An Open Letter

Dear Planned Parenthood,

I went to a GOP viewing party at a local bar tonight. I got off of work early and thought it would be cool to actually see a Planned Parenthood event up close, since the only thing I've seen in the media is hostility and one-sided reports. Since I'm poor, I didn't buy a beer, but I sat down next to my girlfriend and watched the debate in progress...
...and was completely insulted by the organizer of the program. Now, debate games are a given nowadays, especially with the rancor and incivility that plagues America's political debates. Thus, the GOP BINGO was totally fine and I played along. The sheet was filled with some of the following:

• Donald Trump mentions his wealth
• ISIS
• Israel
• Donald Trump calls someone a loser
• Men and Women in uniform, and the given
• Planned Parenthood

Now as a moderate leaning conservative, I totally understand these and the vast majority of GOP candidates deserve all of the ridicule the receive. I consider myself a Republican-in-exile. Still, I like to be informed and not just get my news from carefully selected sound clips on Facebook the next day.

The debate was surprisingly more civil than expected. Of course I don't agree with it all, but I don't agree with Bernie and Hillary all the time either. However, what got me was the constant interruptions from the event organizer, who constantly added rude commentary to the debate. In the most condescending and rude tone, comments were added such as, "oh, that counts for America, he said something nice about it.", "oh, they like science now because they are okay with solar energy", and my personal [un]favorite, when Rubio referenced the democratic transition in Myanmar/Burma, "it's called Burma, he can't even get the name right!".

You know what lady, I don't know you nor your story, but I can honestly say my impression of Planned Parenthood just went down the tube because of you. You not only continually insulted the intelligence of the people in attendance by assuming they couldn't make their own opinion and are all just drones to one candidates' political ideology, be it Bernie, Hillary, or someone else, but you did so in such a snarky, condescending way that you assumed you were 100% right. Worse, you didn't even give yourself time to think about some of the valid points that were brought up, especially considering the rights of women.

The topic of rights in the middle east was brought up. You made fun of the Republicans for that, namely because they used the term "Arab". Really? That's it? Trump's Islamophobia is despicable and should be ignored, but you wouldn't even stop to consider some of the valid points that were brought up? About the status of women in many Middle Eastern countries? About the lack of protection for LGBT peoples' in the area and outright persecution in others? Or about how there are many, many good and peaceful Muslims that hate to see their faith hijacked and used for terror? You're going to mock that because a guy with an (R) behind his name said it? Screw you, lady. You're the reason our politics are so vile.

You made jokes at their expense when they started naming countries with statements like, "oh, they know geography now!" and other non-issues. Lady, these people are not idiots. Ted Cruz, a man I loathe, is an incredibly smart man who was a Supreme Court clerk and argued many cases and worked with many justices. John Kasich has been in politics for decades and has worked across the isle on many issues. No, I don't agree with him defunding Planned Parenthood in Ohio, but that goes to show that no politician is perfect and you shouldn't agree 100% with any candidate. Even Donald Trump, the loudmouth bigot of American politics, is a very smart man who knows exactly what he is doing and how to accomplish his goals, which unfortunately for the American public are not very good. 

You assume just because everyone there is at a Planned Parenthood event that they automatically vote (D). You are wrong. There are plenty of moderates and conservatives that support PP and their efforts, but asses like you just rub everyone the wrong way. I wasn't drinking because of the debate, I was drinking every time you made some smart-ass comment. That was the true travesty - the death of voter decency. We can't force the candidates to be mature and civil, but we as informed voters surely can get ourselves to be.

The fact this was sponsored by Planned Parenthood is disgusting. I support PP in their efforts to educate people on sex. I think the best way to avoid pregnancy and abortion is prevention. This event, however, reinforced some stereotypes that PP is a liberal organization funded by the government and that tries to hold sway in politics. That is not your job, PP - stay out of politics.

Oh, and lady, you are literally the exact stereotype of the feminists that everyone likes to make fun of. I'm sure you're fine outside of politics, but you are nasty within it. Please stay out and stick to helping women and men within the contexts of your job.

