Legalize Gay Marriage (and Everything Else)

5:40 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments


Legalize Gay Marriage (and Everything Else)

 I've thought a lot about this issue. As a Catholic that loves the truth and the whole of truth of Church moral teaching, I really want to call this out for what it is. The Church's sexual teaching is moral teaching. It is NOT political teaching. That means that the awesomeness of Catholic sexual teaching is for us to live out on an individual basis. I could write a whole post on this subject, but I've got other things I'd rather say. I will say this though, for you fellow Catholics reading this post, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Agustin both thought there were grounds for legal prostitution. 
WHAT?
Their argument went like this: Human government should be like Divine government. God is good, but he allows evil that he could prevent. He does this because he knows that if he did prevent these evils, greater goods would be forfeited or greater evils would ensue.1 I'll let you guys work out weather or not this principle applies to gay marriage. I have another angle I'd like to approach this from.

Lets start this way: What is the difference between two random kids putting “married” up as their facebook status as a joke, and two guys going into The Church of Divine Tolerance and Diversity and coming out calling themselves married? What is the difference, really? You can believe that they are married, or you can not believe that they are married. Who is to say they aren't? If you are a traditional marriage supporter, you're answer: The state. 

So pretty much this guy
How States work: States make laws, then they enforce those laws with guns. 
Seriously. At the end of every law, there is a gun.

So what you are looking for the state to do, then, is to make it illegal for people to call themselves married. Then they will enforce those laws with coercive force (ie guns). Since the state is usually a very cumbersom entity, it's not unreasonable to assume that the state will have a very difficult time telling the sacramental difference between a man and a woman who've properly gone through pre cana and done all their marriage counseling and a man and woman who just file their taxes jointly for the tax credits. We'll expect to have lots of arrests. 

 So ask yourself, do you really want some sort of police force running around and arresting your next door neighbors for calling themselves married, or throwing kids behind bars for a joke on their facebook relationship? Do you really want a special marriage police task force that has access to all your emails and sifts through them for words like “fabulous, and super cute?” No. No one wants that. Traditional marriage supporters,what is it, practically, that you want, then? Because everything I've heard on the topic has gone like this: “marriage and the family needs to be protected and supported by the state.” Can I ask why you think that? Because quite frankly, I think marriage needs protection FROM the state just like EVERYTHING ELSE DOES. 
And also from Nickleback
So what sort of rights do you get when you get married? 
You get TAX CREDITS! Oh the joy of tax credits. You also get the right to be INSURED TOGETHER! What absolute BLISS! From what I've gathered from talking with people, no one really cares THAT much about these things being given to gay people what with civil unions and all. Its the WORD “marriage” that we care so much about. 

 So lets just remember. The state enforces all its laws with guns. So when we say something like, we want weed to be illegal, we are saying that we want you dead if you disobey this command. This may seem a little extreme, but this is in effect what we are saying when we say that we want something to be illegal. It starts with fines, you might get a ticket, and that's not that extreme right? Well if you don't pay it, then they will try to take you to prison. If you refuse to go to prison, then you will be shot. Shooting is always down towards the end of that government force line somewhere. 


And also getting attacked by a police Belgain Malinois is somewhere in between. (18 seconds)

"We don't want anyone to get shot here, we just want to protect our kids from the gay agenda," you say, " we don't want our kids being forced to learn about sex and gender issues in kindergarten and stuff. We want to keep our adoption agencies open, our churches open, and we don't want to get sued for hate crimes when not wearing pink on gay pride day." I understand, this sentiment. I too am worried about that, but let me ask you this: who is it that's going to come into our communities and say, “your kids will learn that its normal to have two daddies”? Who is it that's going to march into our charities and tell us “If you don't give babies to whoever we tell you to, we're going to close you down”? Who is it that is going pass a mandate to our churches saying, “you will perform marriages for whoever we tell you”? Is it gay people? Or is it the state? 

 The problem, my friends is the state. It is a state that has the ability to say “I don't care what you believe, you will do what I tell you or else you will be subject to fines, imprisonment, and death if you resist.” In this country, the government is involved in every single facet of our lives. It reads our emails, it listens to our phone calls, it raises our children, it tells us what food to eat, what substances to put in our body, and who we can and can't call our spouse. Remove the state from the equation, and we no longer need to be on the defensive here.


Let's all try and agree on something. Gay rights activists and traditional marriage supporters. Lets start from the ground up. Individuals have rights. Not groups. There is no such thing as woman’s rights, black rights, or gay rights.  Governments don't have rights, businesses don't have rights. Individuals have rights because we are created and endowed with these equal rights by our creator. Right? Moreover, we ether all have the same rights, or rights don't exist. We have a word for when some people have special privileged “rights” because they are part of some special group. That word is “inequality.” So, for example, when married people get special government privileges that non married people don't have, we can safely say that that is called inequality. 
WHAAAAT!

One of the most core rights that we have as individuals is to enter into economic contract with other individuals. So if two people decide that they want to pool together their resources, get insurance together, and file taxes jointly, what business is that of yours? The answer is none. It is not your business. And if they chose to write the word “marriage,” at the top of that contract, though you disagree, what harm is there in that for you?  

 But marriage needs to be supported, you say, we have hard enough time as it is, we NEED  those tax breaks. Well then, the enemy is the government that keeps stealing so much of our money that we need special tax breaks just to survive, not the gay couple living in a house by the street. The government is the problem here, not the answer. They are not the answer to this marriage issue for any of us. Get the government out of education, out of insurance, out of morality, and we no longer have to worry about being fined, imprisoned, or killed for living life the way we believe is best.

 For those of you gay marriage activists reading this blog post, if you agree with me that its a bad thing for the state to walk around with guns telling gay people to shut the hell up about wanting to get married, then lets agree on something else. Double standards suck. If Catholics shouldn't use the government to tell you what to do, then don't use the government to tell us what to do. If we believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, then don't come into our churches with guns and tell us that we have to perform gay marriages. Don't use the government to force adoption agencies to give you kids. Go find an adoption agency that will give you kids. They exist. Don't try and get the guy next to you at work fired (by threatening a lawsuit) because he doesn't think he should have to wear a rainbow flag pin on gay pride day. Don't use the government to force parents out of educating their children. If YOU get to live the way you believe is right, then let other people do the same. 

