Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Dayton Wants a shutdown... and this proves it...
Crazy eyes, bipolar-alcoholic nutjob Mark Dayton (I think he might also be manic, believe me I would know, but thats another story) wants to shutdown the government. There is a devestating article in the star-trib op-ed section today that proves this.
First I'm going to show a picture of our disturbed governor...
Gov. Mark Dayton released his plan for a state government shutdown earlier this week, outlining the staff and services that his administration considers essential. The plan was filed in Ramsey County District Court, since the courts will play a major role in any shutdown planning.
While the governor's office says it considers all government services to be essential at some level, the shutdown plan includes only those "critical services to protect the lives and safety of Minnesotans."
The administration also emphasizes that the courts will ultimately determine which services are "critical." But the shutdown recommendations offer a telling glimpse of this administration's priorities and motives.
Dayton's plan is appalling -- not only for the services it deems "critical" but, more important, for those it does not. For example, the governor plans to stop all aid payments to schools.
Additionally, health care providers who serve Minnesotans on medical assistance will also go without payment. And at a legislative hearing this week, an administration official acknowledged that bridge assessments also did not make Dayton's list, apparently failing to meet the governor's "critical service" standard.
The clear strategy: Make any government shutdown hurt as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and as broadly as possible in order to coerce legislators into accepting Dayton's tax hike proposal.
Of course, the Dayton administration would never admit that. Instead, it insists that the state Constitution leaves it no choice but to stop paying health care providers and nursing homes, to stop aid payments to schools, and to take other devastating measures.
According to Rep. Ryan Winkler, a leading DFL voice on all things shutdown, it would be unconstitutional for the state to spend money on virtually anything if a budget deal is not reached by July 1. Winkler says "any spending without appropriation by law is not constitutional."
The Dayton administration has taken a similar stance.
(Of course, another problem with this argument is the fact that the Legislature passed a balanced budget that would have made appropriations for all state services had Dayton not vetoed it.)
Dayton is hiding behind the state's courts and Constitution to justify a cynical and draconian plan motivated more by politics than principle. For evidence, contrast Dayton's shutdown plan with those that preceded it.
Contingency planning for a government shutdown is nothing new to this state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty developed one prior to the state's 10-day partial shutdown in 2005, and Gov. Jesse Ventura planned for a shutdown that was ultimately averted in 2001.
A comparison of the plans is telling. Dayton has deemed as "critical" not only his media and communications staff, but also staff at his official residence. Among those employed at the governor's mansion are Dayton's chef and gardener.
In 2001, by comparison, Ventura planned to all but shutter the mansion. Aid payments to schools? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans.
Bridge assessments? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans. Health care? Again, the Dayton administration is alone in its recommendation to stop paying those who provide care for vulnerable Minnesotans.
Dayton's omissions are especially glaring in light of some of the services included in his plan. The state's dentistry board would continue to operate under a Dayton shutdown. Maintenance at Giant's Ridge resort would also continue.
And while Dayton does not plan to pay those who provide health care for vulnerable Minnesotans, he does plan to pay those who care for the state's bison herd.
Dayton's shutdown plans may soon be a moot point. Legislative leaders offered a new proposal to the governor Thursday, offering to remove more than $200 million in tax relief from their budget if Dayton agrees to drop his demand for a tax hike.
Perhaps the two sides are finally approaching a final agreement on how to operate this state for the next two years. Maybe on July 1, instead of preparing for a devastating shutdown, Minnesotans will be planning a relaxing July 4 weekend.
For the sake of the many Minnesotans who would suffer most under a government shutdown, let's hope so.
First I'm going to show a picture of our disturbed governor...
Gov. Mark Dayton released his plan for a state government shutdown earlier this week, outlining the staff and services that his administration considers essential. The plan was filed in Ramsey County District Court, since the courts will play a major role in any shutdown planning.
While the governor's office says it considers all government services to be essential at some level, the shutdown plan includes only those "critical services to protect the lives and safety of Minnesotans."
The administration also emphasizes that the courts will ultimately determine which services are "critical." But the shutdown recommendations offer a telling glimpse of this administration's priorities and motives.
Dayton's plan is appalling -- not only for the services it deems "critical" but, more important, for those it does not. For example, the governor plans to stop all aid payments to schools.
Additionally, health care providers who serve Minnesotans on medical assistance will also go without payment. And at a legislative hearing this week, an administration official acknowledged that bridge assessments also did not make Dayton's list, apparently failing to meet the governor's "critical service" standard.
