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I am facebook-friends with far too many Utahns who use the status of Token Democrat for an identity (I get the feeling that being LDS isn’t counter-culture in the slightest there, so they need something else generic to set them apart). Said Utahns are all about joining Facebook groups ranting on about the immigration reform in AZ (nothing says ‘Noble Activist’ more than joining some sort of Facebook group). My newsfeed has been littered with backwards status updates like ‘STOP THE HATIN’ IN ARIZONA’ for a few days now. Backwards, because the reform isn’t meant to incite hate: it’s a state law designed to enforce a federal one. If backing federal law is unconstitutional, destructive and hateful, then paint me Thanatos and slap me Republican because I was under this weird impression that states were supposed to support and enforce federal laws. The only part of that sentence that’s a joke would be the part making me a Republican: I happen to think it’s important for states back federal law (well, when federal law doesn’t supercede states rights to tailor things to meet that particular states needs cough healthcare cough).

Anyway. People love to whitewash anything ‘controversial’ with the emotive brush of love or hate, perhaps because they think it justifies their disproportionate reaction to things. Like with Prop 8. Bunch of nuts on one side self-righteously dehumanising gays under the name of protecting ‘Love’ and then the nuts on the other side yelling Prop 8 = ‘Hate’ and then taking to Mormon churches with flamethrowers. Apparently people feel justified in brandishing the umbrella of hate on the issue of immigration because the reform law mandates ‘racial profiling’. i.e. will permit the state to attack Latino’s in particular. Undoubtedly there exists a collection of thick, racist policemen who will abuse this reform law like they do any other, and enforce it as violently and discriminatively as possible. Naturally, that disgusts me. It has to be said though, that this law wasn’t made to encourage or legitimise that kind of behaviour.

If you think about it, the law itself seems to propagate racial profiling much less viciously than the reaction to it: Screaming ‘I’m a target’ is probably the best way to ensure you have a bullseye painted on your back, and the majority of AZ residents taking to the streets over the reform are Latino/Hispanic/whatever offends you less… In saying that, I don’t mean that the state can go around busting Latino’s in particular simply because most of their illegal immigrants are Latino. Obviously not. But given that the majority of illegal immigrants in AZ happen to be Latino, the consequence will be that the majority of illegal immigrants busted will also be Latino. Stratified samples and all that. And before I get jumped all over for being racist, I’d suppose I could mention that I’d saying the same thing about Aryans if the majority of illegal immigrants in AZ were Nords and Danes, but as it happens, they’re not. I probably will get jumped all over for addressing Latino’s specifically though, because from my experience, American’s are generally more touchy and politically aroused by the rights of illegal immigrant Mexicans than your average illegal immigrant Serb.

Andy and I are in slight disagreement over one thing with this reform: I have no problem with the law requiring me to present documentation of my legal status in the US (thus don’t find it weird that a state could ask to see people’s documentation), whereas Andy feels that to be slightly big brothery and prefers the freedom of people being able to exist without having to account for themselves at the whim of the state. I get this, and agree with it on the whole, but I think that coming from a continent that requires even tourists to have their documentation on their person while backpacking, I’m a lot less wary of people asking to see my papers, so to speak. Also, as a legal immigrant to the US, I’m required and advised to carry documentation on me to prove my residency status in the US if needs be. The needs being if I get busted for committing a crime, or if I go for a job interview – stuff like that. I don’t think that presenting documentation at such times is an infringement on my freedom (although obviously it would be insane for the government to have the right to stop-check you for paperwork at ‘random’).

