*Edit: I'm silly. 8 3/4 is bigger than 8 1/2, haha. Thanks to my good friend Double Dander for pointing that out. I meant to say 8 1/4, but you realized that.
I finally decided what my real problem is: I'm insufferably in-between. At work, I can't wear the small gloves, I have too fat of palms. But, the medium gloves are too loose. When I buy shoes, 8's are a little too small, where 8.5's are a little too big...8 3/4 where are you? Very few pants are actually the right length on me. Tailored shirts look weird because my chest is not either large or small. If I were a Catholic I'd be doomed to an eternity in purgatory: right in between heaven and hell. Luckily, I'm an atheist.
More importantly, fuck the government and our legislative process. My first gripe is, of course, a tried and true bitch: if it wasn't for the taxes on my paycheck, I'd be a much richer woman. I've pretty much been busting my ass the past couple of weeks, and my paycheck isn't even $400? Bullshit, I tell ya. I hope I will be getting a large refund. Secondly, I was listening to This American Life today, the last broadcast episode. It was about houses of ill repute, a very interesting program. The third act was about the House of Representatives, with senators describing the legislative process and the fact that the Republican's have had the majority for the past 12 years and recently (well not that recently) the Democrats gained the majority back. It was basically outlining the fact that whoever is in the majority takes wicked advantage and ignores the code of conduct by not making bills available till the absolute last possible minute so that Democrats don't have time to read them and therefore cannot make an informed vote. Also, when a bill would actually pass in the Democrat's favor, the speaker of the house will just leave the vote open indefinitely (a major breach of conduct code) so that they can bully the others into changing their vote in the Republican's favor. And, if a Democrat tries to propose an amendment, the speaker talks over them, ignores them (actually in one example turning to his colleagues to discuss later plans) and calls what they have to say impertinent, just to preserve their stronghold.
Then, when the Democrats speak for the unfairness and try to call attention to the breach of code, they are steamrolled.
But what happens when the Democrat's gain back the majority? They start out by proclaiming that in the first hundred days they are going to pass this bill and this one, all furthering issues backed by the Democratic party... etc, etc. They do the EXACT SAME THING that the Republicans have been doing to them in the past 12 years. The reporter was speaking to Peter Defazio and he said something like "Well, of course. This is just for the first hundred days. Then, maybe they'll realize that what they did to us is unacceptable and next time will act differently."
WHAT THE FUCK? These people are representing our fucking country. They are acting like children, whole-heartedly throwing themselves into this bullshit tug-of-war power trip. I had the illusion that these people, who work their entire lives to convince the public that they are representing their interests and have their best interests at heart, would be above this kind of petty crap (I can't even think of a word to describe it). If this is how the people in these positions act, then where is the hope? There is not even one intelligent mind in that whole fucking place that realizes the senselessness of this behavior and that if no precedent is set, and each party just keeps trying to get back at the other for mistreatment it will never end? This is a basic staple of life! This is what our parents fucking teach us when we are little children. If your sibling hits you, you don't hit them back. What kind of example is this fucking setting for America? I'll tell you. Its further and further perpetuating the American stereotype that every man is an island and if he doesn't look out for himself than he'll never get anywhere. All we do is grab and grab everything in our reach, with no thought of the rest of the world or even the ones in our own country. Its teaching the kids who are growing up here that they better not ever do anything that could be good for someone else, ESPECIALLY if they have been slighted by the person in the past. It makes me absolutely ill. I am so ashamed. This only helps me make my mind up further that I am never having children and if I were to, we would go live our lives in a third world country and spend them serving other people so as to maybe cleanse them of human's innate selfishness. Well, I don't like children, so that's not likely to happen. I wish I was intelligently able to discourse about studies done on the effect power has on people and the social and psychological trends that leads to this type of behavior, but I don't know much about that type of research. I do know about one study that I heard of that put high school age children into a prison guard situation and observed their behavior. The placement of a civilian in this sort of position led to a gross abuse of the power, that came to physically abusing their "inmates." And what happend when the roles were reversed? The people who were just in those vulnerable situations had no empathy for the people who were now in the situation they were just in and if anything, the abuse got worse. This was a play-acting experiment. The participants were given the option to leave whenever they wanted to, and when the "prisoners" wanted to leave the "guards" refused. Play-acting. So what actually happens when these positions are real? The House is an example of exactly what happens.
If you want to listen to the episode of This American Life that I am referring to, go to www.thisamericanlife.org and there is a link to listen to the streaming feed of the episode right on the front page. It is titled "Houses of Ill Repute." I would recommend it, it is a great show and a very interesting episode.
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