Being a guy who doesn't give a rat's ass about what goes on in Hollywood and celebrity gossip in general, you can imagine that the constant media focus on the death of Michael Jackson has grated on me. You see, when I turn on the news, I am hoping to hear about various items, whether they be news, business, sports, etc. But the incessant coverage of everything Michael Jackson since his death, has been excessive at best.
Now, you have to realize that growing up, I listened to a lot of Michael Jackson music. But you see, unlike the majority of people, I can differentiate between a product and the producer. I would go out and buy a new camping tent, but I really don't care about the day-to-day goings-on with the tent's inventor or the person who holds the patent for the tent. I view music and movies the same way - it's an end product of an artist and the end product can be appreciated. Perhaps even the artist who produced it. But the simply god-like treatment of a celebrity is something which I have never understood.
It culminated in today's Michael Jackon memorial. My wife watched it and was glued to the set. I refused to watch it. And why would I? Michael Jackson was a talented singer, nothing more. Somehow the media seems to think he is the returning messiah, the way they treated him like some sort of deity. I guess this is what happens when one lives in today's media-saturated world, where the goings on of celebrities seems to pique people's interest (why, I don't know - maybe their own lives are so dull that they have nothing else better to do). I was meeting with one of my customers today and ended up chatting with him about car auctions for a good hour. It was great, and I was thinking, while most people sat in front of their TVs, watching a glorified memorial of a celebrity they have likely never met or do not know personally, I was interacting with a real live person.
It seems to be lost on people that Jackson wasn't exactly a shiny example of an upstanding citizen. His numerous child molestation challenges will likely forever haunt his memory, if you are looking at his biographical sketch objectively. It was telling that the performers at the memorial all had very public affairs, divorces, etc. Kind of fitting, considering the type of person Jackson was.
Also, while I didn't watch any of the coverage, it's kind of hard to ignore it if you are reading the newspaper or going on any news website today. There are pictures everywhere. You ever notice that almost all of the performers were black? For all the media seem to suggest about Jackson breaking down racial barriers, you really don't see that at all, based on the demographics of the performing artists. Further, ever notice that on the day Jackson died, all of the coverage of the "mourners" were undoubtedly almost all black, whether they were in California, Harlem, or elsewhere. It would seem to me that Jackson did not make as big of strides as people thought.
One other thing to mention - and I suppose this is typical of today's pluralistic mindset. Even in curiously persuing some photos of the coverage, it seems that in numerous parts of the ceremony, they were flashing different religious symbols on the screen, as if to suggest all religions were the same or that there is no different in faiths. This is the ultimate moral relativism, which perhaps contributes to why Jackson is so popular - he believed in the age-old "I'm OK, you're OK" type of approach, the "all faiths lead to the same place" type of mentality, in an effort to not offend anyone. What a fallacy this is. No wonder so many people conveniently gloss over the fact that he wasn't exactly someone you'd be comfortable leaving you children with. But that is the world we live in, where character flaws don't seem to matter.
For me, Jackson's death is no different than any other. I grieve for his family, who have lost a dear family member, and I'm sure it's tough for his parents, but you know, all that plastic surgery, drugs that he took and the lifestyle that he chose - well, I can't say that I'm surprised he died at the age he did. But let's be objective here. He's a singer, an artist, an entertainer. Let's not lose sight of that.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Gun Is the Great Equalizer
I am a bit of an anomaly when it comes to my family. It is not a secret, if you have read any part of this blog long enough, that I am a staunch proponent of firearms ownership. My wife, while passably tolerating my gun hobby, leans more towards the very common, yet erronenous notion that "guns are bad". Of course, if you get your information from the mass media, that's the impression you'll get, though you'll have a tough time defending it.
However, out of respect for my wife, I choose to keep my gun interests to myself. My kids, both under 7, don't know I don't own any guns. Of course, if they ever ask me, I won't lie about it, but I won't go out of my way to volunteer this information either (by the way, that's generally a good mindset to have, since you don't want to advertise that you have guns in your house anyway, just in case the wrong people get a hold of this information).
Over the past weekend, our family went camping with some Jewish friends of ours, who, while they are very nice and thoughtful people, are thoroughly indoctrinated in anything that smacks of today's liberal and left-wing mindset. They don't spank their kinds and frown when I say that both my kids get spanked. This weekend was evidence of what happens when you have a lassez-faire, "let the kids run your life" type of parenting style. But anyway, one interesting interchange between my son and one of our friends was when she was taking a photo of my son with her kids and my son decided to use both hands to make guns and point it to the side - you know the posture, the "here's lookin' at you kid" type of gesture. She said, "oh, you shouldn't be doing that - guns are not nice." I quickly remarked to my son, though I was indirectly talking with her, "guns can be used for good or bad", and I knew she shot me a look, but I wasn't really paying attention to her response.
It seems very typical that those who oppose gun ownership are the ones who probably can benefit from it the most. Whether you are a woman, a visible minority, a senior citizen, or someone who is physically in stature, guns are, for all intents and purposes, the great equalizer. I mean, think about it - if you are a woman and are attacked, chances are that your aggressor will be physically stronger than you (as a general rule, based on on the physical attributes of men and woman on a whole). If you are a visible minority, especially if you are black, you would benefit greatly from a firearm for self-defence, since blacks tend to be victims of crimes. It's no different if you're a smaller person like me. In whatever case, a gun evens the odds between potential victim and aggressor. The fact of the matter is, there will always be bigger, badder people out there. There is no shame in utilizing extra tools at your disposal in our own self-defence.
