The Cantankerous Young Man

While I was away.

2010-08-03T20:55:00.003-04:00

While I was away a lot of things happened in our little world, such as the British Petroleum oil spill and Comedian Jon Stewart trying to grow his sad excuse for a beard. I believe he called it Philip.

I'm not going to cover any of those or a lot of what's in the media right now because I kinda came late to the party. Instead I'll talk about other trends such as the trends in comics, manga, and movies today, among political science topics. I plan on doing segments on odd adventures I go on as well as strange people I meet.

This is the new blog of the CYM.

2010-07-19T14:02:00.001-04:00

I'm back...

New post begin soon.

What is American political culture? Do all Americans have the same values? Should they?

2010-05-06T23:20:00.000-04:00

When it comes to American political culture and it’s meaning a couple come to mind, Dennis Kavanagh defines political culture as "A shorthand expression to denote the set of values within which the political system operates". The other is what Lucian Pye describes it as "the sum of the fundamental values, sentiments and knowledge that give form and substance to political process". These are very educated ideas as to what political culture is, but what exactly is American political culture?

The political culture of the United States is based on widespread beliefs. Democratic values like liberty, equality, individualism, democracy, justice, the rule of law, nationalism, optimism, and idealism are shared by Americans but these values are often in conflict. At its current state, American political culture is pretty polarized and partisan. Citizens treat political parties like football teams and idol gods, listening to everything that comes from each party, obeying them, barely if at all questioning them, and not daring to question them or listen to what the other party has to say. American political culture has gone from intelligent individuals debating about the future of the country and the hopes of the people to degrading down to media mudslinging and phallic measuring contests.

When it comes to whether or not Americans have the same values, I have to say as much as political groups, movements and the media tries to portray it as we all having the same values, I’m going to say no. It is obvious that we Americans do not have the same values and it would be impossible for such a diverse country mixed with such different cultures to have the same values. Looking at what we see on news networks, they show very different opinions; from the opinions of the tea baggers, to the opinions of the FOX news writers and staff, to the opinions of various groups out there.

From what I learned during the course of taking Political Science, the views of those in the class, the readings during the course of the class and the views of those out side of the class, I can firmly say that not everyone in America has the same views. It would be impossible to. Because it is rather impossible, it leads me to believe that Americans are not meant to have the same values or anyone for that matter. Which logically speaking suggests that we as Americans or people everywhere shouldn’t have the same values, even though some may not be the best to have. That is my firm and educated reasoning from taking this course, researching and learning more about politics than what I did prior to the class.

You didn't get mad

2010-03-26T00:58:00.000-04:00

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn't get mad when the Pentagon misplaced $2.3 trillion.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown.
You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You didn't get mad when the debt went up $5 trillion under Bush.
You finally got mad when.. when... wait for it... when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all ok with you but helping other Americans... well fuck that.

Plagerist Asshole Nick Simmons

2010-03-03T22:31:00.002-05:00

Hello true believers I am your friendly neighborhood Cantankerous Young Man here to talk to you about a serious issue and to get your opinion.

Nick Simmons, nineteen year old son of the famous lead singer of the band Kiss Gene Simmons put out a comicbook named "Incarnate" on August of the year two-thousand and nine. Over the months fans began to notice similarities between the character designs, clothing designs, panel layouts, and a lack of consistancy from page to page that seemed to come from other popular series. Soon the curious comic fans began to examine these similarities and after countless side-by-side examinations it was clear that pages and character designs were traced and plagerized in his series.

This enraged both the fans of the various comics he ripped off and hard working artist like myself who bust our asses off to work in the industry. After this was found out and reported, his company Radical Comics halted production of his series.

Here is something I am wondering, before a comic is published and put out into the world, there are a group of people in the comic company who look it over and check to see if it is legitimate or a plagerized peice of garbage. Please explain to me how did Nicky boy get past these people. Was it the fact that he had a famous father that got him past these security precautions? Was it and under the table deal? Was it the fact that the employees screwed the pooch and let this plagerizing sonnova gun through the long and drawn out precautionary measures?

