The TV Event Of the Week

I haven't watched many Best Picture nominees, so my weekly TV entertainment had to come from watching the 87th Republican Debate. Many have been saying that as the last debate before numerous primaries next week, this could make or break any of the candidates' chances at winning the nomination, but the only thing breaking tonight was my heart, as I wondered "Why did I skip Modern Family to watch this??"

Just kidding.

My heart broke because the candidates tonight proved more than ever that the only thing any of them have going for them (with some exception in Ron Paul, but not completely) is that America doesn't like Barack Obama.

Okay, that's not true. What I meant is that Republicans don't like Barack Obama. And the candidates know it, and that's what they used to carry them through this debate. 

I'll be honest, I haven't watched any of the other debates. Maybe this is how all of them have gone. But the only message I got from any of the candidates tonight is "Barack Obama can't/won't/didn't do it; but I will"It could be anything from bomb Iran, to defund Planned Parenthood, to "securing our border". The lack of communicable and realistic, measurable goals and policies was disheartening, but not that surprising.

Take Iran, for example. All of the candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul, seem to think that they have Iran completely figured out. Despite the sanctions the US has imposed on Iran, it was repeatedly stated that Obama refused to apply sanctions and has no interest in "standing up" to Iran and its never ending quest for nuclear weapons. The candidates had to use scare tactics to win some applause, since their logic was all but non-existant. Ron Paul's assertion that there was no proof of Iran building a nuclear weapon was laughed off by Rick Santorum and the rest of the Republican candidates, who seem to have forgotten how well things went the last time we went to a war with shaky proof (that turned out to not be proof at all).

The argument for military action against Iran is predicated on the assumption that Iran is building nuclear weapons and plans to use them to attack Israel or the United States, either overtly or by using proxy groups like Hezbollah or nameless Latin American organizations. The candidates (and most observers) neglect the fact that Iran is also facing a threat from both the United States and Israel. Even while Iran refuses international investigators access to its facilities, it is clear that it has to play a guessing game with all of the parties who are currently threatening it with military action. Iran knows that it can not attack the US or Israel with a nuclear weapon and expect to survive the next day. Even if a nuclear missile managed to leave Iran without the US or Israel knowing about it, the defenses that each country has in place would give Iran a slim chance of hitting its target. This isn't to say that we should take a chance. But Iran knows that its chances of becoming the most powerful player in the Middle East and Central Asia will not be through launching nuclear weapons against Israel or the US. Neither country would allow it, and that method of persuasion has long been proved obsolete, anyway. It will instead work towards that goal the way it has been: quietly and cleverly. 

But all we really know about the Republican's position is that they wouldn't do it the way Obama has.

If there's another debate after this one...I'm going with Modern Family.

Untitled

Monday was just as painful as I thought it would be

Coming back from a vacation or trip out of town is always a weird experience for me. I spent Tuesday-Sunday in San Francisco on my first vacation in a while. It wasn't a long trip, but at times it felt like it was. I've been saturated with New York City and what little parts of Jersey I see for so long that going somewhere completely different and new had a bigger effect on me than I expected. Two days after I got to California, it felt like I didn't have anything back in New York; and the only thing I have here is my job. That was a nice change, and I think it was the point of the vacation anyway. But it made me realize that what I usually think about as "important" or "big" parts of my life are completely relative, and always changing.

I was having a conversation with two of my coworkers last week about our sleeping patterns. One of my coworkers is pregnant, and she mentioned that even though she's pregnant, she's been having trouble sleeping because of a project she's working on that's causing her a lot of stress. Another coworker countered that at the end of the day, a job is just a job, and worrying about job-related stresses after you've gone home isn't productive and isn't helpful. While I agree with him, that's tougher to accomplish in practice.

My job isn't high stress relatively (sorry, it sounds like a cop out word, but it's what I'm using). I'm not a spinal surgeon, or a fire fighter, or a soldier, or a criminal-defense lawyer. I'm not sure I can yet handle a job where someone's life is resting in my hands. I deal with $'s and other small technical things for a large financial company, and in the grand scheme of things the projects I work on are pretty low on the priority list of Senior Management and even my direct manager. So why do I end up coming home and stressing about it? I'd like to say it's because I'm a perfectionist, and in some ways I am. But maybe it's because I have nothing else to worry about.
I have a healthy and happy family that lives independently of me. I don't have anyone to take care of, and my only responsibilities are paying my rent, doing the dishes, and going to my job. (Even though my SO is 10,000 miles away, I can't take being a good boyfriend off that list. It just requires little physical effort on my part at this point).