The clear strategy: Make any government shutdown hurt as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and as broadly as possible in order to coerce legislators into accepting Dayton's tax hike proposal.
Of course, the Dayton administration would never admit that. Instead, it insists that the state Constitution leaves it no choice but to stop paying health care providers and nursing homes, to stop aid payments to schools, and to take other devastating measures.
According to Rep. Ryan Winkler, a leading DFL voice on all things shutdown, it would be unconstitutional for the state to spend money on virtually anything if a budget deal is not reached by July 1. Winkler says "any spending without appropriation by law is not constitutional."
The Dayton administration has taken a similar stance.
(Of course, another problem with this argument is the fact that the Legislature passed a balanced budget that would have made appropriations for all state services had Dayton not vetoed it.)
Dayton is hiding behind the state's courts and Constitution to justify a cynical and draconian plan motivated more by politics than principle. For evidence, contrast Dayton's shutdown plan with those that preceded it.
Contingency planning for a government shutdown is nothing new to this state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty developed one prior to the state's 10-day partial shutdown in 2005, and Gov. Jesse Ventura planned for a shutdown that was ultimately averted in 2001.
A comparison of the plans is telling. Dayton has deemed as "critical" not only his media and communications staff, but also staff at his official residence. Among those employed at the governor's mansion are Dayton's chef and gardener.
In 2001, by comparison, Ventura planned to all but shutter the mansion. Aid payments to schools? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans.
Bridge assessments? They were included in the Ventura and Pawlenty plans. Health care? Again, the Dayton administration is alone in its recommendation to stop paying those who provide care for vulnerable Minnesotans.
Dayton's omissions are especially glaring in light of some of the services included in his plan. The state's dentistry board would continue to operate under a Dayton shutdown. Maintenance at Giant's Ridge resort would also continue.
And while Dayton does not plan to pay those who provide health care for vulnerable Minnesotans, he does plan to pay those who care for the state's bison herd.
Dayton's shutdown plans may soon be a moot point. Legislative leaders offered a new proposal to the governor Thursday, offering to remove more than $200 million in tax relief from their budget if Dayton agrees to drop his demand for a tax hike.
Perhaps the two sides are finally approaching a final agreement on how to operate this state for the next two years. Maybe on July 1, instead of preparing for a devastating shutdown, Minnesotans will be planning a relaxing July 4 weekend.
For the sake of the many Minnesotans who would suffer most under a government shutdown, let's hope so.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Life gets better, for everyone...
There is a thing going around called "it gets better" to encourage gay teens from other gays that life gets better. But why limit it to that? My life was hell from 11-15 and it did get better and continues to but I'm not gay, never have been. So where is the heterosexual teen to turn to? Well John Cheese of Cracked.com puts it into better terms than I ever could.
In the last year you've probably heard "It gets better" used as a motto to encourage gay teens who've been the victims of bullying. This is not a rebuttal of that, because I am not an asshole. What I do want to do is expand that message to everyone that age, whether you have a bully problem or not.
I figure it's time, as I tend to write about dark and often brutally depressing subjects, like how I was a smoldering drunk for over half of my life and how much my parents sucked at being parents. But I do it for a reason. I figure there are a lot of people in the same situation who feel like they're alone. That's always the worst part about having a shitty life in your teens or 20s, feeling like everyone else in the world has it figured out but you.
So, as a man with a truly shitty past, let me say that it's not just a slogan. It does get better. Specifically ...
#5.The Money Situation Will Improve (Even if it Doesn't)
I'm not saying you'll be rich when you grow up. I'm saying it's really not about money. It's about freedom.
My girlfriend and I recently broke into the middle class after years of living one paycheck away from homelessness. And when I say "years" I mean all the years from age 15 to age 36. It was never easy, and often was the emotional equivalent of being on the receiving end of a never-ending gang fuck by a herd of Flavor Flavs.
But even at the lowest point of that bottomless pit of gold-plated testicles and giant clock necklaces, I wouldn't have traded it for a chance to be 15-years-old again. Why? Because at this stage of your life, you finally have some control over the situation. And when we talk about things getting better, this is at the heart of it.
As a kid, you just have to sit back and take it, not fully understanding why you're living the way you are. You're dependent on your parents' decisions and actions, whether they lead to bankruptcy or a new swimming pool. A lot of that pressure you're feeling in your teens and 20s is really just powerlessness. You feel like instead of driving the car, you're tied up in the trunk.
