The needs of many versus the rights of a few.

I've been watching far too much crime dramas lately, and the question came to me; At what point do we sacrifice the rights of a few for the good of many? Is there a time when it is appropriate to do so? Is it ever right?

In many crime shows, there is usually some sort of sticky question as to the rights of the accused. On TV, these laws are often stretched and in some episodes, broken, albeit for the good of the general public. While I have no idea what actually happens in the real world of law enforcement, the question still remains; what rights do individuals have and when are they superseded by the general public?

The manifestation of this issue could be perfectly examined through the problem of special interest groups. They are on both sides and on both parties, advocating things from union rights to enviromental rights, gun rights to gay rights, right-to-die to right-to-choose. According to law, unions have the right to exist. According to the same law, corporations have a right to profit and cut costs. Unions today often have a difficult time distinguishing between protecting their members from corporate cuts and taking their whole company under, creating a ripple effect through every supplier and purchaser involved with them. (Remember Detroit?)

This is just one example of the conflict of rights. Whose take precendent? Who gets the trump card?

The easy answer is that the good of many trumps the good of a few. But obviously ignoring the rights of those few deviates from the foundation of this country and law---namely that everyone is free and has certain INDIVIDUAL rights.

The trouble is the balance of these two important weights on the scales of justice and harmony. Far too often, in today's America, the rights of the individual outweighs all.

Obama's new Health Care I believe to be a mistake because it places burden and cost on those who have insurance and earn it. I am not saying that everyone who does not have health insurance is a lazy bum, but there are far less unisured people who are genuinely in need than there are people who have coverage and earn it. I believe there should be something done about health care and uninsured people, but forcing health care on everyone is not the answer.

In many Wisconsin DUI cases, we hear of multiple offense drunk drivers getting off with light sentences and slaps on the wrist. I don't care what reason is given---this is wrong. The justice system has clearly not placed the emphasis on the public that is in danger from these irresponsible drivers on the road.

On the other side of the coin, however, lies the basic rights of this country, freedom of the individual right to religion, freedom, and of course, pursuit of happiness.

How do we decide?

Hip Hop Flip Flop

I was driving down the highway listening to the local FM radio channel when I noticed something.....when you listen to contemporary music, there are four main themes to 98% of contemporary songs. They are as follows:

1. I love you

2. I hate you

3. I miss you

4. Love is empty

Part of it is just people trying to find fulfillment. But just listen. The first contemporary song you listen to--what theme do you hear?

The songs that follow the trash-version themes of love (love is meant to be short, breakups are mandatory, etc.) go up and down the charts extremely fast. They fall off and vanish. Thirty years from now we'll listen to them on the 'oldies' station as we drive down the road.


Now, I am the first to admit I do enjoy some of these songs, but they aren't really all that fulfilling. Unsuprisingly, a good number of the songs that stick on the charts have to do with a long-lasting relationship or simply geniune love. (i.e. Nickleback's Gotta be Somebody) And why not? One of our basic human needs is for a stable relationship with other people. We're social.

So when you drive around, listen to the song's lyrics and decide whether you've had enough of that perspective for the day. Then go ahead and pop in something actually enjoyable.

We're going down---AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

The stock market. I am convinced that it is actually just a supercomputer spitting out random numbers simply for the entertainment of watching us mortals run around like chickens with our collective heads cut off when the markets go down. And I'm sad to say that I have volutarily put my own neck on the block too---and I don't even have any money involved.

My college class is doing a stock contest---take a group of four people, pick four stocks, and see how you're doing.....in an economy like this, it's pretty bad right now. Three of our stocks are 'safe stocks' and one is a bit of a risk.

And so, I find myself checking out our stocks every time I'm on the internet. Then I ask myself...how in the world do actual investors survive in this type of environment. When the market is dropping like a rock, how are you able to keep your nerve throughout all of this? I have quite enough trouble with entirely theoretical capital.

The stocks we picked were Walmart, Amazon, Manitowac Co, and a company called Hunstman. As of right now, the best of them (Amazon) is down 57 cents.....AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Music to my ears

One of my hobbies is playing the piano on occasion. I took lessons off and on throughout school, but kind of quit around 17. I never was all that good, but I learned enough to play some of the soundtracks.

Piano arrangments to themes, such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc., actually sound pretty accurate to the real thing. The only real difference that I have ever noticed is the tempo, which often is slower in the piano music than in the soundtrack. On the other hand, the more accurate they get, the more complicated the hand positions and notes become. A few of the chords in Star Wars; Revenge of the Sith, are actually impossible for me to play. People who know me are aware that I have massive hands and the chords are still out of my reach.

The fun of playing a soundtrack piano arrangment is listening to the notes you play start to line up to the movie you enjoy.

For instance, the main theme of Pirates of the Carribean has some relatively complicated chords, but it is playable. As I played the notes extremely slowly, I slowed down the soundtrack in my mind to match. Eventually, as my playing sped up, I started to hear the movie's theme appear more and more clearly. Today, I play the piece much faster than the tempo written on the sheet music. But when I attempt to play in time with the soundtrack, I am left far behind in the dust.

