Blog to Book

As of, roughly, December 23, 2012, you will be able to purchase an e-book for Kindle from Amazon.com featuring a 78 post compilation of my favorite posts from this blog. All of your (meaning my) favorite posts in e-book form which you can take with you anywhere and read over and over again without being connected to the internet. Great, right?! I set the price at $3, less than a gallon of gas! $3 for the convenience of humor and philosophical musings in your Kindle e-reader. If you don't have a Kindle, just download the free application for PC or Mac from Amazon.com.
To anyone who has been a regular reader of this blog, back in its day, or is just finding it now, please buy the e-book and enjoy the wonderfully mediocre content. I'm nearly 87% sure you won't regret it!
Thank you for paying attention to me!

Merry Christmas!

update: it has already posted...Kindle store

This blog is done

Well, folks, it has been a blast, but the whimsical revolution is finished. Ajax is retiring to the recesses of my mind and I am going to continue thinking, writing, and whimsically revolving under my real name, Paul Brodie. I'm in the process of compiling and editing (I've published a lot of typos and some unintentional grammar errors) some of my more favorite posts to put Ajax's Whimsical Revolution into an ebook. Why? Because I want to. I don't know if anyone would want to read this blog in a book format, but hopefully someone will. Also, if you are new to my writing then maybe it will be easier to get the ebook instead of clicking through hundreds of posts on the blog.
I'll post a link to the ebook once it is published. If you have enjoyed this blog, be sure to follow me at my new location paulbrodie.wordpress.com
If the new blog doesn't seem as whimsical, hang in there, I'm still working on getting all of my thoughts and interests incorporated into that location. I remain a work in progress...I mean, my internet presence remains a work in progress.
Thank you for reading!

Alaska and poetry about it

I know nothing about Alaska aside from what I've "learned" from Discovery Channel shows such as Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, and Survivor Man. Why then would I write a poem about Alaska? Because I was trying to win a creative writing contest hosted by Helium. For those who do not know, which is probably most people, Helium is a website geared towards freelance and wannabe writers. Essentially it is a knowledge base of articles written by the guy you saw at the grocery store, the woman at the bus stop, and me. I am a Helium member, contributor, author, and so forth. The hook of the site is that you can earn money, but the real hook is that you don't earn much money and what you do earn trickles in slower than ice cream melts in, yes, you guessed it, Alaska.
The point of this post is simply to post something on this blog, which doesn't happen nearly enough of late. The content of this post is to say that I wrote the aforementioned Alaska poem several weeks ago and it is still ranked 1 out of 12 posts on the Helium poetry channel. I didn't win the contest, but I was happy anyway. My made-up from nowhere poem about Alaska is ranked number 1. I haven't read the other poems, so perhaps they are all worse or less relevant than mine, but I'm happier not knowing. I think this will suffice as a blog post. And of course, what you have been waiting for, a link to my poem about Alaska.
Hmm. Jokes on me I suppose. As I found the poem page to create the link I discovered that my poem is now number 2. Thanks a lot random ranking process at Helium! You have negated this post completely! Good night, all.

Losing interest in Lost

It took some time, but I’ve finally bought into the craze that is ABC’s TV program Lost. Well, "bought in" isn't accurate, "yielded to invitations to view, for free online" is more like it.Originating in 2004 the series spanned 6 seasons and captivated audiences almost all the way through. I’ve been encouraged by friends to watch the series, but until about a month ago, I never did. The premise of the show, based on having just finished watching the entire first season, is that a plane crashes on a seemingly uncharted Pacific island and the 40+ survivors deal with it. My wife and I watched the first season on Amazon Prime beginning in July and finishing up just a few days ago. That’s my back story, now we’ll return to my review of the show.


As I said, I have been encouraged by many people to watch Lost. Everyone was always careful to not give away any of the plot twists. Perhaps if they had I wouldn’t have subjected myself to watching the entire first season. There it is, I’ve said it, I don’t particularly care for Lost. It is interesting in its use of suspense, and I do enjoy the character development with the back stories, and some of the characters are just fun, but overall, I find the series confused and disappointing. I don’t say that it confuses me, just that the story line is confused on its own.

I do not fear revealing the surprises now as the series is complete and season one is 8 years old, plus I read a study that suggested plot revelations do not spoil a book or movie experience for those who have yet to read or view them. So I won’t be concerned with keeping any secrets from you. The island the survivors are lost on is not your ordinary island. The plane was well off course and out of communication when it went down, so there is little expectancy that they will be found quickly, although many of the passengers hope for this. Overall the hope is sufficient that they delay searching for adequate food, water, and shelter for a few days. Amazingly, missing out on the basic necessities of life, and modern conveniences don’t seem to have any effect on them. They continue to look and act very healthy (physically), for the most part.

