Thoughts of a Canary

What, you didn't think I knew what a eugoogaly was? We find crisis in everything. The 2000's show some clear examples: The Y2K crisis, the Great Recession crisis of 2008, the global warming crisis of the early 2000's (still continuing for neo-hippies), and the Justin Bieber crisis of 2008-2011 (I chalk this up to America being temporarily insane due to the Great Recession).  In our personal lives as well we experience crisis: the mid-life crisis, the I-hate-my-job crisis, the I'm-going-to-listen-to-Backstreet-Boys-again crisis (millennials). In each of these times, we have to find some identity to break out of the cycle of chaos, either as a group of people or on a personal level. This is why I am very glad that we have Facebook. In my most recent crisis, I was despairing over my lot in life. You know, times are changing. It's not enough to have a loving family, supportive friends, education, and job opportunities. Why am I not wildly famous? What's...

Good Friday is my favorite day of the liturgical year . Perhaps you can chalk that one up to my melancholic temperament. I tend to think deeply on the tragedies of life, which to me are more powerful than euphoric moments. Isn't joy more powerful than sorrow? Isn't God a God of joy and love rather than a God of doom and gloom? Totes. However, like most things pertaining to God, there is a wide range of adjectives that can apply to how He reveals Himself to us. After all, there's a wide range of His life experiences: He was born in a manger; He was transfigured with Moses and Elijah. He spoke authoritatively to vast crowds; He was abandoned by all but one of his closest friends. He encompasses all things (omnipresence) and knows all things (omniscience). We think about these things, that is, how the Son of God found glory in being made incarnate in a manger, or how He won salvation for all men while at the trough of human emotion, because we can empathize. I doubt I...

Freecycle: Moving worthless trash from one good home to another I recently changed my location of residence. When I move, I tend to try to stay within 7 minutes of my last place of residence because it's a pain to move all my stuff around and I'm trapped in a certain geographic location with little hope of escaping. I also try to get rid of all of the largest sized items that I own. Living the life of a nomad, you can't be loading up couches and massive early-2000s TVs into your buddy's truck. I mean, you can, but it's easier to put it up on Craigslist and then suffer through the scams, no-shows, and people trying to get things for free than to load, drive, and unload your things, right? So it was with me while I was in the midst of the moving frenzy. I sold my buddy my TV (You still owe me $10; you know who you are), got rid of my couch, and headed into greener pastures unencumbered by the cares (and comforts) of furniture.  I was, however, in luck, as my ...

We all will... Your eyes water in tearful rage as you look upon the highlights of your acquaintances' daily lives. Day in and day out, you have browsed through the collection of selfies, statuses that irritate you with their mindlessness, and ads for shirts that mysteriously have your last name on them. "If I receive one more invitation to Candy Crush, I'm going to go drown the first stray cat I find," you mumble to yourself, your eyes glassy as the very screen you have been looking at for the past two hours. Finally, you decide you have had enough. You vow to yourself that you shall "never Facebook again," and as you hover over that "Delete Account" button, you pause for a second. You wonder if cutting yourself off from the social media lifeline will be worth it. Then you think of that time your neighbor posted pictures of his cat's ear infection and you click the "ok".      The other day I was ruminating u...

Good Guy Gossling When I'm feeling verbally frisky during a conversational outing, I'll casually suggest that today's culture treats movie stars as gods. Good ice-breaker for you, right there. I'm using a rather loose meaning of the word "gods", so I'll clarify what I mean. The universal mindset regarding actors and actresses is not that they are omnipotent or omniscient. I think people won't sink to that level. What I mean when I say that, though, is that they are regarded as being outside of the realm of regular humankind. To be honest, though, I would love to hang out with Nicolas Cage. I think he'd be an absolute riot. Another person I would be very excited to spend time with is Jennifer Lawrence. Why? I think she's a real person in the midst of Hollywood shams. That's the thing, though. When speaking of these people, our illustrious cousins of Hollywood Boulevard, it's not about just seeing these people or being romantic wit...

I can't dispute this one The Slogan: Marketing Jack-Of-All-Trades.   Sometimes it is the most simple things that are the most effective; such is the case with the ubiquitous slogan. It accomplishes a great number of objectives for promotion by one simple phrase. For the company, it gives credibility, brand recognition, and differentiation from competitors. For the consumer, it establishes a desire or need, a mnemonic seed, and a general ambivalence towards the company. In my humble opinion, the first thing a company should do is establish an excellent slogan. No one has ever asked for my opinion on the matter, but I have this medium of communication (aka my soapbox) where I can pretend that people do.  By my rough estimation, there are 189.43 billion slogans in the informational conglomerate that is the internet. I admittedly did 0 minutes of research to come up with that number, but every company that is or was has had one. There are some truly awesome slogans o...

Everyone knows you take Australia Putin The time is ripe for controversy. Here's some food for thought.  To start off on the honest foot (the right one) I must lead by saying that I am nowhere near a political analyst and I have very little knowledge of politics. I am, however, an amateur historian (I majored in it for my B.A. so at least I have that shred of legitimacy). I wrote my senior thesis on the topic of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union and how it could have succeeded. In my research for my topic, I had to focus on an extensive look at geopolitical and cultural factors that enabled Hitler's meteoric rise to absolute control over Germany, and how he was able to then extend that control country by country to almost the entirety of Europe. When the news broke about Russian troops occupying the Crimea, my mind immediately went to Hitler's occupation of Austria in March of 1938 which he termed the "Anschluss". Ignoring the terms of the ...