Thoughts: Them Gilmore Girls.

I like Gilmore Girls.  There I said it.  Thats right I James C. Romo enjoy watching / listening to Rory and Lorelai riff off of each other endlessly and often to the point of absurdity.  I care if Lorelai and Luke ever get together, I wonder if Logan can ever change his ways enough for Rory, I love/hate Emily and Richard so much it feels like they are family, I want to strangle Paris, and I would eat pretty much anything Sookie St. James puts in front of me.  I mean this show has the title characters refer to themselves as "those Gilmore Girls" a gimmick that would usually send me running for the hills to watch an episode of Breaking Bad to try to recover, and manages to make it down right adorable!  This show is like Aaron Sorkin and Jenji Kohan had a love child that was then raised by non other than the lovable Lorelai Gilmore herself.  Yes it is that quippy, which admittedly grates on my senses at times.  Despite my initial standoffish position on the show, I like it!  I know I know "like" seems a tad cold shouldery, but I hesitate, to give it the stronger L word, (no not lesbians).  You see, because I am about ten years late to the party, I have the ability to see this for what it is, a really really good fling.  Amazing while it lasts but ultimately doomed to end.  Sure I can drag it on a bit longer, but eventually I will have to pack my bags, head on back to fall semester and sing summer nights in the high school parking lot.  So while fighting the urge to declare my love for this show I am here to tell you, if you haven't yet, go watch it!  All seasons of Gilmore girls are on Netflix and this show is highly bingeable!  If you are a 90's era child with a sense of humor and a high capacity to understand obscure references you will love this show.  If you are an angsty teen looking for relatable people, you will love this show.  If you like television and have a brain capable of allowing your eyeballs and ears to receive information you, will, love, this, show.

Go! Drink coffee, and don't forget.

In Omnia Paratus!...
(Just watch the show you'll understand, alright ace?)

Thoughts: The one where I destroy unfortunate social norms. ( warning nsfw language)

Bae:

Etymology: From an onomatopoeia expressing disgust.
Danish: Noun meaning, Poop, Crap. 

Boo: 

said to show disapproval or contempt, especially at a performance or athletic contest.

Also sound used to represent ghosts.  


Two words used prolifically in todays younger, and current generations as 

an endearing "pet" name for their significant others... 

Why?!  What happened to baby, or sweetheart, or love, sweetie, honey, sweet cheeks! 

all much more acceptable than Bae... or boo... You sound ridiculous, it's not cute.  To be 

fair, the list of preferred words don't make people sound more sophisticated.  However,

at least the old words actually meant something nice, loving, and mushy.  

The new "popular" words are more like attacks on the person you'er referring to.  

I guess it's not that surprising when you stop to consider the words people have started to

substitute for sex.  Destroy, smash... Are you kidding?!  "Fucking" wasn't "hardcore" enough?

Why isn't the word sex suitable?... 


On the subject of words, what the hell is with everything being shortened?  

The list is enormous but the most egregious by far is ILY!  

Seriously, you cant say "I love you"?  Arguably one of the most important phrases 

in the english language and you shortened it, its already only three syllables, three

words.  It takes seconds to type, and it has the power to make someones day! 

It is important, and important words deserve to be written out and said in long form.




The people you use these words on are some of the most important people in your life

ACT LIKE IT!

I AM BACK!

HOLY COW!  Its August 2014!  Are you kidding me?!  How the hell did I let myself go soooo long without writing?  I am deeply sorry dear readers, things got crazy, and I got lazy.  Thats it... I, got lazy... no excuses to be made, I have no one but me to blame.

But...

IIIII'M BACK!  Thats right every body I am typing you all this renewed promise to take up the key board once more to word vomit my thoughts, ambitions, and general musings on life, art politics, and... other junk!

Wow it's been a long time, I graduated, I have a job, I am using way too many I's.
Thats all for this post you guys.

Up next, Amazing Houston Comic Con, nerd culture, and some projects I'm working on.

Thoughts: Guns, and the mental health of our nation.

