Why The World Might Actually End

End of the world prophesies and predictions are everywhere these days and each one passes as if nothing changed. And that's because nothing has changed. But I'm beginning to think it's not really that far off.

Our ethics and morals the world over are fucked. This might not come as news for a lot of people, but the part that scares me the most is that we know our ethics and morals are fucked, but we're doing absolutely nothing about it.

We think saving the planet is weak.

Possibly the most important thing for us as a species to be concerned about is the planet we live on because, despite what movies predict, we won't be inhabiting the moon or mars or the space station or anything other than this one planet we have. I mean, maybe in a few thousand years. But not before then, if ever. So it would make sense to recognize that we don't really have a choice but to be good stewards of the planet. It would also be awesome to not be so goddamn self centered and think about what those future generations are going to deal with, but I do realize that's asking a lot. For whatever reason.

Thing is, though, we're not just protecting the planet for our great grandchildren, or our grandchildren, or even our children. We're not getting out of our very own lives without some serious consequences. Not just if we don't start protecting it now. It's already too late. It's very, very likely I'll never see a wild elephant. In a few years they'll be extinct in the wild, and while elephants can be reintroduced into the wild eventually, too much has to change for that to be a viable option. War has ravaged their habitat for decades - that's not just going to stop because elephants need to be reintroduced. The demand for ivory has only been growing (which infuriates me to no end - there truly are no words to describe my anger at a whole generation of people whose frivolous purchases fuel murders and extinctions), and as soon as elephants are back on the market they'll be poached before they can reproduce. We'll also lose the Arctic circle, which means bye-bye polar bears. Because the planet is warming every year the ice will never return, which means reintroduction of anything in that area is impossible.

We blame unpopular victims.

It seems like the whole world has adopted a boys will be boys attitude about how we treat our fellow people. I don't know if I've just been paying more attention the last couple years, but it seems like more and more high profile people are raping and getting away with it. Raping students, raping children, raping and taking pictures. And it's ok, cause no one calls them out. No one punishes them. It's no big deal. 

And you know what we do then? We blame the victim. Woman out at a bar gets raped? Shouldn't have worn whatever it was that she wore. Woman walking home alone gets raped? Shouldn't have been out alone. Woman with her friend on a bus? Shouldn't have had a vagina. Seriously, that's all it is. It should not matter how much the girl was "asking for it" with her clothes or actions or existence. When did simply having a vagina come to mean you are a receptacle for everyone else's whims? Why on earth does it matter what a woman wore to a club on the night she was raped? Why does it matter that she had sex with someone else the night before? Why does it matter that she consented before that one time? Why do we argue whether or not it was rape if she was passed out? Or too drunk to stand? Or she agreed at the bar but changed her mind at home? How desperate do boys have to be to think that all of those situations equal legitimate sex? Are they afraid of rejection? Do they feel entitled because they got her a cab? Do they really believe we ask for it? I used to love wearing overalls when I was a kid (and in high school... shut up, it was cool). But I was told to be careful when wearing them because the back strap was easy to cut with scissors and all a rapist would have to do is yank them down, and it'd be just like I was wearing a skirt. I was literally told I could be raped for wearing overalls.

We tax the poor.

At least in America we argue over who should be taxed and how much everyone should pay. I'm not willing (or able) to get into the details of the tax exemptions that expired at the beginning of the year or how that will affect me and the rest of the country (partially because I haven't seen an effect yet), but I do know that the vast majority of Americans will take home less money right when many of us were thinking we were home free. It's been a true struggle for years for all of us and most people are starting to climb out of the hole we found ourselves in a few years ago. But to now see less of our paychecks? I do know that our economy is not all better just yet - taking more money out of the hands of people who do the buying can't be the best idea. Then again I'm not a politician, so I don't know the nuances of why that's an arguing point. 

But it disturbs me to see our politicians arguing over how to spend the money we do have. Congress argued over relief money for Hurricane Sandy. Excuse me, super storm Sandy. It got downgraded from hurricane to super storm, depriving homeowners from their insurance money. Because they were only insured for hurricane damage, not super storm damage. So the insurance companies are bullshit, and Congress trying to decide whether or not to be good goddamn people and put aside a little extra for a natural disaster is extreme bullshit. I honestly do not understand why, whenever we're talking about the budget and where we're allowed to allocate money, why why why schools and Planned Parenthood and disaster relief and infrastructure are the first things on the chopping block when Congress makes fucking good money for the measly amount of work they do. While their constituents, who they talk about all the goddamn time, work 40 hours a week at at least one job (many work more than that at multiple jobs) to make rent and feed ourselves and our kids, congress members get whole months off and spend their work days bickering and arguing over which of the poor gets money, meanwhile enjoying perks like government cars and phones, and some have even better perks. I don't see why Congress deserves the pay they get. They should receive the same pay as cops and firefighters or at the absolute minimum have penalties that affect their pay whenever they put off doing their jobs.

