The Struggles of the People

I've had my fair share of economic struggles during this Great Recession and national/international jobs crisis, but it's the stories of friends and neighbors that get to me the most. There are so many absolutely wonderful, intelligent people out there who simply can't find jobs, and it's just amazing that we've let this stuff go on.

I'm inspired by all movements across the country to take America back and rekindle the spirit of America where the onus of our country is to make it work for We, the People. Yet, the longer things go on, the worse the stories get. Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Boston are an inspiration, but I can only hope that the systemic changes that need to be made to society come fast -- and that, in the meantime, compassion and empathy win out the day.

My friend from Joplin, Missouri

Just on Friday, I got a letter from my friend, who lives in Joplin, Missouri. I haven't seen her in years, and knowing how much she loves "snail mail," we've started swapping letters back and forth over the past couple months. In the latest letter, she was talking a lot about where she lives nowadays and how much she likes it. Regarding Joplin itself, she had this to say: 

I live in Joplin, Missouri. Lots of business, shops and restaurants. I don't think I'll ever move back to MA. 

I literally read this yesterday, the day before today's terrible tornado struck down. According to CNN and the local paper, the scale of the damage is massive. Potentially more than half the town was destroyed or severely damaged, including its hospital, high school and middle school and huge areas of its business district.

Thankfully, my friend and her family is okay, but I know many others there won't be. I guess we should all feel a little lucky today, and a little sad.

Season's Tidings

A very happy holiday to all those who aren't on Santa's Naughty List.

(PS. Picnik is like my favorite thing in the world.)

Daily Updates: 12.2.10

The format, size and scope of Facebook updates are appealing to me, so I'm going to try out a new, regular feature on this blog: Daily Updates. They're going to be direct copy and pastes of what I post on Facebook and elsewhere, both on topic and off.

These topics are generally the things which are really on my mind each day, so I hope they'll spark some good conversations. As always, my tweets can be found on the sidebar of this site. Now for today's updates:

• BTW: The Republicans who voted today against the Obama tax cuts in turn voted to raise the income tax by 50% on the lowest tax bracket in America, which officially makes them horrible human beings in my book. The Republicans just said to the working poor, "Screw you!"
• Admiral Mullen's testimony in favor of repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell today was one for the history books. He made it clear: This is all about restoring dignity and improving readiness, and he tore apart the arguments of the few holdouts. Hearing Admiral Mullen's testimony makes me proud of America. Let's make this happen.
  
• So, one of my favorite YouTube channels is "SupraDarky," someone who is obsessed with video game instrumentals and music. He has a "Best VGM" series in which he collects all his favorites... and his most recent pick is pretty awesome, from the Castlevania franchise.
  
  
  
• Not enough people understand how tax brackets work. If you make $251k, and the tax rates for those who earn above $250k get rolled back to the Clinton-era rates, you're only paying that Clinton-era rate on the $1k you make beyond $250k. So, in essence, everyone still gets a tax cut... this is just slightly more sane than throwing another $700 billion down the toilet that this country can't afford.
• While Scott Brown holds out to push permanent tax cuts for the wealthy totaling $700 billion over the next decade, he's voting to strip our country's meager unemployment benefits right before Christmas.
  

Happy 4th

Let's all celebrate with some pretty songs, from some of the finest divas this country has ever produced.

Some obligatory 4th of July songs...

For bonus points, two of the biggest divas ever in FDR's 1932 campaign theme song...



Enjoy the cookouts and fireworks, as well as the friends and family, from today and yesterday and the week ahead.

Favorite performances and divas go into the comments :)

New Layout and Reader Opinions

I just started checking out Blogger's new layout features and dig them. The choices aren't as numerous as I'd like and not as customizable as I'd like, but I'm getting a fantastic value for all the money I'm paying Google (nada).

I've played a bit with some of the settings, from layout to fonts. I'm not sure I like all the changes as much as what I had before, but then again I like some of them more. Personally, my aesthetics pertain to the simplistic, albeit with a love for vibrant colors. While this new layout maintains the former, it's decidedly bleak on the latter. I may make a new banner.

Are the changes good, bad -- indifferent? Thoughts, anyone? Would anyone want changes -- and what kind of changes would they like?

Unfortunately, aside from the banner and side gadgets, I can't do much in terms of uploading my own designs or photos, so a background photo or design wholly unique to the site would be difficult -- so keep in mind the limitations.

