The other day a co-worker found out that I listen to Sean Hannity during the day while I am at work. His first response was; “You’re listening to Hannity all the time now, so now you’re not even going to pretend you’re an Independent anymore?”
First off, this is not the first time someone has said something like this, people assume that when you listen to a certain type of music or a certain type of talk radio, that you are automatically a certain class or political persuasion of people. Yet through that train of thought, at least for those that ask and are serious about the question, they do not realize exactly how ignorant they sound. No offense to the asker listed above, since he is a reader.
The best part of understanding anything, is to be able to, objectively, listen to both sides of an argument and make a determination based on what both sides have to say and compare it to your own research. I do this with everything I hear on the stations that I listen to. For the record, the stations that I listen to are as follows: Sirius – Patriot 144, Sirius – POTUS 110 and Sirius – Left 146.
To be honest, the hardest one to listen to is Left 146. These people are fawning and cooing all over the Obama administration like he is the best thing since sliced white bread (you may take that however you want.) This station is like one long continuous squishy ObamaGasm, I usually feel like I need to get tested for an STD after listening for too long… ironically this is something that CBO will cover in his new Universal Healthcare.
As if things are not bad enough on their own, we feel the need to divide ourselves further by creating these petty “Gangs” of political rivals whose only goal in life is to squabble over how to run the government instead of actually RUNNING the Government, like a poorly made remake of “West Side Story” with the rival gangs dancing up and down the streets getting nothing more done than producing their own CO2 atmosphere.
Look at the government the way it is now, and look at the achievements that have been made by it over the last several years, say about the last twenty years. In fact, in my opinion, the last good president we had was Reagan… not to mention that he was my Boss for a short period of time. There are many out there that will debate this fact, but look at the history and what he accomplished in the disastrous wake of the Carter administration.
I am not opening this post up for debate or argument on the effectiveness on presidents of the past, however I am going to bring into question the effectiveness of the current political parties that are in power.
If the next four year pass the way I expect them to, I feel that we are going to truly see what little value there is in a single party “running the show”, so to say. If CBO and his team accomplish nothing ver the next four years, then who will they have to blame? The Dems control the house and the senate, there will be no one to blame but themselves.
That being said, you might ask; “‘Samurai… are you saying that the Republicans would do better?” And to that I would answer a resounding NO!!! The Dems and the Reps have made a special point of demonstrating their uselessness over the last fifteen years or so. If there has ever been a better time for a Third party to come in, like the proverbial knight in shinning armour on his (or her) white steed, then it is now.
There are unfortunately few “Third” parties that would even have a chance to do anything, and among these would be the two more powerful… the Libertarian and Independent parties. Both of whom I respect a great deal, and the reason for which I abandon the sinking ship of the Republican party and boarded the smaller, but better staffed, Independent Party.
I would ask that anyone reading this, take the time to look at the reason they belong to the party that they chose and learn about it and why you are part of it. Have they done everything that you think they should of or are you simply staying on with them because you think it is the right thing to do. If you can look at the recent history of their ACCOMPLISHMENTS, not what they SAID they would do, but what they DID… and say that you are proud of them and what they stand for, then by all means… stay with them. But if you cannot accept that they have made their decisions based on your desires, or if they do not stand for what you believe in, then for G-d’s sake, leave them behind!!!
You may think you are only one person, but every movement starts with one person. Maybe if the Dems and the Reps see people leaving them in record numbers, then they will realize that they are making mistakes. I feel that the only reason that they get away with half the stuff they get away with is because of the complacency of us, the people that put them in power in the first place.
Thank you for your time.
Battlestar Galactica – The End… Maybe
By Samuel Wright
On March 30, 2009
In Commentary and Critique, Movies, Rants and Raves
So… a couple weeks ago Battlestar Galactica ended.
I really liked this show, a lot. But like Babylon 5, years before, the writers were smart, and instead of creating an open ended storyline that would keep going until it was little more than an excuse to keep a franchise running (… can anyone say “Enterprise”?), they made a series that would have a clearly defined beginning, with interesting people who all had back-stories, and ran with it, keeping us guessing the entire five years. Then, like clockwork, it had a clearly (or not so much, depending on who you ask.) defined end.
If you are one of those people that has not seen the whole series yet, you may want to stop reading now, I plan on talking about the last show and some of the other things that I saw through the series that made me stop and go “Hmmm”, as Arsenio Hall might have said. So consider this your “Spoiler Warning.”
First… I liked the feel of the Galactica from the onset. It looked like a Battleship, had the feel of a battleship, and even had that appearance that you might expect from a ship that was made for battle in an airless environment.
As an example, take a moment the next time you watch BSG, and look at the layout of the ship, then watch a movie like “Hunt for Red October” or “Red Tide”, and notice that the Galactica resebles a submarine in many aspects. This is also, more than likely, how any near-future ship that we send into space will look.
Then there is the story line. While this BSG series used most of the same issues and plots of the original series from the 70s, it did it the way I think the original writers wanted the stories to flow. For those of us who recall, the original series was kinda campy and hard to take too seriously. But there was good reason for that, from my point of view, that was that it was competing against the legacy of movies like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There was just too much serious Sci-Fi out there at the time, so they had to “lighten it up” a bit.
This series, the new BSG, was dark. Yes, It had it’s ups and downs, but overall, like one of the guys in the little show right before the series finale said… how happy can you make a show, when your race is in jeopardy of destruction? There were no “cutesy” or “warm and fuzzy” moments in it, and no thought provoking epilogue from Captain/Admiral Adama at the end of the show. If you recall the original series, you will remember what I am talking about.
The storyline that the new BSG carried with it is one that I think we will all carry with us. Watching Rosalyn grow as a character and then watch her as the cancer ate her alive but she still fought through it all, then, once they were all safe on the new “Earth”, she finally lets go and dies with Adama by her side, his last act being that of placing his ring on her finger. Seeing Cara Thrace seem to die, then come back… only to discover, in the last episode, that she probably was never really there to begin with. Then to learn that the colonists may have been the seeds of what you and I are today in some form of modernized Panspermia.
BSG was one of those programs that, now that it is over, has left a hole in me. Not just in the sense that now there is some open slot in my Television viewing schedule, but in the sense that it leaves so many questions open to interpretation. There things that you sit and try and think out, now, that probably will never be answered. I hope, though, that Ron Moore and his team leave it that way.
Let BSG be one of those things that all of us, the fans, will sit around for years and wonder about. Let it fuel our conversations as we sit in Starbucks (pun intended) and drink our latte’s, and talk nerd talk about these shows.
That is what keeps the characters alive.