When you get out on your own, your financial future is yours, and you can steer that bastard where you want it to go. It's not easy, but even when it's hard there is something liberating about the fact that even if you crash our proverbial car through the front window of a liquor store, it was your decision.
And just to make sure you didn't skip over the "it's not easy" part: If you think "it gets better" means you can sit back and wait for a naked genie to fart cash into your living room, it will not. "It gets better" doesn't mean life lets up, it means you no longer have to submit to it. Not like when you're a kid, when your parents can divorce without your consent or make you change schools or make you get a stupid haircut. When you're an adult, you can get pissed and swing back.
Please, don't wait as long as I did to learn that lesson. My entire adolescent life was spent in poverty because my parents gave up and just accepted that life was a spiked enema, and they just had to bend over and take it. They made no effort to improve their situation, and so that's the lesson my siblings and I took with us when we got out on our own. "There is no escaping your financial fate."
I didn't push back until I was forced to. After 14 years of working an incredibly insufficient, shitty job, my back finally said, "Fuck this," and I was physically unable to do it anymore. I had nothing to go to. No backup plan. No savings. No family to turn to. And then I realized that I did in fact have skills that people would pay me to perform.When I wasn't writing, I was putting in applications all over town. In the next town. In towns 30 minutes away. I applied to places online. When there was no gas in the truck, I walked to put in more applications. I swung harder. There are some days that I write for 16 straight hours, knowing that everything I just typed will be deleted and replaced with a completely different idea, or rejected outright. And that's OK because the success or failure is mine, not somebody else's. You can't put a price on that.
#4.You Will Find Someone
There's a human trait that can sometimes be incredibly beneficial to growth, while at the same time devastating to morale. And that's the desire to have something right fucking here, right goddamn now. If you point that urgency toward something like getting a better job or a promotion, it can be a powerful tool. That urgency is what made all human civilization possible.
It's not so hot when you're lonely and want a companion -- especially when you're young and watching all of your friends joining the boob buffet and you're still alone every weekend. I've seen over and over in my life, people (including myself) who sink into depression because they don't feel that they're ever going to find love. So they look, and look, and look. Depending on who you are, you'll try bars, grocery stores, libraries, online dating services, friends of your mother. Then you latch onto the very first person who pays you any attention, even if they're not right for you. Because, shit, what if nobody else ever comes along?
Then months or years later, you find yourself lonely again, or worse: in a catastrophically bad relationship that you're afraid to leave. "It's better to be in this shitty hookup than to be alone," you'll tell yourself, knowing on some level that you're full of shit. Eventually you get to the point where you blame yourself. "I'm too fat. Nobody will ever love me." "I have this third arm growing out of my forehead. I have no chance." What is hard to realize from that state of mind is that it's the desperation itself that's screwing you. If you're trying too hard, people can smell that a mile away. That in itself is ass-repellant.
I'm not sure I've ever met someone who went their whole life without a "significant other." But I've met plenty of people whose dates took an abrupt halt when they let slip with, "God, before you came along, I was just close to putting a gun to my temple and- oh, the steak is finally here!"
You have to relax. It turns out some lessons taught by romantic comedies aren't full of shit: Concentrate on taking care of yourself first, because 90 percent of a relationship's success is a matter of maturing into the type of person other people want to be around.
If you're young (in high school or college) you don't even know who you are yet. Those early, failed relationships, or lack of a relationship, do not doom your prospects for romance for the rest of your life. Hell, at this point it wouldn't even matter if you met the love of your life -- you haven't even fully become the person who will eventually have something to offer them. Getting down about success with romance at this point is like giving up on a team in the preseason. In your early 20s, your starting players haven't even come off the bench yet.
But this still applies later in life -- I got divorced after a 10 year marriage, and found myself right back in that same, desperate place, scared of being alone. I didn't find anyone until I decided to stop worrying about that and start worrying about making less of a mess of my life. It makes sense, looking back -- when you're in that desperation mode, you put up fronts, and try to be the person you think the guy or girl wants. And that may work for one night, but when you both settle down, that outer "first impression" shell disappears, and you turn into you. Suddenly, you're "not the person I knew when we first met." And they're right. Because the person they met wasn't you.
If you get more comfortable with yourself, you stop trying so hard, you get more relaxed and don't feel like you have to work so hard to hide your true self. You don't stop looking for someone, I don't mean that; you just stop hating yourself so hard for not finding them. I know it sounds like a Catch-22, but it's the lack of self-hatred that will make you attractive.
