The Blog of Siram

Once upon a time there was an alternative rock band called Creed. They made lots of great music that was very popular.

One Last Breath from Whisper (2001)
Then one day for no apparent reason, they suddenly broke up. Not long after that, like the very next day, there was a new band, called Alter Bridge. Completely different and separate from Creed in every (legal) way.

Open Your Eyes from One Day Remains (2004)
It was made up of every member originally of Creed except one. I guess they didn't want him to be a part of them anymore. And they lived happily ever after.

Somewhere in that tale there's a lesson to be learned, I think. Especially for the current Republican Party.

Note: the above version of events is how I heard it as a casual fan of alternative rock. I'm not a hardcore Creed/Alter Bridge fan and probably there are lots of additional details to the story that aren't accounted for in this post. Also, there's a sequel: five years after they disbanded, they reunited last year. Which could also have analogies to the current GOP after some growth and maturity occurs...

Overcome from Full Circle (2009)

TO:
Rep. John Barrow
Sen. Saxby Chambliss
Sen. Johnny Isakson

Please support President Obama's plan for health reform in 2009. We need to bring stability and security to those who currently have insurance, affordable coverage to those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

We are not the first generation to tackle the cause of health reform, but we must be the last.

We need this. It's an excellent, well-thought-out plan. Please don't destroy it.

Sincerely,
MWT

I signed the above shortly after the speech. Most of it is pre-written but there's room for individual comments on the form. It automatically pulls up your particular representatives when you fill in your street and zip code. I think people who live in red states especially should sign it.

On the whole, I like the proposed plan. It won't be as nice as what other countries have - but it accounts for all the ideas and concerns from all sides, it's realistic and therefore has a chance of actually passing, and it's an important first step in the right direction. Here's a flowchart that summarizes it pretty well (click for larger version):

My favorite part (from the speech) was:

Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.

These are exactly the sorts of things I worry about most. Back when I had health care, I wondered what would happen if I passed my lifetime cap - would I just be expected to drop dead at that point? (Apparently the answer is yes.) And now that I don't have health care, the pre-existing condition clause is a bit worrying, if I were to develop something before finding a job where I had health care again. (And, I might add, until the speech I hadn't known that people got denied health care for pre-existing conditions they didn't even know they had. o.O)

Part I liked least:

... individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.

I understand the reasoning behind it. But the exemption bar had better be high. Better would be to just put all the people below the exemption bar on a public option for free, though that raises some questions on how it would affect the whole self-sufficiency thing.

In general, I think the speech has brought the health care reform conversation back on topic and moved it forward another step. Hopefully good things will happen from here.

Bakho, for those who don't follow this blog regularly, is a good friend of mine from Croatia, a psychology student in Zagreb, and one of my favorite RPoLians. He's the guy with the megaphone that appears at 5:12 and 6:41.

What's he doing? Why has there been a countrywide uprising going on in Croatia for the past three weeks? Because he and his fellow students (and many of their fellow citizens) believe that all have the right to free public higher education. Presently, about half of them have to pay for theirs - which they believe is wrong. So they've staged barricades of the colleges of several cities, not preventing anyone from entering or leaving the buildings but disallowing all lectures by being loud and disruptive.

It doesn't sound like the sort of thing that should work. It sounds completely unrealistic, in fact, especially when one wonders where governmental funding is supposed to come from. Well, taxes of course - and as the students' argument goes, there's a lot of wasteful spending going on that could (and should) be cut - like expensive public works in whole other countries and new sports stadiums.

But it seems to be working anyway. The government hoped that they'd get bored and go away. Three weeks later, however, they're still there - and someone leaderlike is probably going to have to Do Something.

As for me, well, I hope bakho remembers to eat regularly and get some sleep once in a while. And that he passes all the exams he's not been studying for, when it's all over. (And that he gets back to running his RPoL game. >.> ) Meanwhile: Vive La Révolution. :)

Seeing this picture is what brought home for me that President Obama is now really our president. Here he is, not speechifying or being in the spotlight of any ceremonies, but sitting behind a desk and doing his new job.

It's a nice thing to see. :)

(The picture is of him signing an order to close Guantanamo. I stole it from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I'm pleased about that, too. (The Guantanamo closing, not the theft.))

Day Without A Gay is intended as a boycott and strike by all LBGTQ people and their supporters, to demonstrate our economic might. It coincides with International Human Rights Day.