 Let me tie this back up. God is the good the true and the beautiful. He hates sin because it is bad for us and makes our lives suck. But he never, ever forces people to be good. He never forces people to follow him or to accept him. Sometimes I hear people tell me that Jesus was a socialist because he told his followers to give their possessions to the poor. He wasn't a socialist. He wasn't a socialist because he didn't hold a gun up to anyone's head to force them to obey. Jesus was not a huge fan of aggressive force. As a matter of fact, he told Peter not even to use defensive force when men came to arrest him. He told Peter “those that live by the sword die by the sword.”  (Matthew 26:52)

 So lets put the sword of government down, for truly I say unto you, we will all die by it if we don't. 


1
Summa Theologica: Part II of book II, question 10, article 11
Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): "If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust."

0 comments:

Stop the Gang Violence!

4:34 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments
“Somebody said ‘why don’t we get a third party?’ and another one said, I think correctly so, ‘Why don’t we get a second party?’” - Ron Paul


Why THIS CRAP is not helpful:

AND ALSO THIS CRAP IS NOT HELPFUL:
I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SAY A SINGLE THING ELSE.
But I will.

 We stereotype each other to death in this country, and it's retarded. But that's not the point that I'm trying to make. I have a more ground shattering thought to share. So here goes. We hate each other kind of like the Capulet's and the Montague's. We hate each other like Wearwolves and Vampires. We hate each other kind of like the Bloods and the Crips. At the end of the day, we hate each other just..... because. Because we're supposed to. Because we always have. Because our supreme loyalty is not to ideological ideals, but to a PARTY.

 I remember in 2003 when George Bush started to beat the war drums and we invaded Iraq, I knew that the war must be just. It had to be. It had to be the right move for America because George Bush was a republican, and damnit, the democrats, who opposed it, were my sworn enemies. They were just a bunch of pacifist ninnies.

I supported the war because my party supported the war. I read all of the things that my party told me to read, and I believed them because WE were the good guys, and the democrats were the bad guys. I had a bad feeling about it, a sort of sinking feeling in my gut that there was something fishy going on, but thank the state, my loyalty to my gang came before rational thought. I carried on supporting George W. and everything he did.

 SO, my friends, how many of you start all of your political reasoning with that same sort of “which gang am I in?” mentality? My friend JP's recent FB poll (trust me it was totally scientific) discovered that 95% of Americans actually share the common core political guiding philosophy of "if My Side does it, it's okay. If the Other Side does it, it's bad."I read so many articles about the government shutdown that said things like “did the tea party win?” or “we won!” Who the hell is we? Lets just take a second and think about this, k?
What do democrat politicians and republican politicians actually disagree on in Washington? Social issues? Maybe, but most of the time they change their views depending on whats popular. Economic issues? Not really different, they all kind of like government intervention and fiat money. How about foreign policy? They both love war as long as their president was the one to start it. Big Business and Corporate interests? The BEST. Crony Capitalism? Check. The surveillance state? Check.
Lets just take Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a couple of the golden boys of the two parties and compare them.

A few of their campaign contributors:

Now if you hadn't drawn all the necessary conclusions, here's another comparison chart:



It kind of looks like both dudes got a lot of money from the same places (big banks). But surely that doesn't mean they are going to agree on everything except funding PBS, right?

 How about Obama and Romney on personal freedom? They probably disagree..... or not. Before signing the National Defense Authorization Act, Obama requested a provision be added that the president be given the authority to detain American citizens on American soil without a trial. How does Romney feel about that?
PRETTY GOOD! SCREW THE BILL OF RIGHTS!

Guess who started the ball rolling on this whole government spying shindig? Everyone's favorite pseudo dictator, George W. Bush. If you are a republican, you profess to think that big government is bad, that Obama is a tyrant, and that pretty soon we're going to be living in a tyranny run by socialists. It's too bad all of the people you elect are kind of cool with tyranny as long as they are the ones holding the reigns. If you are a Democrat, on the other hand, you profess to hate American imperialism and want our freedom of privacy protected. Why is it, then, that all the people you vote into office don't share your conviction? The house, the senate, the party leadership, the president... all of them supported the NDAA and the Patriot act.

Not only do both parties (in practice) support government tyranny at home, they both support imperialism and intervention abroad. Earlier this year when Obama was set on going to war with Syria, it was a bipartisan house that supported him. McCain, Lindsey, and Bohner teamed up with Pelosi and were all ready to play the “its not really war” game with Assad in Syria. Here's a great quote from Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican on this exact topic: “People are astonished that President Obama is doing many of the things that President Bush did, I’m not astonished. I congratulate him for having the good judgment to understand we’re at war.”
pictured above: "them"
Both parties also supported the bank bailouts of 2008. Yeah! Remember the Wall Street bailouts that started under George Bush? That was all bipartisan supported. Both parties voted to tax us and then pay for Wall Street's mistakes with our taxes. That whole “democrats stand up for the little man,” and “republicans are against government intervention in the economy,” is total poppycock. We are not living in a democracy any more. In a democracy you have choices. You have OPTIONS. In America, we have one option, and that option is the 1%.

 As Ron Paul said in his farewell address to congress, "One side doesn't give up one penny on military spending, the other side doesn't give up one penny on welfare spending. Both sides support the bailouts and the subsidies for the banking and corporate elite, and the spending continues as the economy weakens and we spiral down further and further." Those are the facts of the situation. Stop blaming the tea party, stop blaming the bleeding heart liberals. If you were a democrat before, stop calling the tea party "them." If you were a republican before, stop calling people like Mitt Romney and Senator Lindsey "Us."  And the next time you think about posting that meme that shows how all democrats are potsmoking bums or how everyone in the tea party belongs to the klan, do us all a favor and don't.

 We, the normal people, all hate to see special interests use the government as leverage to destroy their competition. As it turns out, the tea party and Occupy Wall Street movements were born from the same parents, Wall Street and Washington.


Yeah. Turns out we were on the same side all along. So lets stop fighting each other and start fighting the establishment. THEY are the "them." Not the dude with the coexist bumper sticker or the "don't tread on me" flag. THEY are.

