Category Archives: Thoughts

United we rise

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I thought this was a great video. I never heard this Charlie Chaplin speech before, but it’s fantastic. It’s from one of his movies called The Great Dictator. The movie is 60 years old but this speech still seems to hold true. Hope those fires of revolution against oppression in the Middle East and North Africa keep on burning.

Also I’m not sure on where I stand on outside forces jumping into the fray in Libya. I’m down with the no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi from bombing his own people, but should international forces intervene? It kind of muddies up the revolution, but then again I’m not knowledgeable enough about the situation there. Also Bahrain, Yemen, and others keep up the good fight. North Korea and Iran feel free to join in anytime you want.

P.S. Larry I hope your recovery is going well. Hurry and heal up so you can get back to busting my Dad’s chops.

The full text of the speech is after the jump  Continue reading →

Paying for teachers in America

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This morning I was talking to my Dad about the pay that teachers receive in America. I keep hearing about the ridiculousness that is happening up in Wisconsin; way to go protesters, keep it up! I know this is probably a little dated for most netizens (by dated I mean 2 weeks), but my Dad hadn’t seen it so I thought it was worthy to share on zee blog (quoted from some dude on facebook):

Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 peryear. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children

X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)”

So I also decided to go out and check for some more information. First up and a mainstay for bashing ridiculous situation of news reporting in America. Here is a little bit of John Stewart on The Daily Show showing the contradiction between reporting about bailout money and Wall Street fat cat’s pay and reporting that teachers are being grossly over compensated.

 

I also found an infographic. I don’t know how I feel about infographics, because they are to actual research what soundbites are to real news reporting…just a lazy man’s way to consume basic information without understanding it. Although since I’m feeling lazy today I’m going to let myself fall into that trap.

Teachers Pay as a percentage of GDP - Go Korea!

Teachers Pay as a percentage of GDP - Go Korea!

Also just because I’m posting infographics might as well post this one that has been floating around the nets for awhile, even though it isn’t related to teachers pay I still felt it was important to disseminate this piece of knowledge. This infographic is about how much money stays in the pockets of the rich as a result of Continue reading →

Going Away House Party

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Tonight I decided to hold a last house party. Sort of a going away party although I have a few more weeks. But this is the last chance I will have to have a house party before furniture starts to get sold off and what not, so it just makes sense. I’m really going to miss my little house with YeYe. It is one of the few places that I have truly felt at home in a great many years.

So when thinking about this party and all the people I wanted to invite, I started leafing through my old photos. One picture particularly stuck out was a picture Madeline took when I had a fireworks party at my old Gwangalli house.

Gwangalli Fireworks party 2009

Gwangalli Fireworks party 2009

What stuck out about this picture is that all of those friends are gone! Well almost all are gone, there are still a few floating around such as Ben-Straight, Choi-oni, and Mina. But everyone else has departed. Depressing to see when you’re planning a going away party. Although not to worry I have made some new great friends that will come to fill my house tonight. But it does make me miss all the people, some of which it is doubtful that I’ll ever see again (at least anytime in the near future), unless we are talking about the California kids then I’ll see them in 3 months.

Party on Garth…

Senator Bernie Sanders Speech against Bush Tax cuts

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As much as I would love to closely follow politics in America, I just seem to be unable too because of so much misdirection; lack of good, accurate, and succinct news reporting; and as someone of the working class I frankly just don’t have enough time to keep up with all the necessary research to stay fully informed. As they say, money never sleeps, but I do. So I don’t know this Senator Bernie Sanders guy very well nor his policies, but this speech seems to be on the mark, or at least inline with questions I have about the current policies running through the American Gov’t.

Here are some things that seemed to stick out to me:

…the United States now has by far the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth.

and

the top 1% earn more than the bottom 50%

Like I said, most of the time I can’t keep up with the political spheres, so anything thoughts would be most welcome.

P.S. Obama did extend Bush’s Tax Cuts for the rich. Obama your compromise represents a failure to me.

It’s not perfect, but this compromise is an essential step on the road to recovery
President Obama

Waiting for fate to tap

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I recently just got back from a very amazing trip to Seoul and while I recover I watched a fairly cheesy hero story. This hero story employed a typical beginning to the plot that seems fairly common in many hero stories, or adventure esque stories. Generally the beginning of the story is when fate taps someone on the shoulder. For the most part the people who are tapped in these stories either have a bland or desperate existence or lead a content life that gets radically altered by some external sources. In the former instance, there are many examples in current popular hero stories such as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (leads a dreary life on Tatooine and longs for something more) or Harry Potter (leads a sad life that is changed when he is told he is something much more). An example of the later would be Frodo from Lord of the Rings (leads a happy life until fate in the form of Gandalf motivates him). I’m chiefly curious about why in hero stories that we cherish so much frequently involve individuals who are just stuck in their life until fate comes rapping.