Here's a condensed list of their suggestions on what to do on the day:

1. Don't go to work.

That part is easy enough. Wednesdays are my midday weekend, when I don't go to work anyway. I'll have to stop in to sign my timesheet so I can get paid this month, since they're trying to close the books early for Christmas break. But I won't be working.
2. Don't spend any money, except at businesses that are clearly LBGTQ-friendly.

Also easy enough. I planned ahead on groceries and gas.
3. Withdraw $80 from the bank and keep it pocketed all day.

So, after I go in to sign the timesheet, I'll be visiting the bank.
4. Avoid advertising, such as from watching TV or browsing the Internet.

That latter is going to be hard. o.O
5. Volunteer and/or join a nearby protest.

kind of sucked at the protesting back on Nov. 15

will

6. Don't use cell phones.

I'm not sure I understand this one. But I can turn it off for the day. Nobody calls me anyway except wrong numbers and phone companies wanting me to sign up.
Additionally, there's a suggestion from WhiteKnot.org:
7. Wear a ribbon with a white knot in the middle, as a symbol of support for marriage equality.

I'll have one. And I'll be wearing it when I sign my timesheet. We'll see if anyone asks what it is...
Right then. I'll be back on the 11th. :)

The postcard I sent to Obama for Project Postcard:

I'm not sure what it says about me that I find all this political activism to be highly amusing. I'm just happy to be able to do something, I think. Plus it's the first I've participated in anything like it. Next up: Day Without a Gay - a boycott and strike that happens Dec. 10. Since it's on a Wednesday when I'm off work anyhow, that one should be pretty easy too.

Over the weekend there was a nation-wide protest of the passing of Prop 8 in California during the last election. (Actually there were a few participant cities outside of the U.S. as well. but it was mostly national.) Prop 8 is a ban on gay marriage. Individual states have been arguing for or against such a ban since 2004; Georgia, for example, passed such a ban into its constitution back then. This year there were several states asking its citizens the same question, including California - that famed bastion of gays and liberalness. Surprisingly, they voted to pass it.

So there was a protest. According to the overall organizer website, Savannah had one scheduled. We were to meet at the corner of Bull Street and Broughton Street and march to Johnson Square.

I didn't find out about this until an hour before. Also it was forecast to rain all day. But I went to check it out. Unfortunately, I was the only one there as far as I could tell:

After about half an hour of walking back and forth by myself (without the yelling or sign waving; I had no sign), I gave up and went home. It started raining heavily about five minutes after I was back in my car.

Fortunately for the rest of the nation, it looks like a lot of other cities had successful turnouts. Next time, whoever's in charge in Savannah (if there is anyone in charge, and I'm guessing there isn't) needs to give louder and earlier notice about such things.

Meanwhile, it would probably be more effective to bring the issue to the federal level and get a SCOTUS ruling for the entire nation instead of doing it piecemeal like this, one state at a time.

A year ago today, we had no hope. Our current president and his administration were committing atrocities on a nearly weekly basis, making a mockery of the Constitution he had sworn to uphold, and demonizing half of us to pander to the other half. The Congress we had elected in 2006 to stop him ... wasn't. Our leaders were too busy playing shell games with each other while feeding us lies and platitudes, and no one knew what to do about it. I doubt I was the only one who was waiting for a revolution to come.

A year ago today, the dominant race and culture of America had all the power, and they did not mean people like me when they talked about "real Americans." Every day in a thousand subtle ways they told me that I am not one of them, I am not the same. My voice is irrelevant because I am merely a guest here and I do not matter.

Then came a man with a voice from the other side. A man who has lived in the same America that I live in, who sees all of the flaws in it that are invisible to every leader that has come before, those that we're "supposed to" vote for by tradition (of the dominant race and culture). A man who speaks sincerely and plainly about the things that actually matter, a man who isn't trying to fill us with platitudes to hide his true agenda, a man who cuts straight to the truth.

Thank you, President Obama, for finding a way to bring on the revolution from within, for having the courage to reach across the Decider's divide, for volunteering to redeem us in the world's eyes. Thank you for daring to take a stand as a black man representing the voices of all minorities, for challenging us to add our voices to yours, for letting us take back the country that was and always has been ours. Thank you for showing the world that we are Real Americans too.

