Tom's Views

I’m heavily into music listening, manipulating the music files for better sound, DJing for friends, and so on.  So very often, the issue of   music piracy   comes up, when people ask that I copy some of the songs in my music collection for them.  The following are my responses and reasoning for why I do not copy music for anyone, period. 

• The record industry could sell music cheaper if not for all the music piracy and having to recover the losses from that stealing.
• Barring the differences between how music piracy and other forms of theft are physically carried out, music piracy is identical to shoplifting.
• The fact that music piracy is easier to perpetrate than other forms of shoplifting may make it even more wrong to execute, not less wrong. 
• It seems that it’s more wrong to take advantage of a person or an industry that cannot adequately defend itself against such theft.  Put another way: It would certainly be more offensive to steal from a blind man than to steal from someone that is fully aware of what you’re doing; though stealing in both cases is equally wrong. 
• One estimate that store prices for CDs is are ten to twenty percent higher than they’d be without shoplifters.
• We all pay for music piracy.  But some pay far less than others.  This implies a major travesty.  The honest people (those who are unwilling to cheat by making illegal copies of music) pay the most therefore, for music.  But unfortunately the music robbers pay the least because through the very act of stealing the music, they circumvent all the measures the music industry could take to fully collect on the music they sell.
• Some justify giving copies of the music on the CDs they own to others by citing how rich some artists have become, and how making copies of their music would not hurt them significantly.  But the most popular artists tend to be pirated the most, as their music is in the highest demand. 
• Besides, how rich or poor the victim of theft is does not affect the rightness or wrongness of the theft.  Stealing is always wrong whether you steal from a king, or a janitor. 
• Would it be any more right to steal a mink coat from a well-to-do store such as Macey’s, than to steal a candy bar from that mom and pop establishment down the street?  
• The music industry appears to be in rapid decline due in large part to the rampant music piracy that plagues it.  This is sad, because I’m a big fan of recorded music, and I fear that this decline in revenue share will eventually trigger a decline in availability and overall quality of the music that is produced. 
•  In 1999 through 2002, the music industry saw a 25% recession in its legal sales and distribution of recorded music  (details here).  With poor economic growth prospects so ubiquitous these days across most industries, and since music is fast becoming perceived as one of those luxury items that people can do without if their finances say that they must, the music industry continues to suffer recession today in 2011. 
• Music piracy is dishonest because those who obtain the music in this way do not have to work as hard to get it as those who actually pay for legal copies. 
• The music pirates get the music for nothing essentially, and where’s the fairness in that? 

As is hopefully quite obvious by now, I’m strongly opposed to music piracy for the reasons given, and many others besides. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Giving Away Copied Music Is Stealing!

References

• History of Music Piracy   on Wikipedia
• Music Piracy   definition on Wikipedia
• Music Piracy Stats   from the RIAA  

Yes, generally speaking, I oppose the overly mandated, self-sufficiency philosophy of the   National Federation for the Blind  (NFB).  I’ve read of NFB fighting the installation of textured edging along subway platforms that alerts anyone walking there that they’re walking dangerously close to the tracks.   Why would NFB oppose such a safety-conscious and beneficial aid to anyone blind who uses those platforms when boarding trains?  Talk about cutting the throats of the very folks they’re supposed to be serving. 

I feel that any advocacy organization, such as the NAACP, the ACLU, the AFLCIO, OSHA, and the NFB among others, were created and took hold because large populations were being oppressed, excluded, or discriminated against.  If these injustices had not been happening for such long periods and to the degrees that they were, these groups would not have formed because there would have been no need for them.  It’s hard to rally people without a cause that they believe strongly in.  The groups formed to campaign for greater rights and freedoms for their constituents.  If those rights had been present all along, then again, the groups would not be here today.  In short, if more of the blind had been happy with their lives and how society was treating them, then the NFB would never have formed. 

As I read about the NFB, it appears to me that they don’t want extra help.  Why is that?  Why would people be so against being helped?  I’d say that it’s because in our culture under normal circumstances, a person’s not supposed to need extra help, and the NFB, as I have seen them,  would have the public believe that the blind need no extra help and that they don’t want it in fact.  In this way, the NFB believes that it is bringing about more acceptance of the blind in mainstream society; the philosophy being that if the blind need less from the main stream, then the more likely it is that the main stream will accept them. 

Indeed, some NFB members are quite insistent about this.  I knew some of them once.  These were the kinds of people who cussed out a pedestrian who offered to help them get across a busy street, or who yelled at bus drivers for calling out the next stop for them.  But after seeing how those offering the help thereafter cowered away in the presence of any blind person they’d spot, it’s clear to me that these militant people aren’t doing anything good for the blind cause by behaving with such hostile fervor.  Thus, the NFB certainly does not represent the ideals that I as a vision-impaired man espouse.  In fact, I want more help from the sighted community; not less, thank you.

