Li'l Adults

I find myself sharing the sidewalk and various places of business or public interest with a number of small children. The difference between children in New York and children in other parts of the country, I find, is the rate of maturity. It may not be this way compared to every part of the country, but it seems that children in New York grow up at a faster rate than other children I have encountered.

Children in New York have to learn things more quickly; they have to be able to think on their feet more often than kids elsewhere. They have to be able to pick up on things like mass transit, navigating as complex a city as New York, complete with trains, traffic, and interlocking bodies of water.

Not only that, children in New York have to put up with all the people here, and that much interaction with others has got to accelerate their development.

New York children's advanced development is evident in their behavior exhibited in the street, their manners, their dress, their language.

In my neighborhood, children come running around corners, chasing after their friends, dropping derogatory terms here and racial slurs there. Just like grown-ups! They have discussions about scooters, they debate and analyze outcomes of footraces. They carry around little suitcases, and sometimes even wear shirts and ties, just like adults would.

And just like adults, some even work at the neighborhood grocery store.

Kids definitely grow up faster here.

The other day, I was in a store shopping for things that only legal adults can drink, when a child of elementary age approached me, and began soliciting me about whatever was on the pamphlet she was trying to hand me. I think it was some kind of youth ministry program.

At any rate, the young girl did not hesitate to get right up in my face, thrusting this pamphlet directly into my field of vision, and, I might add, blocking my view from anything else. When I proceeded to ask her about what it was she was offering me, she got very flustered with me, telling me I was wasting her time and that "either you're going to take one or not." That much was true. I did not take one. And she stalked off.

I refuse to believe, though, that I was wasting her time, when she so rudely interrupted my beer shopping to hand me an unrelated piece of paper.

Ah, kids these days, they grow up so fast. Even at such a young age, they are already fine, upstanding, inconsiderate New Yorkers.

On Animal Cruelty

Tonight I ventured into the very Jewish sector of my neighborhood to bear witness to a ritualistic sacrifice, which takes place annually not too far from my house. I did not know this before, but apparently it is tradition in the Hassidic faith to sacrifice a chicken on behalf of your family one or two nights prior to Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement.

The ceremony goes as such based on my gentile interpretation and a loose explanation from a fellow bystander: the patriarch of the family, or head of household, takes a live chicken, holds it high above the heads of his family members, and swirls it around a few times while chanting some prayers. He then swirls it around his own head. This swirling chicken motion is symbolic for collecting all the evil that once was contained in the noggins of this family. The chicken now holds all the evil thoughts this family once had, so it is passed to a special man who then cuts the chicken's throat and bleeds the chicken out until all the evil is gone. Where it goes after that, I have no idea.

Apparently, the chickens are donated to charity, which makes up for something, I guess. But it is a little unsettling to see this displayed out in the street. Oh did I mention this foo foo rah takes place out in the street, right out in public view? It does, which is how I was able to watch it. It is the one meeting place for all the Jewish families who partake in this tradition, so naturally, there are a lot of Jewish people around, and to fulfill everybody's need for live chickens is an entire semi-tractor trailer stacked to the brimmed with crates of live chickens.

As you can imagine, the smell was quite foul. From the fowl. Feathers everywhere, along with chicken poop, and a surprising number of eggshells. And children playing and laughing in the midst of all this.

The ceremony takes place at night, and I found out about it through a friend of mine, who happens to live very close by to where they commit this act of repentance. From what he described to me, I expected to see a great deal of carnage. When he first told me about it, he did use the words, "the blood runs in the street."

In the most recent occurrences of this ceremony, it has been much more contained. Police barricades were set up around the area containing live fowl, and the slaughtering was done in a tented area, far from view.

So, though I could not see much, I could tell what was going on.

Periodically, some gentlemen would emerge from the tent carrying big black garbage bags, which I can only guess contained dead chickens or similar. No matter how one covers it up, the fact that it was still going on right here in my neighborhood was enough to facilitate a little horror in my mind as I watched what went on.

I am aware that chickens are slaughtered everyday, considering the fact that I eat chicken a few times a week at least. But to have it right in your face like that was not only unsettling and unnerving, but cruel. I can see chickens being killed humanely for human consumption (even though that rarely happens), but for chickens to be killed in multitudes for a religious ceremony seems a bit excessive.

I don't condone cruelty to animals, and I try to avoid it. I definitely don't do enough to draw attention to the evils that come with mass production of food for the American landscape and economy, but I try to remain conscious of it whenever I bite into a hamburger or a chicken sandwich. I still need to eat, after all.

After I got home in dismay from what I had seen down the block, I turned on the light in my room only to see irony had reared its ugly head. In the top corner where my wall meets the ceiling was a spider, or what looked like a spider wrapped in some sort of cocoon-type thing. I came to the conclusion that it was probably a nest of spider eggs that had been sitting there for some time.

And everyone knows, the only thing worse than having a spider in your room is having 1000 spiders in your room. They all hatch at the same time!

So, what did I do after I had just harbored all this resentment for the Jewish ceremony and its violent way of cruelty to innocent creatures? I went up and I squashed the thing and threw it away. Then I went to bed.

Politics

To me politics is onomatopoeia for the corruption, greed, struggle, and nonsense that goes along with it. Nothing in my mind about politics is fair. The political system of America lost control of democracy long, long ago, and I do not believe any one person or party or entity could fix it or change it back.

The political issues America now faces have gotten way out of hand. And the opinions on either side of the political aisle are so far apart in some cases it is hard to believe they both come from citizens of the same country.

I don't believe any one side of any political argument could be right in its entirety, especially for the amount of people said argument, if turned into policy, it would affect. When it comes down to Democrat and Republican, each side is so incredibly dichotomic, it seems insignificant to even have an argument at all. We might as well just have two countries.