We argue over the wrong things.

Gun laws have been talked about more than ever since 20 kids were murdered last month. Gun enthusiasts refuse to admit that guns kill people, despite studies and records every year that say otherwise. Guns are more likely to kill someone the owner had no intention of killing than they are of being used for their intended purpose, yet people still want to have them around. In their homes, with their children, cocked and loaded. In fact, politicians are making it easier for those with mental health issues to obtain guns legally and want to make it illegal for physicians and psychiatrists to caution against gun safety. 

And we're also still arguing whether gays should be allowed to marry. Whether two grown adults who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together be allowed to wed gets just as much debate as whether or not mentally unstable people should be allowed to have military style, automatic weapons that cause mass murder. This is utterly ridiculous and says more about our morals and ethics than anything else. 

The world has to be coming to an end. It's 2013 and it feels 200 years earlier.

Another Word On Gun Control

Since I am a writer and I have a blog, and since I am American and human and disgusted at the violence against children we value so highly, I'm going to weigh in on the gun control debate that is consuming our country. (Spoiler alert: gun nuts may want to stop reading right about now.)

The gun control debate is a distraction.

That we're even arguing about gun control and gun rights in the wake of 20 dead children and 8 dead adults is ridiculous. I've been reading about guns and gun rights and gun ownership and gun violence every day for a week and have heard the full range of opinion from all sides. In the end, I've decided "gun rights" is an oxymoron. Americans should not have the right to own a gun. No one should have the right to own something designed exclusively to kill.

But what about protection? While guns may be purchased under the assumption that they will only be used in cases of self defense (for example, in a home invasion or robbery), guns are not typically used for protection. Guns settle escalating arguments (hardly a noble motive), guns provide a means for letting out anger against another person, guns are used against friends and family members, and guns are fired accidentally during play or cleaning or "empty" threats. But guns are not used - widely, at least - to protect their owners. Sure, there are some people who are able to defend their lives and property against someone else with a gun because they have a gun, but those people are in the extreme minority.

But what about hunters? I don't know many hunters, but the ones I do know use more traditional weapons - single bullet rifles (or bird shot), knives, single line fishing rods, etc. I do not know of a hunter who uses or claims to need an automatic weapon for hunting. Nor have I ever heard of a hunter who claims to rely on an automatic weapon. In fact, hunters widely take pride in their skill at killing a fleeing animal with a single shot (or maybe two). Blindly shooting into a forest to kill a deer and anything else in your path is not a skill, and is not the point of hunting (any hunters out there are welcome to correct me). There are rules, regulations, and etiquette that hunters follow, and those who deviate are fined, banned and/or ridiculed by their fellow hunters. A "hunter" who shoots up a deer half a dozen times and uses absolutely no stealth, strength or aim to kill is not the same as a hunter who tracks and cleanly kills a deer causing almost no disruption to the rest of the forest. A hunting rifle will have 5 or 6 bullets in the magazine, while a military style automatic weapon (of similar structure) will have a magazine that can hold dozens, if not hundreds, of bullets.

But what about the second amendment? Bullshit. In all likeliness, the 2nd amendment was not created so that all citizens can freely carry automatic weapons, hidden in coats in public places armed with bullet proof vests and military armor, it was created to ensure a prepared military. Which we have. In fact, we have the most highly trained military in the world, full of fucking volunteers, who want to do nothing but be in the military. Our country spends more money arming and preparing the several branches of our military to respond to any situation imaginable. There's no chance that many millions of people, most of whom probably join the military to protect the American people, would go along with a government take-over that the seemingly paranoid NRA believes could happen.

But what about my freedom and right to own a gun? If your freedom to own a gun - something that's sole purpose is to kill - means that my freedom and right to live is at risk, I'm going to argue that your freedom is less important than mine. Because by law it is. The NRA saying that we need more civilians to be armed with guns to prevent murders from happening means I need to rely on others to protect me. Since no one is saying every American should have and carry a gun those who are uncomfortable with that prospect don't have to carry one. But it also means that we can't stop certain people from having and carrying guns, if it's a right bestowed on all Americans, which means I'm at the mercy of all those potentially unstable gun toting citizens. But hey, that's their right, right?

