Do we live longer because we have forgotten how?

It seems that bizarre philosophical thoughts always come to me when I should be sleeping. The other night my mind was wondering through random fact after random fact, when it got stuck on one. I started to think about life expectancy and how it has changed over the course of human history. With a few cultural oddities, humans now live longer than they ever have in history (as a whole). I started to wonder why.

I shrugged off the boring scientific answer that has to do with advancements in medicine and other boring, non soul-wrenching facts. I started to bend my mind in order to reach outside of the cultural box we are all placed in at birth. With that bend I started to wonder if there is, perhaps, another reason entirely behind why humans live longer now. I thought that maybe this reason is what stands behind the medical advances, what drives them.

I began to consider quality of life, and the differences between the way we live in modern western society and the ways in which people used to live in nomadic societies—notably many Native American nomadic societies. As often happens, things I have recently read (especially in Derrick Jensen’s A Language Older Than Words) started to play into my take of things. In his book, Jensen discussed how food of all sorts used to be so plentiful that many cultures spent most of their time in leisure activities. With just a bit of conservation and understanding of the environment many Native American tribes could focus on the arts, love, and nature in general instead of constantly worrying about providing for their families.

These people had time to really enjoy and experience life almost every single day. They truly LIVED every year of their lives. That is in stark contrast to the predicament western culture has gotten us into. The wondrous industrial society that so many embrace and essentially bow to makes it impossible for anyone (even people who have removed themselves from it) to truly live life every day.

The rivers that once ran so thick with Salmon that you needed only to lower a bucket into them to get dinner are now dammed, and empty. The few remaining salmon launch themselves fruitlessly at the concrete structures we have built to create ‘clean energy’ and lakes that we in turn, pollute. The fields once so thick with Bison that the ground could not be seen for miles are now empty, dusty, and dry. Those that remain walk penned and domesticated—perhaps wondering where the days of old have gone to.

I think life expectancy is higher today because it needs to be. In order for us to truly live the 30 years that our ancestors lived in 30, we need to live 80. We spend the other 50 wasting our lives in front of computers watching YouTube videos, pretending we are intimately connected to those we only communicate with on FaceBook, commuting, shopping, and wondering why our lives hold no meanings.

If we restored the environment to its former glory, and gave up our consumer driven lifestyles would we not live as long? I of course do not know this, and no one ever can. The environment is too broken, our population too large, for that to be a realistic experiment. Perhaps we should start be fixing what we have broken, and go from there.

I for one miss the days I have never seen. The days when salmon ran nearly solid in the waters and bison shook the ground with their mere numbers.

Did Christ Have Bad Timing?

Driving home to Madison from my parent’s house in Lake Geneva, I found myself drifting into thoughts I don’t typically catch myself having. Perhaps it was the insane amount of coffee I had consumed, or the Christmas songs I had playing at full blast in my car. Whatever caused the meanderings of my thoughts—the consensus they seemed to come to was startling to me.

The fact that I started to think about Christianity while listening to holiday music is no jump of imagination, but where I went from there wasn’t exactly pleasant. I found myself tracing time from when Jesus came to earth over two thousand years ago, to the modern day. I looked at the wonderful things Jesus did, and the horrible things that have been done in his name. I thought of how he spoke of loving neighbors, no matter how different. I remembered the story of him saving the woman who would have been stoned to death. With all of these thoughts I began to wonder where Christianity went so wrong.

Jesus was a strong leader. He spoke of love, tolerance, and faith. He lived simply and shared everything he had with his friends and with strangers that didn’t necessarily share his beliefs. I wonder what he would have said to the forced faith that was shoved upon Native Americans with the choice of Christianity or death. Would he have said anything? I think he may have just shook his head, and wondered what had happened to the loving souls he had died for.

Maybe Jesus came too early. Perhaps if he had come in the early 1800’s to America, things would have been different. Yet, I think he still would have been killed for doing the horrible deed of spreading love and hope. Societies don’t ever take kindly to those who speak truth with love in their eyes.

Where and when would have been a good time for Jesus to appear? Does one exist?

Perhaps he came too late. Maybe if he’d been there when Mesopotamia was formed. If he’d appeared the very instant consumerism started to take hold. Maybe if he had told man that being nomads was the only way to peace—that greed would corrupt every soul the second they settled down into one place. Even then, would anyone have listened?

Maybe then, there was no better option than the time that he was born into. Messiah or not, he changed lives and history forever. Perhaps, even the son of God cannot change more than several generations of hearts.

