As some of you may have heard, this past November 6 of 2012, Puerto Rico had a bit of a referendum in regards to its status. There has been some confusion about what happened there, so I will clear up any doubts.
There was one paper, two questions. The first question was "Do you support Puerto Rico's current political relationship to the USA?" and there were two answers to choose from: yes and no. The Yes option obtained 816 thousand votes, while the No option gained 900 thousand, so the No option was the clear winner.
The Second question was "Which of these options do you consider the best change for the political relationship with the USA?" with the options being Statehood, which garnered 824 thousand votes, Sovereignty, which garnered 449 thousand votes, and Independence, which gained 74 thousand votes. Another 480 thousand votes were left in blank.
The current government, which (thankfully and rightly) lost the recent election is claiming victory for statehood, which means that Puerto Rico officially becomes the 51st state. However, when you look at the numbers, you realize that statehood MAY have gained 61% of the registered votes for the second option, BUT it gained about 46.5% of the total vote in regards to a status in itself. The current government is, essentially, silencing the over 900 thousand people who voted AGAINST statehood, the political majority, in order to further the statehood agenda.
The ballot was designed to allow statehood to win from the get go, once you analyze the wording. The combined vote of the Independence and Statehood movement would have surpassed the vote of the Free Associated State supporters. for those not in the know, Free Associated State is the current status (Estado Libre Asociado, I translated from the original Spanish). Of course the No would win, and since Statehooders outnumber Independence supporters about fifty to one, of course statehood would win. It was a scam, a way to sneak Statehood by the backdoor! The ELA never had a fair chance!
I support Independence, and I have since high school. That said, I always had and always will concede to the will of the majority; if the majority of my people want statehood, then so be it. BUT I will NOT accept the dirty tricks of hypocrites, thieves and liars!
I have many friends, who are statehooders, whom are rather angry at the moment at those who reject the notion that statehood 'won'. I believe that statehood cheated and STILL lost.
I am often amazed by the human capacity to create art. Perhaps no other form of art amazes me more than music. The ability to express and inspire emotion via a combination of sound and rythm, with perhaps some vocals to help tell a story.
Though it has taken me a while to finally learn this lesson, I have come to learn that we all have wildly different tastes in music. I used to be like a hipster, thinking only certain genres were real music, and everything else was crap. But now I laugh at the child I was. Just because something is crap to you, does not mean it's crap to everyone.
I once had a girlfriend, and she told me that pop music was crap. Performers like Lady Gaga, according to her, had no artistic merit, unlike musicians like Sage Francis. Why? Because her music was industrial 'crap' and had no artistic value, unlike the 'deep' lyrics of Sage Francis. But with time, I learned that the value of music lies not in what message it contains, but on how the listener reacts to it. So, to one listener, maybe "Born this Way" is a much better song than "Makeshift Patriot", simply because he or she responds better to the lyrics. I personally don't care for Sage Francis, specifically because his songs no longer hold any meaning to me.
The songs I think have influenced me the most are: "Hey Sandy" by Polaris, "I'm with you" by Avril Lavigne, "Omoide wa Okkusenman" by Aoi Kiba, and "Black Sheep" by Metric.
There was no point to this blog but to express myself.
Today, the people of Puerto Rico are going to vote on a referendum, and our options are Yes and No.
We are voting on two things. The first is reducing our senate, from 78 to 53. The second is on removing bail for people charged of murder.
On the surface, this sounds like a no brainer. Less senators, smaller government, less public spending. Pretty good, right? And of course, no bail means murderers don't get to walk the streets awaiting trial.
But here is when we have to ask the tough questions. What will be achieved if we vote Yes?
Less senators, huh? So, which senators will be gotten rid of? Will we still have Minority Senators, senators that represent the minor political parties? This is important, because the people deserve representation. But if Minority Senators are eliminated, then that will mean that the Senate itself will be dominated by the major political parties. And it must not be forgotten that in the year 2005, Puerto Rico also had another referendum to reduce the Senate from a bicameral system to a unicameral one, but the results were ignored.
The two major political parties of Puerto Rico are the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the current political status of Free Associated State (I don't trust this party) and the New Progresive Party, which supports Puerto Rico forming a permanent union with the United States of America as its 51st State (I outright despise this party) IF either one of these parties gains a senatorial monopoly, and it IS possible as both parties practically demand their followers to give them a government monopoly, then that will mean that the rights of the majority of Puerto Ricans will be stepped on by a political minority. This is important, because from 2004 to 2008, the New Progresive Party held a tight grip on the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives, in spite of our Governor being of the PDP. Since the Legislative Branch can Veto the Governor, that means that the NPP held true power over my government. And the sad truth is, we CAN'T have a shared government, because the NPP and the PDP will simply try to destroy each other. Only by having representatives unnasociated with either of these parties can we have true balance.