The Presidential race is a dog and pony show to me. It is as entertaining as a NASCAR race and basically serves the same premise. Just get a bunch of candidates with sponsors on their backs to run around in circles for a while, after a few spin-outs, pit stops, crashes, and fires, we'll eventually have a winner. It may not be pretty, and will probably not be the best candidate, but we'll have a winner.

Each side of the Presidential race is ridiculous. No one side is more correct or fair than the other. If we really believe in democracy in America, then why do we only have two candidates? People are only allowed to feel one of two ways in America? If you're not for us, you're against us? What kind of attitude is that? I thought this was America. I thought we were allowed to feel any way we wanted and be proud of it. It's no wonder so many people in America don't vote. People in America can get away without voting because in many ways, the political system can be eluded by the average citizen. And people who are into politics, i.e. people running for office or campaigning for someone who is, don't really care about the people who are indifferent to politics, because they can get away with running the show whether they care or not. It's not the apathy votes they want; it's the votes against their political party they want to change. If politicians cared about trying to get voters interested in politics, maybe we would have a stronger, fairer political system, but they don't want that. They like the system the way it is...as long as they have the power.

In an ideal world, political candidates---all of them---should be model citizens. It should be impossibly difficult and competitive to become a candidate. Ideally, everybody should want to do it, because it would be an honorable thing to do. It would be dictated by good sportsmanship, good conduct, and impeccable service to one's community. Being a political candidate should be a job defined by radiance, good will, and good faith. Candidates, ideally, should be crawling over each other to be chosen by the American people. All too often the politics game is played by backstabbing, cheating, bending rules, and skirting around things sneakily. It is dealt in money and power, not kindness and charity. The race for President is decided by who campaigns the best, raises the most money, and slashes the opposing candidate to the smallest bits, rather than by who deserves it the most, who has earned it, and who has the strength and leadership to succeed, once in position.

A great many people find it disturbing that one of the two candidates for President may be a charismatic and eloquent speaker, more so than the other. It may be reasonable to find a political figure of such oratorical skills under such scrutiny from the American populace, considering we've pledged our allegiance for the past eight years to a buffoon who has trouble putting more than three words together to form a complete sentence (as long as those words don't include "Texas Rangers baseball").

Being able to speak in public, it seems, has become something of an evil to some people. I refute this confounded argument by reminding the reader that part of the President's job is to address not only the American people, but foreign political leaders as well. It shouldn't even be part of the argument, because ideally both or all candidates should have public speaking under his or her belt, as well as the appropriate amount of intelligence needed to accompany the opening of one's mouth on behalf of an entire nation. Without making any definitive choices between 2008 Presidential candidate A and 2008 Presidential candidate B, it might serve us Americans well to have somebody in office who can speak to foreign administrators and/or reporters without being made fun of, or at the very least, without drooling down the front of themselves in process.

For other people interested in the Presidential race, there are those who claim that military service is a natural prerequisite for entering office. While this is a valid argument based on the leadership skills, valor, and mental toughness associated with military service and very much needed for the job of President, this argument should not be as hyped-up as it has been made to be, especially when only one of the candidates has military experience. One of the great things about this country is one's ability to choose whether to go into the Army, or whether to NOT go into the Army. It's a choice, just like fries or onion rings.

And lest we forget, a President's record of combat will probably not be called into play that often. The President does in fact address the nation from a podium, and not from a hunting blind. Sometimes the President presides from the Oval Office, which, last time I checked was not a bunker or military outpost, but rather mostly a desk and some chairs and maybe an American flag or two.

Does the President get a laptop? I imagine he or she would, considering the size of that desk. The President must get a laptop. It's 2008, and after all, George Bush has been doing nothing but playing online poker for the past two or three years. The White House probably has the best free wi-fi of anywhere in the country!

But I digress...

For those pondering the Presidential election and think for one second that the color of a person's skin or the gender of a person holds any weight at all in that person's ability to represent one's country deserves to have their vote taken away, and be sent to the corner, to sit on their hands, face the wall, and think about what they've done. That being said, there are generally only four corners to a room, and I'm not sure we have enough wall space for all of them.

If we put them all too close together, they might start to think it's a party, which it's not, it's supposed to be a punishment. They are supposed to be learning a lesson. And they're not allowed to be brought snacks by their friends, either. They are just to sit there quietly in the corner, and think.

And to all those people out there who keep elevating the Vice Presidential platform to pop star/supermarket tabloid cover person status: stop. The Vice Presidential position has been and never will be the same as the Presidential position. That's why there's that word "vice" in front of it. If they were the same position, they would have the same name.

On November 4, those Americans who are of legal age and who have registered ahead of time will have the unique privilege of casting a vote for President of the United States, as well as votes for probably a lot of other positions that you haven't even thought of. And while your vote may or may not "matter" depending on where you live, who you vote for, and who everyone else around you votes for, it will still be more fun, more important, and more patriotic than voting on American Idol. Not only that, but it will make you feel good and satisfied, whereas voting for "Idol," as American as it may be, will only make you feel empty and used.

The voting booth presents a number of choices, and when I get in there, I can either vote door #1, door #2, or Mystery Box. The great thing about this country is, you don't ever have to tell anybody who you voted for, and it's a good thing, too, because while we'd all like to think we made some very intelligent and informed choices in our lives, we also know that Mystery Box has some pretty sweet prizes.

Even though I think the political system is tragically flawed, I will still try to do the best thing and make my opinion noted. While none of us are going to change the world with our single votes, it doesn't hurt to try and do something positive with what you've got. As of now, all I've got is one vote. So I'm going to put it to use.