I am a bit surprised at our friend's response. Being Jewish, you would think she would have experienced racism or ethnic jokes at one point in her life or another (but then again, she is from a fairly multicultural country - a real multicultural country, so she may have been fortunate in avoiding all the racial tension those other of us who are minorities would have had to live through. Israel as a country, perhaps only second to Switzerland, has a very high per capita of gun ownership. Yet their crime rates in the cities are infinitely smaller than their North American counterparts. If you look in Canada and the U.S., are the areas where there tends to be more crime tend to be higher and denser-populated metropolitan cities like Toronto, New York, L.A., Chicago, etc. All these areas are high gun-control areas, yet crime remains rampant. Those who live in the poorest of these areas could greatly benefit from owning a firearm as these people are the most likely to have a crime committed on them.
However, out of respect for my wife, I choose to keep my gun interests to myself. My kids, both under 7, don't know I don't own any guns. Of course, if they ever ask me, I won't lie about it, but I won't go out of my way to volunteer this information either (by the way, that's generally a good mindset to have, since you don't want to advertise that you have guns in your house anyway, just in case the wrong people get a hold of this information).
Over the past weekend, our family went camping with some Jewish friends of ours, who, while they are very nice and thoughtful people, are thoroughly indoctrinated in anything that smacks of today's liberal and left-wing mindset. They don't spank their kinds and frown when I say that both my kids get spanked. This weekend was evidence of what happens when you have a lassez-faire, "let the kids run your life" type of parenting style. But anyway, one interesting interchange between my son and one of our friends was when she was taking a photo of my son with her kids and my son decided to use both hands to make guns and point it to the side - you know the posture, the "here's lookin' at you kid" type of gesture. She said, "oh, you shouldn't be doing that - guns are not nice." I quickly remarked to my son, though I was indirectly talking with her, "guns can be used for good or bad", and I knew she shot me a look, but I wasn't really paying attention to her response.
It seems very typical that those who oppose gun ownership are the ones who probably can benefit from it the most. Whether you are a woman, a visible minority, a senior citizen, or someone who is physically in stature, guns are, for all intents and purposes, the great equalizer. I mean, think about it - if you are a woman and are attacked, chances are that your aggressor will be physically stronger than you (as a general rule, based on on the physical attributes of men and woman on a whole). If you are a visible minority, especially if you are black, you would benefit greatly from a firearm for self-defence, since blacks tend to be victims of crimes. It's no different if you're a smaller person like me. In whatever case, a gun evens the odds between potential victim and aggressor. The fact of the matter is, there will always be bigger, badder people out there. There is no shame in utilizing extra tools at your disposal in our own self-defence.
I am a bit surprised at our friend's response. Being Jewish, you would think she would have experienced racism or ethnic jokes at one point in her life or another (but then again, she is from a fairly multicultural country - a real multicultural country, so she may have been fortunate in avoiding all the racial tension those other of us who are minorities would have had to live through. Israel as a country, perhaps only second to Switzerland, has a very high per capita of gun ownership. Yet their crime rates in the cities are infinitely smaller than their North American counterparts. If you look in Canada and the U.S., are the areas where there tends to be more crime tend to be higher and denser-populated metropolitan cities like Toronto, New York, L.A., Chicago, etc. All these areas are high gun-control areas, yet crime remains rampant. Those who live in the poorest of these areas could greatly benefit from owning a firearm as these people are the most likely to have a crime committed on them.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
People Should Not Be Sticking Fingers In Other People's Butts
Well, tomorrow is a milestone of sorts for me, and one which I would hope would never come. I am at the age where I can no longer deny the medical establishment the profound opportunity to violate my anal cavity under the auspices of a health probe. Yeah, I know it's common, but that doesn't make it right. Sure, some people have mentioned to me that based on the fact that my Dad (65 1/2) has had previous issues with his prostate and subsequently required surgery a few years ago, that it would be in my best interests to bend over, and think about the Smurfs while my new doctor (a male, for crying out loud - talk about adding insult to injury) - inserts a digit, hoping to find whatever he is looking for. I will be observing him at all times and should the faintest sign of a smile come on his face, I will not hesitate to, pardon the strong language, kick his ass (no pun intended).
My appointment is tomorrow late afternoon after work. Somehow, if my company's ethics agreement did not forbid the consumption of alcohol in the office, nor did the provincial laws prohibit (rightly so) driving under the influence, I would probably be able to better prepare myself in anticipation of this extremely embarrassing procedure. Needless to say, I have a bottle of Cabernet all ready at home, so that I can quickly and efficiently soothe what will no doubt be a traumatic experience for me.
My wife says that I am a big chicken for fearing tomorrow's impending butt-check. She does have a point, to a degree. Both our kids were born by caesarean section, and with our first, my wife was poked, prodded, and had all sorts of instruments jammed inside her that made even me, a seasoned viewer of Stallone and Rambo movies, squeamish. I remember when they broke her water after doing a number of other very invasive procedures - they stuck this thing like a steel paper towel roll into her and then followed by pushing in these crochet-type of needles. Sheesh, even the thought of this now makes me shiver. But I agree, she was a trooper, and it's hard to argue with someone like her who, while historically has been afraid of surgeries and such, has had to go through two c-sections, and two miscarriages, one of which required invasive surgery. She said for me to get a finger up the butt is nothing, and I have no right to protest.
Still, as a guy, this is not something which I feel is perfectly natural. With the advances in medical technology, you would think that there would be easy ways of running an ultrasound to determine whether I had any issues down there (or is it up there?). I really should not be subjected to an activity which is probably commonplace in the Yonge/Wellesley area of Toronto. Maybe it's my Asian upbringing and the subsequent degree of modesty that I profess to have (even though I admitedly walk around the house with nothing by boxers on). Maybe it's my very heterosexual persona, which will not allow for such privacy-inhibiting activities to be performed upon my very body.
Or maybe my wife is right - I am simply a big chicken.