A funny little tid bit of info for my readers. Incarnate was originally up for publication not so long ago, under the name of Skullduggery. It was supposed to be published by IDW, a publishing company in alliance with Gene Simmons' own comic company, but even then the art was so bad that the deal fell through:
“Well, first off, the art simply wasn't good enough. The people at IDW must have had the patience of saints to deal with the chicken scratch I turned in to them. My art was messy and juvenile. Amateur at best. I'm nowhere near pro now, to be sure, but I'm miles beyond what i used to be, especially in character design and overall neatness. And, with the help of Nam Kim and his team, the book has really turned into something I can be proud of." Nick Simmons on why his comic was turned down by his father's company.

However, instead of improving his skills the old fashion way by going to an art school or taking art classes he goes for the easy way out. Some how within a few months he was able to create a comic now worthy of being published by an actual company without classes or professional help. How does this work? Is this some sort of weird magic? Did me somehow discover his artistic center alone in this short amount of time? No...he traced.

Once found out of his nefrious deeds he was questioned by those both professional and nonprofessional and for a while he kept quiet. Soon a fellow artists on the website deviantart began to flame his page. Two of which were artist claiming he traced their work, these two artist are ChaosVoid and robbingraves. It was clear that Nick had plagerized a few of their designs, seeing that the designs he had stolen were in his comic and also in his favorites on his deviantart account. After being called out he finally decided to open up and release a statement which blamed fans for similarities in his work to other artists and professionals...seen as follows:
“Like most artists I am inspired by work I admire. There are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium.

“I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me.”

In my opinion this apology is nothing but bullshit and I believe he should be punished for what he has done, but for some reason there is a hold-up even though there is a mountain of evidence against him. This leaves me wondering if his daddy stepped in and started paying off all the higher ups to keep Nicky boy from being sued by all the artists he ripped off.

This burns me up not just as an artist or a writer, but as a person who believes in equal rights and everyone should get what they deserve. If he doesn't get punished for this, what's to keep others from doing this? Besides a famous father and money. What is to keep other artistic or even serious crimes like this from happening?

A petition has been created by a group of angry artists, because they, like I do believe this kid should be punished for his crime. We work our asses off, we get ulcers from the stress of long nights, we miss important dates, classes, and time with our families to put out out work to get a shot at our dear career. It isn't fair that this horrible little kid can just palgerize a comic from countless artists and writers and waltz his way into a career like he has. If you care half as much as I do, please sign the petition below. Thank you and have a good evening.

http://www.petitiononline.com/natsplag/petition.html

Weeaboos...nuff said.

2010-02-23T23:29:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone, long time no see. Had a small bit of trouble with my computer. The charger for it had a short, so needless to say, I couldn't charge it. Now kids I am going to talk to you about a group of people who grinds my gears. These indivuals are what the internet reffers to as weeaboos. A weeaboo is an individual who is infatuated with Japanese culture so much they are blind to everything else around them.

Here are a few of the reason why they annoy me. They have a tendency to squeeze what little Japanese they know into everyday conversation even though the person they are talking to may have no idea what they are saying. An example, "oh my gawd, these shoes are like so kawaii...I have to get them." This annoys me for the fact that sometimes they use words in the wrong context and then when you try to correct them, they get all pissy about it. Recently I was having a conversation with one and I did something to make her laugh, she said the word or phrase "omoshiroi." Japanese for the interesting, or funny in an odd sort of way, also strange. I of course corrected her and told her she used it in the wrong context and she replied with, "yeah, that's what I meant!" in a bite my head off sorta manner. During the conversation I asked her as to why she tried to squeeze Japanese into all of her sentences and she replied with, "because english is such a boring language." I was mildly offended by this, esspecially since the girl is an American citizen. English as we know is the language of business. In other countries, most people who work in companies learn english or have english translators so they can do business over seas. When hundreds of people come together for business meetings and even a various assortment of other gatherings, they speak English. The U.N. speaks English when they meet. "I would hate to go to speak with Shigeru Miyamoto and insult him by speaking horrible Japanese like a small half retarded child when trying to pitch a video game idea." To quote a very good friend of mine named Austen Derrick, who we call Yoshi. He is of Japanese decent and knows the importance of the English language. Also if you are planning to travel to Japan a lot of the major business speak english or have atleast a few employees that do, although it would be good to know some Japanese incase you get lost and you aren't sure anyone speaks English. Even then you would only need a rudementery amount.

