Life without weekends

Imagine life without weekends. Not a life where one worked 7 days a week, but where there was no identifiable distinctions between what you did on weekends and what you did during the week.

As it is, our lives are framed into 7 day segments – specifically due to the business/work week. As a result, the “main” part of our weeks are the weekdays, with the minor portion of our weeks being the week-ends. Because we spend the main part of our weeks working, we usually spend the minor part of our weeks recuperating or doing small tasks that we had put off during the energy-exhausting weekdays. Actually, colloquially, the term ‘weekdays’ can be and typically is replaced by the word ‘week’. For instance, I can say “I go to school during the week” and no one (at least in America) will take me to mean that I attend school all 7 days of the week. We turned what was once a 7-day week – it technically is still 7 days in length - into a 5-day (business) week, which contrasts the week-end.

Thus we have a week and a week-end, with the technical meaning of ‘week’ coming to only be used in reference to larger categories of time such as months and years. We still say there are 4 weeks in a month and 52 weeks in a year, but we do not (in most cases) take ourselves to mean that there are only 20 business days in a month.

Obviously, business/job realities are not the only things structuring our frames of time. Church and sporting events have found themselves to become defining aspects of our weekends. Just imagine a Friday night without high school football or basketball, or a Sunday without the NFL, or a Sunday morning without droves of cars heading for their respective sanctuaries. Just as our jobs define our weeks, so too do our expectations of weekend activities. Of course, I would not be unwarranted in positing that most weekend activities have found the sacred week-end days they have due to the Monday through Friday business-week.

What can be problematic about such a framed understanding of one’s time on earth is the fact that it allows these partitions in time to be boundaries, things to be endured or overcome. How often have you heard someone (including yourself) desperately assert that “if I just get through this week, I’ll be in the clear”? What results though, is that many of our weeks become the object of such outlooks. In fact, for those who do not particularly enjoy their job or classes, almost every set of 5 week-days become this. And not only is the main part of the 7-day week something to be endured, but that also means that your weekend becomes two days to do nothing. If you spend 5 of 7 days “surviving”, you aren’t going to want to spend the other 2 days of your life doing a whole lot. Thus, the 2 days between your 5-day weeks become determined themselves, become a time to decompress, and to prepare for the upcoming week. Thus we find ourselves spending 5 days of our lives doing something we (often) would rather not be doing, and the 2 “free” days of our lives determined, or limited, by those 5 days. So after a year of "getting through" this week and "getting through" that week, you realize you have indeed "survived" those weeks, but at the same time, you also wonder what happened to your year.

So what would life look like without this 5-day/2-day structure? What would our experience of life be if we did not segment them into 7-day spans? Sure the sun and moon would still rise and fall on the horizons, but those sunrises wouldn’t have the significance, positive or negative, that they have for us now. Without weekends, the days can no longer be distinguished as either a week-day or a weekend-day. Everyday becomes the same day. It would be much more difficult to have this structured view of time where days or weeks become things-to-be-gotten-through. So while the days lose their distinction and significance, suddenly, our human activity takes on its own significance. It now becomes our choice as to what structures our life.

What’s more, if there is no weekend, then there are no 7-day weeks, and that means the calendar year now becomes a foreign organizational system to us too. Days are still days, defined by the rotation of the earth and years are still years defined by the orbiting around the sun, but the significance of how we spend those indistinguishable moments is up to us.

I’m not sure whether such a life is possible these days, and I’m not even sure whether such a way of living is any better than the one we currently have. But I wouldn’t mind trying it some time.

Rhetoric in Real Life: Sarah Palin and the Bush Tax Cuts

I believe I've hit on this before, but if a particular piece of legislation is scheduled to end, then it is not permanent. Further, if that particular piece of legislation was a non-permanent reduction of a certain number, then, when that legislation ends, the reduction will cease to be in effect and thus, the "original" number will be reinstated, not established. So, not creating new legislation that would maintain the current reduction would not seem to be an increase or "hike". According to her tweet on the eve of the congressional debate, Sarah Palin thinks differently. What is of notice is that she initially, using a non-loaded adjective, refers to the issue as the "tax changes". I gather from this that she views it as only her opinion, of which she entreaties her readers to agree with, that they are "hikes".

