The Waiting (part 5)

This is a view of a small part of the fire from downtown Santa Rosa one week after it started.

That's miles away.

It was the waiting that was the killer. 

You can find the rest of this piece here:

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It's at this point, I suppose I should say that if you want to help with the fire relief efforts that there are ways to do that. I would suggest Redwood Credit Union, but there are plenty of other trustworthy places to go through for donations.

HOWEVER

Before doing that, I would actually suggest supporting the relief effort for Puerto Rico. In the long run (and the short, for that matter), they need it more. I mean when we have a #fakepresident who is actively undermining the relief effort, it's time for the people to step up and do the right thing. I'm not telling you not to help with the fire relief effort here but, if it's a choice for you, support the relief effort in Puerto Rico.

Also, just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that there is some kind of mandate that you send help to... well, anywhere, BUT, if you want to... That's all I'm saying.

A Sad Thing

Let's talk philosophy.

But only a little and only bouncing a bit on the surface.

Throughout most of human history, we have operated under this idea of "might makes right." We can talk about the concept from a number of angles, but they all come down to the ability of a person or group to silence his/their opponent(s). Often by death: combat, war, whatever. The stronger person/group then gets to set the rules, the "right."

Frequently, we (as a race) have used "God" as our justification. "I won because God was with me; therefore, I must be right." "God" wouldn't side with a loser, right?

Only, through the lens of history, something previous eras have not had to the extent we have today, we can see that that is, in fact, not true. Or, actually, we can see that "God" certainly wasn't on the side of the winners since they were clearly in the wrong (unless "God" is an immoral capricious bastard). These things we can see even today as the bully beats up the kid in the bathroom and stuffs his face in a toilet. He doesn't have any god on his side; he's just stronger and can, therefore, enforce his injustices on those weaker than himself. Or a group (the Republicans) can make it inordinately difficult for another group (African Americans/minorities) to vote thereby throwing an election in their favor.

And since this is a blog post, I'm not going to run through all of the historical examples of this faulty logic. Might doesn't make you right, but it might just make you an asshole.

As an aside, "might" is the root of racism.
But I digress...

Of course, in our "modern American society," we tend to frown on violence being used as a way to assert might (which is not necessarily so in other parts of the world). Instead, in the US, we tend to use wealth and, well, shouting. Shouting the loudest is our current iteration of beating someone up or challenging someone to a duel. It's this "yelling the loudest" thing I want to focus on.

Disclaimer: I'm writing this "off the cuff" from personal observations and what I already know about psychology (which is a lot considering I have a degree in it). I'm not citing sources, so, if you don't trust what I'm saying, do your own research. (Which is probably a good thing, all things considered.)

One thing that is known about people is that they tend to follow a show of force, which is why bullies tend to gather followers and why gangs attract people. There are too many reasons why to get into that, right now, but you can probably accept that as true. Another thing that is known is that what is true/factual is not of great importance to most people. People want more to follow someone who can "prove" they are right rather than working out what is right on their own. People, unfortunately, don't want to do that much thinking for themselves and most people are perfectly fine with being told what and how to think. Not that they even realize that that is what they are doing.
[The proliferation of fake news, right now, is a good example of people being willing to believe whatever is put in front of them and also an example of the type of people susceptible to it (those on the Right have been shown to be MUCH more susceptible to believing fabricated stories than those on the Left).]

What this comes down to is the person who can yell the loudest being declared the victor even if, maybe especially if, what the person is yelling is false. From experience, people with facts tend to be quieter people. They tend to be the thinkers. And they tend to erroneously believe "the facts will speak for themselves." The facts almost always speak too late or, rather, are listened to too late. Your opinion is only as strong as my fact until your opinion actually runs up against my fact and is crushed by it.

In fact, I think wrong people tend to yell all the more loudly because they know they know they have no facts or truth but want to assert themselves anyway. Having grown up in a household with a father exactly like this (to the point of yelling at me about text books being wrong because he was right because he said so godamnit!), I'm pretty good at recognizing this behavior, and Trump is exactly the same kind of personality.