But it is a TV show, so I don’t get too caught up in the fantasy aspect of how well they are doing for being in such a fix. What does bother me is that every single person on this island, aside, perhaps, from Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, is a self-righteous, irrationally proud, prejudicial creep. Honestly, other than Hurley, I think the world is better off having this collection of nit-wits confined to the island and out of our hair. Yes, even though it is only 40 people, left to roam free throughout the earth, they would do some major damage. Hardly a full episode can pass without someone jumping to judgment and accusing someone of a heinous act, or someone says “don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

As I said before, I do enjoy the character development in the story; I just wish the characters weren’t quite so ignorant. I think Lost could have been a great show, but what happened was the creators didn’t think past the pilot episode. They though “let’s do a modern twist on Gilligan’s Island, but in a drama format instead of slap-stick, it’ll be great!” So they got started writing, casting Jack the surgeon as the Professor; Kate the fugitive as Ginger; Sun the repressed wife of a mob-style hit man as Maryanne; Sayid the former Iraqi Republican Guard communications officer also as the Professor; Shannon and Boone the crazy twins as the Howell’s; Michael the divorced parent reuniting with his biological son as some form of the Skipper and also the Professor; and Charlie, formerly of rock band Drive-Shaft (and heroin addict), and the aforementioned Hurley, lottery winner and curse-bearer, as a split act Gilligan. Other characters too, some main, some not, but those are the Gilligan’s Island comparisons for the most part. I got sidetracked on that.

Well, the creators put the show together, made a pilot episode with a good hook, and then realized they didn’t have a real story to tell. Was it going to be Robinson Crusoe with a lot of people? Or would they let the Gilligan’s Island comparison be obvious? They had no idea, so what happened? They made an invisible monster that rips trees out of the ground. They put a mysterious capsule buried out in the woods. There was a polar bear, just one, that charged a group of survivors early in the series. They even added a French woman who was shipwrecked on the island 16 years earlier, who was living, in seeming comfort, all alone for all of this time. And then there is The Others. Whispering voices in the woods who are then realized as unkempt sailors on a small boat in the final episode of the first season who kidnap a 10 year old boy from the bamboo raft. It turns out the island isn’t so uncharted and deserted after all. Who knew?!

I don’t really have a review for Lost. I liked some of the episodes, or at least parts of them, but overall I found my interest waning and my distaste waxing as each episode passed. The first season was a series of let downs at various stages in the haphazard story line. I was hopeful for different characters to take the lead and build a strong working community on the island. The resources seem to be there, they have knowledge from various walks of life, but the overall theme keeps turning out to be that these people are fatally flawed and incapable of working together. They each seem to have their moments of heroism, only to be shortly followed up with villainy or something. Granted, they are under profound stress and trauma, but it just seems like they are bouncing between extremes too quickly. Maybe the intent is to show that these are “real” people and subject to weakness and flaw, which I accept, but then they should be real people all of the time and not perform miracles one minute and not know how to tie their own shoes the next minute.

I think what it comes down to is that I’m jealous; one, because I want to live on a deserted island and see if I can survive, and two, I’ve never written a television show myself. So when I see plot twists instead of thinking “oooh! The suspense is thrilling!” I think, “no! you are doing it all wrong!” Because I envy their situation. Such as when Sawyer killed the polar bear, why didn’t they try to eat it? Maybe because they still thought they would be rescued or because Locke hadn’t busted out his knife supply yet. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have let it go to waste. I don’t know how bear meat tastes, but in that situation it seems best to find out. And other times they leave the story too full of holes. Who was Ethan? Where did he come from? Why was he helping Danielle? Why did he seem to have superpowers? Perhaps they’ll explain it in the next 5 seasons.

Yes, I will continue watching the series, but under protest. I think they had a great story and it fell apart. They got scared and thought they needed invisible dinosaurs to keep people interested. Then again, maybe I’m the only one who sees it this way. If I am, I’m 100% okay with it. In my opinion Lost is not worth its hype.

On and on and on

Okay, okay, timeout! I’m reading a Reuters news article on Yahoo! News and I find the following: “Groups calling themselves The Descendants of the Prophet Brigade and the al-Habib al-Mustafa Brigade said on a Facebook page they were jointly responsible for the bombing, which they said had killed 50 soldiers.”


I deleted my Facebook account just over two months ago. I’m pleased to announce I am living a happy and normal life. I appreciate the freedom of speech and expression afforded by the Internet, and I am not calling for censorship, but let’s just stop and think about this for a minute, terrorists and armies are announcing their efforts through a Facebook page? Twitter wasn’t good enough? Needed more than 140 characters I suppose.

