Listening to liberal politicians talk about and make fun of NASCAR fans is extremely illustrative. In fact, it really exemplifies what I consider to be a liberal political strategy – lumping people into groups and then thinking of them in terms of their group affiliations. It’s not that conservatives embrace NASCAR or have some strange genetic predisposition toward car racing. It’s that conservatives see value in all people, and they don’t look down upon someone simply because of what part of the country they’re from or what kind of sports they like. (We don’t even look down on people…
Which is it? Are conservatives all rich or all poor?
It’s a common refrain that conservatism is for the rich, by the rich and all about preserving the rich – everyone else be damned. Yet, at the same time, I’ve heard many commentators describe the Tea Party members – conservatives – as poor, uneducated, NASCAR loving rubes. They say that Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, and others like them are simply taking advantage of the fears and prejudices of these simpleton, rural red-staters. (The funny thing about that claim is the implication that Limbaugh, Drudge, Hannity, and others are all secretly liberals – like the rest of us…
How can you support a cause and a group that hates your cause?
This is just a sign of where we are as a country right now. How can liberals, who actively (and rightfully) support rights for gays and fair treatment of women, also support the kind of militant Islam where gays are tortured or thrown off buildings and women are subject to Sharia Law (which essentially places women under the complete control of their men)? It sure seems like those to ideas are at odds. The phrase “religion of peace” is often associated with Islam. But when I just searched the phrase, I came up with this site. There’s no disputing…
When tofu is the foundation of your marketing
There are a lot of reasons to go vegetarian, or vegan. None of them appeal to me, but people are free to choose the paths they choose. That said, I’m not sure of the appeal. When tofu is the best tool in your marketing toolbox, I’m not sure how much success you’ll have getting people to eat tofu as an alternative to meat. I’ve seen tofu as a part of all sorts of dishes, and it always looks the same to me. It looks like the plastic explosives you see in action movies. Always cleanly sliced into cubes with…
Not going to sugarcoat this one…
I’m not going to dress this one up or wrap it in a story. It’s pretty straightforward. If you’re pulling out of a residential area or parking lot onto a busy road, don’t pull out right in front of another car unless you are certain you’re going to drive faster than that car is going. And if, for some reason, you misjudged their speed, and you do, go at least as fast as that car, if not faster. It’s just courtesy. (This, by the way, is made worse when you pull out right in front of a car with…
Celebrate success
Look at the successful people in the news or even the successful people in your life. Who’s jealous and resentful? Who believes those people lied, cheated or stole their way to success? Who believes they got lucky? Who wishes they were in that position? On the flip side, who congratulates the successful? Who works to find out how the successful achieved what they did so that maybe they can apply some of those same lessons to their own lives? Who sees inspiration in the successes of others? Who wants to work hard not to strip down the successful, but…
Sports help kids solve their own problems
Yesterday, I wrote about how organized youth sports contribute to childhood obesity. But they also hurt our kids in other ways. When kids organically assemble in the backyard to play games, there are rarely adults around. (Or, if they’re around, they’re not really paying attention.) And when kids are left to their own devices, they have to self-organized, and self-police. They create the games, which means also creating and enforcing the rules. When there are questions or disputes, there are no adults around to mediate. It’s up to the kids to police themselves. In absence of adults, they’ll have…
Organized sports create more childhood obesity
It may sound counterintuitive, but organized youth sports are contributing to childhood obesity. It used to be that the neighborhood kids would just assemble after breakfast, or after school, and start in on whatever physical activity they were going to do. Whether it was football, a game of pickle, or a bike ride exploring the neighborhood, there was no cost to entry. You went outside, joined in, and off you went. But now that parents have organized their kid’s time, and paid so much to do so, kids aren’t just heading outside to play. Now sports is highly organized….
Solving road rage… or enhancing it
With all of the apps and in-car communication devices proliferating on our phones and in our vehicles, I think there’s an opportunity to solve our road rage issues. Like the anonymous internet, where everyone feels empowered to say whatever cold, ruthless, and heartless things to people that they would never say to their face, people freely sit in their cars and shout at each other or give other drivers the finger (or a variety of other meaningless articulations). So what if we personalized driving? What if there was a way to communicate with the drivers around you. Obviously, one…
I’m not a control freak…
I just hate being controlled.