Anyway. While everyone’s hating my face off for being so prejudice and uncharitable towards illegal-immigrants/being communist because I don’t mind the state checking my documentation when I go for a job/get caught for a crime, let me point out that I’m simply harping on about how daft it is to rile on a law that supports the law. If the initial law preventing people from just hopping a fence and setting up camp in the US had been supported in the first place, this domino reaction ‘opening doors to racial profiling’ wouldn’t even exist. I think that the reform law in AZ was an attempt at beginning immigration reform in a state that has a serious problem with illegal immigration. Maybe it’ll spur the federal government into taking action on the issue. Maybe work on awarding temporary work permits more appropriately, enforcing permit time limits, bolstering the border, and making the path to citizenship more fair and comprehensible. The idea of the government just chucking green cards and citizenship at illegal immigrants in amnesty makes my blood boil – it’s a reward for breaking the law ( a law I happened to spend thousands of dollars on keeping and three years of legitimate worrying about being deported). I am, however, all about the provision of temporary work permits for those who wish to stay in the states, continue working, start paying tax, and try to become qualified for citizenship. I also don’t think it’s smart or humane to try kicking the kids of illegal immigrants out of the US since they didn’t ask to be plopped on US soil illegally. Anyhow. This post is getting garbled, I’m tired, and I’m starting to venture into my opinion of illegal immigration and the economics of deportation which I’d rather not. Point is, it’s daft that states have to pass a law to enforce the law.

Because the internet holds answers to most of life’s most important questions (special shout-out to YAHOO! ANSWERS), and currently my most pressing question is ‘When Will This Baby Arrive?’, I started blindly googling around with phrases like ‘STUPIDLY OVERDUE’ and ‘PREGNANT FOREVERRRR’.

Only 20% of that last sentence is remotely true. I actually used a Magic 8 Ball and came up with the answer: ‘The Future Is What You Make Of It’. Also untrue.

Truth is, I’m kind of tired of being pregnant and sick of the NHS’ incompetence, so I was looking for information on being overdue/induction on AMERICAN WEBSITES so I could get the complete skivvy on what should be going on with me. Take that, Britannia.

I went to ‘babycenter.com’ instead of ‘babycentre.co.uk’ and accidentally clicked on ‘36 weeks pregnant’ instead of ‘41 weeks’ and somehow started reading about something called Group B Strep (GBS). The internet is a terrible place for malingering hypochondriacs since you can easily convince yourself you’re going to die just by searching for something as innocuous as ‘Bruise On My Big Toe’, so generally I take all health-related stuff on there with a pinch of salt, but this GBS thing was stressing me out a bit. Group B Strep is a bacterium existing in 33% of adults and it does us no harm but can prove fatal to foetuses or babies. The bacteria can kill a baby, or present itself as meningitis (which has its own ballpark of fatalities and grim consequences). I figured that since medicine has figured out how to combat meningitis itself, they must have some way of preventing GBS hurting a baby and sure enough they do: a course of antibiotics. Genius.

Relieved and thinking ‘Well, at least there’s ONE pregnancy disaster that it entirely preventable’, I set about searching for how you get tested for GBS so that if I have it, I can make sure I get the antibiotics. I thought about ringing the ante-natal clinic but since they hassle me if I want so much as check-up, I figured I could just do some internet mumbo-jumbo and sure enough, I found the answer online: it’s a simple swab test.

Easy, yes?

No.

The USA (and even Canada with their socialised system) routinely test maternomorphs for GBS because it can kill babies YET IS ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE. Even France and Spain routinely test for it and the testing is highly successful: (it was found that routine screening brought the rate of GBS infant infection down by 86% in Spain). But of course, the NHS will not screen for GBS. Not only do the NHS refuse to screen for it, but they don’t even tell people it exists. Apparently around 9/10 first-time mothers in the UK haven’t even heard of GBS So to recap, 33% of women carry GBS, a bacterium that has potential to kill their baby but is completely treatable with cheap antibiotics, but the NHS will neither screen for it or even educate people about it’s existence?

So why don’t the NHS routinely screen maternomorphs for GBS since it’s treatable if detected? For the same reason they outsource MRI scan results to Bulgaria, take six months to get someone with a ruptured disk within ten miles of a specialist, and heavily advertise how important it is to react in a timely manner to someone having a stroke yet fail to get 3/4 stroke victims administered to appropriately within 48 hours of being hospitalised: it all comes back to cost. Herein lies a prime example of why government regulated healthcare actually equals government rationed healthcare, and you best had believe that it is not rationed in the publics favour.

