Zack of All Trades » Politics

Public Rewards

Zack Williams — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:20:35 +0000

(For those of you who aren’t aware, I live in Tucson, AZ, where there was a shooting earlier this year)

Our society is weird in terms of how we publicly rewarding people.

You’ll probably want to avoid the Oracle/Calle Concordia area later today, as they’re dedicating a statue to Christina Taylor Green at the park there and it’ll be a traffic mess.

Here’s where this rubs me weird – if you think about it, in all the accounts of the shooting she did nothing other than get shot.

Nobody is dedicating anything, that I know of, to anyone who attempted any heroic or self sacrificing actions in the shootings. There are plenty of examples – Judge John Roll jumped in front of someone else at the loss of his life, or the other people who tried to take down Loughner. Heck, Giffords aide who helped keep her alive did more.

The takeaway I have from this whole thing is that if you’re young, cute, innocent, and precocious, you get singled out and statues are put up for you. If you actually do something heroic, not so much.

Tradenotes, way too late at night edition

Zack Williams — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:54:52 +0000

Politics always brings the best out in industry, like the ’04 presidential campaign’s W Ketchup. This time around, it’s the Hillary Clinton nutcracker.

Here’s a visual comparison of data storage then and now. I remember having a 10MB (that’s Megabyte) hard disk about 20 years ago…

Oh, and that Mint 3 Musketeers bar with the wacky LOTR style TV ads? When you actually get one, it’s smaller than a standard 3 Musketeers, doesn’t taste as minty or chocolaty as a peppermint patty or Andes mint. In true movie reviewer style, this gets two thumbs down from me and Amy.

Oh, and for those of you having pre-marital anxeity, at least your proposal didn’t go like this!

Zack Williams — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:24:57 +0000

Remember the “Raise the minimum wage” ballot initiative last November? I voted for it (and thought it was past due), but it didn’t take into account certain edge cases, such as my sister who is mentally handicapped. She works at a place called the Beacon Foundation, which provides job training and employment for people in her situation, often doing jobs that pay less than minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage put her in a different wage category, which makes her ineligible for other state (basically, you have to be below the poverty line to get anything, and spend all your money until you can get them).

So, some people like my dad are trying to change this issue for people like Sarah. There’s an article in todays Tucson Citizen about the issue, which I recommend you read.