Where does that leave us? If even someone as prophetic as Christ cannot change things for more than 100 years before they again become corrupt—do we stand a chance at all? In a society where we are shunned for saying Merry Christmas—a culture where people call themselves Christians while declaring war on those who are different—is there any hope of redemption?

I have shown you in every way by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.
-Acts 20:35

Sprint I Loathe Thee

Bad Sprint jokes I made up while on the phone wasting two hours of my life:

For being called Sprint you sure don’t move very fast.

It is a little ironic that you asked me to call back from a land line because the phone I was on (a Sprint phone) had poor service.

So, the story—well let me first say that I might be a little spastic and ADD-like in this entry because I just wasted the last two hours of my life being transferred from person to person in Sprint’s wondrous network of good humored, clueless, individuals.

What did I want to do that it took so long to not accomplish anything? All I wanted to do was transfer my number out of a family plan into a plan in my name. I was told by approximately ten individuals in the last two hours that this was possible, only to find out that it is not possible, not at all.

I gave out my social security number and address to two random strangers from the southern united states that are probably opening their own cell phone accounts through other providers as we speak. I was asked why in fact I want to keep my phone number. I heard about fifty different pronunciations of my last name (that I pronounced for them about eighty times) and none of their takes on it were correct.

I threatened to switch services to AT&T about ten times and got very little response. I was hung up on twice and transferred more times than I am years old. I found myself carelessly discussing the cost of hand guns in the Cabela’s flier when I had been on hold (with a constant 30 second loop of hold music) for over five minutes.

I considered drinking beer (I am now). I considered the meaning of life and how warm it was where the people I was speaking to were sitting. I even considered how bad it would really be if I had no cell phone at all.

You folks that reside in Wisconsin have likely dealt with the horrible state of what Charter calls customer care—well this was worse. Because quite frankly I would rather be bitched at for several minutes than smiled at for two hours and still accomplish nothing.

So long story short—screw Sprint, I’ll try At&t…at least they don’t have a name that gives the illusion of speed.

Sometimes Lessons Learned Need to be Reiterated

“Play hard to get”

“You need to act uninterested”

“Be unavailable for awhile”

This is advice I have been given time and time again, and as many of you know, I don’t take advice very well. The moral of the entire Thanksgiving holiday was simply that I am fed up with men—and I don’t know why I bother at all. I know, I know, same old story from good ole’ Amelie, complaining about men…blah blah blah.

But here’s the thing, men, listen up. Women are not always at fault when things don’t work out. That isn’t exactly earth shattering, but getting it off my chest is important. Also, one night stands don’t necessarily get taken in the same way by both parties. I have had this reversed on me, so I can’t hold much blame—but it’s annoying as hell when one party thinks nothing of it, and the other really thinks there was a connection. This will be a major philosophical insight for the history books: avoid one night stands.

I sound like a religious freak now, but randomly sleeping with people is never a good idea. I don’t care if you know them, care about them, or just met them—it still doesn’t ever work out well. You fall for them, they fall for you, or you feel like a total hung-over whore the next day. Breaking up with someone you aren’t dating, but slept with, is a messy situation. It is also no fun at all to sit by a phone waiting for someone to call that you inadvertently fell for when sleeping with them.

So, girls and boys: random make outs at bars are fine, but don’t take someone home you aren’t dating, it just turns out messy, annoying, and infuriating in the end.

I am not innocent here—I have both inadvertently and purposefully played guys in the last year. I have watched as I crush them when we weren’t even dating, and lacked the emotional response I assumed I should be having. I have ignored phone calls, listed people in my contacts list as “do not answer”, blocked people on Facebook, and mostly been a total bitch. Having the situation reversed on me makes me neither feel guilty or innocent; mostly it just makes me angry.

I can play hard to get like a champion…until I get more than three drinks in me. With that I decide I am in love (only takes two drinks if it’s wine) and I decide that I am nearly an old maid and should go for it. I act like I would if I just found my true soul mate and likely end up at least kissing them. As I have learned time and time again, soul mates aren’t quite so perfect when sober—and lead to awkward situations.

The real problem is, that I typically have at least three drinks in me—so how on earth can I find a man? I think the answer is simple—I need to choose: alcohol, or men.

I think alcohol is a more reliable choice.