A year ago, we lived in fear. Now we have hope. A year ago, I was ashamed to be an American. Now I can be proud.

Yes we can.

Traditionally, Americans vote by going on a certain day to a prearranged place in their general neighborhood. It might be an actual government building, a public school, or even a church. It can't be some other place than the assigned one, which is decided by home address, and it has to be between certain hours.

Once there, we might stand in long lines if we go at the same time as everyone else in the neighborhood. Then we are confronted with lots of names that we may have never heard of,* vying for obscure governmental positions that we may also have no clue about.** And at the end there are usually a bunch of questions about referendums, propositions, initiatives, constitutional amendments, etc. that are worded as confusingly as possible so that we have no idea what any of them would actually do if enacted.*** In Georgia, these tend to be about taxes. Shall we tax this group of people if they meet these particular qualifications? Shall we give tax breaks to this other group of people if they don't? etc.

But now we have the Internet! Furthermore, at least here in Georgia, we no longer need a reason to apply for an absentee ballot - we can get one for fun if we want. And since I want, this year I did. So I could look stuff up while I'm filling it out. Then send it back out in the mail at my leisure. It's working out a lot better this way overall. I'm not looking up as much stuff as I could,** but I like having the option. :)

* Seriously, the only time I ever got non-"vote for me!" pleas in the mail from a candidate at less than the federal level was 20 years ago back in Indiana. Her name was Vi Simpson, a state rep, and I kept voting for her simply because she actually tried to keep me up to date on what she was doing. Hers is also the only name I remember. Likewise why I vote for U.S. Rep John Barrow now - I get mail from him several times a year. (Well, that and the fact that up until this year, the other guy was this crazed rabidly anti-gay wacko...).

** This year there's tons of judges and assorted bureaucrats running unopposed. I'm too apathetic to figure out who they are or what their positions do.

*** To wit: just take a look at what the second one for this year says: "Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize community redevelopment and authorize counties, municipalities, and local boards of education to use tax funds for redevelopment purposes and programs?" To which I ask the obvious question, community redevelopment purposes such as ...? Now read the explanation under it. Does that clear it up at all? :p It sounds like they're saying "we should let developers steal tax money meant to run our public schools" to which I'd have to go with "no."

(But see also this blog post, which breaks it down a lot better than the official government-run site and also provides links to actual documentation. Where would we be without the Internet?)

Meanwhile in the Balkans, Kosovo declares its independence from Serbia. Serbia disagrees. Riots ensue.

Both sides have powerful allies that are now opposing each other. Is this the beginning of another Great War in Europe? Or another Cold War between the U.S. and Russia?

I've said elsewhere that I prefer my news from reading what (well-informed, respected) regular people have to say about it, via blogs and forums with intelligent discussion threads. It makes it more real when real people care. Here's a view of Kosovo from someone who cares.

For those outside the U.S. who aren't terribly familiar with how presidential elections work here, here's the basic gist:

1. To start with, lots of people declare candidacy. This can happen pretty much anytime, but usually not more than two years in advance of an Election Year. The basic requirements aren't all that high - must be at least 35 and a U.S. citizen born on U.S. soil, etc. - but in practice, wealth is very helpful.

2. Each candidate belongs to a political party. A political party can have lots of candidates. In the spring of Election Year, each party holds internal elections to decide which of its many candidates it wants to support. These elections are called all sorts of things in different states - convention, caucus, primary, etc., but they basically all do the same thing. As a general rule of thumb, the earlier a state holds its primary, the more influence it has on the final outcome.

Every registered member of a party is given a chance to vote at some point during these proceedings (but some of them are lucky special members, and some of them are more equal than others...). In some states, only registered members of the party can vote in the spring elections. In others, there are rules to allow non-registered people to chime in too.

3. Once there's a single candidate left standing in each party, there's another election in late fall of Election Year, which is a contest among all the parties. This is the big main event that gets all the press. Every U.S. citizen can vote in it.

4. Then, after the election, we have something called an "electoral college" which in principle can basically ignore everyone's votes and decide amongst themselves who they really want. In practice, the electors do tend to stick with who the citizens want.

At the moment we're in the midst of #2. Yesterday, in an event called "Super Tuesday," 24 states had elections for one or both of the two main parties.

This year we're electing the replacement for G.W. Bush. As everyone knows, he sucked as a president. He sucked so badly that the next president is virtually guaranteed to be a member of the opposing political party (unless they cheat again (for a third time -.-)). Which means that this year, the primaries of that other party (the Democrats) are the most important part of the show.

