I’m becoming a Luddite.  I tire of the Internet because it seems more and more like a collection of meaningless yammering.  I rebel against smartphones because they outsource and therefore erode human memory and problem-solving, and because their users get so caught up in having the whole world at their fingertips that they forget to look at the world in front of their faces.

I cannot stand constant music and stimulation.  Silence is essential and restorative, but I fear my generation is forgetting that.  We surround ourselves with valueless diversions, intellectual empty calories, and when we are deprived of those, we become uncomfortable, as the coffee addict does when deprived of caffeine.

We are information junkies, factoid fiends.  We crave data, not experience.  We freebase bytes, mainline memes.  Our Internet-addled brains teach our souls to function in 140 characters or less.  And we suffer for it.  The World Wide Web does make the world smaller, but we’re allowing it to make our culture smaller, our hearts smaller, our humanity smaller.

There is more truth in a flag flapping in a summer breeze than there is in all of Wikipedia.  The night sky holds more beauty than every photosharing website combined.  But we cannot hear that flap over the tinny beat of our MP3 players, we cannot see the cosmos over the glow of our LCD prisons, which shrink the Universe to a two by four inch screen.

So, in a day or two, I’m burning this page to the ground, and hopefully something tangible and true will rise from the ashes to take its place in the tick-tock-tick than is my life.

Fuck yeah is the phrase, I think.

The State of Georgia does not permit the sale of alcohol on Sundays.

This movie is fucking amazing.  Equal parts creepy, violent horror and sweet, genuine romance.  Watch it now.

Not awesome, part II.

“[Iran] tramples the rights of women, tramples the rights of gays, tramples the rights of people all throughout their society.”

— Rick Santorum, Republican Presidential candidate and former Senator from Pennsylvania, in a Presidential debate, August 11, 2011.

Sounds good, but first a word on Santorum’s Senate record:

• “Plan B morning-after pill is abortion, and dangerous.” (Sep 2006)
• Voted NO on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
• Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
• Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
• Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

Source

Writers are the only artists who complain about how hard their craft is, how much it hurts to do.  When was the last time you heard a sculptor say, “Goddammit, I hate marble!” or a musician say “Fucking half-notes never sound like they’re supposed to!”

Man up, writers.  Get it done and get it done with dignity.

look, mildly amusing object

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”

Jesus of Nazareth, in the Gospel of John, 15:12

A word for every religious person who condemns in the name of the Lord, and one that Republicans and Democrats alike would do well to note in this upcoming election.

Herein you will find an op-ed piece bashing “Millennials” — people between the ages of 18 and 30 — for being lazy, spoiled, and unfit to join Adult Society.

And here is a comment on the piece from a user calling himself trdurden, doubtless a Millennial as well:

“Wrong. Millennials were no more coddled in childhood than any other generation. What we were told, from a very young age, was that if we worked hard and got a good education, then our opportunities for success would skyrocket.

But what happened? Was it our laziness; our ineptitude? No. We graduated high school and attended a great college that we were able to pay for through student loans, which, we were all told, was standard practice; after all, getting into debt was the American way. Sure, we’d owe a lot of money once we graduated, but with so many job opportunities, it would be manageable.

So it wasn’t our laziness. We worked hard and got that college degree that had been so beaten in our souls as being absolutely necessary to succeed. 

We worked hard. We weren’t lazy. So why is it we millennials are having such a hard time? 

It’s so easy for the older generation to blame the younger of character defects, isn’t it? After all, the flower children were no good layabouts; the baby boomers didn’t know how easy they had it compared to those raised during the depression.

So here we are with a piece of paper in our hands claiming we’ve learned enough to enter the job market so we can pay off the mountains of debt we were told were manageable and what happened? Your generation, Navarrette, went ahead and landed us in the worst world economic climate in recent history.

It takes a lot of nerve to be a part of the same generation that is responsible for this horrific job market and then blame millennials of laziness and not knowing how to truly “earn” our way.

We followed your instructions.
We did everything your generation guaranteed us would bring us success.
And now you want to turn around and call us lazy because of what your generation did?”