When a Hopeless Romantic Gets Hopelessly Broken

I can’t help but to think that sometimes love is meant not to be. I look back on my relationships, the loving ones, the ones that lacked one thing or another—and I realize that there is only one that was good enough to last. That one of course, did not last, and I wonder sometimes why that is. For the sake of clarity I will call this guy Simon. Sure, we had our issues, and yes there were hard nights, distance, and maturity issues—but we cared deeply for each other. Simon is the only one that I am still incredibly close with (when we find time to see each other). I ran into him last spring for the first time in years and the chemistry was definitely still there—on both of our ends. It is easy to slide back into the way things were, when the way things are aren’t all that different.

At even the thought of Simon my heart has fluttered since the day we met when I was only sixteen. We always had a connection no one could deny, and one that threatened anyone we ever dated before and after we were together. I was his first time, he wasn’t mine, but he was my first love. It has been five years now since we last were together in that loving way or since we last admitted that we were. Each time I run into his arms for a greeting hug I am used to stopping short, reminding myself to breathe, and forcing the painful memories of our break up from my mind.

Yesterday, it was very different.

I think the last six months of not feeling anything have finally had their effect. I still miss my shitty ex that treated me like a piece of crap, and now I don’t feel the flutter when the one good man, Simon, holds me. I numbed myself to the wrong longings, without even knowing I was doing it. I could tell he noticed the change in me, and wanted to ask what caused it—but didn’t. We walked the delicate line of not asking about relationships, both knowing the pain it causes the other when we aren’t alone together. I don’t know where the years went between when we last touched and the cold November we are now in, and I am horrified that love can die. The connection we had was the only definite in my life, even if I didn’t hold him, I felt that love—and now it is just absent, and I am numb. I am not crying or screaming, just not feeling at all. I think I turned my heart off. I had been trying to do that for over a year, but now it’s turned off to the one I want it on for, and I am scared.

I tried to justify the fact that the first man I ever truly loved, the only one I ever have, could not be with me. As I drove the nearly two hours from where we met back to my apartment I tried to explain things to myself. I realized that had Simon and I stayed together I would not be the person I am today. When we were dating I was totally trusting, smoking cigarettes, and content with not going to college to stay near him. We broke up and now I have a degree, I rarely smoke, and I have a job that pays the bills. I dated others that hurt and scarred me, and with those scars I have learned who I really am. I am going to go to graduate school, likely across the continent—something I would have never done if we were still together. When we were dating I could barely stand being more than a mile from him, our love made us grin constantly, but our dreams meant nothing without the other. I am now independent, bitter, and cautious.

Which is better I am not sure, but now I know that I do nothing in my life that isn’t good for me. I do not fall in love blindly like I did with him. I measure each step to protect my bitter heart, but I measure each step for me. If Simon had not broken my heart, if I had not given it to him to break, I would be someone else. I would be a pushover nicotine addicted college dropout, with the man of my dreams. There are days when I am not sure which I prefer, where I am now, or where I would be with him—but today I think I am better off where I am. I also think that he saw what would happen to me if I stayed with him, something he mentioned during the teary breakup, and he chose what was best for me.

When I was about to leave my parent’s house to go see Simon yesterday I was cleaning out an old box and I found a car I had written and never sent to him. I had written it before we ever dated, expressing how much I cared for him and how hopeless I was without him. I was unsure of myself, self conscious, and in denial of the fact that I knew he cared too. The girl who wrote that letter made me sad. I missed knowing something so definitely, the way I knew then that I loved Simon. At the same time, I am glad that I know it isn’t a matter of me being deserving of someone, but of someone deserving me. I am much stronger now—heartbreak will do that I guess. I briefly considered giving him the card that I’d written about seven years ago, but instead put it in my purse to serve as a reminder for however long I need one, that love that requires losing yourself is not love at all.

The pain I have endured has helped me to develop my writing beyond anywhere it could be if I was happy all of the time. I no longer search blindly for love, hoping for the spark I felt with him that I just couldn’t find again. Maybe there are only a few true loves in each person’s life. He was one of them, now I have to wait until another one comes along. I think since the spark with Simon is gone, I now have room for a new one…once I get settled in graduate school that is. I have been pushing men away from me since I was freed from a horrible relationship over a year ago, and I will continue pushing until I meet one that leaves me no choice but to open my arms.