The second thing that that pisses me off about these people is their unwillingness to branch out from their tiny safe zones. For example, not watching something because it's "too old" regardless of how great the story is or the impact it had on it's audience. They only seen to want to watch what is popular as if trying to desperately look cool in the eyes of their peers or because that show is the only thing they can relate to other people about. I actually had a run in with a young man who was talking about how great the Gundam Seed series was. I of course told him it was an incredible peice of garbage that basterdized Yoshiyuki Tomino's most famous series. He of course got offended and asked why did I have that opinion, I obligded the young man with my answer. First I asked did he watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam. He of course had never heard of it. This perplexed me and I went on to explain why this series was amazing. To give you a brief reason as to why MSG is better than GS goes as follows. MSG spans three series and a movie to complete it. The first series follows this antisocial kid named Amuro Ray. He doesn't like people and would rather sit in his room and tinker with machines and toys than bother with people. He is also very emo and whines all the time. During the course of the series Amuro ages, and goes through impressive character development, from a whiny bitch, to a productive young man trying to fight the good fight for what he believes in. Also in this series, everyone has a purpose for fighting the war they are fighting, there is no clear sign of who is good or who is evil, because each character has a legitimate reason for why they fight. Such as the antagonist Char Aznabel, he fights for peace and freedom of the colonies, because they are his homeland. He doesn't agree with a lot of his higher ranking officers and actually kills off a good bit of them because to his point of view they were evil and need to be killed for the good of the colonies. He even tried to recruit Amuro Ray, the shows protagonist. They had basically the same goal but went about them different ways. They even saved each other and had pleasant conversations when not in combat with one another. In the end the Earth Federation won and beat the colonies, but this is only the start of MSG. In the second Series Zeta Gundam, Amuro is an adult of 20 years of age and has matured a lot. He is very much different then when he was in MSG. Char the antagonist of MSG is now working with the EF under the Alias Quattro Bajeena. Although now ZG has a new protagonist named Kamillie Badan, a hot tempered young man who is quick to fight and pretty much hates everyone. Both Amuro and Char, now Quattro play mentor to Kamillie and are now fighting on the same side. Arumo is not very trusting of Char seeing they used to be mortal enemies which would be natural, but they put their differences aside to work together and mentor this young soldier. Third series ZZG, again a new protagonist named Judau Ashita. Kamillie is in a coma from his final battle, but Amuro now 26 and quickly becoming veteran takes Judau under his wing. Unlike the other two protagonist, Judau is a very happy and very social person. He loves people and loves making new friends. Judau is also a kids from the colonies who they had conflicts with before, but he has a similiar belief system as Amuro. Even still they way the show is written you can understand everyone's point of view and there is no heroes or villians persay. Now for the movie, Char's Counter Attack. In the movie Char is now a villian again, he is 34 and sick of all the fighting. He realizes no matter what side he is on people are all the same. Knowing their is no side he can relate to but his own, he gathers men to wage war with everyone in a nilistic fashion, because he just can't take war or people anymore. Now Amuro 32 years of age an adult, who now hates war more then anything suits back up to take on his arch nemesis once again. Even though Amuro has seen that even his people can be just as "bad" as those he fought still believes that their is "good" in everyone and wants to stop Char. He tries to talk Char out of his ways, but when they don't work he resorts to a good ol'fashion ass whoopin'. In the end after the big battle both Amuro and Char are assumed K.I.A. and a service is held for them. Now, Gundam Seed has no depth what so ever. It is also poorly written and used Deus Ex Machina way too much. To get back on subject, I told this young man about the plot and he said that it sounded awesome, then I told him the year it came out which was 1978 he replied, "Oh...I'm not going to watch it because it's too old." This pissed me off beyond all reason and now I refuse to talk to him. On other occasion I met a person who was into reading manga. I introduced this person to to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, an amazing series in which all the character are anatomically correct and they have lips. You never if at all see anime characters with lips. JoJo needless to say uses realism, also it uses intellegence. This person refused to read it because apparently the characters looked too weird. This confuses me, how can it look weird if it's realism and everyone and everything is anatomically correct? Someone explain that to me.