I have been thinking long and hard (my mental faculties, as limited as they are, have been working overtime) in trying to formulate a way to get out of the appointment. Unfortunately, any attempts to change my fate tomorrow afternoon has failed to materialize. I was thinking of having my wife don some latex gloves and perform a "dry run", so to speak, this evening, but she is biking with a friend. So I am left to wallow in my fears and apprehension and hopes that the Lord takes me before the late afternoon hours tomorrow.
My appointment is tomorrow late afternoon after work. Somehow, if my company's ethics agreement did not forbid the consumption of alcohol in the office, nor did the provincial laws prohibit (rightly so) driving under the influence, I would probably be able to better prepare myself in anticipation of this extremely embarrassing procedure. Needless to say, I have a bottle of Cabernet all ready at home, so that I can quickly and efficiently soothe what will no doubt be a traumatic experience for me.
My wife says that I am a big chicken for fearing tomorrow's impending butt-check. She does have a point, to a degree. Both our kids were born by caesarean section, and with our first, my wife was poked, prodded, and had all sorts of instruments jammed inside her that made even me, a seasoned viewer of Stallone and Rambo movies, squeamish. I remember when they broke her water after doing a number of other very invasive procedures - they stuck this thing like a steel paper towel roll into her and then followed by pushing in these crochet-type of needles. Sheesh, even the thought of this now makes me shiver. But I agree, she was a trooper, and it's hard to argue with someone like her who, while historically has been afraid of surgeries and such, has had to go through two c-sections, and two miscarriages, one of which required invasive surgery. She said for me to get a finger up the butt is nothing, and I have no right to protest.
Still, as a guy, this is not something which I feel is perfectly natural. With the advances in medical technology, you would think that there would be easy ways of running an ultrasound to determine whether I had any issues down there (or is it up there?). I really should not be subjected to an activity which is probably commonplace in the Yonge/Wellesley area of Toronto. Maybe it's my Asian upbringing and the subsequent degree of modesty that I profess to have (even though I admitedly walk around the house with nothing by boxers on). Maybe it's my very heterosexual persona, which will not allow for such privacy-inhibiting activities to be performed upon my very body.
Or maybe my wife is right - I am simply a big chicken.
I have been thinking long and hard (my mental faculties, as limited as they are, have been working overtime) in trying to formulate a way to get out of the appointment. Unfortunately, any attempts to change my fate tomorrow afternoon has failed to materialize. I was thinking of having my wife don some latex gloves and perform a "dry run", so to speak, this evening, but she is biking with a friend. So I am left to wallow in my fears and apprehension and hopes that the Lord takes me before the late afternoon hours tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A Late-Term Abortion Doctor Is Shot Dead. So What?
I find it very strange that some of the anti-abortion groups who have historically been linked to violence are now condemning the recent slaying of Dr. George Tiller, one of about 10 or so doctors in the U.S. who will perform late-term (third trimester+) abortions. They claim that violence is never justified to counter violence and that the execution-style slaying should be roundly condemned.
Maybe.
I generally am not in favour of people taking the law into their own hands - that is, unless the law has utterly failed them and their lives or their loved ones lives are in grave danger as a result. Yes, I know this may be a bit of a controversial stance, but let's face it, justice is not always meted out fairly. Where possible, I am in full favour of letting the judicial system decide things. Lord knows how many wackos are out there who could be set off at a drop of a pin, and we don't need them walking the streets, dispensing vigilante justice without due process being allowed to run its course first.
However, I believe as with all things, there is always another side to consider. In this case, the facts are clear. I remember reading that, according to the U.S. Center of Disease Control (CDC), there were over 820,000 abortions performed in the year 2005 alone. To claim that all of these are medically necessary is spurious. Unfortunately, society has de-valued human life to the point of medically terminating it for a helpless unborn child. These pro-choicers claim that it should be up to the woman, yet no one is speaking on behalf of the poor child who gets murdered. They claim that if abortions were illegal, countless women would die as a result of self-induced abortions. My response is: let them die. Most women who get abortions do so as a means of birth control, not due to rape or the life of the mother being at stake (these two instances are always cited in ethics conversations, but people conveniently gloss over that the majority of abortions are not medically necessary, but simply a means for a female to not accept responsibility for their sexual practices. Since when did we start to value selfish decisions over the rights of an innocent little one?
Fact of the matter is, I would be lying if I told you that I am saddened at the death of Dr. Tiller. While some may argue the validity of life in a fetus, it's very hard to argue that a baby in the third trimester is not a baby, a real human being. Women have delivered prematurely in the third trimester and when it comes out, it is a baby! For Tiller to be willing to terminate such life, I think, brings about it natural consequences. The fact that someone chose to end this murderer's life by way of a bullet, is no doubt a direct consequence of his actions. You reap what you sow. What can I say?
I don't see this any different than someone deciding to kill Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olsen, or Charles Manson in jail. A murderer is a murderer is a murderer. True, the guy who shot Tiller in cold blood at Tiller's church (what kind of church would accept an abortion doctor as a congregant???) is just as much of a murderer as Tiller is and will be judged accordingly. But could this be classified as a situation where one has to be killed in order to save the many? I'm not sure, but I do know that he won't be around to murder any more unborn children in the future.
Maybe.
I generally am not in favour of people taking the law into their own hands - that is, unless the law has utterly failed them and their lives or their loved ones lives are in grave danger as a result. Yes, I know this may be a bit of a controversial stance, but let's face it, justice is not always meted out fairly. Where possible, I am in full favour of letting the judicial system decide things. Lord knows how many wackos are out there who could be set off at a drop of a pin, and we don't need them walking the streets, dispensing vigilante justice without due process being allowed to run its course first.
