trumpf

Posted on January 17, 2017 by qrparker

When I left America two years ago, it was in pretty good condition. Sure, poverty was abundant and Justin Bieber was culturally relevant, but our riots were minimal and public servants could be expected not to casually joke about banging their own daughters.

For all the rock dwellers and foreigners, here’s a basic summation of the last eight years of American politics:

You may call this an oversimplification, but I call it a cartoon on the internet I made in five minutes.

The point is this – The Left got so used to calling themselves open-minded that a vocal section of them forgot to actually keep an open mind. Through this process “open-mindedness” became less about accepting others and more about villainizing and idealizing large groups of people based on race and gender – the exact thing they used to be against.

Here’s some simple truths:

if you’re judging someone based on their race, you’re being racist.

If you judge someone based on their sex, you’re being sexist.

It doesn’t matter how many liberal arts degrees you slap around those definitions.

How can you claim moral high ground over a racist if you judge them for their race? How can you lay judgement on a sexist if you judge them for their sex?

The last time I touched on these ideas I made so many personal friends angry that I stopped writing for over a year. I did this not because I thought what I said was untruthful, but because I didn’t want to feel I was contributing to the growing political division in America. But Donald Trump’s election represents a dangerous precedent that can’t be ignored.

He’s not Right or Left.

He’s a toddler with nukes. A self-aggrandizing populist who sees leading the most powerful country in the world not as a civic duty, but just another notch in the belt his father purchased. In his extensively documented seventy years of life, he’s proven to serve no one but himself, and will take on any belief he thinks will win him the most applause in that moment.

If racism makes him popular he’ll talk about building walls.

If gay rights make him popular he’ll wear a rainbow lapel.

If war makes him popular he’ll incite global violence.

Leaders who appeal to popular desires and prejudices rather than rationality are called Demagogues, and they have a long history with very few good results. But you can’t fight ignorance with more ignorance. Pretending The Left’s modern bigotry is a solution to The Right’s classical bigotry is not a solution. We won’t survive the next four years if we pretend it is.

I mean, I might. But a lot of my friends won’t, and a lot of my friends are pretty nice people. I know Americans do dumb things like electing Trump, but we also do smart things, like inventing the internet. So if the rest of world promise to let us off the hook for the next four years, I promise we’ll invent something at least as revolutionary as the internet once the next president rolls around.

~Fin

End The Oppression Of Free Speech

Posted on December 2, 2015 by qrparker

In case you couldn’t tell by my unkempt hair or proclivity for drawing Jesus as a non-white dude, I’m a pretty liberal guy. So when progressive ideas like feminism and gay-rights and whatever- the-opposite-of-racism-is began to take hold among popular culture I was pretty happy because, fundamentally, I think these ideas serve as a reminder to judge each person by their character, not the genetics they were born with.

Still want to call me racist, even after reading those funny pictures? Well, guess what, sucka? I’ve never mentioned my race or my gender on this blog. If you assume I’m a white man just because I draw myself with no skin color and a square body then YOU’RE THE HETERO-NORMATIVE RACIST BIGGOT. Mwahahaha.

If you’re not picking up on the irony then that probably means you haven’t been spending time on big, wealthy, liberal arts colleges in America. Congratulations on graduating/not being an American.

Listen: as of late, hordes of young, wealthy, supposedly progressive college students have been gathering together to complain that their large, prestigious, ivy-league institutes (whose admittance was definitely merit-based and had nothing to do with parental connection and wealth) are not doing enough to protect them from words and ideas they don’t like. I would find this phenomenon disconcerting if it were happening in my local middle school. The fact that it’s happening in million-dollar educational institutions is terrifying.

If all this seems outlandish to you, here’s a couple of articles from much more credible sources than my dumb, internet thingamablog:

The Atlantic – Coddling of the American Mind

US NEWS – Megaphones to Muzzles

New York Times – Hiding from Scary Ideas

The most personally frustrating part of this phenomenon is that I actually agree with a lot of the underlying messages of these protests. There are many socially marginalized groups in America that absolutely deserve to have their voice heard. But demanding the censorship of anyone who doesn’t welcome you with open arms is the kind of crazy radical idea that can only existing in a country that DOESN’T have such censorship.

The world can be a tough place, but living in a city as diverse as Vancouver, I’ve met and worked alongside people who literally had to flee their own countries to avoid persecution or death for their religion, race, or orientation. One of my coworkers is a refugee from the Nepalese earthquake. One is an orphaned Iranian refugee. One is a gay man from Sri Lanka, a country where homosexuality is illegal — not frowned upon by the religious right wing — an actual crime you can be sentenced to prison for. Just about everyone I work with has experienced more institutionalized tragedy and discrimination than anyone I ever met living in America, and I’m willing to bet, more than anyone engaged in these college protests.