Cells and bytes


Worrying about a job in the first place is silly, unless you have to worry about something, and a job is all you have. But barring that unfortunate situation (I think that's where I am right now), how much does it really matter? I've had this conversation one too many times with friends, and we inevitably end up at a sort of nihilistic destination. Maybe nihilist isn't the right word, go ask a philosopher. But having that kind of conversation really makes you start to put things into perspective. I'm one person in one city in one country on one planet in this solar system. The things that I care about and accomplish in life are such a tiny piece of all existence that they make no difference at all. Why am I staying awake at night worrying about them?
You could say that "In my life, in my existence, they mean a lot." Placing yourself out of an ego-centric viewpoint and looking at things in the very big picture can help or hurt. On one hand, your every day problems, things that annoy you, become rightfully insignificant. On the other, the little joys and accomplishments that you congratulate yourself on suddenly have their importance diminished.

While I was in San Francisco, my brother, friend, and I did the non-geeky thing and went to see a planetarium show at the Science Academy. The show took on the daunting task of tackling "Life" from the perspective of outer space. I'm not smart enough to understand all of the topics the show delved into, but I did come away with a few things:

1. A reclining comfy chair in a dark room will put you to sleep.
2. There's no way we can be the only form of life in the universe.
1. What defines "life" anyway? I think the definition we learned in biology class something to do with carbon, metabolism, and homeostasis. This is too broad of a topic for now, maybe I'll talk about it later.
2. We haven't gotten very far out into the universe anyway; there's gotta be someone else out there trying to find us too. Let's keep looking.
3. The same fears we have about computers becoming self aware and "thinking" on their own have already happened: just look at humans.

That last point came up as the show described how the first cells were formed out of this primordial sludge. I started thinking about how the cells that became the building blocks of our entire bodies, complete with brains that ponder religion, love, war, and death, all started as some sub-atomic particles bonding together and eventually becoming us. (I simplified billions of years of evolution into a couple sentences.) We became these self aware and philosophical beings out of electrons and protons and the things that make them up. 

I'm just one bunch of elements and cells moving around, metabolizing, signaling, on one chunk of rock in a solar system in the infinitely large universe.   I'd like to say that musing on all of this has made me not worry or stress about my job. 

But what else can I worry about?

Making me look bad

My excuse for the gap between posts is that I've been in San Francisco for the past 4 days. Lots to see, taste, and think about in this city.

Check out the real thing here: http://my4lifecrisis.wordpress.com/
Follow it if you like what you read!

Not much else to say,

Just watch the ad. Joe Hoekstra wants to make a case that his opponent Debbie Stabenow likes to "Spenditnow", so his people put together an ad that features a Chinese woman not only riding a bicycle through a random rice paddy (with the appropriate gongs and chimes playing in the background) , but then speaking in broken English about why Debbie Stabenow's fiscal policies are helping China's economy and hurting ours. "Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good...We take your jobs."

Joe Hoekstra is not only peddling the most blatant racism I've seen in years (was the girl in the ad that desperate for money? Doing porn would have been less insulting than this), but the same tired fallacy that politicians today feel they can always fall back on when they need an economic policy that the public will blindly accept.

Hoekstra's assertion that Debbie Stabenow's spending habits in Michigan are significantly contributing to the US-China trade imbalance actually seems reasonable when compared to the ad he used to say it.

On the advice of a friend..

...I'm going to try to keep writing. Attempt #2. I'll take baby steps so I don't over exert myself like last time. Three paragraphs was too much, so I'll start with just one (and not including this one).

Read a Slate article today that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the only breast cancer charity known to anyone, is pulling its funds from breast-cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is not only a resource for contraception and STD treatment for women, but (as I learned in conversation with my sister, who is more well-versed in women's health than I am) also one of the only places where uninsured women can go for breast-cancer screenings and elective abortions.
The notion of an elective abortion is interesting, anyway. Discussing an elective abortion to an expecting couple doesn't seem like it would register on the same wavelength as it does for the medical staff. One thinks about it in a purely clinical and technical way...because they have to. The other chooses to think about it in terms of the child they've been carrying and expecting for months, because they want to.
I could never be a doctor.