Of course, I'll be there at the Democratic Debate watch party with the bingo cards including "Hillary's misdeeds" and "Bernie promises something free". On second thought, I doubt you'll even be fair enough to give something like that even a thought...but hey, because a democrat says something, it's totally okay, right?

Signed,

An angry moderate

Aforementioned stereotypical feminist (credit)

A rant about #StarWars

I just got back from seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I need to use this blog to vent. #spoilers, as always. Duh

JJ ABRAMS YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DROP MY JAW WITH THIS MOVIE? DEAR MOTHER OF GOD I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW HAPPY I WAS TO SEE YOU WERE DIRECTING THIS. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF MY CHILDHOOD WAS CONSUMED BY STAR WARS?! The area scene in episode two - a personal favorite (overlooking the prequels glaring defects, the series was still great); I was a Jedi for Halloween more than once; I still have lightsabers from yesteryear!

#morespoilers JJ, I get it - Disney gives you a script and tells you to make a movie that will impress the audience and make them a shit ton of money - you did that, arguably very successfully. But at what cost? This is just my personal opinion, but you just forsook the entire extended universe that has been crafted over the past few decades for this movie that is, albeit great, but very shallow, answers few questions, and ultimately tries too hard to be like the first three.
Could you maybe get your own plot? George Lucas already used Episode VII's for Episode IV. Seriously; let's go thorough a checklist.

• Parent-less child stuck on a desert planet inhabited with slavers and used metal parts salesman - THIS HAS BEEN USED LITERALLY TWICE IN A SERIES WITH SIX MOVIES - TWO FUCKING TIMES!!!
• Said parent-less child dreams of adventure and Jedi, the rebellion, and basically anything that is off her god-forsaken desert planet - SEE POINT ABOVE - ALREADY USED JJ
• Rebellion (?) hero is ambushed by the bad guys and has to use a droid to get the galaxy-saving message back to base - GUYS COME ON
• Unknown parent-less hero stumbles upon helpless droid and saves it, ultimately earning its trust and subsequently its galaxy-saving secret
• Parent-less child and now unknown hero is saved from local thugs/nature by another unknown hero, thus leading to friendship - at least in this movie HE ISN'T A FUCKING JEDI
• New heroes are ambushed by bad guys on desert planet and have to escape in a "piece of junk" - HAHA I GET IT BECAUSE APPARENTLY THE MILLENNIUM FALCON APPARENTLY HASN'T BEEN UPGRADED IN 30+ YEARS EVEN THOUGH THEY SAVED THE GALAXY AND ARE CLEARLY SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR PEOPLE IN THE GALAXY. WAY TO GO HAN - WISE MONEY INVESTMENTS. 
• Bad guys use super big megaweapon to destroy a planet(s) full of innocent people just because they're dicks - seriously...the superweapon...the bad guys have to have had other things to do in their time, right?
• While doing something, one of the unknown heroes discovers he/she is/are force sensitive and shit and starts to use a lightsaber given to them by someone older
• Hero rebels (seriously guys, you beat them like 30 years ago) formulate plan involving X-Wings to destroy big evil megaweapon that is going to attack and destroy their planet in T-minus 4 hours - even down to the X wing characters, the fat guy included (at least they included girls this time, amiright? #genderequality)
• Huge massive fucking superweapon can be easily destroyed by a simple torpedo or two into a critical area - whoever is designing this things, execute them immediately - seriously
• Hero X-Wing pilot utters phrase "I'm going in" on a trench while being pursued by X Wings - couldn't even try there Disney, could ya? 
• Unwilling hero returns to save other hero in the nick of time in order to save the entire group of good guys from being blown up from big bad megaweapon about to be fired - oh well at least this time they both can use a lightsaber like pros against a seasoned (Sith?) fighter
• Older, seemingly wiser mentor sacrifices (?) self to former sibling/friend in order that others can fulfill whatever job/plot they are supposed to - alright I'll lay off this one a little; Harrison Ford is 73 and ain't getting any younger, despite what the constant plane crash survivals say. Plus apparently he wasn't really feeling any more Star Wars. Still...Obi Wan much?
• Bad guy barely escapes to boss bad guy as entire superweapon is destroyed - at least in this one they didn't show him escaping...well, the earthquake split was still pretty dumb
• Rebels are all happy and celebrating at the end on their lush green moon base - at least there were no awards this time

