Holy crap, two days in a row! This is another one about uni students, I think they deserve their own tag... fucking uni students. Although, to be fair, this is just a problem with complainy students, not the hard-working/grown-up/not bitchy ones. (as you might be able to tell, this is more anger filled than in recent times)
Whilst doing my routine 'morning Facebook check' today, I came across a petition (if you can call a Facebook page a petition) aimed at the Wellington City Council pleading for them to give poor little students half-fares on all forms of public transport... does that not make you as angry as it made me? Anyway, the reasons they stated for poor itty bitty uni students needing to pay half price on buses and trains were:
- Most Uni/Polytech students are poor, 'cause they have no time to get a job around study.
- Having to pay less would help students pay back their massive loans faster.
- Auckland has half fares for tertiary students, why can't Wellington?
Ok, so of the three examples they gave in support of them getting half-fares, I see precisely zero valid reasons for giving them what they want.
"Most students are poor"? Then what are you doing catching the fucking bus? How about you just walk or bike, it's not that far if you live in Wellington. And if you don't live in Wellington, why did you not think about how you were going to get into the city before deciding to go to university. You don't deserve half-price fares just because you have no fore-sight. And also, because you are poor?! So does your idea about half-price tickets also apply to poor families? How about the homeless? Also, isn't that what your student loan or student allowance is for?
Umm.... To be honest, the second reason seems like a liiittle bit of a stretch to me. Especially considering that most students are going to be paying their loans back once they are finished uni and have got their dream job of being a philosopher... and are no longer needing to pay for bus fares. Also, are you complaining about how MASSIVE your loan is? How about the government just doesn't give it to you then.. yeah, that's what I thought.
I think that the last reason really sums up the whole petition and idea. "But theeeey get it, why don't we?". You are acting like children. Weird children-adult hybrids. You have seen that someone else gets something, and you want it too. However, what you have to remember is that YOU AREN'T CHILDREN ANYMORE. You stopped being children a long time ago, and you stopped being children even more when you decided that you wanted to go to university, and when you stopped being children you starting being adults.. and adults pay full-fucking-fares when they take public transport. They pay it because they realise that they are been given a service, a service which they are not entitled to, thus a service that they must pay for.
So I end this rant by saying: Uni students in Wellington, you aren't kids anymore, grow some balls.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Selfishness of Humans.
Been a while hasn't it? This is a topic that plagues my mind, I think about it all the time, and reading another blogger's opinions on it inspired me to write something again. The topic of today being: How Humans are Inherently Selfish. (I get the feeling this isn't going to be an overly angry rant, just my own ideas)
Now, the idea that humans are selfish can be seen at any level of society, personally I tend to see selfishness everywhere, even charity is just making yourself feel that you have done something worthwhile and easing your social conscience... but the way I most often think about the idea (and how I am thinking of it now) is on a much, much larger scale.
We are the dominant species of the only planet that has 'intelligent' life on it in the entire universe (as far as we know).. we are an anomaly as far as the universe is concerned... and this is what we have done with that. We are slowly but surely raping our planet, we have crime.... lets stop on that for a moment.. think about the fact that we have crime. How unspeakably awful is it that we live in a world where a mother has a justifiable fear that if she takes her child to the grocery store, he/she could be kidnapped. That is what we did with the gift of existence.
It's a tough topic to think about, once you get stuck thinking about selfishness you begin to see it everywhere. The fact that we have a political compass, to me, is a great example. People want someone in power who they think will do what is best for them, rather than what is best for the country.. but, of course, they don't see any difference between 'them' and 'the country'. Humans, for whatever reason, lack the ability to see that 'the country' is made up of people just like them, each with their own complex problems that no one else understands, their own prejudices and ideals, their own thoughts on what will save the world, and each with the idea that their problems and needs are the most important in the world.
Now, the idea that humans are selfish can be seen at any level of society, personally I tend to see selfishness everywhere, even charity is just making yourself feel that you have done something worthwhile and easing your social conscience... but the way I most often think about the idea (and how I am thinking of it now) is on a much, much larger scale.
We are the dominant species of the only planet that has 'intelligent' life on it in the entire universe (as far as we know).. we are an anomaly as far as the universe is concerned... and this is what we have done with that. We are slowly but surely raping our planet, we have crime.... lets stop on that for a moment.. think about the fact that we have crime. How unspeakably awful is it that we live in a world where a mother has a justifiable fear that if she takes her child to the grocery store, he/she could be kidnapped. That is what we did with the gift of existence.
It's a tough topic to think about, once you get stuck thinking about selfishness you begin to see it everywhere. The fact that we have a political compass, to me, is a great example. People want someone in power who they think will do what is best for them, rather than what is best for the country.. but, of course, they don't see any difference between 'them' and 'the country'. Humans, for whatever reason, lack the ability to see that 'the country' is made up of people just like them, each with their own complex problems that no one else understands, their own prejudices and ideals, their own thoughts on what will save the world, and each with the idea that their problems and needs are the most important in the world.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Breast-Feeding in Public
So... it's not about whales.. but it's something.
This annoyance was sparked by an article I read this afternoon, and it made me want to rant about it so I figured that it was about time that I returned to the blogging game, rather than bugging people on Facebook with my thoughts.
Again, I'm gonna start of with a 'lets get something straight'... Let's get something straight, I am not opposed to breast feeding, nor doing it in public... they are breasts.. so I'm all for getting them out in the mall.. but not everyone thinks like that. And the people who annoy me are the ones who don't understand that not everyone likes to see random boob when they are out doing some shopping.
