Manufactured Beauty
I just saw this short film today and it is beautiful. A true look at the world of beauty and how fake it is. It takes a lot of people to make one person look that good. Maybe our definition of good looks just needs to be changed?
Creating Myself in the New Year
Once again it is the beginning of a new year. At least for those of us that consider this New Year's Day and consider the passing of one day to be a good time to look into the new year. Often the new year brings both celebration and resolutions. Resolutions are those things we plan on doing in the new year. Instead of doing something this year I decided to be something this year. Instead of creating a resolution I decided to create myself as a possibility for the year. ...
Last year I did have a resolution. Like many new year's resolutions, I didn't do what I said I would do. Looking back at last year's resolution I realize that I am out of integrity and decided that the reason was in my being.
My being around last years resolution was that getting back in the wrestling ring would be a good idea and that I would have some fun doing it. However, that isn't far off from my being in most of life. So for the past few weeks I have been doing some digging around inside of myself trying to find a being that excites me and would call me to be the true me who often gets covered up by being reasonable.
Today, I am creating myself as the possibility of love, being extraordinary in the face of no agreement. For many people who have not taken some of the ontological courses and seminars put on by Landmark Education this might make very little sense so let's take it apart. Though it is very possible you can understand this from your own life experiences.
Creating myself...
Often times we think to ourselves,"I am who I am". When asked to explain who we are it requires us to use words. Different people might use different words to describe us. So to different people who use words other than those we would use, we are actually different people. Sometimes, other people's perspectives on who we are can change our own perspective on ourselves. In that way, other people create who we are. For me to create myself I just declare who I am with words for other people to read.
...as the possibility...
To be a possibility allows you to not only be something( i.e. generous, loving, compassionate ) but to also be a space for it. Being a possibility calls you into being and yet makes it okay if sometimes you forget yourself. Other people around you are often times drawn into your possibility.
...of love,
I've heard love described many ways. I've watched a lot of romantic comedies and heard all of the cliches about love. When I say love it means accepting people for who they are and for who they are not. This is what some people who do not use this definition might call unconditional love because by its very nature it can not be conditional. Acceptance is a powerful possibility to stand in.
being extraordinary...
This could also be said "being unreasonable( with myself )." I use being extraordinary because it calls to me more powerfully. Often in life the only thing that stops us is ourselves. We make up reasons that don't really matter to keep ourselves from taking actions that could have a positive impact on our lives. Being reasonable keeps us from making the simplest of requests. To be extraordinary I am required to be unreasonable, especially with myself.
...in the face of no agreement
In being a new possibility we find that people in our lives often act as roadblocks. They say words like no, can't, impossible and that can be pretty difficult to deal with. So its important to remember all the ways we can move forward in the face of no agreement. One way is to do it yourself. This is the most difficult way to get things done but sometimes it is the only way to go. Another way to move forward is to find people who agree with whatever it is you are trying to do. This is a good option as well. You could listen to the people saying no and find out why. Perhaps they can support your possibility in some other way. The most powerful way to move forward is to enroll other people in your possibility. Make other people believe in your dreams. Then they will be driven forward even when you are not around. While this may be the easiest way to get things done( related to your possibility ) it can also be the most difficult to accomplish. However, by being a powerful possibility you can be the space for amazing things to occur.
Originally posted by Socrates:
To be is to do
Who I am is the possibility of love, being extraordinary in the face of no agreement
Simple Yahoo! Maps Workaround
The Yahoo! Maps Flash Component and API is a nice system to work with. For a simple to use map plug in for flash that looks decent without much work, its the best there is. However I like to work with it and see what hidden gems I can find. Or, as is the case in this article, delve deep inside of it and try to find out how to make it work as I want it to. It's still technically beta, so it has it's own little quirks. ...
