Advanced Citizenship » whippersnappers

Dept of Duh

ajw93 — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:52:05 +0000

Could it be that one of the main reasons the National Mall is such a disgraceful collection of crappy-looking patches of dead grass is that D.C. has a serious dearth of city parks and so the jackass-filled Kickball Leagues, etc., must play on the Mall instead? The Anacostia Park and Rock Creek Park are beautiful and large, with great amenities and are used extensively by the surrounding community. Doesn’t DC need more of that stuff? At least one such park in each quadrant would be wonderful. (Of course my two examples don’t count; they’re part of the NPS.) Right, there are millions of tourists on the Mall each year. However, don’t give me that; I have been to the Tuileries.

I won’t even start in on the softball leagues on the Ellipse. The Ellipse! Sheesh.

DC’s structural revenue shortfalls (Feds who pay no property tax; no commuter tax; uh, the Tax Office itself) are a serious problem…but that’s another issue. Instead, I cut this blog post short and wave from across the way in Virginia, the Land Where Taxes Pay For Services.

P.S. Do not ever let me hear another person suggest paved sidewalks on the National Mall, unless you are interested in seeing me become as apoplectic as Bobby Knight and possibly keel over from a rage-induced stroke.

Tagged: rants, whippersnappers

Dept of Obvs.

ajw93 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:41:38 +0000

I pretty much agree with MY here.

I would only add, “duh”.

Tagged: finance, Politics, whippersnappers

Yeah, boyyyy!

ajw93 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:46:23 +0000

Well done Spackerman! Sometimes I miss my hard-roll sandwiches or whatever, but I also love it here and have made it my home. The mid-Atlantic is a region with its own cuisine, traditions, values. Just like the Southwest, or New England or the Pacific Northwest, or (gasp!) NY Metro.

I can’t eat crab, and don’t particularly care for Old Bay on fries (I say, wtf? vinegar!) but I have had it on other fish (it is a perfectly fine rub for white fish) and thus I wouldn’t say it is “wrong” by any stretch!

What I will say is this: I’m sick and tired of people coming to DC (esp. from NY) and saying how much it sucks, everything here is so lame, why aren’t there skyscrapers (I’m looking at you, MY), etc. If you hate it so much, move away. If you whine that you are some sort of politico-journo type, I have news for you — those people don’t have any trouble finding jobs in NYC. Otherwise, you have a choice: stop whining and moaning, and start agitating for what you would value. Or, STFU and learn about what’s going on where you live, before you judge. After all, you wouldn’t like it in reverse, right?

Sigh. Now get off my lawn!

Tagged: rants, whippersnappers

Summer Style

ajw93 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:11:19 +0000

Attention, gentlemen seersucker-wearers: for April, your oxblood bucks are OK. (Yes, well, the seersucker in April seems a weird, but when it’s 98 degrees out with 2 days to go, I can sympathize with mens’ heat concerns…because no matter what day of the year, seersucker is better than poplin.)

For May and June, break out the tans. For July and August, move up to whites.

Be sure to choose a matching belt! (Though braces are better, especially if you will be removing your jacket at all.)

For Pete’s sake, please, I’m begging you, DON’T wear black shoes. Or boots. It’s just silly.

That is all.

Love,
ajw, who will refrain from wearing open-toed shoes until after Memorial Day, and who will NEVER wear flip-flops outside her apartment (I don’t go to the beach).

PS: View this slideshow. It is really not difficult to be polite. Even a busy President with a lot on his mind can do it!

Tagged: rants, whippersnappers

Dude, you live in America

ajw93 — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:06:30 +0000

GAH! Why oh why can’t we have better civics classes? Or, like, any civics classes? Especially for those who opine about civics. I apologize in advance: This sort of thing gets me so incensed that I can’t argue, I can only rant.

We have multiple points of failure for legislation in order to provide opportunities to build consensus. Optimally, to force a consensus or compromise.