This is another kind of topic where the entire problem lies in the fact that some people are completely retarded when it comes to having perception or reaching compromise. If you read the article that i have linked above, you will see that the whole problem and protest stemmed from the fact that a women who decided to breast feed in a store was asked by an attendant, not to leave the store, but simply to stop breast feeding. Personally, I don't see why this sparked any sort of problem other than a little embarrassment for the breast-feeding women. It is completely within the rights of a shop owner/worker to ask a patron to stop doing something, especially if the thing they are doing could disturb other patrons, they are trying to run a business after all.
What particularly made me laugh was that there was a quote in the article from the initial breast-feeder saying: "It's shocking to me that, in 2011, people still have an attitude that women shouldn't breast-feed in public, I think it's absurd, especially in a children's clothing store". I will talk about the start of that quote in a bit, but for now I want to focus on that last line.. "Especially in a children's clothing store".. Reeeeally? You think that it is weird that people wouldn't be comfortable with you exposing your body to their young children while they are trying to buy them clothes? There is a time and a place for everything, a store filled with young children probably isn't the place to get a relatively taboo body part out.
Which brings me to my next point.. the part where some people just plain aren't comfortable with breast feeding.. You can say all you want about how that's wrong and not the way it should be, and how we should be comfortable with out natural naked bodies, but the fact of the matter is, we aren't, and that isn't about to change. It is how we are raised, we are taught to think of the human body as taboo, it is in our nature to shy away from it. It is a similar thing as, say, eating bugs.. there's nothing that wrong with it, it's not that different from eating any other animal, and we did it as kids. But as we grow up we are taught that it is wrong and disgusting, and now you go ask an adult to eat some bugs, you see how they react. The only way you are going to get a public that is unanimously okay with breast feeding is if you raise the next generation to be fine with the human body... possibly by making it compulsory for children to routinely watch soft-core porn.
You hear all these people talking about how it is just the human body, everyone has them, it's completely natural.... lets see if those people say the same thing when they are walking through the mall and see a male masturbating... it's just natural, ladies.
You may have noticed that I haven't actually talked about the act of feeding the child yet, that's because that isn't the problem, no one has a problem with the fact that these women are trying to feed their children, they just don't want to see body parts when they aren't prepared for it. Maybe if they knew that when they went to the store that day that they would see breasts, they would be okay with it (or they could just avoid going), but people don't like surprises, particularly when the surprises disagree with their built-in moral code. Besides, how hard is it for a mother to go to the freaking rest-room if she wants to feed her child? Unless you are trying to raise a Bear Grylls-esque child and refuse to feed them until they are on the brink of passing out from starvation, I don't think a walk to a private room is going to do that much harm, and it's certainly going to offend less people.
This annoyance was sparked by an article I read this afternoon, and it made me want to rant about it so I figured that it was about time that I returned to the blogging game, rather than bugging people on Facebook with my thoughts.
Again, I'm gonna start of with a 'lets get something straight'... Let's get something straight, I am not opposed to breast feeding, nor doing it in public... they are breasts.. so I'm all for getting them out in the mall.. but not everyone thinks like that. And the people who annoy me are the ones who don't understand that not everyone likes to see random boob when they are out doing some shopping.
This is another kind of topic where the entire problem lies in the fact that some people are completely retarded when it comes to having perception or reaching compromise. If you read the article that i have linked above, you will see that the whole problem and protest stemmed from the fact that a women who decided to breast feed in a store was asked by an attendant, not to leave the store, but simply to stop breast feeding. Personally, I don't see why this sparked any sort of problem other than a little embarrassment for the breast-feeding women. It is completely within the rights of a shop owner/worker to ask a patron to stop doing something, especially if the thing they are doing could disturb other patrons, they are trying to run a business after all.
What particularly made me laugh was that there was a quote in the article from the initial breast-feeder saying: "It's shocking to me that, in 2011, people still have an attitude that women shouldn't breast-feed in public, I think it's absurd, especially in a children's clothing store". I will talk about the start of that quote in a bit, but for now I want to focus on that last line.. "Especially in a children's clothing store".. Reeeeally? You think that it is weird that people wouldn't be comfortable with you exposing your body to their young children while they are trying to buy them clothes? There is a time and a place for everything, a store filled with young children probably isn't the place to get a relatively taboo body part out.
Which brings me to my next point.. the part where some people just plain aren't comfortable with breast feeding.. You can say all you want about how that's wrong and not the way it should be, and how we should be comfortable with out natural naked bodies, but the fact of the matter is, we aren't, and that isn't about to change. It is how we are raised, we are taught to think of the human body as taboo, it is in our nature to shy away from it. It is a similar thing as, say, eating bugs.. there's nothing that wrong with it, it's not that different from eating any other animal, and we did it as kids. But as we grow up we are taught that it is wrong and disgusting, and now you go ask an adult to eat some bugs, you see how they react. The only way you are going to get a public that is unanimously okay with breast feeding is if you raise the next generation to be fine with the human body... possibly by making it compulsory for children to routinely watch soft-core porn.
You hear all these people talking about how it is just the human body, everyone has them, it's completely natural.... lets see if those people say the same thing when they are walking through the mall and see a male masturbating... it's just natural, ladies.
You may have noticed that I haven't actually talked about the act of feeding the child yet, that's because that isn't the problem, no one has a problem with the fact that these women are trying to feed their children, they just don't want to see body parts when they aren't prepared for it. Maybe if they knew that when they went to the store that day that they would see breasts, they would be okay with it (or they could just avoid going), but people don't like surprises, particularly when the surprises disagree with their built-in moral code. Besides, how hard is it for a mother to go to the freaking rest-room if she wants to feed her child? Unless you are trying to raise a Bear Grylls-esque child and refuse to feed them until they are on the brink of passing out from starvation, I don't think a walk to a private room is going to do that much harm, and it's certainly going to offend less people.
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