One of the driving forces of our daily social interactions and the motivation behind most wars and current terrorist situations is a fascinating thing we can call the "Us vs. Them" Theory. Check it out in a book called The Psychology of Hate by Robert Sternberg. Basically, people form sometimes arbitrary and usually stereotypical images and prejudgements of people (unfortunately, stereotypes exist because, in large part, they are TRUE). People separate themselves from each other, and anyone deemed "us" and deemed similar is good, and all those deemed "them" or deemed different is bad. Be it family, class, social group, political party, or religious affiliation, these judgements and classifications are made and acted upon on a daily basis. Anyone who becomes "them" is someone to defeat, to convert, to assert authority over, to judge, to dominate, to eliminate, to guard against. This is why people war, why terrorists attack, why we hate, why we destroy. Why nothing will be solved when terrorists continue bombing the "infidels" and we keep retaliating against the crazy jihad kamikaze Muslims. Why there is incessant war in almost every African nation between two (or more) different races or social classes. Watch Hotel Rwanda- the two classes of Africans there were originally chosen by the occupying Dutch out of one amalgamate race, on the basis of facial features and height, Hitler white supremacy Aryan nation style. And now those two African races in Rwanda can't get past the arbitrary walls defining them and continue overthrowing the oppressors, each other. IT IS RIDICULOUS.

What am i more sick of, awards shows or figure skating? Pre-empting people's favorite primetime shows with a show about people we've never heard of competing in a sport we don't care about to music we don't like- not a way to plug the Winter Olympics during the other 3.95 years. The Olympics were killed years ago anyway when they started being every two years, they lost the magic and just became a bunch of hooplah and drivel about the favored American athletes who these days end up choking it out for a bronze. Kim Zmeskal was the first famed choke and Kerri Strug followed up with the last great gold.

And back to awards shows. Is it really worth watching 3.5 hours of garbage and awards we've never heard of for people we've never heard of in movies we haven't seen, just to get to the 30 total minutes of actual stars on camera? Three hours of Grammys to hear one performance not by Kanye or the latest emo-punk-hip-hop group whose lead singer has a new solo disc out.

Those news stories, like OJ Simpson and sensational negative news...people may pretend to enjoy it or be genuinely interested, but its simply shock and awes, like watching a car wreck- 1/3 feeling bad, 1/3 curious to see how gruesome it is, 1/3 happy it wasnt them...

9/11 however was aa rare moment in American history where people united out of their laZboys to help one another for a brief time, before they returned back to the cushy boring lives.

People have a strong desire to identify with others, with something, to fit in and feel accepted as part of the crowd- be it the human race, the city of chicago, their neighborhood, their school, their office. For some reason its an amazing feeling finding someone who has many interests similar to your own, and even to find someone with one peculiar sentiment the same as yours is quite exciting- "oh yeah, i hate that too!" "oh i liked that movie too!" Why is that?

Thank you sir may I have another- sexuality in our society is so taboo and bottled up that it finds its own avenues for expression- it vents through porn, stripclubs, and...gyms! It becomes repressed and needs to be expressed. Why do old men feel the need to prance around gym locker rooms naked? For hours?? Like swear words, and like anything forbidden when you were a child, the taboo is the attraction...

Back to taboo things- sex for example. Taboo because its embarassing, or because its sacred? I think its at least equal doses of both, but unfortunately for its sacred...ness, more embarassing than we'd like to admit. Are all these taboos suddenly okay in marriage? Is it okay to "lust" after your spouse? To endulge your carnal desires? Seriously. So many things that happen between a married couple that aren't talked about, but they happen as much as arguing or making dinner together, so why is it such a taboo subject, really? Is it so shameful? Do we all think we're the only ones who think and act the way we do?

Ever noticed how attractive something looks when you dont have time to do it or arent allowed to? If you're in the middle of something you NEED to be doing, why do you suddenly decide to clean the bathroom? Why does it sound so nice to take a nap in the corner under my desk at work? I would never do that or even want to, if i was home, yet at work where I can't, where I hafta be working, nothing sounds better... Its like when you were a kid, and you're in class or in your room with your siblings supposed to be going to bed, and you start laughing about something- nothing has been so funny in your entire life as laughing about something when you're not supposed to be, and you're trying to be quiet. I may not have played Nintendo in months, but when I have some work that needs to be done, or an exam to study for, I've never wanted to pull out that old dusty Street Fighter II cartridge more than right then. We always want what we can't have, and then don't really care about it once we have it- "the chase is all you know, and she stopped running months ago"

Along the lines of birth names, think about cell phone numbers. To an extent, they can be chosen, but still largely they are arbitrary, and unlike home phone numbers, are not likely to be changed in a year or two. Your cell number will become part of your permanent identity, like your social security number.