However, I believe as with all things, there is always another side to consider. In this case, the facts are clear. I remember reading that, according to the U.S. Center of Disease Control (CDC), there were over 820,000 abortions performed in the year 2005 alone. To claim that all of these are medically necessary is spurious. Unfortunately, society has de-valued human life to the point of medically terminating it for a helpless unborn child. These pro-choicers claim that it should be up to the woman, yet no one is speaking on behalf of the poor child who gets murdered. They claim that if abortions were illegal, countless women would die as a result of self-induced abortions. My response is: let them die. Most women who get abortions do so as a means of birth control, not due to rape or the life of the mother being at stake (these two instances are always cited in ethics conversations, but people conveniently gloss over that the majority of abortions are not medically necessary, but simply a means for a female to not accept responsibility for their sexual practices. Since when did we start to value selfish decisions over the rights of an innocent little one?
Fact of the matter is, I would be lying if I told you that I am saddened at the death of Dr. Tiller. While some may argue the validity of life in a fetus, it's very hard to argue that a baby in the third trimester is not a baby, a real human being. Women have delivered prematurely in the third trimester and when it comes out, it is a baby! For Tiller to be willing to terminate such life, I think, brings about it natural consequences. The fact that someone chose to end this murderer's life by way of a bullet, is no doubt a direct consequence of his actions. You reap what you sow. What can I say?
I don't see this any different than someone deciding to kill Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olsen, or Charles Manson in jail. A murderer is a murderer is a murderer. True, the guy who shot Tiller in cold blood at Tiller's church (what kind of church would accept an abortion doctor as a congregant???) is just as much of a murderer as Tiller is and will be judged accordingly. But could this be classified as a situation where one has to be killed in order to save the many? I'm not sure, but I do know that he won't be around to murder any more unborn children in the future.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Gatorade "What's G?" Commercials
I'll keep this very short. I generally can tolerate the most stupidest of commercials, but once in a while, a commercial would grind on me so much, I can't keep my mouth shut. Gatorade's current "What's G?" commercials would fall into this category. I'm not sure if you've seen them. I won't bother to describe them - you can probably find them on YouTube or something, but there is just something that is socially regressive about them. In fact, I think that ultimately, these commercials are a sad reflection of the dumbing down of our English language. Using fad-ridden ebonics, and "urban" language and body language, these commercials attempt to show that Gatorade is behind the success of various sporting athletes. But I think it also perpetuates a long-held stereotype about Blacks and "Black culture", which is probably counter-productive to the socially progressive set (personally, I don't really care about this aspect of it).
That being said, my six-year-old son loves these commercials and to my chagrin, he mimics some of the performers. I haven't said anything to him about my own opinions of the commercials, and is entitled to his own commercial preferences. But if he ends up talking like 50 Cent, then we will have a problem...
That being said, my six-year-old son loves these commercials and to my chagrin, he mimics some of the performers. I haven't said anything to him about my own opinions of the commercials, and is entitled to his own commercial preferences. But if he ends up talking like 50 Cent, then we will have a problem...
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor - Placating Feminist and Hispanic Voters
Well, the worst-kept secret was revealed by U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday: his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy of retiring justice David Souter is New York Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It's not terribly surprising to hear the news, particularly since it has been reported that Obama was under intense pressure to pick a woman and also a minority (whether it be Hispanic, Black, Asian, etc.). Obama obviously buckled under the pressure of special interest groups, the two U.S. New York Senators, and left-wing advocacy groups everywhere in making his pick. But that is not unusual, given that Obama likes to play to the media and whatever position is popular (which is usually media-driven). That is not to say that Sotomayor may not be qualified, but it takes a lot of guts to make a decision which may not be popular - it happened with President Bush all the time and he was chastised for it from the media to the everyday Joe, who seems to more often than not form their opinions based on the media (you can rag all you want about Bush, I think that while he did make some mistakes, he is a man who acted on his convictions, most of which were not popular with the secular mainstream - yet he continued to stay the course). You may recall Bush nominated Chief Justice John Roberts, despite the fact that his wife Laura wanted him to nominate a woman. Now, that takes guts, going against your wife!!!
I find the response to the Sotomayor nomination from Hispanics to be laughable. Oh, so much pride! It is an exciting day! And on and on it goes. Sort of like when Obama was inaugurated. I remember being in a conference room at work here where they decided to televise the inauguration for curious and politically minded employees here. The room was packed when Obama took the oath of office and of the 80 or so people who were crammed in the room, I was the only one who did not applaud (got some dirty looks, but I don't care). What I found interesting were these two Black ladies who were crying and cheering and "thanking the Lord - someone's there for us now!" I think from the perspective of going from slavery to having a half-Black man become President, is definitely overwhelming for those older Black folks who had to endure racism and prejudice. But underlying some of the racial relief is a sense that somehow a Black President will make things easier for Black people. Isn't that preferential treatment? Reverse discrimination?
I have gathered the same sentiments in how Hispanics have responded to the Sotomayor nomination. To say that it's nice to see someone who, from humble beginnings, was able to apply herself (hopefully that was the case and not through affirmative action - nowadays, who really knows) and get into prestigious law schools and become a lawyer and then a judge, is definitely something to be celebrated, regardless of the race of the person. But the sentiments and responses I have been reading seem more along the lines of "Now, finally, someone to represent us!" and "Now we will be treated fairly." There seems to be a sense that by having someone of your race, ethnicity or culture in an influential position, that they may be able to offer you opportunities, preferential treatment, and cut you slack, based on race. That is, and always has been, wrong.
