The Jessaverse | Change and Exchange

I’m sure that some of you might wonder why I tend to employ Commonwealth English rather than American English, even though I was born and reared (partially; I lived in Europe for six years) in the United States. No, it’s not to annoy you and make you all (meaning the Americans) correct me!

Well, I utilise that sort of English for various stylistic reasons. First off, living in England and Germany and reading several English-written books will do that to you. Secondly, most of my communications on the net are with Australians and Britons, so there is a considerable influence there. I can also co-ordinate my Europeanised spelling with French and German, which is far easier for me. This is also the reason why I tend to use Latin-based words like “intelligent” rather than their Anglo-Saxon equivalents (clever, for example)when the words aren’t that esoteric and are easily intelligible to my audience. I do have older writings which are very strongly American, but I need to edit them so that all my writing is standardised.

In addition, I plan on eventually expatriating to England or Australia, so it all makes sense.

Also, hardly any international organisation uses American spelling.

What I don’t understand is that so many people are opposed to globalisation and its effects. They clamour to “Keep the jobs here!” and “No intervention!” The thing is that in our post-Cold-War world, we are inevitably connected to each other through the United Nations, international trade, the internet, and through our shared experiences. Once globalisation came about, it was impossible to curtail its effects. It is impossible for one country to stay isolated from the rest of the world; what happens in another country will eventually affect us in some way. Isolationists tend to be obscurantists who are closed to most other cultures and other forms of experience. Also, I find that our globalised culture is an enlightening experience. In the old days, it was far more difficult to listen to a foreign composition or communicate with someone halfway around the world. Nowadays all that is feasible with a mere click of the mouse. Sometimes I take it for granted, but today it seems so staggering that I can speak to people from countries other than my own and listen to music that is not from my native country — and obtain it so easily. I just sat and thought about it, and I thought, “Amazing.” At this very moment in time, I am a Europeanised American sitting in Germany, listening to a Swedish group, posting on this site, with readers from Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia, and drawing pictures with a Japanese flair. I couldn’t have things better in this aspect.

But there are some downsides to globalisation, especially the American cultural hegemony that seems to be engulfing the world at the moment. Cultural exchange is excellent; I approve of it, but America seems to be taking over everything culturally, and traditional cultural aspects seem to suffer because of it. I am tired of the world becoming one big America. I like GLOBALISATION, not AMERICANISM. I see it all the time here in Germany. Certain advertisements are in English, and apparently some kids around here speak phony English to sound “cool.” And the thing is, it’s not British English that’s being spread around; it’s American English. I don’t think those ads should be banned, but I think they definitely highlight the pervasiveness of Americanism in Europe. Writing standards are starting to adhere to American rules, a big shift from the state of things in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. People clamour to go to America, and there is nothing they want more than to be Americans. I don’t get it. I seriously don’t get it. America has a better social situation than some lesser-developed countries, but right now, there is such a cultural and political upheaval by the conservatives that anyone who divagates from the norm wouldn’t be quite welcome in “average” America.

Keep globalisation, but tone the Americanism down.

Many of you are familiar with the fact that a lot of my posts seem to be virulently anti-conservative. Although I like most people and try my hardest to get along with everyone despite their political views, I have a hard time dealing with social conservatives (I have more patience for economic conservatives). They seem to be so intolerant and opposed to social progress; if something is new, it is automatically bad. That is what makes me so mad about them. They think that THEIR way of having a family is the only right way. They think THEIR way of politics is the only right way. It’s absolutely maddening. So many of them are homophobic and don’t want gays to get married just because their bigoted interpretation of Christianity says so. Hello, if you don’t want a gay marriage, then don’t freaking have one. There is no valid reason to oppose equal rights for all people — anything else is bigotry.

(I also have problems with liberals being bigoted towards those who don’t agree with them. I actually have a problem with bigotry in general. This post is mainly addressed towards conservatives because they are primarily the ones who are spreading bigotry across the nation right now.)

originally appeared as a livejournal entry, expanded and edited for the ‘verse

Last week, I was supposed to go into town for my psychologist appointment, but it just so happened that there was a mixup and she wasn’t there, so I just decided to wander around town and pick up something to eat. I was walking around with my paper cone full of fries (that really didn’t taste that great, by the way; I should’ve chosen another Imbisstube [an Imbisstube is a German snack bar] from which to get better fries) down the street, nonchalantly, until I came upon a few signboards decrying Bush’s government and mentioning Lyndon LaRouche. The guy at the stand noticed me and started talking to me (in German, until he started to accommodate me and started speaking English) about Bush conspiracy theories and his connection with the Nazis. He seemed to know more about US politics than most Americans, but he definitely seemed like a conspiracy theorist. He didn’t seem that bad, but I started reading some the literature when I was riding home on the bus, and I was like “What the fuck?” They seemed to be extremely far-left but with an emphasis on “classical” culture and anti-environmentalism. Hello, Lysenko! (I’m not saying that they agree with Lysenko agriculturally; I’m just saying that their scientific views are well…unscientific.) Anyway, I donated one Euro, so that I was able to read some of their literature. (I wouldn’t donate any more than that, I’ll tell you right now.) I also just now started looking up some of the LaRouche Movement views…I’ll tell you right now, I’ll stay as moderate as I am. I may be somewhat liberal, but I’m no conspiracy theorist.