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Speaking of changes, I find my interest of late moving into a healthy direction -- different directions. While I've always been absorbed into all things policy and, to a lesser extent, politics -- and always will be -- I find myself more and more interested in writing about other interests. If I were to post them here, would people be interested? Or would that be a total turnoff? What, besides politics, are people even interested in?

Given the dearth of posts on Ryan's Take over the past few months, in large part due to shifting interests, I think I need to write about other subjects, somewhere, just to keep me writing. Personally, I think focusing on some other subjects will actually improve my political blogs.

Some Friday Music

I've become obsessed with The Temper Trap over the past 24 hours. Here's my favorite song from them, the Science of Fear.

For those who aren't predisposed to listening to lyrics, the song is about the crippling ensnarement of fear. How much in life passed us by because we were afraid of action, or change? This can even apply to politics -- holding back early support for a candidate for fear they couldn't win, voting for a bad bill for fear of leadership retribution, etc. Thankfully, fear is only paralyzing is we let it be.

Have we lost sight of our humanity?

I apologize for the somewhat off-topic post, but I couldn't get this subject off my mind. Lately, I've had to deal with the loss of a lot of lives I considered important to me, as well as the knowledge that there are those who are important to me who are sick and may not make it much longer.

I saw a video of a squirrel protecting its deceased loved one from a pack of crows trying to pick away at the body, posted below, and it made think of another recent video, of more than twenty people walking past a dying homeless man, who had been stabbed while saving someone's life. I won't post the second, because it sickens me, but it can be found here.



Contrasting the two, it makes me wonder just what humans are here for. All too many of us have lost sight of the preciousness of life, of how beautiful and terrible it can be, and seemingly have no respect for anyone but themselves or their very-close consorts. Of course, this isn't universally true, but there are entire ideologies and processes of thought out there not only meant to condone such ignorance and lack of respect, but embrace it. I can't understand those who have lost sight of the importance of life and humanity.

No one can live forever and often we find ourselves with no choice but to take life (for example, we have to eat), but we must treat all life with dignity and remember that all life is precious, be it the dying homeless man on the street, or the desperate squirrel trying to fend off those who would consume its friend or children. There's always the temptation to look away from pain and suffering, and there's always a built-in self interest that's a biological component of life, but we can have a greater consciousness that recognizes everything else that's going on around us and refuse to give into apathy, unhealthy greed or ignorance.

I firmly believe that we are all here to do good. We have the ability to make the world a better place, if we can remember this world we live in is precious and stop trying to destroy it. One secret in my life is that I'm not political because I enjoy politics, per say; I get involved in politics and political causes because its a rare opportunity to support candidates who would improve things over the way they are now. I want to live in a world where we ensure there's equal opportunity for all, where we try to leave the earth in a better condition than how we found it and where everyone and everything is treated with dignity and respect, at least as much as we can afford to give, which is a great deal more than what we're giving now.

Olympic Thoughts

I always enjoy watching the Olympics, so here's what I think of the Olympics thus far.

• The call them "the games" or "the events" for a reason: Not all of the Olympic games are sports. If the games are judged by somewhat subjective perimeters -- ie you do a jump and are graded for it -- it's an athletic competition. That doesn't make it worse, or less enjoyable; it just makes it fun in a different way.
  
• It's only important to note the difference because it helps (me, at least), not get so freaking mad when, for example, Johnny Weir performs an awesome short and gets slammed by the judges anyway, mostly because they don't like him.
  
• Shaun White does not have a modesty problem (e-gads, he's full of himself). That said, he does have a hair problem. $25 to his charity of choice if he cuts that thing off. It burns.
  
• The Olympic coverage is better and worse in some respects. The US MSM doesn't just cover Americans (good), but they do get overly focused on a few, particular Olympians, to the exclusion of almost all others (bad). The only thing that seems to determine the media's favorites is looks.
  
• The US is kicking more ass, thus far, than I would have suspected. More importantly, New England is raking up the metals. Cool.
  
• Curling is crazy. I do not get it at all, but the stereotype that they're all a bunch of middle-aged, portly men playing is clearly false. And Polka Dot pants? Really?
• Fashion is everywhere, apparently. Those "jeans" you see skiers and snowboarders wearing? Snow pants. Can't wear the old-fashioned shiny ones anymore... that would be, like, totally, uncool.
  