#3.High School is NOT the Best Years of Your Life
I'm not going to sugar coat this: Adults tell you that high school is the best time you'll ever have because they've forgotten what it was like. They just remember the part where they didn't have to worry about bills, and their hindsight becomes so focused and narrow that it couldn't see the period at the end of this sentence.
The truth is, for many if not most of us, high school is one of the most difficult times you'll ever live through. At that age, you're expected to act like an adult while gaining none of the benefits of adulthood. You are criticized for virtually everything you do by just about every adult in your social and family circle. You're expected to start holding up responsibilities, but under their rules.
Everything I said above about how you need to be yourself and grow into a fully formed human being before your life can really start? Those teen years don't make it easy. If you look at porn, you have to hide it. If you hang out with friends that your parents don't approve of, you have to cover it up. When you go out, you have to be home by their set schedule. The house is decorated their way. You eat what they cook. You dress to their standards. You lose every argument because "You're only 16, you don't know what you're talking about yet."
And the entire time you're dealing with all of this stress, your body is fucking with you from the inside out, blasting you with hormones and chemicals that you've never experienced in your entire life until right now. You're sexually awkward because you don't have much, if any, experience. If you're not ready for sex, you're made to feel like an outcast, and you're instantly ostracized from certain social groups. It is terrifyingly hard. Some people don't make it through. You fucking will. Why?
In just a few years, you'll be on your own. Maybe you'll go to college or maybe you'll start work right away. Either way, you will, for the first time in your life, be the master of your own domain. You'll come home from a hard day's work and throw your pants on the floor because they're your pants. It's your floor. Your rules. And as you spend the rest of your pantsless day, relaxing on your self-made pantscarpet, there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.
Why? Because...
#2.Until You're On Your Own, You Don't Know What Freedom Is
First of all, don't look at your parents boring lives and assume that being an adult means living according to their template. No, you don't have to ditch the video games and take up a "grown up" hobby like golf if you don't feel like it. See, once you're an adult, you get to decide.
Want to stay up until 4 a.m. on a Wednesday? Go for it. Want to eat straight whipped cream right out of the container? Have at it. Adulthood is being able to get into your car at 2 a.m. and just drive for no reason at all. It's growing past being dragged to Mom's church every Sunday and being able to decide for yourself what you want to believe. It's eating pie for supper. It's choosing your own friends and buying your own clothes. It's sitting three feet from the TV screen, just because you fucking can. It's watching a movie for no other reason than it has a lesbian sex scene with Natalie Portman.
That's not to say that there are no repercussions for doing those things, but by God this is your life now, and you have the right to learn those lessons in any way you choose. You own those repercussions. They're yours, no one can take them from you.
For instance, almost everyone I've ever met -- and I've lived in six major cities in the United States -- complains that they "have to get out of this shitty town." I heard it in small-town Illinois, I heard it in Los Angeles, I heard it in Minneapolis. There are like two dozen hit rock songs from the 80s on that subject. Well, as an adult, you have every right and every opportunity to make that happen. You might fuck it up and wind up living in your car, but it was your doing. That freedom is the most powerful tool you'll ever own, and it's exactly what enables you to continue growing. And you will grow.
Yes, you'll have problems. But they'll be your problems. And besides, what would you do without them? The problems are what get you out of bed in the morning. They're what makes succeeding at things such a goddamned rush. You can't be a dragon slayer without dragons.
People talk about a "real world" after graduation, as if that's when the "real" stress starts. And in some ways, they're right. But nothing takes away from the feeling of being at the wheel, doing things on your own terms. Besides, there's something you should know about the "real world" ...
#1.The World isn't as Bad as You Think
When you're a kid, your parents shelter you from the worst of what's really going on in the world. As you get older, your worldview changes and expands. You start to think outside of your own town and social circle. You'll see a metric fuckload of bad news. Violence, government scandals, wars over seemingly petty bullshit. At some point (maybe later in high school but most seem to save it for the college years) you'll get cynical. "Why should I live in this world when it's so shitty?" Or later, "How can I bring a child into this living hell?"
We forget that what is happening now is the opposite of what your parents did. They sheltered you from bad news, but the news media shelters you from good news. They literally filter it out; among all of this horrible information coming out of the nightly news, there is so much good that goes unreported because it doesn't get the same ratings.
