You know political correctness has gone too far when a child gets in trouble over who he invites to his birthday party. I thought Sweden was such a free country but obviously I was wrong since it seems you no longer have the right to choose who you want to come to your party…
Just think about it for a moment. If he was discriminating because he didn’t invite two children who were in the classroom at the time, what about any children that might not have been there at the time though they should have been? And, following the same logic, wouldn’t just including the children from that classroom discriminate against all the others from that school, or actually all the others in the world? And what about adults? Oh my, just imagine, discriminating based on age, group and location all at once, he should be in jail already! People sure like to keep themselves busy so they won’t have to deal with the important things, don’t they?
How can they hope to force people to like each other? If anything, forcing them to spend time together is likely to make things worse. Some people just don’t get along. Actually, a lot of people just don’t get along, more than those who make it obvious since a lot keep their true opinions to themselves. I think things would be better if there would be more ways to easily avoid those you’d rather not be around since those who actually look for trouble are far fewer than those who actually end up in trouble. And it seems even easier to do that when it comes to children than when it comes to adults, so why don’t they?
I keep saying that nobody’s accusing humans of being intelligent except themselves. The fact that something like this happens is alone another proof of that, but when you hear that the “issue” has reached the parliament… What more could I say? The Spanish are wondering how come their government is worried about animal rights when “more important” (says who?) problems like a slowing economy have risen, but the Swedish parliament is worried about who an eight year old boy invites to his birthday party! I swear, if you try to make sense of what people are thinking you’ll sprain your brain. Then again, most aren’t thinking at all, and that’s the real issue…
You keep seeing on “social networking” (not to mention “dating”) sites a lot of annoyed comments from women saying that men always send them short and stupid messages, with awful spelling and grammar, and are only interested in sex (real if possible, virtual if not), so they have nobody worth replying to and are getting really tired of the whole thing. From what I know (and my general opinion regarding most men), that seems to be a very valid complaint, usually… But how does that replying thing go when a guy’s message is the exact opposite of those they (justly) complain so much about?
But this is just a private rant about a very specific case, namely mine. I’m not going to draw any conclusions. If anybody wishes to do that, feel free…
The only such site I’m active on is OkCupid. They say it’s a dating site, but I don’t see it that way. I think it’s great if you just want to waste some time, very nice if you like tests and occasionally useful in finding interesting people to talk to. I first vanished from there when I vanished from everywhere, after I stopped talking to Andra at the end of 2005, after she left. Then I got back last summer (and that’s how I bumped into her again as well), then I vanished again when we stopped talking again (this time she stopped talking to me), after a while I went back for a week or two, then stopped again for a similar amount of time and nearly three weeks ago I went back again.
What I’m noticing is that not a single person I met on that site keeps in touch for long. I seem to be getting far more initial replies now than I did at first despite my messages being along the same lines, namely pretty much an analysis of the person’s profile start to end, commenting on anything that catches my attention in any way, but everybody just tends to vanish sooner or later (usually sooner). When I was still with Andra I was getting a first reply from about one in three girls (I don’t get along with guys, as I keep saying) I was sending something to. Now in these three weeks I sent such messages to seven girls and only one of them didn’t reply at least once. The problem is what happens after that first reply! Two only sent a brief message in which they’re basically thanking me for being different and saying they’ll write back when they have enough time to give my message the attention it deserves, but didn’t follow through with it. Two others replied nicely just the first time, then went silent. With the last two I seem to have a little conversation going for the moment, but they take several days to reply to anything I send them…
This is how it turned out before as well, just that this time the initial reply rate is very high, which makes it even stranger. I don’t get it… Whenever I send something it’s reasonably well written, usually quite long and it should be obvious for anybody reading it that I’m only interested in talking. Even says at the beginning of my profile that I’m not in any way interested in a relationship… That makes it pretty much the opposite of those messages they complain about, and yet… Plus that I very carefully select the recipients, only sending something if I stumble upon someone I really think I have quite a lot in common with and that we could find interesting things to discuss.
