Amongst Cerias’ own musings on the misadventures of finding a home to own, my mind turns to the more personally relevant idea of simply moving from one rented lifespace to the next; the ever-pervasive state of half-ownership that keeps us with a roof over our heads, even if it is someone else’s. It always seems both nice yet simultaneously futile to me to engage in this kind of transference — we spend so much time, effort, energy into gathering and packing and folding away all of our possessions just to drag them across the street, the city, the country, scraping trails of where we’ve been and where we’re trying to go expressed only in the percieved upgrades present in the new accomodations as opposed to the last, still lacking whatever vital component it is we’ll be hunting for the next time we undergo our societal ritual obligation to repeat the process again in a few years, months, decades, springing from paddock to paddock in the fields of life like some narcotic-induced wallabe dance (see this article for more on that little analogy), all the while wondering where we’re going to be even further down the road, once we’ve had some time to mature and understand the more important aspects of our living-space as relating to the rest of our evolving existence in the quiet between the storms and tides of time and fate or destiny or self-actualized egoism or whatever drives us from one day to the next, an independant variable from person to person at best.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the benefits, superficial though they may be at times; it truly is nice, refreshing, and beneficial to get a new perspective on things in the most literal sense we have — by changing that with which we are surrounded at our home, the secure station that we operate our lives from, the place we try to find ourselves more nights than not. It brings an element of the new and exciting into our lives, followed by the familiar sense of settling in and finally culminating in the desire to improve further so as to demonstrate to ourselves the continued success and persistent betterment of our being through the ability to control, within reason, the quality of our own standard of living measured against the fluctuations of rental-property housing markets and societal examination of neighborhoods, amenities, and available access to ease-of-living comforts such as walking-distance grocery stores and well-stocked mini-marts to indulge our impulsive impetus for late-night snacking convenience. It’s an interesting model of personalized social-status merit badges etched into our psyches, the panacea for a soul terminally hungry for validation and a justified sense of self-worth through tangible results of extended improvement. The over-happy Xanex-fiend personal trainer of the mind.

For the last nigh-on-two years, I’ve made my residence in a neighborhoods commonly regarded as “not good”. It’s a small, relatively unobtrusive street filled with drug deals, echoes of nearby gunfire, and petty burglary amidst growing gang violence and the occasional SWAT/INS raid to remove some of the even-less-legal elements. Despite its many flaws and pocked-face-forward approach to existing within the city, I have to admit, it’s still a neighborhood I’m personally comfortable in; not a place to raise a family, for sure, but for some inane reason I’ve spent enough time between living around these parts myself (this is round two of that sort of venture) and having other friends in the area that I’m pretty comfortable lurking amongst the unsavory elements and generally blending in as some unnoticed wanderer in the night; it’s the sort of place one can practically vanish in and, despite — or perhaps resultant from — the criminal element, the denizens generally keep to themselves and interaction with the unknown is kept to a minimum. Everyone is on one side of the law and too afraid of the other to chance interacting with someone they don’t recognize; the drug dealers won’t run the risk of encountering a Narc, and the law-abiders refuse to accept the chance of agitating the wrong recently-sated drug addict, so the balance keeps itself nicely in a strange sort of way. It’s not a place I want to exist in given my life path to date, but in another quantum reality where things went different, it’s the right kind of seedy little nowhere that I could probably seclude myself with relative contentment.

The interesting thing about my relocation this time around is it’s the first time in a long time I’ll be moving to an area of town that, so far as can be said for any section of the city of my birth, I’m relatively unfamiliar with. It’s going to present opportunities for adventure as I make my way through spiral-pattern walks to muscle-memorize the new streets and twists and turns, find the alleyways and footpaths that carve through the always-cumbersome roadways designed for larger, more dangerous modes of transportation such as the steel trap-boxes we so quickly and willingly strap into for the morning commute — which I’ll be biking from now on, as a side note, from my much-closer-to-work location. Exploring a new home turf is always fun, and there are always a few surprises that one doesn’t expect when engaging in such activities; with places you’re marginally familiar with, this is doubly true — especially if you’re accustomed to seeing them from a car or similar vehicle, and can’t go meandering down each turn or follow bike paths and the like to the places that always manage to hold the most interesting things. I really look forward to acquainting myself with another part of town, and generally having an excuse to roam pointlessly for hours amongst the streets in what amounts to a concentrated effort to get lost and hope that I fail. Self-imposed reverse-psychology reward-based systems to anticipate the unforseen — I definitely count it as a success if I can manage to lose myself here.