0 comments:

What Pope Francis Actually Said

12:33 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments

If you've read any news about the pope in the last few months, you know that they usually look something like this:

Vatican City- Pope Francis, dressed in simple robes made from bedsheets, setting aside the usual papal wardrobe which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars said in an off the cuff comment this morning that the Church is not really necessary at all anymore and really is more of a social cloud for people who want to feel good about themselves. “We believe in following your conscience.” said the Pontiff. We have interpreted this, of course the way we want to hear it. This is now a codified, ex-cathedra (whatever that means) dogmatic decree that every Catholic instantly must adhere to as reported by this news agency –we are not biased at all by progressive agendas. This is in stark contrast to Pope Benedict XVI, who said that only those whose names are in the registry of a Catholic Church and are fluent in ecclesiastic Latin could have any hope for salvation. Benedict made this decree while simultaneously kicking a kitten and taking food from a starving child before climbing into his papal Lamborghini.


Lets go ahead and slap a Vatican flag decal on the front, we can do that right?


The news never gets Pope Francis right, or Pope Benedict for that matter. They listen only for what they want to hear. So it is with the news articles that came out today declaring, like this one, that Pope Francis has “assured atheists that you don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven.” The author of this article doesn't give two craps what Pope Francis actually said. He's just fanning the flames of controversy. If you want to get your heart broken for Jesus and for all of humanity, go read the letter Pope Francis actually wrote here. Because I also know that I’m totally not normal and that normal people don’t usually read papal letters, I’m going to just give you a few of the quotes from this unbelievable saint of a man. These are all gems from his letter to Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of “La Repubblica” newspaper. I’ll let Pope Francis speak for himself:

Pope Frikkin Francis

"Sup."
              Where does faith come from?
“For me, faith is born from the encounter with Jesus. A personal encounter, which has touched my heart and given direction and new meaning to my existence. But at the same time an encounter that was made possible by the community of faith in which I have lived….Believe me, without the Church I would not have been able to encounter Christ, also in the awareness that the immense gift that faith is kept in the fragile earthen vessels of our humanity.”

               Who is Jesus? Is he a power hungry tyrant who came to destroy those who oppose him?
“[The question] ‘Who is he’” refers to Jesus’ identity, is born from witnessing an authority that is different from that of the world, an authority that is not aimed at exercising power over others, but of serving them, of giving them liberty and the fullness of life. And this to the point of putting at stake one’s own life, to the point of experiencing incomprehension, betrayal, rejection, to the point of being condemned to death, of sealing the state of abandonment on the cross. But Jesus remains faithful to God, to the end.
And it is precisely then... that Jesus shows himself paradoxically as the Son of God! Son of a God that is love and that wishes with all His being that man, every man, discover himself and also live as His true son. This is, for the Christian faith, the certificate of the fact that Jesus is risen: not to triumph over those who rejected him, but to attest that the love of God is stronger than death, the forgiveness of God is stronger than any sin, and that it is worthwhile to spend one’s life, to the end, witnessing this immense gift”

               Did Jesus come to cut his followers off from the rest of the world?
“In other words, Jesus’ offspring, as presented by the Christian faith, is not revealed to mark an insurmountable separation between Jesus and all others: but to tell us that, in Him, we are all called to be children of the one Father and brothers among ourselves. The singularity of Jesus is for communication, not for exclusion.”

               What about the Jews? Are they condemned to hell because they didn’t accept Jesus?
“What I can say to you, with the Apostle Paul, is that God’s fidelity to the close covenant with Israel never failed and that, through the terrible trials of these centuries, the Jews have kept their faith in God. And for this, we shall never be sufficiently grateful to them as Church, but also as humanity. They, then, precisely by persevering in the faith of the God of the Covenant, called all, also us Christians, to the fact that we are always waiting, as pilgrims, for the Lord’s return.”

               What of atheists? Does God forgive them even if they don’t believe in him?
“First of all, you ask me if the God of Christians forgives one who doesn’t believe and doesn’t seek the faith. Premise that – and it’s the fundamental thing – the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart; the question for one who doesn’t believe in God lies in obeying one’s conscience. Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and to obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.”

               Is there absolute truth or is truth relative?
“Now truth, according to the Christian faith, is the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, truth is a relationship! So true is it that each one of us also takes up the truth and expresses it from him/herself: from his/her history and culture, from the situation in which he/she lives, etc. This doesn’t mean that truth is variable or subjective, quite the opposite. But is means that it is given to us always and only as a way and a life. Did not Jesus himself say: ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’?”

               When men cease to exist, will the idea of God disappear along with him?
“God – this is my thought and this is my experience, but how many, yesterday and today, share it! – is not an idea, even though very lofty, fruit of man’s thought. God is reality with a capital ‘R.”

               And about the church:
“Believe me, the Church despite all the slowness, the infidelities, the errors and sins she could have committed and can still commit in those that accompany her, has no other sense or end but that of living and witnessing Jesus: He who was sent by Abba “to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).

With fraternal closeness,
Francis”

               The Tear Jerker:

Pope Francis signed this letter to Eugenio Scalfari, a non believer, “with fraternal closeness.” No formality, no papal bull or decree or title, just "Francis." That is just awesome. That, more than everything else is the Pope  answer to all the questions Scalfari asked him- We are all brothers. Someone hand me a tissue immediately.


0 comments:

Split my Chin WIDE Open

11:49 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments


0 comments:

Above Basswood Falls

9:37 AM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments



Oh unconquerable cataracts,
Water piling over rocks and crags,
Rushing dash-smash and cast
High your vapors.
Ever do you empty yourself to fill up another.
Look how peaceful!
Look how tranquil!
The glassy pool below rests content
Your truest bedfellow.
You never hold back your happy gift,
Grip-clutch or clench
And you would cease,
Dry and die, and so would she.

And if in icy winter,
The one below, your love, should freeze,
and refuse your self-pouring
life giving streams,
Ever patient do you wait.
She melts to you,
She always melts to you.

0 comments:

Friday Bay

9:37 AM Marcellino DAmbrosio 0 Comments


Friday Bay pt 1.

Blow bash, ye untired winds,
And find me yet upon the lake.
Though these waters roll and shake,
I only sink to bathe my sins,
To learn my heart once more to swim,
My head to follow in its wake.
Oh Soul! Cut free your anchors,
Forsake all your ties
To risk upon the fearsom depths, out I fling,
Till like the Son of Man did once in Galilee
I may sleep and dream amidst a stormy sea.