We have equal representation in the Senate so that, you know, each state is represented equally. Citizens in Rhode Island are just as valuable as citizens in California. Duh. Proportional representation already exists, in a little place I like to call the House of Representatives. The Senate has an equal number of representatives precisely in order to force a deliberative debate, so that the majorities (and/or population centers) in the House of Representatives cannot develop into a tyrannical majority. How many of the people who whine about how “overrepresented” Montanans are, actually hail from a place like Montana (i.e., not a lot of people per square mile). Guess what, my friends? People who live in sparsely populated states really don’t want their lives to be dictated by people from densely populated states. If they did, they would live there. It’s not like we have internal passports or anything (yet).

And here’s a related idea: Maybe the 110th Congress has been so unable to push through these blocks to actually pass popular legislation because a) party loyalty has trumped institutional loyalty (see, e.g., Articles I and II of the US Const.; Federalist Papers) and that b) the leadership of said parties has sort of dropped the Parliamentarian ball. Precisely what some of those Dead White Dudes warned us about re: political parties…

One doesn’t have to do away with the filibuster. It’s there for a good reason: to ensure that the voice of the minority is heard. It’s just not being used correctly. Not to deliberately ensure that the voice of the minority is heard. Instead, it’s being used to deliberately thwart the will of the majority. I mean, folks…here’s the thing. If a Senator has to actually stand up for hours, days, whatever, to defend his position, then it’s newsworthy and his voice gets heard. If that position has been unduly suppressed, then others come to its defense, voting positions change, and legislation does or does not pass accordingly. (See, e.g., Mr. Smith Goes To Washington) What’s going on now is that no one is actually forcing anyone else to defend his position. Leadership has gotten lazy, IMO. (This goes without saying about most members of the media.)

I know this is not the most well-reasoned argument. But neither are these:

oh those Senators are so lame/Harry Reid is a wuss
Rhode Island has too many and California doesn’t have enough
parliamentary systems are so much better
what we need is a shadow government
no transition period between administrations
no filibustering

I used to feel this way too…I was twelve. I got over it. I mean, sometimes I think I’d like to move to Scotland but it isn’t because of the system of government on offer, OK?

Also, I have noticed that many of these people don’t understand that treaties are actually the law of the land. It says so, right there in the Constitution. If you read the thing through a couple of times, you might understand things a bit better. Same with Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. I know I did. In the immortal words of, ahem, Senator Sam Ervin…”I understand the English language. It’s my mother tongue”.

As a final thought, I’d like to offer this bit of advice, to those who live in DC. They sell copies of the Constitution and Declaration pretty much everywhere you look around here. I got mine at the Jefferson Memorial for $5.

Tagged: civics, constitution, whippersnappers

Quantum of perspective

ajw93 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:57:45 +0000

I liked the recent Casino Royale well enough. (I thought I was being beaten over the head with the love story.) But I thoroughly enjoyed QoS when I saw it this weekend. I do have an affinity for Bond movies (they provided the structure for my favorite college paper ever, which I still think is hilariously awesome), and thoroughly enjoy almost all of them for at least one viewing.

On the other hand, I never have understood the need for critics (or bloggers, ahem) to go in to an action film screening, with expectations that it will work in the same manner as some normal drama would. Plot will be
thinner, some scenes won’t make sense on a first viewing, character
development takes a serious back seat. Scene time can’t be used for
those purposes since it is needed for combat, chases, and sex!

Just look at the first Transporter film, wherein Jason Statham has
what, 10 lines of dialogue? But it really doesn’t matter, the purpose
of the film is for him to walk onto the screen, seduce women, drive
fast cars, kick ass, and then walk off just before the credits roll. It
is left to other films (such as The Bank Job) to establish whether or
not he can act (a separate argument) or what can be done with decent
writing or non-combat direction. Personally, I am looking forward to
spending another $10 to enjoy more of that particular awesomely bad
franchise.

