Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I'm running out of blog names that are longer than necessary

My original intention for this blog was going to be talking about some facts I uncovered while researching my paper comparing and contrasting between Rome and the USA. I heard, but could not find a proper source to verify, that in recent legislation the congressmen at Washington had voted to increase their salaries. Something that we the American taxpayers probably don't need. While I couldn't find any facts to back this up, I did find something that ground my gears much harder.
A group of politicians, mainly progressive democrats, have recently formed a group of people, statistically 47% of American taxpayers, who will no longer be forced to pay the federal income tax.
Not only is that promoting big government, but also blatantly and wrongfully building a supportive base voting block for Democrats in the future, while
ensuring the dependency of those people on the government, and putting that 47% of people on the 53% rest of us. I don't know about the next guy, but I'm pretty sure I like my taxes as low as they go. But at the same time, I like fulfilling my civil duty of paying taxes to the government that is supposed to build me roads, fund my public schools, deliver my mail, and now all of a sudden provide me the same healthcare I had before at a lower cost to me, and to everyone, and be in charge of making my.. cars..?
Now wait, back up. I'm pretty sure that the bill of rights only covers my right to life, liberty and my pursuit of happiness, which seems pretty straightforward to me. Why then do todays politician have so much trouble understanding something so basic? America was founded on the "right" to be happy, but it never guaranteed it. It gave me the "right" to life, yet it steals it from the unborn daily. It ensures my "liberty," yet now thinks it must tell me what kind of health care plan I need, car I drive, 'carbon footprints' I leave, etc. And not only that, but now they think it is every persons "right" to have this health care? Even non citizens??
The purpose of the government is to serve its citizens, keep them happy, healthy, and prosperous, none of which can be applied to america today.
Why do we keep electing these people?

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Re:

New content COMING SOON

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Ignorance is bliss. (And it seems like we're in paradise)

I was listening to the radio yesterday and I heard a very interesting factoid.
It would appear that our president Barack Hussein Obama attended a White Sox game earlier this week, either the 5th or the 6th, to throw the opening pitch for the Sox. I know his background as an American is fishy at best, but I was horrified to hear that our commander in chief can't even throw a baseball! I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure baseball is America's past-time. Movies like The Sandlot and Major League confirm this. So, how can anyone who grew up in America not know how to throw a ball? It doesn't matter how well you can throw, or how far or how hard, but unless you are a super-nerd or missing a limb, you can probably throw a baseball. Girls included.
On top of this, he goes on to discuss his favorite team, the White Sox, and how south side Chicago baseball is the true baseball. When asked to name his favorite sock, instead of answering a simple question, he goes on a pointless ramble, barley even mentioning the Sox, and discussing how he instead grew up an Oakland A's fan until he moved to Chicago. Because he lived in Hawaii.
It was also brought to my attention that although he says he grew up near "Cominsky" Park, it is actually pronounced "Comiskey" Park. Common mistake I'm sure. I grew up near a Little Caesnar's pizza and a Clarnks gas station.
I live 20 minutes away from Peoria but I know the Chief's play at O'Brien Field, The Cardinals have Busch Stadium, and the Cubs play at Wriggly. I'm not a big baseball fan, and I don't necessarily like any of those teams, but I at least know that much. (And how to throw a ball.)

Now back to my main point. Why would the president feel the need to lie about something so minuscule as baseball? Why not just say he's an A's fan and name his favorite? Or say he doesn't know how to play baseball and never had a favorite team because of this? Is it because the rumors that he isn't an American are true? I don't know, but I do know that he's a phony, I just don't know how much of him is.
What else is he lying about? In my opinion, probably everything, but that doesn't matter.

Monday, April 5, 2010

I am a product of my upbringing. I accept no blame for my actions.

My most apparent flaw after writing the first of our papers for this semester is organization and clarity. I tend to write off on a tangent of my original point, and end up with paragraphs that don't seem to add much to the paper. They make sense to me because I know what I'm talking about, or believe in what I'm saying, but to someone outside of that it seems garbled. It really demotivates me when I have to take out something I believed fit because other people believe that it does not, but they do have the numbers advantage, and a fresh vantage point.
My writing is the true definition of trial and error. Literally. Trial by fire. I don’t know how many drafts I made for my paper before I finally found one that was acceptable to the masses. And even then it seemed it wasn’t acceptable to all the masses. Every group I passed the paper through found a paragraph they didn’t like and sections that didn’t make sense to them. Another problem was facts they didn’t believe. It’s hard to know what to site when I already know the facts behind what I’m saying, and instinctively assume that if I know it, everyone should know it. This brought me to my biggest realization about my writing; when I write, it is always written for someone with the pre-existing thoughts and beliefs that contour to my own. So for my next paper I’m going to attempt to write more objectively, which I know isn’t going to happen, but I hope that at least taking this mindset into the first stage of writing might solve my problem.
I am nothing without my objections.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

So, there was some legislation recently passed.. And this is a random assortment of thoughts that come to mind whenever I think about it.