Now the final reason why they piss me off. They have a tendency to bash American culture and styles. They talk about how lame American music is and how more awesome Japanese music is in comparrison. This is a load of bullshit. Japanese get their clothing and styles from the American and European culture. Wait what...you want me to repeat that. Yes. The Japanese get majority of their clothing fads and such from America and Europe. Holy redundacy check Batman...are you saying that Weeaboos are getting their Japanese style from themselves!? Yes...that's exactly what I'm saying. Do you remember in the 90s when Japan was basically going through the American 50s, yeah I remember that. Also your gothic lolita style actually came from 80s U.S. of A and 80/90s Europe. Did I just blow your mind? Now for the music, what's the difference between Yellow Card and 175R? Nothing, they have the same sound, make the same style of music, sing about the same things, both of the lead singers even have a similar weird voice. There is virtually no difference in the music other than location. Your Japanese artist Se7en is basically T-pain or R.Kelly. Seriously people think. I of course listen to Japanese music but I am not exclusive to it. I listen to everything, from everywhere. For the coup de grace. There seems to be this lack of patriotism and love for their country when it comes to weeaboo. That is unacceptable.

In all honesty I'm a firm believer in to each their own, but come on people open your minds. Don't just act like you are open to things because you are supposedly into another culture. That just makes you look and seem like a pompous ass. I believe I held your attention long enough. Thank you for your time. Later people.

M.I.A. and God

2010-02-12T00:14:00.006-05:00

Hello loyal followers, I apologize for not being on in a while, because I had computer problem. Of course that time is over with and now I can post a new blog post.

This is going to be a short post, but it's going to be a good one

My god is better than your god...mine has lazers...

Freedom of Speech In America

2010-01-26T20:50:00.003-05:00

Here is a video of freedom of speech, all answers given were different but had a same basic point. Freedom of speech is our first amendment for a reason. It was established into the first amendment because people have voices, opinions, and thoughts that they need to speak out without fear of someone persecuting them.

Here is something I have begin to notice though, political correctness seems to be overshadowing freedom of speech. People are walking on pins and needles not sure of what to call others because they don't want to "offend" them. I don't care if it is flight attendant or steward/stewardess, just bring me my peanuts and shut the hell up. Political correctness is a good thing don't get me wrong, but we as a country are taking it too far. A school district in California banned dictonaries because of some of the words in them, that makes little to no sense to me. Why is it a hate crime to draw a picture of the Qur'an in the toilet, but when it's a picture of the bible in the toilet it's called art?

The most important thing that I can tell you is that when freedom of speech fails, it is our god given right to take up arms and fight for it. When someone impeads on your right to free speech it is your right to bare arms against them and show them that you will not be treaded on so easily.

So I say my people fuck your political correctness, I am going to say what ever the hell I want and if you try to tell me other wise I'll defend my right no matter who you are.

Do You Think There Is A Reason Dictators Rule With A Iron Fist?

2010-01-22T23:33:00.003-05:00

Think about this, a person comes into power of a land that has many warring tribes and factions much like how Saddam Hussien came into power. To clear things up from the start, I do not like Saddam Hussien and I have zero love for majority of the dictators I've heard of unless the were fictional, so please do not take it the wrong way. Now, back on the subject. Say you are that person and you've been dealing with years and years of infighting and different tribes trying to exterminate each other and you just begun to realize that all of your efforts are for not.

What do you do? Do you continue your useless ways or do you get tough and exact martial law? Do you make them fall in line by fearing you? A famous writer and philosopher named Niccolo Machiavelli coined this phrase, "it is better to be feared than loved". Do you agree with this?

Black people aren't magical.

2010-01-21T22:10:00.009-05:00

Alright to start this off, I just want to say this will probably be a short blog post.

