Serrated Prose

Is there a word for prideful, ostentatious ignorance? I can't think of one. If there is such a word, it could be applied to so many things in the human experience. Most of these things relate to personal beliefs, but something in particular has been troubling me for years: Ironically, the advent of the Internet has proliferated this Victorian-level distrust of science. Over a medium that is purely a monument to science, ignorance is proudly exclaimed and tries its best to refute anything discovered by the scientific method. I don't dismiss such stubborn ignorance because I understand where it comes from. To those who always believed that science was the "last word" in everything, suddenly being thrust into the knowledge and rumor overload of the Internet can cause the less well-read people to retreat into a shell of "trusting their gut feelings" for everything from aerospace to religion. Mostly, this is harmless belief in nonsense that devolves into dead-e...

Thank goodness the majority of Americans are happy that DOMA was  defeated  by the Supreme Court (now called SCOTUS by the too-cool-for-school crowd), but here I'd like to address the detractors and their arguments against allowing homosexuals to marry. I'll cover the most common ones I've heard, the first is drawn from a woman I just heard call into a talk radio station: "What is marriage, now? This will open the door to all kinds of unions. Can you marry a child, now? Can you marry a sister? Can you marry a dog? Can you marry many wives or husbands? Where does it end?" This argument boils down to "I'm so confused! The world doesn't make sense anymore!" I'm sure this was the general sentiment among conservatives when the Supreme Court allowed interracial marriage in 1967 -- but for the sake of clarity, let me break it down for those who make this argument: Marriage is still monogamy between humans who are no closer in relation than first...

Children are a marvelous thing to behold. Not only because of the obvious willingness to believe anything and thoughtlessly depend on adults for just about everything -- but because we were all like that at one time. A time so long ago, for some, that the memories seem like a fairy tale told to us about some stranger in an imaginary land. We believed everything we were told. We could believe in dragons, ghosts, superheroes, and even altruism. But then we get older and reality is the mother of all wet blankets. People really aren't so nice and strangers are rarely looking out for anyone but themselves and are, at worst, nefarious people who want to somehow take advantage of us. The world really isn't a magical place; there are no dragons or superheroes and altruism always seems to have an ulterior motive. I didn't forget about ghosts. Some people jealously cling to the belief that spirits linger and watch us -- mostly because, by nature, ghosts are invisible, unlike dragon...

At the risk of putting up a corny Thanksgiving ramble, I'm going to try to accentuate the positive things we have. So often we hear about horrors or the doom lurking just around the corner. Doom and fear sell. Humans crave it. We LOVE bad news. We all have experienced a touch of  schadenfreude , from time to time. To memorialize our recent fear, currently the conservatives are lamenting the "loss of America" to Obama's recent winning a second term as president. Somehow, America is now going to dissolve into the sea. Also, in January, is the "Fiscal Cliff," when all sorts of automatic spending cuts and increased taxes will be triggered -- a measure created because in 2011, the hard-core conservatives balked on raising the debt ceiling as has been done dozens of times in the past decade. So, they made a stand and found out that stomping your feet and just saying "No," actually has consequences: America's AAA rating was lowered to AA (by only on...

The OWS movement is joyously celebrating it's one-year anniversary  with what amounts to a public party trying very hard to look like a protest. In short, one year later, nothing new. They still have no message except "Those guys have more money than we do," all under the dubious moniker of "We are the 99%," which does little more than prove most of the protesters skipped the Statistics chapter in math class. The sad part of all this is that they would have a point, if they had the mental fortitude to get organized beyond using social media to gather. OWS is really little more than an extended "flash mob" who shows up and then decides why they're there. In their confusion, they've decided to define themselves by what they hate: people with money. Like I said earlier, they'd have a point if they could actually formulate it in an intelligent way: The people at the top of the economic pyramid are becoming fewer while those at the bottom are ...

Wow, totally stunned. Not much to say here.... As one Canadian put it, "Congratulations, US. Welcome to the developed world!" I completely agree. It's time the US moved away from the social Darwinism model of "Survival of the Richest" and move to a more civil and just model. The law still needs tweaking and will be debated for years to come, but for all those out there who have been bankrupted by healthcare, this is a step in the right direction. For the detractors, here are some of the obvious arguments. And at the risk of pulling a "Limbaugh," I'll argue with myself: "How will we afford it?" We'll find a way. There are provisions in the bill for allaying the cost, but as we all know, costs are always at least double whatever has been projected where politicians are concerned. This is important, though. This isn't a mandate forcing everyone to have a widget in their shoe; it's truly a matter of life and death to some an...

"Greed is good," said Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street. It's one of the most famous movie quotes in decades -- not only because it's got that alliteration thing going for it, but because Gecko laid out a very believable, solid argument for naked avarice. Greed and wealth know no party boundaries, but advocates of greed or something akin to economical Darwinism is espoused by the Republicans -- shamelessly espoused. They claim it to be the cornerstone of Capitalism, as a matter of fact. Not only do they champion "winner-take-all" mentality, but they tend to say that everyone is subject to this. Everyone wants more. Everyone will step over each other to make that extra dollar. OK, maybe I'm generalizing a bit, but the Republicans tend to be a more lockstep-message party than the Democrats (by a small, but measurable degree). But the championing of greed wouldn't be so amusing if not for championing the 2,000-year-old philosophy of Christianity a...