Blogcritics Author: cooper

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Taming The Internet Beast In Us All

cooper — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:49:19 EDT

The internet can be a great place to stream your thoughts to the world, kick back and take a voyeuristic look at the lives of others, carry on conversations, or get a quick afternoon laugh. With the number of social networking sites and forums growing exponentially, there is plenty of opportunity to “converse” with people we otherwise would never get to know.I recently found that the internet can also bring out the ugly in all of us, and this is where we have to be careful.Pornography is without a doubt a hot button issue with me and because of this I recently felt justified telling people in an online forum note over at 9rules that they were “sad”, “porn freaks”, and needed to “get a life” due to their porn habits. The question of "where you store your porn" hardly required the response it elicited.I've always thought of myself as civil. I've never left an anonymous or mean comment on a blog or forum, at least not that I can remember. I have thus far always been able maintain a non derisive civil discourse in online disagreements.I wondered when the straw broke, why the intervention of the machine made this little bit of nastiness more acceptable to me? Where did I, all of a sudden, get license to scorn others for opinions and habits I find abhorrent? Was I inherently nasty to begin with or is there something about cyberspace that can turn me, a usually pleasant individual, into an ugly little judgmental beast?I’m not talking about real internet terrorism here that's a whole other story; I’m talking about the average non-violent internet user, me and quite possibly you.What of a cyberspace where education, propriety, and sagacity are thrown aside, I wondered, and what is the solution? With all the places we can state our point of view out there these days, and considering the fact that there will be hundreds more tomorrow, everyone needs to consider where and how to expend their time and energy.I usually don’t spit on people, so what is it about cyberspace that made me, if only for a second, start spitting? And how do I prevent this kind of thing from occurring in the future?For me the computer in some way dehumanizes people. I admit to not always thinking of the people behind the words as real human beings with feelings. The first step, logically, is to remember there are real people somewhere behind all this stuff.The second part of the solution is simple really: find like-minds and remember where you are at all times. Don’t let the fact that there is no tangible human in front of you change your behavior. If you're going to a real life community meeting to discuss and give opinions on hot topics, it is alright to give a rather derisive opinion, but if you're a vegetarian going out to lunch with an eclectic group of friends just to kick-back and enjoy the moment, you’re not going to sit around gagging and calling them gross when they order a rare steak. Apply this to your online life and it makes it easy.To save everyone, including yourself, a lot of annoying wasteful time the best thing to do is to find people who are at a given place online at any given time for the same reason as you are. Don’t go into a feminist forum to discuss fashion, don’t go into a religious forum to degrade religion, and don’t try to plant your ideological opinions on social issues in a forum meant for nothing more than daily drivel. It's also helpful to note that, just as in real life, making a moral judgment of others is not conducive to changing their mind about any given subject.If you find yourself in a place online where you are tempted to break these two simple rules, the best thing to do is to get out, just as you might in real life.The internet is here for life and is becoming more real everyday. It is time to start looking at your computer life as more of an extension of your life rather than some vague "other part" of it.

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

Rehabilitate-Educate, Then You Can Unlock The Gate

cooper — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 13:43:13 EST

The US has the highest number of prisoners in the free world, seconded by China and Russia.In this country one in every 32 Americans was either in jail, on probation, or on parole at the end of 2005, this according to a study by The International Center for Prison Studies at King's College in London.The rate in this country is 737 people per 100,000 while most industrialized nations range somewhere around 100 per 100,000. Our prison population has almost doubled in the last ten years. Why?These figures should raise some serious questions because as we have jailed people for insignificant crimes and leaned away from the initially more difficult, but in the long run less expensive rehabilitate-educate option, we do nothing more than perpetuate the cycle. To give the prisoners we have an education and a chance at life is ultimately cheaper, and it does work.We need not incarcerate the poorer less educated among us for offenses from which their well off counterparts, with expensive lawyers, are easily excused. We need to give them a chance.Five percent of the world population but twenty percent of the worlds incarcerated?The war on drugs is probably the single largest cause of this disparity. It does nothing but ceate more and more hardened criminals as it perpetuates crime. These figures should inspire a search for real solutions; it seems pretty clear the path taken over the last ten years, a path which left rehab lying in the dust in favor of incarceration, hasn’t worked. The message "payback is hell” has done nothing but increase the prison population, turning non violent rehabilable first time offenders into violent criminals who will be in and out of the prison system for life, at great expense to us and to the people who they perpetrate their crimes upon.How can you put a non-violent offender in a prison, where in many cases it is expected he will be beaten and raped, and not expect him to become somewhat of a sociopath for life? Prison is not a deterrent, the recidivism rate is extremely high in this country despite the cost of it. Most of the growth in prison population has been for nonviolent offenders, especially those convicted on drug charges. Because of mandatory sentencing laws, over half of today's inmates are incarcerated on drug charges, despite evidence that treatment programs are much more effective at preventing future drug offenses.It has been known for some time that punitive incarceration policies are a relatively ineffective means of reducing crime, especially drug use and drug use and the "war on drugs" is largely responsible for the prison statistics in this country.We make hardened criminals. Why? What we do costs more and it doesn't work.Does someone need a job or a vote?