Now, if Obama picked her because she was the best qualified, then I don't think people would have much of an issue here. But Obama encompasses the same thing that most corporate companies try to push: "diversity". For "diversity's" sake. In other words, make sure you have women, minorities, or gays and lesbians represented in your workforce (or in Obama's case, in his cabinet). I have railed against our company's policy on "diversity" and have been reprimanded more than once for speaking against it, but I have always been the firm belief that if the person is qualified, hire them, regardless of their race or culture. I have practiced this and have hired my fair share of women, not because they were women, but because they were qualified. BUT the prevailing mentality in most companies nowadays is a reverse of this: start with filling out a racial quota, and then once you find enough candidates of a certain demographic, choose from one of them. No wonder white males are peeved as they are not being considered for anything nowadays. That is wrong, regardless of the injustices that have been inflicted in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Although I am not an American, I am leery of seeing a person like Sotomayor on the U.S. bench. After all, us Canadians seem to be the recipient of trickle-down effects of U.S. laws., and our legal system, while originally derived from the British, is influenced today heavily by what goes on the U.S. So what goes on in the U.S. does have an effect in Canada. Besides, I've always been interested in U.S. politics, even back to when I was a little kid.
If I recall in what I have read about her in the past few weeks, she seems to have had a number of decisions that are racially-based. She is firmly an advocate of affirmative action, which makes me wonder whether she has some biased towards racially preferential treatment towards a certain group. She has been quoted as saying that judges make the law, which is a bit worrisome.
Even though she is a Roman Catholic, she holds a pro-choice position, which gives hard-core Catholics indigestion, but obviously to those of us who are virulently pro-life, it is not a great sign. Further, I have read that in university papers and essays, she has written about the second amendment and that she believes that gun ownership is unconstitutional (I believe her paper was called Deadly Obsession or something like that). I really have no idea how George H.W. Bush originally nominated her, with such clear left-leaning views, even though she was classified as a moderate liberal. It is no surprise that the uber-liberal Bill Clinton elevated her to a higher court.
Let's hope that Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and to a lesser degree, Anthony Kennedy live long lives and don't have any plans to retire any time soon.
I find the response to the Sotomayor nomination from Hispanics to be laughable. Oh, so much pride! It is an exciting day! And on and on it goes. Sort of like when Obama was inaugurated. I remember being in a conference room at work here where they decided to televise the inauguration for curious and politically minded employees here. The room was packed when Obama took the oath of office and of the 80 or so people who were crammed in the room, I was the only one who did not applaud (got some dirty looks, but I don't care). What I found interesting were these two Black ladies who were crying and cheering and "thanking the Lord - someone's there for us now!" I think from the perspective of going from slavery to having a half-Black man become President, is definitely overwhelming for those older Black folks who had to endure racism and prejudice. But underlying some of the racial relief is a sense that somehow a Black President will make things easier for Black people. Isn't that preferential treatment? Reverse discrimination?
I have gathered the same sentiments in how Hispanics have responded to the Sotomayor nomination. To say that it's nice to see someone who, from humble beginnings, was able to apply herself (hopefully that was the case and not through affirmative action - nowadays, who really knows) and get into prestigious law schools and become a lawyer and then a judge, is definitely something to be celebrated, regardless of the race of the person. But the sentiments and responses I have been reading seem more along the lines of "Now, finally, someone to represent us!" and "Now we will be treated fairly." There seems to be a sense that by having someone of your race, ethnicity or culture in an influential position, that they may be able to offer you opportunities, preferential treatment, and cut you slack, based on race. That is, and always has been, wrong.
Now, if Obama picked her because she was the best qualified, then I don't think people would have much of an issue here. But Obama encompasses the same thing that most corporate companies try to push: "diversity". For "diversity's" sake. In other words, make sure you have women, minorities, or gays and lesbians represented in your workforce (or in Obama's case, in his cabinet). I have railed against our company's policy on "diversity" and have been reprimanded more than once for speaking against it, but I have always been the firm belief that if the person is qualified, hire them, regardless of their race or culture. I have practiced this and have hired my fair share of women, not because they were women, but because they were qualified. BUT the prevailing mentality in most companies nowadays is a reverse of this: start with filling out a racial quota, and then once you find enough candidates of a certain demographic, choose from one of them. No wonder white males are peeved as they are not being considered for anything nowadays. That is wrong, regardless of the injustices that have been inflicted in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Although I am not an American, I am leery of seeing a person like Sotomayor on the U.S. bench. After all, us Canadians seem to be the recipient of trickle-down effects of U.S. laws., and our legal system, while originally derived from the British, is influenced today heavily by what goes on the U.S. So what goes on in the U.S. does have an effect in Canada. Besides, I've always been interested in U.S. politics, even back to when I was a little kid.
If I recall in what I have read about her in the past few weeks, she seems to have had a number of decisions that are racially-based. She is firmly an advocate of affirmative action, which makes me wonder whether she has some biased towards racially preferential treatment towards a certain group. She has been quoted as saying that judges make the law, which is a bit worrisome.
Even though she is a Roman Catholic, she holds a pro-choice position, which gives hard-core Catholics indigestion, but obviously to those of us who are virulently pro-life, it is not a great sign. Further, I have read that in university papers and essays, she has written about the second amendment and that she believes that gun ownership is unconstitutional (I believe her paper was called Deadly Obsession or something like that). I really have no idea how George H.W. Bush originally nominated her, with such clear left-leaning views, even though she was classified as a moderate liberal. It is no surprise that the uber-liberal Bill Clinton elevated her to a higher court.
Let's hope that Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and to a lesser degree, Anthony Kennedy live long lives and don't have any plans to retire any time soon.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Comic Books and Literacy
It would appear as if this is the 200th entry in this here blog. I was wondering what I would write about, and in doing so remembered that I have always wanted to dispel a misconception that has been told to me by many people since I was a child. Since I assume people come on here to read, I thought I'd talk a little bit about litaracy, and in particular, extol the positive aspects of literacy by comic book reading.
