Politics Behind Bars, Democracy Part II

Photo by Pawel Ryszawa, Artwork by Banksy

  To continue my crazy political ideas, I will present to you why I believe all political leaders should be imprisoned after their terms are finished. Throughout the article, I may refer to a political leader as “him” or “he”, but this is only to keep it from sounding too long-winded by saying “her or she” or too stilted by referring to the leader as “the person”. To start, I believe that all politicians should give up their freedom as the cost of becoming a leader; the more powerful the leader, the more prison time the person should get. So, for a leader of a nation, he should get life in prison. Also, this leader should also be required to give up his possessions (fairly, no cheating by giving them all to family first), which should be put into a special fund for supporting election campaigns for the next leader.

A Kind of Madness

  One thing I’ve discovered after writing and throwing myself out into the void (outside of an academic setting) is that you expose yourself and, in a way, make yourself vulnerable to a large audience. It’s a difficult stage to overcome in a writing career. One second you feel like you’re on top of the world and then it disappears when the first wave of criticism hits you (oh, and it will come). It’s a shame you must have a thick skin; imagine how many budding writers are out there at this very minute waiting to come out and just bare their talent to the world. Don’t be shy!

 

In the Still of the Night

Photograph by Cesar Tort

  I don’t have any reason to believe in ghosts, spirits, or other supernatural entities; however, when I was younger, I used to collect stories from friends and family about their unexplained experiences. My opening line for this was, “Have you ever seen anything that you could never explain?” I found the tales fascinating. Usually, the stories I’d hear were about ghosts or spirits — manifestations of the dead. We tend to show both fascination and horror when exploring (or experiencing) these tales.

  The horror comes from the fact that ghosts are reminders of our mortality. They represent a part of us that dreads the coming termination of life. We tend to avoid that fear, but it feeds into our subconscious. We associate skulls, for instance, with something terrifying or horrible because it represents death, but we  tattoo them to our bodies or wear them on shirts. One example of the use of this symbolism is bikers wearing skulls or displaying skulls in some way; it is a way of displaying that they do not fear death and that they know that death could come at any time.

 

Space, our Backyard!

  Space exploration is something that some people dream about. It’s a dream filled with pictures of extraterrestrials, spaceships, laser guns, and, perhaps, flying police booths. With New Horizons exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, the dream of manned exploration is coming closer. We have come so far in only 50 years, but there is a danger that all of this exploration may come to an end because of the short-sightedness of politicians or, worse, the general public.

  One argument I hear against space exploration is that problems like world hunger and other Earth problems must be solved before humanity can think about exploring space. While it is true that there are many problems to solve on Earth, problems like world hunger and poverty can be solved by eliminating profiteering on war and by ending economic systems that reward greed. While we concentrate on these very Earthy problems, I think we can ALSO explore our own galactic backyard a bit; it may very well save our lives in the short-term, but it will definitely save humanity in the long run.

Mud in Your Eye

Photograph by Andreas Frank

   I hate Adobe Systems Incorporated and you should too. This company made it number four on a survey of the most hated companies on the internet. It is also a company whose products I do not install or use to maintain the integrity of my operating system. No matter how many websites insist I “update” my flash player or install flash player, I refuse to budge; HTML 5 is here and this is not the 1990s so let’s bury that product with RealPlayer and BonziBuddy.

First, let’s talk about Flash, which is probably their most widely used software. Flash is a buggy, security hole riddled mess. It’s also one of the most popular methods of inserting malware on your computer without your knowledge. This is compounded by the source code breach they had in August of 2013, which gave malicious groups inside knowledge on how to exploit Flash and other Adobe software. Most everyone has Flash on his computer and it’s not straightforward to uninstall.

MINCOME from Heaven

   You’ve already seen it in grocery stores, read about it in news articles, and heard Bill Gates warn you about it. Artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, they’re here to stay, but what about us? Many grocery stores have self-serve stations that only require one person overlooking two to six stations where customers can bag their own groceries and initiate most transactions themselves. This is only the beginning in the efforts of businesses to keep costs down and efficiency at its maximum. Humans will eventually be replaced in most jobs by machines with artificial intelligence. This transition will not be fun or painless unless governments around the world are ready to deal with some solutions that go against the idea of work.

It’s Space Time!

   So, how long is eternity? According to Wiktionary, it’s an “infinite or unending time”. If it never ends, there is no end point, right? So, let’s talk about the universe. It’s about 13.82 billion years old. Alright, so the problem comes when people ask about the time before the Big Bang; following a linear progression of time, there was no time before time manifested itself. There are some hypotheses that the current incarnation of the universe is only one of an infinite series of Big Bangs (and subsequent contractions).

  I have a couple of wild ideas about time and space that I am completely unqualified to spout. First, I don’t think there is infinite time, nor do I believe there is infinite space (both being intricately linked). Second, I believe time and space are finite and unbounded. What do I mean by this? There is only so much space and so much time, but when you reach so far in time and space, it bends back. Think of spacetime as a sheet of fabric; mass affects it, especially the mass of giant celestial objects of course, but I believe that as it stretches farther and farther, it curls back toward itself making spacetime into some giant oblate spheroid.

US Elections: Go for the Bronze, Democracy Part I

Original photograph by David Drexler

  Democracy is one of Western Civilization’s proudest achievements. It follows a 2,500-year-old ideal started by the Ancient Greeks. You really can’t look far without finding praise of democracy in a book or a news article demonstrating how horrible life is without it. As a citizen in the US, you have the privilege, but not the right, to choose your representatives. How wonderful is that? The power belongs to the people! A direct democracy would be impractical. Of course, the Ancient Greeks weren’t perfect, they practiced slavery and they treated women as second class citizens. Then again, I’m willing to bet that a lot of people can find faults in their own government’s flavour of democracy.

  In the US, citizens can choose their leader indirectly (through the power of the Electoral College). These electoral votes weigh a district ensuring a more equal vote in the many rural areas. Casting aside possible faithless electors, the Electoral College takes power away from the big states with big populations and attempts to make the presidential election process a bit more representative.

Donald Trump 2016?

   Donald Trump is the bad guy. He’s the guy you’d expect to don a black hat in a western or to twirl his moustache as he watches the impending demise of some young woman tied to train tracks. He is, in professional wrestling terminology, the heel. His job is to play the antagonist to the establishment and offend as many people as possible. Rather than “telling it like it is”, he garners publicity for his reputation by portraying a character. You see, Trump is establishing his brand; he’s simply playing to an audience. He loves to trash talk candidates, news reporter, and pretty much anyone who enters his rather myopic field of vision.

   Any moment now I expect him to beat some poor unsuspecting politician over the head with a chair while the referee looks the other way. Trump’s superpower is his wealth, which is a bit like Batman (except that Trump isn’t fit or have extensive martial arts training). How his wealth makes him a good candidate (or makes him stand out from any other politician in office) is unknown.