Category: #jamiegray

I’m Ending My Abusive Relationship with The Wealthy.

jamie

I think it’s time that the human race figures out, that progress for a few should never mean regress for some. If your success comes at another’s expense, it is not really success.
It’s abuse.
Abuse of human rights. Abuse of our shared resources. Abuse of power, for profit…and more power.
Call it Capitalism. Call it anything you want to, to justify it in your conscience. But I call them crimes against humanity, and only the wealthy and powerful are actually able to commit them. Uber Wealthy People. Big companies. Countries.
Because after all, who can actually hold them accountable?

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

Religion isn’t about God

jamie

It doesn’t matter which God you choose to call your own, RELIGION is the ultimate problem that mankind must overcome. Religion is, by definition, perversion of God to manipulate people into behaving a certain way. God just IS (or isn’t). What you believe about Them isn’t relevant to anyone, except to YOU and God.

At best, religion is a distraction from finding your own spiritual destination. Easy answers to reassure, instead of clues about your truths. At it’s worst, religion has brought us countless Crusades and Jihads, The Holocaust, 9/11 and The War on Terror, and so many other atrocities committed by “righteous men” in the Name of God.

Religious hypocrisy is legendary, and yet the sheep keep coughing up their tithes to reach enlightenment or avoid the scourge of Hell. I completely understand the need to believe in something. I just think it’s better to search for, and believe in your own truths, rather than in others who might profit off your faith.

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

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Thinking About Thinking

jamie


I wouldn’t want to tell you what to think any more than try to tell you what to do. What to eat. What to buy. Who to Fuck. These are your decisions, not mine. You don’t even have to think at all, for fuck’s sake. Living your best life without thinking might make me a little jealous, but I wouldn’t seek to deprive you of the joy.

But I will urge you one thing. If you choose to think, think for yourself. Thinking is completely optional. I don’t judge you for your ability to turn off the silent, running commentary in your head. But please don’t try to sell me someone else’s thoughts if you have none of your own. Chances are I’ve already heard their opinion…from them, and nobody likes an unsolicited parrot, pretending to be something they are not.

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

“Today may not feel like Wednesday. But what is Wednesday supposed to feel like, anyway? Talk amongst yourselves.”

#FuckTicketmaster

jamie

#FuckTicketmaster. Ticketmaster and Live Nation are a scalper monopoly. A drain on the music industry, adding nothing except fees and problems.

The best two things we could do to fix ticket sales are:
1 – Outlaw resale markup beyond a small, fixed percentage
2 – Implement a decentralized online sales system, that puts control in the hands of the venue, not the scalpers.

We easily bypass the Ticketmaster / Live Nation monopoly, and instead give venues an open source, distributed sales system that allows the venue to sell tickets themselves.

Venue could be pay once to buy the software or pay a monthly fee, and split the ticket sales with the artists, cutting out the scalpers altogether. Artists and Venues get to split 100% of the door, and nobody gets raped by surprise 35% “convenience fees” at checkout.

I’ll be happy to design the system if someone wants to pay for it’s development. Who’s in?

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

Classified Documents

jamie

Here’s what I don’t get: Why isn’t there a check-out, check-in system for these documents? Would it be so hard? Give each one a bar code. Scan it out with your ID. Scan it back in when you return it.

I mean, if you check out a copy of Mark Twain at the local library, and you don’t return it? They KNOW you have it. You’ll get reminders. Then penalties if you don’t return it. The system works.

So why not our Nation’s most secret documents? The ones that, in the wrong hands could doom the Republic…I dunno. Seems like a no brainier to me, but our government FAILS hard for not already having this system in place #IMO

Authors Note: All opinions expressed here are just that: opinions. If you don’t like mine, I probably won’t like yours either. Let’s just nod, and walk away. Maybe come back with solutions instead of opinions. Because of the two, only solutions actually matter.

Feb 2 2023: Thought for the Day

jamie

Youth is Wasted on the Young
Money is Wasted on the Rich

~unknown

Happy Groundhog Day 2023. Six More Weeks Of Winter…no matter what the rodent says.

You know, it isn’t something most people think about much. Until you start thinking about it. Maybe a traumatic event is the spark. Maybe it’s just the March of time catching up all at once. Suddenly you can’t stop thinking about.

Tick tock. Wondering. Worrying. Wishing. Waiting. Depends on who you are. Thinking about The End. Time running out. The final curtain.

It can become a toxic obsession, or maybe just motivation to live the life you really want to live. Regardless of how much time you spend thinking about it, it’s there, and I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. Well, it can be, if you get carried away.

I’d like to think it’s more about reflection and purification. If we are unconscious of our end, we don’t need to worry about doing any better. But if we consider how we’ll feel when we’ll have much less time left, maybe we can make more of the short time we have. Even the oldest humans live for a blink in the eye of the universe.

My mom used to say “youth is wasted on the young”. It took me until my 40s to start to understand. I’m still gaining insight every day, but as I gaze over the edge of sixty, I’m starting to have a pretty good idea where this is heading.

IF…(revisited 2023)

jamie

IF…You can keep your head when you’re surrounded by fucking idiots who blindly believe
If you can fall and get up, when motherfuckers who should know better repeatedly knock you down
If you dream of a future where no one goes hungry, or without the basic, important things that everyone needs
If your head spins from lies, corruption and greed, from sources empowered, trusted as news.
If you care about kindness and feel pain when others are hurt due to the ignorance and selfishness of those who are unkind.
If you respect life and are sickened when people and animals suffer cruelty at the hands of inhumane humans.
If you believe in equality and justice for everyone, and live in horror or fear at the hateful deeds of those who profit on racism and exploitation of the poor.
If everything going on seems an insane new normal, each new insanity making the last one seem comfortable.
If this world is not one you prefer, and the fuckheads in power seem doomed to make things worse
If making things better still seems important, even after all we’ve all been through

Then remember one thing,
my friend you must be
For so many have eyes
but refuse to be able to see
through the lies to the truth on the table
in Freedom’s last light
We squint into nothingness
Pretending it’s too fucking bright

Original poetry by Jamie Gray (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)