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

The World's Wealth

cooper — Wed, 6 Dec 2006 14:01:27 EST

It’s what we long suspected. Control of global wealth is grossly lopsided. In “A Landmark Study on Household Wealth” just issued by the United Nations, we learn that 2% of the people on the planet commandeer half the world’s wealth, while the bottom 50% control, as a whole, only 1%.The study by the United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economic Research “WIDER” said that regional dissemination of wealth, including property and financial assets, was even more lopsided. The report’s data is based on information from 2000, because evidently information in this day and age is hard to come by. Although wealth in some countries has been studied by economists for quite some time, this is the first comprehensive study of its kind – believe it or not. It’s the first to cover virtually all countries in the world and take into account all the variables including land, household debt, other financial assets and liabilities, as well as income.The whole thing is here in PowerPoint, pdf or press release.And surprise, surprise. Africa and India don't look so good, but then again, China doesn't appear at all in this study! That’s not so good either in view of its huge population and actual wealth. Maybe that is why the Chinese are so desperately trying to scarf of all of Sudan’s oil; incarcerate dissenters, and desperately need the Olympic Games that they should never have been rewarded. But I digress. Surprising News?Good for the UN for doing the study, I guess. But tell me something - because I am not an economics aficionado and made it through econ by grace of Buddha. Is this really surprising news?Has something changed significantly in the last 50 years? If the world has been headed in this direction for some time and everyone has known this, why is it that we don’t just dive in and do something to change it? Why bother with studies such as this when we already know most of this anyway? I know that economic researchers need jobs and we all want definitive studies, but is this going to change the planet?Here’s how WIDER states its mission:“To undertake multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on structural changes affecting the living conditions of the world's poorest people. To provide a forum for professional interaction and the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmentally sustainable growth.To promote capacity strengthening and training for scholars and government officials in the field of economic and social policymaking.”I think we have known for some time that the only way to end poverty is to redistribute some of that wealth locally, nationally and around the globe via programs which promote sustainable wealth. Evidently it is not that easy to do, so we have to get movingEnough with all the academic blathering; it’s time to stop talking about ending poverty and putting some things in motion to make it happen.JUST DO IT.We need to clone Muhammad Yunus and maybe Bill Gates, and at the very least we need someone to get things done. The “getting done” mission never seems to come from, or even out of, studies such as these.

