Spout

This site is full of ideas. Some of them might make you cringe. They may not align with your worldview, perspectives, or experiences. That’s a great thing.

Why would you own a driveway gate?

In the Seattle area, most houses have fences, which accurately represents how close people allow others to get to them in the Pacific Northwest. But I’ve noticed many homeowners take it a step further. Their fences go all the way around the house and include a driveway gate. As I sometimes see cars leaving or arriving at their gated houses, I’m struck by the same thought: Why would you ever want to have a gated driveway. If you have a gated driveway, you’re always either waiting for the door to open so you can leave, or sitting at the…

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This is why Ricky Gervais is important

You may or may not like his comedy. But by simply saying things that make people uncomfortable, Ricky Gervais is reminding some that it’s important to speak your mind and educating others that freedom of thought and expression is an absolute requirement for a functioning society.

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One of life’s sweet ironies

I was reminded yesterday about one of those lessons that comes with age: The older you get, the more likely you are to realize that you know less than you thought you knew when you were a teenager. With experience and perspective comes the wisdom that people have all sorts of reasons, backgrounds, and experience that play into their perceptions of events. When you look at everyone through your own filters, a lot of what you see doesn’t make sense, or you misinterpret what they’re doing because you only consider why you would do it that way. But so…

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Those corporations… they’re always up to somethin’

This tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez captures perfectly the different worldviews of conservatives versus liberals. It’s good advice, to be sure. But her last sentence captures how liberals see the world – and especially business. In her world, there’s a nefarious scheme by business owners to cheat their workforce at every turn, as often as they can. Business owners live for the Fall Daylight Savings so they can steal that extra hour of work from their workforce. Conservatives see that same instance, when a worker’s pay stub may be short an hour due to Daylight Savings, as an administrative error:…

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Don’t wait for me to stop before you go

Have you ever approached an intersection governed by a stop sign to see another car already waiting at one of the other stop signs? There they sit. Stopped at their stop sign as you approach. And they wait. And wait. And you finally arrive at your stop sign. But instead of being able to stop and go, you now have to wait for them to go. They could have gone while you were approaching, but instead they sat there. Now, instead of stopping and going right away, you now have to stop and wait for them. If everyone simply…

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No one has special rights

As I’ve written about before, Republicans have taken the best, most easily sold product in history, conservatism, and proven that the worst marketing department in the world is more powerful than the best product. Take gay, women’s, transgender, minority, etc. rights. The conservative stance on all of the above is pretty easily articulated. Conservatives don’t believe anyone has or deserves special rights. We believe, as the Declaration of Independence so eloquently states, that everyone was created by God, and we all have equal rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. A few key parts there. Number one, equal rights…

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Identifying is pretending

This image has been making the rounds this Halloween. It’s obviously intended to be humorous, and is taken as such by most who see it. But I’m wondering why it’s funny. We’ve evolved to a point in society where all sorts of people are “identifying” as something other than what they are. Most popular is identifying as the other gender than what you are biologically. But why stop there? Why not identify as another race? Or another age? Or another physical shape? Or another species? The funny thing is that if you keep asking those questions, at some point…

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Things you don’t want to hear from your grocery checker

I just went through the line at the local grocery store. After my check handled each and every one of my items, he told me he had just used hand sanitizer. Prompted to ask “why,” I gave in and asked. He told me he had a wicked cold, but that I shouldn’t worry, because he has the strongest immune system of anyone in his family. It’s amazing the things we do in the name of being polite and not being rude or making someone feel bad. In this case, not just walking away and saying I’ll get these items…

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Chipotle is to burritos what mp3s are to music

A burrito is one of the most important and powerful foods available to humankind. A good burrito should be like a billy club. When wrapped well, you should be able to strike another and knock them cold, while the burrito holds its form. Great burrito wraps, known as mission-style burritos, can be found in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Southwest corner of the country. Sadly, as burritos have become more mainstream, they’ve been sanitized. Places like Chipotle and Qdoba weakly “wrap” their burritos into soggy, limp, shapeless burrito balls, which fall apart after the first bite. Now, thanks…

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