I’m not even sure what I find unsettling here, but it is something. Perhaps it is the association I have in my mind with Facebook as a way to connect with friends and brag about personal accomplishments in order to garner attention. I suppose that fills the need for claiming responsibility for a terrorist action. It all just seems really ridiculous. But I don’t know why it should, Facebook is the new newspaper. Underground and revolutionary movements thrive on communication ability. In the past this meant having a printing press. Now it means having an Internet connection.

Regardless of why this was shocking to me, I’m concerned over how well we all just sit back and let these things happen. The wars I mean, not the Facebook postings, well maybe that too in some cases, but I’m talking about the wars primarily. The world as a whole has no clear purpose or direction. This planet is a wayward teenager, listing about, looking for cheap thrills, trying to find their way. There is simply too much selfish pride. It is actually unfair to call the world a teenager, unfair to the teenager that is. The world isn’t listless or lazy, it is selfishly proud.

No one is willing to bend on their culture enough to accept anyone else. You don’t have to bend on your personal morals in order to appreciate a differing point of view. Unfortunately so many cultures embrace immoral behavior, yes, immoral from my perspective, but all cultures have these things. Those are the aspects of culture that need to be forgotten. Selfish pride stands in the way, individually and collectively. Science needs to forget about Mars, global warming, and fat-free foods for a while and focus on human relationships and selfishness. I guarantee if we can eliminate selfishness we will eliminate a lot of these other issues we are spending our time on. Stop treating the symptoms and treat the underlying issue.

I suppose it will treat itself eventually. The cancer of pride eventually kills the body. Or we could forget the 401k and the thrill-seeking and unite ourselves as a human family. We can work the land and feed ourselves and our neighbors. We can teach each other the good customs and traditions we have that educate and build our communities. We can enjoy laughter and exercise and healthy competition. Or we can keep on with our contentious one-upmanship, fighting, and exploitive entertainment. If we all quit being selfish we can turn this thing around.

How to fix everything

I found an interesting quote in a comment string under a news article regarding a current political event. The quote was posted as follows:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813)

A quick search in Google tells me that this is a composite quote, not necessarily by Tytler as the comment poster cites it, and possibly of unknown origin. I feel like I’ve been through this all before, finding a quote I really liked, searching for the author, and finding that it has been attributed to several people, throughout time, and across nations. Well, it isn’t important who penned the words; the important thing is the apparent truth of them.

The cycle set forth, from bondage to faith to courage to liberty to abundance to selfishness to complacency to apathy to dependency and back to bondage, is prevalent in all aspects of life. You can find this cycle of behavior in your own life. It appears in individual behavior and in group behavior, and if you look into history, it appears in the course of large nations. What intrigues me is that it always seems to happen, and that it is clearly happening in the United States right now.

I can’t fully imagine a war fought on U.S. soil, but some of the current events seem to point that way. Thinking about this cycle of bondage points that way, too, if we look at the U.S. over the last 60 years. There was great prosperity and abundance after World War II. There were ups and downs along the way, but for the most part, the latter half of the 20th century was prosperous. The result is Generation Y, intent on finding pleasure, immediate pleasure, in all aspects of life. They, along with many of the generation that made them, (I’m on the cusp between Generation X and Generation Y, so I don’t know how I fit into this mess), therefore, we, are selfish, complacent, and apathetic.

We want services, but we don’t want to pay for them. We know there are a lot of people struggling in the world, but we’d rather watch people eat live tarantulas in prime-time than figure out how to help feed the children being neglected down the street. We know that people are suffering, but we don’t care. We are dependent upon the “gracious” hand of Uncle Sam. I have been thinking that the government has become its own entity that it was no longer made up of people, that it no longer represented the people. I hoped that the people still consisted of the types in the faith and courage part of the cycle outlined above. Now I wonder. Maybe the government really does represent the people. Maybe the greed and corruption we see in the government isn’t some separate body from the people of this country, but is an accurate sample of the people of this country. If this is the case, it is time for a new declaration of independence.

Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress declared independence from the British Monarchy on behalf of the people living in the American colonies at the time. Great Britain fought against the rebellion, but lost. Human liberty won. Human liberty is now threatened again, but not by the control of a foreign government. It is threatened by the control of a domestic government; it is threatened by the people of the country. We are endangering ourselves. How do we declare independence from ourselves?

War? I can’t picture what it would look like, and I hope it doesn’t come down to that. But the alternative is changing the way we do business (meaning how we conduct ourselves in general, day to day), and this doesn’t seem to be a realizable option. Without a change, without war, it will continue to stagnate and putrefy, and we will find ourselves in bondage.