Lets Dissect the issue of gun laws for a minute.  When discussed, people usually fall into two categories.  Those that want stricter laws, and those that want less.  The underlying issue here is the safety of this country’s citizens.  People would say this is an unpopular topic, I disagree.  With its prevalence in social media and regular media I would say this is maybe one of the most popular topics in America.  Why is it such a popular subject?  Because, the safety of this nation's children is at risk.  How much at risk are we?  Well in 2009 we had 3 gun homicides per 100,000 population.  Doesn't 

sound like much to you?  Well when you compare the US with other developed countries you start to see the picture a little clearer.  Lets take Australia, with arguably the most restrictive gun laws in the world, they have a 0.1 gun related homicide per 100,000 population.  Think its simply correlation not causation?  How about New zealand?  With a whopping 0.26 gun related homicide per 100,000 population.Or the UK with a 0.03 gun related homicide per 100,000.  How about France, with its 0.23 per 100,000.  The common thread with these countries that have significantly lower 

gun homicide rates?  Stricter gun laws.  Ok some of you may have noticed that all of those figures have been “gun related homicides”.  So the argument can be made that stricter laws may not actually lower homicide rates.  However let me counter that with this.  New Zealand: 2009 homicides by any means, 134. France: 2009 homicides by any means, 428.  UK: 2009 homicides by any means, 724.Australia: 2009 homicides by any means, 43.  United States: 2009 homicides by any means, 14,159.  So not only do countries with stricter gun laws have less gun related homicide yearly, they also have lower over all homicide rates.  Weird considering everybody who leans to the right of this debate say that if we would just relax our gun law we would all be safer. 

Looks like the world is following a trend of stricter gun laws and lower homicides, and the US is just sitting back and saying “oh well” “our citizens are dying, but oh well”.  Why?  Just so you can have your toy?  Just so you can pretend you are safer with that gun on your hip?  Everyday I hear people talk about a gun crime saying “if we could just open carry that wouldn't happen”.  The only thing open carry would do is make you a target, Im really tired of everybody thinking they are John Wayne or Dirty Harry, and that if they had their 45 strapped to their leg they could quick draw and kill a would be murderer before they have a chance to take a life.  I'm here to tell you otherwise.  In 2009 a man in my home town chased and shot down a woman in the local HEB.  I live in Texas, concealed carry is allowed here.  Not one person pulled out a gun to defend that woman or to stop him afterwards.  He drove off into a high speed chase slamming into a Walmart in a town over, killing two others before he was shot by police.  I am sorry to tell you but guns do not make us safer.  The bystander affect happens whether or not people are allowed to carry guns.  Now let me make a point that my friends on the left won't like much.  While guns do contribute to the problem, they are not the whole picture.  Tragedies like Columbine, like Virginia Tech, and Newton, happened because of our country’s neglect of mental health.  Talking about people who are mentally ill and disturbed is a taboo we as an American people need to get over.  Pay attention to the kid crying in the corner, don't just tell them to toughen up and stop crying or ignore them all together.  Listen to the kid who just wants to talk.  Stop over medicating, all it does is suppress until the person blows, kills themselves, or commits a terrible crime.  Before we see a decline in these types of tragedies we have to see a decrease in the stigma that surrounds mental health.  Take money out of the drugs we feed our citizens and put it into therapy and counseling.  Stop big corporations from dumping chemicals into our water and start pushing for clean practices and less additives in our food.  This country is in bad shape, guns are not the only contributing factor, but they are not helping.  All that being said, what we really need to be focused on is compassion for your fellow human.  We are a nation divided and all we do is yell over the other side who is yelling back just as loud.  We have to talk, hear out each side and agree.  Lets fix ourselves.  

(All facts and figures can be found at http://www.gunpolicy.org and for a closer look at Australia's gun laws check out, http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/gun-control-in-australia/ )

James C. Romo 

Other junk: Careers, life, evolving.

