I generally agree with your premise, but we must be careful to take into account the ancient rule that applies to all forms of media and man-made creation; "90% of everything is crap". Go to your local book or video store (or art museum) and actually look at everything there, you'll find 90% of it is absolute shit. Games have it worse, since there is less of them produced each year than books or movies, so we have a lower selection of that 10% of decent products.
Even before graphics became the be-all-end-all of gaming, there was a ton of REALLY bad games floating around, this just isn't very apparent because of nostalgia and hindsight being great at filtering out unmemorable crap. Right now graphics is just the driver of derivative, unimaginative drivel, there was other motivations for crap and "quick profit" games before that, and will be a plethora of other ones in the futures, especially now with graphics leveling off.
like how some people can't stop smoking cigarettes.
Actually I'm not sure smoking cigarettes is wrong. Unhealthful != wrong. Your chances of dying from smoking is lower than your chances of being killed or maimed in a car accident, and yet no one runs around telling people to not drive. Actually humans engage in all sorts of mildly destructive pass times, its in our nature. Smoking is just the feel-good cultural crusade of the decade. Comparing our self-destructive behaviors to pedophilia is a bit weak. With smoking, drinking, and driving we are not actively hurting others, or taking away their freedom. Pedophilia, rape, murder, and assaults belong in a class of their own.
the peddlers of sterility drugs,... We will not rest until they are sterilized with birth control,
Huh? You almost had a point, and then you had to go ruin it with crazy talk. Who is selling "sterility drugs", and WTH is a "sterility drug" in the first place? And who the hell is the anonymous oppressor using them on? The Christian home schooling crazies, or Mexicans, the Spanish, Italians, Catholics in general?
I for one like birth control, I'd probably put it down as one of the most important inventions in human history. And since I haven't seen a "sterility drug" at 7-11 lately, if you don't like it you don't have to use it. Though I personally think you should, especially if your planning to breed beyond your needs, or parenting abilities (for the sake of your potential children, not some grand anonymous "them").
and divided into special interest groups to be turned against one another.
Isn't this the classic keystone to democracy? A whole bunch of groups (or individuals) vehemently representing their own interests, and through this conflict compromise is born which is generally better for the population as a whole? Or do you think there is some absolute truth that only your group of like minded people have access too, and are sure enough of it to be able to inflict it against the whole population? To me, that is evil.
The only evil people are those who claim to have the "Truth", and are willing to inflict it upon others against their wills. Evil is nothing but a synonym for people who utter the phrase "for their own good".
I prefer to call it the USSA. United Socialist States of America.L
As a person with socialist tendencies, I am offended. If we were socialist, at least someone would be benefiting from the spending, and as it stands right now no REAL person is actually getting anything from the government currently. Socialists care about the people who make up countries (and whom the government is supposed to represent/benefit), last I checked our government doesn't care about us one bit.
We're more a plutocracy or kleptocracy than a socialist government.
The point is THEY are the ones that started the epeen graphics bullshit, and NOT us.
Nope, we, the customers, did drive this trend towards ultra-graphical gaming. How many generations of bleeding-edge video cards did people buy to play bleeding-edge games, and how many bleeding-edge games did people buy to make the most of their bleeding-edge graphics cards? I seem to remember this trend lasting from around the time of Quake I, until a couple of years ago. This was a customer driven thing, no one "needed" the cutting edge, they wanted it (along with case-mods with tons of blue lights and piping), we all could have stopped it by demanding higher quality games, or by playing older (meaning past on graphics card generation, or six months or so) games, but we the customers didn't.
Not much better than voting Democratic or Republican though; just another party of blind idealists who are only for a mere idea and have nothing to do with us little people who actually have lives to live. Barr wasn't even a libertarian, he had another stupid religious agenda to push on people (going from his history). I'm sick of people with big ideas, who think that their stupid ideals are actually real.
Real life is a dirty messy thing, if you can summarize it with a single capitalized proper noun or catch phrase, your probably completely wrong, and will only end up hurting people in the end. This is compounded when someone thinks that they are right, or has the "capital 'T' truth".
This is especially truth when someone embraces the "us vs. them" crap in modern politics, which the Libertarians are generally very good at.
We'll be a better country when we realize that all of our "truths" are nothing but opinions, and basically we're all playing by the same book with differing, and equally valid, interpretations, and only though ideological conflict, and brutal and honest debate will any progress be made, ever.
I mean, seriously - rushing bills through faster than anyone can read them and check them for problems, and now this?
The new boss is the same as the old boss. This does make me sad, since I was hoping Obama would be better than Clinton (being better than Bush isn't hard, and he easily exceeds at this, as would my cat). But to paint this as a Democrat or Republican issue is rather naive, both parties are only interested in the same thing right now; power. The Republicans are even more laughable than the Democrats though (which again is a very meaningless compliment).
