Tuesday, April 19, 2011

FYI (1A)

Correction: I retract my statement about sewer gas. It might be lovely. Apparently I don't know after all.

In other news, if someone asks you if you want to know what it smells like when a creature (or several creatures) dies in your bathroom wall and begins to rot, the correct answer is "no."

Monday, April 18, 2011

FYI (1)

If anyone ever asks you if you want to know what sewer gas smells like, the correct answer is "no." Just in case you weren't sure.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ignorance is anything but bliss.

“I started to see that they were not just political targets, they were real people who just… wanted to get married. It started to feel like a petty issue.”

Amazing. How many people in this country are still stuck in the first half of this position - not yet having realized that people ARE people and "not just political targets" - simply because they've never carried on a conversation with an individual on the other side of the debate? How many people would, if they had a few simple conversations with real human beings, change their minds about what they themselves have the right to deny their fellow humans?

The quote above came from a news story, one that I read by way of Yahoo: http://tinyurl.com/6hxtytw. There's nothing surprising about the idea that a young man - only 25 years old - formed strong opinions based on limited knowledge. What's kind of exciting is that even though he didn't go looking for experience that might challenge his opinions, when he stumbled upon that experience he thought about it enough to let it change his views.

How much could we change our nation if we could reduce the collective level of ignorance by 10%? Or even 1%? And how do you measure the collective level of ignorance in the first place, you ask? I don't know. But you get my point.

Sorry - I just can't seem to muster any snark on this issue. This fairly minor incident - a single anti-gay marriage activist changing his mind - has actually kind of blown my mind, because the REAL problem is so unbelievably obvious.

Check out the article; I think it's kind of an astounding study in human ignorance, and the capacity to learn.