As great as the Yahoo! Maps component is, it has one quirk I've run into a couple of times. If you unload the map while it is loading data and tiles it loads excruciatingly slow when you load the map again. In fact, it seems like it isn't loading at all. Usually when I've created a map for a web page or RIA, I create it as a separate SWF movie to be loaded at runtime. The fix for the problem in this situation is simple, if not obvious.
// make sure yahoo map library is removed from global namespace// so that it will always reload.
this.yMap.onUnload = function()
{
_global.com.yahoo = null;
}
Unfortunately, this is one of those wild ass guess debug moments - where you just try it and hope it works. I'm not sure what class in the yahoo tree is causing the problems but I figured something was so I just got rid of them all. It probably also helps that the entire yahoo map library is a larger chunk of data so making it all available for garbage collection in that way makes garbage collection actually occur.
Recently, I had a project where my boss wanted me to embed map movie clip in the main movie rather than load it in at runtime. I still had the same type of problem, where the map could get, and is like to be, unloaded while it is in the middle of a data/tile load cycle. Since the Yahoo! map library isn't getting loaded in as it does with an external SWF, deleting the library is worse than the original quirk. Then the map won't even show the copyright info.
So into the problem I dove. I tried everything I could think of. I looked in the classes that I unzipped from the components SWC file to see if I could make some adjustments to unofficial parameters on unload. I used wireshark to see if any HTML requests were missing when the quirk occurred. I even took the SWC apart with Buraks Actionscript Viewer and tried to sort through that mess of code to see if I could find the answer. While I made many interesting discoveries along the way, I made no difference in the issue at hand.
So I made my way to my boss's office to tell him the status. As I walked toward his office I knew he would have a very simple answer for me that would work. I'm stubborn. I'm a programmer. I like to do things my way. I want elegant solutions to my programming problems. He is a designer. He just wants it to work. He's not worried about how it works ( note to other programmers, most people are this way ). I walk into his office and tell him the news. He thinks about it for maybe one second and tells me not to unload it, just move it off the stage.
Don't unload it?! That's like going to a doctor and telling him, "it hurts when I do this." To which the doctor will respond, "Then don't do that." In other words, it makes perfect sense and I can't believe I didn't think about it. Maybe I should have taken a break instead of pushing on for as long as I did to figure it out.
Now, instead of moving it off the stage I just set it's _visible property to false. That just seems a bit more elegant to me, and it just works. In fact in this situation it works better than the other system. Anyone who has used the Yahoo! Maps component knows that before the first tiles load in there is nothing but copyright info. By doing it this way the map loads in the background so when a user click the button to see the map, it comes up instantly.
So to wrap things up, here are my lessons learned:
- If you can't make it elegant, just make it work
- Ask for help from people who don't think like you
- Your mind needs a rest from time to time, take breaks
- load Yahoo! Maps in the background - they work better that way
- Sometimes the answers are simple, if you are racking your brain step back and look at things from different perspective
----
Daryl "Deacon" Ducharme is currently Director of Application Development for the Interactive Agency Provis Media Group, LLC which helps organizations enhance identity, connect with customers and increase productivity.
Failure is the BEST option
The cliché says,"Failure is not an option". In some very rare occasions this is probably a good mindset to have. Most of the time, however, failure is the best option. We should try to fail, and fail as big as we can.
I'm not saying that failure is all you should ever do, but it is a great tool to success. Watching my two sons grow up is a treat to watch. They are experts at failing, and learning from it - as all children are. When a child is learning to walk, they fall down a lot. What if the first time a child tried to stand up and subsequently fell down they decided to never try again? Or worse yet, what if they never even tried to stand up in the first place because they don't know how? Nobody would walk. We can learn a lot from children. ...
Sometimes we need to try stuff and fail at it to get a good look at a problem. Take for example someone starting parkour. They might try a vault and come crashing down in any number of ways. Many people might decide right then and there not to try again. Some people, might think to themselves "What went wrong?" and "What do I need to do to make that vault?". Still other might just keep on trying to get a some more looks at the problem.
