College: What they didn't tell you.

       So there you are.  Freshman again.  all set to reforge your identity to a more hip version of you.  You will have been warned about the upperclassmen, the "freshman 20", and maybe even local spots to avoid.  Mom and Dad just pulled away and its just you and your dormie.  Unless, like me your broke ass went to community college for the first half, and walked 2 1/2 miles each way (Not kidding) because after tuition and books you had no money left for the bus, and damn sure not enough for a car.
       No matter.  The part that you were not warned about remains the same.  I am looking for the most delicate way to phrase this, and I think I have found it.  No one gives a shit.  That's right, you heard it here first.  The reason college kids act crazy, dress crazy, and generally do other stupid things is that suddenly they are confronted with a world where no one cares.
       You are friends with everyone, and close To no one.  Maybe you know what you want to be when you grow up, maybe you don't.  Either way, no one cares.  Talk to a counselor.  They have no frickin idea what classes comprise your major.  Don't care either.  So you look it up yourself.  They tell you you are wrong and need fewer credit hours than you thought.  You trust them, after all they do this for a living.  But guess what?  They have no vested interest in you.  Next time you go looking for a counselor, odds are it will be someone else you talk to.  Either way you end up n school a semester, or two, longer than you should because of someone else's apathy.
       The professors are a study in apathy.  Unless you are flirty and they are the sort to take advantage.  Then they care for as long as you put out.  Otherwise, on the "give-a-crap-o-meter", you don't even register.  Again, mostly because you will be gone a short time from now.  You are just another blank face, hung over and not paying attention, who will bitch if you get less than an "A", even though we all know you deserve an "F".  Colleges just push you through, so long as you pay.  That professor came by their apathy the hard way. When they tried to fail one too many people who deserved it, and had a long talk about the effect failure rates have on funding, with a half-wit administrator who only sees you as dollar signs.
       The exception of course is the gifted person.  They care a lot about you, and keeping you in a major they teach.  So they can take credit for/steal your work.  That book isn't going to publish itself.
       The overall tone is one of transience.  You will move on soon enough.  So college is a world where there are no consequences, and thus, no one cares.
       The other thing they don't tell you is that there are consequences... but that is another post.

New type of post in the rotation.

       In addition to the consumer studies, political prosthelytizing, and general rambling; I will be adding a new type of post.  One that will be informative, to those who have been led astray.  The theme is "things they didn't tell you".  It is meant to be a tool to help you, gentle reader, to deal with unexpected things that really should not be unexpected things.  I suspect many of you will either: A) nod along while reading, having been through the same thing, B) deny that such a thing could be true, or C) become depressed and alcoholic.  The next post will be one of these.  I will try to cover life events in the order they are likely to happen to you.  (provided you are past high school, or at least high school age.)  So in that vein, next up will be college: what they didn't tell you.

How Chicago keeps you safe

       Recently I was in a gun store with my father and brother.  The owner was trying to talk my dad into buying an old revolver from the case because they would be gone soon.  

       "Why, you got a buyer?" my dad says. 

       "No, Chicago's doing another gun buyback.  I get a hundred dollar gift card for each of them, no limit."

       "No limit?"

       "Yeah, you go to one of these things and all the guns have tags on 'em.  They're all from stores."

       So let's review the stupid here.  First, this costs a crap-ton of taxpayer money, in an already bankrupt city.  Sounds like a bad idea, because it is.  I can't imagine the teachers, who did not get a contracted raise, and have already voted in favor of a strike, will miss this item when the city claims it has no money for raises during the coming negotiations.

       Second, these guns are not checked against the database of stolen firearms.  Apply that logic to a car, or computer turn in.  No questions asked, they are destroyed.  The real owner will never see that expensive item again.  Sounds bad, is bad.  Especially when you consider that law enforcement has an obligation to return stolen goods to their owners.  

       Third.  If the firearm had been used in a murder, the odds of solving that murder just went down to zero.  These guns are accepted, "no questions asked", and destroyed.  I guess Chicago figures they can't afford to hire enough detectives anyway, so why have them actually solve murders.  They need to spend their time pressing felony charges against recreational pot smokers... but that is another post.  (I know they are working toward misdemeanor tickets, I just don't think it will happen there, it makes too damn much sense)

       Fourth, as the owner of the gun store pointed out, criminals don't turn in guns at these things, (unless they need evidence destroyed) but store owners with non-functioning junk pistols do.  I do think we should always help our small business owners, but this is not the way to do it.   

       But hey, if you need to plan a murder, the city of Chicago nicely posts the dates and times of all the gun turn in events.  Turn the damn thing in warm and still smoking.  They won't care, as long as they are "Keeping you safe, by keeping guns off the streets"

       Glad I can watch this mess from afar and laugh at it.  (Not far enough, but far). 

Life is pain.

       Have you ever noticed how everyone seems to believe in Karma when something bad happens to someone who deserves it.  The jerk who set you up to be fired, gets fired themselves; that's karma right.  When it happens to you it's never karma.  Then it's bad luck, misfortune, or some jerk.
       Good things are never karma.  Good things are blessings.  Healthy baby: blessing.  Promotion: blessing.  Benediction: OK that one is technically a blessing.  You get the idea though.  We apply a different religion's vocabulary to bad things.  (Unless the reader is a practitioner of eastern religion, but I'm guessing that isn't too many of you)
       I will not condemn this haphazard practice, but I am curious why good things are not ever seen as deserved, but bad ones are.  We seem to want to deny ourselves joy for its own sake.  Misfortune is something we endure, others deserve, and we all suffer.  Good things are something that are obviously a gift, a blessing, if you will.  I do not think this is a Judeo-Christian thing either, I think it is part of the human condition.
       We perceive so much of what happens as bad that we question why it stopped.  The sudden appearance of a wounded mammoth was likely viewed as an undeserved blessing by our primitive forebears.  "What have we done that suddenly, life sucks so much less?"
       I say challenge that.  Accept the good things as just that: good things.  Further, don't be so quick to assume that the bad thing happening to a person you feel deserves it is karma.  It may just be life being life.  After all Westley (as the man in black/Dread Pirate Roberts) had it right:
       " Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."