So, yeah, thanks climate deniers. In four years when the climate is destroyed by Trump and his cronies, you'll know just exactly how strong your opinion was.

The one thing this election proved is that Trump is a blowhard. He relied upon bellowing loudly that he was right without ever having any facts to prove it and, the sad thing is, people swarmed to him. Yes, he proved that he has "might," that he can yell loudly. That he could yell more loudly than Clinton who mostly relied upon statistics and facts and experience, all concrete things that she believed would speak for her.

At this point, you might be saying, "But Clinton won the popular vote," which is true, she did, but she didn't win the EC because Trump cowed so many people into not voting by yelling so loudly about what a horrible person Clinton is. When half of the country doesn't bother to even make a showing, something is horribly wrong.

You know, we like to think we are all enlightened these days. That we are smarter than people of the past. But that is demonstrably not the case. Our technology and progress are not due to "people" but to select individuals who have been building on facts and truths over a long period of time. Quiet people. Thinkers. People who were, in their own times, frequently drowned out by people shouting over them.

"People" are a sad thing. Lemmings. Because Trump is certainly going to lead everyone off the edge of a cliff and, well, most people are not just going to follow willingly but delightfully. The problem is that the people who don't want to follow, people who see Trump for what he is, a bloated sack of flatulence, are going to get dragged off of the edge of the cliff, too. And, well, because it's America, we could actually drag the whole world with us.

[Yes, I know a lot of you are rolling your eyes, right now, and think I'm being "a bit extreme," but I will have another post soon on why this is not extreme but, actually, a clear and present danger.]

Growing Up In the Race Divide (part 7)

Which brings us to today. Sort of.

It's not that there aren't other things I could talk about...

I could talk about the race riots in Shreveport in '88 just after I'd gone off to college. Guess what they were over. The shooting death of a black man by a white person (a woman in this case). I could talk about my friend who was also from Shreveport (he was black and from the Cedar Grove neighborhood where the riots were taking place) and how worried he was about his family. He was a sophomore and, theoretically, had a lot of friends but, when it came down to it, I was the only one he could talk to because everyone else was too busy making fun of "all the black people burning down their own houses." They said that kind of stuff to him without any regard that they were talking about his home. It didn't help when it made national news and even Leno was making fun of the situation.

My friend couldn't even find out what was going on, because the phones were down and he couldn't get a call through. [Yeah, that sounds so weird, now, but there were no cell phones at the time.] He spent days worrying about his family, eventually got someone to drive him back (I didn't have a car my freshman year), and, pretty much, didn't come back to school after that. I don't even know what happened to him other than that I found out that he came back at some point and moved his stuff out.

I could talk about how in 1991 David Duke was almost elected governor of Louisiana. David Duke who had been a member of the KKK, was "famous" for wearing Nazi uniforms during his days as a student at LSU, and was involved in inciting several racial incidents during that same time period. There were three candidates, and Duke captured, basically, a third of the vote, so there was a runoff between Duke and previous (but not incumbent) governor, Edwin Edwards. Edwards won the runoff, but Duke still took more than half of the white vote in the state. Yeah, that's the state where I grew up; I'm not proud of it.

I could also take about my black friend who went to D.C. for for a work conference during the mid-90s and got the reverse treatment that I had received when I'd been there. One day, when out to lunch with some friends at a rather high class restaurant, she was completely ignored by the staff. The host shut the door in her face when they were going in. She was with two white coworkers, and the host, then, only offered them a table for two. Upon being corrected by one the white male of the group, they still only set two places at the table and had to be prompted to set a third place. The waitress did not acknowledge her presence and left after only taking the orders of the two white people she was there with. When the waitress came back, the male, again, had to place her food order for her while the waitress made comments about how someone must be really hungry to need to order two entrees.