But as for the bad shit, there has to come a point where you realize the same thing I've touched on over and over again in this article: As an adult, you are now part of the world and you do have some power to change it. As a kid, you didn't have the power to change shit.
The reason you need to live in a world with all of this shitty news is because that world needs you to help fix it. The reason you can bring a child into this life is because when you pass on your morals and beliefs to them, that's one more soldier on the field to fight for the good side.
Chances are you're not going to show up and disarm a bomb at the last second on a plane filled with a hundred innocent people. But you can absolutely donate some trivial amount of money to make sure some farmer in some oppressed country can get medicine to his family so that they can help him harvest the crops that will in turn feed entire villages.
Life gets better because you're going to make it better. Because you'll have the power and the freedom to make it better.
It's incredibly difficult for a teenager in the throes of angst or a college kid knee-deep in debt and stress to see any of that. Depression is like that. It shrinks your view of the world, it chokes off the horizon. You feel like you're being tea-bagged by life -- its hairy ass cheeks planted firmly over your eyes so you can't see anything else.
Don't mistake those ass cheeks for the whole world. The world is actually out there, beyond that ass, and time and effort will make that clear. You have to survive it first though. I promise you, it gets better.
In the last year you've probably heard "It gets better" used as a motto to encourage gay teens who've been the victims of bullying. This is not a rebuttal of that, because I am not an asshole. What I do want to do is expand that message to everyone that age, whether you have a bully problem or not.
I figure it's time, as I tend to write about dark and often brutally depressing subjects, like how I was a smoldering drunk for over half of my life and how much my parents sucked at being parents. But I do it for a reason. I figure there are a lot of people in the same situation who feel like they're alone. That's always the worst part about having a shitty life in your teens or 20s, feeling like everyone else in the world has it figured out but you.
So, as a man with a truly shitty past, let me say that it's not just a slogan. It does get better. Specifically ...
#5.The Money Situation Will Improve (Even if it Doesn't)
I'm not saying you'll be rich when you grow up. I'm saying it's really not about money. It's about freedom.
My girlfriend and I recently broke into the middle class after years of living one paycheck away from homelessness. And when I say "years" I mean all the years from age 15 to age 36. It was never easy, and often was the emotional equivalent of being on the receiving end of a never-ending gang fuck by a herd of Flavor Flavs.
But even at the lowest point of that bottomless pit of gold-plated testicles and giant clock necklaces, I wouldn't have traded it for a chance to be 15-years-old again. Why? Because at this stage of your life, you finally have some control over the situation. And when we talk about things getting better, this is at the heart of it.
As a kid, you just have to sit back and take it, not fully understanding why you're living the way you are. You're dependent on your parents' decisions and actions, whether they lead to bankruptcy or a new swimming pool. A lot of that pressure you're feeling in your teens and 20s is really just powerlessness. You feel like instead of driving the car, you're tied up in the trunk.
When you get out on your own, your financial future is yours, and you can steer that bastard where you want it to go. It's not easy, but even when it's hard there is something liberating about the fact that even if you crash our proverbial car through the front window of a liquor store, it was your decision.
And just to make sure you didn't skip over the "it's not easy" part: If you think "it gets better" means you can sit back and wait for a naked genie to fart cash into your living room, it will not. "It gets better" doesn't mean life lets up, it means you no longer have to submit to it. Not like when you're a kid, when your parents can divorce without your consent or make you change schools or make you get a stupid haircut. When you're an adult, you can get pissed and swing back.
Please, don't wait as long as I did to learn that lesson. My entire adolescent life was spent in poverty because my parents gave up and just accepted that life was a spiked enema, and they just had to bend over and take it. They made no effort to improve their situation, and so that's the lesson my siblings and I took with us when we got out on our own. "There is no escaping your financial fate."
I didn't push back until I was forced to. After 14 years of working an incredibly insufficient, shitty job, my back finally said, "Fuck this," and I was physically unable to do it anymore. I had nothing to go to. No backup plan. No savings. No family to turn to. And then I realized that I did in fact have skills that people would pay me to perform.When I wasn't writing, I was putting in applications all over town. In the next town. In towns 30 minutes away. I applied to places online. When there was no gas in the truck, I walked to put in more applications. I swung harder. There are some days that I write for 16 straight hours, knowing that everything I just typed will be deleted and replaced with a completely different idea, or rejected outright. And that's OK because the success or failure is mine, not somebody else's. You can't put a price on that.