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

Orgasm-Faking Fay Weldon and Katherine Hepburn Are Both Wrong

cooper — Thu, 7 Sep 2006 17:33:26 EDT

If you want to find true happiness, just fake it.Author Fay Weldon wants me to extol the virtues of my partner while giving up on my quest for the big O. She suggests I settle for misery in bed to insure an enduring relationship. ‘Fake it and get on with it,’ appears to be her motto. I’d better plan to remain single too, if I want a kick ass career, that is.It is clear that no progressive feminist peers back at her from the mirror, at least not these days, as she puts forth a claim that a top-level career may be irreconcilable with sexual pleasure.In What Makes Women Happy, Fay writes, “Eighty per cent of women only sometimes - or never - experience orgasm. Facts are facts and there we are. Deal with it.“I read this the other day and didn’t consider it significant. Fay -- although having written a few good books -- has tended to contradict herself over time, writing to whatever issue is popular. At the same time, she writes in a way which produces enough controversy to gain attention for her work. I read a couple of posts about the book on a few feminist blogs and wondered why they would bother to write about the book, as it seems a rather transparent attempt to incite in order to promote.I started thinking (I do that sometimes, usually late at night while watching really old movies) and remembered something Katherine Hepburn said in an old interview on biography channel. I can’t quote it verbatim, but it was her opinion that a woman has to make a choice between a man and family or a career. She said a woman could not do both well because there just wasn’t enough time in the day. I wonder if she was talking about all the time and energy going into faking orgasms in order to make the man happy. I’m fond of Hepburn. I like her old movies and who can’t love women who said, “If motherhood doesn’t interest you, don’t do it. It didn’t interest me, so I didn’t do it. Anyway, I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn’t do what I wanted, I’d kill him.”Hepburn’s words stuck with me for a few years. It lingered long enough for me to ponder the truthfulness of her statement -- all this despite the role models I had to disprove it all. What one hears (or reads in this sense, linguistically it doesn’t matter the effect is the same) becomes truth. It is possible then to assume reading a book by a fairly popular writer, in which she suggests a women should "fake it and get on with it," has some potential for becoming a fact for many who read it.I see writing like this as dangerous to women.She should be corrected, if not flogged, for writing a book others might take as truth because they’re not willing to investigate the consequences or validity of her proclamations.A couple of years ago I was sitting around with a bunch of girls talking about sex, boyfriends, and what not. During this idle chit chat a friend, who had been doing the deed with her boyfriend for some time, made a statement about sex not really being anything for her, that she "didn’t get anything out of it, certainly not an orgasm."We asked her if she had told her boyfriend and she answered, "No, of course not." Her reasoning was that it really did not matter; everything she’d read led her to believe that’s just the way it was most of the time and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Nothing we said changed her mind. I imagine she is lying around now under some "in the dark" dude, faking her moans and groans, and getting on with life. I bet her significant other’s feelings and her not-based-on-truth relationship remains intact.I guess this is called "settling," and I don’t believe that women need to either settle (be it for the fake orgasm or anything else) or be alone.Sometimes alone is better for anyone, but in the case of relationships, it is often the woman’s choice to settle in order just to have a relationship. If women stopped settling from the get go, stuff like this would never get written, read, and substituted for fact.It is profoundly sad that a woman like Fay (not of the Christian Right) would write a book that presents the options of settling or remaining alone. This book is opinion-based on either personal experience or conjecture. Empirical evidence of its application to the totality of women is non-existent.I know no one who wants a partner so badly they would bother with all this faking; it takes more energy to fake an orgasm than it does to show someone how to give you one. If you can’t take care of yourself, what good are you? Any man worth having around would be more than happy to be given the keys to the big O and would not want to settle for anything less.Fake it or end up with alone with nothing? If that’s my choice, give me nothing; I’ll get it myself. It’s not the only choice, though, and I think we all know that.

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

Darfur: A Treaty That Could Work

cooper — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:38:13 EDT

Does the solution to Darfur lie not in peace treaties but in food, medicine and bringing the countries into the twenty first century? I have been an advocate for Darfur and preventing further/stopping the genocide since long before any of my friends even knew that Darfur was a region in an African country known as Sudan. I am a great believer in humanitarian aid. It has often been pointed out to me that humanitarian aid is all well and good but in the case of Sudan, their history -- the colonialism, the overt and ongoing corruptions, the inability or refusal of leaders to learn from past mistakes, and even the “oil gods”, (which National Geographic called “monsters which can crush you” back in their September 2005 Africa Special Issue) -- makes the obstacles to real peace insurmountable. Humanitarianism then becomes simply a band-aid we will never take off. Of course, all that is a significant part of the story, and it seems easy to disregard humanitarian aid as something necessary and nice but not something that is going to really change the state of a continent or even a country. I hear, and agree to a point, but with a twist that until the government of Sudan takes action to protect their people and shows a willingness to prosecute those who pose a threat to their people, what we do there is really going to amount to nil. In my twisted opinion it is quite possible that humanitarian aid alone, if really given in much stronger doses than it is now, will be the only thing that in the end can save the people of Darfur.Huge, UN-funded humanitarian aid. If we are not going to bulldoze them over with our military finesse and if we are going to pussyfoot around playing delicately with the leaders, who quite frankly need a lot more than a peace agreements -- as we've seen time and time again -- to entice them to save their own people, then humanitarian aid is all we got. In Darfur -- where the “corporate sentiment of oneness” is smaller than the existing civil state, or nonexistent; where there appears to be nothing to ignite that one significant allegiance to the state, nothing to transcend the racial, tribal, linguistic, political and religious differences within the state and give rise to some sentiment of oneness -- humanitarianism may be the only way to solve the problems long term. What we must do is feed the hungry and treat the diseased. We must do it well and we must do it with greater veracity, organization, with significantly increased expediency, and on a much larger scale than we are doing now: humanitarianism with a specific goal and with an end in sight, finite, tactical, goal-oriented, UN-funded and initiated - large scale humanitarianism!In the end, that would be better than to call what is happening genocide and then continue to do what has not worked in the past. When poverty is imminent and constant, when disease is prevalent, when no real access to the modern world seems possible, and when there is no other solution… shit happens. It's happening in Darfur. We can fix that.In the end, maybe a health and nutrition treaty would be a better idea.

