Ron Paul Gives Up Hope For Lent

Ron Paul announced this morning that he will participate in Lent by giving up hope for the White House.

"Not being Catholic doesn't mean I can't participate in the holiday," he announced during a press conference outside his home.  "The idea behind Lent is giving up something we know we shouldn't be doing.  Whether you're a 35 year old man living in your parents' basement playing World of Warcraft instead of working, or a mother who dresses her daughter as Julia Robert's character from Pretty Woman and entering her into beauty contests, these are things that we like; but just have to let go," explained Paul, holding up pictures of both examples to emphasize his point.

"I've done a lot of soul searching, and decided that for me, I've got to give up hope for the White House," Paul sighed, holding up a photo of himself smiling.  "In the end, it's destructive to my soul to continue to lie to myself.  By letting go of these lies that I tell myself, I will then be able to communicate the truth to my supporters, being, I don't have a chance.  I'm just too crazy."

Paul then took questions from reporters.

What Happened To Good Old Fashioned "Hallmark Presents: Valentine's Day"?

What was originally a brilliant Hallmark marketing strategy has turned into Facebook's clarion call for whiners.  Good old fashion Valentine's chocolates, flowers, and cards written by strangers that we give to those closest to us that say, "I care about you X dollars worth," are now being overshadowed by self-centered pleas for attention.  These sad saps are all about "look how lonely I am," "me, me, me," and "if I'm not in a relationship on this one day out of the year, not only am I an utter failure, but will never produce offspring of my own."

The pitiful groans of those lonely souls has crowded out the happy sighs of the recipients of costly chocolate boxes, oversized teddy bears, and serenades from boomboxes held above heads.  This must not be.  These victims of unrequited love make such a fuss that happy couples are discouraged from showering each other with perishable food items and sparkly things, because for every happy receptionist who receives a bouquet, there are two angry accountants who now resent the receptionist.  Perhaps a careful re-evaluation of professional and personal goals would show an increase in potential mates for these accountants, but that discussion is for another time. 

Oddly, it is as if only this day do the single folk realize, "I am bitter and alone."  They then step out into life with their newfound self-awareness of their relationship status, and as a result, only see happy couples skipping hand in hand through fields of grain, sharing ice cream cones on tandem bikes, and tolerating romantic comedies.  They then take to the internet to vent their frustrations, making those happy people feel guilty for having what they themselves cannot, as though the happy ones are to blame for their misfortune.  Therefore, this holiday that was so carefully constructed by a single corporation now hangs in the balance from a radical redefinement.  Will it remain as the day in which happy couples buy red colored things for each other?  Or will it be a day where jealous loners complain louder than usual, to the point that the day is so dreary that no one feels like celebrating?  Will the whiners put Valentine's Day as we know it out of business? I need not mention this manufactured holiday affects Hallmark's bottom line, creates jobs, and stimulates the economy. 

Simply put, these whiney desolate people are unAmerican.  They hate job creation almost as much as Mitt Romney, and seek for the loss of jobs with a fervent passion.  This self-centered approach to economics surprisingly defies the underlining principles of capitalism.  Proposition: these whiney single people are also socialists.


So what is to be done?  How can Hallmark save its holiday from inevitable destruction by the grief-stricken socialists?   Hallmark must allow for a second holiday; and sell ice cream and booze.  That is the only way to properly utilize these self-depricating souls for restoring our country's greatness, taking back traditional Valentine's Day for couples, and allowing the miserable to vent pathetically and unashamed.  "Single-Awareness Day" has been tossed around for awhile, but I think  "Return to High School Mentality and Self-Esteem Day" could be considered.  That title is much more accurate.  Or perhaps to bridge the divide between the two separate holidays sharing one day, call it "The Haves and Have-Nots Day",  because convincing the single people to just not observe Valentine's Day would be preposterous.  Whether they like it or not, they are celebrating Valentine's day by proving so staunchly that they are not.  Now they can embrace something. 


So sure, let the Have-Nots complain and have their day in the sun, pointing in scorn at those Haves for being more fortunate than the them.  After angry/depressing rants on the internet, the lonesome Have-Nots of the U.S. turn to the cup and the bowl to drown their sorrows in front of the television.  The womenfolk will watch empowering movies that instill in their minds how much they don't really need men, and are better off on their own.  When they realize they are lying to themselves, they will eat some more Moose Tracks (now provided by Hallmark!).  The menfolk will watch horrifically violent movies and forget what day it was for the second time that day.  There they will sit for hours until a sugar induced coma or inebriation carries them mercifully to sleep.  And so it ends.  365 more days until the next painful re-awakening of self-awareness.


Once the lonely-hearts club has settled in for a terribly depressing night, the Haves can guilt-free gift the boxes and bears and flowers to their hearts' content.  This is a win-win-win situation.  The happy stay happy, the unhappy remain unhappy, and both are oblivious customers of Hallmark.  Holiday maintained, and Holiday created.  Mission accomplished.

You Know It's Gotten Bad When Santorum Is Targeted

Rick Santorum had his fifteen minutes in Iowa, and then gracefully took his position on the backburner of American minds.  Everyone but Rick knows he's beaten, and Mitt knows that the only thing more fun then kicking a dead horse, is kicking a fellow Republican.

With the Convention drawing nearer, Mitt is hitting his second wind.  Along with the new spurt of fierce hatred for those without as much money as him, he's also inherited Charles Barkley's angry elbows to push his way to the front.  What Mitt is forgetting, is that he's already in the front.  There's no need to shame the shameful Santorum.  Americans had already forgotten about him.  Mitt however is not afraid to let his angry shamelessly ridiculous self rear its ugly head in what has become perhaps the ugliest campaign season since...well, the last campaign season.