Friday Bay pt 2.

Lash me down!
Lash me down here a bed!
Let the spray wash and salt this bread,
Typhoon rain whip and blow break
Upon my brow
Ye windy sirens coo and call –
Ye are but hens!
Yes, despair's a storm
A melancholy song,
A wave tide surge and pull,
“Come deeper and sink-swallow salty water,”
She coos and coos.
Bawk on carrion comfort!
I'll list not, and not be listed.
I'll not be counted a wreck and sink.
Bawk on!
But morning breaks on your eastern back.
I'll weather you yet,
Lashed here to Christ, my mast and bed.
Sleep my soul, sleep.

0 comments:

Lino's Epic Science Battle Against the Evil Flasks

10:25 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 1 Comments




The D'Ambrosio's, for the most part, have never been an intensely science mathy left brainy organizy family. After the first three kids graduated with degrees in literature, philosophy, and then literature, it has been left up to Cristina and Nick to do something piratical with their lives. Everyone thinks Nick will do great things.
(he actually got an A in algebra).

He's going to go far in life.

 It seems that out of all the siblings, I am the absolute worst at the practicals. I'd like to tell you a story to illustrate my own inability, and by doing so, entertain you greatly.

My sophomore year at Ave, I promised my mother I would get A in biology. She laughed. It was not exactly a vote of confidence. Who could blame her though? Class was Monday Wednesday Friday at 8:15 in the morning. I still don't get up that early. Let alone for lecture hall powerpoints on the inner workings of ATP. But I was not dismayed. Professor Davis wasn't exactly consistent with his role calls. On the first day of class, he told us that his tests would be similar to the tests on the study disk that came with our $200 biology text book. I decided studying that test instead of going to class would be a far more efficacious method of inquiry. After taking the first test and scoring far higher than any of my class going classmates, I stopped going to class entirely. I was made. This was going to be such a great semester. But alas, there was one biology period I couldn't get away with missing, or faking. Lab.

Yes, lab was my greatest fear, my greatest nemesis,  the one class that I couldn't talk, study, or charm my way around. Applied science. The place where exact measurements, test tubes, bunson burners, dead organs, putrid orders, and chemical fires abound. Here, there was no hiding my absolute inability. After failing to measure 54 ounces with my pipette on the first day of lab, I was forsaken by my classmates. I was abandoned, cast aside, tossed to the wolves-the wolves being my good friend and fellow lab failure, Daniel Schnaider.



Now, all the labs called for groups of three. The way it broke down, for each lab project, there would be 5 groups of three and one group of two. Guess who was the group of two every time? The two people who seemed to be constantly breaking flasks, setting desks on fire, and in general causing great terror in the classroom.I still have many battle scars from that time, and every time I see a test tube I grab the nearest inoculating loop and go on a postal rampage, but outside of the PTSD induced nightmares, my psychiatrist tells me I'm recovering well.


One war story, however, stands out among the rest. One fateful Thursday, Schneider and I looked at each other awkwardly as all the other lab members found their groups. General Davis stood before the group to give us today's battle briefing. Today, we would be cutting up spinach leaves with a hole puncher, putting them in a flask with 4 ounces of water, sucking the air from them (so they would sink to the bottom), and recording how long it took for the leaves to re-oxigenate (or whatever) and rise back to the surface. It's among the greatest mysteries of the universe. We were privileged to get to solve such an enigma. “Before you begin, my students,” he said, “when you go to the vacuum to suck the air out of the flasks, make sure you are wearing your eye protection. I've never see it happen in all my 20 years of teaching, but flasks have been recorded to shatter when the vacuum is activated.”

Stop me if you know where this is going!

So Daniel and I rush to the fight, punching holes in our five spinach leaves like there is no tomorrow. We aren't the first to get all 50 spinach circles, but we aren't the last. Upon our completion, Shnaider gleefully rushed to the vacuum, but alas, like so many young lads, he rushed headlong to his demise. Not fast enough, in slow motion, I reached out for his shoulder, yelling “Shnaider, you forgot your eye protection!” (I've always been a bit too concerned with safety, it's a bit of a character flaw).
I was too late.

He connected the flask to the vacuum and flipped that fateful switch. He was only 20 years old. 

He was JUST A BOY!

The flask exploded.

When I say exploded, I mean exploded. The class was shocked. It was all confusion for what seamed like an eternity. A girl screamed, men ducked under desks, and I fell over onto the floor laughing so hard that I almost peed my pants.

The general was less than enthused. “What the hell did you do Schneider?” Schneider still stood there in shock, holding the tip of the flask, his white lab coat covered in little spinach circles. “And you, D'Ambrosio, wipe that silly grin off your face. You have 50 more spinach circles to cut.” I stopped laughing immediately. “DAMNIT SCHNEIDER!” I yelled. “It took us an HOUR to cut that many!”

He was unapologetic. Said something about how he almost died or some crap. I wasn't moved. We spent the next hour trying to cut new holes out of our already torn up leaves. By the time we finished, most of the other groups had already finished the experiment and gone off to run amok. Schnaider was just about to get up to take the flask over to the vaccum, when I heroically volunteered to take his place and risk my well being at ground zero. “I better take this one, Schnaider,” I said, “I don't want to be here cutting holes out of spinach for the rest of the day.” I grabbed the flask and swaggered over to the vacuum. I attached its rubber mouth to the vaccum, and just as I was about to flip the switch, I thought the following thought: “Dr. Davis hasn't seen this ever happen in all 20 years of his teaching? What are the chances it would happen twice in one day?”

Yeah. Who wants to guess what happened next?



It was Schneider's turn to laugh. I wasn't wearing eye protection ether. The general was PISSED. This was the 8th flask we'd broken up to this point. He told us that we were single highhandedly funding Flasks Inc, and that he would stand for no more tom foolery. If only he knew the truth- that Schneider and I simply were the worst two students that he had ever had in 20 years of teaching. There was no mischeif happening here, no malicious intent. We just were really, really bad at biology. And now, our five spinach leaves were history.

Ahhhh that was a knee slapper. History! I crack myself up.

