Imagine being able to take a trip to space. You wouldn't have to go throw the rigors of become an astronaut. A bit of training and then you'd be on your way. Companies like Oracle at making this dream a reality for the ridiculously wealthy. In 2005, Oracle held a contest where an average Joe could win a spot on one of these trips. Brian Emmett wound up winning the $138,000 prize and was ecstatic until he learned that he would have to claim the prize on his taxes. Emmett had to give up his dream of seeing space because he didn't have a spare $25,000 to fork over to the IRS.
A dream crushed by the federal government. It's reminiscent of when Oprah gave away a car to everyone in her audience in 2004. Those poor souls' good fortune left them $7,000 in tax debt. The government seems intent on ruining fun where ever they smell it. And if they can make a profit in the meantime, all the better in their eyes. Tax laws turn Uncle Sam from a symbol of freedom and democracy to a mob boss breaking legs until he gets his cut.
For example, take this bit of ridiculousness. A car company buys parts to get build a car, and they have to pay taxes on those parts. The car is then sold to a customer and that person must now pay taxes on the purchase. In a couple of years the buyer decides that he should really get his wife that minivan she's been nagging him for so he sells the car. Whoever buys the car from him must now pay taxes on it again. The new owner drives the car for a few years and then sells it again and taxes are paid again. The next owner drives the car until it does not work and then sells the car to a junkyard which must pay taxes on it. The car is gradually stripped for parts and each time a part is purchased, the customer must pay sales taxes. The point is that even just one car is taxed so many times that it can make your head spin. With the government sucking money out of us at every turn, how is there a multi-trillion dollar deficient?
Even with the government taxing pretty much everything in existence as many times as they can get away with, they still manage to spend more than they will ever have. If you do not have a throbbing headache right now, or are not outraged by this then you are part of the problem.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
"TV is twice as quick"
I've never been a huge fan of reading. The vast majority of reading in my life has been done against my will. This was when I was still a captive of the American public school system. One of the biggest problems in this country today is our lackluster educational system. Teachers who are underpaid lecture to overcrowded classes of students who are completely uninterested. The frustration of this position must take its toll on these people very quickly and what spark they once had for teaching dies in all but the most optimistic and driven souls. Parents refuse to accept that their children may not be model students and administrations rarely side with the teachers. Children skate through the system because of their parents' complaints and futility of trying to teach children who are going get handed a diploma without earning one sets in. As a result, what was once a passion becomes a chore for both the teacher and pupil. Of course this is just one of the many factors straining teachers today and hindering the education of today's youth.
Math, science, reading, social studies and every other subject traditionally taught in schools take dedication and interest if someone is ever to excel. The way these teachers force students to study without sparking an interest makes the entire school experience a draining labor for children. Students are forced to read works that are held in high esteem by scholars but are not of any real interest to the average person. This turns many people off to the experience of reading altogether. They proceed to cringe at the thought of picking up a book and retreat into the sensory stimuli of television and video games. Both of which are very fun and entertaining, but are rarely intellectually stimulating.
This is essentially what happened to me. I hated reading. It was work and lord knows I was getting enough of that from school. Why on Earth would I want to pursue a recreational activity that had been the source of so much anxiety and stress over the years? It was so much easier to just stare at the idiot box while it flickered with images of The Simpsons, MST3K and countless other half-hour delights. That and I had my Playstation, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64 to provide me with countless hours of joy. I also had (and still have) a pretty ridiculous comic book habit. Since my junior year of high school I've been getting about ten comics a week. For a while it was about all of the reading I did. I would read a few books here and there, but it was all very sporadic. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was the first and best of these sporadic readings. Don't Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock was another that I really enjoyed.
It wasn't until just last year that I truly became a reader. I picked up American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I was intrigued because of the film adaptation featuring Christian Bale and found the book to be engrossing and hilarious. From there I ventured into the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming. I've been a fan of the film franchise since my uncle introduced me to the movies when I was a kid and had always been curious about the books that spawned the series. The series is fun, creative, dark and very different from the movies, but in a very good way. Stories about the Cold War and Nazis are highlighted by a very human Bond who is no where near as immortal as his film counterpart.
Recently I let my comic book addiction dictated what I would read and picked up American Gods. I had read Neil Gaiman's work in Marvel 1602, The Eternals, and of course Sandman. Gaiman is one of the very best comic book writers of all time. His peers including the likes Frank Miller and Alan Moore, authors of such prolific works as The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen respectively. Stories that pull at your emotions, play with your mind, and stay with you long after you finish reading.
