September 2007 Report Card

Evaluation of Merit

Pixel Q. Styx, certified blog writer

• Insight: 9.5
• Originality: 10
• Hilarity: 7
• Reliability: 6.5
• Language: 9.5
• Spelling: 9.5
• Social Science: 9.5
• Art: 4
• Cooperation: 0
• Courtesy: 10
• Self Reliance: 9
• Conduct: 10
• Attention: 9
• Workmanship: 8
• Effort: 8

Overall Grade: 8.5

A Pixelated Mind, certified blog

• Originality: 8.5
• Social Science: 9
• Art: 8.5
• Cooperation: 6
• Courtesy: 10
• Self Reliance: 9
• Workmanship: 8
• Design: 8
• Speed: 7
• Intuitiveness: 8
• Reliability: 8

Overall Grade: 8.5

You, certified audience member

• Docility: 2
• Participation: 7.5
• Originality: 8
• Hilarity: 7.5
• Language: 9
• Spelling: 10
• Cooperation: 0
• Courtesy: 9
• Dependability: 6
• Self Reliance: 8
• Conduct: 10
• Attention: 7
• Effort: 8

Overall Grade: 7

Attendance

• Days Present: 26
• Days Absent: 4
• Days Where you just Phoned it in: 3
• Days Above and Beyond the Call of Duty: 3
• Days Enrolled: 30

• Posts: 45
• Comments: 22
• No, Real Comments: 17
• Now Real Posts: 31

Above Monthly Average: Y
At Monthly Average:
Below Monthly Average:

Promoted to the Next Month? Y.

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Ignorance is Unpatriotic

The better the citizenry as a whole are educated, the wider and more sensible public participation, debate and social mobility will be…Highly sophisticated Élites are the easiest and least original thing a society can produce. The most difficult and the most valuable is a well-educated populace.

John Ralston Saul

It’s hard to see how a person can fully participate in a democracy without voting. Truly, elections are what make representative democracies superior (theoretically) than other forms of government. Representative democracies allow people to freely and easily choose their leaders.

One doesn’t need to vote in order to be a responsible citizen. Indeed, if a person is going to vote based on vague ideas and hazy feelings (”John Kerry is ugly!”), then it seems the responsible thing is to not vote… or have children.

However, if someone has decided to do his ‘duty’ and vote, then the best thing for that person to do would be get informed about the issues. Truly, a democracy with an educated populace would hopefully do far better than a democracy with a poorly-educated populace. In essence, by voting without being informed of all your options, you’re not doing your duty; you’re subverting it and adulterating it. If you vote and don’t have good reasons why you vote for each particular candidate, you’re being unpatriotic.

If H.L. Mencken is right and democracy is the belief in the collective intelligence of individual stupidity, then it follows that we should lessen the individual stupidity.

Thankfully, the readers of this blog need not worry about their own ignorance. I, in association with Project Vote Smart, Wikipedia and the candidate’s own literature (that is, I’ll use them as sources), will write a series of articles about this upcoming election. After which, you’ll not only know the candidates, but be the best informed citizen around.

… Just don’t vote locally, because I’m not looking up those guys for you too!

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Jamal Tucker Must Die

Do I know myself? Well, yeah. I mean, I’d recognize myself if I saw me in a line up.

- That’s just me talking to myself

I think I know why the minority always dies in movies. It’s not hidden or overt racism on anybody’s part. It’s not a coincidence, either. Instead, it’s a combination of two interacting forces and one failure of imagination.

• Force #1: There are multiple characters and it’s more believable to have some diversity in the characters. Hence, the creation of a minority character.
• Force #2: Someone has to die to show how serious of a movie this is. Hence, bye to the minority.
• Failure of Imagination: The writer/director/producer is not a minority. As he’s not a minority, he finds it hard to identify with the minority character. Thus, the minority character is not only not going to be a main character, but he’ll be the first to go if someone has to be killed off.

I’m glad I could clear that up for people.

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The opposite of apathy is anger

Question:

“You’re not going to vote for Hillary or Obama, are you? Because if you are, I’m going to have to hit you.”

Response:

Okay. Say I have no idea who they are. Why does your hitting me make sense? Do you know what they stand for? Have you ever heard one of their speeches? Or do you just see them in random news clips and form an opinion of them based on their popularity?

What are their positions? Who is running against them? Who do you like? Who don’t you like? Why? Is it just a gut feeling you get from watching them speak or is it because you hear of other people who have this ‘gut feeling?’ Have you heard any good arguments against either of them? What are they? Where did you hear them? Who said them?

Do you feel a disconnect because the information isn’t forced into your head the way it will closer to the election? Is the reason you feel uninspired because you’re so used to people you already know and none of these people fit that criterion?

The funny part of my response was that I don’t support Hillary or Obama. But in responding to an the apathetic/antipathetic remark I realized that I couldn’t justify why I feel what I feel about them.

So I’ve decided to find out what the candidates believe and claim they’ll do. I’m going to write a series of articles on the 2008 U.S. presidential election and on every candidate over the next few weeks and months.

I’m not going to focus on front runners or the two major parties, either. There’s too much information about those guys already. Instead, I’m going to talk about Gravel, Kucinich, Hunter, Tancredo, Grundmann, Brown, and Imperato just as much. Hopefully, I’ll help clear away some of the fog that surrounds this election because we can’t afford ignorance this time around.

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