I'd rather they rush through health care though, which I might see a small benefit from, than the USA PATRIOT ACT, or a silly war, neither of which benefited anyone. Not saying its a good thing, or that I agree with Obama's package here, but just as points of comparison.
What annoys me more is both parties new found reliance on astroturfing and cheap gimmicks stolen from the advertisement world. And what annoys me even more is that tons of people (who I now no longer feel guilty calling "plebes") buy it and repeat the well bought falsehoods to me, and on the evening news. This crap was especially present during the Sotomayor brouhaha, with the left saying everyone with any doubt was a racist, and the right selecting sound bites to make her sound racist (racism being the the instant taboo of the day), and with the bizarre "birther" morons catering to the absolute morons of the Republican party (not saying the Dems are better, just they haven't catered to any demographic quite so stupid yet, not that they are beyond it).
It is bizarre that neither party is capable or wanting of a public policy debate, and that none of there members seem to be wanting of one. At least the previous groups of partisan nitwits weren't afraid of waving their agenda about. After this last election, though, the idiots are out in force.
No, its not ok. Lock up enough citizens over weed and you will have a revolution on your hands.
I can just see all the enraged pot heads throwing a revolution... tomorrow. After they pick up some snacks.
Actually I don't know any pot heads who are overly enraged at being arrested for possession. Sure, they aren't happy, but they aren't fuming about revolution ready offenses either. You know the risks, you accept them, and you live with them. If you don't want to risk it, then don't get into the pot game. As for a revolution, most people don't smoke pot, and most people really don't care.
That said; I do think it should be legalized, personally, I don't smoke it, and I find people who worship it and talk about it incessantly to be boring, droll, morons, but I still think it is a rather stupid thing to have illegal. But saying that there are enough pissed off potheads out there to throw a revolution is nothing but hyperbole. The status quo will go on status quoing, and nothing much else will happen.
The problem of course is that the police is not necessarily interested in a fair assessment of someone's driving habits
I don't think putting this on the police is quite fair. Most cops are just people doing jobs (a few of them are assholes, and a few of them are truly noble, but most of them are just folk doing the best they can), most cops are interested in making money for a faceless government. All cops care about is enforcing laws, not if the laws are good or not (that is OUR job).
The problem lies in your local government, not in the police force. Direct your rage appropriately.
I'm quite happy with cops at the moment, I was recently a victim of a violent crime, and when all was said and done, the lead detective for my case asked me if I had family or friends on the force, because of the extra work the responding officer put into my case. Sadly, once it left the hands of the responding officer, and hit the prosecutor and detectives, things got more amusing, with an 8 month wait to convict and jail someone for aggravated assault (even with previous felonies), in the mean time he's on the streets scott free. The higher we get into any given system, more impersonal it gets. Problems generally arise higher up in organizations, not at the people who actually need to deal with people.
I turn my phone silent, and problem is solved. If I want to use it, I can. If I need to use it, it's readily available. Of course, when the class gets boring,;) it's there too
I'm glad you do this, your not part of the problem. The problem is that tons of other people are too stupid, or have a self-entitlement high, and don't, causing a disruption for everyone else.
I believe it's more of a freedom question than practicality.
Your freedom lasts until you step on the freedoms of others. I also believe that there can be no freedom without responsibility.
Not if they're late, not in many school districts. Your child may be:...
Your under the assumption that you can't call the school. I'm sure that when I was in grade school, and no one picked me up, or called, something like the what you state would have happened any way. A cellphone would make no difference, nor would calling your child. When my parents called the front office and let them know they would be late, nothing much happened. I don't see this as a cellphone problem.
Read what you quoted again, especially the part where it says "after 3rd period" - making sense now? *After* - not during. You knew you missed something, didn't you?
I didn't know I missed something, to be honest. Hammering out replies without proper intake of caffeine might be hazardous to your health. I can see this as a valid point, but this sort of thing was still doable back before the days of cell phones. The parent simply went to the office, dropped off the homework, and the school dropped off the thing. Sure, they might get snarky, but that is understandable since your kid failed to bring homework.
I bet he was popular with the lawyers.
Actually he was popular with the students. And to my knowledge no one ever complained about this policy. It was a 400 level analytic philosophy class (with a physics component), people were happy not to be distracted in that environment. And if you had an emergency, he would give you a pass on his policy, IFF your phone was on vibrate, you could discretely leave the class room.
Everyone knew of the policy, and no one was forced to take his (non-101) classes. So really there was no one to blame but yourself. If you entered his class and didn't like it, there was nothing keeping you from leaving before the add/drop date. If you stuck around and acted like an ass on your phone, there was no one to blame but yourself.
I'm not disagreeing with them being convenient or useful. I'm just saying that your individual convenience isn't worth the price of harming the education of others. Also, none of the examples you listed NEED to be done in class, nor should they be done in class.
Its another case of no one thinking responsibility matters.
Cell phones are not necessary for everyone, but, for me, they are worth the price.
You probably are right. The most annoying people are generally the most noticeable, while the average polite person is completely invisible, leading to an increased perception of annoying people.