The NHS’ official stand on why they don’t test for GBS is because it’s not ‘cost effective’. NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence… good one) and the Department of Health claim two reasons for why they won’t test for it: the test the NHS uses is only 50% accurate, and since only 33% of women have GBS, it’s not cost-effective to use such an inaccurate test to screen every maternomorph for GBS.

What they don’t tell you is that the test they use (the HVS) IS A JOKE – no country routinely testing for GBS uses such a stupid test. There is an alternative and much better swab test available. That test would cost the NHS £10 per person which sounds like a lot, but would save them £37 Million in not having to hospitalise and treat babies who end up contracting meningitis from GBS-ridden mothers and the likes and would reduce the contraction of GBS in newborns by around 80%.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but is it not completely deranged for a so-called ‘first-world country’ to be entirely aware of a potentially deadly infection, easily remedied with something as cheap as antibiotics, and do absolutely nothing about it because it’s not ‘cost-effective’, even though it actually is in the long run?

I met with a midwife today because even by the NHS’ due date for me, I am overdue. I asked her politely to please test me for GBS. She told me she couldn’t because it wasn’t ‘routine’ but not to worry because if I had it, it was easily treated with antibiotics. I said, sure, but how can you know to treat someone with antibiotics if you haven’t even tested them for the infection. She said ‘The NHS requires that I tell you that if they thought GBS was a particularly dangerous infection, they would test everyone’… What? She repeated the line about the NHS’ official stand on why they refuse to test (Thanks, Big Brother) and suggested vaguely that I go private to alleviate my worrying and make sure that if I did have it, I could get the antibiotics to stop it from harming the baby.

So. If you live in the UK, you get to pay extortionate taxes for teenagers to get their stomachs pumped ever weekend, or for that transgender woman to have a penis implant, or for an eighteen year old girl who cites ‘lack of confidence’ as a reason for getting her boobs enhanced, her nose done, and her browline altered, but you can’t so much as get a £10 test for a basic infection that could kill your baby unless treated with something as basic as penicillin. No wait, you CAN get that test, but you have to go private and pay 3x more for it instead. Mmmm! Who doesn’t love government rationed healthcare?

Tesco’s and British Home Stores have both been slammed for selling cleavage-enhancing bra’s and underwear with junk like “LITTLE MISS NAUGHTY” written on aimed at 7-9 year old girls.
You read that correctly. Seven to nine. You know what I was doing when I was 7-9? Not caring to wear slogans with blatant sexual innuendo over my butt. That’s what. In all honesty, I was either setting up ’skate ramps’ with my sister, repeatedly jumping off high places with an opened umbrella thinking “this time I’ll get carried off by the wind”, or wearing Power Ranger roller blades and skating around obstacle courses Rachel and I made. It wasn’t that I was unaware of sex (I went to public school – nothing I heard after the age of nine surprised me, sadly), I just didn’t see how it had anything to do with me and my roller-blades.

A BHS spokesperson said (regarding their “Little Miss Naughty” range) that it was “Harmless Fun”. Stupid comment, since encouraging a nine-year old to think of her underwear as a brand on her butt proclaiming her “Little Miss Naughty” is irresponsibly furthering a freakish agenda to sexualise children, not ‘harmless fun’. That said, it’s primarily a parent’s responsibility and not BHS’ to encourage daughters to view their bodies as being something more than a hot piece of paedophilic dream content. BHS eventually withdrew the range.

Tesco’s, however, refused to withdraw the cleavage-enhancing padded bra FOR SEVEN YEAR OLDS because apparently, girls who are seven are “at that self-conscious age when they are developing”… If your seven year old is exhibiting signs of self-consciousness about the INEVITABLE FLATNESS OF HER PRE-PUBESCENT CHEST, then parents should have deeper concerns than buying her a padded bra. It’s bad enough that a cleavage-enhancing bra could be argued to be the insignia of self-consciousness for maybe…. a fourteen/fifteen year old, but for a seven-year old? No worries though. If Tesco’s can’t kit your seven-year old daughter out in a padded bra, they’ll sell her a Pole-Dancing Kit instead (yup, they really sold those and yes they were in the TOY section).

