If You Wear a Trench Coat...

Sometimes I wonder if certain people you know are racists or the kind to stereotype people in their ids. Do you ever have a friend who you know pretty well, and you know he/she in general does not have tendencies to stereotype, yet you sometimes catch him/her implicitly reveal the silent racist in him/her?

For example, what relevance is there for stressing that someone is black when telling the story of how you got cut off in a line for the restroom at a concert? Wouldn't the story still be the same if you leave out the "black" part? Why even mention the aggressor's race at all?

From my point of view, by even being that specific, the person telling the story just revealed that deep down, he/she has some racist tendencies. Or in general, tendencies to stereotype. I'm not saying that in every similar case, the person is a racist. Just a tendency. Being specific also defines a good story teller, and is in no way, shape or form to indicate one's prejudices. But you wonder sometimes...

Well, what prompted this analogy was MTV's reporting of a recent school shooting by a 14 year old boy in Cleveland today. As a reporter or journalist, Gil Kaufman has a duty to report facts objectively. Although the news was heartbreaking, she needs to remain objective and control how information is presented after gathering the necessary information from various interviews.

Specifically, was it necessary for Gil Kaufman to include this quote by a student?

"I knew that dude was crazy, man. He always wore a trench coat."

To me, that is absolutely unethical in terms of professionalism in journalism. Were it be reported in other sections of MTV.com, I would not have any problem, but to include that in the news section kind of reduce its legitimacy as a news outlet. That statement was made by a student who clearly was prejudicial. And it was only an opinion, not a fact.

News agencies and their agents have the fiduciary obligation to present facts, not opinions. This simply perpetuates fear mongering amongst the public to be wary of those who wear trench coats. Because, like MTV and the kid, anybody who wears trench coats are simply crazy people!

Be very careful of trench coats... Next thing you know, it may attack you from the rack when you go shopping for clothes at your neighborhood mall.

My Online Pet Peeves

Aside from the usual suspects of multiple pop-up adverts that never seem to stop and flash-based adverts that look integrated within the web page but manage to float around and suddenly enlarge to cover up the entire article, I have a couple other pet peeves that I wonder if anybody else shares my frustration.

As you may already know, I am a member of the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. I have yet to leverage their potential to meet other girls, and I sometimes wonder why I'm on MySpace period. As for Facebook, most of my friends are mostly all high school friends with whom I have lost touch in over 10 years and finally reconnected.

Anyway, Facebook allows you to access their speed-centric version of the website for free when you visit their site from a cell phone. Likewise, you get to choose between that and the full-blown version of the website if you have a smart enough smartphone like my Nokia N91 or the Apple iPhone. But MySpace? Unless you're lucky like me and other advanced Nokia and iPhone owners, you can't even get to MySpace by mobile means! Instead, you have to pay three dollars a month to Cingular-is-now-the-new-AT&T to get the watered-down version of MySpace! This pet peeve is such because of two reasons: 1) same reason as that of reason number eight of why I hate the iPhone, and 2) have you noticed how heavily subsidized MySpace is by advertisements?!? Why would anyone still want to pay three bucks after having to put up with the gazillion adverts that litter MySpace? I'm not targeting MySpace, but using it as a prime example of the many other websites that have this kind of business practices.

The second online pet peeve is how they collect information when you register for things online. This morning, I tried to register in a Sweepstakes at Mercury for some neat prizes, but I was having a difficulty submitting the registration form. Click on the picture below to see the full details of the "error" and the form I was submitting (personal data changed to protect my privacy):


What in the name of hell is that error all about? There is no red asterisk next to the email address field, meaning that field is not a requirement. I filled that in so that I could get notified by email if I win. But what prevented me from submitting the form was that I had to click on the checkbox asking if I want to be notified of new product information, offers and incentives! What? Why even provide the choice of opting out if I am being forced into it just so I can enter some stupid sweepstakes? This kind of marketing practice is not limited to sweepstakes administered for huge companies like Ford's Mercury. Remember the Put a Gun to My Head, Won't You blog in which I was forced to receive information from LaSalle Bank? That was while trying to register to run in the Shamrock Shuffle 8K race, which happened to be sponsored by LaSalle Bank! Let's see... If you want to participate in a race sponsored by us, you must endure the bombardment of product and service offerings literature from us! No if's, and's, or but's!