But this doesn't change much. Even if it is only 1-10% of the population who is causing a problem, it doesn't change the fact that there is a problem. It doesn't really matter if there are two kids in a class who are causing a distraction, or whether the whole class is doing it, it still is disrupting the learning of the majority.
To be completely honest, I'm not sure how big of a problem this actually is, I haven't stepped foot in a primary or secondary school classroom in well over a decade, and I went to school before anyone had cell phones, beepers were just taking off when I was in high school, and those caused less problems because the element of immediacy wasn't the same. Judging from college experience though, someone took 3-4 minutes out of a class at least once a day (not counting the people who had it on vibrate who discretely left the room, which is sometimes acceptable in college, but not, probably, in grade school). I'm guessing that in grade schools this is worse, since the kids their are by definition less mature, and less capable of of realizing the consequences of their actions.
I'm not sure what the solution is, though. In a perfect world there would be a way to punish the irresponsible, and disrespectful, and allow those who know how to act like a responsible human to continue to do so. This seems to be a problem in modern schools, and not just on this topic.
As someone pointed out earlier, calling 911 does not prevent rape. Also, I'm sure a determined attacker would be more than happy to remove the phone from his victim before she hit the final "1" in 911.
Screaming bloody murder is probably a better deterrent (a swift kick in the cojones is probably the best).
Your kid then would be far more responsible than most of the adults I went to college with, and most of the kids I went to high school with who had beepers. Or most of the wankers in movie theaters, restaurants, and libraries. Actually your kid would be completely abnormal.
90% of the other kids in the class would be nowhere near as responsible, and would cause a disruption. Is that disruption from the majority worth the convenience you talking to your kid? I'd still say "no".
I don't have a landline at home - the only way to reach me is via my cell phone (well, I have an office phone, but I don't give out that number). That means if I were to go pick up my kid from school - assuming we've communicated beforehand where to meet, since my kid couldn't just call me due to the jamming - I'd be unreachable
How so? If the school has landlines, it doesn't effect your cell-phone at all. And how if this any different than 10+ years ago? When I was a kid in school, before cellphones were ubiquitous, and my father had to pick me up, he'd call the school office and let them know. Then they would tell me, and come grab me when he showed up. This worked. There was no reason for him to call me in the middle of class, and and impose a distraction on the other 25 kids.
There may be teachers that only have a cell phone, like me. Are we really going to prevent them from having access to their only means of personal communication, just so a few kids don't use phones during class?
Again, how is this any different that 10+ years ago? When all you had was a home land-line, and you were at work the only way people could get a hold of you was by using something called an answering machine. Cell phones have this thing called "voice mail", which is pretty much a portable answering machine. What is the difference? Why the hell does anyone need to be reachable 24 hours a day, even at work? Sure, there are rare cases of emergency, but the other 99% of the time there is no need. At work you should be doing your job, personal business can wait until your on your own time. There is nothing wrong with this.
Or, you know, we could make learning interesting again. This "no child left behind" crap is the biggest offender there, IMO, and it's causing more problems than it's helping. (But then, I'm not an educator, and I don't have school-age kids yet, so I may be wrong.)
Sometimes learning shouldn't be interesting. The whole idea of education being entertaining is rather new, and hasn't really shown any positive results. This idea pretty much came from the 60's, and if we compair education rates before and after the "edutainement/self-esteem" model of education we'll find that it is a complete failure where it counts.
I'd rather have my children bored to death but leaving knowing how to read and do basic math, than have them being amused morons.
So we should be okay with them distracting class everyday just in case a rare incident happens?
We should balance the potential need (lets say a Columbine is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance), with the harm it causes every day. Just saying "zomg there could be an emergency" doesn't equal justification. Its like the government saying their going to screen our mail because it could have prevented 9/11, very few of us would accept that trade off.
So how did we manage to raise our children safely, much less survive, for the last 100k+ years without them?!
Oh wait, when I was in school (before cellphones), my parents could come pick me up from school just fine. Telling me before the fact really didn't matter, and still doesn't. (I love people who really need to call you and tell you that they are on their way, then call you and tell you that they're there, and then come and knock on your damn door). The rest of your examples are pretty weak proof for the need to have always on access to your children (poor kids!). How often will I need to call my kids in the case of a terrorist attack? Wait... Your chances of being involved in a terrorist attack is less than your chances of being struck by lightening.
The convenience isn't worth the price, especially if we're going to use terrorism as an excuse (yet again).
As for:
"You left your homework home again, I'll meet you after 3rd period to drop it off - last time (right) I'm doing this"
So, your going to disrupt a whole class of 20-30 children for this?
One of my professors in college would drop you a grade-point every time you disrupted the class with a phone call. It was actually a very popular program.
Give it another 20 years and the social stigma of cellphones should go away and we should see less of shit like people complaining that a cellphone can be used anywhere, etc.
