Philosophy Arguments for a Supreme Being

As a pagan with an atheist boyfriend I can accept these arguments as justifications for the existence of a supreme being. However I don't buy the rhetoric. I personally believe that there is something bigger than myself and that for every trial we endure there is a lesson to be learned. My boyfriend on the other hand believes we are worm meat, I love him anyway.

The counter argument I always find most enticing is the same for God as the Big Bang theory. All right I can buy that a bang happened and then life formed, but where did the initial source material develop from? That goes for God as well as matter.

We cannot create matter from nothing, or energy from nothing, there is a fixed amount of usable material in the world, and through photosynthesis, and metabolic or chemical reactions we can change the form but there it has to start with raw materials that are transformed. 

You can't reach into the sky and say I want there to be silly putty, and a glob appears in your hand like magic. 

Now you can reach into the sky and say I want there to be silly putty, and your friend uses kinetic energy to throw a glob of silly putty into your hand. A glob that was sold in a store, made by a manufacturer, after all of the raw materials were gathered together and a scientist trying to make a new rubber invented silly putty. 

The same goes for God. Where did he come from? 

And if the answer is well, he's God he just appeared, I don't buy it. Just as scientists who cannot explain the original source of the first particles that existed before the big bang cannot explain it, yet. 

It's the yet that makes the arguments invalid for me. The minute we have concrete evidence of anything then you can make an informed decision. Scientists have proofs and theories that they test out and either prove real or false. 

Believers don't have that, in fact most of the scary fanatical believers reasoning is that I know because I have faith. They have no need for philosophical debates because they are unwilling to see any possible alternatives. 

In their minds those without faith are lacking, and frankly in my quarter century of cognoscente thought on this planet I have found that those with faith in themselves tend to succeed and achieve their goals and ultimate happiness more so than those who have blind faith that a higher power will take care of them. These are the people who get 80/20 variable rate mortgages. This lack of personal responsibility I find to be a plague on our generation, and I think a lot of people use God as an excuse for bad behavior. Where as government has used the fear of God to keep people in line.

Perdition and the One

A personal essay I wrote for my Journalism class last semester.

Dating can be a very dangerous and eye opening experience.  While every relationship is different, most people can go back, look at their failed relationships and see a very distinct pattern.  For me the pattern was tall, thin, effeminate white men, who were primarily insecure actors or just insecure.  Each of these men had commitment issues and for one reason or another I did not actually like them, for either a physical attribute or mental one, usually mental.  My last relationship was this on again off again cycle of hell with a man I found to be dumb and not funny.

So in an attempt to reboot my system I decide to stop dating for a year, to just focus on rebuilding the old engine, wiping the hard drive clean and starting over.  Of course the first man I went out with after this cleansing period turned out to be exactly like my ex.  Still hung up on a girl he had broken up with long ago that wanted nothing to do with him.  He thought I was great but couldn’t get her out of his head, obviously not the one. 

I decided to embark on a social experiment.  Stop dating my physical type in an attempt to break this pattern of un-healthy relationships.  From that moment on, I vowed to stay away from tall, thin, effeminate, insecure white men.

First I dated a short Jewish republican economist who audited credit unions.  Since I am a liberal, hybrid driving, democrat, with a gay husband, needless to say, that did not work out.  Then I started dating a friend of mine I’d known for years, who was nerdy and awkward but had been raised in Europe so I thought maybe he would have a more worldly view, the more worldly view was one of non-commitment, next.  Then, I went out with this guy, who thought he was the hottest thing on the planet, and told me on our first date that he was a swinger and invited me to a swing party the next night.  Um… run away, next.  Which lead me to the five-foot-ten, three hundred pound ESPN production assistant and a first and last date that I will never forget.

Out of my peripheral vision I see a tuft of dirty blonde hair instinctively I know it is my friend James.  I turn around, running up the down escalator; sweat bubbling up on my lower back; my white button down flapping against me, fanning away the moisture as I screamed, “James”.  My scream breaks the sacred silence of the Marina Barnes and Noble.  All eyes turn to me.  My ballet slippers dig into the grooved metal as I reach the top.

