Rico Penguin

  Whenever a person of interest (generally coined ‘celebrity’) they are put under an unusually high level of excess and I feel unnecessary stress. One thing in particular is the idea of ‘thinking before you speak’. For the vast majority of people I do think there is a level of thought always joined with the act of communication it is something of a necessity. We all make mistakes in what we are saying, that is to say simply that occasionally we say orange when we meant to say carpool or something like that.

  What I don’t feel is fair however is to assume that words have power. Words are no different than currency, essentially all the money you own is only worth as much as you and your social region believe they are worth. There is also that whole exchange rate globally but for the most part a nation could ignore that and still function pretty well. All our words and the emotions we tie to them are entirely personal, there is no automatic response to any words. If there was telling a baby with a sweet tone to go fuck themselves would not elicit the same response as it does from anyone who has been ‘lectured’ or ‘indoctrinated’ into the local lingo. Indeed cursing is all in all just as harmless as discussing vegetable preferences.

  However we in a pretty sizeable amount give far far too much credit to words. What most recently elicited this train of thought was that “Special Olympics” comment of the President on the Tonight Show. He equated his bowling skills to something you would see in the Special Olympics, a simple enough example that produces a relatively vivid and likely consistent image amongst anyone who hears it.

  People are up in arms about how he should apologize and that while it would have been ok for him to say that before he was President it is not alright anymore. Which to me is highly confusing. If an action is not alright in one instance I would assume that it should either be wrong in all instances or be reexamined.

  A persons feelings about themselves, about their world, and about basically anything should not be so easily swayed by the simple speaking of others. This is akin to walking outside, feeling a cool breeze and killing yourself because of it. It’s a radical response to a relatively unimportant gesture. While of course these are all just personal opinion and suggestions it does pay to point out that my own personal life became easily exponentially easier to maintain once I stopped caring about the random banter of others.

  Words are wonderful in their artistic quality, but just as you shouldn’t stop eating or lose your self confidence when you see the Mona Lisa, you also shouldn’t be dropping proverbial bricks every time someone says something. Especially considering how often these responses end up being hypocritical. You can’t be treated fairly if everyone feels you need to be treated special. To put it simply, if you can make comments about anything you can make comments about everything. Anything less and we risk (and indeed do) begin enforcing slanted and almost exclusively hypocritical rulings on the realm and limitations of language.

  I think as a whole our country is starting is starting to slowly realize that you cannot live beyond your means for very long before it comes back to haunt you. Many have lost their homes while others are struggling to hold onto what little they have. I don’t necessarily blame anyone in particular in fact if you take my college loans into account I too am living beyond my means and it will be something I have to deal with for years to come. Although I was given the choice of either waiting till I was 24 or getting into college now and considering my last place of employment just went under across the entire united states I feel I made a sound one. But I digress.

  The most recent noticeable victim in the vicinity of where I live is Western Washington University. They are looking at a possible 36 million dollar shortfall and they say that this sort of cut will show noticeably upon their quality services. While I could easy attack the ludicrousness of western providing quality server I will instead carry on with my point. This college lived beyond its means for quite some time, hoping that each year would be a mirror of the past and that it would be able to keep on running in the negative. I know many would argue that state funding doesn’t put you in the negative but when you run in a manner that without someone else’s financial support you cannot function then you are living beyond your means.

  This will be a good wake up call for Western if they take the event to heart. Much like this could be a great turn around for many people. The credit system is (without making conspiracy theories) a very corrupt one. The smallest bits of information are permissible in granting someone a credit card in your name, this has been an obvious shortfall for a decade or more and nothing has been done about it. I hope that with this big crash people will look towards living within their means. Enjoying all the things that are around them and if that isn’t enough working hard to gain legitimate access what they love (or at least want) most.

  Since at one time I’m pretty sure that’s how the US worked. If you wanted great things you worked hard and accomplished great things. We’ve entered a weird period (which perhaps has been longer than I’ve been alive) where you can get an major in business move to New York and make millions off the efforts of others. It’s a weird world where those who work make less than those who observe. The last time that was a major source of income in the US it ended up leading to a war and being abolished. Not to sound too much like a dramatist of course.

  Questions emailed in (depending on legitimacy) will be answered in the order they are received. If they are good enough (IE. Not complete nonsense) I’ll answer them on the here. If you don’t want to comment or can’t figure out where my email is hiding feel free to posit things via the comment system. I’ll also re-open the forums sometime down the road for people to ask things there.