As for bail, time for some inconvenient truths. In 2011, Puerto Rico has had 1150 murders. Are there 1150 killers in jail? No. Why so many murders? The drug trade. Simple as that, drug dealers kill people, evade the police, and sell poison once more. Every now and then, you also find some crazed man killing his family, or his lover. But removing bail is not going to solve anything. YOU tell ME how removing bail is going to lower that number to 0. YOU tell ME how removing bail is going to put an end to the drug trade. It isn't. You remove bail, then what? Denying someone bail is a violation of one of the most basic elements of any democratic judicial system: Innocent until Proven Guilty. It might disgust you to think that a murderer is given a fair trial to prove his innocence. But it is necesarry, because many really innocent people do in fact get accused of crimes they never commited.
One thing I will never forget is how I saw twenty cops beat down on a 20 year old man for the 'crime' of trying to help out some fellow protesters, who were assembled PEACEFULLY, mind you. The cops were never tried, and in fact if I remember correctly, the young man had to stay in jail a whole night. Imagine if he didn't have the right of bail! You might say, 'but he was not a murderer! is not the removal of bail only for murderers?' To which I ask: What will keep the government from removing the right of bail altogether?
Today's referendum is an exploitation of the fear and distrust that plagues the soul of my people: fear of crime and distrust of government. But I see through their lies. Today, I will vote No twice. And this is my message to my government. "No, you do NOT fool me."
The hardest thing to recognize, sometimes, is when the person that was once the most important person in your life, the one whom you couldn't go on without, simply does not need you in her or his life any longer.
Sometimes we all wish we could go back in time and fix whatever the hell we did wrong. Sometimes we wish we could go back to that one day we lost that person, and convince them not to leave us. And on some extreme cases, sometimes we wish we could go back in time and prevent ever meeting that person at all.
It's hard, knowing that person, whom you most likely are still in love with, is living a fine, happy life without you. You then become nothing more than a distant memory to that person, a fine acquaintance perhaps, but nothing more.
But that person doesn't need you anymore. He or she is happy without you. Accept that fact, and move on. In the immortal words of Kahlil Gibran 'Your pain is the potion from which the physician within you tries to tear down the shell that blocks your understanding. Therefore, trust the physician, and take his medicine in peace and tranquility'
All pain passes with time. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it takes barely any time at all. But all pain, all sorrow, passes with time. Hang in there, because that person is already happy without you, and now it is your turn to be happy without that person. This is the science of moving on.
I was once asked "How can you consider this world to be wonderful when there's so many murderers, terrorists, rapists and criminals out there? How can you say the world is good when so many criminals run free?"
Well it's true. There are a load of evils on this world. Just yesterday I saw a video courtesy of WikiLeaks called Colaterall Murder, which I think deserves a link:
So how can I believe that there is good in the world, if I recognize the evils that infect this world? How can I be a Humanist in this day and age?
Because all that bad stuff you hear about, the rapes and murders, the war crimes, all that stuff is just half the story. I seen my fair share of the world's ugliness, and sadly, some of it I seen first hand.But I also saw a lot of good too.
I've seen people rush to the aid of strangers. I've seen on the same day I saw twenty cops beat up an innocent man that many people stood by and made sure no one else got beat up. I have seen mothers teach their daughters that they are more than their bodies, I have seen fathers accept and embrace their sons in spite of their short comings. I have seen the teacher spend hours a day helping the student with limited resources get a quality education. I have seen the poor say no to drugs and welfare and say yes to an education and employment. I have seen children take a stand against animal cruelty, I have seen a young man defend the freedom of speech of people he disagreed with, I saw a young woman giving food to the homeless. I saw a woman offering food to a scraggy, homeless man who had been kicked out of a restaurant after asking for water. I have seen total strangers comforting people who had lost the will to live. In short, I have seen a lot of good.
I could be either a cynic or an idealist. But I can;t be a cynic, nor do I want to be. A cynic is a fool who thinks himself wise. A cynic sees the problem but does not see a solution. A cynic loves to complain, to hear himself talk but hates to listen. I reject that. I choose to be an idealist, to seek and offer solutions, to listen when others talk. When I become a teacher, I will teach my students to be idealists too, so that they too can seek and find solutions to the world's problems.
Don't just talk the talk, walk the walk.