Why am I so sure?

Because, overwhelmingly, the people I’ve met who’ve suffered horrifically don’t try to censor others. Overwhelmingly, they’re grateful. That doesn’t mean they’re always happy, or that they never complain, or that they aren’t willing to fight for their ideas. It means they understand how much freedom they have, and that there is a sharp, cutting difference between having someone disagree with you (or, as often the case in these protests, having someone only agree with you 95 percent) and real, legislated, institutional repression. When college students in some of the most prestigious, powerful, advantaged establishments on earth use their privilege to censor the free-exchange of ideas, they look spoiled. Worst of all, they make legitimate ideas and ideologies appear weak to those on the other side.

A person who promotes acceptance through unacceptance has nothing but hollow words. Hating homophobes won’t make homosexuals safer. Hating whites won’t make blacks any more accepted. Hating the rich won’t feed the poor and hating yourself doesn’t give you a right to hurt people.

Hating those who hate only increases the net amount of hate in the world.

Censorship is a temporary solution that does nothing to solve the underlying problem. Let’s improve the world through solutions, not suppression.

~Fin

Fun With Racism

Posted on November 19, 2015 by qrparker

Note: This blog post deals with very serious social issues and any attempts to find humor or inject levity into the pain of human existence will be met with stern glares from all my liberal, college-educated, white friends.

This is a post I’ve rewritten maybe three times over the last year, trying to refine exactly what I want to say. It’s tricky. Things have really changed since the brisk, carefree liberalism of my youth.

When I was first developing my political views, America was a far more conservative space than it is today. All a bright-faced, rebellious, optimistic teen had to do to be liberal was NOT support the war-mongering, anti-intellectual, technically unelected president.

Times have changed though. America’s current president is both democratically elected AND half-black. No matter how cynical you are about racial politics, the fact that black people can go from literal property to Leader of The Free World proves that a fuckton of progress has been made.

Disregarding any political feelings one might have about Barack “Probably-a-Secret-Terrorist-and-Antichrist-Hussein” Obama, his election was a massive, historical event in American history. Following this election, a tidal wave of mainstream liberalism drowned popular culture, splashed unpopular culture, and dried completely before it hit anyone rich or powerful.

The liberal flood, combined with the almighty connecting power of the internet, has created such an ocean of social issues that even a friendly, open-minded fella’ like myself has some trouble keeping up.

The thing that constantly divides me from my generation and all their new ideas is not the ideas themselves, but the fact that no one is willing to admit this stuff is fucking nuanced. These ideas are cutting-edge, digital-age, precision technology, and yet I’m constantly at odds with people I agree with due to their insistence on wielding progressivism like a blunt-force object.

In my mind, the point of all this rigmarole, the apex of creating a progressive society, is to build a place where people are kind to each other. You know, that thing all your heroes wanted.

Call me sequential, but I cannot envision a society that achieves greater kindness and understanding by refusing to acknowledge perceptions and beliefs beyond their own, no matter how irrational the opposing side’s viewpoint may feel.

Let’s try to be kind.

~Fin

A King in Nepal

Posted on November 29, 2014 by qrparker

~Fin

My Roommate, The Ghost

Posted on June 5, 2014 by qrparker

My roommate and I don’t have a good relationship.

That’s not to say we have a bad relationship.

We’ve lived together for almost a year, yet somehow we don’t have a relationship at all.

Every time my roommate sees me, he runs away.

It’s my ideal living situation.

After several months of vigorous non-discussion, I began to suspect my roommate might not be very fond of me. Then, to protect my ego, I began to suspect he was a ghost.

At first it was a joke, but like most jokes, the longer it percolated in my mind, the less funny it became. If my roommate was genuinely a ghost, then his refusal to speak to me or look me in the eyes or acknowledge the fact that I lived ten feet away from him had less to do with my social skills and more to do with his ephemeral statues.

Last week, my roommate left. He didn’t say goodbye, but he did leave a bunch of paperwork he was supposed to do.

While filling out his notice of vacancy form and sliding his keys into an envelope, I realized there was actually no substantial evidence that he existed at all. I never even got his phone number. Was it possible that my roommate was just a figment I invented to make my apartment less lonely?

I thought about existence for a long time. For most of us, a couple hundred years after we die, it’ll be like we never existed at all.