/endlist

Okay seriously, in all honesty I get it. The original actors are pretty much done, and Disney needed a way to transition them out respectfully while getting a new generation of Star Wars fans excited with new characters and locations, as well as plots. I can understand. It's a hard, bittersweet job that has to be done. But why, for the name of all that is holy, would you not use the hundreds of Extended Universe books that have already been written? There are literally hundreds of hours of material out there, and instead YOU MAKE THEM NON-CANON AND JUST DISMISS THEM?! Jacen, Jania, Anakin, and Ben are all super interesting characters with deep subplots and you just are like, "nah, put a girl on a desert planet". 

Also, could Carrie Fisher possibly look like she wants to be there? I get it that she's old and her and her husband weren't on good terms, but I almost feel like she shouldn't have even been included. Did she just peace out from the New Republic and is instead just chilling with new "rebels"? BY THE WAY THE REBELS ARE NO LONGER REBELS - THE EMPIRE REMNANTS (THE FIRST ORDER) ARE THE REBELS - WHY ISN'T THE NEW REPUBLIC FIGHTING THEM?! I like my proxy wars as much as the next, but it doesn't make sense.

Lastly, stop trying to introduce all of these back characters. Who the heck even was the boss of the bad guys anyways? The rule of two must be followed - don't go fucking that up. Also, can we talk about Kylo Ren for a second? Whereas Vader was a seasoned pro and expert at handling situations (even if it involved choking an admiral or two), Ren acts like a little padawan, destroying everything with his little cross saber whenever things don't go his way. That's no way how the bad guy in a Star Wars movie should act. My only hope (ha) is that the future movies end up justifying all/most of this by clarifying a few things and by showing us things that have us look back and go "ahhhh"...

Overall, I still give the movie a positive 7/10, because it did things that had to be done. Still, as voiced above, some parts of my heart broke over the movie. Disney, man, what are you gonna do about it?

¿y que crees, niño?

Disculpa, por favor, que escribiré en español por esto blog. Que me he ahogado en la lengua y maneras española, y no veo un razón para acabar ahora. Claro que español no es mi lengua nativa, asi mi español no es perfecta. Quedase conmigo y oiga; hay que comenzar a mejorarme en cualquier manera.

Estoy cansado. Ya se sabe la vida estudiantil, pero dios mio, hay siempre mucho que hacer. Tarea y libros puedo hacer sin problema; tengo mas problemas ahora con las políticas y activismo en campus.

Ved; soy un hombre cristiano, liberal, y abierto a nuevos ideas. Me gusta que vivo en un ciudad tan liberal y abierto donde puedo hablar y ver otras culturas, lenguas, y maneras de vivir en una manera seguro y respetable. Jesús nunca nos dijo que debemos vivir en una burbuja, vació de diversión, diversidad, y situaciones que nos pongan fuera de la zona de comodidad. Así es la vida; vida en general puede ser incomodo. Pienso que la iglesia cristiana ha venido tan lejos en formando y aceptando otras maneras de pensar, y no pienso que todo de esto es malo. En contra con la inquisición, somos mejores.

Y si, todavía existen gente religiosa y cristiana que usa su fe en Jesús como una espalda para luchar contra cualquier grupo de personas con que no esta de acuerdo. Creo que sea muy evidente que nuestro fe no fue hecho para se usa así. Jesús era un hombre de amor y justicia, dos características que Israel antigua faltaba mucho en sus días. y si, el no era una persona fácil de convencer; hay algunas regalos en el mundo, y hay que tener cuidado de no convencerse que no hay.