I don’t mean to suggest that all NFB members are radicals like the ones I’ve known.  But I’ve experienced first hand and read about so many of them, that it appears that extremism dominate the NFB agenda, and I want no parts of it.  Why?  Because as a legally blind man, I know that I cannot do everything that my fully-sighted colleagues can.  I also realize that my life is tougher every day because of that.  I don’t like that extra toughness and I’m looking for any ways I can find to ease it.  To that end, it would be foolish of me to associate myself with organizations who refuse to acknowledge this extra dose of hardship that all of us face as handicapped citizens.  It is tougher for us.  I’ve lived the life.  I know this, and I think that as citizens of this society, much more of the infrastructure needs to be improved to accommodate the needs of vision-impaired folks.  Honestly, I’m tired of always trying so hard to fit into the main stream.  Well, maybe we need to bend the main stream a little and make it flow closer to our lives.  Thus, I’m against the NFB’s overly-stated, self-sufficiency philosophy because how it overly downplays and dismisses the   real   needs of the blind. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Accepting Limitations
• Asking For Help
• Blind Hardships
• Book Of Job Lesson: Accept Your Plight
• If You Think You Can
• More Help for the Blind, Please
• There Is A Place For Pity Love
• To A Blind And Sad Job Seeker
• We Cannot Achieve Just ANYTHING We Want

It takes more than just effort to outperform our parents, though many compliment themselves for their sheer effort and tenacity that they say was solely responsible for their higher success.  Then, they blame those who do not outperform their parents for being too lazy and not putting forth enough effort.  However, while many achieve in life roughly what their parents did, this does not necessarily mean that they’re lazy.  Now it’s clear that in recent generations especially, more children than not manage to achieve higher living standards than did their parents; greater education, more wealth, better health care, safer neighborhoods, more opportunities, and so on.  So an expectation has grown up that anyone who does not outperform his parents by improving upon their lifestyles, is simply lazy and thus, flawed.

Certainly, a willingness to try is needed to outperform our parents. But like the flour in a chocolate cake (which is not the only ingredient necessary for creating a great-tasting cake by the way), voluntary effort is not the only component in the cake of success. We must also consider those inborn and nurtured traits like talent, ambition, aptitude, nutrition, and so many other qualities that impact the amount of effort required to succeed.  What we are born with and born into greatly impacts the amount of effort we must exert subsequently in order to outperform our parents economically and socially. 

Thus, we should be careful when judging people stuck in their traditional castes, because they’re likely fighting and succumbing to forces that we can not see. People all-too-quickly dismiss a person’s fatalism or resignation to his current life standard, as a simple unwillingness to pull himself up by his bootstraps and work hard to outperform his parents. True, some types would benefit from some good old fashioned tough love and forced discipline. But others have good reasons for their resignation and “laziness,” such as the profoundly disabled or the neglected.  We could enhance our own compassion for them by remembering that willful sloth (a voluntary choice to be lazy) is but a small part of all the apathy out there. Some people because of how they were raised, are just not cut out to achieve more greatness than their parents did.  The forces that converged upon them in their lives do not allow it. 

Finally, why are so many so opposed to acquiescing to more powerful forces than their own wills? I suppose that the succumbing to tradition indeed sounds a lot like God’s followers yielding their destinies to Him and his plan without question. I agree that this superstition is not healthy for a society. A truly enlightened culture would have no need to do it, and I regret that I won’t live long enough to see our society reach a total freedom from religion.  Yet many strong religious believers refuse to acknowledge the deep impact of child rearing in how much a child is able to outperform his parents.  They believe in an unseen God, yet downplay these objectively measurable forces.  Though the existence of God in my view has not been proven, there earthly forces have been.  In fact, these can be just as godly in power and scope, in determining how far we can outperform our parents.

Our challenge as humans is to discern which success limiters out of the complete set of forces, are mere phantoms, which are truly formidable yet beatable, and finally, which ones are simply too strong to overcome at all. A philosopher from antiquity – I don’t remember his name – said, essentially, that we need a healthy supply of   resignation   during life’s journey. Otherwise, we overestimate our capabilities, struggle to achieve excessively lofty goals, and therefore spend too much time disappointed. People need to know when it’s time to give up, and in order to know that, they must realize that, contrary to the moral of that   Little Engine That Could   story, quitting a particular pursuit is very often the best course of action.  For more discussion on this point, please see my   We Cannot Achieve Just Anything We Want   post.