Or I could talk about how just a few weeks ago during a report about the Nepal earthquake that killed nearly 9000 people and wounded almost 25,000 more, the reporter called special attention to the five Americans who were killed. Five! She spent almost as much time during the report talking about the Americans as she did the rest of the report about the earthquake. I kept thinking, "Why should I care about these five people who were killed in comparison to the thousands of Nepalese who were killed?" Why? Because they were white? And I have to assume that they were, because in our national consciousness American=white.

As far as I can tell, nationalism is just a more insidious form of racism. All of the immigration stuff going on, right now, revolves around nationalism and how we need to "keep jobs safe for Americans," but what they really mean is that we need protect white people and their jobs from all of these brown people who keep crossing our border and who will worker cheaper.

I think all of this comes down to some mistaken idea that we somehow "defeated" racism back in the 60s with the death of Martin Luther King and, eventually, giving him his own holiday. While I would agree that we took a step forward back then, by the 80s we'd decided to sit down. "Oh, yeah, we did all that racism stuff back in the day. We're all through with that now." Unfortunately, part of the problem is what was once part of the solution. For instance, that we refer to black people as African Americans rather than just Americans. Sure, it was, at the time, a way of respecting the roots of black people but, now, it's a way of setting blacks apart from whites. They're not "Americans;" they're "African Americans," just a subset of actual Americans and an inferior one at that.

Why do we need to have African Americans and Asian Americans and Whatever Americans at all? White people are not Caucasian Americans or European Americans or anything other than Americans. And that's not to mention that we don't include South America or Mexico in "Americans." That's a thing that has bothered since I was in high school.

Honestly, we won't have dealt with this issue, the issue of racism, until we don't have Americans at all. Or any national identities at all. What we need to have is Earthlings. [And, when it comes down to it, we may eventually need to include more than just humans in the description of Earthlings.] One planet. One people. That, really, is the only way forward.

The Clone Wars is coming...

I see some of you out there shaking your heads and thinking, "You're a little late to the party," but just give me a moment. I don't mean The Clone Wars is coming to TV; I mean The Clone Wars is coming to my blog! Sounds awesome, yes? Yes! Of course, it does.

In conjunction with The Armchair Squid, we'll be going through each episode on a weekly basis and evaluating and reviewing them. That means that for... well, like, a couple of years, I guess, there will be a weekly Clone Wars post. If you haven't watched this show and you like Star Wars at all, you really should watch it, and this is a great excuse to do it. This is easily one of the best animated shows ever on TV and, actually, one of the best sci-fi shows, animated or not. Trust me; I've been known to watch some bad sci-fi, and this is not that. If you've already seen it, well, you know you should get in on this. If you want to sign up, just follow the link over to Squid's blog and get signed up!

Now, a few words... which is difficult, because I want to say a lot of words about a lot of different things, but, then, that's a lot of different things, and I don't want this post to go on all season. So let's talk canon. Hey! Pay attention! I said "canon," not "cannon." We are not shooting explosives at people. Here, we use more elegant words from a... okay, well, not so civilized age. Anyway...

Last year, when Disney took over Star Wars, one of the first things they did was to "do away" with the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I have found this whole thing amusing, but the statement they were making had to be made. But let's back up a moment.

Prior to 1991, the only Star Wars canon was the original trilogy. Sure, there were a handful of books in existence (Splinter of the Mind's Eye, some Han Solo books, a Lando book or three), but no one took those as real, especially since some things like Luke cutting Vader's arm off certainly didn't happen within the movie time line. Those books were just fun things on the side. But all of that changed in 1991 due to a couple of events:
1. The publication of Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn.
2. Dark Horse comics' release of Dark Empire #1.

Both of these series take place after Return of the Jedi and are responsible for bringing Star Wars back into the American consciousness. One way or the other, you can probably thank Timothy Zahn for the fact that the prequels exist. It was his Thrawn trilogy (and everything that happened after because of it) that showed Lucas that there was still an interest in Star Wars.