I don't see it is a meaningless "social stigma". Using a cell-phone in a learning environment can be seen more as "causing a distraction". Most schools frown on you wearing headphones in class, or talking to your neighbors during inappropriate times, cellphones are no different. They are devices that make annoying noises at inappropriate times and are used inappropriately in a school setting. This isn't "stigma", this is the same as banning boom-boxes from public libraries. There is a place for cellphones, school, though, is not it.
Actually, I would be a fan if theaters, libraries, and decent restaurants were allowed to have jammers. A lot of people completely lack social graces, and force others to suffer because of it. Just because your a moron who has to talk to your family about your rousing day of grocery shopping and traffic jams, doesn't mean EVERYONE should have to suffer through it. There is no reason to annoy people because your strange need to constantly discuss banalities with people who really don't care (they care as much as you care about their banalities). Hell, I don't even feel bad about "emergencies", since our species managed to survive very well for the 100k+ years before cellphones. Sure, we might be blocking certain essential "on call" people, but thats fine, they can choose to go out when they don't risk annoying the hell out of the rest of us. That is for the actual "essential" people, not the rest of us who just think we are.
Don't drop the "rights" card either. Your right to be annoying doesn't trump my right to peace and quiet (in the appropriate settings).
Nice rant, but it really has nothing to do with Arizona's problems. They have decided to cut their budget, but the "social programs that don't work" that they identified all happen to be public schools, universities, and health care (which does work at least in this implementation). Which is rather odd, since we currently are at the bottom (or near it) as far as education goes.
The problem isn't "liberal" spending, if you'd take a couple of seconds to research the issue in AZ, you'd realize that we are one of the most conservative states in the Union. Our senators are Kyl and McCain, and our house members are pretty much only hardcore republicans. We are the home of Goldwater, and his legacy continues to taint the state. Saying "liberal" and "Arizona" in the same sentence is enough to make one's head explode.
The problem here is that we planned our budgets based on a huge rate of growth, and then that rate of growth stopped. Our whole economy was pretty much based on real estate, and its related services. People stopped buying houses, which killed the tax rate, which killed government income. This is what happens when you base your spendable money on future growth, and not available cash.
There also, to be sure, was a huge amount of graft involved. This is Arizona, we've breed some of the worst politicians in the history of the US.
I suppose there is still some such out there on RIAA labels, but much less than there were ten years ago. There was a time that all the music I purchased was from major labels and RIAA signatories, but now I'm hard pressed to think of the last time I bought an album from an RIAA company.
I am rather confused to see that Kraftwerk is signed to an RIAA label for distribution. I suppose I forgot that we can't completely cut the RIAA out just because their HUGE back catalog of older good music, from back when their companies were relevant/useful.
I'm inadvertently boycotting RIAA labels. Their hasn't really been an album released on a "big" label that has warranted my bandwidth or money in some time. I probably would buy something from them, if there was anything I wanted. Perhaps its my age, perhaps I have odd tastes, but I still haven't found anything new or interesting on a major label in some time. I manage to support a ton of small labels "accidentally" though.
So, here is my question, what has been released on a major RIAA label lately that has been worth listening to?
Most of the RIAA member labels are the McDonalds of music, they release passable crap, but never innovate or produce anything that smaller shops can't beat. As time goes on, most of the innovation comes from smaller labels, while the large ones pick up the watered down crap. This is in part that they shun controversial bands, or bands that cater to specific tastes. They only want the stuff bland enough to appeal to everyone.
To resort to the anecdotal, I've been called an "antisemite" for stating that Israel might be acting a bit heavy handed before, and once for even stating support for the two state solution. People do confuse questioning Israel with hating Jewish people (or culture). Hell, even if someone is rabidly against Israel as a country, doesn't make someone an antisemite or Nazi.
You might not resort to this, but there are tons of people less mature than you out there. Generally this "racism" ad hominem is the last resort of people with weak rational and deeply entrenched beliefs. I'm glad your not one of them, but you have to admit its out there.
The racism thing is an old trope for quelling dissenting views. People pull the same thing when Israel is questioned (not its right to exist even, just some of its policies), or when you question gay marriage, or any other issue where a minority is supremely interested. Look at people against illegal immigration, how often are they also called racist, even if their rational has nothing to do with race whatsoever. it isn't just false allegations of racism either, look how often the term "socialist" has been bandied about inappropriately lately for no other reason but as a form of incognito ad hominem. People always do that.
You also have the equally moronic reverse of this, as evident by group names such as "pro-choice" or "pro-life", meaning people in the opposite camp are "anti-choice" or "anti-life", which is pretty much ad hominem by negation.
In short, this is nothing new.
I got yelled at for not voting for Clinton in the primary, apparently my vote was "misogamist", though I suppose all the Clinton people were ignoring the fact that their own rational made them "anti-hispanic", and by not voting for Richardson, even if they voted for Obama.