Back to the original discussion about people outperforming their parents: Some folks fail to outperform those from previous generations because of factors beyond their control.  Thus, acrimoniously judging them is certainly not good, as it blames them for that which they cannot have power over, and wrongfully assumes that they can be in charge of things that they really cannot.  The blame in this case is therefore misplaced.  We need to stop this sort of misdirected blaming to improve our abilities at getting along with and accepting each other. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Accepting Limitations
• Are Self-Starters Privileged
• Book Of Job Lesson: Accept Your Plight
• Case For Tradition
• Fighting Fate To Get Rich
• Free Will, Yes, But Determinism Too!
• Hereditary Baggage
• If You Think You Can
• On Our Parents Defining Our Destiny
• Rising Above One’s Raising
• The Bonds Of Manifest Destiny
• We Cannot Achieve Just ANYTHING We Want

‎70% of Americans oppose the Muslim mosque near ground zero.  That’s a mandate majority.  That’s indeed strange, because   our constitution   was structured to protect entities from the whimsy and blind passion of the majority (mob rule). Is our constitution sacred enough to us to protect   Muslim   interests this time around?  Hopefully, the constitution will continue to safeguard freedom of religious expression for both Muslim and Christian Americans. 

But I also hope that we will not change our constitution or write new laws that curtail religious freedoms for specific faiths.  Punishing the whole Muslim following for the actions of less than a tenth of one percent of them, is unjust and so, further deepens the divide between Muslims and Christians. Consider that men commit violence against women. But in general, we don’t punish the entire male population for the crimes of a few. Christians in general?  Heck, Jesus followers are always getting into trouble.  Yet no one denies Christians their freedom to lawfully erect churches anywhere they please.  It should be the same for Muslims, as only a small handful of people calling themselves Muslim executed the 911 attacks. That’s just.

Lots of Jews commit bad crimes too. But do you see restrictions being imposed on Jews as a whole group as result? Nope. Not to this degree.  Why are we so much harder on Muslims?  No, the fact that Muslim extremists perpetrated the 9/11 attacks is not a valid answer. 

Deny any man or group anything based on their religious leanings, and you’ve violated their civil rights. You’re forcing them to endure segregation and other hardships simply because of their faiths. In this (the Muslim) case, popular opinion seeks to cut back freedoms based solely on the fact that the 9/11 hijackers claimed to be Muslim. It denies other Muslims rights that they would have without question, if they were not Muslim. In effect, the public is blaming the Muslim religion for the acts of a very small handful of its members. This is like the parent who can’t figure out which of his children spilled the milk on the kitchen floor. So he sends them all to bed early. Thus, denying this mosque is indeed punishing innocent Muslims wrongfully, just as sending all the kids to bed early is wrong to atone for the acts of just one of them.

Because a few extremists call themselves Muslims (those that committed the 911 attacks) we’re potentially subjecting all Muslims in the area of the proposed mosque to restrictions on how and where they practice their religion. Why should the wanton acts of a few bring condemnation to the whole?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Support Muslim Mosques Anywhere In America
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

One concern that people opposing the   mosque at ground zero   cite is that the   funding   for this mosque is coming from terrorist organizations.  But this dispute appears premature, for they don’t yet know precisely who will fund the mosque. They’re still assembling a portfolio now.

Is there direct evidence that the funding for the mosque at ground zero is being raised in shady ways and from shady groups? If so, let’s hear it. I’d be happy to entertain the data. But without direct evidence, then this claim is probably just hot air.  Might these people accuse that the funding is illegitimate because they think it may come from Muslim sources?  Have they implicitly equated Muslim with terrorist, and is this why they’re raising the funding issue? 

If not that the sponsors of the ground zero mosque are Muslim, there’d be no issue with the funding of this establishment. The funding issue is just one more vane attempt by opponents of the mosque to further their hate-filled, oppressive agendas.  Yes, people accept a church (non Muslim) but not a Muslim mosque so it seems.  But how much more clear-cut does this sort of discrimination need to be before people realize that it’s far less about funding specifically, and really about denying religious freedoms?

I support most any nativity display so long as it’s done on private property. But when such scenes show up on publicly-paid-for land?  Then I object, because public lands are compulsorily paid for by people from ALL religions. That is, we don’t get to choose which public properties our tax dollars support. So, it would be unfair to expect the Christian Americans for example, to pay for land on which a Muslim display is housed. Likewise, it would be likewise unjust for Muslims, Jews, atheists, et al to pay to maintain Christian scenes on publicly-paid-for lands. So, to make sure no one religion has to pay to promote another, our laws forbid religious displays in publicly funded schools, government buildings, or any other location that obtains its operating capital from the tax payers at large. This is as it should be, since America is comprised of much more than a single religion or faith.