Now, I have heard this all my life - comic books are for kids, comic books are a waste of time, comic books have juvenile language, comic books are for the immature reader, and so forth. Though I do not read comic books anymore, what I can say is that these perceptions are far from the truth. In fact, in my own experience, comic books have enhanced my literacy to the degree that I was able to subsequently win spelling contests, become enough of a decent writer to be accepted into all the journalism schools to which I applied, which allowed me to get a gig as an editor of my college magazine and which enabled me to become a writer/reviewer for a prominent Christian magazine more than 15 years ago. I will be happy to debate with anyone anytime who does not believe comic books have any value when it comes to literacy.
I was a late bloomer when it came to reading. Unlike my son, who at six-years-old, can read at an elementary level, I don't believe that I was able to read with any degree of fluency until I was about eight or nine. Even then, reading was really a forced activity and to me, it was more for academic exercises, rather than personal enjoyment. I do not come from a family of readers; in fact, I don't think my parents ever read a book in their lives from cover-to-cover, aside from the one book I know my Dad read, Lee Iacocca's self-titled autobiography. I believe my Dad once told me that is the only book that he read on his own accord in his entire life (and even then, "on his own accord" is debatable, since the book was either required for business purposes or he was strongly encouraged to read it for the same). My Mom has told me that has never read any books. My brother and sister are not really strong readers either, though they have read the occasional book (we're talking maybe one book every few years). So really, I am an anomaly of sorts, in not only the fact that I have an extensive personal library of books at home (around 1200+ at least count), but I've read hundreds upon hundreds of novels, expository works, non-fiction, biographies, and so forth). I've told my son this, that if it was between watching a movie, and reading a book, I would highly favour the latter.
My late start with reading came in a non-conventional means. Some kids start reading novels early and subsequently gravitate towards more big-kid novels, teen novels, and adult novels. For me, I was never into novels. I remember being in grade six (12-years-old or so) and part of our reading units required that I pick out a different book from the homeroom teacher's library (which, if I recall, was quite thin) and read it for the purposes of providing a book report on it. All I remember is how much of a challenge this was for me, given that I had no interest in any of the books that were in the teacher's collection. I remember picking up the Hobbit and thinking, "that is a thick book, I will never get through that". It was a chore, and I don't recall successfully getting through any of those books, but I must have, since I didn't fail grade six.
It was around that time that I started to excel at creative writing. It was kind of weird, for me as an emerging writer, to thoroughly enjoy writing, yet be wary of reading. You would think that reading and writing were mutually inclusive, but they were not for me. That marriage took place soon after, when I discovered the world of comic books, particularly Marvel and D.C. superhero comic books.
In retrospect, I think that part of the reason why I was able to write well at that point, was because I enjoyed using my imagination, and writing gross and seemingly crude stories about burping, farting, boogers, and what not. I remember being able to aptly describe something that was a normal body function in such great detail, that it had the class in stitches. Of course, this had its downside as well, oftentimes with me sitting in the front of the class facing the wall with a dunce cap place upon my head (yes, they did that kind of stuff back then). But the classmate response far outweighed any disciplinary action, so it was one of those cases of "it was worth it".
Comic books helped to really bring the marriage of imagination, writing, and vocabulary expansion to its full extent for me. My parents, my teachers and other parents were highly critical of comic books, claiming that there is no long-term beneift in reading these, as the vocabulary is infantile and does not enhance learning. Maybe that is true if you are reading the good ol' Whitman type of comics, but the Marvel and D.C. types were highly proficient in their use of language, so much so that I often had to check a dictionary in order to find out the meaning of a word. I had the impetus to do so, since without knowing the respective word's meaning, I could not progress further in the plot. Meanwhile, my Dad, who was a harsh critic of comics, read the Toronto Sun newspaper, which subsequent studies have shown to have about a grade 4-6 reading vocabulary, whereas the comic books that I was reading were about grade 9-11.
Some feel the illustrations in comic books are too much of an aid in telling the story, but there are different perspectives on this. Mine is that I viewed the illustrations as having artistic value rather than simply visual translation. It's no different than graphics on video games - I enjoy seeing advanced graphics, not because I am expecting some sort of realistic fantasy escape, but I simply admire the artist's ability to render at such a high degree of proficiency. Similarly, my admiration of comic art was more for artistic value and attention to detail than anything else. It was the story that was the draw, and bear in mind that the comics that I read were more than simply a bubble with a sentence or two in it. Most conversations or thoughts had complex sentences with varying sentence structure to give it that variety of reading flow. If you read anything that is just a collection of single sentences with a period at the end, it will get boring really fast. But comic books were not like that for me.
Further, comics oftentimes had complex plots, with multi-faceted characters, and delved in a variety of issues, sometimes touching on ethnical or moral dilemmas. It's not what people think of - the old Popeye beating the crap out of Brutus and saving Olive Oyl - type of plots). After a while, you really do get a sense of the psychology of characters and their personas. This has really helped me to transition to novels, something that I was not able to read and fully appreciate until I was in my mid-to-late 20s. Part of my difficulty was bridging my own imaginary thought processes with someone else's. To this day, one of the hardest things for me to get through in a novel is reading someone else's descriptions of a setting or an environment. We all come by with our own perception of how things should look, based on the framework of our experiences and environment, all of which are influenced by cultural and social factors. But comic books were able to help me to better appreciate how someone else may have painted that scene and challenged my own perceptions of how something should look. This is a big reason why I would rather read books than watch movies, since the books will allow me to open my mind up to an endless possibilty of how as scene is set, how a character looks and behaves, and so forth.