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I generally agree with your premise, but we must be careful to take into account the ancient rule that applies to all forms of media and man-made creation; "90% of everything is crap". Go to your local book or video store (or art museum) and actually look at everything there, you'll find 90% of it is absolute shit. Games have it worse, since there is less of them produced each year than books or movies, so we have a lower selection of that 10% of decent products.
Even before graphics became the be-all-end-all of gaming, there was a ton of REALLY bad games floating around, this just isn't very apparent because of nostalgia and hindsight being great at filtering out unmemorable crap. Right now graphics is just the driver of derivative, unimaginative drivel, there was other motivations for crap and "quick profit" games before that, and will be a plethora of other ones in the futures, especially now with graphics leveling off.
like how some people can't stop smoking cigarettes.
Actually I'm not sure smoking cigarettes is wrong. Unhealthful != wrong. Your chances of dying from smoking is lower than your chances of being killed or maimed in a car accident, and yet no one runs around telling people to not drive. Actually humans engage in all sorts of mildly destructive pass times, its in our nature. Smoking is just the feel-good cultural crusade of the decade. Comparing our self-destructive behaviors to pedophilia is a bit weak. With smoking, drinking, and driving we are not actively hurting others, or taking away their freedom. Pedophilia, rape, murder, and assaults belong in a class of their own.
the peddlers of sterility drugs,... We will not rest until they are sterilized with birth control,
Huh? You almost had a point, and then you had to go ruin it with crazy talk. Who is selling "sterility drugs", and WTH is a "sterility drug" in the first place? And who the hell is the anonymous oppressor using them on? The Christian home schooling crazies, or Mexicans, the Spanish, Italians, Catholics in general?
I for one like birth control, I'd probably put it down as one of the most important inventions in human history. And since I haven't seen a "sterility drug" at 7-11 lately, if you don't like it you don't have to use it. Though I personally think you should, especially if your planning to breed beyond your needs, or parenting abilities (for the sake of your potential children, not some grand anonymous "them").
and divided into special interest groups to be turned against one another.
Isn't this the classic keystone to democracy? A whole bunch of groups (or individuals) vehemently representing their own interests, and through this conflict compromise is born which is generally better for the population as a whole? Or do you think there is some absolute truth that only your group of like minded people have access too, and are sure enough of it to be able to inflict it against the whole population? To me, that is evil.
The only evil people are those who claim to have the "Truth", and are willing to inflict it upon others against their wills. Evil is nothing but a synonym for people who utter the phrase "for their own good".
I prefer to call it the USSA. United Socialist States of America.L
As a person with socialist tendencies, I am offended. If we were socialist, at least someone would be benefiting from the spending, and as it stands right now no REAL person is actually getting anything from the government currently. Socialists care about the people who make up countries (and whom the government is supposed to represent/benefit), last I checked our government doesn't care about us one bit.
We're more a plutocracy or kleptocracy than a socialist government.
The point is THEY are the ones that started the epeen graphics bullshit, and NOT us.
Nope, we, the customers, did drive this trend towards ultra-graphical gaming. How many generations of bleeding-edge video cards did people buy to play bleeding-edge games, and how many bleeding-edge games did people buy to make the most of their bleeding-edge graphics cards? I seem to remember this trend lasting from around the time of Quake I, until a couple of years ago. This was a customer driven thing, no one "needed" the cutting edge, they wanted it (along with case-mods with tons of blue lights and piping), we all could have stopped it by demanding higher quality games, or by playing older (meaning past on graphics card generation, or six months or so) games, but we the customers didn't.
Not much better than voting Democratic or Republican though; just another party of blind idealists who are only for a mere idea and have nothing to do with us little people who actually have lives to live. Barr wasn't even a libertarian, he had another stupid religious agenda to push on people (going from his history). I'm sick of people with big ideas, who think that their stupid ideals are actually real.
Real life is a dirty messy thing, if you can summarize it with a single capitalized proper noun or catch phrase, your probably completely wrong, and will only end up hurting people in the end. This is compounded when someone thinks that they are right, or has the "capital 'T' truth".
This is especially truth when someone embraces the "us vs. them" crap in modern politics, which the Libertarians are generally very good at.
We'll be a better country when we realize that all of our "truths" are nothing but opinions, and basically we're all playing by the same book with differing, and equally valid, interpretations, and only though ideological conflict, and brutal and honest debate will any progress be made, ever.
I mean, seriously - rushing bills through faster than anyone can read them and check them for problems, and now this?
The new boss is the same as the old boss. This does make me sad, since I was hoping Obama would be better than Clinton (being better than Bush isn't hard, and he easily exceeds at this, as would my cat). But to paint this as a Democrat or Republican issue is rather naive, both parties are only interested in the same thing right now; power. The Republicans are even more laughable than the Democrats though (which again is a very meaningless compliment).
I'd rather they rush through health care though, which I might see a small benefit from, than the USA PATRIOT ACT, or a silly war, neither of which benefited anyone. Not saying its a good thing, or that I agree with Obama's package here, but just as points of comparison.