I’d make a similar argument for prayer in public schools. Said schools these days serve not just Christians, but many other religions as well. So why should the Jews for example, be made to sit through Christian prayers? Why should the Christians be made to observe Muslim rituals? No one should be forced to participate in religious practices not their own, and especially not in schools that they contribute tax dollars to operate (public schools). Since most public schools in America are integrated, it is likely that people of many different and conflicting faiths attend them; they are open to all. So to avoid trying to fairly host prayer in these situations, the best solution was (and still is) to not allow said prayer, by any religion, in these schools. Now if you want your kid to partake in prayer, then pay the extra money and send him / her to a privately-funded religious school. But if you want to take advantage of the cheaper costs of publicly-funded education, then the sacrifice you make is that prayer, in the name of fairness. Yes, I support the no-prayers policy in public schools.

One more thing: People object to the mosque at ground zero for far different reasons than they object to religious displays on public land.  The objections in the public land case make good social sense.  But similar objections against the mosque do not.  Why?  Because the mosque is to be privately funded as I understand it, and it’s to be built on private property and in compliance with local laws.  But when churches want to put a cross or picture of Jesus in a court house, on a downtown street corner, or on some other publicly-funded and maintained property, this is a horse of a different color. Such placements do break laws in fact. 

I’m agnostic, and so, prefer that my tax dollars fund no religious stuff on public property.  Likewise, if I was Christian, I would not want my money funding Jewish or Muslim displays, publications, or other promotional activities.   Why should I be forced to fund religions in which I do not believe?  Surely you can see that with so many religions out there, that allowing any of them to post material on public lands is unfair to the rest.  Further, you couldn’t just allow all of them to put up scenes; lest you completely destroy the aesthetic appeal of landmark spots like court houses, congressional buildings, and so forth. Again, I maintain that the best solution, the one that serves everyone the best overall, is to disallow religious displays on ANY public property.  Indeed, you can get enough display by visiting the numerous private religious establishments around the country.  We don’t need that stuff on public lands.  Just like other churches (ones the people object to far less), this mosque is to be place on private property.  So from a funding standpoint, I fully support  building the mosque at ground zero, or anywhere else in America where it’s legal to do so, as defined by local regulations.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Support Muslim Mosques Anywhere In America
• Thoughts on Bigotry

Dear [Brandon],

Many views I struggle to tolerate, though I actually wish not to put up with them at all.  But I stomach them to preserve peace with others and avoid the heated arguments that face-to-face discussions of them can produce. 

One common opinion I strongly oppose is the wide-spread opposition to building   mosques   at   ground zero   or   anywhere else   throughout America.  I find this hostile view toward Muslims offensive because such unfriendliness promotes inequality and perpetuates discord and hatred among religions.  When one religion (Christian) denies another (Muslim) the freedom to build a church (mosque), then much anger occurs as seen in the near-hysterical demonstrations against building the mosque at ground zero.  Curiously though, the Muslims supporting the mosque were virtually invisible and quiet, while it was their rivals (the Christian-American majority) who were doing most of the yelling, taunting, vandalizing the construction equipment, and so on.  Those acting the most righteous in this conflict were typically the most violent and hateful in the whole mosque-at-ground-zero affair. 

It’s infuriating that the Christian-American majority is so uninformed and intolerant about how benevolent and peaceful non radical Muslims are. Ask Christian Americans why they oppose mosque building at most any location, and most are hard-pressed to answer.  Of course, because prejudice can rarely answer the tough questions like this without lots of stammer and uncertainty.  But when they do respond, their rationale seems woefully inadequate to justify the sorts of restrictions on an entire religion that opposing Muslim mosques in America embodies.

The Majority   is a great place to be as long as it never turns against you, as it apparently has against the religious freedoms of American Muslims. People hide their flawed thinking behind the banner of preponderance (behind each other), and so, never really have to justify their misguided positions on their own; without backup from others like them. It’s the old “safety in numbers” phenomenon. That is: Subscribing to majority rule makes it much easier to persecute a person, as many others are doing the same.  Majority rule (or better yet, mob rule) is  also very dangerous for those in the minority. Certainly, majority might makes not majority right. Yet Christian Americans continue to relentlessly fight Muslims who wish to build mosques. 

You and I have lived in the minority throughout our lives.  Your sexual orientation makes you a minor (so to speak), as does my visual impairment make me a minor. So perhaps this has given us a keener appreciation and thus sensitivity about the sort mob oppression that happened surrounding the building of the Muslin mosque at ground zero. Nowadays though unlike yesteryear, I’m happy with my dealt hand of vision impairment, because it has made me a more tolerant and compassionate person toward those who are different.  I’m different myself, and I believe that that has enabled me to better appreciate and more fully accept others’ differences.  I understand the supreme benefits of a diversity-appreciating society, and the need to promote such a collective yet diverse existence.  Thus, I have no problem with Muslims building mosques anywhere they wish so long as the adhere to local ordinances.