Update: The judges decided to screw over Johnny Weir again. Great blog, analyzing the scores and talking about the homophobia in the figure skating establishment, here. At this point, the scoring of Johnny Weir (and several of those ahead of him, who had clearly inflated scores) should be the biggest scandal of these Olympics -- almost on par with points-trading skating judges in Tourino.

If anything, this is even more nefarious. What does it say to other young, male figure skaters out there when, if they try hard, do well in competition, but wear tassels and speak your mind off the ice -- and get severely punished by the judges for it? It says they need to either give up their dreams or betray their very personal identity if they want to have any chance in the world at winning. Shame on the Olympics and figure skating establishment for its scandalous behavior -- and shame on the MSM for not forcing them to address it, like they did the last time Olympic judges stole a medal from the rightful winner.

Posting Break

My grandmother's been very sick for the past week or so and has been getting intensive care in the hospital. While my mother was a single parent, my grandmother was often the one who 'filled in the gap,' who was around when my mother, a nurse, worked nights, or when she was on the day shift. Throughout her life, she's always had a particular spark in life, making anyone around her laugh, adored by all seven of her children and over twenty grandchildren and great grandchildren. She's a beautiful woman inside and out. I love her very dearly, so I'm hoping with all my heart that she's able to pull through.

A Musical Interlude

It's not a very big secret on this blog or on BMG that I'm exceptionally angry with the political system at the moment. I've been questioning everything I thought I knew. It's been a struggle to find some perspective. I find, at times like these, music can be one of the most powerful things. So, one of my all-time favorites:

Musings: Stupak, Star Trek and Hulu

• The thing about Stupak: If it's okay to discriminate against women for one medical choice, why shouldn't it be okay to discriminate against men for ED? Or come up with other stupid ideas like "no tax credits for fat people." There are thousands of ways we could legislate morality into health care. What ever happened to coming up with legislation that lets doctors and patients decide what treatments are necessary together?
• I hate the new Hulu trend where you have to wait up to a week for an episode to go up. I realize it's not profitable yet, but I don't think it will become so by trying to get fewer people to use it. Ads may not get them to the promised land yet, but will eventually -- and probably soon. When it comes to media, companies always take a hit when starting out. Even in the good times, it used to take any publication 5+ years to to turn a profit. Hulu will get there... if they don't drive away their users first. Hello, Amazon.com.
• One of my hobbies is gaming -- yes, I am a geek -- so I was very excited today that the devs of an upcoming game I'm really excited about, Star Trek Online, took one of my questions - and actually gave an answer I found satisfactory.
  

RyansTake.net

Just a little note: "RyansTake.net" will now get you to my site. A lot of people assume I'm super-tech savvy but, while I'm not completely incompetent with a computer, I can confess it took me six months to realize, figure out how to fix and then fix the fact that only www.ryanstake.net would get you to my site, instead of just ryanstake.net. As always, the old blogger html still does and always will work, so long as I stay on blogger.

Weekend Aural

From the new Fox show "Glee," which is free (legally, I swear) on iTunes and Hulu. Based on watching the pilot, I'm not sure I could possibly describe how excited I am for this show. After years of only watching BSG, Heroes and other assorted (good) sci-fi dramas, I think I'll look forward to the change of pace.

Weekend Break: Home-made Plumbing Vid

Instead of boring everyone with politics today, I thought we'd take a look at my now-disappeared bathroom.

A Tribute

Bea Arthur was one of my all-time favorites. She will be missed.

Sunday Break from Politics

Have meeting tonight for the North Shore Young Democrats - and a report to get ready for it.

So enjoy this tune from a great, new indie band my friend pointed me toward:

Open Thread

Tomorrow's my birthday, so I won't be blogging. Here's a little Joni Mitchell to hold y'all over.

Mad World

I was forced into watching my mother's obsession last night, American Cheese. One of the singers gave a somewhat inspired cover of one of my all-time favorite covers. The sort-of original:



It was the right song for my mood - my cat had to be put down today.

So, please listen to the song in honor of Tinkerbell, the American short hair, 1989-2009.

A Look at What Else I'm Doing

[Update: Sorry, didn't realize the link was broken, but fixed for now.]

File this under shameless promotion...

Here's a cross-post from my new blog Fictition. Blame Lynne for this, please... I haven't written a short story in years until I read one of her's...

1.2: Arbiter, Coming Tomorrow!

Don't miss Part 1.








Because every story needs a damsel in distress...