I’m not even going to start pretending like I know what I’m talking about, because honestly I could care less about what happens in DC. I hate politics, they’re a waste of time and they’re doing it wrong. It’s a bunch of idiots doing what a bigger bunch of idiots elected them to do, screw us all over.
If you couldn’t tell, I’m a pretty conservative individual; I think we need to spend more time on laws that can actually help, rather than tell me what I need in a health care system. I would much rather have large markets of jobs to pick from than a health care system that is aimed to hurt the people supplying those jobs the most. It’s not just the health care bill I disagree with; what ever happened to Obama’s terrifying Stimulus Package? Has anybody seen any new jobs popping up that weren’t there before? Because I sure as heck haven’t.
I believe in Capitalism. It was once brought to my attention that as a Christian I should embrace Communism, for it is very much like the lifestyle that was campaigned by the early church, donate everything you have to the church, that they can give it to those who need it more, and in turn help you as well. That is all very nice, but it says to do that of your own free will, and to the church, which is less likely to be corrupted than a corrupted government. And so I stand by my country, and the government that represents it so long as they don’t forget their place.
Communism or Socialism might look good on paper, but they can’t seriously be pulled off as a working form of government in this imperfect world, or at least in America, I know France has something like that going on, but really, they’re France, we’re better than them.
. I believe abortion is murder, (what else could it possibly be you are ending a human life???) I believe that things were indeed better in “the good old days,” the ones from before I was born even. What ever happened to the Cold War? Remember? When we spent billions of dollars purging the communists and radicals from our country, defending ourselves against foreign communists. Remember the decades spent fighting the Vietnamese in a war that really could have been avoided (If only we’d known that at the time, but it was ‘60’s nobody really knew anything). Securing freedom in South Korea, and in a less glorious moment abandoning our allies in the Bay of Pigs? Communism was the bad guy, one of the best characteristics of communism is its in-your-face big brother all-up-in-your-business feel. And I’m starting to feel it.
We’ve spent most of our countries time on earth standing for everything against communism, socialism, fascism, every ism. And yet here we are looking more Socialist than France. And it’s all thanks to President Obama and his democratic majority.
I believe that we should have a zero tolerance on illegal immigration before it ruins us completely. I believe that there is WAY too much garbage on the internet and it is WAY to easy to get to it. I believe that the private sector should be allowed to run its course without government intervention, (and I even understand a few of the government bail-outs we’ve had to deal with. If the government had let those automakers and insurance companies fall we would have lost even more jobs, but so far they have done nothing as far as replacing that which has already been lost. If feels like they’re trying to keep us dependant on them.. I wonder why?)
Awhile back, while listening to *GASP* conservative talk radio, I heard a perfectly logical explanation for this. It may not be the right reason, but it fits so well. The democratic majority in congress is saving the majority of that big scary stimulus package for election time, to save themselves at the last second rather than using it now when we need it most. I heard this back sometime last fall, and it’s still true. I think that that is enough reason to clean out the entire Senate and House of Representatives. Not just the democrats, but anybody that hasn’t put the stimulus package to good use yet. If it is already out of the government’s pocket, no matter how much I disagree with it, it should still be used towards the betterment of our country. And yet it is just sits there.
If I was given even just a million or billion of that stimulus package to stimulate the economy, it feels, at this point, that I could do more than the entire government has done so far, and that’s what is awesome about Capitalism. The government can’t, no matter how much it would like to think it can, do everything. They can pass all the laws they want and throw all the money they can at a problem, but in the end private businesses are the best way to maintain our economy. What do you think has made America so great throughout the years? Our fast food?
And most of all, I feel that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi should never have been allowed to run for a government office. Not that I don’t dislike republicans, I’m not very fond of Sarah Palin either, but Sarah Palin hasn’t tried to tell me exactly what kind of health care is best for me through legislation I adamantly disagree with.


Can anybody tell me what was so bad with the health care we had before? I don't remember having any problems with it..

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

In God we trust. (Or at least we used to)

I know I lose track of my blog very easily, but I’m fairly certain that this week is a blog about my opinion on a topic I’ve read about..? Maybe???

