Today's rant is this. With so many so-called "experts" on things these days, who can you really trust or believe? Especially in the political arena. Look at the number of informed opinions on tv and radio spouting all day long. I take Charles Barkley's approach as he is running for governor in Alabahama- politics is a bunch of rich people arguing about issues that don't matter to 95% of the population and confusing the general public with jargon and ridiculous minutia, and at the end of their argument they shake hands and say congratulations, you're rich, I'm rich too, have a nice day.

And what about stock brokers? THESE experts can get barely more out of the market with my money than I could get out of a 12-month CD? Are you joking?

so i guess this has really ceased to be daily, huh.

what i was thinking about was this- you get to a point with someone, lots of people, where you're sort of in an aloof friend stage- where they wouldnt even consider being interested in you, where no matter how close of friends you are, theres a certain aloof detachment because there's no even joking flirting, its completely platonic. say you wanted to cross back over that, maybe you were interested, wanted to explore that- how would you cross back over, give those signals? cause normally with a person there's a push-pull of flirting that goes on once one person starts. but i feel like in these totally friendship relationships, any thing you might put out there would be ignored overlooked and brushed aside, not out of meanness but just habit and assumption...

Crying at funerals. The last one I was at, sure I cried, and I wanted to cry, and I wasn't embarassed to cry. But at the same time, your crying is basically a physical manifest of your sadness, and your sadness *should* be related to how much you were affected by the death, and thus related to how close you were to the person. For this reason, I almost feel like there's an unwritten hierarchy of closeness to the deceased, and generally speaking, you don't supercede your your level of closeness to the deceased in your mourning.

It sounds ridiculous, but its like comparing sadness levels or something, and it comes down to your worthiness to be as sad as you are; look at it this way- if your uncle died, there's probably at least a few other cousins essentially on the same plane of relation to him as you. So if he has kids, its almost RUDE for you to be so sad, that you're really drawing attention to yourself as being more affected by this than your other cousins and by his own children! People will look at you, whisper, wonder "what's his problem, it wasn't HIS dad", as if you're really being out of line for being so sad. Its weird because, who can say how sad you're allowed to be? But at the same I think its kind of true, this is really out there.....

Realize the lenses through which you view people and through which other people are viewed. I mentioned this about a year ago when I was doing what I'm doing now- job searching. I have to think not only about what I wear, but what I DON'T wear- rings for example. Or take drinking- I am judged by thee contemporary conservative Christians down the street as being a bad person simply because I drink. At all. Ever. It colors what they think of me before they meet me, and it colors their interpretation of my subsequent actions because they are viewing me as a person under the assumption that I'm a flawed person for drinking.

Look at how you do this to people though yourself- be it race, age, or otherwise. Realize how you always automatically interpret what your kids or your parents or your siblings or friends say, based on what you know about them and your past experiences with them. You don't give them the benefit of the doubt or the chance to mean something different. You spin the words that come out of their mouth into what you want to hear or expect to hear, and what they say takes on a whole new meaning that they may never have intended in the first place. This discussion could go many different directions to millions of examples.