Oh, I can only feel my blood pressure rising, thanks to some shrewd marketing kid who don't know how to make good adverts in the first place and must resort to such brute force. Sigh...

Riddle Me This

Alternate Title: Today Dubya said something stupid. Again.

How many times have you seen George Walker Bush claim that he is a patriot? After all, he did sent our troops to Afghanistan (good) and Iraq (bad) to fight a war he claims to defend our rights and freedom. Pretty patriotic, you would think, right? Even when this clown dons denim, cowboy hat and boots, and a big buckle, it conveys the very image of a patriotic American. You can't get any more American than that.

But then, what exactly was there to defend our nation from Iraq? To defend oneself, one needs the presence of an imminent aggressor. Saddam and his regime were in a totally different part of the globe. They didn't have any way of disseminating terror to the United States; their longest distance missile could barely leave the Middle Eastern region. But Dubya continued to claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that we already had good intel from head of United Nations inspectors Hans Blix. After all, the United States government contributed funding to the UN, which also created the massive inspection team. The UN team had conducted 731 inspections from November 2002 and March 2003, and stated that no evidence of chemical and biological weapons stockpiles exist, or that there was any active weapons programs! Dubya's response? Like an unruly teenage girl, he simply said something along the lines of: Whatever.

So we sent in our troops, invaded Iraq, fucked up their rather decent and peaceful country (as compared to Iran and other nations in that region), and destabilized the region. As if what the "Western Nations" did to Palestine and created the clusterfuck that is now known as Israel weren't enough. With our thumbs sticking at the UN inspectors while we escorted them out of Iraq, we sent in our own "better" inspectors team headed by David Kay with possibly bigger and more advanced magnifying glasses than the tools that were at the UN's disposal. All after we invaded Iraq. Talk about shoot first then ask questions later.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Joseph Wilson publicly criticized the war and accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraqi weapons so that Dubya has the justification needed to go to war. A funny thing happened next, as shortly thereafter, Ambassador Wilson's wife Valerie Plame's identity was leaked as a CIA operative. Backlash from the White House? Ambassador Wilson definitely thought so. This was so scandalous that even Dubya himself said he wanted to know the whole truth on how such a treasonous act could have happened, not to mention putting an American's life in danger as well as risking the operations of the CIA! Dubya swore that if the leak came from within the White House, he will fire anyone who leaked the information.

Time went by, and guess what... Weapons inspector David Kay finally concluded: "We were all wrong," in regards to the allegations we have made against the Iraqi regime. All wrong?!? Wait a minute... Everyone was wrong, EXCEPT for the UN weapons inspectors! How dare he claim that we were ALL wrong?!? Then the finger pointing began, and it all boiled down to bad intel, or funnier yet, no real, credible, HUMAN intel. Wait another minute... Weren't the UN inspectors humans? Weren't they actually present in Iraq? Yet we ignored them. Worse yet, Dick Cheney even threatened Hans Blix before the UN inspector began his round of inspections: "We will not hesitate to discredit you." Sounds to me like we have a very trigger-happy person in the White House. Why else would someone threaten to discredit another before they begin their work?!?

So all the backlash at leaking Valerie Plame's name was a total waste at a ridiculously high price of a life and our national security. But that did not stop the judicial system to assign Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the whole CIA leak scandal. And after two years of investigation, the truth finally came out as to who leaked Valerie Plame's identity: White House Advisor Karl Rove, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. They all admitted to leaking the name to reporters. All of who are important enough to maintain our national security. They leaked the information so freely as if they were sharing their grandma's not-so-secret recipe! A matter of national security, an act of treason, and nothing happens. What's funnier is that the only person charged in this whole scandal was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, not for the act of leaking, but obstruction of justice!