Interesting fact:
Zahn originally wanted to write a trilogy set during the Clone Wars. Lucas said "no" because he knew that if he did ever make the prequels (because at that point he had no plans to do that), they would invalidate the books Zahn wanted to write. So Zahn reformed his clone story and set it after Jedi.

Now, here's the thing:
Lucas always said that anything done outside of the movies could be invalidated at any time (see Splinter of the Mind's Eye) and was never considered canon, hence the Expanded Universe. That's what it was: non-canonical material. But, over time, as there became more and more of it and people became more and more invested in it, even people at Lucasfilm, people began to view the EU as being pretty much as valid as anything Lucas himself did. People had come to view the EU as canonical even though they had been told again and again that it wasn't.

When Disney came in with their plans to officially expand the Star Wars universe, to provide a vast tapestry of new canon, they had to make a hard statement so that people would understand that they weren't going to accommodate the EU into their plans. So "the EU doesn't exist anymore" was a clear way of stating that.

The Clone Wars, though, having come from Lucas, is official Star Wars canon. This is the story. I think it's a good one. I hope you come along for the ride.

The Woggle-Bug Book (a book review post)

The Woggle-Bug Book is not precisely part of the Oz books as it doesn't take place in Oz or really have anything to do with Oz other than the Woggle Bug. Actually, the book is adapted from the musical adaptation of the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz. Well, loosely adapted. The Woggle Bug is a supporting character in Marvelous Land, but it sounds like much of the plot of the musical is related specifically to the Woggle Bug and his love for a dress, which is what the book is about except set in New York. Maybe. Some American city, at any rate.

So, yes, the book is about how the Woggle Bug falls in love with a dress. He sees it on a department store mannequin and is taken in by its colors, but he can't distinguish it from the person who is wearing it, so the whole plot revolves around him chasing after the various possessors of the dress. And smashing hats. The premise is, in all actuality, entirely amusing.

However, the execution is lacking, especially by today's standards, considering that the book is filled with racial caricatures. I'm sure those things were amusing in their time, but it was a time when Blackface was considered a high form of entertainment. Needless to say, by today's standards, the stereotypes are, at the least, insulting.

I don't really understand the need to set the book in the real world for any other reason than to include those characters. Baum still felt the need to have the Woggle Bug encounter a bunch of talking animals, so it seems to me the book would have worked just fine in Oz. Except that it was done as a child's picture book, not a novel, so, maybe, they thought the book would work better in a familiar setting. It was more than a century ago, so it's hard to say. It doesn't translate well to modern day, though, because of the racial issues.

However, that probably makes the book ripe for a modern interpretation because, as I said, the premise is really very funny and put the Woggle Bug's life in jeopardy on more than one occasion. I wouldn't suggest the original for more than die-hard Oz fans.

And, now, for something I've never done before: a review of the specific edition I purchased.
I picked up a free edition of The Woggle-Bug Book for my Kindle, and it was definitely an example of getting what you paid for. The person responsible for the adaptation did a piss poor job of it. For one thing, the original book had illustrations; evidently, those illustrations had captions. The captions were included in the narrative text of the book wherever they happened to fall, which was quite jarring. The book is in past tense, but the captions are in present, so you'd suddenly get this present tense summary of the current action of the book. Also, the book, especially toward the end, is full of typos. It was very apparent that not much time or attention was given to making the book presentable. I would certainly not recommend this edition of the book to anyone, even for the low, low price of FREE.

Abandoned Places: Ypsilanti State Hospital

The Ypsilanti State Hospital was kind of a rush job. Evidently, the 20s weren't good for the mental health of Americans and by 1930 the existing mental institutions were experiencing some overcrowding. Okay, a lot of overcrowding. So the Ypsilanti hospital was thrown up in Michigan and opened within a year of when construction began. In its first few years, it was one of the only mental institutions in the United States to get favorable reviews based on its conditions for its patients.