It’s shocking how the LaRouchies are so anti-neocon, but seem to be so anti-progress in so many other things. This opposition to progress upsets me. As all readers of my blogs know, I have a big problem with social conservatism because of its negative stance towards progress.

(Sounds like another entry for me…Why I am not a Conservative!)

Ah, my second set of book reviews, and it’s definitely not as nice as the one for The Lexus and The Olive Tree…

The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown

Last year, I bought Dan Brown’s best-selling book The Da Vinci Code at the airport based on my friends’ recommendation. (Remind myself to be a bit more cautious when I take others’ recommendations.) Anyway, I was going to read it at the airport, but I never got around to it, since I spent the bulk of my time on the flight from Cincinnati to North Carolina sleeping. When I got back to my dorm room, I started reading the book. It was all right, and that’s about all I’m going to say about it. All Brown did was just fabricate a bunch of things about art history and theology to make an interesting read. It definitely wasn’t the super-brilliant tour de force that the blurbs on the book made it out to be. His facts are wrong, his narrative is so-so, and his characters are cardboard. I think that even I could write something with characters with more depth and intelligence, and I’m only 18 and haven’t even been in school that long. Heh. Brown’s narrative is insipid. Wouldn’t a supposedly excellent author be able to produce something of timeless beauty or elegance? The plot was fairly formulaic, with the super-smart man and the attractive woman (who coincidentally is smart, but the important thing is that she’s beautiful) hunting for clues about a so-called “Da Vinci code.” It reminds me of something straight out of a comic book. I think it could’ve done better as a graphic novel rather than a mainstream bestseller with pretensions of sounding intelligent. It drives me mad how everyone finds it brilliant, but I just found it dull. It’s definitely not on the way to becoming a classic.

Grade: C
If you want elegant prose and excellent characterisation, don’t read this book.

Left Behind — The Rising
By Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
Yes, I’ve been reading the Left Behind series for years. I started reading it when I actually believed in that sort of eschatology, and now it’s just a bad habit for me. I think LaHaye and Jenkins have milked this series as far as it could go, and The Rising is no exception. It supposedly details the young lives of the male lead, Rayford Steele (what a name!) and Nicolae Carpathia, the chief antagonist. The narrative itself was passable — it was far from being the sort of rich narrative that either Margaret Atwood or Umberto Eco could produce, but it wasn’t exactly chock-full of elementary grammatical errors. The story itself could definitely use some work. The Rayford portion was terribly boring. He definitely didn’t sound like someone you wanted to get to know later. He sounded like your typical, clean-cut Midwestern boy with hardly any vices to begin with. If LaHaye and Jenkins wanted to present Rayford as someone fallen and left behind during the rapture, couldn’t they have picked a more dramatic personage than that of the straight-arrow Rayford Steele? Second, it sends the message that if good ol’ Rayford wasn’t good enough, then neither are we. (I’m sure that’s what LaHaye wanted, but sheesh. Fundamentalists annoy me.) The Nicolae Carpathia narrative was more intriguing, but they spent far too much time focusing on the deliberations about Nicolae’s artificial insemination rather than actually writing about Nicolae himself. Nicolae possibly only utters about fifty sentences in the whole book, and I would think that the book would be largely about him. LaHaye and Jenkins also attempted to use the Romanian language in the Carpathia sections, and they failed miserably. Even with my short study of Romanian, I could still detect the errors that they used. Unconjugated infinitives, incorrect gender adjectives, and other such errors littered the pages.

All in all, I’d recommend everyone to skip this one.

Grade: D-
What I said about the Da Vinci Code applies here as well.

Stay tuned for my next book report on:
Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco
and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.
(I’ve just started these and I feel that you’ll actually hear me saying something good…)

I used to define myself as a pure liberal (I’m even a registered Democrat, as some of you know), but I’m starting to question that, since I seem to agree with some of the major parties about something, but I never seem to agree about everything. I agree with the liberals and Libertarians about personal liberties. There is no way that I’d EVER oppose equal rights for anyone. However, I disagree with the liberals about their universal healthcare plan. I think that medical vouchers, or some sort of individually chosen plan, would do better than having the State choose your doctors. Same goes for school vouchers, something with which I agree with the Republicans about. You should be able to choose where you want to go to school, BUT (here’s the caveat) public schools should still be supported and reformed, as I outlined earlier in the Education post. I agree with the right to bear arms as well; guns don’t kill people, people do. I just ask that people use locks on their guns so that no one inadvertently shoots himself. Government should not have to coerce people to be responsible.