And the story gets even funnier... For lying to special investigators in the matter of treason and national security, Scooter was fined $250,000 and sentenced to jail for 30 months. That's barely anything, considering the weight of the matter. Yet, our old American patriotic pal, defender of American rights and freedom, commuted the jail sentence, while saying that he still respects the grand jury and the judicial process. Isn't that the same thing as when your mom told you that she loved you and yet continued spanking you, even harder as she said that? Or similarly, a bad guy raping a woman while telling her, "I love you, and I don't want to hurt you." Wow...

Here is where the confusion is, my friends. If patriotic Dubya is willing to spend billions upon billions of our hard-earned money to go into war in Iraq under pretense, to defend our rights and freedom, then how the hell did he go from:
1. Pledging to fire whoever leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name, to
2. Only willing to fire someone who "committed a crime" (meaning someone who is charged and found guilty of a crime), to
3. Taking a wait and see till the full investigation concludes before doing anything, despite the truth trickling out bit by bit as investigation wore on, to
4. Totally dismissing the whole scandal by saying today, "It's run its course; now we're going to move on." With no further action.

Riddle me this... Exactly how patriotic is Dubya, who won the re-election (or should I say, real first election) against John Kerry while labeling him a flip-flopper, when he was initially all about firing anyone in his administration found to have breached our national security, today decided to call the whole scandal old news and want to just "move on?" Are responsibility and accountability to our country qualities of patriotism? Maybe I just don't know what the hell a patriot truly is then.

Update 2007.08.27:

The Power of Genetic Engineering

We all have heard of genetic engineering at one point or another. Surely you know what a mule is, right? It’s a cross between a horse and a donkey. The mule is the perfect example of the most, basic rudimentary example of genetic engineering that has been practiced for centuries. Then there are the modern ones like the broccoflower; or the corn designed to withstand drought or certain pests that we have been eating all these years; or even the Liberty Link, the genetically altered rice, that was still in experimental phase that somehow ended up in our American food supply; or even StarLink, the genetically altered corn that was approved only for animal feed but somehow ended up in taco shells produced by Kraft.[1]

Anyway, I’m against genetically altered foods, as we have no idea what ramifications they can have to us humans when consumed. But one thing is for sure: the bastard child between a horse and a donkey will surely grow up to never be able to reproduce. Hmm... That in of itself is a bad sign of genetic engineering, right? So why would anybody want to eat such foods that have no known consequence (yet)?

Although this is a very serious topic that I’ll bet very few Americans are aware of, my point is not the ethicality behind genetically engineered food. I suspect that there is a widespread conspiracy between and within the government and the food industry to let loose genetically engineered foods of all kinds to the public, much like how the government back in the day conducted chemical experiments on the unknowing public without notification, such as mustard gas, lewisite and LSD.

Don’t believe me? Let me make my case. I strongly believe that peanuts are already genetically altered for some time now. Peanuts were purposely genetically altered so they can taste so damn good that they are addicting. Have you ever tried to stop eating peanuts after you popped a few in your mouth? That’s right. This genetic alteration was so intense that even other products containing peanuts can leave unscathed. See below:


Exhibit 1: Seriously! A talking M&M?


Exhibit 2: Ever heard of the two headed frogs found in ponds near nuclear facilities? Look what I found in a recent bowl of candies!


Citation [1]: Genetically altered foods are a serious matter. Both Liberty Link and StarLink were manufactured by the North Carolina-based biotechnology company Aventis Crop Science. Fortune magazine senior writer recently wrote an article about it on June 27, 2007. If you want to dive deeper into the serious side of the matter, which my blog entry briefly touched upon and focused more on the jovial and ridiculous side, go to the Attack of the Mutant Rice article on CNNMoney.com or Fortune Magazine.