Christians may dominate the American political landscape currently. But America is by no means an exclusively Christian nation.  We’re not supposed to be of one faith here; but a diverse and numerous set of faiths.  Both Christians and non Christians alike should keep reminding the population at large of that.  We need to replace this Christian righteousness regarding the mosques with a healthy dose of good old fashioned humility.

Many Christian American newspaper columnists I’ve read seem to just want to fight with all Muslims; particularly when they argue that the connection between Islam and terrorism is immutable — like Islam is a single person, and when a small few of them commit a violent crime, then the Christians fault all of Islam.

Finally, liberalism is sometimes discredited in America these days because it supports Muslim mosques. Well, liberalism has prevailed in most of the election cycles in the past century due to the high regard it places on the ideal of total equality. But while liberalism proved to be out of vogue in 2010 elections, many folks nonetheless espouse the liberal agenda. Numerous conservative columnists are dreaming if they think that liberal ideals carry no weight with folks.  When people are hard pressed, their conscience punishes them when they show too little compassion.  Many folks today are feeling ashamed that at one time, they opposed Muslim freedom, gay rights, enfranchisement of all races, and so on.  So too will it be the case with the Muslim mosque at ground zero. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Muslim Americans’ Rights
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

[Emmy] and I recently discussed the extra troubles that the   blind   and   vision-impaired must face daily, particularly when growing up in the US foster care system.  One common hardship happens when the foster parents favor blood (their own biological children) over the foster children they care for.  Foster parents can show consistent and at times, relentless favoritism for their own blood over the foster kids. Add to that the difficult of a foster child being a blind girl, and this can further amplify the difficulty of   blood favoritism, and drive the foster parents away from that foster child and toward their own fully sighted biological children. 

My friend [Emmy] wrote this very heartfelt note on my blog about her hardships playing the dual roles of blind girl and foster child.  Raised in the confines of the foster care system for nearly fifteen years, [Emmy] offered some poignant descriptions of her feelings as a foster child, and how sad she felt at times.  I’ve included this letter below.  For the previous part of this discussion, see here.

—–

Dear Tom,

I agree with you that the blind need more assistance from the government. I know from personal experience how hard life can be. I was placed into the foster care system at a very young age and found it extremely difficult to fit into my foster parents’ biological family. I felt like an outsider because I was blind as well as not being their [biological] child.  I also felt like they were showing favoritism towards their younger child.

My parents have gone through some tragedies of their own, but that still doesn’t change anything. My parents’ younger daughter suffered a horrific sledding accident which left her in a coma for six weeks. Doctors didn’t think that she would make it, but she did. She’s very different from other people because of the accident. She’ll never be able to live on her own or be one with society. Sure, she has a part time job filing papers and that sort of thing but she’ll never be able to provide for herself which is very sad.

I feel sorry for her that she’s different from others but my parents should not have treated her better than me. Just because my sister’s mental capacity isn’t the same as mine doesn’t give my parents the right to favor her over the rest of the foster children they took care of.  I always felt sad when I observed my sister getting to go everywhere with my parents, where I had to sometimes stay at home and baby sit the foster kids.  This didn’t happen all the time but I didn’t like it any better than she did.  In fact what saddens me the most is that my family has a monthly get together where they all go out to eat and spend quality time with one another.  I never went to these dinners due to not being their own child.  I often felt like I should not have been born because even though my foster parents took me in, I felt like I really could never be part of their family.  It’s not fun growing up in a home where you don’t feel like you’re equal with everyone else.  It’s almost like they keep you at a distance from them and their family.  Yes they take care of you and yes they show affection to you but you know that you’ll never be truly theirs as a fourth child that they never had.  Nothing will ever take this pain away from me. 

I would like to be given a chance to be part of someone’s family not because they feel obligated to but because they truly want to.  I believe that my foster family had their heart in the right place in taking me in but how they showed their love and affection towards their kids and to the foster kids were totally different. How I felt towards my sister while growing up is still haunting me to this very day. I know that I will never be able to change what happened to me but how they treated me whether it was a conscious or unconscious decision to put their own kids needs ahead of the foster kids is down right hurtful. 

I’m not trying to make it sound like my parents didn’t care at all about me because that’s not true.  They gave me more than my biological parents would have ever done for me.  I guess I have a lot of resentment for not just my foster parents but for my biological parents as well.  I just feel as though their children were more valuable than the foster kids.  Yes, my mom would express her love to me and showed this by giving me hugs.  I did get rewarded for getting good grades and being a somewhat good kid.  I just wish that I didn’t have to prove myself that I too was a good person despite not being part of their special bond.  It doesn’t matter how much people care about you and offer to add you to their family. Somehow you still feel like you’re not part of the family.  I believe that blood is thicker than water, and it saddens me to say that I will never have a family to call my very own and whom which I can totally feel at peace with and that they can truly except me for me and not to compare me with others.  Even though I was loved by my parents, it never took the insecure feelings away but somehow I managed to move on. That doesn’t mean I’ve actually embraced this pain and insecurity but I’m seeking professional help for it.  It wasn’t my fault that I ended up in the foster care system and it wasn’t their fault for having a good family.  Even though these facts are true, it doesn’t make it right for people to be treated better than yourself just because of a brain injury.  I’m not trying to sound insensitive but talking to my parents about what ales me won’t change anything.  I will just have to accept this.