There was a man waving his country's flag, chanting wildly and proudly about how much he loved his country. He loudly sang the national anthem, boldly stated his support for his country's military personel, and stopped to shake the hands of the local preacher.
There was another man who did none of these things.
The first man was of the popular religion of his country. The second was of an unpopular religion, which had gained notoriety after certain events that need not be explained.
Both men were citizens of the country.
The first man caught glimps of the second man doing a prayer in the local park. Angered, he rushed towards him, demanding he stopped. the second man did not abide. Growing in anger, the first man took a stone and threw it at the second man's head, causing him to bleed. Yet the second man did not stop his prayers, and instead began a second prayer, his eyes in tears. The first man began to curse the second man, cursing his religion and calling him a disgrace to their country.
The second man had been praying a blessing for the first.
Which of these two is a true patriot?
The second man is the true patriot. Symbols come and go, and you can loudly and arrogantly proclaim how much you love your country all you want. But when you start hating a minority, you start hating your country. Your country is not just the icons, the ideas, the government or the popular culture; it's the people that make the country. Everyone, be they jew or gentile, black man or white, capitalist or socialist, they make up the country.
A patriot loves his or her country. And I know sometimes it's hard to love someone who believes something you disagree with. But that is never an excuse to marginalize that person, or that group. Just because they believe something you disagree with is no reason to applaud as the government arrests them and throws them away in jail for the crime of dissent; just because they are different from you is no reason to turn a blind eye as the rest of society shuns these people, scapegoats them and treats them like dirt. When a country has a population that voluntarily ostracizes minorities, or tolerates groups that support the alienation of fellow citizens, then those peoples become trash, and the country itself becomes trash.
Hate does not aggrandize a country, calling for the jailing of a minority just because they are not like the majority does not glorify a country.
Next time you see a man or a woman proudly walking in the streets, bearing the flag of your country, boldly proclaiming using the same tongue to love the country but hate some group within your country, rest assured he or she is no patriot. Don't swallow their lies.
Behold, for this is a true story.
A man was playing Pokemon Silver when his girlfriend burst into his room, crying. Hal focusing on his game, he consoles his girlfriend, whose cat has died. As she opens up her heart to him, he encounters a Shiny Pidgey in his game. The Shiny Pidgey has a 1 in 82,000 chance to appear.
Which one is rarer? A shiny Pidgey, or a girlfriend who's willing to put up with a guy who plays Pokemon?
About a year ago, one of the best writers and animators of our era had passed away, proving too good for this sinful Earth. His name was Satoshi Kon, and he was nothing short of fantastic. His works include, but are not limited to:
Paranoia Agent, a 13 episode series that deconstructs Japan's Kawaisa obsession, amongst other things. Highly recommended
Tokyo Godfathers, a film about a trio of homeless people who find an abandoned baby and aspire to return her to her mother, along the way experiencing the miracles of Christmass
Paprika, a film about dreaming...Really nothing more I can say about it that would do it justice...
Satoshi Kon is one of my favorite directors, right up there with Hayao Miyazaki. Too Good for this Earth indeed.
Often these two get mixed, so here's a quick rundown on the difference between the two:
Solitude is when you're alone and liking it. Maybe you're studying, meditating, eating, or doing other stuff I dare not mention.
Loneliness is when you're alone and hating it. To be lonely is to desire company. It's natural to wish for some company, as humans are social animals.
That is not to say that solitude is unnatural. It is perfectly ok to wish to be alone every once and again. Some of us get emotionally drained when we're constantly surrounded by people. We enjoy our time alone, gives us time to replenish our emotional energy.
I personally enjoy my solitude. I like staying in my room during the night just typing away in my computer. That doesn't make me or anyone else a freak, just someone who enjoys some time alone. That doesn't mean I don't get lonely, because everyone does once in a while. But that's just how we are built. Some of us prefer a cup of tea with a friend over a beer with the boys. It's all perfectly healthy
After some soul searching, some video games, some lulz and some more soul searching, I discovered something about myself: I prefer women who are over thirty then women my age. That's funny and sad, after all, who wants to date a younger man eh? lol
Ah well, nothing to do but wail till I'm 30 :D When I hit 30, life's gonna rock!
Cristo ser amao, when it comes to approaching women I'm just as shy on the Internet as I am in RL. Ugh, I have no idea what I'm doing, it seems. Oh well, such is life
I'm too shy in Real Life to meet anyone, so I use the Internet and its anonymity to allow me to meet people. I got sick of using certain other sites, so I came to this one. I hope to meet good people, and maybe, just maybe, a special someone :)
This is a list of Luminarius's Blogs. Click here for Luminarius's Blog List
Luminarius Blog (12)