The issue of boobs being sexualised has been on my mind for a while now. Nursing is on the horizon so my thoughts have turned in that direction. Before I go any further, I’m not a fan of overt, public breastfeeding. The majority of Western women I know who strip their shirts off and sit there topless ‘in order to feed their baby’ are often more interested in making a point and yelling “WHAT YOU LOOKING AT? THIS IS WHAT THEY’RE FOR” than actually feeding their baby.

Since breasts are essentially globs of fat and tissue designed for nursing, I’ve tried to avoid stigmatising them as a primarily sexual thing. It offends me that Western society is so hell-bent on ignoring the natural function of boobs in favour of what seems to be arbitrary, sexual, stigmatisation of lumps of flesh (Muslim’s find women’s hair sexy, Western men are attracted to women’s chests, I dunno if that explains it). Accepting the fact that I can’t single-handedly undo Westerners obsession with the chest, the least society can do is recognise the natural function of breasts, which is not (surprise!) the sexual stimulation of men.

Not only does society blag on as if the sole function of a women’s chest should be sexual in nature, but they also advocate what size a womans chest should be to attain in order to wear particular kinds of clothing, attract particular types of men, or worst of all, feel good about herself. The sickest thing here is that society is fickle, and their idea of the ideal chest changes. Sure, there’s always the page-3 demographic, but then you have fashion purveyors like Urban Outfitters who might tell you one season that having a bust is in (get out those tight t-shirts!) but the next season, they’re advocating swimsuits like this:

which essentially tells me that, according to Urban Outfitters, boobs just aren’t in this season, and unless you look like a pre-pubescent child, you can’t wear half their wares. Obviously this is kind of a stupid example, you’d have to be an idiot to undergo boob reductions/enhancements in order to wear whatever the high-street is pushing but it annoys me that breasts seem to be little more then an optional fashion accessory to the majority of designers. All they’re doing is reinforcing the idea that boobs are there to be accentuated or ignored for the sake of a particular image. The paper-thin silver-lining to this advocacy of flat-chests is that perhaps dense people might consider flat-chested girls as equally sexy to their more busty counterparts now that they have the media’s stamp of approval. Eugh.

In saying all this, I’m not arguing for us to go burning our bras or anything. I reckon a woman’s form should be an appropriately celebrated thing. I just spit on the notion that a woman’s body is only worth celebrating if it’s perceived as sexy. Sex appeal is overrated for one, but it becomes dangerous when it’s a force strong enough to decrease the self-esteem of our seven year olds, wreck the way our nine-year olds think of their bodies, or encourage women to warp their bodies in order to feel better about themselves.

And while I’m ranting on about bras. I’m always blown away when I visit department stores and see the racks of GEL/WATER/CRAZY bras for sale. You know. The ones where it looks like a bra, but on closer inspection it’s actually a couple of water-balloons sewn into a piece of junk. I’ve mistaken these so-called ‘cleavage-enhancing’ creations as mastectomy bras before.

Anyway. I don’t remember the point I was trying to make. I’m just mad at Tesco’s for pushing sex on seven year olds without even an hint of apology.

Photoshop actions are sick. Who seriously uses those.

You know what else is sick? Me drinking a can of 7Up for breakfast. I’m going to go and find some cereal.

You may or may not have heard about the rumour (if it’s just a rumour, there’s a well fabricated network to support it) of Tom Hank’s production “Big Love” featuring LDS Temple ceremonies.
Whether it’s true or not, I have a couple major problems with this.

