|
What You've Missed:
2004 June
2004 May
2004 April
2004 February
2004 January
Recommended Sites:
Old Blog
The Washington Post
Roger Ebert
The Onion
Dilbert
Unamerican Activities
Dear readers: Thank you very much for your support of Fluorescent Sunshine. Knowing that I have an interested audience keeps me motivated. Please leave your thoughts on the articles by clicking the link at the end of each post. Your comments let me know that my work is not in vain! Thanks, BJK
|
| Lessons Learned |
| 01.27.04 (9:00 pm) |
I'm back, thanks for your patience. I had a stressful week last week and could barely tie my shoes, much less wax opinion here on this site. January always feels like the longest month of the year, and this year even more so. It seems like months since the ball dropped, and yet here we are, still in the thick of it. Before I go to sleep I wanted to record the important things that I've realized since the calendar changed, because...well, I dunno, sometimes it just helps to write shit down.
1. Always, always listen to your inner voice. If things get too loud in your head and you can't hear it, give it some time and it will eventually be loud and clear.
2. If you want something, just ask. Pursue it relentlessly. 90% of success really is just showing up. It's amazing.
3. Think just as hard about what you don't want in life as you think about what you do want. Your desires and dislikes will change, but they are always in tandem, each one shaping the other. Every time you encounter dislike, disinterest, or failure, you are a step closer to fulfillment in life.
4. Compromise is only a reasonable course of action if you have no choice. If the choice is yours, refuse to accept "almost," "kinda," and "maybe." Jack Johnson was right...maybe pretty much always means no. I believe that this world holds for each person an abundance of what s/he seeks, and we should refuse to accept something less just because it's out there. If you short change your conscience, you will short change your soul.
5. Take time to talk to the people you know about what you are looking for in life. Talk to everyone, no matter what your relationship with them, and discard your pithy self-consciousness about coming forward with what you want. You will be amazed at the small army of people who are willing to help you.
6. What goes around comes around. Help, others, too. You never know who will be able to return the favor at just the right time.
7. Refuse to take shit from anyone, and stop giving others so much shit, too. It's crude, but it's true...toting around a chip on your shoulder just makes others want to throw things at you in an attempt to knock it off.
8. Wallow in self-pity all you want, but only after you've taken stock of who you are, what you have accomplished, and what you have. Cherish the small, private victories as precursors to larger, public triumphs.
9. Be a decent human being. All the time. De-adversarialize your interactions with other human beings, and your stress will magically be reduced. Leave your jaded outlook back in your teen years where it belongs.
10. Shamelessly pursue your passions. Refuse to let anyone tell you that you can't/shouldn't/won't and prove them wrong. Take on a hobby or cause that fills your heart with gladness...it's therapeutic.
I know none of this is original, but that's not the point. I needed to see my thoughts as two-dimensional; to distill the truth from the distortion. And now, I need to detach from this dispatch. Good night...
|
|
0 Comments
|
| |
| Hiatus |
| 01.21.04 (11:00 am) |
Dear Readers:
Fluorescent Sunshine will be back after the lights come back on...
|
|
0 Comments
|
| |
| Success |
| 01.15.04 (1:13 pm) |
There is no firmer handshake than the feeling of a job well done.
There is no brighter smile than loving someone and being loved back.
Nothing stands straighter than the pride that comes with being your best.
No sleep is more peaceful than that which comes from a clear conscience.
No pain is sweeter than the ache of nourishing exercise.
There is no joy like a smile in the mirror.
There is no greater triumph of the spirit than the conquering of doubts, misgivings, and lethargy through action, thought, and voice.
Nothing succeeds like success.
|
|
0 Comments
|
| |
| Celestial Reasonings |
| 01.14.04 (9:41 am) |
This afternoon, President Bush will call on Congress to increase NASA's funding by 1 billion dollars per year over the next five years. This budget increase is part of the President's vision of sending humans back to the moon and then to Mars sometime in the first quarter of this century. There are many critics of this decision, but I agree with the President and with NASA administrator Sean Keefe: we must explore our solar system. Humanity’s deeply ingrained spirit of exploration will accept nothing less.
