Something To Contemplate As You Go On Your Merry Way...

Hello again folks. I hope everyone out there is happy and healthy.
Here is something to think about during the course of your day.
I was reading an article on the Patriot Act in the Washington Post and something that I learned in college started buzzing around my head. I left it go for a moment, but then I started reading an article on George W. Bush and the DOJ paper justifying the NSA's warrantless spying over on a site called "The Slate". As I was reading, the thought buzzed louder and louder until I decided that perhaps I should write about the thought.
As I stated the thought was of something that I learned in college. While attending Pitt, I took a few courses in terrorism (LONG before it was fashionable to do so). During the course, the instructor started going over what the goals of your average terrorist were. Among things like wholesale political, social, and economic changes and the infliction of mass terror upon a population, was one thing that struck me then, and has comeback to me now.
The instructor stated that when attacking the US, terrorists could not hope to win militarily, nor could they hope to win by injuring our economy. The only way that a terrorist could beat the US was to cause political disruption on such a scale that it would cause us to abandon our constitution and the political principals that we hold dear. Also, the political disruption would cause the government to become more repressive (of our freedoms) in pursuit of security.
Given the current state of affairs with the US holding people indefinitely without a right to an attorney, committing acts of torture, spying on people domestically without first obtaining a warrant or requesting judicial oversight, and with the White House claiming that it has a right to do so by twisting the interpretations of Article II of the Constitution, the Congressionally passed Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), and the theory of Unitary Executive Power, aren't the terrorists winning? By combining the above offenses and the Patriot Act, the government has shown that, in the pursuit of security, it is willing to abandon both the Constitution and our cherished principals freedom and civil liberties. This is the exact manner in which a government becomes repressive. So, I ask you, the readers, if the way a terrorist "wins" is to cause a government to become repressive in pursuit of security, then how can Bush and his pals come on tv and say that we are "winning the war on terrorism"?
I am Chuck and I believe that an educated, free thinking populace is the best armor any republic can have!

Well, Here They Are...Finally!

Hello again loyal readers. I hope everyone is doing well and feeling fine.
Well, you've been waiting in anticipation of this post. So here it is, my somewhat skewered, slightly looney, and fairly facetious predictions for 2006.
In reverse order (from least important to most important):

10. The Pittsburgh Steelers will win the Super Bowl (Ok, everyone run out and put down money on the Seahawks. You probably won't be wrong given my record in college bowl predictions!)

9. The New York Mets will again spend as much on payroll as the old Soviet Union did on defense, and, again, they will finish out of the playoffs

8. Congressional hearings on mining will yield the conclusion that working underground is dangerous. Thus, Congress will mandate that, from now on, all underground mining must be done on the surface to minimize the danger and maximize worker safety.

7. George W. Bush will sign an executive order stating that all non-Republicans are a threat to national security and must be spied on, harassed, fired from all public employment, and imprisoned. The order will include all public office holders from Congressmen on down.

6. The current NSA domestic spying scandal will be shown to be more widespread than originally believed. It will be shown that the NSA not only spied on innocent people, but also data mined not just some, but all internet traffic in the US. It will also be shown that they gathered damaging information on anyone who opposes The Glorious Leader (aka GW Bush) for the purposes of (at a later time) harassing, intimidating, incarcerating, and/or generally ruining the person's life.

5. Gasoline will hit $4.50 per gallon by the end of summer. Oil will not actually be in short supply. The oil companies will state that with oil in abundance, new storage facilities will need to be built, and thus, the price of gas will need to increase to pay for the new tanks. When asked for a comment, the White House will reply, "Who cares about the increased price of gas, the collapse of the economy, and the little guy! We're [the White House occupants] getting rich here and that's all that counts!"

4. While out "pressing the flesh", Vice President Dick Cheney will step into a mudpuddle and accidentally short himself out. He will spend months, not in a hospital, but in an appliance repair shop waiting on parts to come in so that he can be adequately rewired and repaired.

3. As more about the Bush/NSA spying scandal becomes public, Congress will hold hearings to determine how best to draft articles of impeachment against George W. Bush.

2. In an effort to forestall his imminent presidential demise, Bush will issue an executive order suspending Congress. He will also order troops to enforce his decree. Fortunately, the troops will refuse the order as being unconstitutional. (For his order, Bush will also be inducted into the "Petty Dictators Club" joining such infamous company as Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein.)

1. George W. Bush will be impeached. Dick Cheney will take over, but will soon resign citing health reasons. In the resulting confusion as to who is president, Alexander Haig will resurface and claim that he is in charge. (For those wondering, the Speaker of the House [J. Dennis Hastert, R-IL] would actually be the President.)