And you don't have to play piano to enjoy this or just love soundtracks. You can find your favorite songs from almost any age and genre online. Maybe it's time to dust off the guitar, saxaphone, or whatever instrument you played long ago and remember just how much fun it is to play music YOU like.

Personally, most classical music drove me nuts and that was what drove me out of piano lessons. Look around, you never know what you might find.

Predictions, shelf life, and yogurt....

I got an oppurtunity to order everything for dairy/frozen for an entire week at my grocery store. I order fairly often, but an entire week straight was definitely new. Almost everything that we sell. I was in charge of making sure that it was in stock. Fairly easy, right? Just look at what's almost empty and order it. WRONG!

What many people don't realize is that it is incredibly difficult to predict what you, the customer, is going to buy on a given day or week. I found out that on Friday, peach yogurt might sell a case (12 cups) in one afternoon. Then on Saturday, maybe no one would buy it.

And to make matters worse, there are sales. This week, it was our generic brand yogurt at an extremely ridiculous price. I ordered to fill the shelf up, then ordered a few cases for the display, which was completely full at the time. The next day, when the truck came in, I found that the shelf was empty and the display was down to a third of its size. This created an awkward situation where we were out of a sale item (big problem) and had to call other stores in our chain to see if they had some to give. And nobody had any for me at all.

Couple this with the variety of products that customers buy make it very hard to figure out what to order and what will sell. In addition, I am a conservative orderer, which means I tend to run things close to empty before I'll order them. That's becomes a problem when I let a popular item run down. People will buy it up after I order and we are out, without anything coming in to replace it.

And finally, add in the relatively quick shelf life of dairy products and you have a very interesting week. I had quite a few OSs (Out of Stocks), which was only made worse by a mass recall of a certain sour cream. There were holes in the shelves everywhere. And it's all the customer's fault.

I am learning what sells, but still will be extremely happy to hand back control to my manager in a few more days.

I love soundtracks

I don't really know why, but I just do. Even some movies that I have never seen (i.e. James Bond, Mission Impossible, Titanic), I have the soundtracks, thanks to Itunes. For the movies I have seen, the soundtracks relive the moments.

I have the stuff you would expect; Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Carribean. But I also try to find some other stuff; Batman, Chronicles of Narnia, Prince of Egypt, and National Treasure. I probably listen to soundtracks more than anything else. Some people will think that strange, but I simply enjoy listening to a good soundtrack much more than pounding rock tunes, not that I don't listen to a few of those once in a while.

Lately, I have been looking at some different composers and their works. John Williams is most famous for Star Wars. Some of you may know that he also wrote some of the Indiana Jones music. But do you remember Jaws, Superman Returns, and Saving Private Ryan? Another big name is Hans Zimmer from Pirates of the Carribean. He also composed scores for Black Hawk Down and Gladiator.

The next time you watch a movie, try to keep track of the score. A good film score will pull you along with the emotion of the movie. Soundtracks can really add to a movie, as many of the recent films have shown. Try some, and you'll enjoy reliving your favorite movie without having to take your eyes from what you're doing.

Too much BIG PICTURE, so lets write about smoke

When I looked at my blog the other day, I noticed that every post had some big, enormous point to it. And so, I felt the need to create one with something a little less deep. So, I'll talk about my experiences cooking so far.

Living on my own, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that cooking is dangerous and therefore should be left to either a female or a professional chef. I believe that sometime in the future my perceptions will change, but for now, I am firmly grounded in the idea that anything that has something to do with the stove in my apartment involves more risk of bodily injury than I care to take.

After a rocky start for the first few months (pizzas, pot pies, and ramen noodles), which taught me to take the cardboard from underneath the pizza, I decided to make tacos and purchased to neccessary items from the store and drove home. When I unloaded and set everything out, I realized that I had forgotten the lettuce. Undeterred, I put the beef on the stove and put taco shells (for a salad) into the oven. I was very careful to check on the beef and shells periodically until the phone rang.

It was my dad, and I kept stirring the beef as we talked for about ten minutes or so. That's when I realized that I had forgotten all about the taco shells. I said goodbye and cracked open the oven door. I then closed the door, disarmed to smoke alarm, and THEN opened the oven door. The ensuing smoke cloud forced me to open the windows and take in the insulating plastic off to get the place aired out.

I finished with that and turned around to see that the beef was black as night. In my haste to clear the room, I had left the beef untended and burned it to a crisp. I salvaged what I could from the shells and dumped loads of sour cream, salsa,and cheese onto the blackened beef and ate it anyway.

And to add the final crescendo to the evening, I found then that I left the bag of cheese on the burner that I had used to flame the beef. The bag had a circular indentation of melted plastic and cheese.

Melted plastic, melted cheese, black beef, burnt taco shells, no lettuce, and a ton of smoke.

This is why I consider cooking to be an extreme sport, and one far too risky for me. I'll leave it to the professionals.