The Mind Says Yes, The Body Says No

Let us all take a moment of silence...

The Jewfro® has once again been tamed. I went to get my hair trimmed up nice and pretty today, and as always, for the next two weeks I will not be seen without my golfers hat on. After that, my hair should be back to curling and being very jewish.

This weekend the Honors group from Lincoln Land are going on their Fall retreat to the Eagle Creek Resort. I shall be attending and enjoying a free and lazy vacation.

Until then, good bye!

High Court Troubles

Greetings everyone. It's been a bit, but it has also been a very busy weekend. By busy, I mean crazy and drunken.

With the aftermath of hurricane Katrina still being the top headline in the country, I'm afraid it might overshadow the the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court's death. While William Rhenquist was a conservative justice, Bush will now be able to nominate a second justice to the high court.

The court holds 9 members. Before O'Connor resigned, the balance was:

4-Liberal
4-Conservative
1-Moderate (O'Connor)

Now Roberts has been nominated to replace her, and he is definetly a conservative. With Rhenquist now gone, he will be replaced by an equally conservative justice. Which will leave the court:

5- Conservative (with Roberts being quite young for a justice, since they are life appointments)
4- Liberal

What does this mean for our society? There are several issues this will directly effect. I will argue them in order of importance:

The separation of church and state

In the first amendment, there is a line called the "Establishment Clause" which reads as:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

The interpretation of this line is one of the most fundamental and important interpretations by the high court for our society. Since O'Connor was the main swing vote, she always sided in favor of the separation of Church and State. Generally speaking, a strict separation of church and state is best for our society, because when you mix Religion and Politics together, it is a deadly combination, considering they are both unstable enough on their own.

Social rights to minorities

Yes, there still is a ideological divide on the high court between the rights of the majority, and minorities. This includes women's rights, homosexual rights, and minority rights. It's not that a conservative court would try to hurt these groups, it will simply be "hands off" and prevent any progression for them in society.

Business Regulation

Our society has thrived thanks to capitalism. It creates the need and drive for progress to occur. However, uncontrolled Free Market economies eventually will screw over whoever they can. The "whoever" being the common person. This is the conflict that brought along ideas like Socialism and Communism. While I'm not setting here to say we should turn the U.S. into a socialistic society, moderate business regulation is a must if we want to maintain a balance.

A conservative court will be more "hands off" since they are "strict interpreters of the Constitution". This will leave businesses unregulated. This doesn't just effect the common man by causing even larger, more powerful monopolies, but it will hurt the enviornment since business regulations on pollution will be a big no-no with a conservative court.

This is just the tip of the ice-burg with social issues and the Supreme Court. We can't expect Bush to nominate someone that the country needs, but we can at least fight until the best compromise comes along.

On a final note of hope, there have been several instances where conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents have slowly changed their ideologies and ended up a liberal justice on the court. Just goes to show, that life experience does change one to a more progressive attitude.

Video Games Don't Influence People!

Why am I so easily influenced by video games and action movies?

I feel guilty whenever there are natural disasters. Whether it was 9-11, or hurricane Katrina, I am horrified like anyone else. But I feel due to movies, video games, television, ect. I am desensized to violence and atrocities. Then, built on the fix I get from action games and movies, I almost enjoy watching horrible things unfold. While I still understand they are bad, and do not wish for more, I am entertained by them. I set there, with CNN Headline news constantly pumping me full of more action shots and dire predictions. Why should I be expected to deny myself that entertainment?

Here Come the Warm Thoughts

I start the new job at Barnes and Noble in about... an hour and 45min. That's exciting, I'm happy I at least held out for Barnes and Noble over McDonalds. No matter how much I thought MD would be a better job (due to proximity and location) I just couldn't disrespect myself enough to go for it. At least everything worked out in the end.

There is this nifty program I acquired that is a Word Processor that automatically formats what you're doing as a screenplay. Do you have any idea how handy that is? I knew you would! Anyway, it's been long overdue and so since I've got Final Draft, I've started working on a script idea I've had for a while. I'll keep you up to date on it's very public, yet highly secretive process.

Finally, I pose a question to you: Is it wrong that I use my P2P software to download exerscise videos, so I can burn them to DVD's and use them in my living room ?

Undescribable Hatred

I return again with a somber post. While I am filled with furious anger right now, I can't help but be passive in my approach to this post. Let me start with the inspiration for this:

A few days ago I was hanging out at the community college I attend, Lincoln Land Community College, and there were a few people in the lounge with me. I was talking to one of the freshmen about the Honors program we were both in, and how I heard about it from my cousin's boyfriend. He stated "I hope you cousin is a girl" and I laughed and said "yes, she is" and he chuckled too. I then went on, while smiling and laughing, that what if "my cousin was a he!" and he stopped smiling and uttered "I probably wouldn't be talking to you."

Wow. Simply wow.

I was so shocked, I still thought he was joking, then quickly realized he wasn't. I then mocked him by claiming it was "discrimination by relation". Then a few more folks came into the lounge and he left without me noticing.