With Romney's money and now Trump's money, Romney has bought himself a round trip Republican Nominee ticket for the White House.  The sign now reads: Election For Sale SOLD to highest bidder.  And yet he still finds the need to spit on the lowly Santorum?  In other news, the poor are jumping on trampolines of poorly maintained "safety nets".

Let's judge this book by its cover.

How Mitt Won Florida

According to a recent study of campaign ads in Florida, "of the 3,276 ads Romney’s campaign ran, 99% were attacking another candidate. Meanwhile, all of the 4,969 spots from Restore Our Future (Romney's super PAC) were negative."

It would appear that Mitt won Florida not because the voters voted for him, but because they voted against his opponents (despite serenading old folks homes with apparently the only song Mitt knows, America the Beautiful, which he has quoted the lyrics at every rally he goes to).  Sure, Gingrich did say Spanish is the language of "the ghetto", and that definitively lost him the large Latino vote, but what it really comes down to is money is speech.  If you have more money, your voice is loudest.  How can Romney's opponents put out positive ads for themselves when their budgets only allow them a whisper while Romney's budgets are screaming through a bullhorn?

Romney is running a very negative campaign against his opponents.  Instead of saying this is my solution that will work, he's spending millions of dollars to point out why his opponent's solutions are flawed.  Or how his opponents themselves are flawed.  Is he really that sure of himself?

What's ironic is that the GOP is always tooting the horn of  "tradition", "values", and "morality", and yet this political war is one of the worst I can remember.  If the Republican Party wants to take the white house, they need to stop dividing the party.  The party's goal is not to find the best candidate to put in the white house, it's to get a Republican into the white house.  They don't even care which one.  But in the meantime, Republican's across the nation are growing to hate the potential nominees nearly as much as they hate the current administration in Washington.  So what is inevitably going to happen, is the party will be divided with support for the nominee which could lose them the election.  Apparently they're not all on the same page, because they are fighting very hard to reelect President Obama.

So what about the other candidates that are rarely talked about, Santorum and Paul?  Santorum is hanging on a prayer, and Paul is hanging onto delusion.  

Stay tuned.

Long, Awful Day

I don't know what it is about writing my thoughts to either an unknown audience, or not knowing if there is an audience that is being written to that calms me.  I feel pretty downtrodden.  I feel defeated.  I went to talk to my academic adviser today about graduation.  I'm on track to graduate in the fall, which is a relief.  I also had some questions about grad school.  My initial idea was to do the dual MSHR/MBA program that everyone talks about.  I've been planning on doing that for the last two years.  I found out not too long ago, that that program is only offered in the fall, so I'd have to wait a year after being done with school to go back.

I changed my plans.  Given the circumstances, I figured it would be better to just pursue an MBA.   I had heard about an MBA program that you could do Friday and Saturday, allowing you to work during the week.  Since we're having a baby this year I figured that would be the best option, maybe even a blessing in disguise.  Well, today I found out that program is only offered every two years, and it started Spring 2012, and won't be offered again until Spring 2014.  So now that plan is gone too.

Now I just don't know what to do.  I've heard so many people who graduated and started working, saying "I'll go back for my masters after I work a couple years."  They never go back to school.  I don't want to be that person, and I don't want to wait around a couple years working two part-time jobs either.

I don't know why my plans never actually work.  Even when buying a car, we tried to  figure out what all the upfront costs were going to be, and because of some complications with the loan, ended up having to put down way more than we were initially told by the dealership.  Then because of some other problems, we spent the next few weeks waiting for a call from the bank to tell us we had to take the car back.

I'm upset that noone ever told me that the programs weren't always offered. But more than that, I'm just upset that whenever I make a goal, I never get to see the end result I imagined.  What's the use in setting goals if third-party circumstances intervene and make the goal invalid?

I don't know how many times in life people have said, "it's so crucial you set goals for yourself", or, "if you don't set goals, you won't get to where you want to go."  So why is it when I sit down and say, this is where I want to be in five years, and this is how I'm going to get there, it doesn't work out?

So, you might say, go to another school for your MBA.  I talked to my adviser about that.  If I stay here, the program is only supposed to take a year to complete.  If I go somewhere else the first year of the two year program is retaking classes I took for my undergrad, which makes my undergrad either completely worthless, or the MBA a waste of time.  But according to the new Department Head that just arrived from Notre Dame, his research shows that my chosen undergrad degree is worthless because the students who graduated from this University have gone on to do prestigious stuff like clerical work and filing for less than $30,000 a year.

If anyone's actually reading this and made it this far, thank you.  I just needed to pour my broken-hearted first-world problems into the keys and hope for a miracle.  I should feel lucky just to have the opportunity at higher education.  I've lived in a third-world country where a mediocre public education was offered through high school, and then people lived out their lives working themselves to the bone, and wondering if they would get shot on the way home from work.

I shouldn't complain.  I've always had a roof over my head, food to eat, and a feeling of safety in my environment.  Maybe the reason that I have to watch my goals and plans get torn apart is to realize that despite it all, I have the basics covered.  Maybe I do end up with a job making barely $30,000 a year.  In America, that's just enough to get buy comfortably.  In other countries I'd be filthy rich.  It's hard to remember those kinds of things when things are good.

So, for a master's degree, I don't know.  It's all up in the air.  Some waiting period is going to have to happen.  In the mean time, I should just keep focusing on covering the basics and being thankful for what I've been given.