Nothing New

I don't remember how the conversation started, as it is with conversations, but my nephew and I were talking about how people like to label something a rip-off.  The example he used was within the sci-fi genre, specifically Star Trek's phasers and Star Wars' blasters, but then he moved on to another genre - the romance novel.  They all seem to start with the main characters hating each other but then they fall in love.  My response: "The Walking Dead totally ripped that off."

That was about the entire exchange, but it got me thinking.  Don't most iconic relationships, in any genre, follow that pattern?  Not just romances - buddy films come to mind.  The relationship in which you meet, are compatible, and remain friends just isn't compelling storytelling.  Even Han Solo and Chewbacca are more entertaining when bickering.

People who do what Josh and I were talking about don't understand a few things.  "Ray guns" are a staple of science fiction.  Sharing a staple with something else in the same genre is not ripping it off.  Using a tried-and-true storytelling technique is not a rip-off of anything that's used it before.  

If I were to write the story of an ordinary young man who finds himself swept into an epic adventure, I would not be ripping off Star Wars.  Or The Legend of Zelda.   It's a classic story called The Hero's Journey.  

There is nothing new under the sun, as the saying goes.  Everything is derivative of something that's gone before.  So what makes a rip-off?  That's a difficult thing to explain - ask any judge asked to decide a plagiarism case. As another saying (sort of) goes, I may not know what a rip-off is, but I know what it ain't.

My Problem With Anarchy

I have, among my friends and family, a handful of Anarchists.  They run the spectrum from the ones who live by the Non-Aggression Principle to the ones who would be okay with rioting in the streets and burning down government buildings.  Like so many other schools of thinking, there are a million subcategories.  Anarchy, for the purposes of this blog, is defined as a lack of government and an anarchist is someone who believes that would be a good thing.

My issue with Anarchy really does boil down to definitions, so bear with me while I supply a couple of others.  Government: The governing body of a community.  Govern (verb): To conduct policy, actions, and affairs of.  Strictly speaking, according to these definitions, a mother is the governor of her child.

I am aware that the scenarios I'll be using are fictional.  I've chosen them because the characters are very realistic, and act as I believe nonfictional people would in similar situations.  The scenarios in question?  Lost and The Walking Dead.

Lost gives us the ole desert (actually jungle) island story.  When it becomes evident rescue is not coming, what do they do?  They look to a leader.  Jack makes and enforces policy.  He decides what actions the survivors will take.  He even handles "affairs" like another man's refusal to turn over medical supplies looted from the wreckage. These people are dropped into a totally anarchist (no government) situation and one of the first things they do is appoint a leader.  A government, by the definition given above.

The same thing applies to The Walking Dead.  Thanks to a zombie apocalypse, the characters are living in anarchy.  So what do they do?  Look to leaders:  Shane, Rick, Hershel, Gareth, Dawn, Deanna, Negan, Ezekiel, Gregory, some whose names escape me.  Every one of them makes and enforces policy for his or her community.  Every one of them decides the actions of the larger group.  Every one of them deals with "affairs" like whether or not to merge groups.

Going from there, it seems to me that nonfictional people would do the same.  Yes, there would be the loners like Lost's Sawyer who are a community unto themselves. But humans, for the most part, are social creatures.  We group.  We look for guidance, for leadership.  Thus my problem - anarchy is not the natural state of the human being.

Small, local government is the natural state of the human being.  The United States of America got its name from that very notion.

The Brains of The Young

Got into a discussion the other day, if you can imagine such a thing happening to me.  The topic at hand was the apparent homosexuality of a Disney character, but it rapidly became about something very different.  The other party insisted repeatedly that children are not capable of understanding homosexuality.

I've been a very hands-on aunt for most of my life.  My minions count in the dozens.  I've never come across a subject that children could not comprehend on some level.  You "dumb it down" for them, but they are capable of understanding.

Recently, I explained the transgender thing to a child.  I "dumbed it down" to having a girl brain in a boy body.  His head did not explode and he now understands the basic issue. We do have to be careful with our terminology - lesbians don't just love women, it's the getting-married kind of love.  We don't want little Suzie to decide she's clinically depressed because sometimes she feels sad.

Something else I've noticed about children is that they are more receptive to difference.  Race or religion are good touchstones here.  At a park, the kids all run and play together and it's no big deal if this one's a different color or that one won't eat a ham sandwich.  In fact, a conversation about those differences might start - thus they learn something about each other.  Adults could take a lesson.

It infuriates me that people so readily dismiss the brains of the young.  I have to laugh at some of the things I read in parenting magazines because otherwise I'd cry.  So much of that advice is stuff I've always done, without effort.  "When in the park, talk to the child about the various animals and plants you see."  WHO NEEDS TO BE TOLD THAT!?

Note I did not mention my position on having a girl brain in a boy body, or of wanting to marry a member of the same sex.  That all is really beside the point of this post.  The point here is simple.  Children are not stupid.  Simple, yes, but not stupid.

The Wall

Building a wall along the Mexican border is a waste of money, time, and resources.  It would violate the rights of at least one reservation and God only knows how many property owners.  It would disrupt ecosystems for thousands of miles.  While there is definitely a problem with illegal immigration from Mexico, there are better ways to deal with it.