Embracing my friend I look back to find that my date did not follow me.  James whispers in my ear, “So… Good date, huh?”

I lean over the railing trying to locate my lost date, wishing that we hadn’t bought tickets for the movie already.  I could have asked James to take me home, but alas I’m stuck.  I pull my phone out of my pocket and call my date.  I tell him my location and he steps onto the escalator coming back up to the top level of the bookstore. 

James’ jaw drops.  He smacks me on the arm.  “That’s your date?” 

I look at him, my eyes narrow I can feel the blood rushing to my face as the lumbering boxy man in the short sleeve blue button down, with the dark blue argyle sweater vest over dark blue jeans topped with a multicolored blue page boy hat arrives at the top of the escalator.

I turn back to my “friend” James and tell him, “I’m dating out of my type.”  This sad creature shyly walks up to us, a poor imitation of a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy contestant, he just looks queer.  This image could only be worse if he smelled of Dakar Noir, instead of the garlic and onion from dinner.

I fantasize about going home with James but decide to be a good date and stick it out with the weirdo.  We go to the movie where he tries to put his hand on my thigh.  I push it away.  Fifteen minutes later he tries again.  I push him away.  Fifteen minutes later another attempt.  His hand is closer to my knee than my no-no place so I allow it, the movie should be over soon.  An hour later, the film finally ends.  We walk to his car and he drives me home.

I thank God for Long Beach’s impacted neighborhoods, there’s no parking, and no awkward kiss goodnight moment at the door.  I do the polite thing, the side hug in the car from the passenger’s seat.  I feel his face turn on approach.  I dodge, met by open moist lips and a tongue that probes my cheek.  I get through the gate and receive a text message from him, saying how beautiful I am asking me out again.

My brain vomits.  I do not respond.  I walk up the stairs, log into my online dating account and search for the next love of my life.  Obviously it is not the awkward, forward, insecure man I’ve just had dinner and a movie with.

A week later, after thirty unanswered text messages he finds me online.  I am talking to a new man, Travis, who is not my type, a twenty-eight year old five-foot-three ninety pound video game designer, with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita.  ESPN, the awkward boy wonder, starts sending me instant messages, asking why I won’t go out with him again.  Typing, “I knew I shouldn’t have worn that hat.”  Insisting his poor judgment in accessories was to blame.

Yes of course it was the hat.  It had absolutely nothing to do with what was under the hat.

The ESPN hat guy spends the next hour asking me what he needs to do to attract women, and complaining about how hard it is to be single and not be able to read the signs.  Travis and I laugh about this overzealous man, as we talk about Milton, Shakespeare and Donne.  I ask him if we can talk on the phone so the ESPN hat guy will leave me alone.  We exchange phone numbers and end up talking until 7AM.  I was his from that moment on.

Had the ESPN wonder boy calmed down, took his time to get to know me, and just been confident and secure in who he is, maybe things would be different between us.  Luckily, by stumbling through this awkward date and having him virtually stalk me, I fell for Travis who is nothing like what I thought I wanted and yet somehow is everything I need.

Dating is the most asinine and annoying process but without having gone out with a myriad of losers, freaks and a-holes I never would have met my perfect, pocket sized for my pleasure, brilliant, handicapped boyfriend, who prefers to be called a gimp or a cripple.  Secure, confident and self-aware this beautiful man won me over with his sense of humor.  Who else would take a hapa girl to a sushi restaurant on their first date while wearing a t-shirt with the international handicap symbol that reads, “I’m just in it for the parking,” a man worthy of my nerdy love, that’s who. 

I found my way home to a man that I would still love, even if he wore a bad hat.

The Lost Weekend

Sometimes you feel like doing absolutely nothing.  So much so that you completely forget what you did the day before.  I know I did not drink or imbibe any form of drug.  So why is it so hard to remember what I did yesterday.  I'm pretty sure I didn't leave the house.  That there was some extra sleepy time, followed by some reading and homework.  Possibly an online test.  Zelda on the wii.  Both Travis and I played.  A movie, The Quick and the Dead, then sleep.  But somehow that doesn't seem possible.  It doesn't seem like a days worth of activities.