Tom Hanks and/or the writers of Big Love are remarkably inconsistent. The series is about a polygamist family, yet they include an image of an LDS Temple in the opening to each episode. I can’t think of any other reason why they would choose to do that, aside from the attempt to portray the polygamist family as Mormon. Which is, in and of itself, a complete contradiction since you can not be a polygamist and LDS. Obviously, the show is based on fictional plots, and so they are free to combine as many contrary practices and beliefs as they like. My distaste is not directed at the freedom of press, media or speech, (they’re free to portray any idiotic duo of contrary things they want, like Ghandi becoming the new CEO of Exxon Mobil, Hasidic jews opening a franchise of strip joints, or LDS polygamists), it is directed at the enthusiasm people have for misrepresenting those of the LDS faith in particular. There are libraries of malicious anti-mormon works, and a dire absence of a comparable volumes against other Christian sects, i.e. Baptists, Evangelists, etc.

Mormon’s aren’t polygamists. But Hollywood is incapable of producing something that dispels hearsay (it’s not good for ratings) and instead, draws on plots based on the illusory connection between LDS faith and the practice of polygamy for the sake of saliciousness, and attempts to present itself as a well-researched reality-commentary on the controversial nature of each culture. The real controversy in the show lies in the misrepresentation of the LDS faith, and since I am LDS, this perpetual misrepresentation now hitting mainstream television riles me. Hence this post. The broadcast of this Big Love episode won’t do anything to the LDS church, I just wanted to express my frustration with the afore mentioned.

The fascination with debasing the LDS faith is a curious thing. The reverence demonstrated towards the offering halls of Shinto Temples and the High Priest’s ceremonial jo-e, Islamic prophets and symbolic apparel worn by Muslims is denied to the LDS faith. The justifications that I have been given by anti-mormons, for this aggressive hate of the LDS faith is that LDS people have “ secrets”. One can only suppose that the “secrets” anti-Mormons refer to LDS people as having, refer to the ordinances performed in the Temple. We keep Temple ordinances private; within the walls of particular buildings dedicated for their expression, and this generates a lot of suspicion. It doesn’t follow, to assume something private to be something of a suspicious nature by default, but people do just that when it comes to LDS Temples. The Temple is a location for the expression of one’s deepest devotion God. Why would one choose to broadcast this private and cherished commitment to a world that viciously scorns people for the way they look, let alone what they believe?

The fact that people use the private nature of the Temple as the reason to hate Mormons elucidates a fairly negative aspect of human nature to me. We want to know things we are unprepared to understand. People who haven’t made the effort to even read the bible demand that God show them a sign, or appear and tell them He exists. People want to know the details of Temple worship, when they don’t even believe in prayer. It just doesn’t make sense that people would want rewards of faith for an expression of faith’s antonym. And even if their petulant requests were ‘rewarded’ unwarrantedly, there’s no guarantee they’d comprehend it. Discussions between nuclear engineers aren’t going to make sense to someone who refuses to learn basic arithmetic, and an individual who doesn’t believe in God isn’t going to understand worship of Him just because he’s present for it. The individuals who are genuinely curious about such worship are openly invited and encouraged to investigate through the right channels.

The Temple is a place where those who love God can commit to live their life in a manner pleasing to God.
You’re not going to have a four year old sign a complicated legal document because they’re unlike to comprehend the clauses of the document and if they do sign, may not know what they have signed up for. You’d wait until they were older and more able to understand the terms of the agreement before you’d think to have them sign. In a rudimentary way, this is somewhat similar to the Temple. The Temple is a place to worship God, and renew commitment. If one has no commitment to God, belief in God, or understanding of what believing in God means for their life, then it makes no sense to have them attend the Temple and commit to something they do not understand. And if one does not believe in God, or care to, then why would they be entitled to know the ins-and-outs of God-oriented worship? The only reason they could possibly want to know would be to sate unhealthy curiosity or to ridicule reverence for God. The Temple is private, so as to provide opportunity for those who are prepared to worship privately. I don’t understand why people are so zealous about ‘revealing’ Temple ordinances when they also claim they don’t care about them and want nothing to do with worship themselves.