#4.You Will Find Someone
There's a human trait that can sometimes be incredibly beneficial to growth, while at the same time devastating to morale. And that's the desire to have something right fucking here, right goddamn now. If you point that urgency toward something like getting a better job or a promotion, it can be a powerful tool. That urgency is what made all human civilization possible.
It's not so hot when you're lonely and want a companion -- especially when you're young and watching all of your friends joining the boob buffet and you're still alone every weekend. I've seen over and over in my life, people (including myself) who sink into depression because they don't feel that they're ever going to find love. So they look, and look, and look. Depending on who you are, you'll try bars, grocery stores, libraries, online dating services, friends of your mother. Then you latch onto the very first person who pays you any attention, even if they're not right for you. Because, shit, what if nobody else ever comes along?
Then months or years later, you find yourself lonely again, or worse: in a catastrophically bad relationship that you're afraid to leave. "It's better to be in this shitty hookup than to be alone," you'll tell yourself, knowing on some level that you're full of shit. Eventually you get to the point where you blame yourself. "I'm too fat. Nobody will ever love me." "I have this third arm growing out of my forehead. I have no chance." What is hard to realize from that state of mind is that it's the desperation itself that's screwing you. If you're trying too hard, people can smell that a mile away. That in itself is ass-repellant.
I'm not sure I've ever met someone who went their whole life without a "significant other." But I've met plenty of people whose dates took an abrupt halt when they let slip with, "God, before you came along, I was just close to putting a gun to my temple and- oh, the steak is finally here!"
You have to relax. It turns out some lessons taught by romantic comedies aren't full of shit: Concentrate on taking care of yourself first, because 90 percent of a relationship's success is a matter of maturing into the type of person other people want to be around.
If you're young (in high school or college) you don't even know who you are yet. Those early, failed relationships, or lack of a relationship, do not doom your prospects for romance for the rest of your life. Hell, at this point it wouldn't even matter if you met the love of your life -- you haven't even fully become the person who will eventually have something to offer them. Getting down about success with romance at this point is like giving up on a team in the preseason. In your early 20s, your starting players haven't even come off the bench yet.
But this still applies later in life -- I got divorced after a 10 year marriage, and found myself right back in that same, desperate place, scared of being alone. I didn't find anyone until I decided to stop worrying about that and start worrying about making less of a mess of my life. It makes sense, looking back -- when you're in that desperation mode, you put up fronts, and try to be the person you think the guy or girl wants. And that may work for one night, but when you both settle down, that outer "first impression" shell disappears, and you turn into you. Suddenly, you're "not the person I knew when we first met." And they're right. Because the person they met wasn't you.
If you get more comfortable with yourself, you stop trying so hard, you get more relaxed and don't feel like you have to work so hard to hide your true self. You don't stop looking for someone, I don't mean that; you just stop hating yourself so hard for not finding them. I know it sounds like a Catch-22, but it's the lack of self-hatred that will make you attractive.
#3.High School is NOT the Best Years of Your Life
I'm not going to sugar coat this: Adults tell you that high school is the best time you'll ever have because they've forgotten what it was like. They just remember the part where they didn't have to worry about bills, and their hindsight becomes so focused and narrow that it couldn't see the period at the end of this sentence.
The truth is, for many if not most of us, high school is one of the most difficult times you'll ever live through. At that age, you're expected to act like an adult while gaining none of the benefits of adulthood. You are criticized for virtually everything you do by just about every adult in your social and family circle. You're expected to start holding up responsibilities, but under their rules.
Everything I said above about how you need to be yourself and grow into a fully formed human being before your life can really start? Those teen years don't make it easy. If you look at porn, you have to hide it. If you hang out with friends that your parents don't approve of, you have to cover it up. When you go out, you have to be home by their set schedule. The house is decorated their way. You eat what they cook. You dress to their standards. You lose every argument because "You're only 16, you don't know what you're talking about yet."
And the entire time you're dealing with all of this stress, your body is fucking with you from the inside out, blasting you with hormones and chemicals that you've never experienced in your entire life until right now. You're sexually awkward because you don't have much, if any, experience. If you're not ready for sex, you're made to feel like an outcast, and you're instantly ostracized from certain social groups. It is terrifyingly hard. Some people don't make it through. You fucking will. Why?
