It is always pop-cultures fault. When I was younger, it was role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons which were “to blame”. Clint Eastwood movies were a horrible influence and sure to have us shooting each other with wild abandon.

Unfortunately for the NRA and those like them, (but fortunately for the rest of us) that’s not how it works. It’s not a simple case of “Money See, Monkey Do”. Anyone without a severe mental health issue is more than capable of separating what they see on the screen from the world around them. If they can’t, it’s a failure of their parents and society as a whole, not just the media.

I’m going to keep this one short today, so I’ll cut to the chase. If that young man’s mother hadn’t taken him to the range and kept multiple, easily accessible firearms in her home, she and the other victims killed by her son would still be alive. The NRA and their supporters can scream their lungs out saying it isn’t so, but I have one irrefutable piece of evidence to the contrary…. Canada.

We play violent video games. We watch countless hours of violent movies and television. Year somehow, we have a relatively small number of mass shootings. Are we somehow magically immune to the corrupting influence of the vile media filth in which we are immersed? No, there’s a much simpler answer. When we get angry, we can’t simply open the sock drawer, pull out a couple of high capacity pistols and start blasting.

So to the NRA and everyone else who has jumped on the entertainment industry bashing band wagon, there’s your cold hard proof. It’s not violent media, it’s  guns that are problem. Now shut up and fix it.

Cheers, Winston