What annoys me more is both parties new found reliance on astroturfing and cheap gimmicks stolen from the advertisement world. And what annoys me even more is that tons of people (who I now no longer feel guilty calling "plebes") buy it and repeat the well bought falsehoods to me, and on the evening news. This crap was especially present during the Sotomayor brouhaha, with the left saying everyone with any doubt was a racist, and the right selecting sound bites to make her sound racist (racism being the the instant taboo of the day), and with the bizarre "birther" morons catering to the absolute morons of the Republican party (not saying the Dems are better, just they haven't catered to any demographic quite so stupid yet, not that they are beyond it).
It is bizarre that neither party is capable or wanting of a public policy debate, and that none of there members seem to be wanting of one. At least the previous groups of partisan nitwits weren't afraid of waving their agenda about. After this last election, though, the idiots are out in force.
No, its not ok. Lock up enough citizens over weed and you will have a revolution on your hands.
I can just see all the enraged pot heads throwing a revolution... tomorrow. After they pick up some snacks.
Actually I don't know any pot heads who are overly enraged at being arrested for possession. Sure, they aren't happy, but they aren't fuming about revolution ready offenses either. You know the risks, you accept them, and you live with them. If you don't want to risk it, then don't get into the pot game. As for a revolution, most people don't smoke pot, and most people really don't care.
That said; I do think it should be legalized, personally, I don't smoke it, and I find people who worship it and talk about it incessantly to be boring, droll, morons, but I still think it is a rather stupid thing to have illegal. But saying that there are enough pissed off potheads out there to throw a revolution is nothing but hyperbole. The status quo will go on status quoing, and nothing much else will happen.
The problem of course is that the police is not necessarily interested in a fair assessment of someone's driving habits
I don't think putting this on the police is quite fair. Most cops are just people doing jobs (a few of them are assholes, and a few of them are truly noble, but most of them are just folk doing the best they can), most cops are interested in making money for a faceless government. All cops care about is enforcing laws, not if the laws are good or not (that is OUR job).
The problem lies in your local government, not in the police force. Direct your rage appropriately.
I'm quite happy with cops at the moment, I was recently a victim of a violent crime, and when all was said and done, the lead detective for my case asked me if I had family or friends on the force, because of the extra work the responding officer put into my case. Sadly, once it left the hands of the responding officer, and hit the prosecutor and detectives, things got more amusing, with an 8 month wait to convict and jail someone for aggravated assault (even with previous felonies), in the mean time he's on the streets scott free. The higher we get into any given system, more impersonal it gets. Problems generally arise higher up in organizations, not at the people who actually need to deal with people.
I turn my phone silent, and problem is solved. If I want to use it, I can. If I need to use it, it's readily available. Of course, when the class gets boring, ;) it's there too
I'm glad you do this, your not part of the problem. The problem is that tons of other people are too stupid, or have a self-entitlement high, and don't, causing a disruption for everyone else.
I believe it's more of a freedom question than practicality.
Your freedom lasts until you step on the freedoms of others. I also believe that there can be no freedom without responsibility.
Not if they're late, not in many school districts. Your child may be:...
Your under the assumption that you can't call the school. I'm sure that when I was in grade school, and no one picked me up, or called, something like the what you state would have happened any way. A cellphone would make no difference, nor would calling your child. When my parents called the front office and let them know they would be late, nothing much happened. I don't see this as a cellphone problem.
Read what you quoted again, especially the part where it says "after 3rd period" - making sense now? *After* - not during. You knew you missed something, didn't you?
I didn't know I missed something, to be honest. Hammering out replies without proper intake of caffeine might be hazardous to your health. I can see this as a valid point, but this sort of thing was still doable back before the days of cell phones. The parent simply went to the office, dropped off the homework, and the school dropped off the thing. Sure, they might get snarky, but that is understandable since your kid failed to bring homework.
I bet he was popular with the lawyers.
Actually he was popular with the students. And to my knowledge no one ever complained about this policy. It was a 400 level analytic philosophy class (with a physics component), people were happy not to be distracted in that environment. And if you had an emergency, he would give you a pass on his policy, IFF your phone was on vibrate, you could discretely leave the class room.
Everyone knew of the policy, and no one was forced to take his (non-101) classes. So really there was no one to blame but yourself. If you entered his class and didn't like it, there was nothing keeping you from leaving before the add/drop date. If you stuck around and acted like an ass on your phone, there was no one to blame but yourself.
I'm not disagreeing with them being convenient or useful. I'm just saying that your individual convenience isn't worth the price of harming the education of others. Also, none of the examples you listed NEED to be done in class, nor should they be done in class.
Its another case of no one thinking responsibility matters.
Cell phones are not necessary for everyone, but, for me, they are worth the price.
convenient != necessary.
You probably are right. The most annoying people are generally the most noticeable, while the average polite person is completely invisible, leading to an increased perception of annoying people.