In just a few years, you'll be on your own. Maybe you'll go to college or maybe you'll start work right away. Either way, you will, for the first time in your life, be the master of your own domain. You'll come home from a hard day's work and throw your pants on the floor because they're your pants. It's your floor. Your rules. And as you spend the rest of your pantsless day, relaxing on your self-made pantscarpet, there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.
Why? Because...
#2.Until You're On Your Own, You Don't Know What Freedom Is
First of all, don't look at your parents boring lives and assume that being an adult means living according to their template. No, you don't have to ditch the video games and take up a "grown up" hobby like golf if you don't feel like it. See, once you're an adult, you get to decide.
Want to stay up until 4 a.m. on a Wednesday? Go for it. Want to eat straight whipped cream right out of the container? Have at it. Adulthood is being able to get into your car at 2 a.m. and just drive for no reason at all. It's growing past being dragged to Mom's church every Sunday and being able to decide for yourself what you want to believe. It's eating pie for supper. It's choosing your own friends and buying your own clothes. It's sitting three feet from the TV screen, just because you fucking can. It's watching a movie for no other reason than it has a lesbian sex scene with Natalie Portman.
That's not to say that there are no repercussions for doing those things, but by God this is your life now, and you have the right to learn those lessons in any way you choose. You own those repercussions. They're yours, no one can take them from you.
For instance, almost everyone I've ever met -- and I've lived in six major cities in the United States -- complains that they "have to get out of this shitty town." I heard it in small-town Illinois, I heard it in Los Angeles, I heard it in Minneapolis. There are like two dozen hit rock songs from the 80s on that subject. Well, as an adult, you have every right and every opportunity to make that happen. You might fuck it up and wind up living in your car, but it was your doing. That freedom is the most powerful tool you'll ever own, and it's exactly what enables you to continue growing. And you will grow.
Yes, you'll have problems. But they'll be your problems. And besides, what would you do without them? The problems are what get you out of bed in the morning. They're what makes succeeding at things such a goddamned rush. You can't be a dragon slayer without dragons.
People talk about a "real world" after graduation, as if that's when the "real" stress starts. And in some ways, they're right. But nothing takes away from the feeling of being at the wheel, doing things on your own terms. Besides, there's something you should know about the "real world" ...
#1.The World isn't as Bad as You Think
When you're a kid, your parents shelter you from the worst of what's really going on in the world. As you get older, your worldview changes and expands. You start to think outside of your own town and social circle. You'll see a metric fuckload of bad news. Violence, government scandals, wars over seemingly petty bullshit. At some point (maybe later in high school but most seem to save it for the college years) you'll get cynical. "Why should I live in this world when it's so shitty?" Or later, "How can I bring a child into this living hell?"
We forget that what is happening now is the opposite of what your parents did. They sheltered you from bad news, but the news media shelters you from good news. They literally filter it out; among all of this horrible information coming out of the nightly news, there is so much good that goes unreported because it doesn't get the same ratings.
But as for the bad shit, there has to come a point where you realize the same thing I've touched on over and over again in this article: As an adult, you are now part of the world and you do have some power to change it. As a kid, you didn't have the power to change shit.
The reason you need to live in a world with all of this shitty news is because that world needs you to help fix it. The reason you can bring a child into this life is because when you pass on your morals and beliefs to them, that's one more soldier on the field to fight for the good side.
Chances are you're not going to show up and disarm a bomb at the last second on a plane filled with a hundred innocent people. But you can absolutely donate some trivial amount of money to make sure some farmer in some oppressed country can get medicine to his family so that they can help him harvest the crops that will in turn feed entire villages.
Life gets better because you're going to make it better. Because you'll have the power and the freedom to make it better.
It's incredibly difficult for a teenager in the throes of angst or a college kid knee-deep in debt and stress to see any of that. Depression is like that. It shrinks your view of the world, it chokes off the horizon. You feel like you're being tea-bagged by life -- its hairy ass cheeks planted firmly over your eyes so you can't see anything else.
Don't mistake those ass cheeks for the whole world. The world is actually out there, beyond that ass, and time and effort will make that clear. You have to survive it first though. I promise you, it gets better.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Dayton Wants a shutdown...
From Freedom Dogs...
Derek's post here indicates the possibility of a plan on part of the DFL and Dayton to shut down our state government and blame the Republicans. Yesterday, I received another letter supporting the same idea - in other words, no "negotiation" with the DFL will work.
