Trying to get the cobwebs out of my brain and get woken up this morning. It appears that the sun is out this morning and that always makes for a nice start to the day. I have the window open and I can hear the birds chirping. I am waiting for my special hummingbird to make his or her appearance. How can you tell the difference between a male or female hummingbird?
I do not know. I looked but was unable to find the answer. Oh, I am sure it is out there. I am just to lazy to look for it right now.
I really enjoyed the feedback I received about last Thursdays thoughts I had about President Obama and the nature of politics in general. It really highlighted for me how different we all are when it comes to what we think is the best way to run the country. The more I think about it the more it really feels like a thankless job to me. I suppose it is possible that if something miraculous were to happen and the job rates were to soar to 100% and the deficit would be completely wiped out that a president could have an approval rating of 100%. But I am sure that despite all of that there would be people who would be unhappy and it wouldn't matter to them that everyone was working or that the USA was not in debt to China anymore. They would just find some other, vastly important, reason to be upset.
I think Carl said it best in the comments when he said that "...but I live and participate in an imperfect system." I think that is really key and something I need to remember. The system is never going to be perfect. There is no perfect system. There never will be. The best we can hope for is a system that seems to function most of the time. When I look around the world at other countries and their governments I see very few that I would like to emulate.
To be completely honest since I lean toward the Socialist, and I know that is enough to make a lot of your heads explode, I like how things are done in Sweden. Things just seem to work there. I am sure that there are a myriad of reasons why they are wrong and why that model of government would not work here in America. But, that is not my point. My point is that I like what they do there. There are people who like what we do in America and I am sure there are people who actually like living in Cuba or even Haiti for that matter or the old style Soviet Union or the new style Russia. Though for the life of me I am not sure why anyone would have liked living in the Soviet Union. I can understand being stuck there. But the way that people were treated who lived there it must have just been miserable.
I sidetracked myself. What I am trying to say is that one of the neat things about America is that we are able to freely debate these kind of things and do not have to worry about these thoughts being censored or being put on some kind of list for having a conversation and that is a pretty cool thing. So lets agree to disagree and ROCK IT OUT FOR THE USA!!!! USA, USA, USA!!!!!
Showing posts with label African Americans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label African Americans. Show all posts
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Totally Television Tuesday
I wanted to write about television shows or something today but I also do not want to get into a rut and always write about the same stuff. I am torn because I am not feeling particularly inspired today and I hate to just throw up a bunch of YouTube videos because while I may enjoy it I am not sure that everyone else does. So what to do, what to do?
"Sister Golden Hair"? She knows who she is ;)
Top 10 Blond entertainment persons (Based on Lance's own secret recipe)
1.
I have always love No Doubt but I also love her solo work as well. I think part of it is her perceived confidence and style.
2.
I didn't really become aware of Kristen Bell until I saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" but recently I watched "Veronica Mars" (which I really enjoyed). I think she is a good actress and seems to be pretty active when it comes to helping others. I think that is a good thing.
3.
Not much can be said about the iconic Debbie Harry. She was and is a classic that transcended the music industry and a real ground breaker for the women of today.
4.
January Jones is a very attractive women but I think she really shines as Betty Draper. I am so looking forward to the next season of "MadMen"
I am stopping at 4. I have grown bored.
"Sister Golden Hair"? She knows who she is ;)
Top 10 Blond entertainment persons (Based on Lance's own secret recipe)
1.
I have always love No Doubt but I also love her solo work as well. I think part of it is her perceived confidence and style.
2.
I didn't really become aware of Kristen Bell until I saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" but recently I watched "Veronica Mars" (which I really enjoyed). I think she is a good actress and seems to be pretty active when it comes to helping others. I think that is a good thing.
3.
Not much can be said about the iconic Debbie Harry. She was and is a classic that transcended the music industry and a real ground breaker for the women of today.
4.
January Jones is a very attractive women but I think she really shines as Betty Draper. I am so looking forward to the next season of "MadMen"
I am stopping at 4. I have grown bored.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Thirsty Thursday
Good morning folks, I am sorry I was unable to write yesterday we are in the process of moving offices at work and I needed to drive in.
That being said on to the topic at hand. Which is? I read an interesting article on another blog that I read now and then called Blue Oregon. Now Blue Oregon is a very liberal blog and centers primarily around issues within Oregon though they do address some national issues as well. There was an article last week about how Portland needs to be more diverse.
I found this interesting because it generated a large amount of comments about how bad Portland is and how there needs to be more diversity amongst its population. But I think people are missing the point completely here. The article was focused on African American diversity and the amount of African Americans in Portland is about 6% of the total population. It does not take into account the large number of Asians, Hispanics, and Europeans that live in Portland. That in and of itself is a problem for me in the article.
But I think the biggest problem for me is the idea that the diversity of a city can some how be artificially controlled by the people who live there. My first thought was how are the residents of Portland supposed to attract people. Even more how are they supposed to attract the right kind of people for the diversity that the author obviously wants? This is the article.
I do not think you can manufacture diversity and Portland and the Pacific Northwest in general is not an area that has ever attracted a large African American population. In fact I believe that the majority of people who have moved here came during WWII and were working in the shipyards. That as a matter of fact is how my family came to be here from North Dakota.
What are we going to do, start busing people in so that we can raise the diversity level to a healthy 15%? Or is that not high enough. Would it be even better if we could attract an African American educator who wants to start an African American University here? It just seems to me that only in a city like Portland would there be a discussion about how not diverse enough they are and how can we manufacture something artificially that really should not be manufactured.
That being said on to the topic at hand. Which is? I read an interesting article on another blog that I read now and then called Blue Oregon. Now Blue Oregon is a very liberal blog and centers primarily around issues within Oregon though they do address some national issues as well. There was an article last week about how Portland needs to be more diverse.
I found this interesting because it generated a large amount of comments about how bad Portland is and how there needs to be more diversity amongst its population. But I think people are missing the point completely here. The article was focused on African American diversity and the amount of African Americans in Portland is about 6% of the total population. It does not take into account the large number of Asians, Hispanics, and Europeans that live in Portland. That in and of itself is a problem for me in the article.
But I think the biggest problem for me is the idea that the diversity of a city can some how be artificially controlled by the people who live there. My first thought was how are the residents of Portland supposed to attract people. Even more how are they supposed to attract the right kind of people for the diversity that the author obviously wants? This is the article.
I do not think you can manufacture diversity and Portland and the Pacific Northwest in general is not an area that has ever attracted a large African American population. In fact I believe that the majority of people who have moved here came during WWII and were working in the shipyards. That as a matter of fact is how my family came to be here from North Dakota.
What are we going to do, start busing people in so that we can raise the diversity level to a healthy 15%? Or is that not high enough. Would it be even better if we could attract an African American educator who wants to start an African American University here? It just seems to me that only in a city like Portland would there be a discussion about how not diverse enough they are and how can we manufacture something artificially that really should not be manufactured.
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