I can’t be a Democrat because of my affinity for smaller government.
I can’t be a Republican beause of the social conservatism, the emphasis on profits over people, and the far too small government.
I can’t be a communist because of my support for capitalism, individual liberties, and individualism. Collectivism is not for me.
I can’t be a libertarian because there are no safety nets in such a government.
I can’t be a populist because of their emphasis on larger government WITHOUT the corresponding concern with social issues.
I can’t be a Green because I don’t agree with their type of environmentalism.

I’m an independent.
In short my politics are: Fair trade, capitalism, and individual rights. Why can’t one party have all those things?

After several years of study and evaluation, I’ve come to the conclusion that I do not fit properly into any diagnostic labels that have been bestowed upon me. In short, I’m not properly autistic (in either the high-functioning sense, as I was labeled, or the low-functioning sense) in any true sense of the word. I am extremely withdrawn and am more sensitive to my surroundings than others, but there are other tendencies of mine that prevent me from having any sort of label. My tendencies towards tact (in most circumstances; if someone makes me sufficiently angry, that tact is gone), polytropic mental processing, generalisation, and other such “normal” activities indicate that whoever evaluated me was not exactly right. My state would better be interpreted as bi-modal, in that I can both generalise and see very clear specifics, quite often at the same time. I am not quite neuro-typical, but I’m not autistic either. I’m just me, Jess Caralize, like it or not.

Even though I’ve realised that it is futile to apply a label onto myself, I still support the neurodiversity movement and equal rights for all.

Yesterday, my family and I decided to visit the German city of Worms (It is in the western part of Germany, and it is not far from the French border) to see some of the historical sites relating to Martin Luther. The town itself looked like most German towns, with the pastel buildings and copious bakeries. It wasn’t really that busy though, and it was a Saturday. I was surprised. Anyway, we went to go see St. Peter’s Cathedral, which was really beautiful. (We asked where Martin Luther’s church was, but it was in another area, described by the postcard salesman as “Klausen.) I spent quite some time admiring the art at the cathedral, especially the sculpture and the Latin inscriptions. We also looked at some other interesting sites, but did not walk into any more buildings. Near the end of our day trip we went to go for ice-cream. The first place we went into had ice cream that was so-so. I had some, but the consistency was way too much like sherbet or something. The next place we went into…oh god, it was the scariest ice-cream parlour I’ve ever been into. The only salesperson was this old guy, and there was scary pipe organ music that sounded like something out of a vampire movie or something…My parents also kept on having me read the German and Latin inscriptions on the signs at the historical sites….

Also, when I went into the cathedral, I picked up a pamphlet that was about some festivities in town that celebrated a famous Jewish rabbi (in that area) named Solomon ben Isaac, or Raschi for short. All year long they are going to have things such as symposia, Israeli dancing, concerts, and other events to honor Raschi. I thought that was amazing, especially in Germany. Apparently Worms was a traditional Jewish learning area in Germany during the Middle Ages. I know that they actually still have the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery there. I’m seriously surprised that it didn’t get bombed or razed by the German government during the WWII era. I thoguht that that was an amazing contrast, compared to some sixty or seventy years ago, when Hitler ruled Germany, packing off innocent Jews to the concentration camps.

Ignore the google ads — a lot of them seem to be from organizations like CAN, Operation Rescue, and probably some conservative groups as well. I didn’t ask to have them on here; they’re from my blogging host, and it bases the ads on my content. I’m sure “globalization” will be one of the next ads.

Maybe that should be a game…Spot what the subject matter of the google ads will be when they change! ^^ Haha.

[edit] I’ve had ads from every persuasion on here, from conservative to liberal to libertarian to Green. I knew it would happen…and it’s just perfect for this Equal-Opportunity blog.

I’ve only had this blog for a week or so, and it’s already oozing with controversy. Fun, ain’t it. I am considering editing some of the posts that caused most of the big furore, or relegating them to a musty corner of this blog. Most of what I write on here is extremely speculative and experimental. In fact, except for the gay marriage and the “enjoy the world around you” post, it’s all been speculation and experimentation. I’m warning you now. I use this blog to explore possible facets of my existence, and I also use it to explore the world around me. It is also a conduit for debate. If you disagree with me, tell me like you already are. I enjoy listening to different opinions and seeing multiple sides of an issue.

And let me clarify a few things about myself NOW…

1) I am undecided about eugenics and am currently in between two opinions on it. I’d like to hear both sides.

2) I’m not a social inferior in any way. I’m extremely shy and somewhat unconventional in my thinking, and I am currently questioning the fact whether I should’ve been labelled autistic in the first place. It doesn’t completely match up. That doesn’t mean that I don’t support the community and have respect for everyone.

3) I’m an atheist and WILL not be proselytised to.

Peace out.