But this doesn't change much. Even if it is only 1-10% of the population who is causing a problem, it doesn't change the fact that there is a problem. It doesn't really matter if there are two kids in a class who are causing a distraction, or whether the whole class is doing it, it still is disrupting the learning of the majority.
To be completely honest, I'm not sure how big of a problem this actually is, I haven't stepped foot in a primary or secondary school classroom in well over a decade, and I went to school before anyone had cell phones, beepers were just taking off when I was in high school, and those caused less problems because the element of immediacy wasn't the same. Judging from college experience though, someone took 3-4 minutes out of a class at least once a day (not counting the people who had it on vibrate who discretely left the room, which is sometimes acceptable in college, but not, probably, in grade school). I'm guessing that in grade schools this is worse, since the kids their are by definition less mature, and less capable of of realizing the consequences of their actions.
I'm not sure what the solution is, though. In a perfect world there would be a way to punish the irresponsible, and disrespectful, and allow those who know how to act like a responsible human to continue to do so. This seems to be a problem in modern schools, and not just on this topic.
Lets go with something more common such as rape.
As someone pointed out earlier, calling 911 does not prevent rape. Also, I'm sure a determined attacker would be more than happy to remove the phone from his victim before she hit the final "1" in 911.
Screaming bloody murder is probably a better deterrent (a swift kick in the cojones is probably the best).
Your kid then would be far more responsible than most of the adults I went to college with, and most of the kids I went to high school with who had beepers. Or most of the wankers in movie theaters, restaurants, and libraries. Actually your kid would be completely abnormal.
90% of the other kids in the class would be nowhere near as responsible, and would cause a disruption. Is that disruption from the majority worth the convenience you talking to your kid? I'd still say "no".
I don't have a landline at home - the only way to reach me is via my cell phone (well, I have an office phone, but I don't give out that number). That means if I were to go pick up my kid from school - assuming we've communicated beforehand where to meet, since my kid couldn't just call me due to the jamming - I'd be unreachable
How so? If the school has landlines, it doesn't effect your cell-phone at all. And how if this any different than 10+ years ago? When I was a kid in school, before cellphones were ubiquitous, and my father had to pick me up, he'd call the school office and let them know. Then they would tell me, and come grab me when he showed up. This worked. There was no reason for him to call me in the middle of class, and and impose a distraction on the other 25 kids.
There may be teachers that only have a cell phone, like me. Are we really going to prevent them from having access to their only means of personal communication, just so a few kids don't use phones during class?
Again, how is this any different that 10+ years ago? When all you had was a home land-line, and you were at work the only way people could get a hold of you was by using something called an answering machine. Cell phones have this thing called "voice mail", which is pretty much a portable answering machine. What is the difference? Why the hell does anyone need to be reachable 24 hours a day, even at work? Sure, there are rare cases of emergency, but the other 99% of the time there is no need. At work you should be doing your job, personal business can wait until your on your own time. There is nothing wrong with this.
Or, you know, we could make learning interesting again. This "no child left behind" crap is the biggest offender there, IMO, and it's causing more problems than it's helping. (But then, I'm not an educator, and I don't have school-age kids yet, so I may be wrong.)
Sometimes learning shouldn't be interesting. The whole idea of education being entertaining is rather new, and hasn't really shown any positive results. This idea pretty much came from the 60's, and if we compair education rates before and after the "edutainement/self-esteem" model of education we'll find that it is a complete failure where it counts.
I'd rather have my children bored to death but leaving knowing how to read and do basic math, than have them being amused morons.
So we should be okay with them distracting class everyday just in case a rare incident happens?
We should balance the potential need (lets say a Columbine is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance), with the harm it causes every day. Just saying "zomg there could be an emergency" doesn't equal justification. Its like the government saying their going to screen our mail because it could have prevented 9/11, very few of us would accept that trade off.
So how did we manage to raise our children safely, much less survive, for the last 100k+ years without them?!
Oh wait, when I was in school (before cellphones), my parents could come pick me up from school just fine. Telling me before the fact really didn't matter, and still doesn't. (I love people who really need to call you and tell you that they are on their way, then call you and tell you that they're there, and then come and knock on your damn door). The rest of your examples are pretty weak proof for the need to have always on access to your children (poor kids!). How often will I need to call my kids in the case of a terrorist attack? Wait... Your chances of being involved in a terrorist attack is less than your chances of being struck by lightening.
The convenience isn't worth the price, especially if we're going to use terrorism as an excuse (yet again).
As for:
"You left your homework home again, I'll meet you after 3rd period to drop it off - last time (right) I'm doing this"
So, your going to disrupt a whole class of 20-30 children for this?
One of my professors in college would drop you a grade-point every time you disrupted the class with a phone call. It was actually a very popular program.
Give it another 20 years and the social stigma of cellphones should go away and we should see less of shit like people complaining that a cellphone can be used anywhere, etc.
