Some Music Reviews

I’ve decided to start doing some music reviews on a regular basis.  I want to appreciate my current music collection and share my musical tastes and thoughts.  So, my thought is this: I’m going to randomly select 5 albums per week from my music collection and review them (posting the review on my blog).  Since the selection will be random, there may be some stinkers in there (or even some embarrassing selections).

The goal is to appreciate my music collection and to enhance my writing skills and get the creative juices flowing.

I created a random playlist in iTunes and the first selection up is: Bad English / Bad English.  A stroll down memory lane.  I’ll start listening tonight and my review should be up within the next couple days.

I don’t get it…

Since when is it controversial for the President to speak to public school students? Is the President of the United States so evil that all of our children must be protected from the words he speaks?

I am so discouraged at how our country is handling the current debates. Scare tactics, red herrings, unproven statements being thrown against the wall, it is all disheartening. Whether you agree with the President or not, this is not the way a rational discourse should take place.

OK, A Political Rant

I’m currently reading “The Soviet Tragedy”, I know it’s geeky, but interesting.  I came across an interesting passage that caught my eye.  The author is discussing the transition from Lenin to Stalin and how Stalin implemented a propaganda state to further the regime.  There is a quote from Lenin: “A newspaper is a collective agitator and a collective organizer.”  Stalin used this to create a rhetoric for culture.  A language was developed to serve this rhetoric – it was essential to the power and goals of the regime.  Language had to be politicized since it established the consciousness of the population.

The United States has done the same thing in recent years.  Efforts have been made to politicize the language that is used to effectively eliminate rational discourse.  Especially now, you look at terms like “liberal”, “conservative”, “socialist”, etc., they are so heavily politicized that it is difficult to carry out an honest discussion as to what is going on.  Certain plans are labeled “socialist” and it is said that we are going to become a socialist state if we continue down certain paths.  In many ways, we are a socialist society.  Many of the programs that have been enacted within the past century are for the betterment of the “common good” – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Food Stamps, Minimum Wage Laws, Labor Laws just to name a few.  The creation and implementation of unions can also be considered socialistic.

We are not a completely capitalist society as many would have you believe – just as we aren’t a wholly democratic society.

Have we really learned from history?  Can we start having open and honest discourse without the politicization of the language that we use?  Why can’t we be anti-abortion and pro-choice?  Can’t we understand that freedom of religion also means freedom from religion?

If we keep politicizing all of the language we will never address the underlying issues that face our society.

Baseball and Steroids

With all of the talk going on about baseball and steroids, I feel a need to express my opinion.

There is and always will be one person responsible for taking steroids and that is the player.  Everyone keeps wanting to say that it’s the league’s fault, it the owner’s fault, it’s the union’s fault… that’s a bunch of crap.  Unless players were strapped down to tables and forced to take injections, the fault falls no further than the player.

A player must make a conscious decision to take a performance enhancing substance… it’s not something you accidentally do.

Did the league and union screw up by not testing it for drugs appropriately?  Most definitely.  It is just silly though to turn that into it being the league’s fault for not having rules preventing cheating.  If you gave any of the cheaters truth serum, they would all admit that they were cheating and looking for an unnatural competitive advantage – there are no two ways about it.

Just because there are no laws on the books saying that I am not explicitly allowed to drill a hole in my head, that doesn’t give me the go-ahead to do it.  If I go and do it, can I then blame the government for not preventing me from doing it?

The fault for taking steroids falls squarely with the players.  The fault for allowing it to become such a widespread problem – everyone (mostly the players and the union).