Esto blog no es uno de que dijo el, porque de verdad, no se exactamente cien por ciento que creo. Tengo la fe del niño, cual a veces se siente bueno y otras veces malo. Pero, mejorare y llegara el tiempo de saber. Pero ahora, solo quiero mostrar y difundir amor al mundo. Cual me traje al punto de esto post.

Es demasiado fácil a burlarse de las de la derecha religiosa y sus hipocresías. Personalmente, pienso que President Obama parece mas como un cristiano que Mike Huckabee o Ted Cruz. El oído que ellos difundan me pone mucho triste, especialmente porque no tiene que ser así. Esto país fue fundado para tener conversaciones y ser tolerante de las demás. Y los que dicen no es. No no me identifico con la derecha porque sus teorías y acciones parecen casi como fascismo, especialmente cuando hablan de los menos afortunados de nosotros, como los inmigrantes y refugios.

Al otro lado de la izquierda. Hace meses, pensaba que me identifiqué con ella mas. Se difunde tolerancia, opiniones diferentes, y quiere que trabajemos juntos por una futura mejor. ¿Todo bien, no? Pues, otro vez, parece últimamente que es bueno en teoría. Cada día mi Facebook esta lleno de una ¨controversia¨ en que alguien o alguna grupo se ofende y quiere que el gobierno haga algo para castigar los que les había ofendiendo. Un nuevo grupo se sexuales, un grupo de indianos que no quiere que gente se vista como ellos por Halloween, o alguno grupo estudiantil que no quiere que va algo en campus porque le da incomodo. Es ridícula. No estoy de acuerdo con mucho que veo en mi vida, sino hay pocos que digo me ofenden. ¿y sabes que? No permito que los que me ofenden ocupa mas que diez minutos de mi vida. No le grito que ellos no deben existir, ni lucha contra su derecho de manifestar. En nuestro lucha de aceptar y permitir mas opiniones, estamos cerrando la puerta en la cara de cada persona o grupo con que no estamos de acuerdo. Eso es no mejor que las en la derecha que aboga contra de una persona por sea quien sea.

Debemos aceptar gente por quien eres, sino nuestra edad necesita aprender que hay muchísimas cosas que nos ofenderá en vida. Es la vida. Podemos mejorar las situaciones, pero nunca vamos a estar completamente de acuerdo con nosotros mismos. Aceptadla y habla respectivamente con opiniones suyos.




Jacob

New Blog

Hey all! I've started a new blog over at Medium.com. I'll still try to attend to this one, especially my travel blog, but Medium offers a different kind of personality that so far, I like.
Subscribe, leave your opinions, and enjoy!

Jacob

The Battle of Streamers: my dabble into Xbox Music

Well, this is rare, eh? I'm writing a tech post. Yes it isn't anything like CNET or PC Magazine, but I figure my blog gives me just as much right to voice my worthless opinion as anyone else, just as it gives you all (possibly forced) readers to ignore my said opinions.

In today's technologically-savvy world, music is at the forefront of evolving technology, nowadays through streaming services. By far the most popular provider of this service is Spotify. I have personally used Spotify for nearly two years now, I believe, and I've been a Premium subscriber for nearly all 24 months of that.
I must add, I love it. While my family gives me crap for spending money on service that can be acquired free elsewhere (hello, the rest of the internet), I do feel a lot better knowing that the service I'm paying for is legal, protected, and while T-Swizzle may have brought up a lot of controversy last year regarding royalties, ultimately benefits the artists in terms of dinero and popularity.

Cause the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Image from TechCrunch.

But artist royalties and fair trade in music is far beyond my meager comprehension of the service. No, I'm just here to review the basic interface and how it works within my busy, commuter-student life.
Let us begin.

Spotify

First, the devices. I own a Samsung M8 for Windows. Upon purchase last October, it was one of the better phones out there on the market, and me being never satisfied with the status quo, I opted for the Windows Phone version, because yeah. It's important to notice that the Windows Phone version actually does make a large impact on the Spotify app quality...

OR AT LEAST IT DID, BECAUSE AS OF 1/19/2015, SPOTIFY UPDATED THE APP. YEEEEEHAAWWW!

