Picking My Brain

Life has been pretty boring lately.   I’m still hunting down jobs with no luck.  I’m beginning to wonder if it’s something about me that employers don’t like.  I know the economy is bad, but there are jobs being posted online.  It’s so frustrating to not even get called in for any interviews.  I’m starting to get panicky.  My unemployment is going to run out, and then what?  I’m deathly afraid that I’m going to be stuck getting some retail job making nothing again.  I know how well that worked out with the Wawa store - it didn’t!  Things are not looking good.

I have decided however, to be of some use to society again.  I’ve decided to do some volunteer work.  The first gig that I’ve been accepted to is the Animal Coalition of Delaware County.  They do rescue and adoption work for every kind of animal you can think of.  I’ve been asked to help out with a special event this Saturday, though I might be going to Sue’s on Saturday so I might not make it.  During the week I hope to get on the schedule to work at the Pet Adoption Center at the PetSmart close to me. I’ll get to take care of the kitties while they wait for new homes.

The other gig I’m waiting to hear from is with a cool store in Media called Ten Thousand Villages. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing there, but the store sells all sorts of imported items from around the world. Everything they sell is bought “Fair Trade,” meaning that the artisans are paid fair market price for their products instead of being taken advantage of by the big corporations.

So I figure rather than sitting home and worrying myself about being unemployed, I’ll go out and be useful.  Hopefully I’ll gain some contacts or something to be able to find myself a decent job!

Sorry for the delay in my photo posts.  As I’m sure you can see, I’ve done some reimaging of the blog.  Ben also found a cool widget to add to my side of the blog so I can post pictures easier.

On your end, you get to look at my pretty new layout, and you’ll get to see my pictures better than ever!  Just click on the thumbnails to open a larger version.  So let me know what you think of the changes and of course my photos!

And fear not, I am continuing immediately to at least the first post of my photo posts after clicking “publish”!

We have returned from DC, more or less in the same condition we left. We were a little tired from all the walking, but this trip we were finally able to sync up metro stops and places we wanted to go, so we were all over the place. Our only calamity was that our car got broken into while we were there. I figured since I have a psuedo-alarm on the car, nobody would even touch it. The only piece of equipment showing was the radar detector, so I never thought twice about it. Sunday morning Ben went out to get our coats and realized that one of the doors was slightly open. I wasn’t too upset over the loss of my radar detector and my GPS. They come in handy, but they are easily replaceable. They weren’t top of line models anyway, so not a huge deal. Everything else was just rummaged through, but I guess the maintenance record for the car wasn’t too exciting. It’s a weird feeling to know that someone you don’t know went through all of your stuff and I was a little mad, but I got over it. Obviously a pseudo-alarm only does any good if you’re there to hear it!

It wasn’t until we were on our way home that I asked Ben to reach into the pocket on the back of his seat and pull out my CD binder. When he started groping and couldn’t find it, we realized that it had been swiped too. Oddly enough, the missing CDs are what really freaked me out. I had my entire collection in there. It’s true I don’t usually listen to my CDs, I’ll listen to my iPod more, but there were CDs in there that I’ve had since high school. The last time I bought a CD was probably like 2 years ago. But there were some that I liked having the actual CD of. It’s weird that I’m so upset over the CDs. I have all the cases in storage, so I can go through and see what I’m missing. I can either download or repurchase whatever I want. I guess it’s just more the fact of, those CDs are pretty much worthless to anybody but me. Nobody’s going to be able to get any money for old CDs without the cases. So now I’ll save up my money and start to slowly rebuild. I think most I’m not going to rebuy, but I’ll probably at least replace my Barenaked Ladies and Jewel since they’re my favorites.

So I ended up taking so many pictures that there was no way I could have them all up and posted as we were going along in DC. We were also too busy doing other stuff for me to sit around and play with postings and pictures. By the time we got home every night it was like 10 pm and we were exhausted. So this week I’ve been going through and doing the sorting and editing needed. I’ve decided that I’m going to be posting in batches. That way I’m not crashing any servers with 50+ pictures. So keep on the lookout over the next few days. Coming attractions are: Arlington National Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, the Smithsonian, the Tidal Basin and Cherry Blossoms, a few from the Tulip Library and finally the Roosevelt Memorial.

I have for a while known of a little anti-religion known as Pastafarianism or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Lately though it seems that I have become much more involved with FSM-ism that I ever anticipated. See, I told Ben I was “touched” more than he was! (Visit the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to get my pun.)

I first explained to Liesle the meaning of the noodly emblem on the back of my car. Think “Jesus Fish,” but with more spaghetti and 2 meatballs. (Bought mostly as a joke for Ben on Valentine’s Day.)

Today Ben sent me this link about a town in Tennessee currently sporting a statue of the Spaghedeity on it’s courthouse’s front lawn.