As though we aren’t currently in bondage, I believe we are. In our country of liberty, I am not free to own anything of my own accord. Most items are taxed at point of sale, and then again yearly through registration fees, property tax, and income tax. I might buy a vehicle, but then I’m required to register it every year and be covered by insurance. If I don’t buy insurance, I can be fined, another form of tax. Now we will enter a similar process with health insurance. Buy it or be taxed. I can “buy” property, but then I pay taxes on it every year. If I wanted to have my own farm on which I raised crop and animals enough to provide for my family, I couldn’t do it unless I paid the taxes and licensing fees to do it. There is no ownership, there is only rental.

I might not be so unhappy about the arrangement if the rental fees I paid to the government were used for the purposes they are marketed to be used as, or at least, if the purposes they are used for were relevant to me. I understand property taxes insofar as they pay for local shared utilities and services. I can see the wisdom in this type of community living, what I cannot see the wisdom in is these monies being used to pay someone an extravagant salary and retirement. It has all gotten out of hand. And we’ve done it to ourselves. We have given up on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in return for a little security on what we have at the moment.

At some point we gave up our faith, and relied upon our own courage. But that was imperfect and we got scared, so when we developed any kind of abundance, we safeguarded it, but not through faith and personal courage, through fear and reliance upon an outside influence. All we had to do was give up a little bit of our liberty in exchange. So we did. And then with the security it gave, we fell into complacency, and ever since the carpet has been being pulled out from under us, inch by inch, a little at a time, until now we are on the very edge, about to have it yanked out from under us completely. The sick joke is that we are the ones pulling the carpet! We are about to pulled the carpet right out from under our own feet and then act surprised when we are lying face down on the floor.

We built a house of cards and it is about to fall over. Will we be able to rebuild that house of cards, or will someone else get to the deck first and change the game? In reality the game already changed a long time ago. While some were still working on the house of cards, others were slowly taking cards off of the house and reshuffling them in preparation for a new game. We can all buy in to the new game; of course, the ante is your freedom.

There is one answer, and it is found in that cycle describing our return to bondage. The path starts out in bondage, and the delivery from bondage is found in faith. Faith is the answer. The beauty of the process is that it can be restarted at anytime. We don’t have to return to full bondage (remember, we are already in bondage), we can go right to increasing faith, and then when we are able to incorporate courage, and abundance, we go right back to faith. It can be done, but only if we eliminate selfishness. Again, the root of all problems is selfishness. Meaning the solution to all problems is humility. Further, the root and solution to all problems lies within each individual person in choosing how they will live and relate to other people. Now for the whimsical portion of this revolution, we have the power within us to affect this change; we have always had it, just like E.T., Dorothy, and Rocky IV.

I want peas...World peas

          Homer Simpson once joined the Navy reserve. In comical fashion he found himself having dinner with the Commander of the submarine he was serving on. The Commander asked Homer what he wanted more than anything else. Homer, with a bowl of peas, just out of reach, responded "Peas." The Commander, hearing "peace" was thrilled, and asked how Homer expected to get it, to which he responded "with a knife!" He then used a knife to retrieve some peas from the bowl. The gag continues, but that should be sufficient for explaining the title of this post. Now on to explaining the body of the post.

          What follows is my response to a discussion question in my online Social and Cultural Psychology class. This week is the final and then another class is finished along my Master's pathway. The question was regarding optimistic and pessimistic views of the possibility of global unity. Here is my response copied directly over from the discussion board wall:

         I really wish I would have kept one of my books from a sociology class a few years ago. The book was by John Turner and in it he mapped out his theory of racial discrimination. He had a flow chart in the book that showed how discrimination lead to identifiability, which eventually lead to increased discrimination. I’ve always found this to be fascinating because to me it means that the more we focus on the differences and how they need to be accepted, we inadvertently increased the separation. You can’t glue a broken vase back together by focusing on how broken the pieces are, you have to get some glue and put the pieces back together. Typically you’ll need some sort of brace as well to hold it in place as the glue dries.

         Now with global unity we can look at it in the model of a broken vase. It is an easy comparison to visualize with the jagged property lines between states and countries across the globe. We are all people, but we don’t focus on that; we don’t focus on the glued together vase, we simply keep to our own broken piece of porcelain and focus on how broken the rest of the vase is in comparison to our little intact piece. Many countries want to get the vase back together, but not for the sake of getting the vase back together, but rather in order to increase the size of their piece.