Now I'm sitting on the couch at 630pm on Sunday wondering what happened to Saturday, and how did it get to be so late already?  By this time next weekend I will have driven to San Francisco, stayed at my cousin's house.  Gone to a family picnic and started the drive back to Southern California.  It seems surreal to have accomplished nothing in the same span of time as travelling back and forth across the state.

But that's what I've done.  I've been lazy.  I've gotten most of the work I needed to get done this weekend done.  But all the prep for the future stuff has been postponed.  I am too sleepy and silly to attempt to organize the mess.  Or pay bills.  Or try and figure out what is going on with the rest of my life.  With that being said, there is something to being lazy.  It feels amazing.

Every once in awhile you need to have a lost weekend.  Apparently this was one for me.  It's been awhile since I've visited this place, and as long as I don't make a habit of it, a lost weekend in your own home can be a great vacation.

Procrastination

While I am very fond of procrastination I have found that it is really not that effective when you have a novel to finish writing, a novel to finish reading and a manuscript to read for critique, as well as a manuscript to get ready for critique all in the same weekend.  Particularly when your boyfriend is playing Zelda, and it makes you want to join in the fun instead of strapping on a sports bra and going down to the gym so you can multi-task working out and reading in a feeble attempt to be productive.  Well wish me luck on my reading adventure.  This is my boring blog for the day, nothing political, exciting or heart felt, just procrastinatey.  We can't win em' all.

Getting Political with my History 11 homework

Persecution at times feels as though it is ingrained in the American culture.  The hatred of a minority group and the suppression of its rights seem to be on a perpetual cycle.  In modern society the persecuted minority is homosexuals. Yet, the trials and tribulations seem to be the same.  Legal actions attempting to bring about social change followed by a private citizen rebellion, the legal advancements being found unconstitutional and overturned allowing the previous discrimination to take hold once again.  The major achievement in abolition was allowing freedmen civil rights and liberties, specifically the right to vote.  However the Redeemer party in conjunction with the Klu Klux Klan through the implementation of terror and Jim Crow laws effectively stripped freedmen’s rights in the South, finding a legal recourse to evade the 15^th Amendment.

Once the 15^th Amendment was signed into law, the next step for Democrats, Redeemers and the KKK was to find legal ways around them.  Violence was used as a successful tactic to keep slaves in line prior to abolition, and violence was effectively used post-abolition to keep freedmen from the polling lines.  The threat of physical violence, “as was the case in the late 1860’s, white vigilante violence had two goals: to strip away the freedmen’s hard-won economic, social, social and legal rights and to prevent them from voting and holding office” (Keene, 426).  Self-preservation was an effective means of keeping freedmen from the polls, but in order to reassert white control of the South there needed to be legal ways to keep freedmen from voting.

The implementation of Jim Crow laws, allowed Redeemers to legally keep freedmen from the polls.  The language of the 15^th Amendment decreed “the right of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (Keene, 421).  By creating laws designed to discriminate against poor white voters and freedmen the Redeemers, Democrats and vigilantes were able to effectively manipulate the Southern vote.  The implementation of the poll tax was a blatant attempt at stifling the voter’s rights of freedmen and poor white voters, who could not afford to pay to hear their voices heard.  To hinder the freedmen who could afford to pay the poll tax, a literacy test was next enacted.

Banking on the freedmen’s lack of formal education compared to those of white citizens, the literacy test allowed for another means of hindering the African American vote.  The trouble these laws posed for white supremacy was that in order to avoid being in violation of the 15^th Amendment these provisions had to apply to all citizens.  The lack of structured public education as well as a rebuilding economy left many white voters vulnerable to the Jim Crow laws.  With the implementation of the “grandfather clause” white voters were now protected from the discriminatory laws intended for the freedmen.

With fear and loopholes white supremacy was easily lost and regained in the South.  Abolishing slavery needed to happen but without the resources to maintain the freedoms supplied by the Emancipation Proclamation, the 14^th Amendment and the 15^th Amendment white supremacy regained a stronghold.  No matter how well intentioned social change and policy may be, without practical applications of protections and tangible consequences for violations the road to any social change is riddled with back steps. The road to eliminate discrimination is predictable, consistent and has not evolved much overtime.  A revolution, victory, implementation, loss of rights, another revolution involving education and members of the opposition, then a lasting change, hopefully.  This was the road of freedmen, allowing them “a moment in the sun” then the return to business as usual.

