This is What I Think About These Things, Though I Should Be the Last Person You Ask

1. The moon water thing is pretty fucking awesome, mostly because anytime there is an ice record of anything, I have fantasies of the life I probably should have had, staring at long sample tubes of interstellar ice history and discovering weird alien bacterial greatness. I mean, yes, the fuel thing is nice, but I think they're just throwing that out to the public to make the mission seem useful and practical. For some insane reason, people don't see getting a history of this corner of the universe frozen in time as a reason to throw things at the moon, which I don't understand. It's the moon! It's ice! Or, I should say, the possibility of ice!

It bothers me that people have lost their enthusiasm when it comes to space programs. It's like, if this doesn't advance weapons systems, what's the point? Oh, I don't know, maybe having some sort of knowledge of the way the rest of Existence works, and therefore not being completely helpless and defenseless to the whims of the universe? We'd get a lot further, with a lot more funding, if we could somehow convince people that really, they should search for proof of God. Let's track God down. Let's find his fucking home address.

2. As you might have heard, there was this serial killer in Cleveland. He killed a bunch of women, most of whom were the kind of women who disappear and nobody does anything about it, which is a hard, sad fact. This story gets to me, because it happened in a neighborhood that I have come to know better this past year, because a lot of my buildings have been in or near there. The police actually searched a school I went to earlier in the year for bodies related to this case. And there has been a lot of outrage in the community about the fact that the police never put the pieces together, and they should have done more to find these women, and did this happen because it's a poor black neighborhood? There were apparently complaints, and smells, and missing person reports.

I have no idea whether or not the police dropped the ball on this, but I'm sick of the Cleveland media encouraging this kind of community martyrdom like some sort of blood sport. I've heard exactly one interview that didn't make me mad, and it was with a guy who actually lives in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood where this happened. He pointed out that the reason this happened in this neighborhood is because this is a place where you can get away with bad stuff. It's the kind of neighborhood where people who live there do disappear, because they have drug problems. And the people with drug problems live there because its cheap and they don't get caught. There are tons of empty houses. Lots of squatters. And then there are also decent people who are just poor, and would prefer to live in a safe neighborhood. This guy pointed out that the people who live there need to take responsibility, and police their own streets if they really want things to change. They need to be aware of their neighbors, and their families, and notice when strange things happen. They need to talk to each other and build networks.

In the end, a serial killer is a strange, unique event. It's very possible that something like this could have occurred in a middle class white neighborhood too. While it is a terrible thing to have happened, a nightmarish thing for those people who lived near him, the lessons we take out of this should not only be criticism of the police procedures, but also a lesson about how easily we let people disappear in our society. The people who could have told us how awful and dangerous this man was were people getting high with him, and they didn't say anything because they didn't want to get in trouble, or they knew no one would believe them. They were so used to being in terrible situations, because they were homeless, or crackheads, or otherwise unwanted, that it never even occurred to them to tell anyone at all.

We should think about how this might not have happened if drugs were not illegal, therefore controlled, and if we wouldn't have whole populations that we've made into criminals instead of helping with their emotional and pyschological problems and giving them treatment for their addictions. Or we need to think about how we raise our little girls, how we give them self-esteem to help them deal with life's problems, so when they are broke or beaten down by consequences, they don't turn to strange men with drugs, they care enough about themselves to not get into dangerous situations, and they feel comfortable going to family or friends for help.

When something like this happens, everyone is at fault, and no one is at fault. Monsters are monsters either way.

Also, as a sidenote, with all the poor people, missing people, and uncounted people in the world, I guess I'm constantly surprised I'm not walking around a world littered with corpses. It seems like there should be skeletons and dead bodies and remains in every inch of the earth, there's just so many of us!

3. I wish people would stop attributing things to Racism or Sexism that are actually issues of Classism. It wasn't because they were black that the police didn't pay enough attention to the Mt. Pleasant complaints. They didn't pay attention to them because they were poor. The Healthcare war isn't about defying Socialism, it's about paying for poor people. You know who gets cancer from pollution? People who are poor and live next to industry.You know who dies in the War? Poor people. You know what kind of women need abortions and rape clinics? Mostly poor ones. Oh, also any social programs? There for poor people. Given all this, it would seem to make sense if rich people supported abortions, because then they might have less poor people bothering them. Yet another example of Republicans not having a lot of logic on their side.

4. This Stupak Amendment thing. I am not a moral supporter of abortion, though my morals seems to get grayer and fuzzier the older I get. I am however a practical supporter of abortion. Until the sex education system in our country is reformed to focus on preventative measures and realistic contraception, I think it is irresponsible to not make abortion available. Plus, who am I to dictate what you do and don't do to your own fucking body? If I'm going to be anti-choice, then that's also going to have to include anti-joining the army, anti-bubblegum vodka, and anti- plastic surgery of all kinds.

Living in a democracy is pretty fucked up. Because whether or not we like it, most people in this country are Pro-Life. Which means as a majority, they should get what they want. We lean on this principle of Majority Wins when it's something we want, like an end to a war, or a public healthcare option. But the majority in this country is also pro-God, anti-gay, and pretty fucking selfish. So how much should we actually let the Majority get away with? If the Majority had won, would we have had an end to slavery, or let women get the vote? When it comes down to it, the Populace is pretty fucking stupid and petty.

So either compromises will be made in the name of the Majority, or we divide up different sections of the country by political doctrine. Like, all the really really liberals move to the West Coast. And the moderates get the Plains States. And the super hard core Born Agains get Florida.

I don't know. In my perfect world, there are no elections, and all the rules jive with my moral view, and people just have to live with it. I'm kind of a fascist. Nobody should put me in charge of anything.