We had no more leaves, and by this time, the other groups were well on their way to curing cancer. They had thrown their spinach leaves away eons ago. But I was not to be kept down! Oh no! Not this man. I once saw a motivational poster that said “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” and I was going! I refused to surrender this lab to a few green smears that once were spinach! Cue inner dialogue. “It probably doesn't matter what kind of leaves we cut up,” I thought to myself, “This is a photosynthesis lab, after all.”I nodded to myself in agreement, and then casually walked over to the windowsill, upon which stood several different species of flower. I had never seen any of them before. I stole a few leaves from one plant (which seemed overy leafy), and brought them over to Schnaider. He was ever the observant bastard, and upon seeing them, he spouted “Dr. Davis, aren't these leaves from your plant over there?!” There has never been another moment in my life where I have wanted to kill a man so much.

This was a close second, though.
Dr Davis lost his cool. He yelled at me, told me that we were the worst students he'd ever had- which apparently is no exaggeration- and filled me in on the details. Apparently the plant I had stolen the leaves from was an endangered species that grows only on the Island of Simoa. Taking leaves from it at its infant stage could be deadly. This was the only specimen of its kind in America, and I had just delivered its death sentence. He dismissed us early that day. We never did get to solve that great mystery, about which we all wonder desperately. 

Mommy, how long does it take for photosynthesis to oxygenate a leaf of spinach?
Let's be real. It's every child's first question, isn't it?



1 comments:

A Reply to Common [Catholic] Objections Against the Free Market. 2

8:26 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 1 Comments


    Objection #2
     Without the state helping to redistribute resources, a wealthy class will hold on to the means of production and will keep the poor from being able to climb out of poverty.
    "A society in which the ownership of the means of production is confined to a body of free citizens, not large enough to make up properly a general character of that society, while the rest are dispossessed of the means of production, and are therefore proletarian, we call Capitalist. Note the several points of such a state of affairs. You have private ownership ; but it is not private ownership distributed in many hands and thus familiar as an institution to society as a whole. Again, you have the great majority dispossessed but at the same time citizens, that is, men politically free to act, though economically impotent... It is a necessary inference that there will be under Capitalism a conscious, direct, and planned exploitation of the majority, the free citizens who do not own by the minority who are owners.” (The Servile State by Hillare Belloc)
        Hillare Belloc is basically saying that in a capitalist society, without state intervention, class disparity cannot be solved. The wealthy will hold on to the means of production, and the poor will remain “economically impotent.” GK Chesterton and many other Catholic thinkers have argued this and advocated for the means of production to be distributed more evenly around the economy. Belloc, Chesterton, and all others who think this way are incorrect in their assumption that the rich will always hold capital tight. Yes, wealthy people will seek to do this at times. However, this sort of class warfare sort of argument only works if the means of production are limited. Underlying Belloc's argument is a flawed concept of wealth that smacks of Mercantilism. Capital is as limited as there are problems in the world to be solved – that is to say wealth is unlimited. As long as people want a better life style and have desires for comforts, new experiences, and more effective methods of producing, there will always be more money to be made.
The only real way to limit the hands that wealth belongs to is by state intervention. In the free market, for instance, if a bank makes mal-investments and goes bottom up, it's assets are sold at low prices, and competitors can enter the market more easily. Those that don't have the buying power they would normally need to enter into the competition, now are more able to. However, when there is a state in place that has the power to intervene, those banks/companies that failed to utilize their resources effectively go to that state begging and pleading saying “we are too big to fail!” And then the state uses the money it stole from us via taxation to buoy up these firms. In the free market, no such safety mechanism for the rich would exist. A rich man can fail just as easily and just as spectacularly as a poor man. Only the state provides a method for limiting the distribution of resources. This is what happened in 2008, when republicans and democrats both voted to bail out the banks and car companies. All of those resources should have been sold off to new competing firms (good for poor people) for a fraction of the price.
        The rich, however, are not the only ones who use the state to discourage innovation and limit wealth. The poor of America have learned that they can use the state to punish the success of some by taxing the rich more and by suing those with resources. By definition the state does not support itself. It only relies on what it takes from others. Anyone, then, can lobby the state to steal from one group and give to another. That is what a state does. So when literally everything is an opportunity to sue, the people of a nation live in absolute fear of one another. We get used to it here, but just think of how much the fear of a lawsuit has on American life. The fact that a McDonalds as to put “careful, cup may be hot,” on their cups is a prime example of the poor doing the opposite of what Belloc argues will happen in a free market. The gun of the state is the weapon by which man steals his brother's assets. As Murrey Rothbard puts it, when one uses the state to steal from producers, that act subtracts from production instead of adding to it. “The "political means" siphons production off to a parasitic and destructive individual or group; and this siphoning not only subtracts from the number producing, but also lowers the producer's incentive to produce beyond his own subsistence. In the long run, the robber destroys his own subsistence by dwindling or eliminating the source of his own supply. But not only that; even in the short run, the predator is acting contrary to his own true nature as a man.” As I have already shown in the above paragraph, the free market is perfectly capable of regulating itself. Bad ethics is bad business and is never actually sustainable. Without help from the state, such businessmen as those who caused this past recession always fail, and their resources are divided amongst the less affluent, competitive man. What then does the state do? Only turn man against himself by providing an easy means of piracy.
         So how does the standard of living rise, then, if not by the force of a gun? It rises when Dave the Peasant decides that he is going to save his resources and pool them together, to say, buy a plow and a pair of oxen. When he does this, he no longer needs to dig with a hoe. He gets more work done with the plow than he ever could have with a hoe. Dave's standard of living has just been raised. He now produces way more food, and maybe another man in the community, lets call him Jeff, no longer needs to farm in order for every one to get fed. Jeff figures that the other farmers need plows and that he is just the man to build them. He now builds plows, which makes plows easier to get. Now other farmers can afford them.         You see, a lot more work can get done by a man with a forklift than a man with a horse cart. Of course you had to work 13+ hours a day back in the industrial revolution, everything was still being done by hand! It wasn't government restrictions that changed the situation, it was the desires of generations of men to provide a better life for their families. It takes time for the standard of living in a community to rise up, but there are no shortcuts. It is supreme ingratitude to steal the thanks from these men women and children, from whom we've inherited the standard of living which we now enjoy, and give it to self important politicians. Economic calculation is always open for the poor man. we ought not penalize him for succeeding. Every state law and regulatory burden is an obstacle to the poor man's emancipation. No, Belloc, and the Church, misunderstands economics when they claim that resources will always be distributed only to the rich in a free market system.
        Moreover, it is not possible to force employers to pay employees higher wages by government inflation. Such measures are unsustainable. If you owned a factory in 1920 and the state came and said to you, you must provide your employees an air conditioned working environment, you would have shut down. Well, now this is something that we all take for granted. If the government stopped telling companies to air condition their work places, would all companies immediately stop air conditioning their buildings to save money? No, of course not. Why? Because they are competing for employees. If one company has air conditioning, and another does not, which job is more preferable? A company that does not have an air conditioned work place must pay employees more in order to work there. A man might decide that he wants higher wages more than he wants air conditioning, and that is his business. Far be it from us to tell that man that he must take lower wages and force his employer to air condition.
       No, free association and free exchange of resources is the answer to poverty, not the cause of it. 

