constitution – Ben and Siya Blog Shit

Lists are dope. If only there was some simple and repeatable way to demonstrate this, an example a reader could easily follow and reference for later use… Hmm, I’m sure we’ll think of something! There’s lots of reasons why you need nifty lists (especially to start your week, your fall, your football season, expansion of your content-fillers on your blog, or filling out your parenthesis game). But what exactly makes lists so great? Let’s make a list to demonstrate!

They help organize.
They break down larger concepts.
They’re easy to digest.

See, wasn’t that fun? You know what’s even more fun? Making a list of LISTS. So we did that! Together we’ve compiled the undisputed (heavily disputed) Top 5 List of Lists that impact your everyday life. Our rules were simple:

To qualify, an entry must be a list.
All lists must be practical and have every day usage.
The lists must be usable by you, the listmaker.

There were lots of lists that could have made our Top 5 List of Lists, but for one reason or another they just didn’t quite make the cut. So in their honor, here’s a few Honorable Mention Lists in a list:

The Terminator List
Very helpful if you’re an assassin cyborg from the future sent back in time to quash a human rebellion, but not so helpful if you’re just a normal dude.

Emergency Contact List
Technically doesn’t count because it’s not a list you use. It’s a list your employer digs out of your HR file when you choke on a donut during a meeting.

The Constitution
Again, great list, but it’s not a list you made, and we’ve got a lot of love for our international audience.

Your Will
A very practical list, but at the end of the day it’s just a compiling of where you want your shit to go when you’re dead. Not a very fun list!

NSA Watch List
Hello, we are good upstanding citizens who love The United States of America. Please don’t add us.

Schindler’s List
An incredible, heartbreaking film, but (hopefully) not a list humanity will ever need again.

Allergy Label List
Undoubtedly, an important list, but is it a TOP 5 list? We say no. Then again, we don’t go into anaphylactic shock anytime we accidentally consume a peanut.

The Magna Carta Holy Grail Track List
Not even a good album, TBH. But technically a list you could use. (Keyword: COULD.)

So here we are! You now know WHY lists are necessary. You also now know HOW lists are formed. You also now know WHAT does not constitute a necessary list, however noteworthy. That said, here’s the quintessential list of lists for your survival in business, health, and general human aliveness:

5.) The Bucket List* (*Ben Objects)
*[Ben’s Note: We’ll get to my objection later on, but long story short, I’m pretty sure this is just a subset of a different, more important type of list.]

This story looks familiar; black man (Morgan Freeman) explaining life-spanning concept only to be mocked by white friend (Jack Niklaws):

“Kicking the bucket” is an old English idiom for different routes to death. Whether it be because there was holy water in the bucket to splash you into the afterlife, or any other explanation, this is a list of things to be done before death. The ONLY paramater is ‘before death’. So… “climb Mt. ~~McKinley~~ Denali” BEFORE DEATH. Visit the Pyramids… not those pyramids, the other pyramids, BEFORE DEATH. Yes, there’s other pyramids, geez, you really need to live. Might we (just Siya) suggest a “Bucket List”?

4.) The Celebrity Exception List
As seen on Friends!
Continue reading Ben and Siya’s Top 5 List… OF LISTS!

We saw news that the “greatest living rock star” was running for President in 2020. Of course, we also learned that the best quarterback the creator placed on turf with swine-skin was once again free to perform his ordained duty among mortals: to unleash hell on Football’s AFC East Division with the wrath of a thousand Gronk spikes. A topic that always lingered amidst that fiasco was “Kim Davis”. I thought the same thing… there’s only room for one Kim on social media, and we’re not sure why SHE’s getting attention in the first place. If you managed to ignore this one out of principle until now, congratulations. You’re stronger than I.

Basically; “Kim Davis” is this week’s hero of the so-called “silent majority”. She’s a county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples on grounds that performing that duty violates her deepest convictions and beliefs.

Ms. Davis has a principled point that is shared by this “silent majority” that has watched “their America” disappear before their aging eyes. In fact, this African might even empathize with her convictions and beliefs. This is Labor Day Weekend. So, let’s take some work and mental time off to relax while reflecting on the line in the sand drawn by these two simple thoughts:

This is embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to people of faith. It’s embarrassing to American liberty. It’s embarrassing and insulting to the intelligence of those who want to appreciate and identify with tenets of conservatism. But, mostly it is embarrassing to Conservatism at the core and how it will continue to identify itself for the next generation.
JUST THIS YEAR, we all witnessed folks standing behind the Confederate/Rebel Flag with claims that it did not stand for the enslavement, and later devaluing and disenfranchising of an entire race of people. “Southern Pride” … in the right to do just that. More than a century later, I was amazed to watch in awe as both descendants of confederate soldiers, and their non-related sympathizers banged their heads against the proverbial glass door of their conscious. Their conscious refused to let them admit and accept the truth of the DARK DARK past of intolerance invoked by a flammable mix of religious and political rhetoric that invoked hatred and divisiveness. The dixie flag was the universal symbol of this rhetoric. It was the emblem, the logo, the stamp.
TODAY – in 2015 – descendants of this past struggle to come to grips with honoring their forefathers lives, and acknowledging the moral and decay they would not claim as their own. Reading Governor Huckabee’s comments, I can’t help but wonder who will “Wake Up”…”wake up” and do what…and “who’s next” in what from whom exactly.

The biggest influence of my understanding of faith has always been my mother. One of her favorite scriptures was at one point or another on posters on the front door, stitched into the welcome mat that greeted house guests, and probably served as the screensaver to our first desktop if memory serves us. “As For Me And My House, We Will Serve The Lord Joshua 24:15“.
Back then coming up, that read more like the long-form, non-secular version of “my house, my rules”. But, Today and in this particular context, it takes on a meaning reaching far past the walls and doors of mama’s house. “as for me and my house”…the precursor to that statement today is a deeply personal declaration of faith and family. It’s a declaration Kim Davis made, and best selling Christian author, Rachel Evans takes exception to.
Reading her words, I can’t help but refer back up to Governor Huckabee’s words. If Kim Davis sympathizers believe it is a mark of conviction to wield the power of the collective people through rule of law to deny constitutionally afforded civil rights to those outside “your house”, or “my house”, WHO’S NEXT?

Update: Kim Davis was released from jail a few minutes ago, and barred from denying marriage licenses. So there’s THAT