Sidenote: who is she tweeting to? I don't think the public has a say in the debate that is taking place this morning, as it is up to our elected officials to decide. So do our representatives read the tweets of ex-governors who quit in the middle of their term to professionally campaign, give speeches across the nation (including one at a private Christian primary school in Pennsylvania?), "write" two books, go on national book tours for both of those books, be a remunerated guest on Fox News, and have his or her family star in an 8-episode reality cable-tv show?

McCain

On Meet the Press two Sundays ago, they played a clip from 2004 where Senator John McCain is saying the exact same thing, in regard to the Bush Tax Cuts, as Obama is saying now (viz. to not extend the tax cuts for the top 5% or so). McCain defends his own discord by saying that those were different economic times than now and that we shouldn't raise the taxes on anyone when in a recession.

What he meant to say is that him saying what he said in 2004 helped him out politically, and that what he says now, which is in opposition to his 2004 view, helps him out politically (because it is against Obama). Take a look at Stewart's onslaught of McCain flip-flops here. I can't seem to find it, but Stewart also has a shocking clip where McCain mentions that "the system is broken" and "Washington needs changed" about 15 times over the course of 1992-2010. It's sickening really; A politician can spout the same empty phrase over and over and continue to get reelected. McCain is more concerned with reelection than having his stay in Washington, however lengthy it is, be valuable to the American people. If the system does need fixed, perhaps we should have a new senator from AZ. in office...

Race in Rhetoric: Body-scans and Race

In regards to an alternative to the much talked about body-scans that he so opposes, Steve Doocy says “I like the idea of profiling”.

Shortly thereafter, he says: “I’ve read some websites” that have said that when 3 year olds and nuns get patted down, the terrorists have won because our 4th amendment rights have been taken away (sidenote: this is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that today, facts only require the mere allusion to “some” speculation). But who is the “we” (whose rights are being taken away) in this statement? If he wants profiling, then he wants particular ethnic groups searched (read: “profiled”), and of course, their 4th amendment rights don’t matter in this. The rights that matter are the rights of white people.

On the same subject, Ann Coulter is in favor of checking “foreign” people, because all terrorists have been foreign. She is just as outraged as Doocy that her whiteness is not being enough to prove that she’s a safe person. (She is also the women who, within the past year, said that Christians are "perfected-Jews")

In the world of the Bush-signed Patriot Act, why wouldn’t they welcome such an invasion of privacy? Oh right, because its “our” freedom, not “their” freedom. As if that points out any thing but English-speaking, white-skinned people. Now if we can just get rid of a few unwelcomed, pesky ethnic groups that fit that criteria, this free land of ours will finally be pure… [← sarcasm!]

I understand that body-scans aren’t the best option, but if we’re so paranoid about our planes being blown up, measures must be taken. And if that means my body is seen for a few seconds, I’ll take that. I’ll take that over limiting the freedom of AMERICANS, who happen to have skin of a different color.

Rhetoric in Real Life: Bush Tax Cuts

The Bush tax cuts took effect in 2003 and gave tax cuts to most of the tax brackets. The legislation terminates here shortly and, given our economic thin ice, it is a hot-button issue. Because this is only a temporary law, if nothing is done, the tax percentages will go back up to their 2002 levels. Those in favor of reinstating/upholding/maintaining the Bush tax cuts argue that, in more or less words, we should not raise taxes for small business owners or rather, employers. First, it is not “raising” taxes when there is an established law maintaining it at that level and the current numbers are only where they are for a determined number of years. And secondly, there is no daggum way that “small business owners” are those populating the top 5%.