Fighting to just fit into normal society is bad enough but when you add a visual impairment to the mix, it makes it just as hard to fit in with society. Even getting good medical care has been difficult for me. I suffered with GI problems for quite some time and when I finally got settled in my current apartment, I tried seeing a GI specialist to see if they could run additional tests on me to figure out what was going on with my body. The doctor looked at me as if I was crazy because she asked me if that was really necessary. After hearing that, I never saw that doctor again. She was no help whatsoever because she wanted me to take prescription drugs for the rest of my life.

I decided to be my own doctor and slowly got off the medications. With time and some patience my body resumed to its normal routine. About four months ago I saw an oral surgeon to remove my wisdom teeth. He did this in such a short amount of time, I felt like he rushed the procedure.

The problem with being on some government programs is that not everyone takes your health insurance. You’re very limited in your selection in order to get good quality healthcare. I feel as though they just want your money and that they don’t really want to help you. It’s bad enough that the co payments can be quite expensive. That’s not always the case but it does happen.

Seeking psychotherapy is difficult too because a lot of therapists ask you to pay more than what you can afford. Sandra was very fortunate in getting help for obtaining psychotherapy. Not all blind and visually impaired individuals are that fortunate. It would be nice if the government would step up to help the blind and visually impaired individuals by having funds or just setting up programs that would actually help these people become equal with their sighted counter parts.

Being blind or visually impaired makes it hard to be competitive in the job market. Sure, the ADA has helped a lot with having equal treatment but I believe that we have a long way to go  before we can be equal to others. If we just had more services offered to us in order to better ourselves, we would be a lot better off. 

Also, sighted people have to be educated with the blind and visually impaired.  Yes there are trained professionals who come into the schools and teach the children Braille and mobility skills so that you can learn how to be independent someday.  We could improve this by expanding adults to learning more about the blind and visually impaired and how they can assist us.  We as blind and visually impaired people want to be just like everyone else but most people don’t give us a chance.  They just see our handicap and don’t wish to be bothered with us. I hope that we can turn this around in the future.

[Emmy]

Related Posts

• More Help for the Blind, Please

Republicans arguing to dismantle   collective bargaining rights   complain that so much union money goes to aiding democrat politicians.  Unions aiding democratic politicians would stand to reason because historically, the whole concept of the union was brought into existence by the democrats. So historically, the democrats have been politically more friendly to unions.  So, that’s not surprising.

But republicans have their own “unions” that like them.  Those are corporate entities.  Indeed, corporate dollars go to republican politicians as surely as union dollars fund democrats, to get them what they want; help with campaign funding, lobbying, and special interest groups. In fact, republicans have traditionally opposed workers rights from the very start of their party, and so have corporate leaders. So again, it’s not surprising that corporate management tends to fund republican politicians. So it’s hard to argue credibly that democrats receive more help from their unions than republicans receive from their corporations. Indeed, corporate management is to republican politicians as union leadership is to democratic politicians.

So the question is: If the goal is to stop the union dollars from fund democratic politicians, then what shall be done about those corporate dollars that fund republican politicians? Anything bad to be said about the democrats doing this can also be said about the republicans. Doesn’t seem fair to take the power (the money) from the democrats without doing something equally as “budget balancing” on the republican side.

I don’t know.  It looks like the numbers of those in the streets opposing the   collective bargaining rights   restrictions in Wisconsin do not reflect just a small percentage of the people in that state upset with this bill.  Based on the television images from there, I’d say a good many are unhappy. They didn’t realize the true extent of what they’d be giving up when they elected republicans. Well, the reality of their choice has hit them now. 

You don’t balance bugets by taking away people’s   collective bargaining rights   and undoing a hundred years of work place evolution and advancement for the working and middle classes however. But that’s just what the republicans did recently in Wisconsin.  Historically, republicans have lain in wait for this sort of opportunity to clip the wings of union influence in business, and they’re using the current nationwide debt crisis as a rallying cry against unions, to further a century-old anti-union agenda.   

Republicans attribute much unwarranted “evil” to   collective bargaining   itself.   Collective bargaining is just a means that enables people to come together and speak to management as one large voice in negotiations for better pay and work conditions. Again, without that ability, workers rights are doomed. Would you want to go back to eighteen hour work days, unsafe and deplorable work conditions, people being terrified to voice grievances with management, and lower standards of living for the working class? I would not.