Mathematical Improbability

The oil spill is terrible.  There is no going around that.  Really there is nothing more to say on the subject.  Oh wait, yes there is.

What is worse than having an oil spill?  Having misinformation about the actual facts of the oil spill, coupled with idiots trying to correct it.

I'm not a mathematician.  I don't pretend to be a mathematician.  But if someone tells me that the well is leaking at 30%, and only 5000 gallons of oil is being spilled out, or that up to 100,000 gallons are being released everyday.  Then I get a figure that says up to 104,000 gallons were spilled per hour while the cap was off, because the underwater robot accidentally knocked it off.  I now have a mathematical improbability problem.

if 24x * 30%<100,000
and x=104,000
24(104,000) * 30%<100,000
2,496,000 * 30%<100,000
748,800 <100,000
does not compute.

748,800 is not less than or equal to 100,000 no matter how many times you try and manipulate the numbers.  The math doesn't work.

Assuming that anyone with an elementary understanding of algebra can figure out these equations, it doesn't add up.

Nothing in this crisis adds up to me.

The rumor was that the original leak was leaking at 30%, then after we capped the leak the output increased to 50%.  Again math overrules business bullshit logic.  The attempt to make it better made it worse.

Rather than trying to patch the leak, or create some semblance of containment around the leak, engineers decided to create a cap, which required the pipe to be cut open below the kink, which was slowing the leak, and then try and lower a cap on top of it.  A cap which if pushed by an underwater robot could topple off.

My grandfather was an engineer, and when the pipes in his house broke, rather than replacing them because that would take too much time, he would use electrical, masking or duct tape, whatever was handy and paper towels.  That's it.  Wrap around the pipe and the leak will stop.

I wonder if the amount of pollution could have been greatly decreased by sending a team of divers down with some heavy grade plastic sheeting, had them wrap the pipes and then duct tape the ends.  Jerry rigging a MacGyver like solution to tide the big boys over until something more permanent came along.  Rather than this expensive lengthy endeavor whose yield has not been all that productive.

Personally I think they need to get five Asians and a white guy to just sit down for an hour and figure out what the hell the problem is, what the possible solutions are and then formulate a plan that doesn't make bigger holes for oil to escape from.

Please feel free to contradict me, I'm searching for answers in a sea of misinformation.

String of Events

It's amazing how an innocuous string of events can bring you back to where you started.  Recently I met a man, fell in love and have begun to build a life with him.  At the same time I have been going through a period of discovery about myself and the life I want to build.  I've gone back to school for creative writing and am working on my first novel.  Something I never thought I would want to do let alone be half way down the road to a completed first draft.

I've been an actor for years, and am very comfortable with my skills in that profession but I am not the biggest fan of the business.  Being and actor and being an actor in Hollywood are two very different things.  I love being an actor, I love telling stories and performing, but I don't love politics, games and bullshit.

The man I have fallen in love with is a writer and works for a video game company.  He is incredibly successful, at least by my standards, and this week he has been recording the voice of one of the characters he wrote with Danny Trejo.  Danny is a lovely man, and his assistant Mario and I have been hanging out on the couch in the waiting room, as a result I have gotten to hear a lot about Danny's day to day life.

Frankly listening to his schedule makes me tired.

Danny is achieving the goal, he is a working actor, who is constantly on new projects and doing good work he can be proud of, on the same token I have no idea when the man has time to sleep.

It becomes one of those things where you have to decide whether the professional relationship outweighs personal goals.  I know I will never be a famous actress, because I don't want that.  I want to be working.  I want to do work that I am proud of, but I am perfectly happy being a member of a theater company as I would be having a film career.  To me work is work, and it is the work that is important not the notoriety.  

At this point I would rather have one of my movies that I've written be made than book a lead in a feature.  But that has to do with intent.  I want the script to have a life and get to be played, be that a low budget independent or big studio, to get to see my baby walk would be amazing.