I don't see it is a meaningless "social stigma". Using a cell-phone in a learning environment can be seen more as "causing a distraction". Most schools frown on you wearing headphones in class, or talking to your neighbors during inappropriate times, cellphones are no different. They are devices that make annoying noises at inappropriate times and are used inappropriately in a school setting. This isn't "stigma", this is the same as banning boom-boxes from public libraries. There is a place for cellphones, school, though, is not it.
Actually, I would be a fan if theaters, libraries, and decent restaurants were allowed to have jammers. A lot of people completely lack social graces, and force others to suffer because of it. Just because your a moron who has to talk to your family about your rousing day of grocery shopping and traffic jams, doesn't mean EVERYONE should have to suffer through it. There is no reason to annoy people because your strange need to constantly discuss banalities with people who really don't care (they care as much as you care about their banalities). Hell, I don't even feel bad about "emergencies", since our species managed to survive very well for the 100k+ years before cellphones. Sure, we might be blocking certain essential "on call" people, but thats fine, they can choose to go out when they don't risk annoying the hell out of the rest of us. That is for the actual "essential" people, not the rest of us who just think we are.
Don't drop the "rights" card either. Your right to be annoying doesn't trump my right to peace and quiet (in the appropriate settings).
Nice rant, but it really has nothing to do with Arizona's problems. They have decided to cut their budget, but the "social programs that don't work" that they identified all happen to be public schools, universities, and health care (which does work at least in this implementation). Which is rather odd, since we currently are at the bottom (or near it) as far as education goes.
The problem isn't "liberal" spending, if you'd take a couple of seconds to research the issue in AZ, you'd realize that we are one of the most conservative states in the Union. Our senators are Kyl and McCain, and our house members are pretty much only hardcore republicans. We are the home of Goldwater, and his legacy continues to taint the state. Saying "liberal" and "Arizona" in the same sentence is enough to make one's head explode.
The problem here is that we planned our budgets based on a huge rate of growth, and then that rate of growth stopped. Our whole economy was pretty much based on real estate, and its related services. People stopped buying houses, which killed the tax rate, which killed government income. This is what happens when you base your spendable money on future growth, and not available cash.
There also, to be sure, was a huge amount of graft involved. This is Arizona, we've breed some of the worst politicians in the history of the US.
I suppose there is still some such out there on RIAA labels, but much less than there were ten years ago. There was a time that all the music I purchased was from major labels and RIAA signatories, but now I'm hard pressed to think of the last time I bought an album from an RIAA company.
I am rather confused to see that Kraftwerk is signed to an RIAA label for distribution. I suppose I forgot that we can't completely cut the RIAA out just because their HUGE back catalog of older good music, from back when their companies were relevant/useful.
I'm inadvertently boycotting RIAA labels. Their hasn't really been an album released on a "big" label that has warranted my bandwidth or money in some time. I probably would buy something from them, if there was anything I wanted. Perhaps its my age, perhaps I have odd tastes, but I still haven't found anything new or interesting on a major label in some time. I manage to support a ton of small labels "accidentally" though.
So, here is my question, what has been released on a major RIAA label lately that has been worth listening to?
Most of the RIAA member labels are the McDonalds of music, they release passable crap, but never innovate or produce anything that smaller shops can't beat. As time goes on, most of the innovation comes from smaller labels, while the large ones pick up the watered down crap. This is in part that they shun controversial bands, or bands that cater to specific tastes. They only want the stuff bland enough to appeal to everyone.
To resort to the anecdotal, I've been called an "antisemite" for stating that Israel might be acting a bit heavy handed before, and once for even stating support for the two state solution. People do confuse questioning Israel with hating Jewish people (or culture). Hell, even if someone is rabidly against Israel as a country, doesn't make someone an antisemite or Nazi.
You might not resort to this, but there are tons of people less mature than you out there. Generally this "racism" ad hominem is the last resort of people with weak rational and deeply entrenched beliefs. I'm glad your not one of them, but you have to admit its out there.
The racism thing is an old trope for quelling dissenting views. People pull the same thing when Israel is questioned (not its right to exist even, just some of its policies), or when you question gay marriage, or any other issue where a minority is supremely interested. Look at people against illegal immigration, how often are they also called racist, even if their rational has nothing to do with race whatsoever. it isn't just false allegations of racism either, look how often the term "socialist" has been bandied about inappropriately lately for no other reason but as a form of incognito ad hominem. People always do that.
You also have the equally moronic reverse of this, as evident by group names such as "pro-choice" or "pro-life", meaning people in the opposite camp are "anti-choice" or "anti-life", which is pretty much ad hominem by negation.
In short, this is nothing new.
I got yelled at for not voting for Clinton in the primary, apparently my vote was "misogamist", though I suppose all the Clinton people were ignoring the fact that their own rational made them "anti-hispanic", and by not voting for Richardson, even if they voted for Obama.
A MechCommander reboot/remake?