Now screennames and email addresses, those are chosen, but back in the day when people first started chosing them, it was thought of as fun, arbitrary, random, unimportant. But when I chose my email address 10 years ago, how was I to know that it would become a permanent part of my identity, a representation of me, the way people come to know me? In a way, it has become my name to those people out there who I only communicate with through email. I may never change my email address or my screenname again, and every day that passes without them ever changing they become a more permanent lasting part of my identification in my life.

I am as guilty as anyone- modern technology, and the leaps and bounds with which it advances, has caused a certainly level of complaisance in me and among society about impending health problems- vision, hearing, cholesterol, obesity, even cancer- more and more are becoming curable or at least treatable with drugs, therapy, surgery, and technology. Thus many people generation X and younger are growing up with a certain at least even subconscious attitude that today's health problems are not ones that have to be worried about because they will be problems solved by the time we reach middle age. Orrrr else I'm totally wrong about this.

In a world where email addresses and cellular phones are common place, using landlines and snail mailboxes is all but obsolete. But when married couples used to be tied together to one address, one phone number, now have their own separate lines of communication, is there now a gap in intimacy that didnt used to exist? There's no more shared mail, shared phone calls, shared conversations, shared friends, it all becomes individualized, internalized, divided.

So should it be true that Valentine's Day would be a great day to pick up single girls? Not that necessarily the most people would be out tonight, but at least most of them would be single, or clearly be with a boyfriend, yes? Perhaps single people should claim Valentine's Day as their own...

Here is an example of what is wrong with our country. I moved to Chicago. A year and a half ago, but my Michigan driver's license is just now expiring. I need a new one. So I decide to take advantage of my lunch hour. I go to the license bureau, walk and wait in line for ten minutes- I need to go to the Secretary of State. Walk back, there goes lunch hour. Go to Secretary of State the next day. Wait in line, and turns out I need my Social Security Card, despite that I have a valid license in Michigan. My card happens to be in Michigan, so I head to the Social Security Office. There could not be more miserable people waiting in line, and I will stop myself from making any racial or socioeconomic comments about who was there. So I come back the next day when I have more time, wait in line for 40 minutes and don't get halfway through the numbers that are before me. Realize I'll never get it this way. In a few weeks I finally get my Social Security Card from Michigan and go to the Secretary of State building. Of course after I make it through line 1, get a number, get to a window, get through line 2 at the cashier, and line 3 to get the test, I have 15 minutes left for the rest of the process. I take a rain check and return Monday, to find out I have to go through every aforementioned line again- line, number, wait, window, line, line. Saved me about 5-10 minutes by coming back the second time. Take the damn test, line to get it scored. Then line to get a picture, and line to get final license given to me. At long last I left feeling like I was holding the holy grail and stupefied that after all that, I was actually able to get it at all. At least our tax dollars are going to good purpose.

Am I the only one interested as to why pooping and sex, the most universal of things among all people, are viewed as and kept the most private and embarassing? Pooping in particular is as ubiquitous, necessary, and fundamental as eating!

What does it really mean to be "professional"? To be of your profession? When did it come to mean wearing a suit, smiley, shaking hands, and being phoney? Why is being it so important? Ultimately all you're being is who you've learned you're supposed to be, what you've learned its best to be- not what you are. And we're judged on this? Its really a judgement on your willingness to conform and ability to learn what to conform *to*. A judgement of how much you're willing to become exactly like everyone else thinks you should be, to succeed. I for one think being professional is a bit overrated...

the latest bullshit ad stealing men's souls and convincing women that they are to be bought, equating love with money and possessions-

"More romantic than writing her a song, more thoughtful than actually singing it." A diamond.

This is what they say about love during the holidays. This is how far its come that they're knocking the hopeless romantic with guitar in hand and heartfelt song in his heart as not being quite romantic enough. Surely not as romantic as a beautiful overpriced stone who's size defines her husband's love (and his pocketbook and her social standing) that was mined under the watchful eye of the modern-day slave trade in Third-World Africa.


Ahhhhhhhh love and capitalism. A match made on Valentine's Day.

Does anyone ever notice how interesting it is that our names, one of our strongest identifiers to others and ourselves from the time that we are born, are not even chosen by us? Its akin being born Catholic or Hindu, white or black, but a name is something actively chosen by your parents, and is much more unique than race or religion. It is your primary identifier, and it immediately triggers associations that go along with that name either in society in general or in any particular person's experiences. And yet you have nothing to do with your choice of name, and though many names evoke certain types of people, your parents have no idea how you'll turn out either. But people always seem to fall into fitting their name well, generally speaking...