Just imagine that toy is ala-carte audio joy, all for only $5 a month. Yeah, screw that toy kid.

The app is definitely on par with its IOS and Android brethren now. Before, it lacked the flow and feel, and sometimes the performance, of the other major systems.

But no mas.

Spotify

When playing music, the app no longer behaves like a neglected stepchild and actually fills the whole screen and has the "up next" button in the upper right. Additionally, the browse feature is displayed upon opening, and Spotify's playlists are much easier to access and search for, something the Windows app has been lacking for some time now. But the most important feature is "Your Music" (who, mine? of course!). Finally, I can access my whole library of songs that aren't in a playlist. It's honestly the best part of the app update and the app in general.

I use Spotify for playlists of all occasions and for all my music listening in general. Gone are the days of me buying CDs (though, there is some nostalgia), and iTunes has me captive no more to online sales. My playlists, specifically my dance party ones, are constantly being updated and viewed, and accessibility is important. Also, the ability to share it with your friends and access your playlist from another persons' account is vital, as it increases my visibility on Spotify (hey, I don't get anything for it other than personal satisfaction).

Xbox Music

I figured I would give Xbox's brand of Spotify a try, even though I was nearly certain I would never pay $10/month for the service. Upon some time using it, I am 100% certain I would not pay for it. It simply isn't on par.
On terms of music selection, they are equal. I've even read in various corners of the internet that Xbox has more music choices than Spotify (though none but Pandora and YouTube can claim the elusive T-Swizzle).
About the only thing Xbox Music had going for it was it's sexy, flawless flow that Spotify severely lacked. That's it.
Looks. That is is. Enough reason to blow money? Absolutely not.
The app, despite being pre-installed on the phone and obviously Microsoft's preferred music playing application, didn't even stream as well. Many times it would require seconds of buffering, and sometimes it simply refused to connect to the server in general. Spotify never failed, and with the new update it never does again. The transition and between personal selection and store is also awkward, as it requires different searches to browse the two.
However, I think it is the complete lack of social integration that kills Xbox Music. I understand some people want to keep their music choice private - there's nothing wrong with that, and sometimes I find myself putting on a private session on Spotify and hiding from the social media world. But many times I find a track/band/playlist so sick and awesome I need to share it to my followers (or my girlfriend), and Spotify owns this category, with sharing being it's main feature in terms of social content. A simple "share" button is all it would take for Microsoft to even achieve the "adequate" level.

Alas, in my humble opinion, Xbox Music falls flat on its face in reverence of Spotify. And it doesn't seem like Microsoft is really investing a lot of energy/money into the service either. Of course comparing a computer company with a music-only company is not fair, and to be honest I enjoy most of Microsoft's other products, and completely understand if they're investing their efforts in other places (cough cough WINDOWS 10 - don't screw this up, Microsoft).
Microsoft just doesn't play the top-notch game of music streaming that well. The only reason I can see Xbox Music being more beneficial than Spotify is if a user is heavily invested in the Xbox/Microsoft infrastructure, which costs even more money if Live and Video passes are factored in. I rarely use Xbox and have Gmail as primary email, so I'm all over the place. Even with that, though, Spotify's $10 ($5 student discount) goes further and gets you more and a better experience that I feel it's worth it.

Nice try, but stick with Spotify.

Jacob

Spotify

I'm a bit late on this one; Taylor Swift's controversial pull from Spotify and other music streaming services was all around the internet a few weeks back, and as a loyal Spotify subscriber and listener, I had a few days of, "Hey Tay-Tay, you can't do that! You don't understand. You literally can't even...". But then real life hit and I had one million and one other things to do with my time rather than write this blog post which, to be honest, sounded a lot more fun than the other things I had to do [read: statistics homework].

So, my opinion on Spotify? Well, in my meager, lowly, broke opinion it is the best thing that has happened to music since the Walkman (those existed at some point, right?).

So wait, people actually used these?