So what if it's unlikely that I'll actually use the gun I bought for the reasons I said I bought it, I still have the right and still want the opportunity to use a gun for those reasons. Again, I have to call bullshit. If you know that a gun at home is far more likely to kill a family member (or yourself) than an intruder and you still want one, you're not thinking clearly. And anyone who is not thinking clearly should not have a gun. Let's, for argument's sake, say you buy a handgun for protection against home robbery. Let's say you wake up in the middle of the night because you  hear someone coming into your home (and let's assume it's not your kid coming back late, the dog making a racket, or someone you know doing something completely innocent) and you have your handgun at hand. Because you're worried about protecting yourself, you don't keep your gun in a safe, and it's always loaded. After arming yourself, you creep down the hall to where you hear the intruder. It's dark, but you obviously can't turn on any lights. You find the suspect in the living room, snooping around. Fortunately, he hasn't noticed you yet, so you have the advantage. You shoot. What are the odds you hit? Perhaps the gun had more of a kickback than you remembered the last time you used it. Perhaps it was darker than you thought and the suspect was the easy chair, which now has a nice hole in it. Perhaps your hand was shaking at the prospect of killing a person (even an intruder) and you missed entirely. Perhaps you hit the person but didn't kill him or her. What now? You're in your PJs, the intruder has every advantage now. Chances are the intruder will now fire at you, and because he or she is more accustomed to holding and firing a gun and because he or she has grown accustomed to the darkness, you're hit. You may not die, but now the intruder is gone and you need an ambulance. And that's the scenario if all goes well. If the "intruder" is your kid or your dog or someone you don't want to kill you're totally fucked if that bullet finds its target. If, because you want easy access to it in case of an intruder you don't keep your gun in a safe, someone else finds the gun and accidentally kills themselves or someone else, will you still advocate owning a gun for protection? No one can answer this until it happens. You absolutely cannot speculate how you would feel until your kid or your parent or your spouse, or even your dog, is dead because you had a gun.

Yes, people will still kill people even if no one has a gun. But it'll be a lot, lot harder. Kids won't accidentally die after finding a gun kept for protection, arguments won't escalate to the point that someone grabs his gun, 20 children won't die in 15 minutes because someone had a gun. Yes, we'll still have cars and knives and bombs and cross bows and even airplanes that will kill mass people. But not more than 8 thousand people in one year. And that's the point. No one is saying that we will eliminate murders or suicides if we eliminate guns.  But there will be far, far, far fewer.

Teaching For The Money

Because I wanted to post a cat picture, and this was highly relevant.

How many teachers do you know? How many teachers do you know who got into teaching because it paid well? How many teachers do you know who got into teaching because making a difference in kids lives and doing something worthwhile was important to them?

I know several teachers and not one of them got into it because it would make them rich. Sure, regular vacations was appealing, especially to those who want kids (making it easier to have a career and kids). But my teacher friends figured they'd have about enough to get by - maybe their spouses would have higher earning careers so they could afford the kids they wanted.

My teacher friends paid their own money to go through a credential program in order to teach the children of their communities. And they do it while paying down the loans they took to get their Bachelors and their credentials (and some their masters), making just enough money do do so and pretend to be middle class, and if they put in enough time they'll get a nice teaching position in a school close to their homes and have their loans paid off and be able to lead nice, modest lives.

But what is the first thing on the chopping block every time we have budget issues? Teachers. School supplies. Even the number of days our kids are in school. And how does this help? It gives teachers fewer earning days a year, lessening their salaries by hundreds or thousands, which means they have less money to spend on their kids or their classrooms (a lot of teachers use their own money to buy classroom supplies), less money to spend improving our economy. It also means parents of kids have to spend more money on daycare or more time bribing others to watch their kids or take more time off work (days they don't earn money) to keep their kids occupied. Each day a parent doesn't earn money is less money the family has to spend on the economy, and each paycheck that goes to daycare is less money on other things. How this will help our economy in the long run is something that I've yet to understand.

Politicians have all but accused teachers of not being altruistic enough when they protested budget cuts. Every year hundreds of teachers (whole school systems) receive layoff notices, putting hundreds of people out of work. Many of these teachers regain their jobs or find new jobs in other districts, but the stress that ensues means they stash away any extra cash they might have, stopping it from reentering the economy. Politicians stop just short of saying our kids' education isn't important, teachers should just be happy to be influencing the next generation, and there are more important things than school. 

But what happens when these same teachers lay down their lives - literally - for their students? What happens when teachers hide their kids from a gunman, saving them, and lose their lives for their efforts? All we can do is call them heroes. But in 6 months when we're still having budget issues these teacher's colleagues will be on the chopping block. Again. Because we have no other way to thank them. 