Racist Liberal Media--I think only I saw that one coming

I almost punched a hole through my wall last night (or, rather, almost attempted to as I don’t know if I am strong enough to do it). I was not going to punch the wall out of happiness because Obama won (even though I did vote for him) and I was not going to lash out at my drywall because the republicans listening to McCain were nothing but rude. I planned to mutilate my wall because the media of this country made me want to hurt someone.

You all know already that the media makes me angry with their obviously biased stories, and the fact that they don’t even seem to pretend to be non-partisan anymore. That isn’t what made me angry to the point of violence (which I disagree with) yesterday. It was the overwhelming racism that no one but I seemed to notice that was seething from my television, my computer, and my radio.

People need to begin to realize that by putting people into groups we are segregating ourselves all over again. Station after station was reporting what white men, white women, black men, black women, latino men, latino women, young, old, clowns, goblins, voted. When will our society realize that by putting people into groups we are taking steps back instead of forward?

Last night NBC said that Obama had broken the “Black Ceiling” and I almost threw my Koosh ball at the TV (but I like my TV so I didn’t). Okay media, I’ll break it down real nice and easy for you. EVERY TIME you dwell on Obama’s race and the fact that he is the “first black president” (he’s half white too) you make racism worse in our country. By not simply treating him as a great man that won, but a black man that won, you separate him from the other great men who have led our country.

So here’s the plan: dwell not on his race or age, talk about what he is going to do for our country, what he is doing, and yes, what he hasn’t done. Be objective. Every second of airtime you waste by talking about race makes the issue worse and takes away from real journalism.

For the sake of my walls, electronics, and sanity, please stop segregating via studies and news stories.

Happy Samhain

With Halloween so close I thought it would be only appropriate for me to write an article about the infamous holiday that many celebrate so blindly. I find it quite amusing when I see the same mothers who protested The Golden Compass and Harry Potter dress their children up for a little Trick Or Treating. Perhaps these people do not realize where Halloween originated, or they choose to ignore it because the day is just, let’s face it, so damn fun!

As I am sure most people know (or hope that most do) Halloween originated as a Pagan holiday, or festival. With a little research I dug up some more about it.

“The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.” Find out more here.

I have no gripes about the origins of Halloween, and quite honestly, I am totally down with drinking in the Celtic New Year with some beer and wariness for evil spirits, but come on America! If people are going to be against witchcraft, sorcery, and anything not Christian and “innocent” in origin, please by GOD be against Halloween too. If you want to embrace ignorance, do it 100%, or not at all. It does not matter to me if you dress your child up as the Holy Virgin herself and only allow her to Trick or Treat for Holy Communion, it’s still hypocritical and I still want to hit you a bit for it.

So your kids wouldn’t understand if you didn’t let them dress up? Well, here’s a crazy thought, maybe they don’t understand what is so wrong with Harry Potter either. Children are innocent and do not judge things as wrong just because they are different, learn a little from them parents out there.

Since I doubt no parents actually read this blog, for those of you twenty-somethings out there—take heart. Perhaps when our generation reproduces we will be a bit more tolerant of both literature, popular culture, and the history behind things in our world. (I doubt it however). I am quite sick of everything that isn’t Christian being evil, and people only allowing the “fun” things like Halloween to sneak through their ignorant cracks.

So, go drink, dress up, be slutty (or not), and enjoy the ancient Celtic festival!

Happy Samhain my friends, Happy Samhain.

Hate me if you want to, but I'm right.

When it comes to friendship, intelligence is the most important virtue I look for. Granted integrity, honesty, and beer pong skills are important as well. I have found that when I hang with unintelligent people I sink to their level so as not to confuse them with my large vocabulary or incredible wit.

Sure, I have been called intellectually arrogant, a bitch, stuck up, and many other horrible things, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am typically smarter than the insulter. People get offended easily when called ignorant or idiots. It’s really hard to blame myself if I am a little stuck up in my intellectualism when the university I attended is taken into account. While attaining my major in English and minor in Philosophy I would read a campus newspaper that had more typos than Wal-Mart has crooked policies. I would sit through philosophy classes where people thought they were smart because they could argue points that had nothing to do with what we were reading. I tutored people who didn’t know the difference between their and there and were native English speakers. Hell, I tutored people that were born in Wisconsin that looked confused about what “native English speaker” meant.

I had to be picky while I was in college when it came to friends or I would have spiraled down to the pre-high school level most of them seemed to be stuck at. I dated man after man that knew more about Halo stats than he did about how to make a grilled cheese. I would watch people in awe of their ignorance as they wore shirts with a recycle logo on them and toted around Styrofoam cups from the dining halls on campus.

