Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Maybe I'm missing something

Do you ever get these emails that offer some nice thought or words of wisdom and then at the end they threaten you to "forward this email to as many people as possible!!" Because if you don't bad things will happen. But if you do good things will happen.

At 5 people you will find a penny in the street
At 10 people you will find a dollar and someone will smile at you
At 20 people you will find that missing 20 dollar bill you thought you lost and your spouse will want to have sex with you
At 50 you will get a new job! a new car! and your in-laws will stop bothering you!

Or whatever the hell they say... anyway, it all sounds a little punitive to me. That is exactly what does not attract me to religion. The whole specificity of do this and good things happen, do that bad things happen, burn in hell, etc. just never appealed and seemed, frankly unrealistic given the kinds of things that go on in the world. Certainly millions of Iraqis are not bad people, certainly millions of Chinese are not bad people!

Anyway, I don't generally forward these emails on. I spit in the face of these emails basically if they threaten me at the end. (I don't mean that literally by the way) I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the nice sentiments as much as anyone, only why does it have to go and get spoiled at the end.

And then I got to thinking... well I'm not finding that many pennies on the street... so maybe the Universe IS punishing me because I'm not forwarding them on! Oh my! Watch out all my email contacts! Here come the smarmy/threatening emails winging your way!

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Random Thoughts About The Race

OK, so why are we so exercised about Hillary Clinton staying in or dropping out? Isn't this the way an election campaign is supposed to work? Can you imagine two white male candidates coming this close to a decision at the Convention?

They are both good candidates and both would make a great President - we hope. So the question for those Americans left to vote is whether they are more misogynist or more racist? Didn't we have, a mere 8 years ago, a 'lesser of two evils' campaign? Isn't that what the media was overwrought about then? "They're both the same" they said, "There is really no difference at this point between Republicans and Democrats" they said. Can we all stop listening to the media please? See how right they were then? What makes us worry now?

Can we look at the evidence:

Bush: One ill-concieved war, millions dead

Gore: One Academy Award, one Nobel Prize

No difference my ass!