So I went out today and did my thing. I've described before who I think would do the best job, and my opinion hasn't changed - my ideal would call for Barack Obama as president and Bill Richardson as vice president (or vice versa, rather - but that's impossible at this point). Will my opinion matter? I don't know. I've voted, but we have those aforementioned lucky special members of the party (called "super delegates") who can basically ignore what everyone else thinks. Which is not unlike having an electoral college in the fall. Which is, at least from my perspective, one of the reasons why so many average citizens feel disenfranchised and irrelevant in the proceedings.

I do understand the original premise of the electoral college. The general populace wasn't supposed to have a voice in the choice of president at all. The general populace is allegedly represented by senators and congressmen. In practice, it hasn't worked out quite that way, and I do wish someone would seriously consider revising the way we have elections (a ranking system of some sort rather than "choose one and only one") - but it doesn't appear to be very high on anyone's priority lists.

Results are here. It looks like Georgia went with Obama. I'm pleased. We'll see where everyone is when the dust settles over the rest of the nation (results are still coming in for the westernmost states at the time of this post).

I've never been in a position to make hiring decisions. However, I've helped evaluate and make recommendations to the people who did make hiring decisions. Mostly this was in the form of faculty hires while I was a graduate student. Each candidate would visit the campus for two days, during which they would make several presentations and meet with all of the faculty, staff, and students - including an hour lunch with the graduate students as a group. Afterward, we would meet again to discuss our impressions in detail, rank them in order, and write an organized recommendation to the department director.

In that same spirit, here's my thoughts on the candidates for U.S. president, based mainly on the AtGoogleTalks Youtube videos.

By and large, all of the Democrats say the same things. The difference, therefore, is in how they say it and how they treat the people they're saying it to. So the following comments are mainly impressions of who they are as people.

4. John Edwards

He talks a lot without saying anything. Moreover, he has no respect for the audience - arrogant, dismissive, and pandering all at the same time. As far as he's concerned, they're there to watch him and Google's VP put on a show while they watch passively, and he underestimates their intelligence and interest in detailed facts - even after the VP specifically tells him otherwise.

The body language also bothered me throughout. I'm not great at interpreting it as a general rule, but one thing I've learned is that too much chin stroking and mouth covering is bad - it means BSing, hiding of things, and outright lies.

It's possible that he's accustomed to standard televised debates and just didn't adapt well to Google's informal interview approach. Nearly everything he said was a sound bite. Even so, an inability to adapt is also detracting.

3. Hillary Clinton

She has some good ideas on how to do things, and puts importance on a lot of the same concerns that I do. Has a good grasp on details and developed good rapport with the audience. However, she's a little too slick about saying all of the right things at the right times. It makes me wonder what's getting smoothed over.

I'd find her acceptable as a president, but she wouldn't be my first choice.

2. Barack Obama

He's a man with a vision and a lot of passion. He lacks the smooth polish that Clinton has, and is prone to stuttering when he's not giving a prepared speech - but that also makes him more real.

Overall he feels like a fresh change of pace after nearly a decade of USian decline to the world, and out of all the candidates he strikes me as the one that can actually reinvent us - not just fix us - and put us back to being a respectable nation.

1. Bill Richardson

He would've been my first choice if he hadn't dropped out of the race, as he's the most qualified candidate for the job. He has all of the experience and knowledge of running a state, including the whole conundrum with illegal immigrants. For foreign policy: hostile foreign governments ask to negotiate with him by name.

The two things that most impressed me about him:
a) He can say "I don't know" when he doesn't know.
b) When he wanted to collect the email address of the woman who'd asked the question he couldn't answer, he directed his aide to go to her, not make her go to them.

Little gestures of respect, done casually without great deliberation, say a whole lot about the kind of person someone is.

Overall, I wish we could combine Richardson and Obama. It would be totally awesome if Obama won the primaries and Richardson agreed to be the VP candidate - but as far as I'm aware, Richardson plans to go back to running his beloved state. Which also speaks highly of him, because that's where his attention really should be.

So far there have only been two Republican candidates to visit Google.

2. Ron Paul

I've talked about him before. He's a Libertarian. I'm very libertarian. When it comes to individual personal liberties, we agree. However, he thinks that those same liberties should be extended to businesses.