Well anyway a topic that brought itself to my attention recently was an argument about not teaching evolution in high school, at least not in a required class. Naturally this person felt that they would rather learn about creationism, or not spend their time in a class discussing any of this altogether. So, as I was pondering what on Earth I would write about tonight, the first topic that caught my eye on the ICC digital library, was Creationism in big bold letters. It seemed almost magical.
I myself went through the same thought process in high school, especially in biology. I remember doing really well the first semester of biology, learning about all the animal kingdoms and bacteria and heredity and stuff, I really enjoyed that class (and I think Tyler and I know Steven were there with me). But then in second semester, not only did I get stuck with a teacher who “doesn’t know how to teach” as any high school student would say, but also got stuck learning the theory of evolution from this woman. That was far from enjoyable, and probably one of the reasons I felt that learning about evolution was such a waste. But nevertheless, I would still align myself with those of the opinion that evolution should not be taught in school. Not that I believe it shouldn’t be taught entirely, its probably right about most of what its saying, but I find it hard to believe I’m related to a monkey. I just don’t see the resemblance. It’s like comparing Macs to PC’s. Yeah they kinda look alike, but really????
Inversely, the argument to this that pro-evolution advocates have brought up is that creationism should be taught in a religion class, not a science class. But what high school you know of has a religion class? The closest thing I have ever gotten to taking a religion class in high school was the week of discussing ancient religions in world history, and that was far from enlightening. (Eric was there he can vouch for me)
This also reminds me of another discussion I had once, in a Sunday school class I believe, and the speaker that week brought up a very thought provoking point. We were discussing the old monasteries and the origins of the Christian church, and how most universities were founded by the church, most philosophers were Christians, and it was they who advanced science. Why then has science turned its back on that which propelled it further? Science and religion were two peas of the same pod, the why, and the how. Or rather the how and the other how. “Whatever it is, however it works, God ordained it to be this way.” “I’m alive because my heart is pumping blood through a very intricate series of veins throughout my body in conjunction with my lungs and signals from my brain, and you’re telling me this was all by chance?” “
We have a separation of church and state, but not of science and state. If you aren’t allowed to teach Creationism, you should not be allowed to teach the theory of evolution. And I agree that Creationism does not fit in a science class, it should be a class all on its own. So maybe we should reach halfway, and allow public schools to have an alternative religion class which could discuss this? I know that this will never happen because there are so many different religions in America, but it just doesn’t feel right that a country founded on the Christian ideals should turn so far from them without even the option of studying this through our schools.

PS this is a lot longer than my average blog, yet it took half as long to write

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Alright world, do your worst

My skills as a writer have been the topic of too many of my blogs. I don’t feel that they are worth mentioning as much as they have been, and I don’t know how many more blogs I can write about them. I write things. I try to make those things as grammatically correct and easy to read as possible, without sacrificing any of my content. I’ve been writing since I was in pre-school, and the most writing I do outside of this class are FaceBook-ing, text messaging, and instant messaging online.
I don’t think I’ve spoken much about my feedback from writing in the past, so I might as well delve into this a little. By far the most enthusiastic responses have been in this class, from our incredibly energetic English professor. My professor last semester always looked like he was about to yawn, so there wasn’t much enthusiasm to what he was saying.
Right now I’m having the problem of deciding what to say, which works for me because that answers one of the questions on our rubric. I’m sitting here trying to think of things to discuss about my writing style, but nothing good is coming to mind. Hopefully this blog will for this week, as I am literally racking my head for things to say and words to put down.
I don’t know how to relate, or rather read the relationship, between my writing and my feelings or temperament. My character is good, so does that mean my writing is too? I’m a bit lazy so does my writing really show that? I don’t even know what temperament means, I’m assuming it has something to do with the heat of my paper? I don’t know but looking it up would be cheating.

La fin.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

What happens when I press the red button?

I forgot to do a blog last week. I confused when it was due with when my math homework was due, and then never got around to actually doing a blog on account of family and being sick. -If you couldn’t tell by the way I’ve been acting in class I probably caught a cold from my little brother and have been coughing since Saturday night.-
I don’t know if this says very much about my skills as a writer or my habits or rituals, but it does say something about my motivation as one. I am a very laid back individual, and have never been motivated to put much time into my high school work, or anything. In fact, the only time I’ve ever gone beyond what's expected of me are when its absolutely necessary for me to get a good grade, or when I was in marching band. If an assignment looked like it would be really time consuming, and not worth that many points, then I gave it 10 minutes and hoped for the best. Other times I would just follow the rubric for the bare minimum amount of time invested over the highest possible grade I could get for it. I'd usually take the time to do the big projects and important papers, but everything else seemed like just a waste of time to me. Admittedly this probably isn’t the best way to go through my education, but it worked in high school good enough for me. But that's not me anymore, for the most part.
Being as laid back as I am, I find it hard to force myself into unnecessary confrontations. By doing this, I usually write my papers differently depending on the opinions of the audience I am writing for. For instance, last semester I got a bad grade on a paper, and although it was a terribly written paper to begin with, I felt the grade was a little too harsh, so for the next assignment I wrote a paper supporting the exact opposite facts and did much better. Whatever this says about me or my writing didn’t really matter to me, I was just happy that I knew what to write about to pass the class.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve lost my train of thought several times while trying to type this up, I just can never stay on the same idea for very long before I get bored with it or think up another one by accident. I guess that would fulfill the part about my process as a writer on the rubric, I have no process as a writer, I just go with the first thought I get and write whatever comes to mind as I go.

