So every time that I haven’t posted in awhile I feel obligated to explain why. Simple answer: I was too busy or didn’t feel like it. From now on just assume that the frequency of my posts can range from 3 days to 3 months, just ’cause.

I’m really tired of politics lately. I’ve been keeping tabs on current events, but it’s always the same… the Democrats propose some ridiculously stupid piece of legislation, and the Republicans are too inept to provide any sort of coherent rebuttal. *Yawn*

Speaking of politics, I have been keeping tabs on the Seattle Mayoral race in which my Uncle Joe is doing very well. It looks like he’s going to be able to squeak by as the only challenger who makes it past the primary, in which case I believe he’ll kick the incumbent’s ass come November. I’ll be crossing my fingers for him during the primary on August 18th.

In other news, Go Nintendo .com has brought me onboard to make some more Nintendo-related videos in the coming months. I’m kind of over YouTube, and this actually gives me a reason to make more web shorts. Should be fun! The video that spawned this arrangement:

Late last week my uncle announced that he intends to run for mayor of Seattle. From the Seattle PI:

Joe Mallahan, an executive at T-Mobile, announced Thursday that he’s challenging Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and promised to match the incumbent’s impressive campaign warchest through aggressive fundraising and by chipping in his own money.

The Wallingford resident said in a statement that he would use his business experience to solve problems at City Hall.

“Our current city government is broken, it isn’t delivering basic services and the Mayor is out of touch,” he said. “I have a track record of being a guy who rolls up his sleeves and works hand in hand with people to solve big problems.”

Pretty cool stuff. Like my dad and all of my other uncles (I have 4 on my dad’s side of the family), Joe is a really intelligent guy with a lot of passion and a great sense of humor. From what I know of his career, he’s probaly the perfect guy to come in and “fix” Seattle.

Joe is a bleeding-heart liberal, which is unfortunate… but I seriously doubt that a city like Seattle would go for anything else. In fact, it looks like he’s the first challenger to the incumbent Mayor Nickels whom people are actually taking seriously, thanks in part to this:

A political newcomer wrote a $200,000 check to his own Seattle mayoral campaign this week, making him the first candidate to get anywhere close to Mayor Greg Nickels’ funding.

Joe Mallahan said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday that his personal donation “levels the playing field” so the campaign can be about Nickels’ record instead of “the mayor’s 10-to-1 fundraising advantage.”

Oh snap. His opponents’ reaction was something along the lines of “OMG UR BUYING TEH ELECTION NOOB”, which neglected the fact that Joe has also raised $18,000 from donors in the past two weeks — more than most of the other candidates. Also, since when was spending your own hard-earned money a bad thing?

I’ve had a lot of fun browsing Seattle newspaper sites and blogs about the Mayoral race, because it is flat-out hilarious to watch liberals bicker amongst themselves about politics. It’s kind of like watching bad reality TV… it doesn’t matter who wins the fights, it’s just fun to watch morons beat the Christ out of each other.  The user comments on the articles that I linked are comedy gold.

"Us Prius drivers are a special breed!"

Also funny, Joe’s campaign people seem to subscribe to the Larry David philosophy of Prius ownership, as they’ve mentioned that he drives a used Prius about a million times already. Appeasing the Progressive Gods is tricky: ritually sacrificing animals is obviously off the table, so as an alternative successful liberals just feel ashamed of their wealth and drive used hybrids.

Joking aside, I hope that my uncle does well, and I expect that he will. He’s also probably the only “progressive” candidate that I’d ever support in an election, if that tells you anything

In an effort to catch up on content requests, today’s focus is on a request from Andrew Sterner in the comments last month:

I can say I’m not an objectivist. Some of the ideas(particularly charity) I completely agree with, while other articles are just too far gone for me … If you would do me a favor, I would love to see an entry on charity in the not too distant future.

Blame this guy.

I have been writing about my beliefs and Objectivism in my “old” blog for a couple years now. Based upon the flame-ridden discussions my posts have incited in the past, I’ve realized that one of the biggest misconceptions that people seem to have about Objectivists is with how we regard charity. My assertions that charitable giving is not a moral obligation are usually met with responses like “Oh, so you want the poor to die?”, and “So you think it’s immoral to give to other people?”.

The idea that charity is a moral duty is so deeply ingrained in society that any statement to the contrary is often met with hatred and disdain. Instead of listening to why I believe that charity isn’t a primary virtue, people immediately jump to the conclusion that Objectivists are outright opposed to charity. In other words, people seem to automatically twist the phrase “not a moral obligation” into “under no circumstances”.

Rand provided a succinct explanation of the Objectivist stance on charity:

My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

Ayn Rand wasn’t just fighting against the prevalent system of ethics in our world (Altruism), she challenged one of the core values of every single major religion. Taking that into consideration, it’s easy to understand how quick people are to lash out at Objectivists for our beliefs on charity.