How a Campaign Promise Destroyed a City

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, or as my friends at the LA City Department of Recreation and Parks like to call him “Tony”, has found a new way to save the city’s mounting deficit, layoffs.

Winning the mayoral seat on the promise of putting a thousand more cops on the street to keep Los Angeles safe, “Tony” has had to cut much needed programs to offset the cost of those additional thousand police officers.  The first wave of cuts came to gang prevention programs.  After all who needs gang prevention when we have a thousand more boys in blue?

We need cops I’m just not sure that adding a thousand more is worth the offset to other programs.  I love my civil servants in fact I used to be one.  I used to be a recreation instructor with the Department of Recreation and Parks, but was laid off in February 2009.  Or so I thought.  For seven months I waited for my layoff paperwork to arrive so I could file for unemployment.  It wasn’t until I lost my second job at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, also due to budget cuts, and received their layoff paperwork that I was able to receive unemployment, like the other 10% of Los Angeles County.

The City has a wonderful little trick they can play with their part time employees.  Rather than lay them off in a timely manner they can bank the layoffs until a mandate comes down issuing a round of layoffs.  To this day I have never received any paperwork concerning my layoff nearly a year and a half ago.  The last time I spoke to anyone in Human Resources they said that my status had been changed to “not working right now”.

While this new round of layoffs will not affect my employment with the City, it will have a major effect on the City itself.  This next round hits childcare.  Nearly a third of the layoffs are to the Department of Recreation and Parks specifically to the childcare centers.  In a recession the obvious choice to balance a budget is to remove social services for lower income residents and boost the number of police officers on the street.  This will create a greater burden on the lower classes and justify the utilization of a strong police force.

Maybe “Tony” is hoping that all the people who utilize Recreation and Parks childcare will apply for federal or state run programs, thus alleviating the burden from the City’s budget.

What seems oddest to me is that the programs being cut are not the ones that are problematic.  These programs are the ones proven to work and have both fiscal and societal relevance.

Saddest of all, the cutting to Parks and Recreation has not concluded.  Once the Summer Camps are over,  there will be another round of layoffs.  This is because most revenue generated by the Department of Recreation and Park’s income is generated by Summer Camp, Summer Session activities and permits from June through September.

It seems to me that if more money was focused on prevention and proactive pursuits, than on reactive endeavors, like the massive amounts of overtime clocked by the fire department or the police departments massive hiring, not only would the city be in much better shape fiscally but socially and logically as well.

In 2006 “Tony” proposed raising the trash fees from eighteen dollars to twenty eight dollars to help fund his pet hiring project.  These layoffs seem to have the same effect, but instead of affecting all citizens equally and putting it to a vote, it is the city employees, middle and lower class citizens of Los Angeles that will be primarily affected.

Instead of just another rant, with no proposed solution I would like to reiterate an email I sent to “Tony” two years ago.  His office sent out an email to all the city employees asking for suggestions on how we could cut back and help with the deficit.  My response, “if you take one of those thousand police officers, posted one at each park and had them write citations for parking infractions, dogs of leash, drinking or drug activity, we wouldn’t have a deficit.”

On any given day at least ten people would have their dog(s) off leash at the Rustic Canyon Park in Pacific Palisades.  If each person was issued a twenty five dollar ticket, the park would bring in two hundred and fifty dollars a day.  Multiply that by three hundred and sixty five that brings in $91,250.00.  Now there are roughly two hundred and forty five parks that are listed on laparks.org if each of these parks brought in the same revenue for leash infractions that would net $22,356,250.00 a year, just for having your dog off its leash.  Add revenue from parking infractions and illegal activity and that sounds like a prospect worth looking into.

So...

I decided that maybe I should start a blog that I can actually access remotely. Love my mac built website but it makes it really difficult to update the blog when you have a PC. So as a feeble attempt to become a better and more avid blogger I am starting WhoreToCulture.

"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think."

Well I'm hoping that by starting this new chapter in my writing career that I will once again begin think.

Thanks for reading.

Lauren

(Just another whore searching for culture.)