The people who give up might do so because they are nothing like the people they see in parkour videos. They might watch video after video of people who make it look easy. The truth is those traceurs and traceuses bite it once in a while too. In fact one of parkour's founders, David Belle, is in a great video that showcases this point.
Watch the great David Belle fall on a simple( for him ) vault.
Everyone who has ever succeeded, has failed at the same task. Nothing comes so natural to people that they don't have to learn. Everyone starts out as a blob with flailing appendages and very little control. But we also don't think failure is a bad thing until we get a little older. Sure, it is sad to fail or watch someone fail, but it is inspiring to be or to watch someone turn failure around and into success. Be inspiring, fail.
Where's the wellness list?
The most recent controversy for the WWE involves "The List". A list of wrestlers who purchased products from Signature Pharmacy. Signature Pharmacy is the pharmacy under investigation before the Benoit tragedy that now has many, many microscopes on it. The people on this list are either dead, fired, suspended or losing current pushes. Personally, I think the WWE could do well to take all the steps necessary for the public to believe in the companies wellness program. These suspensions and firings are a good start but I've been paying attention to politics enough lately that I don't think it is the right tact for addressing the issue to the fans ( and some intelligent non-fans ). ...
Where is the wellness list? Where is the list of wrestlers who just work their asses off day in and day out and entertain the fans? Where is the list of wrestlers who failed the program and have worked hard to get clean. Where is the list of wrestlers who are on prescription drugs and the medical reasons they are on them?
That last one is definately unlikely, due to privacy issues, but the idea is transparency. The wwe needs to create a website called WWEwellness.com ( it is currently available ) and not only be responsible ( which they say they are being ) but show it clearly and irrefutably. If people refute it, take the necessary steps to cover the point that was brought up.
Steroids and other drug use has plagued the WWE since before it dropped the "F" for and "E". It has probably been an issue since there was an extra "W" as well. However, in those days people didn't know the dangers of some of the drugs that are being found now. In some ways, the drug use is a tradition that has been passed down from a time when people didn't know any better. Now we know better and it is going to take some serious growing pains to get clear of it.
Having been a wrestler, I know many people who think you can only make it if you are big, and that you can only get big through steroid use. I don't agree, even though the widebodies do tend to take center stage at the WWE. Any changes for the better will be uncomfortable for the WWE writers. However, I have faith that the talent, writers and everyone else involved are more than capable of coming up with something even better than they have now. Even better because they don't have this cloud constantly hanging over their heads. Plus the psychology used in the sport will be even better because that will, once again, be the focus.
Improving Your Vision
No, this post isn't about laser eye surgery. Instead it is about improving your ability to see possibility. In order to do this I'm going to take you along my own recent journeys into training for parkour. Since the philosophies of the art of movement relate so well to the rest of life, let's learn a little bit that we may have just forgotten. ...
When I first came across parkour I looked at moving from point A to point B a little differently. All of the sudden I started to wonder, "How else could I get there". From my initial introduction, I learned to at least look for other ways.
I started to take a look at how to start training for parkour. AmericanParkour.com has a page called "How Do I Get Started" and a section with tutorials on practical movements( members only, but its free ). After reading these I started wondering, how was I going to be able to practice? When would I have time? Where can I go? I was blocked by my current level of vision. I could not see any possibilites, and I was stopped.
I kept going back to the pages and kept re-reading how to get started and the tutorials. I was also reading some good articles. One great that inspired me was "The Beginner's Mind". Watching my children learn everything they know from nothing has always been a pleasure. As we grow up, we stop learning from nothing and start to avoid knowledge we don't already posess. I got inspired to approach this from a child's mind and start from knowing nothing. There is only one place to go from there. All of the sudden things became clear. I shouldn't be able to do anything, I've never trained parkour before. Maybe I should learn to land first ( the same instructions from the "How Do I Get Started" article ). There are lots of places to jump down from.