This brings me to another point. People who oppose the LDS faith, do so vehemently. Those who were members and decide that they no longer wish to practice LDS doctrine, can not let good alone and just go on with their lives. The majority of people I know who decide to cut affiliation with the LDS faith, can not just experience disinterest and go on with their lives sans LDS beliefs. Instead, they feel the burning need to violently oppose the church, and to express their hatred for it’s principles at every sought-out opportunity. I don’t understand it. I feel that if I was to dislike a lifestyle based on religion, I’d sever commitments made with the religion, and live my life the way I thought more fit. Just get on with it. It seems though, that disengaging from religious commitment is not enough, and requires passionate, supplemental distaste for the ‘former religious life’. This is something I do not like about Provo. Provo is a tiny town where BYU is located. BYU is a private school with regulations founded on the LDS faith, thus the small town is teeming with LDS people. If one decides to sever commitments with the LDS faith, because their lifestyle is non-conducive to it’s precepts, then so be it. That’s fine, no one’s making them remain LDS. It would be fine then, if the individual just got on with life. But to express hatred of the church and how it stops people from ‘living their lives’ in a location where people choose to live their lives according to certain beliefs, confuses me, especially when the individual has no other reason to tie themselves to the area than for association with those of the LDS faith.

Two things that really try my patience:

• Girls who don’t know the dimensions of their own car.
• Girls who giggle when they perform a hit-and-run as a consequence of not being lucid enough to know the dimensions of their car, yet lucid enough to know that it might cost them some $$ if they take responsibility for their stupidity.

At lunchtime, I dropped Andy off at he JKB car park so he could run a paper into the JFSB for his Francophone class. Every time I get within 10ft of that car park, my blood pressure shoots up.

Since coming to Utah, I have become predisposed to some sort of road-rage (triggered by things like the JKB car park).
Behold, the statistics:
2004 Driving Naomi: gave thumbs up to drivers who cut her off.
2009 Driving Naomi: is prepared to smack the next bad driver she sees. In the face.

On the Christian flip-side I could say that the JKB car park gives me ample opportunity to practice loving my neighbor despite their inability to operate a car they somehow have a license to drive.

Back to my story. I hate the JKB car park. It’s always full of bad drivers. Imagine all the bad drivers you’ve ever come into contact with, put them in cars placed in a small car park and convince them it’s Demolition Derby Time. That’s the JKB car park. To further illustrate my point: one time I encountered a man parked horizontally over the entrance to the car park, so he could make-out with his passenger for just over a minute, and a minute, in car park time, is a really long time.

I see at least two bad drivers every time I get near that car park, and today was no exception. Only today’s Couple Making-Out In An Inconveniently Parked Car paled in comparison to the first incident. Andy pulled the car into an unobtrusive spot of the car park, and dashed out to turn his paper in at the JFSB. I got into the drivers seat, and reversed the car a bit, because I got the impression that the girl in front of me was a bad driver and I was nervous she’d reverse into me. Three cheers for hunches. I watched a passenger get into the car infront of me, hug the driver, and then the car started to move. They needed to make a 90 degree turn to get out of their spot unscathed. I watched her car inch closer and closer to another car, thinking “she’ll brake soon, she can’t be that unaware” until she did indeed (amidst me and three other drivers beeping at her) hit the other vehicle and dent it badly. Now. What do you do when you smack into another car in a car park because you can’t drive, and there are approximately nine people around who witnessed your stupidity? You get out of the car, leave a note saying “Sorry I don’t know the dimensions of my own car, I hit yours, caused this dent, here’s my number and insurance information”. She didn’t. She giggled with her friend, and they left the parking lot. I kind of expected her to have a conscience and return but she didn’t.

I’m aware that I have a slightly overgrown sense of justice. If you think about that, you’ll realise that comment is nowhere near a boast. I can usually keep it quiet, I talk myself down into a more merciful understanding of events and all is well. But when it comes down to giggling girls who drive irresponsibly and hike some poor persons car insurance rate up as a consequence, I get frustrated. I called the local cops with the relevant license place numbers. They called the hit-vehicle’s owner ( who decided to press charges), and tracked down the irresponsible girl driver with ease ( some other witness called in reporting the same event). I probably sound well stuck up posting this, but I really hope the irreponsible driver gets her comeuppance.