What’s more, usually if I do get an initial reply and then she goes silent I send a message after four or five days asking if something’s wrong or I scared her away or anything. I always get a reply along the lines of “no, sorry, I’m just awful when it comes to this, I’m really sorry, I’ll get back to you soon, I promise” and then silence again. Since I don’t press further, this is where it usually ends. Now I can understand that some might be busy for a while, but that can’t explain all the cases all the time. There are also those who are bothered by something but don’t quite know how to say it so they just stay silent and wait for me to “go away” imagining that’s better than saying what happened, but I like to think I usually avoid the dishonest ones… So I’m left at a loss…
In a way you could find it surprising that Spain is the first country to give legal rights to apes, but when you think about it further you realize it’s not that hard to explain. The very fact that it has no apes of its own and there are no known harmful experiments carried out on them there makes it easier, because it means there are no strong interest groups lobbying against such a law.
It’s interesting to see how such an animal rights law gets passed in the country of bullfighting, but there might be a point to that as well. You have to start somewhere, right? And it’s much easier to start with our closest relatives than with a species that’s a lot further down the line and which is required by local custom to be harmed and killed for entertainment. You take a step to see if the ground holds and then try for the next one. It’s slow, but if you manage to keep your determination then it can work.
What angered me were those comments that it’s perplexing that the country should consider this a priority when the economy is slowing sharply. Come on, people! If you were so stupid as to expect things to keep improving when all you did was drain the Earth, you deserve what’s coming to you and should stop complaining! The problem is that those who cared even before are also affected by these problems. But those usually don’t complain too much, isn’t that interesting?
Another reason for annoyance is the complaint that this resolution sought to give animals the same rights as humans. My initial reaction when I read that was “and why the hell not?”, but then I checked myself. It’s obvious that not even the most intelligent other animals could get exactly the same rights because they don’t really live in our society, not even those who are pets, nor should they, so even if they could grasp the concept they wouldn’t understand its relevance. In some cases it would be useful to get some other intelligent animal’s opinion, outside observers can point out a lot of things, but that’s another story for another day. What I should point out here is that if you’re so worried about animals getting rights they’re unsuitable for, you should take a closer look at some members of a peculiar primate species called homo sapiens…
All of this goes to show that neither the general populace nor the Establishment are ready for such a thing, which is the worst part of all. But that only means we need to push it into their faces more, after all they’ll never be ready if they’re allowed to ignore these issues forever!
All I can say in the end is: Well done, Spain… But hurry up and get to those bulls as soon as possible, ok?
It rained this evening. Heavily, but without wind. I like rain, but it brings back memories. Then again, what doesn’t? And what would be left without memories?
It was nice, a lot of lights turned off in the buildings around here, some people standing in front of their windows and looking out just as I was. Only I gave up standing after a while and perched on something in front of the window. At least now I know it’s been fixed back in place properly. Wasn’t exactly comfortable, but the rain and my thoughts took me too far away to notice.
Thoughts… One particular rainy day. She was here and we were talking about the rain, both saying we like it but she liked to be out in it and I just liked to watch it from inside. Now I find myself yearning to be out in the rain sometimes. This might be a very bad example, but I feel I have caught up with who she was then in a few ways now. Only now she’s completely different, and it’d no longer matter even if she weren’t. The only chance I ever had at a life slipped away from me a long time ago…
I need to hold her so badly. Look into her eyes and just know none of this matters anymore. In dreams things are better, if only for a little while, but even good dreams are few and far between. There used to be a time when I never wanted to wake up because we were still together in my dreams. But reality has long since seeped through the veil of dreams as well…
Other thoughts… How a single bolt of lightning can turn night into day, even if for just a moment. How immensely powerful the planet is, and yet how we are destroying it. Billions and billions of us, working tirelessly at it for so long, some willingly, others without knowing or caring, and yet others simply because they see no other way. Why? Just… Why?
A strange piece of news caught my eye today. It’s not strange because it’s unexpected, such things have happened before, but it’s strange to come at a time like this and especially in the United Kingdom. After the recent findings about food waste, you’d think the authorities would do their best to minimize the amount of food being thrown away, not increase it!
Don’t get me wrong, I can certainly understand why food that fails to meet certain requirements can’t be sold, you have to draw a line somewhere or the market would be flooded with poor quality items being sold at regular prices, but if they’re not unfit to eat then why can’t he give them away? It makes no sense! It’s like the law forbids helping people in need!
As for food being thrown away in the developed world in general, we all know that’s a fact and it all comes down to greed and lack of planning. I wonder how much of the nutritional requirements of the world’s poor could be covered if the money wasted buying food that we later throw away would be donated instead…
