Tristan Friedrich Schmid’s take on the brave new world: news, music, technology, film, culture, activism, politics, reviews, the environment, etc…
Came across a news item on MSNBC today regarding the most important decision President Elect Obama faces: what kind of puppy to get for the White House?
Overwhelmingly, MSNBC visitors think Obama should adopt a mutt. As someone who works at an animal shelter, I couldn’t agree more. What do you think? Vote for the kind of dog the Obamas should adopt.
NPR has another fun story about this difficult decision, too.
Moving and a transitioning away from my Angie’s List gig have kept me busy and away from my online endeavors, so I’ve been unfortunately quite silent about the election. But as a fan of Monty Python, John Cleese, and the future of the United States, this I had to share.
Though it’s several years old, I’ve received a chain email message from many people recently titled “Allah or Jesus Christ?” which gives the impression that every person of the Islamic faith believes in holy war (jihad) against non-believers (infidels.) I’ve replied with this link from Snopes.com, which debunks the story about a prison imam, or priest, being questioned about beliefs inherent to Islam. Read to the end to get the full effect: it might take a few minutes out of your day, but it could shine some light on how you view other people not of the same belief system.
Though I don’t by any means condone hatred or death perpetrated by Islamic radicals — or radicals in any other belief system for that matter, whether it be political or religious — I think it’s unfair for people to assume that everyone involved in a religion adheres strictly to every “belief” in that religion no matter how crazy, in this case jihad. Islam is a far-reaching, vast religion, with many different types of adherents, much like Christianity; spreading chain emails such as this basically amounts to gossip, polarizing people further to one side or the other. Stoking the fires of ignorance-based hatred only serves to endanger everyone involved: more danger and terror is something this world does not need right now.
Care about climate change/the environment/our national energy policy? If you drive a car, eat food that travels via a gas-fueled vehicle, use electricity, or are alive today, you should.
Thus far, the presidential candidate debates have been sidestepping the environmental and energy-related issues. Not to say that the war in Iraq, health care, and the economy aren’t important, but everything’s related, so we should give consideration to other things. This handy-dandy chart from Grist compactly compares the candidates’ viewpoints on greenhouse emissions caps, fuel economy standards, renewable energy, biofuels, coal, and nuclear energy. Since few people in the mass media are talking about these things in the primaries, you might want to research it yourself before picking a candidate.
Having trouble figuring out which U.S. presidential candidate to root for? The USA Today “candidate match game” is an interesting way to resolve your candidate conundrum. Through a series of 11 questions, the game shows you the top three candidates for the next presidential election that best match your ideas and values. As you answer each question, colored bars change size to show which candidates match your position on key issues ranging from health care to the environment to the war in Iraq. At the end of the 11-question series, you’re given the opportunity to weigh each category on how important it is to you compared to the others. This might be the most interesting part: adding substantial weight to certain categories significantly changed some of my top contenders.
Unfortunately, none of the top three the game referred me to are even remotely considered true contenders in this tight race. Does this mean I’m vastly different from the average American voter/”caucus-goer”? Or does it mean that taking online polls isn’t a great way to find answers to extremely important dilemmas?
Television might be the worst thing to happen to civilized society. Too many Americans rely on it for their political opinions, and taking political stances based on superficial exposure is a dangerous thing.
Take a look at pictures of the presidential candidates, and you’ll see there’s not an ugly, disfigured freak amongst them (although one of them is awfully elf-like… or leprechaun-like?). Not that it would necessarily be a good thing if an ugly, disfigured freak (like the hunchback in 300) were to lead our country, but it might be a good thing: it could show the world that we aren’t nation comprised only of self-absorbed, gas-guzzling, overweight, narcissistic, plastic-surgery-obsessed nation-rebuilders (no offense meant to those of us that are any of the aforementioned.) It would also show that we’re more concerned with what candidates do and say rather than how they say it.
My point is that people, in this country and others, rely far too much on what they see on TV for their information, political and otherwise. They tend not to read and do investigative research when making important decisions like who they’ll vote on to be president, and that’s unfortunate. They’re likely to take what they see on TV at face value, especially if it’s a pretty face saying some pretty things. McInformation is too ubiquitous in our culture and thus too easy to digest.
If Abraham Lincoln were to run for president today, he’d need an awful lot of makeup — kinda like one of the last guys who ran for president.