While I missed the Napster piracy scandal years by a few, I am all too common with the argument. If I may toot my own horn, I've always tried to download legally; 1) I've always been scared of "breaking the law", regardless if it's nearly impossible to enforce and 2) there is some satisfaction in legally acquiring a song in whichever form, knowing that the artist will at least see some of the money I spent. Back when Best Buy opened up near me, they had a CD burning station; seventh grade me thought he was so cool going there, making a mix-tape [CD?] composing 90% of Aerosmith and Van Halen and then putting in on in my room for the next week. There was and still is some satisfaction in that!

And then I grew up and realized that music is expensive, and the more you listen to, the more expensive it gets. It's like a drug habit, except the drug habit is good for the economy and artist, but you still get screwed (how does that even work?!). And coinciding with my entrance to the adult world was the heavy role of YouTube in everyday life. Like, seriously, name another site that can honestly compete with YouTube; answer, there aren't any. Vimeo is a joke and everyone hates VEVO cause they are the sole reason why we can't post songs online.

So where does that leave me and the rest of the poor college-aged population with barely enough money to buy McDonalds? Answer: pirating music. Before Spotify, it was the only way to maintain the drug addiction that is new music.
But then Spotify comes around and completely sweeps us off our feet; all the music you want for free, or pay a few bucks a month and get all the music AND the ability to take it with you wherever you go WITHOUT ads? I remember when I first signed up; it was magical and I've never thought of leaving since! Some people cringe at the thought of paying $10 a month for music, but I'm just going to call those people cheap and tell them to learn some value in their life. $120 a year (half that if you're a student) is not a lot of money when you consider just how much music you will listen to on Spotify. Seriously, even if you have a very narrow set of music you like, the ability to discover other artists and music within that genre is amazing. Our society is so used to getting things for dirt cheap/free that when we are faced with actually paying a little more for something, we cringe. Screw you society!

Taylor raises some good points; it's bad how little money some artists see. But as the Spotify replied, they pay over 70% of what they make to the artists and record labels - the latter takes most of the money. If it's a money issue, raise it with them. They're the ones holding back progress.

My point is this: we've reached this point in society where we've experienced streaming and instant music gratification, and we're not going back, Taylor. You may want us to buy your CD and yes, I understand that's fair. But people are going to get your music online one way or another, legally or illegally (your YouTube video count for Shake It Off doubled since you removed the music from Spotify - I highly doubt no one ripped the audio.). So why single out Spotify? Because it's easy, that's why.

So Tay-Tay, while I enjoy your music (enjoy - not love), I'm on Team Spotify here; get with the times or your next album might not sell as well.

But actually, come back...please.

Jacob

armchair air marshals

In case you didn't hear, Ebola is here. That's right, the famous disease that is killing off West Africa is now in America, ready to wreck havoc on our unsuspecting populous. It's probably, in the eyes of some on the far right, God's wrath for accepting same-sex marriage.

Guys, it's Obama's fault, c'mon.

Of course, the armchair foreign policy planners of Facebook and the internet have already cried conspiracy, and are readying for the worst (I haven't even bothered to venture onto Alex Jones' website yet).

There will always be stupid people; that's inevitable. They've always been there, the internet just brings them out easier. However, I think I underestimated how stupid some people are on the world.
Take the common argument of, "ban all flights from Africa!". First off, 1) no, it doesn't work like that, and 2) most already are, especially from poverty-stricken Liberia. The country doesn't even have a national airlines, and if it did, it certainly would be banned from US airspace, just like a majority of countries in the region. 
This means that if the "ban" was put in place, it wouldn't have affected anything, because "it is clear that he would have to make at least two transfers -- including one in at least one other country" (ABC News).

Another question that seems to stem from the anti-vaxxer club is, "if it's not dangerous, why is it killing everyone in Africa?". Really, now, for all the stereotypes of Africa floating around, I thought this one would be easy. Liberia and much of West Africa is poor. Liberia averages one doctor and 27 nurses per 100,000 people (WHO). The US has many more, and we are far more advanced (paying for healthcare is obviously still up for debate).

I usually don't like to give the nutjobs the limelight, but this round just annoyed me...

Jacob