        So I have been doing a good amount of thinking recently, (oh shit right?), and I have been questioning my "career choice".  I put that in quotes for a few reasons.  First I don't consider something that is fun a career, maybe that's because when I hear the word career I think of somebody in a nine to five for 30 years and then retiring so they can finally start their life (my definition of career has broadened a bit but not much).  Second because I haven't finished school yet, and I'm not working in the field so I don't feel like it can be called a career yet.  Like I said I have been thinking a great deal lately that I chose to go to school for the wrong thing, and for a while now I have been feeling down about having wasted my time working toward a degree I may not even use.  Then I saw this video by a Youtube channel named Vlogbrothers.  Basically they said that career is kind of a loaded word, that it implies that we only get one choice and when we make it we are stuck with it.  This all sounds pretty basic now but before I watched this video thats almost exactly how I felt.  Not so much that I am stuck with the choice I made but that I put myself in a position where to change now would delay my future.  Then I started to think about things I have heard others say.  A very successful photographer here in Houston by the name freeman said, "evolve" I'm paraphrasing, he didn't just come up to me and say one word, but in a nut shell that was the message.  He was talking about photography at the time but the concept applies to life in general.  Life, your career, your hobbies, they all evolve over time.  Sure some lucky ones figure out what they want to do early on and become vey successful at it.  That doesn't mean the rest of us can’t be successful.  So I may not become a photographer, or I may only be a photographer for a little while, I may write, I may open a cafe.  Who knows?  Nobody.  We cant know for certain what we will end up doing and a lot of us won’t end up doing just one thing.  Currently I am leaning toward writing, even considering going to get my masters in english after I finish up my BFA.  So I wont throw my hands up and walk away from photography, I will finish. 

Evolve!  Not just in your career but in life.  

James C. Romo

Thoughts: Guns.

              So this is about guns.  As most of you know I am not writing this blog to make friends.  This is a very opinion based blog and I use it to get my thoughts and sometimes random dribble out there.  I say all of this knowing that I have a veritable loaded weapon in my hands with this topic, pun intended.  First I want to take a historical look at the argument for guns.  At the time of the writing of the second amendment the budding country had just finished fighting a revolution (by the way I am not a history major so I don't have exact dates, please don't hang me for it).  At that time the country had just defended itself from a tyrannical governing body that threatened their basic civil liberties.  The threat of the people having to rise up and protect themselves from an overbearing militia was very real!  So yes when the amendment was written (and lets remember the word amendment for later), it made a great deal of sense!  Now lets comeback to the present day.  Here in the United States of America, we have the strongest military in the world.  Why dose this matter?  Well a good number of people still make the argument that we need our guns just in case we have to rise up and defend ourselves from the government.  Please tell me you all see how ridiculous this is.  The government here in the U.S. has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world!  Your 45. is not going to matter if they let one of them off the chain.  Now I realize this is a sensationalist idea, the government is not going to fire a nuclear missile at us, but remember thats just the nuclear fire power they have.  The government also possesses fighter planes, non nuclear missiles, and lets see, oh yeah, the entire military!  That Glock will not protect you against a platoon of marines, or a stealth bomber.  My point here is if the government wanted to put us into a police state and become tyrannical, they could, we are powerless in an arms race.  

           Now remember that word amendment?  So there is a large group of people in the U.S. (and when I say large I mean the majority), that say the right to bear arms is a human right.  To them I say you are partially correct, we were given the right to obtain and posses firearms under the second amendment.  However, it is only an amendment.  This one is hard for people to wrap their heads around mostly because it is a bit complicated and to be honest I don't fully understand it either, but here is my take on it.  The ability to make amendments to the constitutions was made by the founding fathers because they could not possibly for see future changes therefore knew that the day would come that the constitution would need to be adjusted to fit the times.  To me (as I stated earlier) the right to bear arms was a very good idea when it was amended to the constitution, now not so much.  There is no longer a real threat that we will have to defend against tyranny.  Ok so far it sounds like I am this one hundred percent liberal that wants to ban all guns from the world!  Not so, (and this is the point where I lose all of my supporters on the gun control side), guns are useful in a moderate way, hunting I view as a legitimate reason to own a gun, (that may be Texas talking), also in home defense in my eyes is acceptable.  I do not however support the ability to freely carry guns with you where ever you go.  This to me is insane!  It has been proven that guns only escalate tense situations.  Lets look at some infamous situations where the ability to carry guns has become very tragic.  Currently it is legal to carry firearms in your car, so Charles Whitman, the man who killed 13 and injured 32 from the tower at the University of Texas, well within his right to own and carry that firearm. James Holmes was also well within his rights to own and carry the guns he used to kill twelve people in a Colorado movie theater.  Right about now the people against stricter gun control are saying that these are isolated cases and the actions of a few should not negatively affect many.  I would agree with this sentiment if it had any validity.  The truth is that we don't hear about are the ruffly 82 people that are killed a day due to gun violence and firearm accidents.  82 a day!  The reason we here about the Whitmans and Holmes of the world is because they are large numbers at one time.  We don't hear about the 82 that died today because they happened all over the country and at different times of the day, but that does not make them any less tragic.  