So one day at work, I used my lunch break to go outside and practice landing. It went well. I was having fun. I got excited, tried a Kong Vault and landed on my hand. Having worked to gain weight as a wrestler, I was just over 230 pounds and most of that weight came down on my hand hard. I don't think I broke it, but it hurt for a couple weeks before I could use it normally again. All of the sudden I was asking my wife to open jars for me :).
That didn't stop me though. I could still practice the basic landing, without using my hand too much. So I did. Eventually, I got bored of landing and stopped practicing. I didn't know how to move on from that point. Once again, I was stopped by my current level of vision. Where was I going to train? When was I going to train?
In the featured articles section of AmericanParkour.com, there are a line of articles called Demon's Drills. These are some great ways of how to improve your physical and mental training towards parkour. They were all inspiring, but The one that got me moving was Muscle Ups and a related follow up Theme Training. Muscle ups were something I thought I could find somewhere to perform, at least a modified version. I started doing a few while playing with my kids at the park, which I am doing more now that I am training. However, I didn't feel I could train it enough to make that much difference. I wished there were some way I could do it at my gym. Well, the universe provided me that wish. I came in one Monday and they had moved some of the equipment around. This forced me to look at workouts just differently enough that I saw an opportunity to do modified muscle ups on the smith machine. This was great because I could start at a lower height that I felt comfortable with and then move the bar as high as it would go. It was a great plyometric workout and my vision improved.
Soon after starting this exercise, I started looking around where I live and work. One day I walked from the gym to work ( which I do from time to time ) and started to see more training possibilities than I had ever seen before. Ledges to do muscle ups and possibly kong vaults ( I still was a bit leary of that ). That day, I took my lunch break outside for some training. As I was moving around doing different muscle ups on the ledges, I ran up to a shorter ledge and popped myself up to the top without even thinking about it! It was almost a Kong Vault, and I believe it was higher than the place I hurt myself before. I was stoked, but my lunch hour was over so I would have to wait.
The next day, my wife needed the car so I would need to walk from the gym to work again. Insead of having her just drop me off at work, I asked her to let me drop my bags off at the office first. Then when I walked to work from the gym I had nothing keeping me from trying out some kongs, wall runs and tic-tacs. My lunch break consisted of this too. This is where I currently am and now I am consciously trying to improve my vision. Now I'm looking for the next obstacle for me to overcome. I've seen new places around work that I didn't even know existed. I'm still a novice and I most likely move slower and do less than many traceurs and traceusses out there, but that doesn't matter. Parkour is more an approach than certain movements, a philosophy to life that is practiced through the art of movement.
Below, I've linked a video put together by Demon of Demon's Drills called Vaults 102. Its a bit more than the basics ( it is a 102 class after all ) and it approaches vaults in an interesting way for improving your ability to overcome obstacles ( vision or ability to see possibility ).
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUoIXgEdAk]
The good part is at the end, putting it together into a flow. Even more so, the good part is the text at the end of the credits, which you don't see in this version but here is a link to the full .wmv file at AmericanParkour.com.
Benoit
I've had a lot of emotions this week about the Benoit family tragedy. I've wanted to write about it all week in my blog, so as to let some of it out. However, all my different thoughts are jumbled up in emotional streams of conciousness. I've decide to just let it rip and see what comes from it. This post may not flow very well but feel free to read my thoughts. ...
Last monday I was at my brother in laws house. Like me, he doesn't have cable so we couldn't watch wrestling. He had a girlfriend over who is a big wrestling fan and a fan of Chris Benoit. As my wife was flipping through the small selection of available channels hoping he somehow recieved USA so that we could start to see the Vince McMahon death storyline play out, I noticed my brother in laws friend was on the phone talking to somebody and very upset. From the parts I overheard it was wrestling related and she was trying to confirm if it was just another storyline or the truth. At some point she plops her laptop down in front of me with the article about the death of Chris Benoit and his family. I was shocked! Another one!? An active wrestler!? A top card!? I had just gotten an Eddie Guerrero shirt for fathers' day. I was wishing I could watch RAW to honor a wrestler I truly respected.