We supposedly live in a free country.  This means that people should be allowed to   collectively bargain   if they wish, without corporate collective management supporting laws to deny that right.  But that’s no longer completely true for the public workers in Wisconsin.   The republicans, sighing that age-old complaint that the unions have too much control, have seriously reduced said rights. 

But allowing people to group together and   collectively bargain   does not give them complete power.  Indeed, when union demands exceed available resources, then government can break the union, as Reagan did with the air traffic controllers in the 1980s. Many teachers unions have folded as well over the past forty years when their demands surpassed the school’s financial ability to meet. So   collective bargaining   itself does not totally insulate unions from their economic or political realities. Thus,   collective bargaining rights   do not grant unions absolute power.  But they are the lifeblood of the union because without these rights, then there’s much less reason to ever organize a union in the first place.   

All that   collective bargaining rights   do, is supply to unions a strong negotiating position and ability to defend their members against corporate injustices. In fact, history shows that such injustices abound without unions to keep them in heck.  Repeatedly it’s occurred that without this strong and unified voice, management will invariably exploit its workers. So I suspect that worker misuse, now that   collective bargaining rights   for public workers have been restricted in Wisconsin, will happen sooner rather than later.  Hopefully once people get a real taste of what life without a strong union is like, they’ll reinstate those rights that were lost earlier this year.  I hope. To preserve what organized labor has fought for, I strongly support preserving   collective bargaining rights   for all workers. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Rights Debate

References

• Collective Bargaining    definition on Wikipedia
• Wisconsiin Collective Bargaining Protests   description on Wikipedia

It appears that the Christian   church ignores Maslow’s hierarchy of needs work  (specifically, the  Effects Of Unrequited Love Needs) as they continue insisting on abstinence and celibacy for gays and priests respectively.  Though Maslow’s work suggests that   unrequited love needs   indeed keep a person from realizing his full potential, the Christian church nonetheless, forces its clergy to do without forever.  It relentlessly campaigns against sexual gratification to eliminate these needs, hinting that said needs are unclean and distracting. In spite of the wide-spread difficulties priests have with keeping their sex-starved hands off of defenseless young parishioners, the Christian church still dogmatically demands lifelong celibacy from them. 

Further, given the intense feelings of isolation and dejection that gays suffer from going without love, the church still holds that they have no business fulfilling their love desires; commanding that gays should devote themselves to God to rid themselves of a basic human need.  It’s only now, after several decades of public scandal, that the church has even acknowledged the issue with its own priests, much less begun the attempt to address it.  They still have yet to grant Christian gays any leeway to quench the thirst of their love lust. 

True.  A person can indeed survive without sex while carrying around his   unrequited love needs   according to Maslow.  But life is a heck of a lot more fulfilling with the physical affection, closeness, and sharing when you have love.  Men especially are likely to be not completely satisfied without physical intimacy; just as most women will not be fully gratified without having their own children.  Indeed, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs hints that to achieve maximal fulfillment at the higher levels (esteem and self actualization as well as Frankl’s transcendence level), one would do so most effectively when his love and sex needs (at level three) are already met.

Finally, life is not always about (nor should it be) resisting our natural tendencies.  The church however, all-too-often, pits people (needlessly in my opinion) against their innate desires; even when seeking to fulfill said desires endemically harms nobody (as in the case of gays and their homosexuality).

Infidelity may have become more overt in this age of more open sexual expression. However, such desires or lacking morality were around way before people ever came out of the closet. So I’d suggest that the sexual revolution did not create the infidelity of the heart as much as it revealed an already-existing version of it deep inside. People cheated in their minds before they did it in the flesh. They simply kept it quiet however.

Now if you have no love needs to requite, then that’s a different story.  You’d probably do better in your life without physical involvements in that case.  Besides, you’d make a fine priest or homosexual in the eyes of the church at least.  But the vast majority of people feel empty, sad, depressed, and a whole slew of other negative emotions without physical affection.  The burdens of   unrequited love needs   have been heavy throughout human history.  So it baffles me that the church, even after all the centuries since the fall of Rome, continues beating the celibacy drum for priests, and the abstinence drum for gays.  It’s hard to be a good anything without a reliable supply of good loving, especially if you really want it.  So I think the church should support love needs gratification among both its parishioners as well as its clergy, both gay and straight alike. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Celibacy Turns Priests Into Dangerous Lustful Predators
• Church Teaches Gay Inequality
• Effects Of Unrequited Love Needs
• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs
• We Don’t Live Happily Without Love

References

• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs   definition on Wikipedia
• Unrequited Love   definition on Wikipedia

I received the piece below from [Emmy] in a comment for another blog post.  But this was so well expressed that I though it deserved main post status here on my blog.  This mirrors my feelings about America’s overuse of   makeup and cosmetics   to increase chances of finding true love.  She details how makeup not only creates false beauty standards, and how its use might not be honest.  But she further explains how the women who wear copious amounts of it hurt the feelings of those who wish not to fuss with cosmetics.   Is a person who wears makeup really any further ahead of one who does not?  [Emmy] has a definite opinion about that.  Enjoy. 