Based on our family's socio-economic status, comic books were an affordable way to learn how to read. My parents could not afford to buy even a steady stream of Scholastic titles and I suspect that even if they had, I would not have read it. Since comic books were varied in subject, title, and genre, there was a lot of selection to choose from, and every month, either the variety store or comic book shop's stock was replenished. This added much excitement to my monthly foray into these places, making me wonder what story I will pick up next. Comics back then were 50 cents to a dollar, so based on my measly allowance, I could pick up several titles. With gaining interest in a series, I was then introduced to the whole world of back-issues. Remember, reading a novel generally encompasses elements that are self-contained; that is, the plot, characters and so forth are not re-occuring and do not cross-over to other books (there are, of course, exceptions to this, with children's series and what not, but even then, their release and publication is limited by the ability of the author to churn out material). Multiple titles of comic books were released on a monthly basis (back in the day, I seem to recall that Marvel had something like 30-40 titles going on per month. That's a lot of selection from which to choose). That's a lot of reading opportunities that became available.
These days, unfortuantely, literacy is not as highly regarded as it once was. You see this the ghetto-ization of the English language, with inner city urban-speak now enjoying everyday usage. I cringe when I see words deliberately mis-spelled and are commonly passed off as younger generation communicative expression. Instant messaging has turned the English language into a series of abbreviated, mis-spelled "words". And basic words are constantly fouled up, even by those who you think would know better (like older executives, who you assume have been through a better educational system from yesteryear). How many people spell the plural for compact discs as "CD's" when it fact it should be spelled "CDs". People have no clue that the apostrophe is for either contraction or possession only. The words "their" and "there" are inter-mingled frequently. "Dependent" is often spelled "dependant", and so forth.
I also find it disconcerting to see that society and the educational system has now become a haven for English-as-a-second-langage toleration. You have to remember that I am speaking this as an Asian guy whose original language was Chinese (Cantonese). My parents spoke very broken English when we first came to Canada, and so anything I know in my writing or speaking of English was credited to both the schools to which I attended, and also, to my willingness to suck it up and learn English. Nowadays, there is so much accomodation for the speaking of other languages, that English is relegated to the backdrop of "as-needed" status. I completely reject this type of approach and in fact, when I am stopped on the street (which happens often) by a Chinese person who assumes I speak Chinese, I will not respond to them in Chinese, because I do not want to perpetuate that language crutch. I will speak to them in English and if they do not understand, well, that's too bad - they better learn English. The only exception to this are elderly people, for whom it may be too late to start learning a new language.
My son is starting to develop an interest in reading. While I can give him some kid novels to read, I am not certain that that is the right approach. Kids can and do get discouraged in reading a tome, where many words are beyond their comprehension. It would be, in my estimation, far better to simply transition them in the wonderful world of reading with the use of vocabulary-level-appropriate comic books. This will allow them to use their imagination, help them to visualize words and settings and prepare them for a future world of reading where they can enjoy the vast breadth of the English language.
Now, I have heard this all my life - comic books are for kids, comic books are a waste of time, comic books have juvenile language, comic books are for the immature reader, and so forth. Though I do not read comic books anymore, what I can say is that these perceptions are far from the truth. In fact, in my own experience, comic books have enhanced my literacy to the degree that I was able to subsequently win spelling contests, become enough of a decent writer to be accepted into all the journalism schools to which I applied, which allowed me to get a gig as an editor of my college magazine and which enabled me to become a writer/reviewer for a prominent Christian magazine more than 15 years ago. I will be happy to debate with anyone anytime who does not believe comic books have any value when it comes to literacy.
I was a late bloomer when it came to reading. Unlike my son, who at six-years-old, can read at an elementary level, I don't believe that I was able to read with any degree of fluency until I was about eight or nine. Even then, reading was really a forced activity and to me, it was more for academic exercises, rather than personal enjoyment. I do not come from a family of readers; in fact, I don't think my parents ever read a book in their lives from cover-to-cover, aside from the one book I know my Dad read, Lee Iacocca's self-titled autobiography. I believe my Dad once told me that is the only book that he read on his own accord in his entire life (and even then, "on his own accord" is debatable, since the book was either required for business purposes or he was strongly encouraged to read it for the same). My Mom has told me that has never read any books. My brother and sister are not really strong readers either, though they have read the occasional book (we're talking maybe one book every few years). So really, I am an anomaly of sorts, in not only the fact that I have an extensive personal library of books at home (around 1200+ at least count), but I've read hundreds upon hundreds of novels, expository works, non-fiction, biographies, and so forth). I've told my son this, that if it was between watching a movie, and reading a book, I would highly favour the latter.
My late start with reading came in a non-conventional means. Some kids start reading novels early and subsequently gravitate towards more big-kid novels, teen novels, and adult novels. For me, I was never into novels. I remember being in grade six (12-years-old or so) and part of our reading units required that I pick out a different book from the homeroom teacher's library (which, if I recall, was quite thin) and read it for the purposes of providing a book report on it. All I remember is how much of a challenge this was for me, given that I had no interest in any of the books that were in the teacher's collection. I remember picking up the Hobbit and thinking, "that is a thick book, I will never get through that". It was a chore, and I don't recall successfully getting through any of those books, but I must have, since I didn't fail grade six.
It was around that time that I started to excel at creative writing. It was kind of weird, for me as an emerging writer, to thoroughly enjoy writing, yet be wary of reading. You would think that reading and writing were mutually inclusive, but they were not for me. That marriage took place soon after, when I discovered the world of comic books, particularly Marvel and D.C. superhero comic books.