The reasons and proposed methods for returning to space are sound. First, the United States will fulfill its obligation to the International Space Station. NASA plans to phase out the aging and dangerous Space Shuttle fleet by 2010 and construct a new spacecraft designed to carry a small crew instead of cargo. The shuttle is the reason that NASA seems to have lost so much of its focus, and the public so much of its interest in the space program. Quite literally, we are no longer ascending to new heights. In the long term, there is very little to be gained by shuttling international astronauts to and from the ISS, other than to allow each participating nation to have its day in space. The establishment of a permanent human presence in space has been a worthy mission, but its inspiration has long expired. We are no longer pushing the envelope of science and development, but pursuing a perilous and hackneyed exercise in budgetary excess. A new, up-to-date spacecraft is needed before meaningful progress can be made.
After the Columbia disaster in 2003, the entire future of the space program seemed in doubt, until the Spirit rover sent us postcards from Mars that took our collective breath away. I must confess, after seeing those images of the Martian terrain I wanted to step through the camera. I wanted to feel the red, rocky soil crunching underneath my boots, gaze into the pink Martian sky, and listen to the awesome sound of utter, complete silence all around me. I wanted to be the first person to walk on Mars, to feel like Neil Armstrong must have felt. I bet the first fish that crawled out of the sea onto the land must have felt the same way.
I am sure that there are millions of people who feel the same way I do, yet the new space initiatives are being attacked by the usual critics with the usual asinine, temporal concerns. Some charge that we should not undertake these missions while our troops are in Iraq. These people seem to forget that we managed to land on the moon six times while a much larger war was being waged in Vietnam. Some argue that this program will simply cost too much money. I disagree. On the way to Mars, we will inevitably accomplish scientific, technological, and medical advances that will have untold corollary benefits to average human beings living right here on Earth. The more we learn about how our universe works, the more we'll learn about how life on our planet works, and we'll all be better off. It's inescapable; we are all part of the vastness of the cosmos, and it is a part of us.
These critics ignore our history, and ignore our destiny. Life evolved on this planet because living beings left their places of origin and adapted to new areas and climates. Our ancestors crawled out of the seas, across the land, across the seas, into the skies, and into the cosmos. We will now bring life to the moon, and to Mars; it is inevitable. If we do not go today, we will go tomorrow. The human spirit will refuse to remain confined to our small planet, and I believe that we will soon live up to our destiny.
The President's announcement today may be nothing more than a feel-good election year platitude. After all, his goals lie safely outside the boundaries of his would-be second term in 2008. However, I applaud George Bush for resurrecting America's space dream at a time when it was needed most. Finally, here is a national goal that does not involve war, terrorism, and corporate crackdowns. I can only hope that our nation's policy makers will take the necessary steps to bring these dreams to fruition, and that we will have the good sense to get Europe, India, China, and Russia in on the act. George Bush is right: it is time to return to the moon, and to see Mars for ourselves. Destiny is calling; what are we waiting for?
|
|
4 Comments
|
| |
| Reactionary Steps |
| 01.13.04 (10:44 am) |
Much has been said recently about the obesity epidemic in the United States, and many an expert has taken a stab at the causes. The consensus seems to be that long work days, increased commute times, and an increase in the consumption of unhealthy meals-on-the-go are to blame. Two [i]Washington Post[/i] articles that I have read recently point to decreased physical activity as the culprit, and seem to bemoan the loss of byegone days when walking and manual labor were par for the course. While I agree with the sociological research that these authors have done, I do not agree with the shaky conclusions that they seem to draw from their work.
The first article I read [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com...]([u]A Walk on the Wild Side[/u][/url] , January 11) points out the rather obvious fact that increased suburban sprawl has led to the decline of people walking from place to place. In order to research this article, author Mary Battiata took it upon herself to walk "the commuter routes, the fastest roads from downtown to the suburbs," on a multi-day hike from downtown DC to Gilbert's Corner, a small outpost located fifty miles out on the fringes of suburbia. Battiata seems shocked at what she finds: "except for a few people at bus stops here and there, I haven't seen a soul afoot. There's no one walking." While I admire Batiatta's determination in completing this trek, I feel that she merely succeeds in pointing out the obvious: commuter routes are for cars, and as such perilous to pedestrians.
