Things I've Noticed

How "..ist" Are We as A Nation? And I'm Running for President in 2016***

The presidential race here in the U.S. is getting interesting for 2008.  We  passed Super Tuesday a while ago now, and it wasn’t as good as the end of Superbowl Sunday but that’s OK.  The candidates have mostly filtered themselves out and the picture is becoming a bit clearer.  On the Republican side, I should have bet $50 that the candidate would be a white male.  McCain has it.  On the Democratic side, the situation is quite different.  We will likely have either an African American candidate whose gradnfather was a Muslim, or a white female candidate whose husband was a president.  As a liberal individual, I’m worried about the outcome of the election.  I predict that the Republican candidate will win because we are still an “ist” nation.  I don’t know whether we are more sexist or more racist, but we have issues with diversity, even though we have come a long way and we’re more accepting than probably most other westernized countries.  I think we’re more racist than we are sexist and there is a slight majority of women which can overcome a lot of the sexism. 

On the racial, side, African Americans comprise 12.4% of our population. In addition to whites, other ethnic groups can also be (sometimes more) prejudiced towards blacks.  What people say and how they answer polls may be very different than what they do in a private voting booth.  If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, we’ll see how many non-blacks will agree with his platform and are color blind to race.  If Hillary wins the nomination, we’ll get to know how many people are sexist, don’t like Hillary personally, or just can’t stand a tough powerful woman.  It’s interesting that other more conservative counties like India have elected female prime ministers such as Indira Gandhi, and now they have a President of the Indian National Congress in Sonia Gandhi who is of pure Italian descent.

And that leads me to my last and most important portion of this blogpost.  I am waiting for Arnold Schwarzenager to finish his term as governor of California.  Most people would say he is doing a pretty good job.  He’s kind of a Republican with Californiliberalization built in.  But what I think he’s working on, (and I hope he’s successful), is a change to our constitution so that non-native born citizens of the USA can run for president.  If he does, I will run for president in 2016, hopefully against him.  That’s right.  You read it here first.  ***I am running for president in 2016 contingent on a change to our constitution.  That’s because I was born in India.  Why should I be denied the opportunity to serve my country when I was just born 4 months before I moved here?  My loyalties to the U.S. are just as strong.  And there are many who were born here who became spies or terrorists against our country.  Birth here is no guarantee of loyalty.  Depending on potential competitors, I will run either as a Democrat or as an Independent. 

So now that I’ve mad my case for why I should be allowed to run, I would also like to announce that I’ll be running my campaign without the assistance of any campaign contributions except for donated advertising and media.  Hopefully many of my fellow bloggers will endorse me and provide free links to my campaign website.  My platform and philosophies aside from what you’ve already read about on T.I.N. will follow in a future post.  But I'm not going to put too much work into it if I can’t run.  The key is that I’m a non-politician who is genuine, smarter than the current president, (which isn’t saying much), and I'm not rich or tied to big business.  I’m not prejudiced and I have some idea of what minorities go through, but if you were to talk to me on the phone without knowing who I was, you would think I was white.  Also, I'll have just enough grey hairs at age 44 to be more visually electable.  Those factors right there should get me some votes.  I already have 2 votes in Michigan lined up thanks to my volleyball team and I have 12 lined up with my family in the all-important state of Ohio.

Maybe my plan is a little crazy, but then so have been the last 7 plus years of what's happened courtesy of our Executive Office.

+ Atul

Quick Quote on Blank Pages

"The statement 'This page intentionally left blank.' is the most obvious and unnecessary lie ever created."

+ Atul

How (Fast) We Move

As I type, my body is moving about 550 mph (in an airplane), and I can still do what I would do as if my body were stationary.  Moving at such fast speeds is not a big deal in this modern day and age, but it is a big deal when one considers our past.  Humans, thanks to technology, move a lot.  I don’t think we stop to think about that enough.  Perhaps we should, between all the trips we take.  In the U.S. an average driver drives 12,000 miles a year.  So if you multiply that times 50 years of driving, that accounts for 600,000 miles of body movement.  I’m figuring walking adds a few thousand miles.  Bicyclists and runners can add tens of thousands of miles to the odometer or pedometer.  When you consider people like consultants and salespeople who fly every week and rack up all those frequent flyer miles, they must travel millions and millions of miles in a very short time. 

It’s crazy when you think about the fact that naturally speaking, we were probably meant to move a few thousand miles in a lifetime of hunting and gathering.  Once farming villages started, that number probably went down.  We did do lots of hard work, just within a closer proximity to a home base.  Now we are so transient that things like yearly trips across the planet and cruises and long distance relationships are commonplace.  And now as space travel becomes part of the private sector, people will travel faster and farther than ever. But then what are the downsides of all this movement?  Well, for one thing, when a person walks or even runs, the most damage she can do to her body is a major bruise or a broken bone, (as long as there are no sharp drop-offs around). 

Now that machines move people around, death is possible in a split second.  But we accept that risk as part of our busy lives.  Some people have a hard time comprehending the impact of velocity without control, so they don’t wear seatbelts and helmets.  Perhaps it’s because it’s not hardwired in us to worry about high speed collisions. What’s interesting is that technology makes us more mobile but it concurrently enables us to have to travel less.  With the advent of the telephone, video teleconferencing and the internet, remote activities are almost as good as they are when done in person.  Whether moving and not moving, interaction over broad distances takes energy.  Remember a time when we could do things for free without travel or use of technology or energy?  I don’t, except for playing with Legos in the basement.  But that’s the topic of another blogpost on my list of posts yet to be written.

Here’s a slightly ridiculous theory.  If Einstein was correct and movement at speed slows down time and makes you stay younger, then maybe that’s why our life expectancy keeps going up.

+ Atul

Things I've Noticed Two Years On

You would never know it, but I used to hate to write.  (I blame it on English teachers who didn’t appreciate my writing style).  As you can tell, I now really like to write, (thanks to English teachers who taught me how to write better and who appreciated my writing style).  And as I get older, I feel the need to express my opinion more often.  I think I’m becoming more opinionated with age.  Thank God for blogs.  I have actually been able to share my ideas with people other than the individuals I know.  Some of them I believe are important as I think they can help change people’s attitudes about things from my small-time virtual pulpet.  People often don’t get why I blog.  Part of it is to write for fun, but part of it is to make a difference by conveying what I want to tell the world on the web.  If I come up high in search results, then I can be more influential than the next girl or guy.  And I get to entertain people with some hardly useful thoughts I come up with.  I find that satisfying too.  But blogs aren’t just about me.  I came to the blogging world very late compared to others.

An important point that my friend and long time reader of TIN, Dave, brought up: blogging is a great media equalizer.  It’s like democracy for news.  We don’t have to rely on corporate-tainted media telling us “the facts”.  Now, any one of us with internet access and a few bucks can spout off.  And that’s great.  Plus it gives a search user easy access to the pulse of the world.  It does create a new predicament though.  No credentials or credibility, (besides a basic command of language), are needed to do this.  Dumb people of the world can spread their misinformation and hatred. 

My next objective is to actually make some money off of this blog.  You may have noticed the Google AdSense advertising at the top.  I would love to make a living off of blogging, so if any of you would like to advertise on here, drop me a line.  According to this website, an ad on my site should cost $9 per month.  I do get close to 50 visitors a day, have had more than 27,000 visitors in the two years since “Things I’ve Noticed” launched. I don’t foresee myself shutting down anytime soon.  That’s because I don’t stop thinking and I can’t stop noticing things.

+ Atul

Quick Quote on Tragedy

"Perhaps the sole purpose of tragedy is to remind us of what is truly important in life."

+ Atul