I could sit and correct this for awhile longer, but it will still say the same things, just less clumsily, and I have other homeworks I should be doing too.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

A second blog

I had been racking my brain trying to remember good examples for the questions asked for this blog, but not many were coming to me. But when I finally started to write, not knowing what I should say, everything flooded back to me when I got to it. As far as important incidents go, I can't think of anything recent, minus times where I've written papers that totally subconsciously disregarded the criteria I was supposed to fill. When I was in grade school my 6th grade class had to write short stories for Halloween, and I wrote mine with a twist ending that I remember getting me into trouble. Not a lot of trouble, but the illustrations I made for it really exposed the fact that I had been watching episodes of South Park and had seen too many slasher flicks for my age. In my defense, it was always my mother’s idea to watch scary movies, or force me and my friends to. I have never really thought about categorizing the stages of my writing history, but I would say that creative writing defined my pre-high school writing experiences, and slave driven papers on topics no one has heard of, or never want to hear of again, would be me since the beginning of high school.
I am constantly making lists, whether it’s of places I want to go, things I want to do, or my favorite songs for a Facebook survey. I would have to say that texting and Facebook are where most of my keystrokes go to outside of English classes. I really enjoy arguing, but not fiercely. I’m usually too nice to shut somebody out of an argument, but often sarcastically, although you can’t tell in text, argue against my own point and let others tear my argument apart. I don’t dislike writing, but when there are restrictions to what I should be doing, any restrictions at all, it feels like I’ve been tied to the floor. I usually use proper grammar even when I’m just typing in a Facebook status or texting someone that usually can reveal when someone has gotten on my Facebook and changed things without my permission.
I’m not a writer, I have never written to anyone of importance, except a letter to George Bush in the 4th grade when he was elected president in 2000, though I severely doubt that he personally read it. I am a musician, and as such I have performed in front of many audiences, but none of them with a pen.
I always write on my desktop in my basement, with music playing, and my little brother distracting me with his constant World or Warcraft playing. I write all the time in the sense of Facebook and emailing and texting, but not much as far as writing papers for fun. Last semester for my English class I usually had Eric proofread my rough drafts for me, because he is smart. My last English professor showed me some flaws I had in my organization of writing a paper. I had a simple issue with spreading my topics across into each other’s paragraphs, but no longer.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tales of Mediocrity

The other day I was watching the news, and I heard a discussion about how Barack Obama said he would rather be a really good one term president, than a mediocre two term president. This was quite humorous to me, as most of the American population, or at least the people responding to the online article I found that corresponds to this and conservatives, seem to think that it is impossible for him to be either. His presidential campaign was one of change, but the only thing that has changed in his first year was the unemployment rate. He has been spending all of his time trying to force his socialist health care down our throats, some say to take our attention from his trail of broken promises.
Tomorrow night, the president will give his first state of the union address. The State of the Union address is used not only to report on the condition of the nation, but also allows the president to outline his legislative agenda and national priorities to Congress. This year, president Obama is expected to explain how his goals for his administration and Congress to fix our declining economy and high employment problem.
Republicans like Scott Brown, who recently won the special senate election in Massachusetts, a predominately Democratic state, have been criticizing Obama’s policies, like the stimulus package, for having failed to create jobs. Barack acknowledges that the poor economic times are contributing to his low approval rating, but says he is not in office just to remain there for eight years.
Obama is quoted as saying “I don’t want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity.”

It is my opinion is that Barack Obama SHOULD be trying to nurture his own popularity. Instead of forcing an unwanted health care bill, or a stimulus package that has apparently done nothing to help the economy, he should be concerned with things the American people care about. And I don’t mean that Americans don’t care about what he is doing; the majority of the country is strongly against it. Arguments about what he is doing can be heard anywhere, people praising him, calling him a savior, and giving him Nobel peace prizes. But what has he done to deserve any of these things? Eventually America is going to have to pay its over ten TRILLION dollar debt. That number is inconceivable, and we’re going to have to pay it eventually, yet he continues to raise it higher and higher on things we don’t want; things we don’t need.

Friday, January 22, 2010