For a few days, I was melancholy. Then I realized I was still only paying half the rent. So, if my roommate didn’t exist, that means I’m kind of a genius.

Have a nice summer everyone.

~Fin

Two Geniuses Who Killed People

Posted on March 20, 2014 by qrparker

Why has genius, as of late, chosen to take the form of mustachioed men with happy faces and big noses? For reference, I present two geniuses:

(Albert Einstein – Developed Theory of Relativity and relatively bombed Japan)

(Kurt Vonnegut – Brilliant anti-war writer and World War Two participant)

It’s spring break around my part of the world, so I’ve been trying to keep as unproductive as possible. That means I’ve been doing a lot of reading and bed-sulking.

One of the books I’ve been sulk-reading is Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. I avoided this book for years because the title made it sound like a miserable, depression-inducing war novel. Imagine my delight when I finally cracked open my copy and found it was actually a hilarious, depression-inducing war novel.

The first chapter is very different than the rest of the novel, and is really just Kurt Vonnegut reflecting on the story he’s about to tell. One reflection is about a man who told Vonnegut he’d be just as well writing an anti-glacier novel as an anti-war novel.

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that too.

The one thing Vonnegut didn’t count on when he wrote this in the 1960s was a little thing called global warming.

In the same way Einstein turned his bomb idea into cool science and Vonnegut turned his war participation into anti-war novels, I wonder if we can turn our melting glaciers into peaceful coexistence.

~Fin

My Troubles with Education, Part II (The Long Bus Ride)

Posted on February 27, 2014 by qrparker

Note: This is Part Two. It’s a little more conversational than Part One. You don’t need to read it to understand this one, but you can.

IF YOU LIVE in a country that isn’t America, you’re probably comfortable with public transportation.

For most Americans, their only experience with public transportation will be the school bus. Five minutes on one of those is enough to develop a lifelong disdain for public transportation.

When I was growing up, the young kids rode the same bus as the high schoolers. The administration thought this was good because most drove themselves, so it wasn’t worth the money to get a whole new bus for the few who didn’t.
They were right.
All self-respecting high schoolers either bought a crappy car for themselves or borrowed their parents’ car. Unfortunately, this meant the only ones who did ride the bus were those legally inhibited from driving.

My bus had two criminals – Justin and Angel.

Justin and Angel were seniors, and had been so for several years. Justin had less than a year before he was legally too old to attend High School.

My stop was last on the route, and the bus was overcrowded. By the time I got on, all the seats were full except one.

One mid-semester day, most kids skipped school, so I could sit all by myself. I decided to use this time to get ahead on my reading.

I knew they were behind me because I smelled whiskey and cigarettes. They always drank and smoked on the bus. They weren’t allowed, of course, but they were twice the size of the driver, and my school took a military approach to education:
“If we don’t see it, it didn’t happen.”

That day, Justin and Angel were giggling drunk and their eyes were red and their lighter was an endless source of entertainment.

Hair doesn’t catch fire – it melts.
It turns into plastic and it smells like the chemicals from your shampoo.
When someone decides to melt your hair, you just sit there and let it happen, because they’re four times your size and they’re drunk and high and scary.
Just like I was taught:
“If you don’t see it happen, it didn’t happen.”

Somehow I made it back home without crying.
I told my mom what had happened.
I begged not to have to ride the bus anymore.

For the next few weeks, I missed the bus on purpose and, consequently, missed school.

Sooner than later, I became a disturbance, and was physically moved to the bus stop.

I managed to squeeze a seat in the front on the way there.

After school, during the stampede to the buses, I saw Justin.
He was alone.
He looked right at me.

I tried to get away.

I thought Justin wanted to fight me. I don’t know why I thought that.
I think when you’re young, and you feel you’re in danger, you feel like you have to fight, even if you’re going to lose.

But Justin didn’t want to fight me.

I realized I held all the cards.
On the bus, Justin was an invincible figure who could drink and smoke and melt hair.
At school he was a kid who, despite all his problems, was still trying to graduate three years later than his peers.

And I held control over him.
And I could get him expelled.
And I could send him to jail for assaulting a minor.

Justin and Angel didn’t bother me again.
I saw Justin at the gas station once.
I was a few inches taller than him.
I think he recognized me, but I didn’t say hi.

I really hope he graduated.

~Fin

My Troubles with Education, Part I

Posted on February 13, 2014 by qrparker

I didn’t start school until fifth grade. I homeschooled the previous four grades. It was a time when learning was a joy instead of a job, but I was lonely and so they sent me to school. I was a much better reader than anyone else in my class. It was right at that time before puberty, when that kind of thing would win you admiration from your peers. I didn’t think about it much, until people started having the opposite reaction to my reading habits.

