silveradept | Hrm. (Friday.)

It was a good day to be an academic. Yes, it did mean that I spent most of the day listening to people talk about things I may not have a whole lot of interest in, but I manage to keep myself fed throughout the whole day because of it. And then I did a favour for the gaming convention group by helping seal and label and stamp the preregistration booklets. Then there was some hanging out at Barnes and Noble with some friends from the graduate school. So no real work was actually accomplished today. Perhaps tomorrow. Although tomorrow we may be forced to endure aggravating pop stars rather than self-deprecating librarians and researchers.

Apparently, building Wally World attracts the wrong kind of people, at least if you live in Livonia. I'd say something about how it attracts the wrong kind of people in terms of corporate greed that will do everything it can to push wages down, prevent unionization, and a few other nasty things. But instead, some people seem to think that "if you build it, they will come, and this is bad". Very strange.

There's also a couple bits here and there that you just blink at. Daughter expelled from Christian school because her parents are in a homosexual relationship. Their prerogative, although it may cause some people to twitch nastily. At the same time, this leads into another thing that I twitched mightily at when I read it in the paper the other day...

...you see, some organizations had a "coming out conservative" day a couple of days ago. They accused the university atmosphere of being hostile to conservatives (which, I suppose, it is - I would argue justifiably so, and argue that it stay that way in comparison to the rest of the state's views), and that they were having a day where people could find support in fellow conservatives so that they wouldn't feel they were alone. Most people who understand me might see why the next thing I said was "That's just wrong." I'm sure someone thought it was a clever idea, and that they were very proud of themselves for putting on the event. Making mockery of what is still a real problem in the United States (and possibly across the world) is somewhat tasteless. As someone who's read the satire newspapers around campus, I realize that tasteless is something that can still be turned into funny when presented properly. These conservatives were serious. And that wrecks things considerably. Deciding that your orientation is conservative and telling people about it is nowhere near the magnitude of deciding to accept one's sexuality and tell other people about it.

It stuck in my head enough that I write about it days after it happens. I didn't find it funny, and I'm sure they didn't either. But we're staring at it from very different viewpoints. I find it offensive. They probably found it clever. I would like to beat a considerable amount of people, starting with politicians, over the head until they realize that it is not race or creed or orientation or gender, or even socioeconomic status that determines whether a person will be a paragon of virtue or a reprobate. People are people, and they behave in ways far more complex than we imagine. Admittedly, some of those things above may contribute to situations (and their frequency) where it is easier to do good or evil. When people start treating people like people, then we'll see what people are like. And that applies to me, too. But I'd like to think I can achieve that point, where I treat each person as an individual, without resorting to the shorthand of anything other than personal experience.

Anyway, good night - still have things to possibly do tomorrow. Like the rest of my paper. About three hundred-fifty words to go. They seem to be the hardest ones, because writing about what I observe about observation is a little strange.