           Right now people on both sides are confused and not sure where to categorize me.  Its simple I see both sides and I don't fault either for believing what they do.  I believe that there are legitimate reasons to own a firearm.  I don't believe in the ease with which you can acquire a gun.  Also the amount of weapons and ammunition one can get a hold of with out raising eyebrows is astonishing.  Why is it that police officers and other law enforcement positions have to go though a psych evaluation?  It is because they are being trusted with a firearm and we need to be sure they are of sound mind before we release them into the world carrying a weapon, but if I want a shotgun all I need is a clean background and money?  There are people trained to tell if someone has or is of high risk for mental issues, I am aware that not all who shoot people have a mental problem, some are just evil, but if it can stop just a third of the gun deaths it is a victory.  I realize this is in no way a solution but it would be a step in the right direction.  There defiantly need to be stricter laws in place to obtaining a weapon.  Lastly who needs an assault rifle?  An assault rifle!  I said before that there are legitimate reasons to own a firearm, however there is absolutely no reason to own an assault rifle.  People argue they hunt with them, it is not necessary to use an assault rifle to hunt!  Something as low tech as a bow and arrow will suffice.  

         When something injures and kills as many people as firearms do a year, the people of the United States, ban it or at the very least put stricter laws surrounding it.  We did it with alcohol we did it with cigarettes, guns should be no different.  Thousands of people die a year during some kind of gun related incident.  Why do we continue to allow these weapons to go largely under regulated?  

This country is meeting tragedy with indifference, that in itself is tragic.  

James C. Romo

Thoughts: A War on Childhood.

            So some doctors are saying that trampolines aren't safe for children.  Sigh, just another 

weapon in the arsenal of the war against normal childhood.  How can we expect children to 

grow up well rounded and functioning adults if we shelter them so much?  If you’re sitting 

there reading this and thinking, “Wow what a nut, pfff war on childhood?” Then let me shed 

some light on a few things.  First attack, merry-go-rounds.  That’s right, bet you forgot about 

that beloved piece of childhood magic, and why did you forget about it, because its been

 BANNED FROM ALL PARKS! 

              That’s right sometime in 2009 parks across the country started “upgrading” parks and 

removed the merry-go-rounds.  Second piece of info a little less known, recently a mother 

was arrested for allegedly being negligent because she lets her kids play outside while she 

was inside.  Are you kidding me?! I remember running to the end of my street to play a game 

of tag with the neighbors all the time!  People, children get hurt, they fall they scrape their 

knees they get cuts and bloody noses they may even break a few bones!  All that is not a 

reason to wrap them in packing foam and keep them under lock and key!  Children are 

resilient and they learn best from experience, hell we all learn best from experience!  Think 

back to when you were a kid and you decided it would be really cool to jump from that high 

place, or climb that really high tree, or light that firework in your room, (oh you haven't done 

that last one? well whatever).  Now remember what happened next?  You broke your arm, 

you cut your knee, you burnt your hands!  Now, think about your experiences after that, you 

learned how to jump starting with lower heights, you learned how to tell if a branch was safe, 

you never lit fireworks in your room ever again.  This is kid stuff. 

            Stuff like riding a bike at an early age, playing down the street with neighbor kids, and 

yes jumping on trampolines and riding merry-go-rounds, are all essential parts of a 

childhood they learn through play.  Parents spend every waking hour these days worrying 

about whether or not the slide is safe for their child to use or that their kid is going to fall and 

cut themselves and then they might get an infection.  Do you know how many children have 

died from trampoline injuries? About 11 from 1990-1999 thats 1.2 deaths a year! Do you 

know how many people die in car accidents?  About 5,000, a day!  Do they ban cars? 

Nope!  That would be ridiculous, cars still at least to most people, out weigh the bad with the 

benefits, but if car accidents kill 5,000 a day why are they ok to have your kids in but a 

trampoline or a merry-go-round not?  You want to protect your children from something? Stop 

letting them drink soda for every meal, hell stop letting them have soda.  Stop caving when 

they ask for sweets, teach them the importance of a healthy diet and an active life!  These 

are the things they need to be taught.  You can’t tell a person how to learn from mistakes, 

you need to let them make them, fall, and get back up.  So please, PLEASE, stop this war on 

childhood, and start letting them grow.  

Kids will be kids, have their back, but don't be a bubble to live in. 

James C. Romo