1 comments:

A Reply to Common Objections Against the Free Market. I

4:37 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 1 Comments
         This post is intended as a reply to a friend and I concerning the Church's Social teaching, specifically as stated in the encyclical Caritas en Veritate. I will post three more replies later to counter all four critiques of the free market as raised during our previous dialogue. 

Again, I agree wholeheartedly with the church that the individual needs to be protected from exploitation and that the poor ought to be taken care of. I just disagree as to how practically this ought to happen.
  1. The free market has no rules! You need contract enforcement, a medium of exchange, an independent judiciary for a market to function. Without the state these things are impossible.
Pope Benedict writes:
         “It is in the interests of the market to promote emancipation, but in order to do so effectively, it cannot rely only on itself, because it is not able to produce by itself something that lies outside its competence. It must draw its moral energies from other subjects that are capable of generating them.” Chapter III. Caritas en Veritate.
         This is one of those statements which seems to say that the the market cannot regulate itself because such regulation “lies outside its competence.” I don't think this is an easy stance to take when you look at how human beings function on a daily basis. I believe the market is able to rely on itself for regulation. It is able to do so because it is not an it. That is to say the free market is comprised of people who, as it happens, are brilliant problem solvers.
         So as to your statement about the definition of capitalism, You’re correct. Laissez Faire Capitalism is a market free of any rules imposed by elected officials. It is not, however, free of any rules. As you commented, “You can’t have a free market unless you have things such as contract enforcement, prosecution of fraud, fair weights and measures, a medium of exchange, secure property you can use as an asset to borrow against, or an independent judiciary,” you are absolutely right.” However, when you say “These are things the market cannot produce by itself,” I believe human action proves the opposite. The free market is perfectly capable of providing for these needs on its own, and the Austrian school of economics shows how these things arise in a depth of detail that would put a crackhead to sleep of boredom.
         The rules that govern a free market are not forced from without, but instead arise from people, who encountering an obstacle, will find a way over, around, under, or through it. To be sure, not having a way to enforce contract is a problem. Problem solving also happens to be very economically lucrative. I think here, it is important to instead of thinking about an economy as a whole, think about human action on a more individual level. 
         So let’s say it’s Europe in the renaissance. You are a Florentine cloth merchant, and someone in Munich wants to buy a very large order of cloth. Knowing that you aren’t protected by any rule of law, as a border is crossed, what do you do? You might ask the other merchants around for references. Has anyone else heard of this guy? Is he reputable? Does he have any record of previous business transactions? Finding out that this man has no record, you might have a limit for how much cloth you are willing to sell him. If he is reputable, then you wouldn’t be afraid of trading with him. This is the market providing governance from within, and it is actually how commerce worked during much of the renaissance. Merchants kept a record between them of who had traded with whom. If someone was not on the list, you would not be unable to trade with them, but you might, for instance, require payment in advance, or a deposit of some sort, or you might limit the amount you are willing to trade until he has gain more repute. Because people do want to engage in commerce, they naturally and organically find ways of managing risk. Look at the internet, for instance. For the most part, no country has been governing internet commerce. If you get taken by someone on Ebay, it’s pretty hard to track them down and prosecute them. But when you look at their reputation, for instance, you can see if people have been unhappy with the service provided to them or if they were pleased. So you give someone reputable your credit card information, trusting that this person would rather not ruin their reputation by stealing from you. This protection naturally rises from within.
         Ebay itself has a natural desire to keep business, so it works to ensure that sellers cannot simply give themselves reputation points. Ebay knows that if people don’t trust that system, then they won’t shop there. So Ebay has entire departments constantly working on trying to safeguard the public from conmen. They are always figuring it out. Why? Because they have financial incentive to do so. The state, on the other hand, has no monetary intensive to be excellent. There are no alternative states from which you may chose your allegiance. The state has no economic incentive to be effective as it has no competition. It simply says, “if you do not think we did a good job, too bad.” So the state does not need to be effective to remain in power. Moreover, the state can only make laws, which are cumbersome, bludgeoning things that cannot keep up with the speed at which the markets change. For instance, with the example of the merchants, a state might say, depending on the political mood of the time: “You must trade with anyone who wants you to.” In which case, trade would shut down completely. Or “You cannot trade with anyone unless you have a license.” Why shouldn't I be able to trade with an unlicensed person if I want to? I'm the one assuming the risk here! Such a policy would put barriers on trade as opposed to encouraging it. The free market's solutions to this issue, by which I mean, people's own problem solving prowess, does, in fact, produce organic safeguards. Not only does regulation arise from within the market, but these regulations are far more effective protections for the individual than state laws. 

1 comments:

The Free Market is the Answer, Not the Enemy

11:19 AM Marcellino DAmbrosio 1 Comments



In a recent statement to the world's diplomats, Pope Francis called for an end to the free market. He said that  free-market capitalism had created a “tyranny,” and that countries should impose more control over their economies and not allow “absolute autonomy”, in order to provide “for the common good.”In his opinion economic inequality is caused by "ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to states, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good."
Pope Francis is one of my favorite Popes of all time. He knows how to love and lead the Church well, but his infallibility extends only to matters of “faith and morals,” as does the rest of the magisterium. No one would argue that Pope Francis and the rest of the bishops’ infallible teaching power extends into the realms of biology, so why do we accept that the Church’s teaching power extends to political philosophy and the economy? 