When was the last time you tried to get lost? Did you succeed?

So I’ve been trying to buy a house lately, a condo really, but real estate none the less. Six months we have offers out of various short sales and pending foreclosures, offering generally ten percent less than the asking price. We keep telling our real estate agent “The market is falling. They can take what we’re offering now, or they can sell it to someone else at less than we’re offering. We’re being generous.”

Of course, the banks are required to show due diligence to their shareholders, showing they’re trying to get the highest possible price for the properties they own. In so doing, however, they are actually making significantly less. Take, for example, the place we’re finally looking into. We had an offer on a short sale condo quite literally next door, an offer at $98,000. The bank blew us off, wouldn’t even respond to the offer. They wanted closer to $108,000. The place we’re getting right next door is going for closer to $90,000. The condo is exactly the same. That information becomes a matter of public record. The property value is set at whatever we pay for the property, and will affect values of everything around. Had they taken the offer, they would have made the $98,000. Now, they won’t find anyone willing to pay that much.

Last night, we were filling out paperwork for the loan application. The mortgage crisis and subsequent assimilation of Fannie Mae into quasi-government control has changed some things, of course. Like the several forms we had to sign that stated “Yes, I understand that if I don’t pay the mortgage, I can lose my house.” I’d like to think this is a new addition, that the large number of foreclosures on sub-prime mortgages didn’t include those forms. I’d like to think this is a response to the problem and wasn’t present when it occurred. I’d like to think that we’re trying to drown ourselves in regulations and safeguards now.

Because then it just shows that this is what the world has come to. I signed those papers thinking to myself “Yes, I’m aware that if you don’t pay for something, it’s not yours. That’s a fundamental aspect of the capitalist system. You pay for what you get.” Some of this comes from the idea of “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” instilled in me by my one economics class, but most of it comes from growing up in this country and observing things around me. If you take something and don’t pay for it, that’s called stealing.

So I’d like to think that now we’ve gotten to the point where you have to sign, under penalty of perjury, that you understand that you have to pay for the things you buy. I’d like to think that this was used as an excuse and we’re trying to stop it by making things even more ridiculous. “I didn’t know any better. How could I know that I would lose my house if I didn’t pay for it?” Well, now you have several forms that show you are aware of that basic premise of our economic system.

Because if this isn’t new, if these forms were part of the packets signed by all the families now in foreclosure, then we, as a nation, are simply incredibly stupid.

There’s been a long, hard-fought row out here in California recently regarding the battle for — or against — the rights of homosexual couples to marry. The most recent development in this conflagratory twist of mangled legal struggles, voter initiatives, independent petitions, and sign-waving protests backed by the blaring horns of passing vehicles was a decision made by the Supreme Court of California to uphold the initiative passed by the voters during our last election, the now-infamous Proposition 8, which banned gay couples from being able to legally marry.

Now, let me say that I’m in full support of same-sex marriage rights. I think that gay couples deserve and should have access to all the same rights and priveleges as their heterosexual counterparts, without question; all (wo)men being created equal and such, it’s the only logical course insofar as I can apply the term “logic” to anything having the least bit to do with our legal systems. To wit, I think that the simplest and most efficient answer to this would be to eliminate the term “marriage” from any legally binding documents, and generate a whole new class of state-sponsored interpersonal unions by which all such relationships, presently divided into ‘marriage’ and ‘civil union’, would fall; some sort of superclass which could override the existing preconceptions, thereby stymieing the ongoing battle about whether calling one sort of relationship by any given title is proper given the historical precedent surrounding any given concept as defined by what amounts to mutable terms forced into submissive hatemongering by those resistant to change.