Businesses aren't people and aren't driven by the same motives. People are mainly interested in raising healthy, happy families. Businesses are mainly interested in making money - maximizing profits and minimizing expenses; given free rein, they will attempt to do so by any means available to them if they can get away with it, such as shafting their employees, shortcutting product and service quality, overcharging, backstabbing their competitors, etc. Successful lying, cheating, and stealing are considered good from a business standpoint. For that reason, I find his ideas about free markets rather frightening.

1. John McCain

I've talked about him before, too. The fundamental underpinnings of his political philosophy all derive from being a Christian who wants to advance the American Way to the unwashed masses. However, from those premises, what he actually wants to do is largely the same as how I would want to proceed.

Given those two choices, I'd have to go for McCain over Paul. But I'd rather have a Democrat.

Televised election campaign events mainly consist of candidates trading 90-second sound bites at each other. The news media prescreens all the topics and even prearranges who gets to answer which questions. They call these things "debates." I've never understood how anyone can expect to learn anything useful by watching them, and as a result, up until very recently I've basically ignored election campaigns altogether.

Then came Candidates@Google. It's a series of hour-long videos on Youtube where Google hosts several of the presidential candidates. The basic format is an informal question-answer session between the candidate and first a leader at Google, then members of the audience. This allows regular people (not news media) to ask intelligent questions on topics that most concern them. It also allows the candidate to reply for as long as they want, in as much detail as they want.

So my plan for this election season is to make my voting decisions based largely on these videos. So far @Google has videos for: Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Ron Paul, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, and Mike Gravel. Candidates are invited based on how much interest the employees of Google have in hearing from them, and they're evidently more interested in the Democratic candidates than the Republican ones this election season; this suits me fine, since I am too.

The downside is that many of them were made fairly early on, so they're mainly good for giving me first impressions. Of the ones I like, I then further investigate by looking at their websites. In an ideal world, Google would make more of these videos near the end of campaigning time so I can get some "last words" impressions as well.

Some candidates also have Youtube accounts. There they can put videos of themselves answering questions from regular people for as long as they want, in as much detail as they want. I've thus far not gotten around to looking into these, other than to discover that they exist. It'll be another avenue to explore more fully in future election seasons.

All in all, I like that it's becoming much easier for the candidates to tell me all about themselves and why I should vote for them.

I'm watching another beloved crash and burn at the hands of a fool with too much pride. I have been for a long time. There is much I've wanted to say, then and now - but I don't, because I'm afraid.

There are countries where one can get 'disappeared' for expressing forbidden political opinions. This wasn't supposed to be one of them.

note: video is 68 minutes long.

John McCain sees a world with absolute good and absolute evil. The U.S. is good and the terrorists are evil. From that opening premise he forms the basis of his political ideology.

What I found most interesting about him was that, although I completely disagree with his opening premise, and start my own political thoughts from very different premises, we still seem to reach many of the same conclusions on what actual actions should be taken. Namely: less military might, more diplomatic talking things out.

Also, after nearly eight years of Bush Jr., it was refreshing to see someone capable of intelligent, rational thought from the conservative end of the political spectrum (even if I disagree with the specifics).

note: video is 65 minutes long.

People have told me that I'm a Libertarian. After watching this, I suppose I am, at least when it comes to social issues; one of my life creeds is "So long as it harms no one, do as you will," which appears to be the underlying philosophy behind Libertarianism as well.

However, I'm not sure I'd go quite so far as to extend the concept to businesses. Businesses don't have the same motivations and goals that individuals do. Free markets sound great on paper, but if we had that originally and now we don't, the first question on my mind is "why not? what went wrong with it to cause it to shift away from that?" Also, for every example Dr. Paul gave of a spectacular success of the free market approach, I could think of an equally spectacular failure that he didn't mention.

I'm not sure I'd go to quite the decentralization extremes that Ron Paul advocates either. Some things really are much better left in the hands of the national government, and not individual smaller communities.

Overall his ideas intrigued me, and will leave me with much food for thought for some time to come.

Leaders are servants of the people they lead. What the will of the people grants, the will of the people should also be able to take away.

10 February 2010

10 September 2009

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23 January 2009

10 December 2008

22 November 2008

17 November 2008

05 November 2008

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21 February 2008

06 February 2008

16 January 2008

10 January 2008

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