That's not a condition that would last. By the end of World War II, two new wings had been added and the hospital was still overcrowded. Perhaps because of this or, maybe, because it was one of the newest facilities, the Ypsilanti hospital was used for various types of experimentation: early flu vaccinations were tested, studies on the effects of milontin, and, um, LSD. During the 50s, the hospital facilities were used for several films about psychological practices, including two about the effects of prefrontal lobotomy.

Perhaps the most interesting thing, though, was some early work and experimentation in group therapy. It seems that during the 50s Jesus was one of the patients at the hospital. Actually, there were three of them. I guess they didn't get the memo about the trinity not all being the same dude, because they were all going for the Jesus aspect. At any rate, Milton Rokeach thought that putting all three of them in a room together, making them confront their delusions, might force them to see reality. That's not really how it worked out, but he did get a book out of it, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.

Generally speaking, the 80s and 90s weren't a great time for mental institutions, and the Ypsilanti facility was shut down in 1991 during the push in Michigan to close down all of its mental hospitals.

All photos courtesy of opacity.

Your bonus for today: pictures from the York Street Jail.

Process Or Chop?

Last week, I was making meatloaf. Look, you can just shut it. I hear you all out there about the meatloaf, but I make great meatloaf. There's a secret to it. A secret which I'm not going to tell you, because then I would have to share the "King of Meatloaf" title (which goes with my "King of Hamburgers" and "King of Fish" titles (there are probably more titles (like "King of Mashed Potatoes," according to my son but, really, how hard are mashed potatoes?), but those are the ones that come to mind right off hand (oh, and "King of Eggs," probably, too))), and I'm just not willing to do that.
Anyway...

So I was working from this recipe that my wife wanted me to look at (don't worry; I modified that recipe and made it my own), and it called for a "food processor." No, not in the meatloaf! What are you, crazy? It called for me to use a food processor with which to cut things up. Like the bread. Why in the world would I need a food processor to make little pieces of bread? That is kind of crazy.

See, I used to have a food processor. I kind of hated it. Okay, I did hate it, which is why I don't have it anymore. Unless you're making salsa or, like, a smoothie, the things are basically worthless. Recipes don't usually call for vegetable juice, and that's about the only good they're for. I used to use mine for meat (and that's about the closest you're getting to my cooking secrets), and it was great for that until it was time to clean the thing, and that was... well, to put it mildly, cleaning meat out of a food processor is a bitch. Sorry, I have no other way of putting that.

At any rate, eventually, I got rid of the food processor. I'm not much for making my own salsa.

It annoys me when recipes call for a food processor. I mean, what does it matter how I go about cutting up whatever it is I'm going to put into whatever I'm making. What if I don't want vegetable paste but actual discernible pieces of vegetables? I mean, we don't all have a phobia against plant matter like Briane Pagel and my younger son (except my son's bias is mostly against green things, and he fully supports potatoes (see "King of Mashed Potatoes")). And what if, you know, I don't own a food processor. Especially if that's not by choice. And, then, let's just pretend I don't have a lot of cooking experience, yet, and I see that the recipe calls for the food processor, and I don't actually know that I can just cut the stuff up myself. Instead, I see that in the recipe and I think, "Well, crap, I can't actually make this."

It's even worse when that is something that's actually true. Which does not happen with cooking, but it does happen with my kids' school assignments upon occasion. So many of my kids' assignments center around the computer, and it bothers me to no end when teachers give computer-centric assignments because not everyone owns a computer. In fact, there is still a significant percentage of American households that don't have computers. And I'm not just talking about the need to get something typed up and printed out (although we don't own a printer, so that always bugs me, and we have to go out of our way to get things printed for the kids when they need something printed).

The other day when I was making the meatloaf, my daughter was also working on an assignment for school, an assignment for her English class. In theory, the assignment should have been to write a report but, instead, the teacher had assigned them to make a slide show. This was disturbing to me on so many levels. For one, the assignment specifically required a computer (not just the ability to print something out (although I would guess that at least some of the students who do work on the computers at school do not have access to that work when they are at home; what are they supposed to do?)). For another, it required her to do things I know nothing about.