On the subject of justice, Utah Courts just sent me a letter inviting me for Jury Duty.
I’m not sure how they missed the fact that I’m not a US Citizen though. I’m kind of sad I can’t do it, since you get paid time off work for it, and the court pays you $49 for every subsequent court you attend after the first day. Just think of how many Rice King meals you could buy with $49 a day.

On top of regular living concerns, I’ve been/I am pretty stressed with the following:

• Getting the “house for sale” ball rolling
• Work: things have been nuts lately
• AADSAS worries
• USCIS worries
• The move to England

It doesn’t sound so bad when you say it like that, does it? But when you break that little ol’ five-point list down, it becomes the List From Hell, and since I’m a compulsive list-maker, The List From Hell has been revised over and over on various pieces of lined paper. Perhaps enough reams of paper for Greenpeace to demand a G8 Summit style intervention. Probably not. Point is, my five-point list of current worries is something of a lernean hydra. The minute I feel like I’ve resolved one issue (like the requirements of DAT/AADSAS applications) another two appear (like the instructions on Andy’s visa application contradicting themselves, misunderstanding of which could lead to visa denial, and trying to work out the financial benefits of keeping our stuff in Utah, or moving it to PA before we exit America). And so it goes on. You wouldn’t believe how complicated it is for me to maintain my status as a resident of America, or how difficult it is to finance $3000 sum total application fees, $370 re-entry permits, and a myriad of other expensive travel related documents while paying bills and the likes.

Anyway. With Andy as my unfortunate witness, I am probably one of the most obsessive planners on planet earth when it comes to important stuff. Anyone scoffing at that claim because of, say, my makeshift wedding invitations and reception, can jolly well just have a kit-kat and take a break. Seriously, cakes and tablecloths just aren’t that important when compared to actually getting married.

Anyway, I can get somewhat neurotic about planning for important things.I have pored over my horribly handwritten calendars of the whens and wheres, applications, bank statements etc for hours and hours trying to plan for every contingency associated with international moves for people who (for all intents and purposes) own property, are graduating, are quitting works, selling property amongst other things, and need to stay on good terms with US Immigration while going back to their home country…

I’ve been feeling fairly crazy lately because of all this. I partly feel like a nut for worrying so much, but on occasions where I try to take a ‘toss it to the wind!’ attitude, I get cranky and realise there are EVEN MORE FLAWS IN THE PLAN, so I retreat to my Jekyll & Hyde relationship with the nemesis otherwise known as compulsive worrying. My dad keeps telling me I’m going to have grey hairs before I’m thirty. I’m banking on having inherited his hair genes though, which means I won’t get a single grey hair until I’m about 49. And even then, I will have a literal single grey hair.

While worrying about dropping a cool $810 on Andy’s visa this morning, Emilie popped up on gmail and wanted to know what kind of score I got on a random internet personality test. Real personality tests can get expensive, so I am dubious about the methodology of free e-ones. By dubious, I mean I usually think they’re a load of rubbish. To avoid office-work for a few minutes, I took the test. It wasn’t so bad. At the end I got an analysis courtesy of Keirsey, and compared my results with Emilie (and Andy, who I kind of coerced into taking the test to sate curiosity).

Emilie turned out to be an Idealist ‘Teacher’, Andy got Rational ‘Architect’ and I got Rational ‘Mastermind’. I’m not really sure where the test got the audacity to dub anyone daft enough to take an internet personality test seriously a “mastermind” but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

The descriptions were kind of heavy on the side of being complimentary, (Andy pointed out that they weren’t going to offend the reader by having a category for “Village Idiot”)  but some of the analysis seemed fairly valid. Apparently “rationals” are “good at planning operations”, and Masterminds are “head and shoulders above all the rest in contingency planning”. So the excuse for my planning neuroticism actually has a name: Rational Masterminding. The description goes on to claim masterminds have a bazillion alternative plans, lest Plan A go to pot, and that masterminds are not “impressed by traditional authority, slogans, or catchwords”. So seriously, use the word ‘dichotomy’ on me again and see how impressed I am.