We all know the economy isn't as good as it should be. It took eight years to screw up the economy the way it is, so why people think that it could be fixed in the first year of Obama's term? Seriously people...did some of you honestly think that as soon as he came into office, the world would become better. pixies would fly out of a sky and make rainbows fly out of people's asses? No, these things take time.

I know alot of you have seen these movies in which a black man appears out of nowhere and dances a jig, or says a few things and everything is right with the world again. Well things like that doesn't happen in real life. Black people aren't magical like how they are portrayed in movies and television shows. Sorry but this is the truth.

Obama is trying the best he can when swamped by all the problems Bush and maybe Clinton started to a lesser extent, as well as trying to do his own thing to try and better the country. The health care bill for instance is an optional thing, IT WILL NOT INTERFERE WITH YOUR INSURANCE. It's is meant for those who don't have insurance or can't afford it, so please hush with the protesting you misinformed simpletons.

Anywho I am going to close this blog out with a final statement, which is pretty much a restatement that BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT MAGICAL.

Thank you and good night.

Furlough...really!? You're telling me you can't pay our teachers?

2010-01-19T13:08:00.004-05:00

A furlough is a temporary leave of absence from employment, duty in the armed services, or from a prison term. It may be voluntary or involuntary.

I've been doing abit of research on this subject and the more I found out the more it pissed me off. At first I didn't know what the word meant, I was aquanted with the word by my mother who is a teacher, the second time from my sister, a teacher, and finally I heard it around my school from various teachers, all in which viewed it in a negative light. So I decided to go and look it up and see why.

In a nutshell board members of various school districts as well as universities implemented "furlough days" in 2009. This made students pay the same rate, if not more for their education while providing fewer educational days by forcing professors to take the day off. This was also put into play to so they wouldn't have to lay teachers off because apparently they don't have the funds to pay them, this to me is bullshit.

To reiterate this from my understanding, we as students pay more for less class days. What the fuck is this? Someone please explain it to me as to why we have to suffer, both students and teachers. Teachers are the hardest working people in the world while we students are just trying to better ourselves. I have a great respect for teachers, they come in to work, they deal with tons of different personalities, some easy to deal with, some not so easy. They teach us everything we know, motivate us, show us the right path in life, council us, discipline us and for what? One of the lowest paying jobs and not even a thank you.

Being shafted as they are today it's a surprise people are still trying to become teachers. We can barely pay teachers, but we can give Lebron James, Lady Gaga, and an assortment of other people tons and tons of money...that's fucking retarded in my opinion. Why are they fuloughing teachers who have an important job to shape the future of the world and making the future generation pay more to better themselves, when they could maybe cut out some of the millions that our athletes, movie stars, and musical artist, which I'm sure they won't miss and give it to our teachers and our educational departments.

Cripes, seriously, why can't we do that? Use logic people, because the way I see it, soon people will stop wanting to be teachers and pursue other careers and then what will happen to the generations of children that come after people decide they don't want to become teachers because of they way they are treated? Think about it, give me comments, I honestly want to know what you think as readers.

The Start

2010-01-15T18:30:00.001-05:00

Hello, good day, good evening, or what have you. I am the Cantankerous Young Man. I am new to the blogging scene, I actually been planning on creating one for awhile now, but never got around to doing so. Today I started my Political Science class and my teacher who told us to call him Shyam told us to start a blog for our class, in which we are supposed to talk about current issues and what not. This of course is for points in the class, which is always nice...so I decided to jump on this blogging thing.

Contrary to what you may think, I am not just doing this for a grade. I am doing this because I have an opinion of things that piss me off and I'd like to be heard.

I'm not going to post an opinion today. This was just an introduction of me, why I created this blog, and a brief break down of what you can expect from me. Tuesday and Thursday I shall try my best to post a blog on current events and my opinion on what is going in the world, Friday if I'm not feeling too lazy, I am going to do a blog on general things that "grind my gears".

There is a reason why I call myself the Cantankerous Young Man and in time I'm sure you'll figure out why. For those who need a definition of the word, cantankerous means difficult, frustrating, hard to handle, and generally hot-blooded. I can be all those things at times. I hope to get readers and plenty of feed back from my reads.

Thank you for reading, CYM

The Game...