Rich?

I'm not rich.
 I've thought about what it would be like to have lots of money. What would I do with it? What would I buy? Where would the cash go? I guess it would depend on how 'rich' I was.
  Some people won't agree with what I have to say about this topic but they should keep in mind I'm not telling people what to do with their cash so much as taking some time to think about what kind of people they are and where they see themselves in the scope of things.
  I have a daughter. She has always had a roof over her head, clothes to wear, glasses to see with, food to eat. We never have lived in a castle, and we didn't eat at a fancy restaurant every evening but we didn't suffer over those details.
 When my daughter was born I didn't spend $15,662 on a high-chair, we struggled through with one that cost us about $80. It worked pretty well, it didn't clean itself and it didn't sing songs but the 15+ thousand chair doesn't do that either so......
  I went to the babies r us website and found the most expensive high chair I could find. For $359.99 you can have the most expensive chair in the store. That would leave about $15,302 and all you would have to do is live with out crystals embedded in your high chair. I doubt the missing crystals would cause the kid to suffer much or the food to taste any different. With that $15,000 dollars you could help Hope For Creativity to provide 1000 homeless children in Massachusetts with an art pack before the end of 2012. Or maybe give to Atheist Helping The Homeless

A $600,000 rocking horse. All it does is rock......

What about a rocking horse? If I was to budget for a rocking horse the number I would settle on would not be  $600,000.
Of course a solid gold rocking horse probably wouldn't be what would come to mind either. I know I 'm not the best father a little girl could have, but I have tried my best and my daughter has grown into a pretty, level-headed, confident woman. This happened without a gold rocking horse. Going back to the babies r us site I looked up rocking horses. I then found the most expensive one  they had. For $179.99 you can take home a Little Tikes Giddyup N' Go Pony  
 While the $600,000 gold rocking horse may impress some kids I wonder, given the choice, maybe this would be enjoyed more by the kid.

   
   And, if you were to buy the $179.00 horse that would leave you an extra $599,820. That money could provide wheelchairs for about 350 people with cerebral palsy. Sure wheelchairs don't rock but they do help some people get around.

  If you think I'm making up this story you are wrong. Some parents have spent their cash in the ways I've described above. Beyoncé and Jay-Z had a baby recently. The baby is named Blue Ivy Carter. They have reportedly spent over 1.9 million dollars on magic windmill play-sets, golden rocking horses, crystal high-chairs and other items.
 Like I said I won't tell people how they should spend their money, if they want to spend their cash that they made by working  and being lucky on such things then that is their choice. What can I do about it? Nothin. I just know if I had that kind of money to throw around and had just become the father of a healthy baby girl I would have found a different way of celebrating. Every parent wants the best for their children but isn't the best sometimes showing them how they can be happy even when then own the least?
 In these times we are living in there are people who are losing their homes. People can't afford to buy their kids clothes. Families are losing their homes. The funding for the disabled is being cut. The elderly can't afford their medication. I just don't think I could spend the money we are talking about here on such unneeded things while others were being pissed on by life. Sure there are always going to be people in need but does that mean you don't consider them?
 Some people would say "You don't know how much they give to charity" when I discuss the rich wasting their money on frivolous items. Why does that matter?  Wouldn't you want all your money to be used on worthwhile things, not just some of it? A golden rocking horse just doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm just screwed up, but I just can't understand how anyone can spend money in this manner and then walk down the street with their head held high confident the world is a better place and your child is better off as a result of your actions. You couldn't pay me enough to feel that way

Men Are A-holes

There seems to be a wave of realization making it through the atheist movement. A bit of knowledge has fallen from sky and landed right in front of a bunch of atheists. The sad part is many of us already were well aware of it. Another depressing thing about it is, it applies almost across the board. Sure I've seen people blogging about it claiming it is unique to the atheist movement. They say it never shows in other aspects of life.
    It has an ability to become almost invisible. Be assured...it's almost always present, usually hiding just out of sight. You can even catch it peeking out between sentences, or as a dim shadow behind an innocent hand gesture. It can even disguise itself as a considerate comment or action.
 While raising my daughter it was something I warned her to watch out for as she grew up. I warned her to keep an eye out because sooner or later she was going to come face to face with it, and she would need to know what to do because it would confront her throughout her life.
 What is it I am talking about? What could be so common yet unknown to so many? Why hasn't it been stopped? It can't be stopped, not completely. The best we can do is confront it and make it hide as much as possible.

