Bad Journalism

The problem with going into the major I have is that I now analyze and observe everything and make some type of critique about it. Today I read an article titled, "Family: New Jersey Man Serving 7 Years for Guns He Owned Legally."

If you read through the article, it never actually says he's serving 7 years for gun possession. He's serving 7 years on "weapons charges" and "having 'large capacity' magazines and hollow-point bullets." This journalist obviously is an advocate of not having gun control laws that he's willing to put his own twist on the story and making it seem that he's serving a sentence for something he's doing legally. He did do something illegally and it's those things that he's serving for.

I'm sure the journalist is also looking for a headline that puts things in such an extreme light that people will actually read it. If it had read "Family: New Jersey Man Serving 7 Years for Illegal Possession of 'Large Capacity' Magazines and Hollow-point Bullets," nobody would have batted an eye outside of the NRA.

Another concern I have involves the irrelevance of the judges ruling in another case that the circumstances border on absurd. How in the world does a police officer sticking his penis in five calves' mouths matter? All you are doing by mentioning this is trying to demean those who attempt to uphold the law by police and judges in your attempt to give credance to your view that law is bad in this case.

Then there's the information that he didn't provide, such as how the police were able to search his vehicle. Did they have a warrant or did he give them permission to search it? If she called 911 after he left, and the police traced the call, they would have stopped by the mother's house, not the son driving to wherever he was going. There's too much incomplete information to make an informed guess on what actually happened and how it should be interpreted.

I do wish journalism would be more objective and complete and allow individuals to come up with their own interpretation of the events that happen rather than just trying to feed us their view.

Money

I don't understand how single people can have a full-time job and manage to have absolutely no money left over for anything else or emergency situations.

Pets

As of late I've noticed a lot of the people that I tend to associate with have a tendency to talk a lot about their pets and animals in general. They'll talk all day about their pets and their personalities, quirks, general misbehavor with a general feeling of love towards them. I don't have too much of a problem with this. I'm not much of a pet person myself, and find them more impractical than anything else, but I won't begrudge anyone about their pets.

What does cause concern for me is that they use pets to replace meaningful relationships with human beings. Their general view of humanity is a cynical and bitter thing. They would much rather develop a relationship with a lesser species than those of their kind. Now I'm not saying all pet-lovers are like that, but it is sad to see pets take the place of what should be more important and more fulfilling.

Spending Less vs. Saving vs. Earning

I've always had a problem with advertising saying you save money when you buy their product. Technically, you're spending less money since the money is already yours to use as you please. Well, today I saw something saying you earn money when you buy their product.

As if I didn't have a problem with it before...

Letter to sister

Last week, one of the members of the ward mentioned me as being quirky. Well, yesterday I decided I would write my sister who's on a mission, and happened to be in quite the quirky mood as I wrote it. Read at your own risk.

Dear _________,

Due to less than subtle hints of immaterial content by a certain member of a notoriously conceited clan, your most humble, yet awesome older sibling, has consented to the implied demand. Yet why would this player of pianos, tooter of tubas, and musician of notes give way to this most preposterous demand? The reasons are as many as the thoughts of a certain bachelored brother who stands (perhaps slouches is a better term) between us in time, namely three.

As this dear brother writes his pretentious ponderings in pencil, he reminisces of an earlier occasion, in which the roles of said brother and sister are reversed. In fact, the reversed positions bear a striking resemblance; for each, it was a landmark in their lives, venturing out on their own, exiled from their previous lives by choice (or perhaps insanity.) All physical interaction with those whom they know and love or maybe hate is limited to the meager connection of written words. For it was for the brother and the sister the first Christmas holiday, when those yearning feelings for a familial touch are felt most keenly, and one checks daily for the red plastic flag signaling the hopeful arrival of an envelope containing expressions of love from those whom you know closest and most intimately. The said envelope arrives for one brother, and in anticipation opens it, starved because of the ascetic demands he has placed upon himself. Oh look, he thinks, they made a homemade card, how thoughtful. What a way to go! Instead of randomly selecting the first premade expression of love from the shelves of Hallmark cards, they went through all of the effort to create a card just for me.