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

I'm From Y Generation and I'm Here to Help

cooper — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 05:37:02 EST

I did vote in the last election, but sadly the election was predetermined by the previous one; sex, lies and videotapes, a gutless lame party that could never find a voice that resonated with anyone but a few dogs in upstate New York and those were half-breed pit bulls.I am dealing on a daily basis with the guilt I feel for the ire I have toward the generations ahead of me.(Yes you; I'm talking to you). I often think I am being too hard on you. I am trying to come to terms with that anger by several techniques I have learned since coming to this city. I have found spitting out windows on to people below does wonders to alleviate some of this anger, as does kicking a metal garbage can top into an alley that is almost, but not quite, empty of people. The sound is amazing.I digress so I will address you {group hug} now - briefly:I know it wasn't your fault that you let the situation get out of hand. You were living the American dream, dancing in the street and mourning John Lennon, raising future soccer players and CEOs; this understandably caused some of you to lose focus. The stress of trying to be number one, do it all, bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. The consumption of time caused by coaching little league, helping at school so Johnny would get into Harvard (you knew you could get him better grades that way, it's not like Harvard wouldn't be able to tell that he was really an imbecile so that might have all been for naught), and trying to keep a straight face when telling your kids you never got high was about all you could take. The government became some vague concept which you no longer understood -well, you knew something about three branches - and didn't need to as long as there was money in your bank account, a new car every couple of years and a roof over your head - preferably a large roof - in a large home with many closets all of which contained various designer items and enough dog food for that purebred golden that adorned your front steps. It's not your fault that after the shock of nine eleven you rallied around the President even if you didn't vote for him. It is; however, your fault that you really didn't know why you didn't vote for him or why the candidate you did vote for was better.Let's do better next time.I'm from the Y generation.I'm here to help. ed/pub:NB

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

The Great Pumpkin Debate Ends Here

cooper — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:32:01 EST

There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin. --LinusThe Great Pumpkin is only my second favorite Peanuts movie; it is either a great pumpkin tale in which one can make fun of people who believe in things that are not so, or it is one of the greatest acts of sophistry of all time; not that it takes much with five year olds.I do not believe in the Great Pumpkin; I have heard rumors being spread that would indicate otherwise, and I want to set the record straight. I will neither confirm nor deny that I, one Halloween eve when much younger, claimed to have witnessed the coming of the Great Pumpkin. We all did things when very young that we don't lay claim to, and as perfect as I am, I am no exception; that is as it should be as perfection is boring and life without fantasy is just life. I do apologize to all my friends for misleading them in that regard but please...to claim that you have been damaged for life due to this fact is pure histrionic exaggeration. ( that may or may not make sense but go with me here) I blame the likes of Dr. Phil and Fox News for this type of thinking, but face it, most of you were crazy long before I met you.The pressure (in those days) to believe in the Great Pumpkin was often more than I could stand, so throwing out a simple yea he came to me, too, was not really much of a stretch and didn't even seem like a lie really. I didn't even start it; it was that really pale vampire toothed kid with the dark purplish eyes who started it. I couldn't help going a little further as I tend to lean toward descriptive speech and wanted everyone to know that if I saw the Great Pumpkin it was surely large, not quite round with long brown eyelashes, wearing a pair of brown Doc Martens and of the most vivid orange one could ever imagine. I knew I would get you with the fact that he passed out Nintendo games to his favorite kids. You would believe anything if it involved those stupid video games. Is it my fault you all bought every aspect of the deception except the gender? I don't think so. I still don't understand how you could believe there was a big magic pumpkin that came every Halloween but wouldn't believe the pumpkin was a pumpkiness.My mission is solely to inform you that , despite some suggestion to the contrary, there is no Great Pumpkin or Great Pumpkin designer in the sky. The Great Pumpkin debate is finished as it is not a legitimate assertion and not worthy of further discussion.Face it, if there were really a Great Pumpkin no one would have to say as did poor Charlie Brown, "I got a rock" besides that because of the mess we have made of the pumpkin patch. To quote Linus again: You'll be sorry if he comes!Ed/Pub:LisaM