Even more remarkably, Battiata underscores her thesis by hearkening back to the good-old days: "It all seemed a very long way from the righteous path taken by metaphysicians of walking like Henry David Thoreau, who in his essay "Walking" praised going about on foot as an aid to clear thinking and good citizenship. Wasn't walking our American right, a virtue, in fact, that promoted hardy self-reliance and was as embedded in our history and character as freedom of speech? As in "Our Town," Thornton Wilder's play about life in fictional Grover's Corners, N.H., in the early 1900s, where people rely on their daily sidewalk encounters to take the measure of life itself. What were we losing, locked in our cars while the streets became ever more unwalkable?" Please, Mary, give me a break. Don't tell me that a nice Ford Expedition wouldn't have made life around Walden Pond a lot easier. As far as Grovers' Corners is concerned, I can see the H2s on Main Street now.
The second article, [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com...][u]Doing the Plow,[/u][/url] details a study by the American College of Sports Medicine in which pedometers were strapped to a group of Amish people for a week. Guess what the study found? That's right, they found that the average Amish person is "as physically active as distance runners." Let's see, could this be because they are, oh, I don't know, AMISH!? Most Amish are employed as farmers and traditionally avoid electricity and machinery, carrying on 19th century farming and domestic techniques. By default, this makes them slightly more active than an Account Executive at an advertising agency. But you knew that. I'm not sure what's more apalling, the fact that ACSM (clearly not one of the world's preeminent research colleges) chose to devote resources to this study, or that Post author Dana Scarton draws no conclusions from the results.
Both of these studies are illuminating, in their own way, but they also fail to point out the elephant in the living room: times have changed, and thus so must our habits. The 20th century gave us the car and then the interstate, and thus made it possible to have suburbs. The whimsical charm of "Main Street" began to disappear as the shopping mall replaced the street as the primary social space in American culture. The television further entrenched the suburban isolation of the American family, as it was no longer necessary to seek entertainment outside the home. Urban planners and developers responded in kind, and developed cityscapes designed with the car in mind. This, after all, is what our society wanted: a fast way to get from home to work in the comfort and isolation of the automobile.
There is no question that these developments have given rise to the obesity problem in our country. I admire and support community efforts to create pedestrian friendly spaces, and encourage people to enjoy them whenever possible. However, the car is here to stay. Gone are the days when one needed to walk everywhere, and we should not seek to bring those days back.
Cars and suburbs are not the problem, people's habits are the problem. While it may be necessary to drive many places, human beings are still born with legs and the freedom to walk on them as they wish. Freeways, cars, office parks, and strip malls are the fruits of economic progress, but they do not inhibit us from taking a walk or joining a fitness center.
We as a society must place a higher value on our own physical well being. Individuals of all ages should make a conscious effort to become more physically active in spite of the sedentary requirements of their jobs. Employers can help by adding fitness center discounts to their benefits packages, and entering company teams in local intramural sports leagues. Local governments can assist by creating designated pedestrian spaces such as hike/bike trails and jogging parks. Developers can design lucrative multi-use real estate that encourages people to live within walking distance of the workplace. Families can become closer by taking a nightly post-dinner walk. We should enjoy our cars, freeways, and suburban retreats, while making exercise an equally important part of our lives.
|
|
0 Comments
|
| |
| Blacklisted |
| 01.12.04 (11:52 am) |
Every time I drive past the [url=http://www.nra.org]NRA[/url] headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, I laugh. Here is a menacing monster of a group, so obviously out of line and in the wrong that they ought to share convention space with [url=http://www.nambla.org]NAMBLA[/url] .
Today I discovered that the NRA has published an enormous [url=http://www.nraila.org/Issues/...]blacklist[/url] filled with the names of organizations, celebrities, and companies that "have assisted in the attack on Second Amendment rights."
I find this tremendously appalling, but not surprising. Here is a pro-handgun, pro-violence organization that underscores the heart of the conservative ideology: fear and intimidation. Blacklists are the products of history's oppressors, from religious groups to governments to military regimes. Blacklists are a staple of racists, perpetrators of genocide, and a host of other evils that plague our world. It's the mentality of the small, weak, and afraid; those who view being armed and dangerous as a better alternative than being active and compassionate.
This blacklist makes me sick, and the NRA makes me sick. This group has singled out thousands upon thousands of Americans as "enemies" while the gun problem continues to escalate in this country. How can NRA members even look at themselves in the mirror after the horrors unleashed on this region by the DC snipers? If I found myself a member of a group that had this many enemies, I might think twice about which side I was on.