Let's look at why these folks are coming here.  They are poor, hungry, maybe in need of medical care they can't get in Mexico.  In the same situation, would a wall stop you?  Even one as big and ugly as being proposed?  Would you dig a tunnel? Take a plane or boat?  I know they aren't going to build a wall along the Gulf coast.  Too many communities along there depend upon the tourism a wall would kill. Or will they build it a few miles out and only kill wildlife?

The Mexicans are coming for work they know they can get.  We need to start punishing those hiring them.  Get INS workers out in the field (sometimes literally) and jail the ones taking advantage of the desperate.  Why are we punishing them for accepting an opportunity when offered?  For doing the same thing we might, in the same situation?

I'm willing to bet my solution would be a lot less expensive than a wall.  The only rights being violated would be those of criminals and, as far as I can tell, no damage would be done to any ecosystem.  But, ya know, I'm nobody.  Just another freeloader.

Am I Better Off Than Eight Years Ago?

"Are you better off than you were eight years ago?" is the recurring theme on my social media, with the transfer of Presidents happening today.  It's more of that ridiculous thinking that the President has The Power Supreme, that everything that's happened during his term is his doing.  So...  lets look at where I was eight years ago.

I was living with my nephew, his wife, and their toddler son.  I don't remember if I was still working, but if I was it was at McDonald's.  I have an Associate's Degree and I was flipping burgers.  (In the years since getting my degree, I had one job that sort-of fell into the area of Social Work and none that I couldn't have gotten just with my diploma. But I digress.)

I had, besides the ones I lived with, a slew of minions and grandminions.  In the years Obama was in office, those numbers increased.  Pretty sure he wasn't at any of those weddings or conceptions.  I made some new friends, mostly on-line, and developed new interests.  Don't remember Obama introducing me to any of that.  My father died in 2010, but that was cancer, not Obama.  But that's all personal stuff.  Let's look at the financial scene, which is what the question really refers to.

Now I'm on Disability and Welfare.  It's not much, but it's a steady income and I now have a little apartment of my own. My degree is framed on the living room wall.  So in that aspect, am I better off?  Is a steady income "leeched" off the government better than unsteady income from part-time low-wage work while I'm expected to pay back Student Loans?

I think it is.  Vindication is a wonderful thing.  I value the fact that finally, after all these years, someone in authority has recognized my problem.  If someone in authority had done so thirty years ago and given me the help I needed then, maybe I'd be working today.  But Obama did not do that.  The system that did that was in place before Obama was elected.

Obama did good things.  Obama also did bad things.  Everything he did, however, was within the system created centuries ago.  Yeah, it's been fine-tuned since then, but it is basically the same.  I'm better off than I was eight years ago, but Obama didn't do that.  I did that, with the help of the system that was around before Obama took office.

Political Rant About Political Rants

Donald Trump is President-Elect and the world is going nuts trying to figure out who to blame it on.  The Russians?  The programmers of the voting machines? Hillary Clinton? The Republicans? The Democrats? Satan, even?

Here's the deal, folks.  We The People are to blame.  We The People bought into the thinking that those two were our only options.  We The People chose between the lesser of two evils.   We The People believed that a mother and grandmother wanted to kill babies because she's Pro-Choice.  We The People believed a man was a sexist and a racist because of things taken out of context.

I "wasted" my vote on a candidate I thought was better qualified than those two.  I'll probably do it again.  The men who designed our system wanted me to do it.  They wanted all of us to do it - not to vote for the lesser of two evils, not to vote against anyone, but to hire the best person for the job.

Also, we are not "screwed" because of who got elected.  The President of the United States does not hold that kind of power.  He has to work with the Legislative Branch - and no matter what their party lines might be, those folks are not going to back anything that's going to cost them their jobs.   Because it will.  This election was a mess, to put it mildly, but it opened a lot of eyes.

We The People are awake now. We The People will be watching those we've elected, as we should have been all along.  We The People - most of us, anyway - are not happy about how this turned out, for various reasons.  Strange as it may seem, this election may be a blessing in disguise.

Sometimes you have to shoot yourself in the foot before realizing you need to learn more about guns.

Another Barbie Rant

Just saw a news story about a woman who made a breast feeding Barbie.  Every now and then another story comes along about the Lammily doll - the normal Barbie is what that one usually gets called.  How pathetic do they think children are?  Dolls run on imagination and if your kid is so lacking in that area that they need all this stuff that's being sold, I'm afraid you have bigger problems.
You want your doll to breast-feed, pop open her shirt and have her hold a baby to her breast.  This is much easier with a elbow-articulated doll, by the way.  You want her to have a period, make her some little pads out of paper or bits of cloth.  There is no need for all these specialized dolls.

I give credit to the toy makers for more realistic proportions, even though I do not agree that Barbie's freakish figure psychologically damages children.

Lammily you can buy scar stickers for.  My Barbies have scars - mostly stray pen marks - and these aren't removable.  Who's realistic now, Lammily?  I've had Barbies lose limbs and explained it away with car accidents.  But some revolutionary out there is making amputee dolls.

I'll admit to having to coach my minions a bit, but I am not going to buy them something they can improvise for themselves.  If your child cannot figure out how to make a Zombie Fighter out of dolls, clothes, and accessories they already own...  I blame you.  Granted, it is more fun sometimes to have the specific character, but I'm referring to generalities.  A lot of these amazing, innovative dolls I'm hearing about are variations my doll-play even as a child. In the 1970s.