         Lately I’m finding myself to be very pessimistic although I feel that I am a generally hopeful person. I don’t believe I am a “downer” to other people. People seem to be generally entertained by me, so I don’t consider myself a pessimist or depressing person. But my point of view regarding global unity would probably be classified as pessimistic. I believe that since we are all humans, we share a really strong bond of commonality. Global unity takes more than a familial tie, however. Global unity is going to require a great deal of compromise. As we have just discussed the differences and similarities between cultures based on Hofstede’s values, we see that there are some dramatic differences in cultural motivations and practices.

         A culture that believes in a central government that governs the masses is going to have a tough time melding with a culture that believes that the family governs itself and neighbors simply coexist in peace, because they do, without government intervention. Likewise, cultures where women are beneath men, and baby girls are sacrificed to vain pride of the parents, will clash with cultures where human life is respected and all children, all genders are celebrated just because they are of our human family (although it seems like these types of countries are fewer and fewer these days). These types of differences in culture and other differences that are more extreme can’t coexist in peace. One or the other has to give if the two are going to coexist. The question then becomes which aspect of each culture has to yield and which aspect gets to thrive?

         Why is global unity difficult to imagine? Because there is too much selfish pride in the world. Until this is eradicated cultures will remain broken pieces of a vase. Focusing on the broken pieces of the vase will never get it back together. Some of the unique aspects of those broken pieces will need to be lost in order to reunite into one vase again. Assimilation is necessary to form one united culture. I don’t expect to see this happen without a very influential uniting factor, such as war, disease, famine, or love. I think it would be great for the world to unite in love, but I don’t think it will happen without some huge shifts in current trends. Until we have a global uniting factor, a common belief, I don’t see it happening. We already share the same blood, which is a pretty intimate connection, but that hasn’t been enough for the world to see past skin color and eye shape. As unpopular and divisive sounding as my opinion is, I don’t believe unity will exist until the focus on differences is abandoned and the focus on similarities embraced. Please note I said “the focus on” and not the differences themselves. I am not supporting a culture of clones, but rather a culture of individuals with common goals and ideals. I think if people would forget themselves just a little bit, and reduce their need for competition, they would find that there are some basic beliefs we could all agree on without losing individuality and creativity.

Occupy May Day

          I will not begin to pretend like I know what the Occupy movement is all about. I think they are trying to show that the people, united, are still the controlling power in this country. It's either that or they can't afford to pay their cable bill anymore and they are getting bored at home. Maybe I'm being too generous. I don't know what their motives are, but I know they are asking me to not go to work, to not participate in my grad school class, to not clean my home, to not purchase anything, and to publicly demonstrate against capitalism. Well, I won't be doing any of that stuff for May 1st.

          I will be occupying my desk at work, because I need to get paid. The reason I need to get paid is that I need to occupy the kitchen cupboards with food for my family so that we can occupy our stomachs with sustenance.

          I hate the trend of our country right now, I think the government is out of control and out of touch, and a lot of the people in the country are right there with them. But I don't see how taking leave of our responsibilities to walk around a street with a sign is going to do anything. I guess we'll see tomorrow. If 99% of the country stays home or protests tomorrow and then everything changes on Wednesday, I guess I'll be surprised. My predictions for May 1st is a lot of people with greasy hair being sprayed with pepper spray and then arrested. Prove me wrong, occupiers, prove me wrong!

A quick bit of opinion from the news

I was clicking through the Yahoo! news top stories and came across this:

From: http://news.yahoo.com/why-i-trust-young-voters-more-than-any-politician.html

I read the piece, it's an opinion, at some points I disagree, at other points I do agree. But that's not what caught my eye. The caption that the Yahoo! writers have chosen to lead into this story is:

"The Def Jam co-founder believes this generation has the potential to shape the next 40 years."

All I have to add is, "duh?"

Look what I can do

I miss writing blog posts, but I've been pretty busy writing school assignments lately. I'd hate to go an entire month without posting anythying, an entire month name-wise, I've probably gone more than 30 days at a stretch by now. So, in the interest of posting something for April, here is one of my recent school assignments, I chose this one because of my concluding paragraph. You can take the boy out of the regular whimsical revolutionary blogging, but you can't take the whimsical revolutionary blogging out of the boy...

Making decisions based on judgment is at the heart of living. As we interact socially with people of various levels of familiarity, we are constantly making judgments of people whether we know it or not. We make our decisions based on appearance, observed behavior, or initial strains of conversation. The culture we are socialized into determines a lot about the judgments we make. Nationality, religion, political agenda, and fashion interests all play into the judgments we make about people. Social psychologists study these judgments and their accuracy in applying the term fundamental attribution error, which is that we are more likely to attribute a person’s behavior to internal causes rather than external causes, interestingly the opposite of how we tend to attribute our own behavior. This paper delves into the cultural influence evident in the fundamental attribution error and applies the theory to recent social psychological research.