Perhaps it's time to start rethinking our values as a country. Maybe the second amendment isn't as important as the value we place on education from a young age. Maybe a defense budget isn't as important as widespread physical and mental health care. Maybe we should commit to short term sacrifices for the long term good. Or maybe I'm just a liberal woman who doesn't know anything.

Just Another School Shooting

I heard the reports that there was a gunman on an elementary school campus in Connecticut Friday morning around 8:30, right when I got into work to start Twittering and Facebooking for my clients. At that time the Tweets weren't saying there were any deaths, so I kept scrolling, looking for something relevant to post or retweet.

Had I clicked on any of the links in those tweets I might have learned far earlier what happened. It wasn't until after 11am Pacific time when a coworker asked  if we'd heard about the 27 dead in the school shooting.

Wait... what?

Twenty seven. Dead. Most of them children.

Throughout the day I paid close attention to Twitter, waiting to see the latest as the story unfolded. My office was quiet for a long time - like the rest of the country we were shocked, horrified and saddened that such a thing would happen to 6 and 7 year old kids. The shooter was barely an adult himself at just 20. Why would he target classrooms of little kids?

There was the range of typical emotions I felt on Friday (anger, frustration, sadness, shock), but one I did not feel was surprise. When I saw that first tweet my thought was just another school shooting. I hoped no one was injured, and assumed that if anyone was it would be just 1 or 2 people, like what had happened just two goddamned days earlier in Oregon. The point was this had happened so many times just in the last 6 months that I very nearly brushed it off completely. It seems like there's always someone with a gun  going crazy and not caring if they die. For a long time, Columbine was a word everyone knew. Then so was Virginia Tech. These places were where innocent kids (and young adults) died because a crazy classmate wanted to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible. Now I'm honestly having a hard time remembering the names of the schools and towns where massacres took place over the last two years. This year was that place in Arizona where the state representative was shot in the head but survived, there was the midnight movie theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado, a few people killed in a mall in Oregon, and now there's Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, a place I'm sure to forget after the next few mass shootings. 

There's not enough time in between shootings now to really commemorate each location. We all knew Columbine and Virginia Tech like we knew 9/11. There are kids alive right now who know nothing of what it was like before we killed each other on a regular basis and endured being killed by extremists. Taking off their shoes, being touched by strangers in an airport security line and being scanned for explosives is just how we fly planes now. I remember when the building in Oklahoma City was bombed: that was heavy news for a good week that caused my mom to cry for days. I remember feeling for the kids in that building, there only because one company provided daycare for its employees, and wondering why that man would do such a thing.  Now a school shooting (as horrible as an elementary school massacre is) is just one more tragedy.*

A second thought: there was a lot of misinformation reported on Friday. Other than me thinking no one had died, it was reported that the shooter was targeting his mother, a teacher at Sandy Hook, and her classroom. It was also reported that the shooter's dad's body was found at his house later in the afternoon. It was also reported that there were two shooters, brothers, and one had escaped to the woods nearby. All of these things (and possibly more things) are false. There was one shooter, and his father is still alive. His mother, not a teacher at that school, was found shot to death in her bed in the home she shared with the shooter (it was her guns the shooter stole and used). The shooter acted entirely alone, and his brother was unfairly arrested and questioned. The Huffington Post also had to edit a report that "misidentified" a Facebook profile as that of the shooter (major oops).

What's with journalists? Are they so excited to be the first to report something that they won't check to make sure it's correct? Does accuracy not matter anymore? Just because one cop or paramedic makes a remark or comments on something does not mean it's true. Plus, the reporters were going around to the surviving 7 year olds and asking them what they heard, what they felt, and how they got out alive. Fucking 7 year old little kids are being interviewed and asked what it was like to survive one of the worst school shootings in the country's history. I wonder how that's going to make them feel when they're old enough to understand what happened. Reporters should have laid off the kids. Talk to adults in the school, or parents after they found out their kids were safe... but leave the traumatized kids alone.

*Aside: Up until the first week of November of this year the there was a lot of debate between the presidential candidates, their VPs, and various other congress members and senators about who will keep us safer from extremists who hate our way of life and want Americans dead. Maybe it's time to focus less on outside forces and more on those within our ranks who want us dead (or at least some of us). 

To Die Young And Unhappy

(Or, how misleadingly titled "studies" create sensationalism.)

Two flawed studies today revealed that if I keep to my way of life I will die young and unhappy. Or at least younger and less happy than others.

No, not because I have a crazy wild lifestyle and party hard and make risky choices, but because I am childless and non-religious. Apparently, not having children causes a death rate of two to four times as high as those who have children and not being religious robs me of happiness.