But when people argue in favor of the tax cuts, and use this language, it sounds as if Obama’s administration is tying the hands of small mom and pop stores all over America. And of course that sounds horrendous!

A more convincing argument that side invokes is that we shouldn’t increase the taxes on those who provide jobs, because they won’t have the money to hire people. This is true, but again, misleading. The owners of companies are not the companies. Companies hire people, private individuals do not. Thus, this argument only supports the capital gains tax portion of this law, not the top-earning brackets of individuals.

On another aspect, the owner’s salary has a minimal effect on the profit of the company; typically, the big CEOs do not have ridiculous salaries. It is the bonuses, which are given from the company to the owner (a private person) that are the biggest deal. So really, saying that we shouldn’t tax the employers is a backward way of saying that the richest should get a tax break so they get bigger bonuses too. Of course, I understand that I’m conflating the top-earners with the CEOs (employers), but if this isn’t the case, then the opposing argument is even more faulty.

Rhetoric on Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity

This post will be a continuation of the general theme found in my previous post and my newspaper article in The Munice Star Press: rhetoric in real life. The particular topic of this post is on one show’s coverage of The Rally to Restore Sanity.

I haven’t kept track of all the links, but everyone (from talkingpointsmemo.com, salon.com, the New York Times, Fox News, Chris Matthews and I’m sure many others) has conveyed at least some, if not outright, disapproval of Jon Stewart’s rally. As you can tell, there is not just a left/right divide here. If you’re interested in the full length points being brought up, searching Stewart’s name on the particular website will bring up the relevant stories. Below, I will summarize what the gists of the criticisms.

Some of the arguments include: 1) the media is doing the right thing in focusing on these big, divisive issues (Matthews); 2) the media doesn’t have the impact Stewart says it does (NYTimes); 3) there was no true point to the rally (salon.com).

My understanding of the rally’s impetus and argument goes as follows: 1) CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all use fear to get people to watch their shows 2) if things were truly as bad as they say they are, we’d all be dead (from bed bugs, STD’s, alcohol, and all the health warnings to Marxists, Muslims, terrorists, progressives, fascists and all the horrible people, who ‘we’ of course aren’t) 3) we should realize that we do get along and working with people does not mean the end of everything we ever believed in. In sum: “These are bad times; they are not endtimes.”

But all of that is prefatory to my main point which focuses on a brief segment on the Sunday edition of Fox and Friends on Fox News. I will provide a link here, as I want you to watch the rhetoric in action for yourselves. Its up to you if you watch it first, and then read what follows, or conversely, wait to watch it until after you read what I have to say.

This show, Fox and Friends, is not news. It is speculation at best, misleading on a neutral view, and deliberately misleading at worst; the clip typifies their approach to “news”. They say a lot of things and rather quickly, so I have brought up four main points each of which has at least one direct quote that you can find in the video.

1) The woman pointed out that they were comedians parading as “newspeople.” This is an immediate attempt to discredit any relevance the rally may have had. Her logic: if they’re comedians, they have nothing valuable to say. Of course this is almost entirely false; many, many comedians speak about important issues and usually convey, through their medium of comedy, opinions worth contemplating; George Carlin is paradigmatic in this regard. She must not have gotten anything from the great Greek comedic playwrights either. But more to the point, her rhetoric is inappropriate because comedy, to work, must make reference to a shared meaning. A person who does not get the meaning of a joke doesn’t laugh. In other words, the listener must understand the meaning being conveyed in order to discover the comedy found within it. Ever notice how you don’t laugh at a roast when you don’t know who the person is? This is because you don’t have all the background information on the roastee and so the meanings of the jokes are lost on you. Of course Stewart’s and Colbert’s version of comedy is satire, which is, albeit a circuitous one, one of many ways to make valid points. Yet this woman acts as if satire is no more relevant than a forth-grader’s opinion on state politics.

