So, this year's summer Olympics are scheduled to take place in Beijing, China. I'm quite morally opposed to this. The Chinese government has a terrible human rights record, terrible environmental record, and no transparency whatsoever in their processes or in their press. I'm sure it's a beautiful country, and I'm sorry for the people that are forced to live there in horrible conditions and would like to have something about which to feel pride, but if I were an athlete there is no way I would agree to participate. It's almost impossible to boycott items produced in China--I tried it in college when the whole Free Tibet thing was really big. And as many problems as I have with organized religion, I don't think the Tibetan monks really pose the same type of threat as Islamic extremists or Christian fanatics. I'm not even that anti-Communist really, I am just anti-secrecy and tyranny, and those are the things that seem to grow out of governments like the one in China, or what happened in the USSR, even if they start out with noble intentions.
I mean, I guess it's not as bad as trying to hold the Olympics in Syria or Darfur or something, but it's not far above. And of course, our reasons for participating are purely economic: to maintain good or at least cordial relations with a large, powerful country that we do more importing from than anywhere else. It's so hypocritical. But I shouldn't really be surprised, since money is at the root of almost all of the decisions our government makes. Money for large corporations that don't care to act responsibly, money for oil companies, money for drugs, hookers, designer clothes and haircuts for our elected officials.
Sometimes it's hard to be the amongst the smallest cogs in such a large wheel. And although I know I won't be able to do it 100 %, I am going to try to be more aware of where the money I spend goes. I'll try to patronize smaller, localized businesses, and do more research on the business practices of larger companies. To me, this is part of being a responsible, and even patriotic, adult. I already don't drive, so I feel good that I don't spend anywhere close to the amount of money most Americans do on gas. Of course, we all rely on it, and I wouldn't want to live without the opportunities it affords us for comfort, travel, whatever, but I would like it if the oil companies and our government felt a bit more pressure to come up with alternate energy sources. There's certainly no way of turning back the clock on the Industrial Revolution, but I'd like to be more progressive about the way we deal with its fallout.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Various & Sundry
Nothing too exciting has been happening with me lately. Just more of the same--work, reading books, tv, working on the genealogy stuff. Work is boring, frustrating, and stressful all at the same time. Sometimes just thinking about it makes me feel like there's a black cancerous maw just gnawing away at the organs in my chest cavity. I never thought about how such mundane crap would make me feel so sort of useless. At least as a server, I had some instant gratification, as usually (although NOT always) people were nice and thankful to you on the spot.
So, I already know that I want to leave after I have been here for a year. That's only about 5 1/2 months away now. I'm going to be getting some money from a life insurance policy my grandfather decided to cash out. It's not much, but it will be enough to put some into a CD or something that earns a good amount of interest, and then spend the rest on both my planned trip to England and Scotland and my planned time off. Hopefully, it will not be a lot of time off. I'm not sure what kind of job I will look for, but definitely something a little better-paying. I keep thinking about going back and getting a management position at a corporate restaurant, just because there is better money and more stability, more oversight. But at the same time, I know how crappy the hours are and how crappy it can be to have like, hundreds of corporate bosses breathing down your neck all the time. That is one thing I like about working here. I only have 2 or 3 people to whom I have to answer.
Anyway, I am sure I will figure something out. I always do.
I started re-reading Jane Austen's Emma the other day. I just love that book. It's definitely my favorite Austen, because it has the least amount of sturm und drang. It's just about a gossipy little village and a deluded, misguided girl attempting to be helpful. None of the women get scandalously seduced by a charming but soulless rake who refuses to marry her. No one dies penniless in a pauper's hospital. Everyone gets the marriage they wanted, and everyone takes care of one another. It's a lovely fantasy. The character of Emma Woodhouse is supposedly the least likeable of all of Austen's heroines, and I can definitely understand that, because she is quite smug and is certainly a snob. Her motives at the beginning of the story are self-gratifying, an attempt to prove to everyone around her how clever and talented she is, even though most people already feel this about her. But her better qualities do come through--her devotion to her father, her love for her friends, her offense at seeing Harriet snubbed by the Eltons, and her true remorse at insulting Miss Bates. And in the end she is honest with herself, and her Mr. Knightley, and everyone (except maybe Mr. Elton) lives happily ever after.
On the genealogy front, I am still stuck way back in like, 11th century England and France. It's getting a bit frustrating, too, because at a certian point I forget which family I am even tracing. I try to follow the male line until I can't get any farther, and then I have to go back and try to trace each of the mothers' lines, but that just leads to following a new male line back so far. It's seriously like taking twelve steps back to take one step forward, if that makes any sort of sense. I have a whole spiral notebook full of reminders of websites and information on names so I can try to keep track and not forget people I have already added (because there are certainly cross-overs).
Anyway, that is a fraction of the crap running around in my head this week. Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I went and hung out with some friends in Woodside. We went to eat at Donovan's Pub, which is right around the corner (didn't even have to cross a street), and there was a full pipes and drums band entertaining us. It was very cool. One guy even did some Irish step-dancing, right in front of our table! It was the first time I've ever really felt like I was celebrating the Irish in America as opposed to just an excuse to go out drinking. I hope at some point I will be able to trace my grandmother Sullivan's family back in Ireland.