After seeing the usual “I don’t understand your religon, but I’m going to be condescending and insulting towards it anyway” comment, I found myself again defending and explaining Pastafarianism. Ben joked that I have become a prophet. I could only hope the Noodly One feels the same!

In all honesty, this topic is very appropriate for the date, April Fool’s Day. Even though I do not treat Pastafarianism as my actual religion that I worship; I think the joke embodies a rational, moral way of treating people around you. To me the Noodly One stands for open-mindedness and acceptance. With a sense of humor.

FSM was founded in 2005 when Bobby Henderson wrote an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education protesting their decision to include creationism as part of their curriculum. His letter was ignored by the Board until he posted the letter online and quickly gained notoriety. Basically his point was that “because intelligent design implies the existence of an intelligent, but not necessarily omnipotent or omniscient designer, this designer could, in fact, be anything imaginable,” including a flying monster made of spaghetti and meatballs. (Quoted from Wikipedia’s FSM entry.)

Now FSM has become an modern-day Russell’s teapot (an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell intended to refute the idea that the burden of proof lies upon the skeptic to disprove unfalsifiable claims of religions) or Invisible Pink Unicorn (the goddess of a satiric parody religion aimed at theistic beliefs, which takes the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink. These attributes satirize the contradictions in properties that some attribute to a theistic deity; this makes her a common rhetorical illustration used by atheists and other religious skeptics).

As many of you know, I’m not a particularly religious person. I was raised mostly Methodist and went to church and Sunday school until I was probably about 10. So I have a religious foundation. As I got older and into today, I question religion and have combined into it my own experiences and science. I don’t see myself adopting Pastafarianism as a “real religion.” But explaining it and spreading my interpretation of its message makes me feel good. On second thought, wouldn’t a prophet of Christianity say the same?

RAmen.

P.S. If you wish to learn even more about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, like the Eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts;” Captain Mosey, a pirate and the FSM equivalent of Moses; and much, much more detailed explanations of Pastafarians beliefs, I strongly recommend The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, written by noodly one Bobby Henderson himself. I am currently reading it and becoming enlightened! Won’t you join me?

I can’t believe I’m about to do this.  I’m about to defend the president.  Ick, I already feel dirty.
I spotted the title “George Bush’s favorite painting and why he doesn’t understand it” on one of my RSS feeds.  This took me to a Harper’s Magazine article that I found quite interesting.

The article is about Dub-ya’s favorite painting, “A Charge To Keep.”  He claims that it is his favorite painting because :

” …horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.”

After spending many, many high school and college hours analyzing and dissecting art and literature, I can appreciate that Dub-ya feels such a strong connection to this piece.  If you have never experienced a work - be it book, painting, sculpture, music or movie- speak to you, you cannot imagine how powerful the experience is.

The article does research into the history of the artist and the painting.  Apparently it was commissioned to illustrate a short story and depicts a horse thief escaping from a lynch mob.”

Knowing the history of both the artist and the painting certainly does put a slant on the interpretation.  In this case, the artist probably had no other intention or motive than to depict the scene from the story.

However, I once had a teacher/professor that explained to us that no matter what the artist had in mind, a piece is always subject to the interpretation of the viewer.  Each person who sees this painting brings to it all of their experiences, ideals and beliefs.

Because viewing or reading is so subjective, this leads me to beleive that there is never a right or wrong answer.  No, the meaning I may see in a picture may not be the one the artist intended me to see, but that doesn’t discredit my experience or the meaning that I extract.

So yeah, Dub-ya is probably an idiot (all you have to do is look at the state of the union to figure that out).   But if that’s what this painting means to him - let him have it.  Frankly, I surprised that he can look at a work and analyze it and find meaning it it.  Didn’t think the ol’ boy had it in ‘im.

Something else I take issue with in the article is that the author states,

“Bush has consistently exhibited what psychologists call the ‘Tolstoy syndrome.’ That is, he is completely convinced he knows what things are, so he shuts down all avenues of inquiry about them and disregards the information that is offered to him.”

Who, exactly, has tried to explain this to Dub-ya?  And he really just shut them out and refused to listen to any other explanation?

My guess is the author is commenting on Bush’s failure to research the piece in the first place.  Yeah, if he really wanted to get that deep into the painting, Dub-ya could have done some research.  But it wasn’t necessary.  He saw a painting, and it spoke to him.  It had meaning to him and inspired him.  The power of that was probably more overwhelming than finding out the artist’s purpose.

If that’s the case, I’m sorry for the author.  Take a trip to some art museums, read some books, go see some movies, listen to some music.  Find something that speaks to you.  Then tell me if you need that research.  Yeah, it’s interesting to know, but you’re first reaction wasn’t wrong.  And neither was Dub-ya’s.

I’m having some picture uploading problems, I’ll add a copy of the picture as soon as I get that fixed.