This is the email I received. Underlining and bold are mine. [comments are also mine]
Clients and friends,
We just received fairly reliable information from the Administration that there is a good chance that the Governor's shutdown plan will include terminating payments to both health plans and health care providers for all government programs effective July 1. We believe that the decision may be that, even though eligibility for programs will continue, providers and health plans will not be paid for providing their services and coverage. The intent appears to be to have an immediate, strong impact of the shutdown to create the greatest possible pain and resulting pressure on the Legislature to resolve the dispute. [A planned attack on our legislators and the still-working people of MN - that is, Dayton will only want a tax increase - those who believe this is only on the rich will have a very pricey awakening]
Many of you would be seriously, if not fatally, damaged by an extended period of time with no payments under government programs. For this reason, we are planning to work with other health care organizations to try to plan and launch an aggressive media, grassroots and lobbying campaign directed toward legislators who are swing votes in overcoming the deadlock and to maintain as much health care program funding as possible. [So pressure the legislature to spend money we don't have; let Dayton increase taxes on MN; where will this money come from?]
We are organizing a meeting for next week and will send you an invitation and more details as soon as we can. We are also asking for data from DHS and other sources to quantify the impact of the vetoed HHS bill by county and hope to be able to share the data at the meeting so that advocacy efforts can be supported by data on the impact on each legislator's district.
If you are aware of any data or analysis on the impact of the HHS bill, please forward it to me. Also, if you have seen some effective communications messages and personal stories that you think are especially effective, please share them with me, too.
This past Monday, June 6, I was told Governor Dayton was a "no-show" at a scheduled state meeting to discuss the budget with the MN Senate. Yesterday, after hearing a panel of Republican representatives, we were told that Governor Dayton has not given his commissioners any negotiating power. They go to hearings in St. Paul but can't day or do anything.
Why does it appear that the "party of the people" is out destroy business, tax the daylights out of everyone else and hurt the very people they claim they want to help? IMO, control, control, control but to what end?
What can you do?
Support your legislators - "Hold the line!"
Write to your local paper - Dayton and his people are now playing with people's lives. There is enough money to keep these places going - Dayton simply wants more.
Stand strong legislative Republicans!
Derek's post here indicates the possibility of a plan on part of the DFL and Dayton to shut down our state government and blame the Republicans. Yesterday, I received another letter supporting the same idea - in other words, no "negotiation" with the DFL will work.
This is the email I received. Underlining and bold are mine. [comments are also mine]
Clients and friends,
We just received fairly reliable information from the Administration that there is a good chance that the Governor's shutdown plan will include terminating payments to both health plans and health care providers for all government programs effective July 1. We believe that the decision may be that, even though eligibility for programs will continue, providers and health plans will not be paid for providing their services and coverage. The intent appears to be to have an immediate, strong impact of the shutdown to create the greatest possible pain and resulting pressure on the Legislature to resolve the dispute. [A planned attack on our legislators and the still-working people of MN - that is, Dayton will only want a tax increase - those who believe this is only on the rich will have a very pricey awakening]
Many of you would be seriously, if not fatally, damaged by an extended period of time with no payments under government programs. For this reason, we are planning to work with other health care organizations to try to plan and launch an aggressive media, grassroots and lobbying campaign directed toward legislators who are swing votes in overcoming the deadlock and to maintain as much health care program funding as possible. [So pressure the legislature to spend money we don't have; let Dayton increase taxes on MN; where will this money come from?]
We are organizing a meeting for next week and will send you an invitation and more details as soon as we can. We are also asking for data from DHS and other sources to quantify the impact of the vetoed HHS bill by county and hope to be able to share the data at the meeting so that advocacy efforts can be supported by data on the impact on each legislator's district.
If you are aware of any data or analysis on the impact of the HHS bill, please forward it to me. Also, if you have seen some effective communications messages and personal stories that you think are especially effective, please share them with me, too.
This past Monday, June 6, I was told Governor Dayton was a "no-show" at a scheduled state meeting to discuss the budget with the MN Senate. Yesterday, after hearing a panel of Republican representatives, we were told that Governor Dayton has not given his commissioners any negotiating power. They go to hearings in St. Paul but can't day or do anything.
Why does it appear that the "party of the people" is out destroy business, tax the daylights out of everyone else and hurt the very people they claim they want to help? IMO, control, control, control but to what end?
What can you do?
Support your legislators - "Hold the line!"
Write to your local paper - Dayton and his people are now playing with people's lives. There is enough money to keep these places going - Dayton simply wants more.
Stand strong legislative Republicans!
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