My school had one of those hyperbolic gifted and talented programs that a portion of the class would go to halfway through the day. It was based on a test they took at the beginning of the year when I wasn’t there. Regardless, the kids in the special program made sure to let me know how dumb I was, along with the rest of the class. It was thoughtful of them to include me.

From my perspective, the only services the gifted and talented program provided was taking a bunch of impassionate, obedient nerds and turning them into a bunch of impassionate, obedient bullies.

But me oh my, it did give them a certain glow. Their buck-toothed, braceface smiles seemed to let everyone know we’d be working for them someday. Also, they said that – a lot.

As an English major in college, I have to deal with these people every day. They bring it up in casual conversation, while we’re discussing what books we read growing up, or while handing out their essay to be peer-critiqued. It’s as if the fact they understood fractions half a year sooner than their peers will work like a special sauce, masking the bland flavor of that “life-changing” mission trip that everyone apparently had.

A favorite move of these kids is the “oh, you don’t even want to know what I’m thinking.” This is a technique employed by people of all IQs, but one I’ve found to be most common among low-talent, high-confidence individuals. It allows you to retain the feeling of intellectual superiority despite your inability to come up with a satisfying retort.

The gifted and talented program was full of people who employed this “you don’t even want to know what I’m thinking” technique. It was like their motto. It made sense, of course. These people were used to getting a free pass. Forgetting a reading assignment was an honest mistake for them, and an act of malicious laziness for the rest of us. They were so used to feeling smart, they almost never had to be.

Meanwhile, we in the regular class had to scrap away to gain the most trivial of recognition. Their assignments were all about exploring the text through their own special ego:

“How did this story make you feel?”

“Why do you think the author chose to write about this topic?”

“If the main character were a color, what color do you think he would be?”

The questions, though massed produced, were framed in a way that made the answer-er feel special. The question were asking for what they thought, what they felt.

Our questions tended to look more like this:

“On pg.66, why does Joe Hardy pick up the stick?”

“In chapter 12, why does Frank Hardy say they should enter the cave?”

“What color is the cover of the book?”

Definitive question, definitive answer. Search and find. Strange it seems, that we reward technical intelligence by giving them questions that only a human can answer, while all other forms of intelligence are given questions fit for a machine.

~Fin

Writing Cult

Posted on February 6, 2014 by qrparker

Yesterday, I met with my writing cult. Me and my writer friends My writer friends and I started it last semester. It was spearheaded by the oldest member of our group because – like all great cult leaders – he had a beard

When you first let people read your writing, it’s kind of terrifying. You watch every little movement in the face of the person, hoping they grasp a glimmer of your brilliance.

It’s kind of funny, because when you’re the one doing the reading, you want nothing else but to make sure the person feels comfortable so they don’t hate you afterward.

My writing cult is filled with nothing but nice people, but for some reason, I can never shake the feeling that secretly they’re all planning to get rid of me. I have no reason to believe this. There is no evidence. In fact, we let so many people into the group that now we have to push two tables together and it’s kind of hard to hear everyone.

It’s probably a natural for humans to fear rejection from a social group. No matter how independent anyone thinks they are, humans are social animals, and we don’t last very long on our own.

I think it’s nice to be a part of a group, especially if the group is connected by some broad ideal. The ideal could be becoming better writers or promoting firearm legality or cleansing impurities from the German race – working as team feels good.

I guess you never really know what goes on in other peoples’ minds.

~Fin

How to Lament Advertisements

Posted on January 30, 2014 by qrparker

I lament advertisements.

Trust me, I understand why they exist. I understand the need for people to sell their product, and I understand the best way to garner positive feedback for something is to subconsciously relate it to something people already like. I get that, and I lament it.

Notice something?

That’s right! I bought the energy drink! Thinking I was immune to advertisements is what made me so vulnerable to them.

The conscious mind is what gets all the attention – it looks all glamorous because it’s what makes us better than ants or rockpiles, but we can learn a lot more from focusing on the subconscious mind — the things we do when we don’t have a real reason to do them.

When you start to try and pinpoint the reasons behind your action, you’ll find you often can’t come up with anything satisfactory. Instinct is a warm-bellied master, but he feeds you gruel. The void chills the heart, but the meals are sweet.

I’ve noticed WordPress has started to post ads on the bottom of my posts. This isn’t my doing. If you want to remove the ads you have to pay WordPress 30 dollars a year. I’m not going to do this. I failed Financial Mathematics, but I know making negative money on something is a bad thing.