 Yes, the current financial system is terribly screwed up. Yes, we are dominated by the tyranny of money. However, we are not living in a free-market economy. What we have are centrally planned economies that pretend to be free markets. Pope Francis’ diagnosis is wrong, and therefore his prescription must be called into question. Should countries impose more control over their economies than they already do? Well, what is the common good? I would say general prosperity (the leisurely kind) is a good. Poverty, though a spiritual virtue, is not something that we want people to live in. God’s heart for his people is that the poor be cared for, which means that he doesn’t enjoy watching his kids live in poverty. A high standard of living across the board is the best scenario for the common good, economically speaking. I’ll prove that by asking the following question: “would you rather be poor in Richmond, America or poor in Bangalore, India?” No one would pick Bangalore. Why? The standard of living is higher in Richmond. 

 So what sort of factors cause growth in an economy, which then leads to a raise in the standard of living? Does more government control lead to the general welfare, or does more free market capitalism lead to the general welfare? First, let’s talk about the difference between a free market economy and a centrally planned economy. In a free market economy, banks set their own interest rates according to supply and demand of money. The currency has inherent value (Gold/silver) and is therefore stable and not easily manipulated. When an institution fails, its capital is redistributed to new entrepreneurs at cheap prices. This creates opportunity for the little guy. On the other hand, in a centrally planned economy, interest rates are set arbitrarily by a central bank. The currency is a fiat currency (paper, printed money) that is manipulated for the states benefit. Big business is bailed out when it fails and generally propped up by the state. 

 Clearly, our economy is centrally planned. But let’s just take this one at a time, shall we? 

 Interest rates: 
In a free market society, interest rates work the following way. A bank opens up. They don’t have money to lend out, so they raise their interest rates. That makes you want to save your money in a bank as opposed to take out loans. Once the bank has enough resources to lend out to entrepreneurs, they lower the interest rates. This makes you want to save less and borrow more. This sort of system rewards you, the small guy, for SAVING YOUR MONEY. 
In an economy with a central bank, however, ( 90% of the developed nations in the world), the interest rates are set arbitrarily, and they are generally set LOW. (The Federal Reserve has them fluctuating between 0 and 2 through 2014). This does not encourage you to save, but rather to take out loans. Here’s a thought, one of the greatest struggles of our economic lives is getting out of debt. Not enough people save right? According to people like Dave Ramsey, we are all just being stupid consumers, not saving our money or thinking long term. It’s not because we’re stupid. It’s because our current financial system doesn’t reward us for saving. There are so many repercussions to this practice that it would take hundreds of pages and lots of big economics terms. The point is that centrally planned interest rates make us much more debt laden. This true of us as individuals, and of the country as a whole. The debt crisis in the west is not caused by the free market running unhampered. It is caused by central banks. 

 Currency:
The second thing that central banks do is they inflate the currency. The Fed calls it “quantitative easing.” They basically print money. In a free market, a currency has inherent value and cannot be inflated. Gold and silver have inherent value. It’s scarce, it’s shiny, and it’s easily divisible. A government cannot simply print more gold to finance its bloated welfare system and adventurist foreign policy. When the fed prints money to finance these things, it makes our money worth less. It is a hidden form of taxation. This removes money from the middle class and puts it in the pockets of defense budget lobbyists, insurance company lobbyists, and all the rest of the wall street big wigs. 

 Big Business
Moreover, when these institutions fail, like in the 2008 crisis, the Fed bails them out with printed money. This sucks value from the middle class’s dollar, and gives it the wealthy. That is called wealth redistribution. It is NOT good for the poor, it is NOT good for the middle class. It LOWERS our standard of living. The state also likes to prop big business up by hurting their competitors. Big companies love to lobby to government for more and more regulation. They don’t care about regulation. They have armies of lawyers and accountant divisions specifically for the purpose of handling government regulation. They eat the cost. On the other hand, small business gets slaughtered. If you want an example of how this works, watch Senator Ted Cruiz talk about the new internet sales tax. Big business lobbied for it. Small business doesn’t lobby. Big business crush’s small business. 


In conclusion, central planning makes for a hostile environment for growth and innovation. Pope Francis’s attempts to correct what is clearly a terrible issue, tyranny, but he does it by encouraging more of the same. The Church, indeed the entire world, needs to start taking the economic sciences seriously. We cannot afford, as a church, to be encouraging practices that entrench poverty and keep the worlds resources clutched in the hands of the 1%. The free market is the answer, not the enemy.

1 comments:

A Letter to Authors Concerning Roller Coasters

7:44 PM Marcellino DAmbrosio 4 Comments

    
    It's funny how when you're sick, all you need is sleep, but your body just wont give you any because it decides that (now that you are in the zenith of your mental abilities) your highest priority is resolving the mysteries of the universe. Really, I've been up for two hours now just letting my fever pilot my mind like an aviator with a blood alcohol content of 5. Thoughts, memories, weird dream-like imaginings are flying by like clouds, and really have no idea which direction is up. My little plane keeps flying through one cloud (metaphor key: cloud=thought... ) over and over. It's the memory of David Corbett's solemn voice asking us all “What is your most profound moment of guilt? What is your most profound moment of shame? What your most profound moment of terror?” These words crash over my mind like waves on a beach; they boom like a gong from some ancient Chinese ritual. “What is your most profound moment of anger? What is your most profound moment of confusion?” That talk has been hatching like an egg, my brains membrane birthing through my skull.

BLAHHHH!

 So melodramatic I know, give me a break. I'm running a 100 fever, for godsakes. In any case, here it is: My hatched egg, a letter to all you beautiful authors.

          In an interview with Elizabeth Carlton, Corbett told the journalist: “In the black recesses of your mind, there is plenty that’s wild and grand and terrifying. I’m always amazed at how students respond when I make them dig up moments of profound guilt, or shame, or terror. The writerly writing fades away, and the truth comes out.” That, my friends, is the whole shabang, the goose that lays the golden egg, its the entire purpose of literature. To let the truth come out.


HARRRGGG!!! This one *huff* better be *huff* made of pure gdamned Gold!