When happening upon a scene in public, we often don’t know much about the setting and environment of that moment. When we see someone behaving a certain way in that setting we don’t necessarily know why they are doing what they are doing, or how they perceive the setting they are in. What do we do in this situation? We are going to make a judgment about the person, consciously or not, and we will more than likely attribute the actions of the person to their personality, not their environment (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010, p. 99). When we see a young woman by the fountain downtown with her arms up like wings, twirling in circles, we will most likely think she is an outgoing and unconventional, if not worse, person. What we are missing is the camera focused on her filming her antics for a school video project. According to Changingminds.org (2012), “this can be due to our focus on the person more than their situation, about which we may know very little. We also know little about how they are interpreting the situation.”

Various cultures reflect the fundamental attribution error in different ways. What makes this process so common is its focus on the person, rather than the situation, a common process among Western cultures. North America, primarily, represents Western cultural thinking, which is to focus on the individual and analytic thinking, while the countries of Eastern Asia focus on the bigger picture, including the environment in which something occurs (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010, p.104). Because of these differences, the fundamental attribution error is more frequently espoused in Western thinking societies. “Western culture exacerbates this error, as we emphasize individual freedom and autonomy and are socialized to prefer dispositional factors to situational ones” (Changing Minds, 2012). Other cultural factors, such as gender perceptions may play into the judgments we make. A man who is brought up in a misogynistic culture, upon seeing a woman in a traffic accident, will attribute the crash to the fact that she is a woman rather than seek for external influences in the accident, such as icy roads or vehicle malfunction.

An interesting study about attributing social behavior to personal qualities was conducted by Brumbaugh and Rosa in 2009. Looking at coupon use trends among different ethnoracial and socioeconomic groups, the researchers studied the results of embarrassment and cashier influence on the customer’s use of coupons. This study doesn’t involve the fundamental attribution error directly; instead it looks at the perception of the error in the minds of customers. In this case, the fundamental attribution error is made by a cashier, judging coupon use by different racial or economic groups as a reflection of the person, rather than their situation, in turn this judgment is perceived by the customer and leads to embarrassment and influences their use of coupons (Brumbaugh and Rosa, 2009). The researchers found that customer perceptions of judgment did affect coupon usage in statistically significant ways (2009). While the study’s purpose was not to identify or apply the fundamental attribution error to consumerism, the theory is applicable. We can see in this study how the judgments we make about a person without fully comprehending a situation, thereby attributing behavior solely to internal factors, can influence how we will treat that person.

The fundamental attribution error exists and is influenced by cultural and socialization factors. Perhaps judgments of internal attribution based on observed behavior are unfair or inaccurate much of the time, but the alternative is to launch an investigation into any behavior we see and need to make a decision about. It might be unrealistic to expect such endeavors for everyday life. In some cases it might not only be unrealistic, but impractical or even dangerous to try to determine the environmental cause for behavior. If I come across a person wildly waving a sword around in the park, I’m going to assume the worst and steer clear of them. Even if their behavior can be attributed to a situational factor such as defending against a swarm of bees (as impractical as that would be), approaching for further investigation doesn’t seem any safer than making a judgment based on internal attributions to the swordsman.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., and Akert, R.M. (2010). Social Psychology (7th ed.). Englewood, Cliffs, NJ: Prentice. ISBN-13: 9780138144784.

Brumbaugh, A.M. & Rosa, J.A. (2009). Perceived discrimination, cashier metaperceptions, embarrassment, and confidence as influencers of coupon use: An ethnoracial- socioeconomic analysis. Journal of Retailing, 85(3), 347-362. Doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2009.04.008. Retrieved March 31, 2012 from ProQuest http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.library.gcu.edu:2 048/docview/228620801?accountid=7374

Changing Minds. (2012). Fundamental Attribution Error. Retrieved April 3, 2012, from

http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/fundamental_attribution_error.htm

Renewable Energy

I think it is interesting how much work and worry we put into energy, both fossil fuel and renewable. What would you say if I told you that there have already been countless civilizations who have mastered renewable, clean energy? It's true. Civilizations who would be declared archaic in comparison to our civilization today have mastered clean energy. The most ironic part of it all is that as we entered the industrial age we left behind the clean, renewable energy age. All of our advances in technology have made us more dependent on the diminishing (or so they say, but I don't believe it) resources such as oil.

Think about it for a minute, tractors today run on diesel fuel and do the job of oxen and horses from years past, which oxen and horses run on grass, water, and sunlight. There's your renewable bio fuels: grass, water, and sunlight. We are so far off the mark. Sure, medical advances, communication advances, all that, but do we really need it? What is life all about anyway? Couldn't we accomplish the core purposes without the Internet, the Kindle, Facebook, and Dancing with the Stars? We don't even know what the core purposes of life are any more, not as a collective understanding at least. And when you have sub groups that know the core purposes, they want to kill or convert anyone else who has a different concept of the core purposes.