2) Gretchen Carlson then acts as if she doesn’t remember Colbert’s name or the name of the rally. Again this is a backhanded way to discredit any validity the rally may have. There is no way a news anchor (who is true to the title) would forget a name in a story. And even giving the benefit of that doubt, there is no way a news anchor would forget the name of a person they’ve played clips of countless times on their show and who’s show has a nightly national crowd of 1.5 million viewers. This point is the most pathetic one. Check here for Stewart’s bit on her “playing dumb” on an earlier topic.

3) Crowd estimates have become a big deal lately, starting with Glen Beck’s rally. As a result, Stewart and Colbert were preemptive and mentioned that it was pretty likely that the numbers would be distorted: Colbert had an early morning tweet that said he heard an estimate of 6 billion in attendance… So, knowing all of this, the smug gentleman on the left doesn’t even mention an estimate (because if he was accurate, he’d have to say that it was more than Beck’s rally, but if he underestimated, he’d be ridiculed by Stewart the next day. So he proceeds to go at the subject in a more subtle way. He only mentions that “we’ve heard some various estimates”. From this, the viewer, has no idea how big the crowd was… no idea. What the viewer does recognize is that there are several estimates, which presumably disagree and so what ever number I might hear on some other network must be an exaggeration which is obviously slanted to a liberal bias. Its genius really. All he has said is true, but certainly leads the viewer toward an obvious conclusion, which is that there weren’t that many people, not matter what number you hear.

4) He mentioned that there were “political overtones …….. to vote” Notice how long that pause is and what effect it actually has. The only overtones Stewart had was “to vote” but if he leaves it at “there were political overtones” one is led to believe that Stewart was overtly anti-right. And later, he goes on to say that the rally was overall, against the tea-party. Again, while no parties were mentioned at the rally (and the message was mainly against the media), the anchor leads the viewer into the opinion that it was overt and largely derogatory when he says that the signs “seemed kinda crazy”. He conflates the signs at the rally with Stewart’s message. But if you never saw the speech, you would think it was Stewart going on and on about how bad right-wingers.

What is perhaps most significant here is the fact that these 4 points I just covered were all brought up in the first 43 seconds of the clip… and all before a single second of the video was shown. My last two points are found later in the clip and refer to 1) and 2) from above:

They again mention that the two speakers were comedians when they says that they “actually tried to be serious”; presumably this occurred only once, given the rhetoric’s implications. This is furthered when she mentions that Stewart looked “fancy in a suit”. Of course, Stewart and Colbert wear a suit for every show. And lastly, the speakers were comedians “so it had to be funny”, which again dismisses any validity that may have been found in the rally. What is perhaps the most ironic moment in the show occurs when their news correspondent for the rally was listed as a “conservative comedian”. They mention about 5 different times that comedians are only worth laugh at, and yet their correspondent was a comedian.

Lastly, the only number they did point out was the number of people the Huffington Post bused in: 10000 people (which is an estimate). So while they refuse to mention any number about total attendees, they do mention how many people they believe were bused in from New York by a liberal newspaper. But because they never give the total number, which was estimated at well over 100,000, 10,000 seems like a ton of people. Of course, it was at least less than 10%, but without mentioning the other number, the 10,000 stands out.

To be fair, they do raise a good point, pertaining to the use of Cat Stevens, at the end of the clip.

This general topic will probably become a regular theme for this blog as it has really begun to get on my nerves when watching news shows. News is about reporting; but sadly, when the reporters shade the stories with misleading commentary, viewers take it as just reporting, and are illinformed about those topics that at the heart of the story in the first place. More importantly, this all shows just how important our words are when we communicate, and this holds for all aspects of life, not just punditry.

"Mosque" Debacle Became a Newspaper Article

I had had a blog up for about a week, discussing another take on the alleged "ground zero mosque" and then was told that the Muncie Star Press had agreed to print it. So I took it down immediately. But I forgot that some of you may not have gotten word of that so this post is just to pass along the link to the article. I wouldn't recommend the comments; they truly consist of bout 4 people blindly arguing about points not relevant to my article. But read them if you desire.