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

Are We Going to Pay Attention Now?: Post-Hurricane Epiphany

cooper — Tue, 6 Sep 2005 06:34:57 EDT

In the wake of Katrina many things are becoming perfectly obvious. It is obvious that we are going to have to pay attention to the more salient issues of disaster preparation, homeland security and the cronyism that perpetrated this debacle post-Katrina. My question is: Will we now start paying attention to some of the issues that, in the end, may allow us to continue on through eternity, or are we going to let our apathy and lack of attention to nurturing the environment that sustains us, in the end destroy us?Call me an ecology freak or call me sensible with hopes for a future for the planet, but it is time to make a choice. In this "live for today, the hell with tomorrow" life most of us live, where having the big house, going to or sending our kids to the right schools, buying an occasional designer purse, a nice pair of Italian shoes and a BMW tend to satisfy; and where we view life as good if we have obtained as much for ourselves as possible in regard to the material, Katrina has made something painfully obvious. Katrina has made us aware that even here in America there are others not as fortunate. Never mind Africa, here at home we have "poor people." That, in and of itself, should be a slap in the face to the ignorant majority. But let us go further and look at the disaster as a whole and its implications for the survival of our civilization as we know it. Katrina has hopefully helped make the need to expedite this scrutiny perfectly clear. The ecological implications are clear in that we know that there were plans that had been shelved to shore up the levees, as well as plans that would have diverted water from Lake Pontchartrain. We know that the water in the Gulf has warmed by several degrees over the last century and that this is likely caused by global warming. We know that in the end our inability to pay attention to our own house because we are too busy at someone else's house has in some ways made this disaster all the worse. The time has come for us to choose to bring ourselves back to a time where we are at one with our environment and willing to sacrifice in order to ensure a future for our country, as well as our planet. As Jared Diamond, noted professor of geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize winner for Guns, Germs, and Steel, shows us quite simply in his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, we are going to need to make a decision here. We need to look at what happens when we squander our natural resources and ignore the signals our environment gives us. We need to look at why some civilizations such as the Mayas, the Polynesians of Easter Island and the Vikings in Greenland disappeared off the face of the earth while other civilizations prospered: factors including ecological care, withstanding pressure from enemies, slowing population growth and taking care when choosing trade partners. He often extrapolates, but there is clarity in one thing, especially in the face of the tragedy that was Katrina and her aftermath: we need to make choices now.My hope is that from this tragedy we will learn that we need to wake up and choose our government more carefully, and then keep an eye on it. I hope that, if nothing else, we will start looking at this earth we are on and what we can do to make sure that our civilization does not disappear due to sheer apathy and laziness.Shall we choose to believe the pundits such as Mihkel M. Mathiesen in Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate: How Truth Became Controversial , or do we believe the people not funded by Exxon like John Houghton Global Warming : The Complete Briefing ?I think the way is pretty clear.Don't you?

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,

Sanity Returns, or Ann Coulter Go Home

cooper — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:26:46 EDT

It has been reported that the Arizona Star has very wisely, due in part to the wishes of their readers, both conservative and not, dropped the syndicated column of Ann Coulter in favor of a less abrasive and hopefully less bile-filled Tony Snow. Snow is currently the host of The Tony Snow Show, a syndicated Fox News Radio show as well as Weekend Live with Tony Snow on the Fox News Channel. It seems the readers have had enough: Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited, and those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives. This according to David Stoeffler publisher and editor of the Star. This change is significant as logically many media organizations might pick up on this discontent among the customers and follow in the footsteps of the Star. It is increasingly obvious to a large part of the population on either side of the political spectrum, myself included, that the overly derogatory, hate-filled, non- researched-based op ed writing, full of rage and disdain for anything but one side or the other has the weary public growing tired, bored and finally angry.I hope the age of reason is slowly coming upon us, again. I am personally elated this occurred and hope the Star can be a trendsetter for the rest of the print media throughout the country, and frankly hope that this trend continues in the broadcast news and political talk shows as well - I foresee that it will.It's back to reality here folks. The people themselves will finally take control and let the media know we aren't buying it any longer.In an excerpt from her book, How to Talk to a (Liberal if You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter, Ann says, Don't be defensive, always outrage the enemy. The enemy, as she will learn, is herself - the rest of us are tired of being told that if someone doesn't agree with us they are our enemies: just isn't so Ann, it just isn't so.Good for the Arizona Star and let the trend continue. Daily Star: My Opinon ed:JH

Cooper, a college student who also blogs at Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth,and is a member of the Political Grind Network,