You should take the test and let me know what you come out as (I don’t consider that to be too wild of a request, since there are only perhaps four people who know this blog exists). Once you take the test, ignore the trifle results and click on the Kiersey Analysis.

Our generation has two root problems:

• Refusing responsibility for consequences of choices/actions
• Confusing “privilege” with ”inalienable right”

It’s the second problem I take issue with at the moment.

I feel like the confusion between ‘privilege’ and ‘inalienable right’ relates well to Obama’s stimulus package. Bear with me, it’s not a tenuous link but the explanation might be a bit long-winded.

To get it out of the way: I like Obama less since he claimed that the republicans left a gift-wrapped recession time-bomb in the oval office for him. So Obama has to deal with a tragedy he didn’t cause. Excuse me while I find my violin.
Obama’s logic is kind of wacky to me, and I’m not talking about trying to put a tax dodger in as Head of IRS, (although that is nuts). Obama claims that the Bush administration’s excessive spending was the reason why we we’re in such a hole right now and his stimulus package is simply an attempt to clean it up. If you work it out, Obama’s stimulus package plus interest is actually going to rack up well over double the debts Bush managed to collect… Change we can believe in, anyone?

The stimulus package (you can read a summary here) which is more expensive than the Iraq and Afghanistan war combined and equally preposterous, is an absolute joke, and a reflection of our generations misunderstanding of what constitutes a “right” and what exactly a “privilege” is.

The US Constitution lists life, liberty, freedom of speech/expression/equal protection before the law and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights. You’ll notice that the constitution does not include a nice house, some land, a good car, or college education. Pell Grants, Tax Deductions for first time home buyers, Tax credits for more environment friendly vehicles – all great things, but they are privileges; not inalienable rights.

Our generation (God help the next generation) doesn’t understand this. We want starter cars and jobs more luxurious than the ones our parents worked their whole lives to obtain. We want houses more expensive than we can afford, and the government encourages that with it’s endorsement of various dodgy mortgage schemes. Then, faced with empty bank accounts and threat of repossession, we turn to the government asking how they let this happen and what they’re going to do to fix the situation/bail us out of our own stupidity. The consequence? Tricks like Obama’s stimulus plan.

Our generation is already paying off the debt of social security, and this stimulus package is just racking up our tab to an incomprehensible sum, a sum that would be significantly lower if we/Obama could just discern the difference between “rights” and “privileges. The breakdown of the stimulus shows that expenditure proposals include millions of dollars for the US Fish and Wildlife preservation, and $15,000,000,000 for the overhaul of federal buildings amongst other ridiculous things. Call me callous but I care more about those who can’t make rent, than I care about fish or putting new pavement around the National Mall. Obama argues that this trillion dollar debt will give America new hope with new jobs, and that it’s not just about protecting fish or having new wallpaper in the Department of Commerce – it’s about paying people to protect the fish and wallpaper the Department of Commerce. He’s going to create 41,000 jobs with this Trillion Dollar Stimulus! That’s it? 41,000 jobs for one trillion dollars?! That’s really nice for those 41,000 people, but seriously, it’d be cheaper to pay every unemployed person $40,000 a year until the end of the world, than to pass this stimulus. I’d be much happier knowing my tax dollars were footing food bills of the destitute than rolling a cushier chair under the fat butt of Joe Biden.

It also angers me that Obama is claiming this to be a bipartisan package. The votes were almost entire democrat. This stimulus would put more power in the governments hands (not to mention China’s), and is designed in such a way that the publics dependence on the government will increase – the acrid scent of Democratic policy. Obama’s cabinet could at least be honest about it, and call the stimulus what is it: a Democrats Dream Boat 3000ft Luxury Yacht.