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Money Management

The grass may be greener on the other side but peer pressure can be a positive motivator to refrain from keeping up with the Jones, staying out of debt, and getting of debt. We see recently our own government's reliance on credit to fund bills--including bills meant to aid the economy. We may expect the media to try to sell us stuff we don't really need, but to hear our nation's leaders urge us to spend and then go into debt to stimulate an ecomony in poor condition because of poor credit choices is unfortunate and confusing.

Kizze introduced me to Dave Ramsey and while I haven't finished Financial Peace Revisited yet (hey, it's nonfiction!), I have found him to have sound principles that also coincide with my religion.

I'm watching The Dave Ramsey Show and am enjoying hearing the stories from your average middle classman/woman on how they became debt-free. The show offers positive support for people in financial distress. These are people who make relatively small sacrifices in their daily lives. It may be a big deal to go without certain food products or nice things. However, with an eternal perspective these things really aren't that important.

There is so much pride and joy in the voices of the people who share their stories. Some stories sound miraculous and a little impossible, but the fact that they are true offers hope to all for getting out of debt. One guy paid off $95K in a year. Another lady $87K in a year. One family sold its nice pickup truck and bought a more practical vehicle to become debt-free. Another sold off a nice chunk of investments to pay for his huge amount of debt (what does it matter if you have all this money saved or tied up in investments when you have close to $100K in debt?).

How can a viewer not share in this joy and hope? If you're feeling lost in the maze of consumerism or trying to live up to the Jonese, I recommended checking out Mr. Ramsey.

Published!

One of my photos of beautiful food from the Eastside Cafe in Austin, TX is being used in an online travel guide for Austin called Schmap. Schmap saw my photo on flickr and wanted to use it for its blurb on the Eastside Cafe. You can view my entry online at Schmap Austin Fifth Edition.

Now I feel much like those people who walk around town and are approached by a talent scout and make it big or who participates in a skit at Universal Studios and ends up with a contract (well my sib had a dream of that once but I don't know that it has ever really happened).

La Discussion Politique

These presidential debates are mind-numbing. It would be a lot more impressive if the candidates did not feel they have to debate every little detail that their rival raises, especially when the moderator tries to move the debate along. The bickering and finger pointing just send out bad vibes--and tonight they tried to justify their negative campaigning at the debate, sending out even more negativity. Readers advisory: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum.

Tonight, my mom brought up Ralph Nader. She heard him interviewed on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and was pleasantly surprised. Mr. Nader who is running (yet again) for President as an Independent. Really, he is a moving speaker. While sometimes I find myself thinking,"Oh you're being dramatic," I always seem to run across research by a sociologist or psychologist that backs him up. One example is that Nader has griped about the ads aired during Saturday morning cartoons that are meant to influence children to beg their parents for various products. I just read a book on the sexualization of children--So Sexy So Soon by Diane E. Levine and Jean Kilbourne--that backs this up. The advertising industry's bread and butter is convincing consumers young and old to buy products and will do anything--even sell their souls to the devil--to get the job done.

For decades Nader has advocated and fought for the rights and protection of all Americans--not just special interest groups or the elite. He has fought for legislation and created task forces to protect the American people from corporations and politicians. He founded Public Citizen, a consumer watch group that acts as a voice for the American people in all the branches of government. It is "dedicated to protecting health, safety, and democracy."

Because he doesn't belong to either major political party, Nader will say what he believes without reservation. He doesn't avoid the question and is no smooth talker. And the two major parties don't like him; they are afraid of him. In 2004, I worked on Nader's campaign in Texas. Our goal was to get his name on the presidential ballot. There were many road blocks to prevent this goal from coming to fruition, including laws that treated independent candidates differently and in a stricter manner than third party candidates; volunteers being harassed by law enforcement while legally collecting the allotted number of names required to get his name on the ballot in public forums; and criticism by both local Democrat and Republican party organizations--a rare display of bipartisanship. I became even more disillusioned about the Country's political process.

For more information on Ralph Nader, the ignored political candidate, visit his campaign web site at http://www.votenader.org and The Nader Page.

Not Just a Comic Book

Until recently I couldn't understand the graphic novel/comic book craze. Sure, as a child my family had old Archie, Katy Keene, and, of course, Conan comic books. I read what we owned multiple times but I never sought to increase my personal comic collection, which consisted of maybe two comics, preferring the traditional block text book to panels and bubble-speak.

Since their increase in popularity, I have yet to delve into this genre. I read a manga once. The extent of my graphic novel experience, at least until the past week.

Never had I thought there could be so much substance to a graphic novel. But that's because as a librarian I've been lectured about the history of graphic novels but never told how they could be so exciting!

Nobody ever recommended WATCHMEN by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

The super cool trailer for the movie version of WATCHMEN encouraged me to seek out the graphic novel, which passed in and out of my book drop without so much as a second glance. I decided to read the graphic novel to prepare for the film (which I hope isn't R-rated) and cannot stop thinking about it.



The last book I read that really got me thinking was Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks. Days after reading this, and even now, I'll zone out and think about the themes, plot, and characters in this gripping portrayal of a medieval village hit by plague.

WATCHMEN has had the same effect and I feel that in order to really understand this book, I'll have read it at least 10 times. Ideas for college essay papers keep flowing into my brain the further into the book I get.

For instance, superheroes are not perfect! The majority of superheroes in WATCHMEN have skeletons in their closets. They are prone to vice, vigilantism, and narcissism. Often the reader is left wondering who the real villains are. Similarly, real-life superheroes--figures in history that we tend to put on pedestals and make into legends--are also flawed. Historical revisionism is highly controversial. Do we really need to know that Thomas Jefferson had an affair with one of his slaves, fathering many of her children? Should we teach our children to admire and idolize the office of the President when he(although we have moved an inch in the direction of the possibility of having a she) can make awful decisions and lead a nation to its downfall?

Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. are some figures that I idolize. However, as I learn more about their lives I have to stop and ask myself: Do their imperfections define them? Does it matter that one cheated on his wife; the other slept naked with young women to "strenghen" his devotion to brahmacharya; or that they may have performed any other morally questionable acts? Does the principle of the matter--the fact that they had the courage to stand for justice and unity and then seek to right some major injustices in their societies--compensate for imperfection?

When we teach our kids to idolize figures in history--whether past or present--are we doing a disservice to them, creating an image of unattainable perfection? Or do we make it a necessary lesson in forgiving people for their weaknesses, thanking them for their positive and life changing contributions to the world, and then allowing them to move on and progress in life?

Each member of the WATCHMEN organization has his/her own personal moral code and sense of justice(really don't we all?), which often falls outside the boundaries of the law of the land. For some, putting on a mask makes it okay to beat the crap out of the bad guy. How about killing a child murderer/rapist? Were they more effective in keeping the streets safe because they were left to their own devices to protect the people and not restrained by the Constitution? [Of course, in the story an act was passed forcing the WATCHMEN into retirement (at least the ones who would obey) because of their methods.]

Sometimes we see our real-life heroes in the police force (and other heroes) who are charged with the responsibility to protect and serve the people making mistakes. Sometimes they lose control and beat their "bad guys" senseless, let racism cloud their vision, pull the trigger a little too easily, or accused with sexual misconduct while on duty.

So much to philosophize over and just a couple of themes in the book! I recommend checking out the book and reading at least a few chapters. It can be a little graphic at times (hence the genre name graphic novel) but it's really nothing more than what we see in the world around us.