The first study: The one that says the childless have a higher death rate than the child-bearing looked at couples in Denmark treated for infertility, and collected data from birth and death registries, IVF records, hospital admissions, psychiatric services, and labor market statistics. During the 14 year study, a large number of women and larger number of men died and a very large number of women and slightly less large number of men were diagnosed with a mental illness. "Having a child cut the risk of early death, particularly among women." Childless men and women are 2 and 4 times more likely to die from circulatory disease, cancer, or accidents than those who conceive or adopt. To their credit, the study does end by saying correlation is not causation, so I guess there's that.

The flaws: First and foremost, the title of the study is quite misleading. Death is not 2-4 times more likely for childless couples because everyone dies. Obviously that wasn't the point, but I will still point out a second flaw in the title, which is acknowledged in the study itself: there is no differentiation between voluntarily childless couples and involuntarily childless couples. It also points out a glaring problem with the whole having children quest some people are on: if mental illness (depression) and a risk of an earlier than normal death is so prevalent among the involuntarily childless, why not adopt? The study recorded that only 1,500 of 21,000 couples treated for infertility adopted (15,000 conceived). This means there were 4,500 couples who were unable to conceive a child and chose not to adopt... I'm guessing these were the couples that were diagnosed with depression and died earlier than the others. The study showed that couples that adopted could halve their risk of mental illness, which makes sense: if you spend your whole adult life lamenting your infertility but don't adopt one of the very needy children in foster care because it's not your blood? I can see how you'd get depressed. And there was the awesome inclusion of "rates of mental ill health were similar between couples with and without children of their own, with the exception of those with drug and alcohol problems." Seems a little unnecessary to include that tidbit... 

The second study: The one that says religious people are happier than non-religious people looked at why this is found to be true ("considerable" research has been done on the topic). Turns out religion gives people a sense of purpose, is a resource for coping with life and fears, and provides them with a social network. Religion is a social activity and since social connectedness is a major contributor to individual happiness it stands to reason that the religious are happier. It's not just having a social circle, though, it's having the support of that social circle. Like the previous study, they do note that correlation is not causation and religion does not predict happiness by itself. (There was also mention of a separate study that looked at the repeal of blue laws, or laws that made it illegal for stores to be open on Sunday, and it found that women were happier when blue laws existed. In an almost funny manner, the writer of the study suggested that church makes women happier than shopping does.)

The flaws: The study points out that religion is only associated with greater happiness in countries where most of the people are religious, like in the United States (we also have the great fortune of equating Christianity with patriotism). The study is based on the premise that if most people form social ties through their religion, and you're not religious, you will have a hard time finding social support and will be less happy because of it. This also assumes that religious people won't want to befriend a non-religious person. The study does end by saying that it's not religion that makes people happy, it's the social ties religion facilitates that makes people happy, but I guarantee you a lot of people don't get past that goddamn sensationalist title.

My bottom line: Taking these titles to heart, I'll have a 4 times higher risk of death by cancer, an accident or circulatory disease if I remain childless and I'll waste away my remaining days unhappy with my life due to lack of social support. Which actually kind of makes sense: religious people have more kids than average, so if I'm childless I'm already kind of out of the loop, and if I'm childless and non-religious I'm pretty much just screwed.

Relationship Rags

Relationships will always sell magazines (or to put it more modernly, will always get page hits). I can't decide if it's because people don't know how to function in relationships or we crave constant validation that we're not as bad as the horror stories we read about. We compare ourselves in our relationships to other people in their relationships, persistently reevaluating our happiness with another person. Magazines oh-so-helpfully provide us with a monthly list of 679 ways to make him/her happy/satisfied/fall in love/ scream your name from the rooftops of every 7-11 in a 50 mile radius.

Men's magazines are just as bad: Men's Health invented 41 ways to make your woman swoon, which amazingly found a way to throw in the tried and true and ever so cliche flowers when you fuck up. Also, they place "get her to fulfill your sexual fantasies" right next to "I don't like giving my girl oral." The only real difference I see in men's magazines versus women's is the males want tips on getting and keeping a girl who will do sexy things and females want to find (or create) that one perfect man who supports her. What about just know who you're dating and do things he/she prefers? Is common sense dead or just sick?

I want to create a magazine for women that skips all the irrelevant relationship bullcrap. The magazine would support the idea that women, as people, can better themselves and their world. It would probably include important news events, any relevant sex and relationship stories (like how abuse can't be tolerated), and ways women can be more socially/environmentally aware with their dress and make-up and social activities. Of course it would have to include some sort of celebrity gossip (gag) that I would not write but must exist in order to be read...

But who am I kidding... the masses don't read stuff like that. Sigh.