When checking the morning headlines at Yahoo!, I found one called "Anti-Gay Protest at GI Funeral". This had conservative religous zealots written all over it! So, I promptly went to read and was horrified.

Apparently, protesters were protesting at a funeral for recently deceased soliders from Iraq. They spouted how these soldiers died because god is not protecting them, do to the fact that America harbors gays.

Wait, harbors? When they hell did this country start harboring gays? I realize we're not going all Nazi on homosexuals, but we definetly aren't the nicest country when it comes to them either. Hell, Iran decapitated two teenage boys for homosexuality (who were under 18 years old!). I guess, relatively speaking, we're a resort for homosexuals aren't we! Oh okay, now I understand why god is placing his vengence upon our nation. My bad!

After reading this article I did what any decent person would do. Take the name of the Minister from the church supporting this, and google it in an attempt to find his home address. Instead I find a link to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. This guy is a nut, with a huge string of HORRIBLY offenseive websites, including GotHatesFags.com.

Beyond the total bigotry of this website, there is a memorial to Mathew Sheppard on that page that gloats how many days he has been in Hell, assuming he was thrown into the firey pits instantly after death. I'm not making this shit up, here's the link to the memorial: Mathew Sheppards Memorial.

What's the moral of the story? Don't just stay within your inclusive groups that share your similar progressive ideas, but be always willing to fight and spread the true good word. It's the year 2000 and fucking 5, this shit cannot still be happening. If we get angry and hate them back, no one will win. This battle can only be won through demonstration. The best cure for bigotry is travel and exposure, but the next best is example. I don't mean to be preaching, but even I find myself content with the fact that I'm an accepting person, but that doesn't mean I should accept that other people are intolerant as well. Because THAT is unacceptable.

When Did Liberal Become a Four Letter Word?

All right. Lets get started:

Liberal

I love when it's an election year, because we have the onslaught of the never-ending political ads. It's almost enough to make you vomit and hate commecial breaks even more. The sad part is, political ads are so deplorable that they make me enjoy regular advertisements once the elections are done!

Common to ads attacking Democratic candidates are the claims they are "too liberal for America". Okay, that's fine. But why don't the democrats ever return the gesture? Now, I don't support either party by any means, but please! Democrats have done very little to defend the word liberal. Just talk to people. Unless someone is an outspoken liberal themselves (like me) they will not think highly of the word. Ask them what it means, and you'll get even more exciting answers from them.

I'm friends with a guy who's training to become a fundamentalist Baptist minister. We always enjoy batting around ideas in a debate. I made the point that the people who founded the ideas America is based on, were liberals. Now, I don't mean they were liberal by today's standards, but any term of that nature is relative to its time period. You had a world based on monarchy's and state-sanctioned religion, then some guys decided people should have individual rights and should be able to choose their own representation in government. That's pretty fucking progressive if you ask me.

So, I batted the idea around with my friend and had him pretty well beat. Then, out of nowhere, he said our country and its ideas were divine intervention. Holy Shit! Are you telling me that the only time you will accept a liberal idea is when god inspires it? I mean seriously, where is that in the Bible? Must of been in one of the Gnostic Gospels I guess.

The reason I brought up this story is not just its absurdity, but it represents a mentality present in American society. The mentality is that we should follow a standard set 2000 years ago, and when some new ideas happens to benefit us through no fault of our own, it was god that caused it.

Now many people have complained about liberal becoming equivalent to the word fuck in American society, that's no original perception on my part. One thing many people haven't done is started deciding how to change that. We've allowed right-wing fanatics to decide the playing field. It's about time that people use fact, reason, and their own fucking minds to decide the playing field.

Whenever you show people that light, that beautifully glowing light that is the ability to think for oneself, they will find unlimited potential within themselves! The way liberal became a bad idea is because the perception is there must be absolute truth, and we must know it. Because, who likes unanswerable questions? It's all fear. Fear of the unknown, and fear of loosing that security blanket. That has lead people to accept that change is bad, the Bible is right, and liberals threaten everything that makes me happy. This is why liberal has become a four letter word.

Now, it didn't just become that way. The right-wing fanatics distorted it into that way. But, instead of defending liberal ideas as a gateway to an intellectual freedom that dominates the idea of the "security blanket", democrats and the likes just sat back and twiddled their thumbs..

Liberals in this country must not be afraid to defend the ideas of progressive thinking, and to show others that simply being open minded and forward looking will not hurt them. In fact, it will free one's mind and allow a greater respect and love for their lives, this earth, and humanity itself. Change is inevitable, so instead of trying to prevent it from happening, join the team and help us determine where it will go.

My god in heaven...

Did it work? I sure hope it did. Well, I've given in and started a blog (again, actually). Now since I'm out on my own and have broadband, I thought it a good idea to join in the blogging craze. I'm mostly gonna try to humorously bitch about things on here, and if I'm successful, start a debate on fun and pointless issues.