As far as I can tell except in extraordinary circumstances I don’t believe fate comes knocking at your door very often. Why is it that stories where fate comes knocking are so well loved. Is it the individuals who are desperate for something to come about and change their life, that feel a sense of identity with such stories hoping that fate would knock on their door? If so why would someone feeling desperate for change not just change their life? If they do not have the strength for that I highly doubt that they could have the strength to answer fate giving them a heroes calling. Generally our heroes overcome odds that were thought to be insurmountable, but if someone could not even overcome their own desperate existence how would they ever expect to overcome a heroes challenge. Then there are the people who are not waiting for fate to knock and are content with their lives. Why these people enjoy the stories is probably very varied and beyond me at the moment to systematically analyze. I suspect they just are found of a good heroes journey and never expecting their life to ever reach a climactic journey as such.

Here is where it comes down to a personal philosophy of mine, that life should not just be lived but should be a momentous adventure (this can even be seen by the name of my blog). I don’t know if I have a rationalization for my thoughts at the moment but I feel that there is something inherently wrong almost verging on the point of being immoral for someone not to pursue greatness in their life. I will have to consider this a little deeper but as it stands now this is just a subjective opinion. So for now here is closing thought using a quote that a friend of mine seems to be fond of by Henry David Thoreau from his book Walden that seems to sum up those who wait for fate to tap…

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.


Quotes page

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I created a quotes page just because I really love quotes. It is not very well organized yet but at least they are written down to share somehwhere available to the public. I have many more to add but then again this is just a start.

Link to Quotes page

I also have recently discovered that organizing ideas and thoughts into a coherent order on the internet is way more difficult than I have ever thought it would be.

Welcome back to the info super highway…

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I have finally gotten an Internet connection in my apartment much to joy! So I am welcoming myself back to the information super highway. I thought earlier that I now once again feel like a well connected human being, but that same thought somewhat bothered me. Why is it that my connection back into the Internet allows me to feel somewhat normal. What is this sense of normalcy that I am experiencing or gaining from being connected again. It seems similar to the feeling I get when I come home after being away for a long time. Have I become that wired?

I wonder if this feeling will detract from my experience here in Korea. I do not know but it sure as hell will make it easier for me to gather information fast again and contact people back home. Also that means more work will get done on the blog :)

Lost in the woods…

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I attempted to look up the phrase “lost in the woods…” because I have heard it used before (what comes to mind is Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly) to describe someone who is in over their head clueless on how to act or behave in whatever circumstance they find themselves. I am once again lost in the woods, clueless on how to act or behave in the circumstances that I find myself and feeling in over my head. As always how I found myself in this position was most likely self induced, which makes it that much more aggravating, but this time there is also an timing aspect that is beyond my power to control. I really enjoy Malcolm’s response to being accused of liking being lost in the woods;

Inara: [to Simon] You’re lost in the woods. We all are. Even the captain. The only difference is he likes it that way.
Mal: [walks in] No, the only difference is the woods are the only place I can see a clear path.

Even though I enjoy Malcolm’s stance I do not know how to implement it. I believe Continue reading →

Hard Choices

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I once told a guy named Floyd that if given a choice between being the decision maker on a hard choice or deferring to someone else so that I can live without the burden, that I would choose to be the decision maker. I strangely thought of this after reading a manga of Naruto. Shikamaru nearly quits being a ninja because after a mission almost all of his unit (who consists mainly of his friends) were hospitalized. His father explained to him that if he quits someone else will be put in charge of his friends and the pain will only be worse when they screw up and get his friend’s killed while Shikamaru proverbially sat on the sidelines and differed the choices that resulted in his friends death to someone else. Realizing this Shikamaru decides that he will continue leading regardless of how terrible he feels and most likely will feel in the future and vowing that he will tirelessly work in order to better protect his friends.

I believe that Shikamaru made the best choice that when given a chance to choose between deciding something difficult or differing the choice to another and relying on them to carry that burden, as he did, I would want the burden. Only then will I be able to ensure the best choice is made because the choice is within my power and  if I choose poorly that is because I did not work hard enough to understand, comprehend, etc… the ramifications of my choice. I cannot damn someone else for a choice that I coward away from. I instead have to use my failure as fuel for the fires that will power me to work harder, think more, and to make a wiser decision for future hard choices. Continue reading →