On Tuesday, we made the long drive home and picked up D'Artagnan from his grandpa's house. It was a whirlwind of a day, and very long so I didn't look into the case any further. I wanted to know what happened, was it foul play? Was it a carbon monoxide leak? However, when the end of the day came I could barely keep my eyes open and wasn't ready to deal with any of that information emotionally.
Wednesday morning I woke up early and thought, they probably have some information out by now I'll go check. As I started to read, I didn't want to believe a word of it. It couldn't be. I didn't know Benoit but... it was too much to bare. All at once I wanted to talk it through with everybody and never speak of it again. On the way to work my wife made it clear that I needed to talk to Stro. Stro knew both Chris and Nancy from WCW. I needed to talk to him, he would be hit harder than anyone else I knew. However, that was going to have to wait for me to get to a point where I could be there for him. I wasn't ready for that yet. As I walked into the gym that morning, Brenda and Andy made a comment about how McMahon's storyline got ruined by the Benoit tragedy. I talked with them a bit. It helped to talk with others but I needed to know more.
Work didn't go well on Wednesday. I was fairly productive, but I remember a 2 hour period where I just couldn't focus on work enough to distract myself. It was during this time that I called Stro. Devestated is probably the best description of how he sounded on the phone. He didn't believe Benoit did it. He believed that someone murdered all of them and set it up to discredit Benoit. I let Stro know that he could call me anytime, if he needed to talk about it. I haven't talked to him since. During this 2 hour period I also read as many articles as I could find. I watched the McMahon announcement at wwe.com that originally aired before ECW. It was all coming together but I still wasn't going to believe Chris did it.
Thursday came and the articles I started to read focused on Steroids. This angered me. Not all of them really. Steroids and body dysmorphia are terrible parts of the sports and entertainment industries. Just the ones that were using this to ride their high horse about steroids, or about how evil the WWE, wrestling and/or Vince McMahon are. Those articles were obviously biased and contained a lot of false, misleading and/or completely bullshit pieces of information. Other articles were much better and I was coming to the realization that Chris most likely did perpetrate these heinous acts. However, I didn't go the route of cutting the legacy he worked so hard at out of my mind. He was a great wrestler, and I will always respect his in ring abilities. However the end of his life really went down, while unbelievable ( no matter the truth ) it was a tragic end to an amazing career.
I'm going to quit giving a timeline now. I'm having a bunch of my thoughts I need to make sure I get down. First and foremost it pisses me off how people passed judgement so quick on Benoit. People went from either admiring and respecting him to hating him and speaking about him as a monster. It's not like we just found out he was a serial killer for the past 25 years. In fact all the evidence about the past 25 years says he wasn't; except for a period in 2003 when there was the possibility of divorce with his wife but that their was only 1 restraining order and they obviously worked it out. From my limited knowledge of batterers there are usually more signs than that. In hindsight anyway. Let's turn this around for a second. If someone is a serial killer for 25 years but then in their last acts on this earth they suddenly spend their life saving another, do we then hold parades in their honor, and create statues, buildings and holidays in their name? The tragic end, is a tragic end. He was not a monster. He was a human being who reached a point where his reality altered beyond anything I can imagine. My wife's first thought when she found out it looked like he murdered his family was he must have suffered from depression so bad it got out of hand. That is the only thing that makes sense to me. It doesn't make the acts any less terrible but it does start to make more sense.
I realize that many people are just going through the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. My first reaction was denial as I'm sure many people's was. Both to the death and then to the murder-suicide claim. My friend Stro was, and may still be. Like I said, he actually knew both Chris and Nancy and none of it makes sense to him. The anger was clear. Many people were angry at the WWE for honoring Chris Benoit on Monday. Of course the WWE had no knowledge of the details surrounding the case at that point. Obviously much of the anger was pointed towards Benoit and monstrifying him. Others, like me, went the way of getting angry at people who discredit his whole career for one terrible act, especially since we still don't have all the details yet. More people got angry at the WWE for their role in this.
