Spam Be Gone!

*giggle* Have I mentioned how much I love WordPress? The ability to hold comments for moderation is a godsend when it comes to spam control. I rarely get hit but when I do, I get anywhere from 5-30 “comments” in a single session. It is glorious to not have to delete every comment manually. Just select “mark all as spam”, double check for real comments and then it’s as simple as one more click. Bu-bye spam!

Who da, What da, What?

I hate Mondays! I really do. Add to that, I was up until 3:30am playing a new video game and you feel my pain.

The weekend was blissfully uneventful. Mostovic and I took in Star Wars on Saturday. He wanted to go to the beach as the weather was beautiful. However, I was being selfish and was having none of that. Actually, Bobby wanted to go too. I know the weather was great but I just wasn’t in a beach mood. I think mainly due to my crazy schedule the past 2 weeks. Hopefully, after this week the madness will return to it’s normal mild state. There were so many things I needed to get done this past weekend. Of which, only one actually got done.

I’ve often wondered why I get this way. Being a typical Aquarian, I tend to be very spontaneous and free-spirited. I hate schedules and rigidity. On the other hand, life has taught me that schedules and structure can be very good things at times. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. I find when I’m overly pressed for time or scheduling I tend to shut down and rebel on my free time. Any thoughts of scheduling stuff on my free time goes out the window. I don’t know if this is merely my subconscious rebelling or if it goes much deeper as a defense mechanism for the id. (Another topic we can save and crack open later when I’m desperate.)

The weekend unfurled completely unplanned and I loved every wasted minute of it. I did manage to get out Sunday and get a replacement keyboard for work. (I have carpel-tunnel syndrome in my left arm and have to use an ergonomic keyboard.) The downside is no one seemed to have any so I spent the better part of the afternoon bouncing all over town looking for a replacement.

This brings me back to the reason I’m so grumpy today. I never could set foot inside a technology store w/o buying something. And it always ends up being more than what I needed. This time was no exception. A long story cut short, I ended up w/a voucher from Best Buy so I put it to good use and picked up God of War for the PS2. I got home around 9:30 and didn’t put it down until 3:30 in the morning. I had to be at work by noon for the day’s first meeting.

I’m cranky. I wanna go home and play some more!

Trouble In Paradise?

So I had lunch w/Mostovic today. Normally, lunch w/him is great but today I came away angry. We started discussing some of the issues w/my work. Specifically, the work I’ve been doing w/the Union to help get a raise. I was a bit taken aback when he actually began arguing as if I didn’t deserve a raise. Like, HOW DARE I ask for more money in such a rough economy. I guess more than anything it surprised me. I didn’t expect it.

However, during the discussion, it did serve to remind me of the reasons why I’m fighting for a raise. The main one, my job was doubled two and half hears ago and am just now getting a chance to plead my (our) case. The other reason is I value my skills. I’ve learned (the hard way) that if I don’t stand up for my rights no one else will. Sometimes that means a new job and sometimes it just means playing hard ball where you’re at. And it’s definitely been an uphill battle. The city is facing another large deficeit and is looking for ways to save money. So, naturally giving me more money doesn’t figure into their plans. (In case you missed it, I’m a dispatcher for SFPD. Two years ago, we were forced to take over Fire and EMS dispatch as well)

Even before we took over the extra duties, we were the least paid in the nine Bay area counties. Now with the increased workload, we have stopped asking and started demanding more money. At a time when Sacramento’s dispatchers just got a 41% pay increase, I think our small 10% request is not going to break the bank. And considering there is only 1 dispatcher on duty for every 100,000 (yes that was one hundred thousand) people in the city, I think it would be in SF’s best interest to at least try to keep the dispatchers they have.

Remembering this put me back in a good mood and my day has been peachy since!

Business As Usual

Another glaring example of how corporations are out-of-control in this country.

(story)

Internet phone providers were ordered Thursday to begin supplying reliable 911 emergency call service after regulators heard an anguished Florida woman describe how she was unable to summon help to save her dying infant daughter….

…Her voice breaking, Cheryl Waller of Deltona, Fla., told the commissioners before their vote that “120 days is seven days longer than my daughter lived.” Julia Waller “died at 113 days old because I can’t reach an operator,” she said.