But I digress. What I really mean to rant about in this particular instance, all bigotry aside, is the anger I’ve seen lashing back at the Supreme Court for making the decision that they did. And why? Because it “stops same-sex marriage”. Which is a perfectly good hate to hold, I think — however, that’s not what their decision did in the least. What was presented before the Court, what they made their ruling on, was not whether gay marriage is “right” or “wrong” or whether homosexual couples should be bestowed with the same rights as those of us “batting for the other team”. No; what was placed before them was a simple question: Was the voter-approved initiative enough to enforce such smallminded uselessness? And it was. This isn’t a question of right or wrong, or of hate or love. It was a simple question of the ability of the voters of this state to, through democratic action, alter the course of their own destiny. Whether you agree with the choice made or not, I think it’s important to maintain faith in the democratic process. To indicate a loathing that the Court refused to repeal this measure is, in my mind, tantamount to wondering why ANY decision the voters make isn’t immediately overruled by the Judicial or Executive governments; after all, if we want the Court to tell us that what we voted for — whether we, personally, voted “for” it or not — is reversible based on their own whimsy, we set an increasingly dangerous and very toxic precedent for them to remove any sense of rights or anything else, really, from tax measures to school funding to whatever else we can find to vote on.

I support the Supreme Court’s decision. This does not mean that I support the ignorant minds that wrote and presented the proposition; it does not mean that I support the bigotry of the voters who set back the progress of the free world — in my mind, of course — by approving it. It does not mean that I’m against the rights of one “class” or “type” of person over any other; it means that I support the democratic process, even when, through it, things which I can hardly stand to witness come to pass. Every year, things get pushed through local, state, and national elections that fill me with a crawling sense of dread for the dystopian finality we, as a people, seem intent on structuring for our children. However, this gives me not despair, but hope. It gives me the hope that one day, things will change, things will be different. It shows me that, while we may not be making the progress I might prefer, we are capable of making progress. It inspires me to be involved in the system more directly, to spread the words and feelings that I hold dear, so that when matters relating to them lay before us on ballots, we can speak of one mind, of one voice, and echo our hunger for change through the halls of legislation.

So to those of you spouting anger and vitriol at the Supreme Court of California, keep in mind, they are preserving the only process by which this measure CAN be overturned: democracy. It’s “We, the People” not “They, the Court” who are ultimately responsible for the outcome of our elections, for the developing trends in our regional and national politics, for the emergent mob mentality of the new era as we attempt to forge ground left unsettled by our forebears. So, do not focus your ire at them; they only validated a process, not an ideal. What the focus of the years to come should be is the restructuring of the public mind, the swaying of the voting masses to the ideals that you wish to see blossom in this life. If we lose our focus by driving rage into the hearts of those not truly our enemies, then we shall have nothing left with which to fight the battles we must face to recreate reality.

After talking with xarexerax for a bit, we came to the conclusion that, at some point in the distant future, we would require some form of mission statement summarizing what the principles, purpose, and objectives of Elitist Idiots are. After a bit of colluding, we came up with the newly posted “Mission Objectives” page.

So what, then, is all this about? Is this just some platform for us to spout off whatever rant we feel like? Well, partially. It is nice to have dedicated web space available for whatever nefarious purposes I may have (and believe me, I can come up with many nefarious objectives.) But there’s not much gratification in just speaking into the endless void of Al Gore’s Internet.

No, what we’re looking for is comments. We want people to respond. We even made it nice and easy for people to create user accounts. We would have allowed for anonymous comments, but that’s just inviting spam.

So, comment on things. Tell us what you think. One of the posts here sparked a lot of conversation when we publicized the post on Facebook, but there, the comments are quickly lost, loosing any future value they may have. Comments posted on the post itself, however, remain there indefinitely. Any future reader, any poor soul who may get trapped in this later on, will be able to read not only our stance on whatever the subject is, but the debate created by our community around the subject.

We aren’t here to create a pulpit. We’re here to create a community. A thinking community.

I haven’t posted here since migrating from my personal blog. Between the chaos of the wedding I had to star in two days ago, the business of making that all happen, and the ever-present dedication to doing work and keeping up on “real life” in the midst of a particular brand of insanity, I still can’t even say that it’s just that I’ve not had the time — in fact, if anything, I’d be claiming those unnecessarily as excuses if I devoted my reasoning to such pursuits and attempted to justify my silence through the applied repetition of having had other or better or more important things to tend to. No, the reason I’ve fallen quiet over the last few weeks is more than that; it’s an indication of something that actually delayed this project entirely from the onset on through our eventual merger into this unified face. Quite simply, I’m just no good at sharing my space with others.