He opens the card wondering what words of wisdom his wonderful womb-mates have written. To this day, even with the progression of time, he remembers every word of the prose produced by Pigeon. It read:

There are those who love you

for your talents and service;

There are those who love you

just for being you;

And then there is your family,

those who love you because they have to.

Merry Christmas.

Oh what shame! In place of what he expected to be words of encouragement and love is a forced recognition of shared blood. Just how cruel is this heathen sister towards her innocent brother?

Yet now the positions are reversed, and what should the brother do? Shall he follow the vile vixen's verbiage as a vindictive villain with revenge? Shall he write of the forced encumbrance and duty that comes from familial responsibilities? Could this be why he responds to his sister's request for hand-written letters?

Or does he take the high road? Irregardless of the ingratitude of insensitive individuals, does he respond with love unfeigned and brotherly kindness, thereby proving that his righteousness is greater than his sisters?

Yet neither of these reasons seem to feel right. Perhaps there is a third reason to match the third thought of the thick-headed one.

Was the sister truly forced to make a card for the lonesome brother? The brother forced to write the sister? The relationship is one which neither can manipulate. They will always be brother and sister. Any interaction through card or letter is icing on the cake solidifying that relationship even more, irregardless of the callousness of the contents. Attention is a good thing, right? Well okay, maybe the ant would like a little less attention from the boy with the magnifying glass, but in this case, attention seems a good thing. Even with statements of supposed forced love, the undercurrent seems to be that it's not forced, but more suppressed by the stoic nature of this particular family.

And so, Sister of Socialishness Nature, know that We of the Stoic Nature, love you not only by the forced relationship of our surname, but also for your talents and service, and for just being you, even though we will rarely say it. Enjoy the Christmas season and your birthday.

Love,

Bro.

Accidents

In the two and a half years that I have been in Alabama, I have now been involved in four accidents. In contrast to this, my sister in Houston, who drives much more than I do, has been involved in zero.

Although if you break it down, two of those accidents didn't involve my car, but my bike, and one of the times it was my car, it was parked and somebody hit it. This fourth one was the only one that was two moving cars, and I was able to react fast enough that it only scraped paint on my vehicle and did just a little damage to the other driver's vehicle.

I've been lucky that none of these accidents have been all that serious or even needed a police report filled out for them. That being said, the only accident that I managed to get hurt was the only one that was my fault. Not only was I at fault, but I was riding a bike at the time. Now road rules for bikes are circumspect at best, as most cities have no clue what to do with bikes, and here is no different. You would think this would likely be the cause for the wreck, but no. I was in the road with the flow of traffic, was checking traffic behind me, and rear ended a car. Yes, I was going fast enough to rear end a car on my bike. Busted up my knee, but given a few weeks, if was fine.

To date, I've now been hit by or hit a car while biking five times. Less than half were my fault, and one involved a parked car. That would be the other accident that was my fault.

I must say, overall, I've been really lucky in most of the accidents I have, but I really would like to be involved in fewer accidents.

Polite dinner conversation

At a dinner yesterday with the YSA, the topic of getting rid of mice came up. One of the girls had to deal with a mouse, and had caught it using a sticky pad, and needed to get rid of it. They decided to drown the creature. One individual thought this was a pretty inhumane way of killing it, and wondered what methods others would have chosen. All your normal methods of poison, drowning, traps, shovel, etc.

While this conversation was going on, I was reminiscing of my childhood when I had an older brother who needed to get rid of some mice. His methods were rather... inventive. In my usual laconic manner and general weirdness, I added my one word to the conversation...

"Microwave."

The varying looks of shock and disgust were a sight to behold. Not sure what they think of me, well, okay, I'm sure I know what they were thinking of me, but it was worth it to see their expressions. Wish I had a picture.