The WWE has it tough. Professional wrestling, though very popular, is still a subculture that is looked down upon by many people. Many people outside of the business, especially non fans of present day, have a very false and unflattering view of the WWE. Vince McMahon has it worse. Being the Chairman of the WWE, he is it's figurehead. However, as Mr. McMahon ( not Vince, there is a difference ) he plays a heel - bad guy for all the wrestling ignorant - and so he doesn't have a very good image on purpose. People tend to think he is as evil as he plays on TV. I'm not saying he is a saint but from everything I've heard he seems like one of the better hugely successful business people to work for. Very rarely, in the Western world at least, do you find a businessman whose handshake is as good as his signature on a contract. Of course, given the number of wrestlers who have died recently the WWE needs to look at its own business. And it does! However, given the number of celebrity's who have issues how many of us look in the mirror and ask - how am I responsible for what happened? If you read that and think you aren't in any way responsible think again. We crave celebrity and we have very demanding standards. Our celebrities need to look a certain way. All the "way too thin" celebrities we hear about are the equivalent of the steroid abusing athletes. It's all body dysmorphia. One group just says I'm too big, the other says I'm too small. Why do they say that? Why do they think that? Is it because Vince McMahon thinks that bigger wrestlers get more butts in the seats and thus keep his business and dream alive? Whose butt is in those seats? Who is watching that actresses movie? Who is watching and reading every little piece of gossip about how anorexic, bulemic, drug addicted someone is? It is you. It is your friends. What about the need to stay in the limelight. Entertainment is a rough business. If people aren't seeing you, they forget you. So you need to stay in front of them. In wrestling that means you need to be on the road 300+ days a year. Does it really? Why do the wrestler's think that. Is it because the fans demand it. Is it because wrestling gets so little respect that very few wrestlers can branch out into other forms of entertainment and be thought of with respect in that genre? Think again about your own responsibility in situation like this before you start to pass the blame on to others. It's a tough pill to swallow, especially after an event like this, but you may transform your life out of what you find behind that inquiry.
I'm going to miss Chris Benoit in the ring. I will never know everything that happened but the tragic end will never diminish his career in my eyes. I wish everlasting peace to the Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit. I realize that no matter what the situation truly is, 3 people we're killed that day. I am deeply, deeply saddened. More so than I logically think I should be. It hits me as a father, a husband, a wrestler, a wrestling fan and a friend of someone who knew the family. Now that I have written this much, I do feel better but the saddness is still there.
Steroids:
I hate that shit. It does terrible stuff to the body. In fact, I'm not clear that we still know every way that it affects the body. Of course, I have a hard time taking medicine to clear up a stuffy nose. I'm pretty amazed with the human body and I always give it a chance to handle things itself. I don't like the side effects. I still take medicine and go to the doctor when the side effects are better than the body doing its thing but I often wait longer then most people I know.
Given the pieces of the case I have read about I'm clear that steroids were most likely a factor. They may have led to 'roid rage if Chris was back on them. Or, by being off them, he could have had very intense depression. I heard that Superstar Billy Graham said that he thought they were only a piece of the puzzle and most likely other drugs were also involved. I'm sure they were. How they were, however, is way up in the air. Drugs, prescribed and otherwise, effect the body in ways we only partially comprehend. Every body is different too. Every drug combination is different. How they interact is only known to a certain degree.