It’s not an issue of something as simple as being nervous about attaching myself to other’s words, or vice-versa, but a deeper-seated idea of self-centered trepidation and self-depricating concern that perhaps others wouldn’t want my words to be entangled with their own, that my voice is my own and does not carry the weight and worth of another unless by some virtue of fortune or fate I manage to scribe something which could capture the crux of their own internalized philosophical persistence, that I might breathe life into the thoughts they hold to themselves amidst the pressure to examine the world around them insightfully. Between my own conceited sense of unique individuality and the due deference to my fellow poster’s muse, I find myself having less and less to ponder on my own time between worrying whether I will tread on toes in the process.

Whatever the case, I’m resolved to fix it. Elitist Idiots is certainly meant to be evocative of our group mentality, of our communal cynic lens through which the world filters into this playground of overdone intellectualization and sarcastic commentary on the world around us, and I’m not interested in allowing my own voice to dissolve amongst the politically charged discourse that Cerias brings to the table, or to any of the other material that’s in the works to be brought up here in the communal celebration of our combined yet individually-driven slant on the things with which we all, as humans, interact with and muse upon in the quest to form a distinct and interesting worldview, dredging from our shared experience to form the foundation of what we believe about everything we can conceive as able to be believed in.

On that note, there’s one other problem that’s holding me back to date; as much as I enjoy taking some time to write what insights I can on any given subject, the relative appearance of subject matter through the course of my daily life is, in fact, somewhat lacking. I’ve been pushing myself to keep up, to keep writing, to keep putting my thoughts and musings out there to be examined and contemplated, but I’m running low on the fuel for this cycle, the raw idea and conceptual seed from which my fingers flow forth a stream of words to bring some meaning to itself — so, if any of you have any questions, any anecdotes that might inspire, please … let me know. I aim to please, but as this effort of teamwork has taught me, I cannot blaze all trails alone — nor would I, had I the chance.

So yesterday was a special election in California. A bunch of measures were before the public, most of which involved tax increases. One of the measures passed; the measure that would prevent California lawmakers from giving themselves pay raises in years in which the budget is in deficit. Given our history, I get the feeling that a political career in California will no longer be desirable. Pay scales will  be stuck at this rate indefinitely. The objective is to get legislators to actually balance the budget every year. But there’s a problem with that.

You see, California is the only state that engages in deficit spending. As the third largest economy in the world, we apparently feel it’s appropriate to treat ourselves as a soverign nation when it comes to fiscal policy. Fortunately, the Constitution prohibits us from engaging in our own monetary policy. Well, we could try charging our own seperate commercial paper rate, but that’d just be silly. So we’ll end up with legislators motivated to balance a budget, sure, but we spend more on social programs that we make on taxes.

The obvious solution to this is raise taxes until we can afford the social programs we demand of our government. Hell, our *republican* governor tried this approach. We voted down every single tax increase. Since we aren’t willing to pay for the services we’re getting, what’s the next solution?

Cut spending. This has become the only option. We demand of our state that it “live within it’s means.” Yet we also demand things like police officers, firemen, teachers for our schools, road improvements, working street lights, and a myriad of other things that the state has to fund.

I’m fairly conservative when it comes to economic and taxation issues. I can get behind the idea of keeping taxes low. I know I enjoy keeping more of my paycheck. But don’t complain, California, when teachers are laid off in mass, when response times to fires and crimes are increased, when the roads are terrible, when the state begins to break down. We, as a state, decided that none of this was worth paying more in taxes.

Congratulations. I hope you like what we’ve won.

Propaganda needs to stay far away from our schools, plain and simple. We don’t send our children to get an education in ethics; that’s the job of the parents. We send them to get an education in the truths and facts of the world around us, hoping there won’t be a spin placed on it. Or at the least, any spin will be balanced enough to not unduly influence them. At least, that’s what we should want.

The education industry is very liberally biased. I think this has to do with a matter of ethos. When liberals feel they have a duty to give back to the world around them, they tend to get jobs working in social services, like education. When conservatives feel they have a duty to give back, they join the military. Yes, it’s a broad generalization, but if you think about the differences between these two institutions, you’ll see it isn’t without foundation.

Being a good Californian, I do agree with some liberal messages. But do I want to be preached at about them in school? Do I want children, too young to differentiate between instructor opinion and fact, to be preached at in school? By all means, no. State sponsored propagandizing of the education system undermines the very principle of a fair and unbiased government, doesn’t it?