American Gods is the story of Shadow. A man who is released from prison to find the life he had known ripped to shreds. He then finds himself in a world that exists within our own. Where a war was brewing between the forgotten gods of mankind and the new gods of the electronic age. Shadow is a character that is very easy to empathize with, and through clever storytelling, Gaiman manages to manipulate the reader's opinions of the story and characters in such a way that it seems as if you are feeling exactly what Shadow is feeling at any given time. This book pulls you in. I was stuck in this novel for all of two weeks. A nearly 600 page novel had me so into its story that I finished it in two weeks. Avid readers may laugh at this, but for someone who has never really had any desire to read anything, its impressive. Television? Video games? Paled in comparison. If I had spare time my face was firmly planted within those pages, eagerly awaiting the next plot twist. Humor, terror, sex, intrigue, romance, this book has everything. I cannot even begin to choose a genre for this book. It's kept in the sci-fi/fantasy section at Borders, but it's so much more than that. Truly great stories reflect life. Life is not a horror story, or a comedy, or a romance, or an action-thriller, it is all of these things balanced in different ways for different people. American Gods balances them all perfectly and left me hungry for more.
Math, science, reading, social studies and every other subject traditionally taught in schools take dedication and interest if someone is ever to excel. The way these teachers force students to study without sparking an interest makes the entire school experience a draining labor for children. Students are forced to read works that are held in high esteem by scholars but are not of any real interest to the average person. This turns many people off to the experience of reading altogether. They proceed to cringe at the thought of picking up a book and retreat into the sensory stimuli of television and video games. Both of which are very fun and entertaining, but are rarely intellectually stimulating.
This is essentially what happened to me. I hated reading. It was work and lord knows I was getting enough of that from school. Why on Earth would I want to pursue a recreational activity that had been the source of so much anxiety and stress over the years? It was so much easier to just stare at the idiot box while it flickered with images of The Simpsons, MST3K and countless other half-hour delights. That and I had my Playstation, Game Boy, and Nintendo 64 to provide me with countless hours of joy. I also had (and still have) a pretty ridiculous comic book habit. Since my junior year of high school I've been getting about ten comics a week. For a while it was about all of the reading I did. I would read a few books here and there, but it was all very sporadic. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was the first and best of these sporadic readings. Don't Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock was another that I really enjoyed.
It wasn't until just last year that I truly became a reader. I picked up American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I was intrigued because of the film adaptation featuring Christian Bale and found the book to be engrossing and hilarious. From there I ventured into the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming. I've been a fan of the film franchise since my uncle introduced me to the movies when I was a kid and had always been curious about the books that spawned the series. The series is fun, creative, dark and very different from the movies, but in a very good way. Stories about the Cold War and Nazis are highlighted by a very human Bond who is no where near as immortal as his film counterpart.
Recently I let my comic book addiction dictated what I would read and picked up American Gods. I had read Neil Gaiman's work in Marvel 1602, The Eternals, and of course Sandman. Gaiman is one of the very best comic book writers of all time. His peers including the likes Frank Miller and Alan Moore, authors of such prolific works as The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen respectively. Stories that pull at your emotions, play with your mind, and stay with you long after you finish reading.
American Gods is the story of Shadow. A man who is released from prison to find the life he had known ripped to shreds. He then finds himself in a world that exists within our own. Where a war was brewing between the forgotten gods of mankind and the new gods of the electronic age. Shadow is a character that is very easy to empathize with, and through clever storytelling, Gaiman manages to manipulate the reader's opinions of the story and characters in such a way that it seems as if you are feeling exactly what Shadow is feeling at any given time. This book pulls you in. I was stuck in this novel for all of two weeks. A nearly 600 page novel had me so into its story that I finished it in two weeks. Avid readers may laugh at this, but for someone who has never really had any desire to read anything, its impressive. Television? Video games? Paled in comparison. If I had spare time my face was firmly planted within those pages, eagerly awaiting the next plot twist. Humor, terror, sex, intrigue, romance, this book has everything. I cannot even begin to choose a genre for this book. It's kept in the sci-fi/fantasy section at Borders, but it's so much more than that. Truly great stories reflect life. Life is not a horror story, or a comedy, or a romance, or an action-thriller, it is all of these things balanced in different ways for different people. American Gods balances them all perfectly and left me hungry for more.
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