Random stuff and what not

I’ve been meaning to write a lot of posts lately, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

I’ve been meaning to write about homeless people–specifically the scavengers of society. A couple weeks ago my wife and I saw a dude really sorting out the garbage, looking for stuff to recycle. Now, I know this a white person thing to think, but I couldn’t help feel proud that i was doing something. Here was this person making choices to support himself by digging through trash for recyclables. Not only was he weening trash from hitting the landfill, he was working for a living. Much better than drunkenly asking for change on the street. He was self sufficient (or at least to my deluded mind). We did, however, decide to shred every piece of paper before tossing it.

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I’ve also been meaning to write a post about the band. I feel I can write here, rather than on the website, since the website should be reserved for more official matters. We’re looking at booking for the studio for mid-March. We have the final round of the battle-of-the-bands on March 6th. Apparently, the winner gets $1000 cash, recording time, fliers, and a clothes certificate.

As all the other bands have observed either in their websites or in person: the metal/heavy bands made it to the finals more than likely on the sole strength of having the same set of metalheads voting our scene in. While this is awesome, as we will actually get paid for playing a show, our group of metalheads are not big enough to vote one band to win.

The competitive part of me really wants to win this shin-dig, just like I’ve wanted to win every game or contest I’ve entered. The other part of me realizes that if one metal band wins, the potential for scene jealously and fracture is an all-too-real possibility.

I suppose the best way to look at this would be that the metal scene is getting strong enough to vote our own into the finals of the contest. We’ll use this platform to try to expand the scene, maybe hook some people in that wouldn’t have ordinarily seen us.

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My mom’s kidney’s are failing/have failed. Basically they don’t work well enough anymore. Though I’ve known about this for a while, I have yet to write a permanent post about it. My mom, who reads this blog, wonders why. I guess I don’t know. It’s sort of a hard thing to write about. Writing is a means by which I can organize and elucidate my thoughts. My thoughts on this are relatively blank, as if the reality hasn’t sunk in or perhaps sunk in a while ago.

My mother, more than most people in my life, has always taught me to be self-sufficient. I learned how to cook and prepare food at about ages 6 or 7, to do laundry at 10, to get myself to school starting in the 1st grade. Her fear was that she wouldn’t be around forever.

I don’t believe in such a thing as an idealized childhood. To try to insulate a child from the hardships in this world delays any mechanisms to cope with hardships later on. My parents raised me how they thought best, and since I’m not a complete fuck up, I think they did a pretty good job.

They don’t know why her kidneys are failing. I’ve had lots of armchair doctors tell me to tell her what to do, whether it’s change her diet, exercise more, blah blah blah. They usually quit asking me about after I snap at them and ask how many years of med school they went through to diagnose a patient without even examining her.

I guess that I have fear too. Since they don’t know what caused it, the thing could genetic. Her siblings haven’t gotten it yet, but that doesn’t mean much since she’s the oldest. Maybe I could get it. I guess that’s what all fear comes down to, right? This could happen to me.

Me and the wife will be heading down to Denver when she gets her transplant to help take care of her and make sure she gets her medicine.

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I guess that’s really all for now.

The Value of Money

One key difference between conservative and liberal thought regards the treatment of money, specifically how it is valued.  Most conservatives with whom I have spoke tend to put things in terms of the dollar.  Land is priced per acre.  Music is priced per track or CD.  Jobs pay per hour or year.

Growing up with this proces, I thought nothing much of it.  After all, how much sense does it make to price items in kumquats?  Or Bananas?  It’s much more efficient to have a single, fluid unit with which we compare different objects.

The problem, however, is that some people become over-zealous.  For them, anything and everything has a price.  The true trick is just finding the process by which to pay that price.  Most times, buying items at a market is the most efficient means.  However, what happens when a person wants to buy a mountain for minerals?  Then the process becomes more convoluted, involving regulations, possibly even bribing.

The same with human life.  We put a price on life for insurance costs, liability lawsuits, potential and actual productivity, etc.  Dollars replace dharma, cents replace the soul.  That’s when true perversion of a society takes place.

I am beginning to see indications that true, primal morality cannot exist in a laz-a-faire capitalist environment.  By primal morality, I mean all the morals that most people and cultures accept naturally as being correct without any laws to enforce them.  Capitalism, while currently the most efficient means to move products and money, is an extremely inadequate method for guaranteeing quality of life.  Morality is just another method by which to move goods and money.

The way I see it, the liberal way of life divorces morality and capitalism.  One cannot hope to answer the questions of the other.  That said, they are not completely diametrically opposed.  A person can still use one system to help advance the goals of the other, but he/she should realize the limitations of the two systems.

Oh, and kick anybody’s ass who tries to mask greed with morality.