If one of my close friends or family members found themselves facing some of hardship and could benefit from my help, I’d be there in a moment to provide assistance. If my neighbor’s house burned down and they need people to donate clothes/blankets/food, I’d probably contribute. That said, I’m not going to send a check to the Meth addict across town who has three kids and lives on welfare. I’m not going to roll down my window while driving and pass a twenty to a bum holding a sign at an intersection. I’m not going to say yes when the checker at the grocery store tries to put me on the spot and asks me to donate a dollar to some random charity that I know nothing about.

If I have a personal reason for giving to someone and I feel like they deserve my charity, I’m all for it. If if that person does not meet my own personal criteria for whom I think is worthy of my charity, then I won’t. The only person who can decide when I should or shouldn’t give my time or money away is me.

If I were to go through life and not give a single dime to charity, it would not make me an immoral person. What would be truly immoral would be to go through life sacrificing my time and money to people who didn’t deserve it.

From an article posted on CNN.com this morning:

In the midst of the credit crisis and the federal government’s massive bailout plan, the works of Rand, a proponent of a libertarian, free-market philosophy she called Objectivism, are getting new attention.

“If only ‘Atlas’ were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I’m confident that we’d get out of the current financial mess a lot faster,” Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore wrote in early January.

It’s obviously getting attention from the general public. Rand book sales are “going through the roof,” said Yaron Brook, the president of the Ayn Rand Institute. According to Brook, “Atlas Shrugged,” her most famous novel, has sold more copies in the first four months of 2009 than it did for all of 2008 — and in 2008, it sold 200,000 copies. It’s been in Amazon.com’s top 50 for more than a month.

Not bad for a 1,100-page doorstop of a book that came out in 1957, by an author who died in 1982.

I’ve been seeing news stories similar to this one everywhere lately. While it’s good to know that there is renewed interest in Rand and her philosophy, I hope that people actually read Atlas Shrugged and take heed of her message.

Unfortunately, no article about Ayn Rand from a left-leaning news source would be complete without some mention of Alan Greenspan:

But Rand critics are equally fervent, questioning her belief in pure free markets.

“What I find so remarkable about it is if capitalism can work on its own without any government regulation, then we wouldn’t be here,” said economist Heather Boushey of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Boushey points out that even Greenspan has reversed course, to an extent, in his admiration of laissez-faire economics.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity — myself, especially — are in a state of shocked disbelief,” Greenspan told a congressional hearing in October.

I’ve responded to the Alan Greenspan BS in the past, and it looks like the Ayn Rand Institute is right on the ball in responding to it as well. This morning when I first read the story it ended on that note; and now it ends with a response from Yaron Brook. Kudos to CNN for (eventually) reporting the whole story.

Now I just wish that this article would stay up on the front page of CNN.com for longer than 6 hours. Michelle Obama’s cute little story about the stupid Whitehouse dog biting people’s feet has been front and center on that site for 3 days now

I’ve been sick for the past week, hence the lack of posts. So far my new doctor isn’t helping much; apparently he didn’t have more than five minutes to spend with me when I went in for a check-up, and I’ve had to self-diagnose myself with the condition I have based upon the numbers from my blood tests. To top it all off, I’ve had to wage a war over the phone with his idiot male nurse (murse?) just to get a referral to a specialist. Ugh.

With each passing day I’m growing more and more frustrated with the culture here in Los Angeles. I have never seen such a superficial, joyless population of people in my entire life.

What beautiful smog!

People just look right through you. If you’re walking down the sidewalk and pass somebody by, there is no friendly nod of acknowledgement, no eye contact. At the grocery store you’re liable to be run over by a shopping cart if you don’t watch yourself, and people don’t even bother to check if they’re blocking the aisle for others. Don’t even get me started on how rude people can get when they’re driving down here; I’ve literally been honked at just for looking at someone’s car in the lane next to me on the freeway.

Now I hate small talk as much as anyone, but showing other people basic human respect and kindness shouldn’t be so hard. For example, when I went to the laboratory last week to get my blood drawn, I sat down in front of the nurse and she simply whipped out a needle and said “State your name and date of birth”. No greeting, no eye contact, nothing.

It’s like just by being in someone’s presence you’re wasting their valuable time, and that goes for everyone from a cable repair guy up to a businessman in Beverly Hills. While many would say that “excessive ego” is the problem, it’s actually the opposite. Most everyone here is so full of self-doubt and fear that they project their short-comings onto others in order to avoid reality. They seek to justify themselves by belittling others, by treating individuals as merely another cog in the faceless mob that is keeping them down. Misery loves company.

The pervasive culture of hostility in Los Angeles is indicative of just how much people here hate themselves. It might be kinda sad if it weren’t so freaking oppressive. While I may be stuck here for a couple years to advance my writing career, I’m going to gtfo as soon as possible.