In retrospect, I think that part of the reason why I was able to write well at that point, was because I enjoyed using my imagination, and writing gross and seemingly crude stories about burping, farting, boogers, and what not. I remember being able to aptly describe something that was a normal body function in such great detail, that it had the class in stitches. Of course, this had its downside as well, oftentimes with me sitting in the front of the class facing the wall with a dunce cap place upon my head (yes, they did that kind of stuff back then). But the classmate response far outweighed any disciplinary action, so it was one of those cases of "it was worth it".
Comic books helped to really bring the marriage of imagination, writing, and vocabulary expansion to its full extent for me. My parents, my teachers and other parents were highly critical of comic books, claiming that there is no long-term beneift in reading these, as the vocabulary is infantile and does not enhance learning. Maybe that is true if you are reading the good ol' Whitman type of comics, but the Marvel and D.C. types were highly proficient in their use of language, so much so that I often had to check a dictionary in order to find out the meaning of a word. I had the impetus to do so, since without knowing the respective word's meaning, I could not progress further in the plot. Meanwhile, my Dad, who was a harsh critic of comics, read the Toronto Sun newspaper, which subsequent studies have shown to have about a grade 4-6 reading vocabulary, whereas the comic books that I was reading were about grade 9-11.
Some feel the illustrations in comic books are too much of an aid in telling the story, but there are different perspectives on this. Mine is that I viewed the illustrations as having artistic value rather than simply visual translation. It's no different than graphics on video games - I enjoy seeing advanced graphics, not because I am expecting some sort of realistic fantasy escape, but I simply admire the artist's ability to render at such a high degree of proficiency. Similarly, my admiration of comic art was more for artistic value and attention to detail than anything else. It was the story that was the draw, and bear in mind that the comics that I read were more than simply a bubble with a sentence or two in it. Most conversations or thoughts had complex sentences with varying sentence structure to give it that variety of reading flow. If you read anything that is just a collection of single sentences with a period at the end, it will get boring really fast. But comic books were not like that for me.
Further, comics oftentimes had complex plots, with multi-faceted characters, and delved in a variety of issues, sometimes touching on ethnical or moral dilemmas. It's not what people think of - the old Popeye beating the crap out of Brutus and saving Olive Oyl - type of plots). After a while, you really do get a sense of the psychology of characters and their personas. This has really helped me to transition to novels, something that I was not able to read and fully appreciate until I was in my mid-to-late 20s. Part of my difficulty was bridging my own imaginary thought processes with someone else's. To this day, one of the hardest things for me to get through in a novel is reading someone else's descriptions of a setting or an environment. We all come by with our own perception of how things should look, based on the framework of our experiences and environment, all of which are influenced by cultural and social factors. But comic books were able to help me to better appreciate how someone else may have painted that scene and challenged my own perceptions of how something should look. This is a big reason why I would rather read books than watch movies, since the books will allow me to open my mind up to an endless possibilty of how as scene is set, how a character looks and behaves, and so forth.
Based on our family's socio-economic status, comic books were an affordable way to learn how to read. My parents could not afford to buy even a steady stream of Scholastic titles and I suspect that even if they had, I would not have read it. Since comic books were varied in subject, title, and genre, there was a lot of selection to choose from, and every month, either the variety store or comic book shop's stock was replenished. This added much excitement to my monthly foray into these places, making me wonder what story I will pick up next. Comics back then were 50 cents to a dollar, so based on my measly allowance, I could pick up several titles. With gaining interest in a series, I was then introduced to the whole world of back-issues. Remember, reading a novel generally encompasses elements that are self-contained; that is, the plot, characters and so forth are not re-occuring and do not cross-over to other books (there are, of course, exceptions to this, with children's series and what not, but even then, their release and publication is limited by the ability of the author to churn out material). Multiple titles of comic books were released on a monthly basis (back in the day, I seem to recall that Marvel had something like 30-40 titles going on per month. That's a lot of selection from which to choose). That's a lot of reading opportunities that became available.
These days, unfortuantely, literacy is not as highly regarded as it once was. You see this the ghetto-ization of the English language, with inner city urban-speak now enjoying everyday usage. I cringe when I see words deliberately mis-spelled and are commonly passed off as younger generation communicative expression. Instant messaging has turned the English language into a series of abbreviated, mis-spelled "words". And basic words are constantly fouled up, even by those who you think would know better (like older executives, who you assume have been through a better educational system from yesteryear). How many people spell the plural for compact discs as "CD's" when it fact it should be spelled "CDs". People have no clue that the apostrophe is for either contraction or possession only. The words "their" and "there" are inter-mingled frequently. "Dependent" is often spelled "dependant", and so forth.
I also find it disconcerting to see that society and the educational system has now become a haven for English-as-a-second-langage toleration. You have to remember that I am speaking this as an Asian guy whose original language was Chinese (Cantonese). My parents spoke very broken English when we first came to Canada, and so anything I know in my writing or speaking of English was credited to both the schools to which I attended, and also, to my willingness to suck it up and learn English. Nowadays, there is so much accomodation for the speaking of other languages, that English is relegated to the backdrop of "as-needed" status. I completely reject this type of approach and in fact, when I am stopped on the street (which happens often) by a Chinese person who assumes I speak Chinese, I will not respond to them in Chinese, because I do not want to perpetuate that language crutch. I will speak to them in English and if they do not understand, well, that's too bad - they better learn English. The only exception to this are elderly people, for whom it may be too late to start learning a new language.
My son is starting to develop an interest in reading. While I can give him some kid novels to read, I am not certain that that is the right approach. Kids can and do get discouraged in reading a tome, where many words are beyond their comprehension. It would be, in my estimation, far better to simply transition them in the wonderful world of reading with the use of vocabulary-level-appropriate comic books. This will allow them to use their imagination, help them to visualize words and settings and prepare them for a future world of reading where they can enjoy the vast breadth of the English language.
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