My only hope is that this will make people rethink some of the stuff they are doing to their bodies. I hope that coaches rethink recommending kids take this crap. Not only that, but they need to start nipping it in the bud and kicking those kids off the team. But it comes back to how we are responsible. Those coaches usually get paid better when they win, no matter how they win. The butts in the seats, paying for tickets and buying the overpriced items at the concession stand see to that. I realize each individual is responsible for their own actions and can make these decisions for themselves. We live in a skewed culture. We hate knowing about steroid use, but we like to see big strong men do amazing things after they take them. As long as we don't know about it, we are good. Heck, even when we do know about it sometimes 'winning' is more important. Perhaps we need to rethink winning. Is our team really winning if the are risking their lives to get bigger, stronger and faster. Is our team really winning if our kids, who look up to the athletes, think the only way to make it to the top is destroy themselves. Making it to the top is now more important than staying healthy, than staying alive. We need to look in the mirror and see how we are responsible for these aspects of our culture and take steps to make a difference in the lives of people we touch.
Thank you for reading my rant. I love you all.
Ok smartypants, what's your answer?!
Last week I wrote a blog article about snopes.com. The idea for the posting came from an e-mail I received regarding another gas-out. As stated in my post, I replied to the e-mail explaining the misconceptions of this e-mail. The person who sent it to me was my wife and she didn't quite appreciate the know it all attitude I probably took in my response. This morning on the way to work the topic came up again and I tried to make my point again. Basically the conversation came down to her asking me, "Well, then you come up with an idea that will lower the price of gasoline". Well, I guess I asked for it but here is my online rebuttal. ...
If you checked out the articles about the gas out at snopes.com, you might have come to the realization that this idea does not affect the oil supply chain as mentioned in the e-mails. If you read the articles and allowed oil consumers, and thus yourself, to be fallible, you realized a gas out doesn't work because you aren't willing to take on a hardship to show how much it means to you. In order to make a difference that the oil companies would notice, you have to reduce your own consumption of gasoline and assist others in doing the same. Many of these ideas are already out there so I don't need to come up with them myself.
- Ride a bike to work( or walk/jog ) - In this way you limit the influence the gas companies have on your daily mode of transportation. How much do you spend each week in gasoline? How much does a bike and all the accompanying paraphenalia cost? How long would it take to pay off if you aren't buying as much gas? Don't forget, you'll be keeping yourself in better shape as well.
- Car Pool - This takes a certain amount of organization, but it can help. If you work in a company that has a lot of people, or even in an area where a lot of people work this may already be set up. This might not only help you save money in gasoline but also help make new friends and acquaintances.
- Ride the Bus - Or some other method of mass transportation. Bigger cities usually have better mass transit options, the more of us that take advantage of them can only have them improve though. Some mass transit options don't even use gasoline for energy! Get involved and we can have better options in mass transportation.
- Use a car with good gas mileage - Don't fool yourself on what good gas mileage is either. Less than 30 miles per gallon might be good for a 6 or 8 cylinder but nobody said get good gas mileage for a sports car. If you must buy a vanity car, there are options in electric cars out there, but they are still pricey at this point.
There are definately other ideas as well but the main point is use less gas. When it comes to a true boycott, you end up taking on a hardship to make your point. During the civil rights movement bus boycotts and sit ins weren't convenient to the people participating in them, they were hardships they took on. By taking on these hardships people finally started to take notice, usually because it hit them in the pocketbook. If you want to make the oil companies realize you don't like their pricing strategies, take on the hardship of not buying, or in reality buying less of, their products. While your at it, assist others in doing the same. That will lower gas company profits which will make them change their ways. Of course, if you change yours, you might never go back :)
Since there are other ideas out there. Please share your ideas in the comments. Anonymous posts are accepted, but please respect the other readers.
The great gas out and other email chain letters
Here we are again. It is spring and the price of gasoline is going up to account for the gas demands of summer travel. Once again we see the "gas-out" email. It says that we should boycott buying gasoline for one day, or we should boycott certain stations or we should sign a petition to President Bush to lower the price of gasoline. Nowhere in the mail does it say, "Lower your gasoline consumption" or "Carpool" or "Ride A Bike" or "get rid of your gas guzzler and buy a car with better gas mileage", the stuff that would really make a difference. ...
