Sunday, July 8, 2012

Random Thoughts

Lots of things to think about.

The US election is coming up and, while it seems like President Obama and former Governor Romney have been running for the last four years already, those of us in the US still get to suffer through another several months of political lies, truth-twisting and partisan yelling from both sides with no decent chance of true leadership being the result. I always find it amusing when politicians claim to be public servants who are here to serve the public good. If that were truly so, would they be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to "serve"? Heck, if they have so much money to spend for the opportunity to "serve",  perhaps they could prove how good they are by simply giving the money to the public they claim to represent.

I thought this was pretty interesting. I have pointed out before that racism is real and it doesn't just belong with white people. In US politics, it's a given that Blacks (or should I use African-American - though you will notice I did capitalize Black, think I had this thought somewhere in a previous post) should vote Democratic because of course the Republican Party is comprised of overt white (should I capitalize White?) racists. But I really hate labels. I know Republicans who are not white racists and Democrats who are. What does it prove? Personally, I'd prefer we skip past the process of separating people and bring them together. But, then again, I am an idealist. It'd probably never work in the real world.

I found this to be a step in the right direction. These are the stories that need to be told and I hope that more are eventually brought to light one day. The truth is never easy but it is preferable to lies and cover-ups. It is living proof that the Chinese government cannot sweep away the seminal event that occurred 23 years ago. I only hope that these stories can one day be told by the people who lived them publicly instead of history books that have to be compiled secretly until some unknown date in the future.

Have you ever noticed how many commercials there are (well, at least in the US) for products to make people healthier or better looking? Why does the pharmaceutical industry populate so much our tv ad time? Or the beauty companies? It almost puts the political ads to shame at this point. Except that the political ads just run during an election year while we get stuck with pharmacy and beauty ads all the time. I do feel for those people who get suckered in by the belief that you must look better or take meds to make yourself feel better all the time. And note that I didn't even address the lawyers who advertise their services to drum up clients who should sue for car accidents or meds that may have had ill-intended side effects (OMG, medicines - advertised on tv - can have SIDE EFFECTS?!!!). Nope, can't do that or I'd have to start talkin' 'bout lawyers... Don't wanna go there...