We are spinning our wheels. I just spent three hours doing ridiculous calculations on numbers for my statistics final exam. Before that I spent 8 hours talking to people about computer software issues regarding electronic storage of image and loan application documents. All for a paycheck. All so I can utilize more diminishing sources of energy. I should say consume, rather than utilize. What did I accomplish today? Nothing, when you qualify things. I spent nearly the entire time I've been awake in front of a computer at work and then a computer at home. It was a beautiful Spring day, but I was inside for all of it except to drive the two miles to the office and back. I spent all of 30 minutes (and that's generous) interacting with my wife, and that was to eat breakfast and dinner together. She was sitting a few feet away from me while I was doing my exam, but we weren't spending time together. How can a day be successful if all I've done is generate some ethereal numbers in my electronic balance for my bank account? All I did was consume non-renewable resources.

How about we start a new occupy movement, called occupy common sense? How about we occupy the ground and grow our own food? How about we occupy the Earth and use renewable energy to secure our basic needs and then spend the rest of the time interacting with each other in philosophical and educational pursuits? We don't need universities, textbooks, science labs, or the Internet to be educated. Oh well.

Looks like I haven't posted this yet

I'm not sure why I made this if it wasn't to post on here. Perhaps I made it for Facebook, since it has my name in it and I was keeping that as a secret identity for a while. I came across this on my storage drive and think it is worth sharing now, so here it is:

Vending Machine Education

Does anyone else feel at times that college is no more than a vending machine for a diploma? You put your quarters into that machine, one after one, and then maneuver the joy stick to direct the steel claw over to your chosen field of study and press the red button. The claw is released and (after a dozen or so more tries) it grabs the diploma and drops it into the prize recovery area. It is perhaps a little more complicated than this, but I wouldn't say too much more. That's one way to see college as a vending machine, but not exactly how I initially constructed the idea.
I'm completing my weekly assignment for my current class, Statistics, for the Master's program I am enrolled in. I am at times a little less than attentive to the questions because I know they are not being graded. Each week I complete between 40 and 50 questions from the end of the chapters assigned for reading that week. The procedure is to answer the questions, submit them, and then receive a grade based on completion rather than accuracy. This is great...for when I don't want to learn anything. I answer the questions, some of them accurately, until I get low on time or interest, whichever comes first, although both usually arrive at pretty much the same time in some Happy Days comic fashion when Ralph "Mouth" and Potzie show up at the same door-step, at the same time, with the same discount store roses to take Mary Sue to the sock hop at the American Legion. The point is that I don't put a lot of effort into answering these questions. I accept full responsibility for this, but I can't help but notice there are some aspects of the program that make this sort of behavior possible for me.
The vending machine is marvelous. It is the hallmark of convenience. The best part about it is that it is unmanned. If I owned a vending machine I could spend an hour a week stocking it and retrieving money from it and call it a day. The machine does all the work. Here I compare the current process of completing assignments in this class. I answer several dozen questions and submit them. The instructor returns to me a grade. The instructor didn't instruct me, they simply gave me a reading assignment and indicated which textbook questions I should answer. In follow through, I receive a grade and a filled-in answer key. If I am motivated I can review my answers and find out how I'm doing. Of course since I am not very motivated, to say the least - only in regards to this topic, statistics, I'm motivated to learn otherwise -I don't review my answers to the questions after I get the answer key. I chalk it up to a combination of the condensed time frame for the course (8 weeks) and the difficulty of instructor/student interaction through an online environment, not to mention (yet I am?) I work full-time and have other responsibilities in addition to school. Still, it is slightly disappointing that I am required to put in this effort without substantial feedback and monitoring.
Don't get me wrong, I love to learn on my own schedule without someone breathing down my neck, and I often read and think about things for the purpose of educating myself, everyday in fact. The difference here is that I'm not paying anyone for my own educational pursuits. When I am paying someone and my progress determines my eligibility for a degree I expect more follow up and direction. This is like going to Plato (who I tend to disagree with his philosophies the more I read about them) to be instructed by this historically celebrated teacher, and then he hands you a paperback copy of The One Minute Manager (no offense to Ken Blanchard, I read the book and found it valuable, but in contrast with learning at the feet of a master, it doesn't quite compare). Perhaps a better example is going to Mr. Myagi and hearing him tell you he'll e-mail you some "neat vids" he found on YouTube to teach you karate.
I should get back to finishing my assignment now. The point is that I don't think online education should be like a vending machine, I'd rather it be like walking into the candy store in Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder. Rather than putting money into a coin slot and getting a foil wrapped chocolate bar, you drop a few shillings into the flesh and blood hand of an eccentric man who will then sing you a song and pour unwrapped candy into your hands with a small shovel. That's the kind of education I want!