When I first saw these emails I bought the idea. It made sense to me, supply and demand, got it. Never did I question the actual business models of oil companies. Never did I think about the fact that my demand doesn't actually change so thus nothing is different. However, after seeing that it had no effect I didn't pay it any attention. Well this year I got forwarded another message, but decided to change some ideas with some facts.
Whenever I get a chain e-mail letter I never forward them on to anyone. When it spreads false information, I try to let the sender know of it. One of the great resources on the net to dispel myths is snopes.com. Snopes is an urban legend reference page who asks the good questions and does some research to find out the truth. I recommend checking them out whenever you hear an urban legend. They make a point that you should never put all your faith in one source of information ( especially email chain letters ). They even make fun of themselves to make this point at their repository of lost legends. In case you don't catch it, each one of those stories is made up. Just click on the 'more information about this page' link at the bottom of each story.
Back to the gas out phenomenon for a second. It has been stated that the United States is addicted to gasoline and the oil companies are our drug dealers. If take one drug dealer off the streets another one takes his place. As long as there are users, there are sellers. The same applies to oil companies and gas hungry Americans. If we can cure ourselves of this addiction, the price of gasoline won't even matter anymore. I just hope the rising price of gas gets us to the clinic :)
Here are some Snopes.com links regarding the gas-out emails:
Who is responsible when tragedy strikes?
Something terrible happened yesterday. Not to me, but I'm feeling it today. 33 people are dead and 15 injured after somebody started shooting people Virginia Tech. I'm not a fan of President Bush but he said it fairly well when he said,"Schools should be places of safety, sanctuary and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom in every American community." It captured the feeling pretty well except that it left out a group I am a part of. Parents. As a parent it frightens me. These weren't my kids, but it could easily have been. This event has many people asking, "Who is responsible?" I started at that point but am now on, "How am I responsible?" ...
Let me preface that previous statement with what I mean by responsible. For me, responsibility is being cause in the matter. So the question restated is, "How did I cause this tragedy?". Once stated like that it lends itself to, "How can I prevent this tragedy from happening again". Before we go to that let's stay focused on the first question.
Obviously, the shooter was the one that did the shooting ( poor sentence but simple and accurate ). Who was I being, that had this person decide to kill people before killing himself? How does a person get to the point that a shooting spree and suicide seem to be the only option left in life? The only answers I come up with point to seperateness.
Our society is becoming more seperate every day. Our houses are set up so we never have to see our neighbors. My daily commutes are filled with examples of people being inconsiderate to other drivers, often times breaking the law, because in their car they don't have to think about people in other cars. We hear so many stories about how terrible other people are; so we do our best to not talk, look at or even acknowledge the presence of other people. And yet, here we are. A tragedy has occurred, most likely due to this seperateness that was suppose to protect us.
Perhaps instead of being seperate to protect ourselves, the answer lies in coming together. Many people will blame the shooter's parents for his actions. This helps to let themselves off the hook. The reality is, it takes a village to raise a child and we need to start acting this way. As a parent, I can raise my kids to be the best they can be. However, I can also do this for other kids I meet. I can teach my kids to be respectful of other people, and I can practice what I preach. I can teach my kids many things about how to relate to everyone they will meet. They will also learn a lot from everyone they will meet. I should return that favor by teaching and learning from all the people I meet. But what about the bad, evil monsters who will prey on such social interactions?
Sure, there are people who might take advantage of this, but hopefully I can learn how to protect myself from those situations and teach others as well. There is no need to cut myself off from society all the time because of the minority of terrible actions out there. Time and again we see how great the majority is by their reactions to these tragedies.
In short, yesterday's tragedy was another wakeup call to all humans. Don't just hit snooze on this alarm. I can make a difference, you can make a difference and we can make a difference in so many lives that this type of horrible event does not become so common that we become numb to it. Thank you for reading.