So teachers, do more to separate your personal opinion from the material you teach. You do a great disservice to your students by informing them what they should think. Instead, teach them how to think. Have them make the choice on their own.

Students, carry this message to your teachers with this handy t-shirt.

There’s talk in the news recently about a bill being considered in the House of Representatives, the Medical Device Safety Act of 2009. When I heard this issue summarized by various outlets of the news media, I was shocked and outraged. “What do you mean that the manufacturers of medical devices are immune from civil court proceedings against them for making bad products? That’s ridiculous.”

Well, it also turns out that I’m a terrible consumer of mass-media. When something peaks my interest, positively or negatively, I have a habit of doing some research. There is legislation undergoing committee hearings in the House of Representatives today to enact legislation in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision. The proposed law would modify the laws surrounding the Food and Drug Administration in regards to medical devices. For those of you who enjoy this kind of thing, I encourage you to follow along with these links: Proposed text of Legislation in committee today, Supreme Court decision in question (pdf), and the section of present law that is in question (US Title 21 Section 360k)

For those not reading along, the current law states that no states can create requirements for medical devices unless specifically exempted by the FDA. Regulation of medical devices is very specifically left in the hands of Congress by means of the FDA. In the majority opinion of the Supreme Court case, the court reasoned that this must be due to the fact that medical devices carry an inherent degree of risk though are authorized for use because the benefits outweigh the risks. The court argues that in a civil court, the only parties represented are the manufacturer and the person for who the device failed, not the parties for which it worked. Congress, however, has more freedom to listen to testimony from all involved parties when making its decisions.

Alright, I can see that. But what is being said is that, specifically for the manufacturers of medical devices (not drugs,) there is no civil liability for the failure of a faulty product. If the brakes on your car fail to function as intended, despite being installed and maintained properly, it’s the fault of the manufacturer of the brakes for selling a bad product. But if your pacemaker fails, there is no recourse, because medical devices in general maintain a degree of risk. This is an industry wide exclusion to civil liability. That’s a bit over the top.

Products that have been cleared by the FDA should be safe. This, of course, can’t always happen. Sometimes, defects come to light only after approval was given. Right now, such cases have blanket immunity to state civil proceedings. I could accept that if there was a system set up to allow such compensation on the federal level. But the law as written doesn’t state that.

The Supreme Court did what it’s supposed to. It examined the case in the context of the law and found that, yes, the industry is exempt. So congress is now acting, as it’s wont to do. The opposition to the bill argues that by allowing medical device manufacturers to be liable for civil claims will reduce the incentive to innovate new medical devices. Supporters of the bill claim that it will instead incent them to make safer products. There’s validity to both arguments. However manufacturers should be held liable for their products, should their product fail to operate as it’s supposed to. Yes, there is inherent risk to the use of any medical device, and so long as the failure of the device is within those parameters, no, I don’t think that there should be a suit. The court decision cites a device for helping with childhood heart failures. The product is effective less than 50% of the time. Given this is a known and stated risk to the device, I wouldn’t find it appropriate to sue the company who made it should yours in particular fail to function. However, if you’re using the device in accordance with its FDA approved labelling and it fails when there should be no reasonable assumption that it may, yes you should be liable.

The passing of this bill will make working in the medical devices industry more expensive, yes. Yet the idea that you can be held accountable for your actions is an inherent part of our legal structure, is an inherent part in the degree of security we have as consumers.

Recently a group of my associates and myself stumbled upon a musician by the name of Doctor Steel. I say musician because that seems to be the primary output of the amusing little image/world he’s created for himself; beyond the music, there’s an entire culture supporting this “mad scientist” vision of world domination, complete with “Ask Dr. Steel” clips, full-length Public Service Announcement styled videos supporting creativity and imagination, and a bevy of other things, all devoted to touting this “future world emperor” and his proposed “Utopian Playand”.

My last few posts here have been centered on addiction, on the feelings associated with engaging in some often self-destructive habit that feeds our own internal desire to cling to the familiar and explore the limits of desire, whether through indulgence or mere habitual acceptance to partake in a given vice. But what of the other side of that, of the drive that made me forego my usual comfort-zone addictions and delve into the realm of withdrawals?