Well, there you have it, my predictions for 2006. As always, if you don't like my predictions, feel free to make up your own (heck, they might even be better than mine). Also, as with all "psychic" activities, these predictions are provided for "entertainment purposes only". And for those of you who want to know how I come up with my predictions, suffice to say the process involves sleep deprivation, staring into an empty Mt. Dew bottle, and an old head injury! (Not really, I kind of make it up as I go.)
On that note, as always, I am Chuck, and these predictions have been brought to you by the Bad Psychic Network (Remember, our motto is "I knew you were going to say something like that!")
Oh, just a reminder, comments (good, bad, indifferent) on this and any other post are always welcome. Let me know what you think folks! --C.

A Personal Revelation (Or Not)...

Hello again loyal readers. I hope everyone is doing well.
I will post my predictions for 2006 soon (I'm not quite done with them yet.)
This post concerns a minor personal revelation.
I was sitting at the computer playing solitaire and listening to some old 80's music (specifically, "Never Surrender" by Corey Hart) after an evening of updating, downloading, and general surfing. While I listened to the song, my mind wandered, as it is wont to do, and then it hit me. Does anyone know why nostalgia-based industries make so much money? Anyone...Bueller? Well, I will tell you. It is because, as everyone gets older, they start remembering and reassessing their youth. Whether it is consciously or unconsciously, enough people do it to drive a industry that is nostalgia based. By "nostalgia-based industries", I mean everything from "classic rock" FM radio stations and "TV Land"-style television stations to the folks who put out those "Best Of" Decade X albums and the producers of shows like VH1's popular "I Love The" [insert decade here] fare.
Now there is nothing wrong with a little nostagia. In fact, in tough or bad times, memories from our youths can be quite comforting (and in some cases, inspiring.) As long as you don't overdo it, I don't think that any p-shrink will tell you that reminiscing about days past is a bad thing.
The revelation I had doesn't so much deal with wondering about memories or reassessing my youth as it does with why we feel so nostalgic when such memories pop up. The revelation goes a bit like this:
First, I know that music can be an incredibly powerful tool insofar as churning up memories are concerned. Second, I know that those memories with strong emotions (good or neutral emotions such as those that give you a "warm fuzzy" feeling) attached to them can lead to deep feelings of nostalgia. The question I posed to myself was "Why does this happen?" So, I thought about it for a while. Using a combination of inductive and deductive reasoning coupled with personal thoughts and feelings, I came up with my hypothesis. That hypothesis is, when we are young, specifically when we are teenagers, we are transitioning from childhood to adulthood. During that transition, we are going through several difficult periods concurrently. Physically, we are going through puberty. Socially and emotionally, we are dealing with becoming aware of the opposite sex, dating, and, generally, the whole high school social period. Intellectually, our thinking is being transformed from the learning by recitation model of primary education into the critical thinking model of secondary education and adulthood. Generally, we enter, traverse, and exit this entire period in less than ten years (that is from the start of puberty to its end). To experience this massive upheaval and change in less than ten years means that the changes we are experiencing and information we are gathering about ourselves and the world around us happens extremely rapidly. This rapidity means that certain things get lost, forgotten or ignored. Couple the lost, forgotten, or ignored items with a teenager's desire to "cool" and aloof or with (as I put it) their inability to be anything but egocentric and you can begin to see that during our teen years we neither have the emotional maturity, nor the intellectual maturity, to appreciate the subtleties of the world around us. Couple that immaturity with the fact that the world around them is coming at them at an alarming rate, and you can see how the average teen may miss a few things. Now, one thing that any parent will agree with, is that the average teen doesn't miss much in the way of popular music. As we already know, music is a powerful memory agent.
Now, leap forward to your 30's and 40's. Time has eliminated the bad memories of our youth and polished the good memories. Suddenly, on the local radio station, a song from your lost youth appears. All of those good memories, so carefully polished, come flooding back, and suddenly you find yourself longing for the "simpler days" of 1985. You invariably remember something like sharing a romantic dance with "Mary Jane Rottencrotch", but you never remember the 16 girls who turned you down flat for that dance because you were either not in the "right" clique or because you were an a/v geek. (This may pertain to people feeling nostalgic for their high school days, but college nostalgia may be looked upon as merely an extension of the same processes described above but with a bit more maturity involved.)
Thus it is my conclusion that nostalgia occurs for two reasons. The first reason is that as teenagers we are aware of our environment, most specifically social happenings and the music associated with them, but are either too overwhelmed or immature to appreciate it at the time. And the second reason is that, as adults, we have eliminated, repressed, or just plain forgotten, all of the unpleasant memories, retained and enhanced the good memories, and have learned how to appreciate the environment around us.
Those nostalgia-based industries I spoke of earlier have learned how to tap the second reason above. That is how they manage to sell people their products. So next time you are considering shelling out $20 for a "Best of" Decade X cd, think about the reasons you want the cd. While you may still get the cd, you may also get a bonus while thinking about your reasons for the purchase...you just may discover something about yourself you never knew. And that in itself is well worth the $20.
As always, I am Chuck and this has been a minor revelation (more than a surprising thought but less than an epiphany). (And now you also know why I majored in History and not Psych!!)