Thursday, April 28, 2011

Money

The NFL Draft is in full swing, and we now know that there will probably be a full season now that the lockout is over. For some reason though, everyone wanted to place the blame on the players. However, the owners wanted to pay the players less, while increasing their own cut of the profit. Let's think about something: one group puts their lives on the line in almost any weather, while the other sits up in a climate-controlled booth while this happens. Who deserves more money? People need to think about it in terms of their own job. If their boss tried to pull that over on them, there's no way they would stand for it!
Another company that makes way too much money is Occidental Petroleum. This past year, their profits increased 46%, to $1.55 billion, a company record. The reason? Increases prices. Gas prices are insanely high because of the turmoil in the Middle East. That should mean that their costs and prices should increase fairly similarly and profit should remain fairly steady. There obviously is some disconnect there.
But that is our country: we are moving into the hands of big business. Yet somehow both parties still claim to be out for the common citizen. One party supports unionizing to maintain workers' rights, while the other wants to ban unions in government workplaces. If we all were really out for the common citizen, we wouldn't be trying to get rid of unions. And we definitely wouldn't be allowing big businesses to exploit loopholes in tax laws so they pay less taxes than individual people do. Our government gives more money in tax returns than it receives in taxes. But yet, some people want to still lower taxes. Lowering taxes decreases the amount of money that our government has. Yet people wonder why we are so far in debt as a nation. Maybe instead of lowering taxes, we should lower our spending. And instead of cutting something as small as Planned Parenthood, maybe we should start cutting back on our defense budget. The largest air force in the world is the United States Air Force. The second largest air force is a part of the U.S. Navy. It seems like we have room to cut.
As if all this wasn't bad enough, now big business is attempting to get into the White House. Donald Trump has a realistic shot of being the Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Why does he deserve a realistic chance? He has no past experience in politics. Look at California and what happened when a celebrity decided to run for office. He's banking on being a recognizable name, and having business success. People are going to vote for him because they think of all of his successful businesses, but what about his unsuccessful businesses? He had multiple businesses go bankrupt. How does a casino go bankrupt?! How is he supposed to handle running an entire country? Looks like it's time for me to get my dual citizenship just to be safe!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

SEX!

Now that I have your attention.
Listening to the news lately, which is a big mistake, I've heard some interesting facts about pregnancy. The main one is that there are 400,000 teen pregnancies each year. If only there were some way to prevent pregnancy while having sex! Although that is obviously a joke, it is sadly what many teenagers learn in school, to not have sex. It's obvious that abstinence only sex education does not work. Teens are having sex, obviously, so why do we still teach abstinence only? Sure, the number of teen pregnancies is decreasing, but it is still 9 times higher than other first world countries. If we actually taught all high school students about birth control, this number would be much lower. Instead of getting rid of Planned Parenthood we should support it. They work to prevent unwanted pregnancies. They aren't just an abortion clinic like some people like to think, but they are too set in their hatred to look at this fact.
But that is the way it is in our society, sex doesn't exist! We can't talk about it in the media. We can't even say the word uterus in state senate. Other countries don't have a problem discussing sex. The BBC even shows simulated sex on some programs. So why are we so censored? The movie Clerks was originally an NC-17 rating for language. If you haven't seen the movie, there is no nudity, no actual sex, and no violence in the movie. However, movies with violence and gore that make many people sicken are given an R rating no problem. Just this month, Rolling Stone showed a real severed head in its pages, while it blurred out a FAKE penis that Nicki Minaj was wearing in a harness in the same issue. Why are the priorities so backward?
Speaking of the media, why are homosexual men mainly portrayed as stereotypes in TV shows and movies? These characters highlight the comedic differences between those of various sexual orientation, like those in Glee and Modern Family. In reality, these differences are not as blatant. I feel bad for saying this so much, but we could really learn something from the UK. Once again, on BBC there is a show, Torchwood, that handles it well. The main character, Captain Jack Harkness, is omnisexual, but with the exception of having romantic and sexual relationships with men, women, and aliens, he does not fulfill the "usual" stereotype.

On a completely unrelated note: For fellow Pastafarians, we are in the middle of Pastover. I hope you all have been touched by His noodly appendage. RAmen.