There should not be any kind of assignment from an English class that I know nothing about. Of course, I knew nothing about it because it was not really an English assignment. There was virtually no research involved as she only needed captions to go with the pictures. There was virtually no writing involved as she only needed to write the captions to go with the pictures. The actual work was finding the pictures she needed for her topic and putting them into the slide show thing. That's not the kind of thing that goes in an English class.

But, see, the thing that nailed it for me is that while I was chopping stuff up for the meatloaf (and I have to say that the clean up from chopping things is so much easier than cleaning up a food processor), she couldn't get something to work with her slide show, and I was completely unable to help her with that. Which is when I began wondering how the assignment was helping her to develop and kind of English skills.

All of that to say:
It's not always important to listen to the "how" of doing things. People will continually want to tell you the "how" of it, whatever the "it" is. Here is "how" to write a novel. Here is "how" to be an author. Here is "how" you should write. Here is "how" to pick your nose. What's more important, though, is to look at the result you want and figure out your own "how" on how to get there.

Which, I suppose, is where I have the issue with my daughter's assignment. I don't know what it is they were supposed to learn. It was classified as a "research project," but the "how" of presenting said (almost non-existent) research seemed to be the actual goal of the whole thing. Then, I have to ask: Why was that the goal of an English assignment? But I digress. Again.

So, anyway, if you need to have vegetables be in small pieces, what's the best way for you to do that? If you want to write a book, what's the best way for you to do that? You don't need to go out and buy a food processor just because a recipe says you should use one (especially if you don't like them to begin with (I mean, heck, some people still write on actual paper instead of using a keyboard)), and you don't need to have an office and office hours to write a book. Sure, there are some things where you need to follow a specific "how," like putting pictures into whatever slideshow thingy my daughter was using, but, sometimes, we come up with new ways to do things because someone doesn't know the "how" of it comes up with something new. Personally, I'd rather be that guy.

The Weight of Wrong

I may have mentioned a while back that one of my kids, as a birthday present, got season passes for the family for Six Flags. This is somewhat analogous to giving the gift of the "noisy toy" to someone else's kid. Especially when my kids can't even agree upon which rides to ride. Practically speaking, this means I have to take my kids to Six Flags often enough to make the season passes worthwhile. Don't look at me like that; most of this process is not pleasant or fun. I mean, it's not like I get to ride anything, because I'm always on the ground with whatever kid refuses to go one whatever ride we're at. The only ride they all like is the water ride, which I don't like, so I'm still on the ground... except, when they're on that, which always has a long line, is when I write. heh heh

But anyway, that's all beside the point.

Recently, while on the way back from Six Flags, I got flipped off for being in the way of someone's desire to break the law. Let me explain.

We were driving back from Vallejo; it was rush hour, so traffic was slow; but we were in the carpool lane, because, well, we were a carpool. Traffic in the carpool lane was not slow. Where everyone else was going, maybe, 50 mph, we were going 65. I have to say, I love the carpool lane. More people should use it. Legally, that is. Environmental issues aside: if more people carpooled, regular traffic would be less congested. Anyway, we were going 65, which I know, because I had the cruise control set, and we were fairly flying along. At least, we were flying along in comparison to everyone else.

But, in the midst of that, a young guy (early 20s at most) in a red, almost-sports car came speeding up behind me. There are two things wrong with this picture:
1. The obvious. He was speeding. And I don't mean a little.
2. He was in the carpool lane. I don't know about the rest of the country, but CA takes it carpool lanes seriously, and the fine for getting caught driving in one during carpool hours while not being a carpool is pretty steep.
I could see that the guy was getting angry at being stuck behind me, but 1. I was where I was supposed to be; he was not. 2. I wasn't going to try to slow down 15-20 mph to get into the regular traffic flow just so that he could break the law.

