Stimulating

So next week I'm getting my medical study participant economic stimulus package.

I'm going to get a lap top, but I don't know which one. Please help me.

I'm also going on vacation next week. Mostly a stay-cation, in Lincoln, but I'll be going to Des Moines for an Andrew Bird concert on the 28th and I'm making a day and night of it, getting a hotel for the evening, going to see American Gothic at the Des Moines Art Center, and a tour of the Capital Building. And I can't forget El Bait Shop and their 100 taps (not all functional all the time, but even 50% is awesome).

Afrienda

I've really enjoyed the most recent season of Flight of the Conchords on HBO. The most recent episode their manager, Murray, takes it to another level by becoming friends with them like he already has in his best friend Jim, played by Jim Gaffigan (also very funny by himself). At their first get together as friends, Murray has a friend agenda he calls an afrienda.

When Jim meets Bret and Jemaine he asks them lots of questions, because that is what a friend does. I'll now appropriate it for a meme.

1. Do you like music? Yes.
a. rock? yes
b. funk? no
c. country? yes, older and about four current artists
d. hair bands? no
e. synth? no
f. blues? no
g. jazz? early, yes
h. jazz fusion? no

2. What do you call your style of hair cut? half inch buzz cut with taper down sides

3. Do you like sports? yes, wrestling, football, rugby

4. Do you workout? no, but I'd like to.

5. How many stairs does your apartment have? five, for me, for others more

6. How many people have you met? 15,000 (Jim's answer to this was 285,621)

7. Do you read? yes

8. What is your favorite part of the newspaper? Comics

9. Do you have any questions for me? no

Okay I'll flip it back then.

10. Have you ever tried to grow a mustache? yes, and failed miserably

11. Ever been stung by porcupine? no

12. Do you like the color light blue? yes

13. What color do you call your hair? brown (Jim call his top White Gold and his beard Rust Belt. Murray calls his Electric Copper)

14. Favorite sauce? balsalmic reduction or scotch (Stephen Colbert says that Scotch tape should either change its name or get him drunk.)

15. Paper or plastic? Plastic

16. Where do you buy your markers? I steal them from work.

Evident?

I think it was repeated previews of Milk showing Sean Penn at a rally shouting something about all men being created equal that led me to think about it more than I normally have.

Then there was the Ledbetter bill that increases the equality of pay, and Colbert's subsequent take on it that because it helps women more than men it only perpetuates inequality.

I don't know if the Declaration of Independence was the first utterance or publishment of the concept, but I don't think I believe that all men were created equal. Nor do I find it to be a truth that is self-evident. This doesn't mean that I don't believe there should be equal opportunity, or that we aren't all equal under the law. But I believe some are created to take better advantage of their equal opportunity.

Part of my tongue-in-cheek/grain-of-truth explanation to my coworkers is that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin may have written that all men are created equal, but owning and sleeping with slaves, and paying French women for sex doesn't jibe as much. Then there's the recent book by Henry Louis Suchandsuch called Lincoln on Race and Slavery that talks about Lincoln's early views against interracial marriage.

The concept of equality is fundamental to democracy, but wasn't it just freemen (franklin is another word for a freeman by the way) and land owners that got the vote in Athens' earliest democracy in occidental civilization?

The Bible says in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, but that is only "in Christ." Last I checked there are a lot of people that aren't in Christ, and a Jew in Christ isn't really a Jew, are they? And also I want to mention the opinion of many that there is plenty of stratification of the ol' Body of Christ.

So are men created equal? And if they aren't, is that bad?

I also finally have my HD and DVR receiver, so I'm very happy with that and looking forward to my first weekend to catchup on all I have waiting for me.