——

Dear Tom,

I agree with you that having   makeup   and the latest fashion only gets you so far in a relationship.  You could be totally ugly under all that stuff.  On the contrary, you could be as beautiful as the model on the run way, but have a nasty, unattractive streak in you.  As the saying goes “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.   I believe this with all my heart.  Having the best cosmetics and the latest styles will only get you as far as a few dates if you’re lucky.  But when you reach the second date and beyond, the reality of how you really look to the other person intrudes, and they may not like the unvarnished you. 

Well I know all too well about how the cosmetic industry works.  You can’t turn on the TV and not notice the cosmetic commercials for makeup and clothing flashing before your eyes.  You have to wonder.  What are they trying to say to the average Joe, that you’re ugly unless you wear our products?  Many people could argue this.  In fact I’ve always felt uncomfortable watching these commercials because they emphasize that I’m not good enough as a person unless I wear these products.  I also don’t feel comfortable around people who fuss about how they look.  What the heck I don’t even worry about this kind of stuff.  Sure, I like to look nice but not at the expense of my wallet.  I guess being on a limited income teaches you not to be too greedy with the luxuries of the cosmetic and fashion industry.

I don’t think of myself as a beautiful person, even though I hear it quite often from people on the street, close friends and my boyfriend.  I have always assumed that by using these products, you would attract more dates as well as make yourself feel more beautiful.  By wearing this stuff you prove to society that you’re imperfect and that the products will make you flawless.  I feel like a plain Jane on the street because I don’t fuss over my hair, clothes, or put on makeup.  I know that makeup would probably hide some of my complexion issues that affect me on a daily basis.  I would be deceiving others in what I truly look like.  Sure there’s more to someone than just their looks but I don’t believe that by using makeup and wearing flashy clothes enhances your chances on getting a great relationship from a man. 

I don’t have to do anything to get noticed by men.  I just wear my casual clothing and go about my business.  It’s not like I got any more noticed by wearing flashy clothes or makeup.  In fact there are quite a number of women who hide their facial imperfections with foundation and other cosmetic products.  When my boyfriend and I first met each other, I was curious what drew him to me, it’s not like I had the flashiest clothes or wore makeup.  In fact I just wore casual clothing, ranging from t-shirts, sweat shirts, to jeans and sneakers.  In fact this is how I feel most comfortable when presenting myself to others. 

I’m already hard on myself for not being as beautiful as the girl on the street but no matter how much advice I get from friends and loved ones it doesn’t change my mind.  I want to look like everyone else.  I’m not happy with my looks, some people just laugh at me because they think that I’m gorgeous.  A lot of men probably wouldn’t mind dating me, because they like what they see.  No matter how much fashion or cosmetics I might use, I will never see myself the way that others see me.  In fact, I feel just as plain and ugly with all of the glamorous products, as without them. 

Does a person actually feel more beautiful by wearing all of this crap?  I don’t think so.  They probably just do it because everyone else is doing it, and they don’t want to look awkward.  Their opinion of themselves is probably still there, and they believe that by wearing this stuff, it will boost up their confidence.  It might make you seem more confident to others, but at the end of the day, you are you.  You can lose weight, and change your hair etc all you want but you can’t change others opinions about how they feel about you. 

True beauty comes from within not only yourself but whoever is viewing you.  This is a constant struggle for me because I’m always telling other women how unattractive I am.  Don’t think that makeup and clothes can make others fall in love with you because that’s all in your mind.  The makeup must come off eventually.  So why not reveal your true and honest self to others to begin with?  At least if you show your true self early on, you’re not sending wrong signals about yourself or misleading anyone about how you really look underneath all that goop. 

Men and women alike, appreciate someone who is honest. Right?  So why don’t we all just be honest, and share our true natural selves with others?  If they don’t like us for who we truly are, than who needs them?  We just have to find someone who can accept us for the real us and not the false us.  People like honesty and they like to surround themselves with these types of people.  Let the cosmetics and fashion industry do what they will.  But we need not enslave ourselves to their products.  In the long run I don’t think we’re any better if we wear makeup. People will always judge us, yes.  But we just have to believe that we’re still worth it, even without the cosmetics.  Few people get truly happier by using makeup.

Emmy

Related Posts

• Against Makeup
• Does Makeup Really Work?
• To Find A Good Man, Be Yourself
• True Beauty, Not Makeup, Wins True Love