 The thing I'm talking about can be summed up with one sentence.
 Men are assholes.
 I'm probably going to get in trouble for making this statement in public. It's one of those things that are against the unwritten law to say out loud. Some other examples are things like 'Everyone masturbates' and 'Your mother had sex with a man in order to give birth to you'  things we know about but you just can't go around telling people because  it sucks even more when you are forced to acknowledge it by someone else.
  Sorry guys, it's true and we know it. It's about time we accepted it and dealt with the problem.
  Now let's be clear, I'm not talking about the assholes who honk their horn if you take more than 2 seconds to move when the light turns green. I'm not talking about the assholes who think you are a pussy because you football jersey has the wrong colors or mascot on it, there is no hope for those people.
 I'm talking about the assholes who think women are just on the planet as objects. The guys who think every woman was born so they could listen to men tell them what they wanted done for him, to him, or by him. They think women like it when a man screams across the street at her "Hey, nice ass!" or  "Come over here, I got somethin' for you baby". These guys are convinced when she posts her picture on the internet it is for one reason...so guys can tell her whether or not they would have sex with her and how often. 
 I could give you a million examples of this type of behavior. I will limit myself to one more example that stands out from my experiences.
 I had a future brother-in-law, he was a nice guy. He was quiet and intelligent, really laid back, seemed like a cool guy.I'll call him Ted. Before the wedding Ted was having a bachelor party. The party was being organized by Ted's best friend. Ted's best friend was not laid back, he was annoying. I'll call him Dickface. Dickface and I met a couple of days before the party because my sister had insisted I be involved. There were a couple other guys there, I got along well enough with them. Dickhead however was another story, the guy was, a dickhead. He was talking about how Ted didn't want a stripper but he was getting one anyways. "What kind of pussy doesn't want a stripper at his bachelor party?" Dickface asked. I suggested maybe we respect Ted's wishes. He obviously was a bit shy and I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. Needless to say Dickface now had the opinion I was a pussy too. Since Dickface was wrong I didn't remain a part of the planning committee because Dickface didn't like it when pussies hit him in the face. (see first description of asshole above)
 I was however still invited to the bachelor party because I was the bride's brother and I guess there is an unwritten law somewhere addressing that too. I sat drinking beers at the party waiting for what I knew was coming. Sure enough Dickface had followed through with his plan. And I was correct, my future brother-in-law was not really pleased with the planning committee's decision, in fact he was extremely displeased. I could see he knew there was no choice for him, he was in front of all his guy friends at an event that has been one of the staples of manhood since before we realized everyone masturbates.
  The stripper wasn't ugly, what was ugly was the turn the crowd took when she burst onto the scene. Maybe it was because I was sitting watching from a certain perspective, I don't know, but the behavior of the men at this party was pathetic. I watched as guys I had talked to earlier in the night, normal mature guys, acted like third grade boys who had found a copy of playboy in their school lunchbox and the centerfold had come to life. I have nothing against naked women, in fact I have a great respect for the female form. It has an appeal and a strength that men can never hope to equal. maybe that's why men tend to treat it the way they do, when something intimidates people they try to beat it down any way they can. They try to break it and keep it from realizing it's own abilities.
  I think the claims of men 'objectifying' women have been used too often in circumstances where it doesn't really apply. This has caused the term to lose any credibility. This is unfortunate because men are assholes who treat women like objects.If a  woman points it out she is an uptight bitch, all she does is complain and hate on men, she must be a lesbian.
  If we could ask women without coming off as perverts how often they are just as pleased during sex as their partner I bet we would get a pretty good indication of how some men consider women.If a man is not treating the woman he is intimate with with some respect then how is he going to treat a woman he doesn't know? Like an object he doesn't care about.

I'm not going to get into the science of why men are assholes in this way because I don't need to. Men know they are assholes they count on other men being too afraid of looking like wimps to say it out loud and they depend on women putting up with it. If no one acts to stop them then why should they stop? There have been great changes in the workplace and in some media and social environments we have made it clear you can not act like an asshole without expecting to be held accountable. There still is work to be done and even in the places men are no longer allowed to be assholes they still are only now it's kept inside.
 Like I said, I warned my daughter about all you idiot types out there, she knows how to deal with your attempts to make her feel cheap and good for nothing except as a target for your childish disrespectful comments or behavior. When you are  an asshole around me I'll tell you so too. If you need to be an asshole so bad then do it to other guys not to their Mothers, sisters, daughters and wives.
   Note: This was written by a guy who is well aware of his biases and limitations when addressing this subject. I did the best I could,  what do you expect from an asshole?