Rant:
Yes, it's breaking the law to speed. Traffic-related deaths are still, as far as I know, the #1 cause of non-natural deaths in the United States. Most of these are caused by substance abuse or speeding or both. When you are speeding and a cop pulls you over, he is not the bad guy; you are. He should not be off somewhere stopping a "real crime," because that is what he is doing. Pulling you over for speeding is much more likely to be saving your life and the life of some victim of your stupidity and selfishness than anything else that cop could be doing. I get that you don't like getting caught doing something wrong, but, when you get pissed off about it and blame the cop, you're acting just like a teenager yelling at his/her parents for breaking some household rule. Grow up. When you do, you will understand.

Just by the way, when I'm going the speed limit--and I am never intentionally going over the speed limit (and only very rarely am I doing it by accident)--and you pull up behind me getting all pissy because I won't break the law by speeding up or  won't slow down and thus facilitate you in breaking the law, it makes me want to slow down and match the speed of the traffic in the other lane anyway, just to piss you off even more. [I don't do that, but, my gosh!, it makes me want to!]

Aside: The fast lane is not for speeding. Don't you even think that it is. The fast lane is for people who want to go the speed limit. The slow lane is for people that don't want to go the speed limit. When I am in the fast lane and I am going the speed limit, I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I don't care if you want to go faster. I don't care if there are 20 of you behind me that want to go faster. It is not my job to facilitate the wrong you want to do. When I am going the speed limit, I am not the "slow driver;" you are the "too fast driver."

Anyway, finally, for whatever reason, there was a break in the (much) slower traffic to my right, and the guy behind me dodged into the hole, causing the person he cut off to have to slow down even more, and sped around me, narrowly avoiding me and the car just in front of him. The whole time he was doing this, he had his left arm fully extended from his window, flipping me off. He was going at least 80 as he accelerated away from me. He was not the only one to exhibit this kind of behavior, but he was certainly the worst.

Now, I am not really talking about traffic issues here. They are just the illustration of the problem. We here in the United States have come to think that we are entitled to do whatever we want. All the time. Not only should we be allowed to do whatever we want, other people should enable us in our desires to do whatever we want. All the time. Even when those things we want to do are wrong. Even if those things we want to do have the potential to hurt other people. Or even if they will hurt other people. Or the world. Or whatever.

You want to talk about trickle down effect; well, this is where it really works. The rich, who got even richer during the recent recession while everyone else got poorer, exercise their "entitlement" all the time, and everyone else sees them doing it, getting whatever they want whenever they want it, and we decide we want that, too. And we really don't tend to care whom we may hurt to get the things that we want. So we end up with dead teenage boys on a city street. Or we end up with a four car collision during rush hour. Or any number of other things, all because we want what we want and we want it now.

Tell me, how many of you actually like the character of Veruca Salt? And, yet, that's exactly how Americans tend to act. All the time.

And it's wrong. All the time.

So, when I'm driving down the freeway in the fast lane and going the speed limit, no, I will not move over for you. And, no, I don't care if there are 20 of you backed up behind me. The weight of your numbers and desire to get what you want doesn't make it right. It doesn't. And, no, it doesn't matter how many of you start eating rocks, I'm not going to do that, either. [If you understand that reference, you will earn major points. I may have to develop a system whereby people can actually earn points and trade them in for stuff. Virtual points don't do anyone any good. (No, Briane, you can't have my idea.)] And, no, just because 90% of you (or more) want to think that comma usage is "subjective" and you should get to put them wherever you want, it doesn't make it correct. Nor does calling stuff poetry that doesn't meet the definition of poetry make it poetry. Also, starting in the middle of the action and skipping all the exposition in your story just because it's popular to do it that way, right now, that's not right, either. If you leave out the exposition and most of the rising action, you don't actually have a full story; you have part of one; I don't care how long it is.

What I'm saying here is this:
Lots of people being wrong about something doesn't by sheer numbers make it right. I didn't bow to that kind of peer pressure when I was in high school, and I'm not about to start now, so, go ahead, exercise that finger all you want.