For my part, I have seen enough, and I have heard enough. Enough of school shootings, armed robbery, and sniper attacks. NRA, I vigorously oppose your mission and your methods. Consider me an enemy. Consider me blacklisted.
If you would like to be blacklisted as well, click [url=http://www.nrablacklist.com/]here[/url] .
|
|
3 Comments
|
| |
| Fluorescent Sunshine has a new home! |
| 01.12.04 (11:24 am) |
As you can see, I've moved my blog. To access past articles, please click on the "old blog" link on the left side of the page.
Thanks for your support.
|
|
0 Comments
|
| |
| Adventures in Misanthropy |
| 01.12.04 (10:24 am) |
Quick: who is dumber? Britney Spears or Pete Rose?
In the latest installment of the Teen Queen Stupidity Sweepstakes, Britney and a childhood friend (Jason Allen Alexander) got married in Vegas and then, once they sobered up, had to get an anulment! Now, there is a large part of me that thinks that the girl was just acting her age. I mean, look, if you've been to college, you know how out of hand things get...people start drinking, and you wake up and think "my god, what have I done?" I keep picturing Spears and her friend waking up, rolling over, and doing the McCaulay Culkin "Home Alone" scream at one another. Or maybe he was already in the kitchen making breakfast when she emerged from her stupor...we may never know the truth. And this undoubtedly qualifies as the most expensive Walk of Shame in the history of the phenomenon. Doing stupid stuff like this is part of growing up...I guess. If you are a pop superstar, you have a greater propensity for finding yourself in these predicaments because you have the economic means (and the requisite mental disconnect with common sense) to do so. I keep thinking to myself that if Jessica Simpson weren't already married, she would probably be the next to suffer the mishap of a shotgun wedding. Now that the bar in the Sweepstakes has been raised, what will she do to one-up Britney? As for Jason Allen Alexander, it seems that he's already poised to rake in some quickie cash from the incident; my guess is in the long run he ends up as nothing more than an answer in the Arts and Entertainment section of a Trivial Pursuit card.
Enough has been said about Pete Rose to last a lifetime, but since I'm a Reds fan people often ask me what I think. Here is what I think: he is a shallow, narcissistic coward who betrayed the game that gave him so much. He strung baseball and the public along for 14 years, insisting his innocence, and only now, with a book deal on the line, does he say "well, I lied." You know what's worse than one lie? Another lie to cover the previous lie. And on top of that, profiteering from your liarship. Most of us are taught certain universal virtues when we grow up. Chief among those are honesty and integrity. We live in a world where liars are being exposed all the time (see: Enron) but it seems that if you are a sports hero, you get a free pass (see Simpson, O.J.).
We as a society need to love our heroes: no one who rooted for Pete to break Ty Cobb's record in 1985 wants to have that time in history tarnished. We as human beings must become emotionally involved in something that we feel is larger than ourselves; and today, sports heroes and entertainers serve much the same purpose as the protagonists in African folktales or Greek Myths. We need our world to be larger and better than our own self-perceived smallness, and we need that world to be peopled by those who posess capabilities that most of us could only dream of having. Pete Rose is one of these people. And apparently, this status meant nothing to him.
Just as we need to love our heroes, we need to hate them. We are jealous of their perceived immortality and cannot resist the spectacle of a falling star. We crave bad news and find reassurance in the misfortune of others. Watch the evening news. Pick a night, any night, you'll see what I mean. When others take a fall, we find relief: at least the things that keep us up at night aren't that bad. Our heroes are extensions of our own self-conscious and identity. We find find inspiration in their triumph and reassurance in their failure.
Pete Rose has failed. He has failed the game of baseball and those who cherish it. And he has failed himself. Sure, he has gained sustained notoriety by his banishment and subsequent shenanigans, and he will gain financially from his book. But on his last day, what will he have really gained? What will he have lost? Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley have just been enshrined in the Hall of Fame for careers that, while distinguished, do not come close to that of Pete Rose. They are immortal; Rose is not, nor should he ever be. His actions should only further basball's resolve to keep him at bay.
Mortal sins should not be compensated with immortal rewards. Prometheus was punished for stealing fire from the gods. We should respond in kind when the gods steal fire from us.
|
|
0 Comments
|
| |
|
|