Ready for another round of "Tell me how to write back?"

One of my past employees sent me the following short email:

please talk some sense into me.
disaster looming....
skirt too short.
department chair tells me he likes my pig-tails.

I happened to be in the middle of drafting a written warning for a current employee, so I was ready to flash back this:

Dear Ms. Thing,

Regular operations of the academic environment require focus and attention of a total nature. This environment is maintained both through work activities, publishing, and personal conduct. Personal appearance should not detract or inhibit from a scholarly focus.

During the third week of March, 2006, you made choices in your appearance which were detrimental to the academic focus of your department. Specifically, the garment covering your lower portion was of insufficient length to properly cover your limbs.

In addition, you chose to arrange your hair in a fashion to suggest youth below the age of consent.

The combination of your dress and hair choices produced a distracting effect for several members of the academic community. This in turn caused a considerable loss of time to extended looks, shameful thoughts, and some awkward compliments. Monetizing this loss, you cost the academic environment between $50 and $2000. Given the unpredictable nature of academic output, the sum could be considerably higher, especially if student focus was considered.

In future, you must present yourself in a fashion conducive to academic focus. Please sign and date this written warning to indicate that you have read it and understand it. If you have questions or need assistance with the matters brought up in this letter, it is your responsibility to follow up. For an explanation of your rights to review or appeal, please contact the Human Resources department.

Sincerely,

Your betters.

She seemed sated:

Thank you Daddy, this is exactly what I needed.

But then came back, needy again:

Dear Daddy:
I was a very good girl today at school. I wore gender-neutral clothing and did not flirt with the boys in my class. You would have been very proud of me. I wore my hair in a low pony tail and did not suck on a lolly-pop in front of the department chair.
But then, last night around 2am, I seduced a class mate into my bedroom (ooops). He tucked me into bed and gave me a kiss on the cheek. But, Daddy, I wanted more from him....
Is that wrong?

So, Killoggs, what do you want me to say?

i don't always recycle, even though accumulating garbage is harmful to the environment and can make people sick. i shop at walmart occasionally, even though walmart stands for the inverse of freedom and social responsibility. i eat a lot of processed food and don't always support small and/or organic farms. occasionally i do things that may be considered "illegal". i drink alcohol, despite rampant alcoholism amongst americans - especially poor, indigent folk.

sometimes everyone is a little bit of the "bad guy". and i think that's okay. it's really hard not to be a hypocrite. not everyone can be ian mackaye. but the most important thing about being a good guy or a bad guy is that you have agency in those decisions (even the illegal ones, to some extent).

this is why i really, really loved the movie thank you for smoking. it manages to drive the idea of human beings' agency and free will home. i think that our world has shifted to a place where people no longer feel entirely accountable for the decisions they make, good or bad. we've become completely irresponsible and overly litigious, and it has caused a sort of mania that when you step outside of our world for a minute and look back in, it looks like a circus full of clowns.

but maybe i'm wrong, maybe not everyone is a little bit of a bad guy. perhaps i justify my bad-guyisms because i was born to be a bad guy, and my whole life is saturated in "blood money". my entire youth and young adulthood was sponsored by the liquor industry. those bottles of wine or liquor you may have bought at some point if you were ever in nj - a little bit of that helped pay my tuition. thank you, drunks! maybe the world would be better off without alcohol and drugs and cigarettes and processed sugar and dairy products and fur and anything else people rally against.

the point is, that isn't entirely our decision to make for anyone but ourselves, and our children (until they are 18, of course). you show me an american adult who doesn't know that cigarettes are potentially harmful or addictive (or drugs or alcohol or sugar etc) and i will show you a problem with the educational system in this country. i will show you a person whose parents didn't care, or whose grandparents didn't care about their parents. half of the products on the market today COULD hurt people, but at some point the responsibility for peoples health has to end with the decisions they make for themselves.

I can't wait for this movie. Really, after Dirty Harry, which was just BASED on Z, this one looks pretty comprhensive. The reviews, although they are by fans of Z, have been pretty positive. This is actually a chance to show one of the strangest serial murderers in history. I find the case extremely interesting and have read every book on the subject (including the 2 copycat killers), and seen every related piece of movie/show. Very stoked on this one.
http://www.zodiackiller.com/TZT.html
I actually think that Fincher is goign to do a good job of this and it FINALLY is in theatres, although only on the west coast. If it does come here, I'll drive to see it provided it's no further than NY.
Stoked

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/


The Uli Lommell movie sucked...

I feel like a jerk posting a picture of something I made as a gift for someone but whatever, I'm pleased with this.





A picture cannot convey it's dazzling glittery vibrance.

Flickr is my new favorite website. It's so inspiring to see all the photos and art that other people are making. It makes me want to do more artwork, take more pictures, and be more productive.

Here some of my recent cameraphone pictures. I have also uploaded a bunch of polaroids that I have taken out here in Phoenix. Check them out if you are hungry for pictures.