         When I went to school and chose a major, at one time, I selected philosophy. I did that because I saw myself as a truth seeker, and I was under the false impression that philosophy is the place where the big questions are asked. What I discovered beneath the looming philosophy blackboard covered in powdery white chalk was an entire science that is completely devoid of human experience. Using phrases like “epistemology” and “logical positivism,” the students would argue about the big questions like “what is the purpose of life?” “is there meaning?” and “are we just brains in a vat?”



When the conversation ended, both sides carried on with their lives without another thought. Does morality exist? one man would ask, “or is it simply a biological, socio economic construct?” He would posit that no, morality does not exist. He would then promptly rush out the door to attend a LGBT meeting because discrimination is wrong. Similarly, a student would make the grandest argument for the existence of a creator, and destroy his opponent in the most condescending and humiliating way possible. It was what philosophers call “Leisure.”

I spend my leisure time reading ontological proofs of Gods existence!

          Instead of asking “is morality God given or a biological construct?” the author asks something far more profound and far more moving. The author asks: “what does it look like in a person's life when he or she violates the moral code? How does that person cope? How do they change?” When this question is asked in the depths of an engaging plot, inside a dynamic character's life, the most peculiar thing happens: the reader changes too. We've all turned the final page of that old torn up paperback, held the book carefully, pinning the binding together so that those precious pages remain locked as stones in the book's mosaic. We've all lifted that book till made contact with our cheeks, inhaled that wondrous, old library smell, put it down on our bed, and said: I will never see love through the same eyes ever again.

Cause now I'm on team JACOB!

 Story has the power to change us. Story reveals the truth in a way that no theologian, scientist, or philosopher could ever reveal it.


         My friends, it's an undeniable fact that your audience is growing duller every day. No longer can you capture an audience with a powerful first page. Instead, you've got to capture your readers with a two sentence pitch and a helluva book cover. I worked in the writing center in college, and its a fact. The general public is barely literate. Western culture has declined and as has our attention span.

Squirrel!?! 

 This is where the story gets very, very sad. literature is not just some vehicle for entertainment- it is not “the layman's philosophy,” as my ethics professor said and it is not at all like a roller coaster. If you have ever been to an amusement park; if you've ever fearfully accepted the challenge of a mile long steel track that dips you, twirls you about, causes your heart to pound adrenaline through you like a pump, if you've ever partaken in such a life altering experience, you might have noticed an unfortunate truth. The cars hum right back into the same covered tent from whence they came. It goes nowhere.
It's good to recognize that people want a ride that takes their breath away. But why on earth don't we recognize that a roller coaster does not necessarily need to end up in the same place? Who wouldn't ride a roller coaster to work if they had the opportunity? I would be much more excited to go to work in the morning.


Who are we kidding? I would wingsuit base jump to work if that was an option.

 Excitement does not need to exclude meaning. Actually, I would posit that the two are mutually exclusive to a good story.

            David Corbett's central point in his speech that evening was that the human being is redefined in moments of deep and profound confusion. When a man is confronted with deep humiliation or guilt, his insipid “I'm a normal put together person” facade crashes to the ground. Behind this facade is a white sheet in splattered red letters that reads “I'm fucked up.” That man now, must face the fact that he is deeply broken. This is when those big questions that the philosophers ask matter. Not only that, but also in these moments, a written character ought to ask those questions because that's what human beings do. Thus, killing off a character's parent's is not a plot device. We don't go there because it “makes the character face something of a conundrum,” or because “we need more drama.” We do it because deep down, human beings are all seekers of truth. We love to see the facade fall down and grapple with meaning or the lack there of.
Alright my friends, here we go. It's example time.

          The Game of Thrones. The books were amazing and gripping, yes, but the TV show nailed it last Sunday. If you follow the show, all I need to say is this: Petyr Baelish.


This guy is my new favorite villain. For those of you who don't know his back story here it is: After his parents die they leave him with a noble title, but without any wealth or land, thus leaving him at the absolute bottom of the nobility hierarchy. Despite this fact, he falls in love with a noble woman. She is betrothed to another, and though he is a small man, he challenges her fiance to a duel. The stronger man soundly defeats him, but instead of killing him, he leaves him with a scar to remember his place. Most profound moment of shame—CHECK. We're still on a roller coaster, my friends, so far this is pretty dramatic stuff. Petyr, after this unhinging incident, broken down, shamed, wearing the mark of a “beta male,” makes an off page decision: “The only meaning in life is to “climb the ladder.”

See how that worked?
If you missed it, here's the formula:
Terrible event of profound shame and hurt – decision concerning life's meaning—character drama.
So how does this make for the most superb, terrifying, unhinging character drama that people watch the show for? This conversation right here:
Lord Varys:
“I did what I did for the good of the realm.”
Petyr Baelish:
“The realm? Do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand blades of Agon's enemies; a story we agree to tell each other, over and over and over till we forget that it's a lie.”
Lord Varys:
“And what do we have left when we abandon the lie? Chaos. A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.”
cue scary music.
Petyr Baelish:
“Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder.”
slow pan over his prostitute who informed on him, she is tied to a bed and shot full of arrows.
“Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. Some have a chance to climb, but they refuse, they cling to the realm, or the gods, or love. ILLUSIONS. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”


           BOOM. That my beautiful authors is a terrifying villain. He's terrifying not because he kills prostitutes, but because he makes us ask the question “is he right?” He makes us ask an unhinging, life changing question: “Is that really all there is? Am I just clinging to illusions?” The roller coaster that is the Game of Thrones just took all its viewers to a new place.

           Thus, my friends, Entertainment and depth cannot be believably separated. I as a reader, am unbelievably tired of reading novels that don't take me anywhere. I know, however, many of you are thinking, “well if that's what you love, then go read literary stuff. Go read the classics, I'm writing a mid grade fantasy for the masses.” Pause for me while I go wrench my guts out... literally and metaphorically at the same time. So here's the deal. To accept that some people just don't enjoy depth is like saying some dogs don't like to lick themselves. Are we human beings or are we beasts? If you want to sell a shit ton of books, let your readers get off the ride in a different place than where they got on. Yes, in order to do this, you might have to get a little crazy. As David Corbet says: “You may need to tell yourself: Okay, I’m going to risk being wild and insane and black and grand. I’m going to write from where my fear is. Make sure your own heart is beating fast. Make sure you really, truly care.” Write us something powerful. Please.

4 comments:

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)