Daniel Craig is a top-drawer Bond, in my view, because he has an
excellent swagger and sex appeal, does combat well, and has an
expressive face, to be used as a bonus addition to the script and its
(to whatever degree stilted) dialogue. It’s the same combination that
Sean Connery had…we can argue about the degree. I am NOT trying to
say that Connery is not the best Bond, please don’t flame me… But,
can’t we all agree that OHMSS is the best film? Yes. We can. Good for
us. Pierce Brosnan got cast in the same sort of silly comedic movies
that Roger Moore was stuck with, after GoldenEye (EON meeting: “Oops,
Sean Bean is a better tough guy? More one-liners, fewer one-timers
then.”)

And really, guys. Am I the only one who has gotten a kick out of the
recent films’ homages? The voiceovers in the Cuban clinic were the best
thing about Die Another Day. I laughed out loud in the theatre, and I
was, in fact, the only one in the room who did so. DEPRESSING.
Jill-redux in oil on Bond’s hotel room bed. Fantastico! And, let’s not
forget, it’s nice to see an Aston again (sigh….), and the lack of
gadgetry is a good thing, in my view.

Tagged: movies, whippersnappers

Dept of Kids Today

ajw93 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:21:19 +0000

It is like that FOR. A. REASON. people. For Pete’s sake.

Via.

Now, the political structure of this country is not particularly favorable to urban areas. There are plenty of ways (the Senate, and relatedly the Electoral College) that rural areas receive disproportionate political power.

The English, they hate the Irish…

ajw93 — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:17:55 +0000

…the Americans, they hate the Reds.

The punks, they hate the mods.

ah, thanks kev.

Put in mind of that fantastic work by the ModLog by this:

Joshua Keating

“Anti-Emo Riots in Mexico: ¡Pánico en el Disco!” by Joseph Contreras in Spin. Newsweek‘s Latin America editor examines the bizarre epidemic of violence against Mexican emo fans, often at the hands of punks and other youth subcultures. It’s a little hard to understand why emos in particular are so reviled, but a lot of it just seems like thinly veiled homophobia. The article, in the June issue of Spin, isn’t online yet, but the magazine has posted some disturbing YouTube videos that show the level of abuse these kids face.

Zoikes.

Can Johnny read?

ajw93 — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:59:25 +0000

Yes, a lot of folks stare at a computer all day, but school-age children still do most of their reading from books. (I went to 15 different public schools and all of them required almost all of my reading to take the form of book reading. At least 60% of my college reading was from books.)

What this sort of data says to me is that the kidz don’t have reading-comprehension skills. Maybe the blogz will make the kidz do really well on “current events” assignments, but when they need to read Moby Dick or something, how will that work out?

Kids might spend a lot more time on the computer when they’re not in school, but isn’t that mostly IM-ing, MySpacing, maybe some blogging? And during the school year, aren’t they multi-tasking with homework etc. while all this is going on? At least, that’s how my teenaged sisters work it.

Am I the only person left who frequents my local library? I’ve got at least one book checked out pretty much all the time.

Also (apropos of nothing), they don’t proofread. Breaking: Spellcheck not effective in preventing improper use of homonyms!

Hockey nostalgia

ajw93 — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:53:53 +0000

Well, here’s a hockey-fight story for you, MY:

Back when the Caps played at the Cap Center (shudder), they had a game with the NY Islanders that was ugly from the first minute. So, in the final moments of a particularly foul-ridden third period, the players on both sides just sort of skated around in circles near the benches, waiting for the clock to run out. As soon as it did, sticks, gloves, and sweaters hit the ice, benches cleared, and the most amazing brawl I’ve ever seen took place for a few minutes before the refs and coaches got them to their respective dressing rooms. More fighting took place later, in the parking lot.

(As an aside, what I find disheartening is that most people don’t even know that a hockey player wears a sweater, not a jersey.)

Ah, this post makes me nostalgic for the fun of going to Rangers games when Mark Messier played for them. The sheer pleasure of hurling anti-Ranger epithets his way was worth the (high!) price of every ticket. For this reason, I was quite sad when he retired.