So, I already know that I want to leave after I have been here for a year. That's only about 5 1/2 months away now. I'm going to be getting some money from a life insurance policy my grandfather decided to cash out. It's not much, but it will be enough to put some into a CD or something that earns a good amount of interest, and then spend the rest on both my planned trip to England and Scotland and my planned time off. Hopefully, it will not be a lot of time off. I'm not sure what kind of job I will look for, but definitely something a little better-paying. I keep thinking about going back and getting a management position at a corporate restaurant, just because there is better money and more stability, more oversight. But at the same time, I know how crappy the hours are and how crappy it can be to have like, hundreds of corporate bosses breathing down your neck all the time. That is one thing I like about working here. I only have 2 or 3 people to whom I have to answer.
Anyway, I am sure I will figure something out. I always do.
I started re-reading Jane Austen's Emma the other day. I just love that book. It's definitely my favorite Austen, because it has the least amount of sturm und drang. It's just about a gossipy little village and a deluded, misguided girl attempting to be helpful. None of the women get scandalously seduced by a charming but soulless rake who refuses to marry her. No one dies penniless in a pauper's hospital. Everyone gets the marriage they wanted, and everyone takes care of one another. It's a lovely fantasy. The character of Emma Woodhouse is supposedly the least likeable of all of Austen's heroines, and I can definitely understand that, because she is quite smug and is certainly a snob. Her motives at the beginning of the story are self-gratifying, an attempt to prove to everyone around her how clever and talented she is, even though most people already feel this about her. But her better qualities do come through--her devotion to her father, her love for her friends, her offense at seeing Harriet snubbed by the Eltons, and her true remorse at insulting Miss Bates. And in the end she is honest with herself, and her Mr. Knightley, and everyone (except maybe Mr. Elton) lives happily ever after.
On the genealogy front, I am still stuck way back in like, 11th century England and France. It's getting a bit frustrating, too, because at a certian point I forget which family I am even tracing. I try to follow the male line until I can't get any farther, and then I have to go back and try to trace each of the mothers' lines, but that just leads to following a new male line back so far. It's seriously like taking twelve steps back to take one step forward, if that makes any sort of sense. I have a whole spiral notebook full of reminders of websites and information on names so I can try to keep track and not forget people I have already added (because there are certainly cross-overs).
Anyway, that is a fraction of the crap running around in my head this week. Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I went and hung out with some friends in Woodside. We went to eat at Donovan's Pub, which is right around the corner (didn't even have to cross a street), and there was a full pipes and drums band entertaining us. It was very cool. One guy even did some Irish step-dancing, right in front of our table! It was the first time I've ever really felt like I was celebrating the Irish in America as opposed to just an excuse to go out drinking. I hope at some point I will be able to trace my grandmother Sullivan's family back in Ireland.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Everyone Else's Pedigree
Yesterday I read an article stating that a group of geneticists have found the mutation that causes people to have blue eyes. Apparently it traces to one common ancestor who seems to have lived in the Baltic region thousands of years back. So according to this study all blue-eyed people are distantly related.
This doesn't come as too big of a surprise to me since I started working on my genealogy. Families used to have so many children, and when one spouse died young, the survivor inevitably re-married and spawned some more. Not to mention all of the inter-family marriages. They say that something like 75% of the English middle class is descended from Edward III. While he hasn't come up in my family tree just yet, I have discovered that I'm possibly descended from Charlemagne at least three times over. There was a lot more information out on the internet than I would have suspected. People who have been working on their pedigrees for years have published their findings online and there is a lot of corresponding information. Of course, there is also a ton of conflicting info! Anything that seems too questionable to me I am leaving off. And of course it's all speculative, anyway. There are historical records to back up a lot of the info, but it isn't like people kept such careful track of what year things occured and a majority of records have been in some way lost or destroyed because either they thought no one would care, or because of war or just because sometimes things get lost. It's really only within the twentieth century that accurate records of births and deaths were kept by the states.
I only hope some record of my existence survives for a thousand years.
This doesn't come as too big of a surprise to me since I started working on my genealogy. Families used to have so many children, and when one spouse died young, the survivor inevitably re-married and spawned some more. Not to mention all of the inter-family marriages. They say that something like 75% of the English middle class is descended from Edward III. While he hasn't come up in my family tree just yet, I have discovered that I'm possibly descended from Charlemagne at least three times over. There was a lot more information out on the internet than I would have suspected. People who have been working on their pedigrees for years have published their findings online and there is a lot of corresponding information. Of course, there is also a ton of conflicting info! Anything that seems too questionable to me I am leaving off. And of course it's all speculative, anyway. There are historical records to back up a lot of the info, but it isn't like people kept such careful track of what year things occured and a majority of records have been in some way lost or destroyed because either they thought no one would care, or because of war or just because sometimes things get lost. It's really only within the twentieth century that accurate records of births and deaths were kept by the states.
I only hope some record of my existence survives for a thousand years.
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