Waller said she got a recording when she used her Internet phone to call 911 after her daughter stopped breathing last March. By the time she was able to summon help with a neighbor’s phone, the child was dead.

Instead of focusing on issues like this, our leaders are worried about who I’m poking at night or who I choose to marry. Where were the morals of the company exec’s who rolled out this service knowing that it was missing a critical component? Once again, we wait until a problem bites us squarely in the ass before we act. Shameful to say the least.

Hon! Have You Seen My Morals?

I often find that conversations involving morality (and monogamy but thats another rant ) always seem to end up in a bitch fight. Neither side is willing to listen or relent and both end up vehemently attacking the other.

I’m trying to collect my thoughts to make this rant sound coherent but ideas keep colliding w/each other so I’ll ask you to bear w/me. . . I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m tired of the factions within the gay community constantly at war w/each other. One side uses their morality as a shield w/their self-righteous speeches proclaiming they’re superiority because they have morality on their side. The other side uses their sexual freedom as an ax to chop away at the traditions society has built up for years and years. Yet, neither side really tries to listen to the other. No one tries to find a middle ground. It’s always “my way or the highway!” Ya know what folks, that same attitude is what has this country in the political quandry its in today!

I still feel like I’m still missing my point. Maybe I can focus on the term itself.

Morality is defined as

1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
1. some other group, such as a religion, or
2. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

At first read, both definitions sound the same. If you read it that way, re-read it until you see the difference. It is pointless to read further until you understand the above definitions differences.

*ok I stopped here out of frustration. I couldn’t find the right words so after several hours of reading, I found what I was trying to say, albeit not so elegantly.*

…. it is not useful to adopt a definition of “morality” as meaning the code of conduct accepted by the members of a society because in many large societies, not all members of the society accept the same code of conduct. Nor is it useful to adopt a somewhat more general definition of “morality” as the code of conduct accepted by the members of a group because it is not only always possible, it is often the case, that not all members of any group accept the same code. A natural outcome of these problems is to switch attention from groups to individuals. If what is important is what code of conduct people accept, and members of a group do not always accept the same code of conduct, then why be concerned with groups at all?

This consideration leads to a new descriptive sense of “morality.” “morality” is taken to mean that guide to behavior that is regarded by an individual as overriding and that he wants to be universally adopted. [See R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking] In this sense of “morality,” it refers to a guide to behavior accepted by an individual rather than that put forward by a society or any other group. But “morality” does not refer to just any guide to behavior accepted by an individual, it is that guide to behavior that the individual adopts as his overriding guide, and wants everyone else to adopt as their overriding guide as well. This sense of “morality” is a descriptive sense, because a person can refer to an individual’s morality without endorsing it. In this sense, like the original descriptive sense, morality has no limitations on content. Whatever guide to behavior an individual regards as overriding and wants to be universally adopted is that individual’s morality.

This quote was taken direclty from Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Now we are getting somewhere! The picture once fuzzy becomes clear. (well at least for me.) We begin to see that morality is an ambiguous term at best. How can we expect to come together as a group if we are all focusing on our morality instead of our equality. It should be quite clear that we’ll never have the same morality as those who oppose and hate us.

If we don’t learn to move beyond our multi-cultural/racial views on morality, frankly folks, I think we are doomed as a species.

Well, I’ve beat this horse to death so I’m moving on now. Discuss, comment, or bitch as you will.

Star Wars

None of my cohorts are free to go w/me this weekend to see the new Star Wars flick. *collective awwwwww*

So, I’m forced to go on my own tomorrow during the day before work. Aren’t you sad for me?

Blog Rules

I’ve been developing a list of blog rules. After seeing some of the pissing fights on several blogs lately, I thought I’d post it. I tried to keep it short and sweet.

1) It is your blog, you blog about whatever makes you happy.
2) Never link to an article requiring registration/fee w/o providing a warning or log in info
3) Be respectful when posting a comment even if you disagree.
4) If you link to someone don’t expect a return link just because.
5) If you don’t want constructive criticism, don’t ask for it.
6) At least pretend you know how to create paragraphs.

I’m sure I have more but that is all I can think of at the moment.