Sunday, December 31, 2006

Magazines with Disclaimers

Like many people, I sometimes have to sit in a waiting room. During a recent wait, I picked up a financial magazine and started thumbing through it. Apparently, the individual who picked up the same copy of this magazine (that shall remain nameless) had puh-lenty of time to kill. He (or she, I really should not assume here) decided to add the following disclaimer to said magazine:

|- quoted material -- author unknown -|

Notice: This magazine may be read only by those that meet the following qualifications:

  • You are male-born-male.
  • You voted for Bush and believe he can do no wrong.
  • You believe that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and Mars is a much better planet.
  • You are white.
  • You are heterosexual and homophobic.
  • You have no mannerisms that could possibly, in any way, be considered even slightly feminine or wimpy, such as feelings, emotions, concern for others.
  • You are Republican.
  • You voted for Bush and believe he should be king.
  • You are pseudo-Christian (as opposed to real Christians, who don’t skip those parts of the bible that mention Jesus’ concern for the poor and disadvantaged, overturning the moneychanger’s tables, etc).
  • You can be Jewish, if you are sufficiently right-wing, willing to suck up to pseudo-Christians, and agree to sell your soul when the Rapture comes. But be advised that we can revoke this privilege at any time. Also, we have a strict quota on the number of Jewish subscribers. (This is “affirmative action”, after all.)
  • You are eager to lay off workers and outsource their jobs, and can do this as easily as flicking a crumb off your table.
  • You are eager to make money off the backs of those who don’t meet these qualifications.
  • You believe Bush should be king and that he can do no wrong.
  • You equate capitalism with democracy.

If you do not meet these qualifications, you are nothing but a scraping from the bottom of the barrel and we don’t want you as a reader.

|- end quoted material -| 

That unofficial disclaimer was more noteworthy than anything else I found in the mag. Seriously.

Resolutions

Flickr Photo: Times Square Ball as seen via television.

Ah, yes. New Year's Eve. A time for reflecting on the past year, reviewing one's performance, and making resolutions. My blogging performance, sad to say, has been dismal. Part of that has been due to the change in my day job. I am still playing the technical writing game. But in my new location, I have less time and rarer opportunities to make updates here at Prophet or Madman. And whenever I have had a few minutes to do some blogging, I wasted it. I couldn't choose what I wanted to write about, or how I wanted to approach a subject. So I just skipped it. Of course, blogging isn't everything (it's the only thing! Kidding). This year has also been about recuperating. Last year at this time, I was recovering from an emergency appendectomy. This year, as some of you regular visitors may recall, I broke my left foot over Memorial Day weekend and it required surgery. Well, I had the screws removed on Thursday afternoon, so I am currently recovering from that procedure. So here are my resolutions for 2007:
  1. I resolve to be kinder to my body. To listen to it, and to work on improving my overall health.
  2. I resolve to spend some more time on this blog. I'll probably have to do it early in the morning or late in the evening, but I want to do my best to ensure that there is some quality content here and have it updated a few times a week.
  3. I resolve to manage my time better. With a longer daily commute as well as a paid position at the theater, I'll have more deadlines to face in the coming year. But I will have to find a way to manage them so that I can also complete projects around the house.
  4. On top of all of this, I resolve to deepen my spiritual walk. I recently completed a 2+ year study in world religions while digging deeper into the spirituality of my ancestors. I now have to find a way to bring all of that into my daily life. Perhaps I'll share some of that journey with you here.
That's all I have for now. Best wishes to everyone in the blogosphere for a fantastic 2007.

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