Calendar

Muffin Man is a great Facebook status writer. I've decided to take some of his status updates and try to turn them into a comedy routine. Here is a bit based on his update...

Well, it’s 2012, the year of a major political battle for the U.S. presidency, the year of the warmest January in recorded history, and the last year of existence as we know it, according to some. The Mayan calendar ends in December 2012. Since their civilization ended about a thousand years ago, I’d say their calendar did pretty well. I don’t see how we should get so worked up about the end of a calendar made so long ago, I mean, I buy a calendar every year, sometimes with motivational pictures of kittens, other times dramatic scenes from the Harry Potter movies, and all of those calendars end in December. That’s just what calendars do, they end in December. I don’t open my new calendar each January, flip through it, and then exclaim, ‘Happy New Year! See y’all at the apocalypse next December!’ What it comes down to is we have more faith in an extinct ancient civilization to keep the time accurately than we do in Hallmark…

Oreo cookies and graduate statistics

75% of me really doesn't like stats homework, the other 25% hates it. I started out with the 13 pages worth of questions in good spirits. I was answering questions with ease as I was remembering the French-accented Dr. Deltoid (yes, a nickname), my undergrad research methods professor, and all that I learned in his class. I remembered distributions and measurement scales; independent and dependent variables, even what between group and within group mean. It was almost a joy, until I hit the part where I was given data and needed to organize it and create charts and tables. You see, in my undergrad classes (stats and research methods) we were required to purchase a program called SPSS. I purchased that program and complained quite frequently about how slow it was. Well, it turns out that the program is a million and a half times faster than I am at creating histograms and frequency polygons in Excel, manually. Can you believe Excel doesn't have built in functions to automatically create histograms from a grouped frequency chart? I know!

Well, needless to say, but here I am saying it anyway, because this was the point of writing (negating the usefulness of ever saying 'needless to say' in any seriousness), I wish I had SPSS. I don't know if I still have the CD for the program or not. It could be in a box in my parents' attic, or possibly in a box about 10 feet from me right now, I don't remember, it could also be in a trash dump out in Idaho somewhere after I gleefully tossed it out when I left school. One of these days, perhaps tomorrow, I'll check the box here at the apartment to see if it is still in my possession, otherwise I'm seriously contemplating a 3 hour round trip to scour the attic for it. The alternative is to drop $60 for a new one year licensed copy. Come to think of it, that probably is the best option, I'll spend close to the same amount on gas driving to my parents' house. Even if I find that I do have the CD, I might not be able to run it because it is probably a limited use license and it has been a few years since I bought it. Well, such is life.

I'm glad to be finished with this assignment, and until I have SPSS, or until I look at what next week's assignment entails, I am going to be dreading week two of this class. At least I have some Oreo cookies to keep me energized.

Mixed Nuts

As I sat at the table after dinner my attention was drawn to the bowl of nuts left over from Christmas. The variety bowl of shelled nuts has served as a center piece/meal supplement for going on three weeks now. Next to it is a smaller bowl with the nutcracker and shell fragments. The process of shelling nuts has taught me a few things. First, I like the crazy looking nut that slightly resembles an alien spacecraft I saw on the X-Files or some such show once. I have no idea what type of nut it is, but i like it. The almonds are also good, but I think I prefer those smoked, or adorning chocolate covered coconut. The second thing I learned is that I will never again criticize or question the cost of shelled nuts you can buy in the store. Never again!

In the past, back before I tried my hand at cracking and shelling nuts, I often wondered why it cost so much money for a jar of nuts. But not anymore, no, not after realizing just how difficult it is to crack a shell and not smash the nut inside. Not after seeing how far the shards and splinters of shells spread explosively after making the first crack on the nut. I learned to keep on hand wrapped around the shell and to apply pressure more evenly, but they still shatter in an out of control fashion. By experiencing the work that each little tiny nut requires in order to spring the tiny morsel from its woody cage, I will never again question the $25 price tag on an ounce of macadamias. I won't wonder why you can buy a 5 pound bag of raw peanuts in the shell for $9 or a jar of raw shelled peanuts for pennies on the pound. In fact, I wouldn't even question if they started paying us to take the nuts in shells because it is so much work to shell them. It is probably cheaper just to give them away.

Well, this was a funnier thought when I was telling Taylor about it while cracking the nuts, spending minutes on extracting small fragments from the shattered remains. Your loss.