If by “intellectually arrogant” people mean that I am actually more educated, intelligent, and less ignorant than them, then yes, I am. I do not enjoy drinking a bottle of wine with a friend that only talks about celebrity gossip, video games, and television shows.

If you believe that media in America is unbiased, I don’t want to be your friend.


So, maybe I am arrogant, but if you are going to call me that PLEASE at least know how to spell it. Perhaps I will give friends pop quizzes on simple grammar, history, and logic in order to determine if they are capable of continuing the friendship.

Media Censorship Exposed…Again

I have known for a long time that the popular media in America and around the world is biased to a fault. The journalists of universities are often shocked to be controlled in what they write when they get into the real world. Lately I have been reading the book You Are Being Lied To*, which touches on the Media, who controls it, and how unreliable it is. The deeply embedded truth of this has been sinking in for a couple of days, and then I got this link in an email:

http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/ABC

We Can Solve It is not some ho-dunk agency trying to campaign for change, they were founded by Al Gore!

In order to figure out why this ad can’t be run by ABC, I think it is important to look into who owns ABC. Take a wild guess…I bet you won’t come up with it. WALT DISNEY owns ABC. For those of you who don’t keep up on who owns what (and not many people do) this is an important fact to know.

I am now going to quote directly from You Are Being Lied To because I feel the experts in the book know far more than I do about this subject. I think Norman Solomon is pretty reliable…

Here’s what he has to say:

“Published in spring 2000, the sixth edition of The Media Monopoly
documents that just a half-dozen corporations are now supplying
most of the nation’s media fare. And Bagdikian, a long-time journal -
ist, continues to sound the alarm. “It is the overwhelming collective
power of these firms, with their corporate interlocks and unified cultural
and political values, that raises troubling questions about the
individual’s role in the American democracy.”

I wonder what the chances are that Bagdikian—or anyone else—will
be invited onto major TV broadcast networks to discuss the need for
vigorous antitrust enforcement against the biggest media conglomerates.
Let’s see:

CBS. Not a good bet, especially since its merger with Viacom (one
of the Big Six) was announced in the fall of 1999.

NBC. Quite unlikely. General Electric, a Big Six firm, has
owned NBC since 1986.

ABC. Forget it. This network became the property of the
Disney Company five years ago. Disney is now the country’s
second-largest media outfit.

Fox. The Fox network is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News
Corp., currently number four in the media oligarchy.

And then there’s always cable television, with several networks
devoted to news:

CNN. The world’s biggest media conglomerate, Time Warner, owns
CNN—where antitrust talk about undue concentration of media
power is about as welcome as the Internationale sung at a baseball
game in Miami.

CNBC. Sixth-ranked General Electric owns this cable channel.

MSNBC. Spawned as a joint venture of GE and Microsoft, the
MSNBC network would see activism against media monopoly as
double trouble.

Fox News Channel. The Fox cable programming rarely wanders far
from the self-interest of News Corp. tycoon Murdoch.


Since all of those major TV news sources are owned by one of the
Big Six, the chances are mighty slim that you’ll be able to catch a
discussion of media antitrust issues on national television.”


As you can see, judging by the fact that all major news outlets are owned by what he refers to as the “Big Six” chances are that none of them will run anything that is degrading to big oil, or how the economy in America is run.

Although I think everyone should email ABC about this, it is important to remember that the people that make the decisions about what to air on television are not the people that read the emails. Those employed at ABC are either trying to ensure their jobs by not letting this ad air, or are so brainwashed by the system and the people they work for (not questioning crooked tactics becomes engrained eventually) that they think the ad is wrong in its very essence.

Let us again return to Solomon:

‘“It is not necessary to construct a theory of intentional cultural control,”
media critic Herbert Schiller commented in 1989. “In truth, the
strength of the control process rests in its apparent absence. The
desired systemic result is achieved ordinarily by a loose though
effective institutional process.” In his book Culture, Inc.: The
Corporate Takeover of Public Expression, Schiller went on to cite
“the education of journalists and other media professionals, built-in
penalties and rewards for doing what is expected, norms presented
as objective rules, and the occasional but telling direct intrusion from
above. The main lever is the internalization of values.”

Self-censorship has long been one of journalism’s most ineffable
hazards. The current wave of mergers rocking the media industry is
likely to heighten the dangers. To an unprecedented extent, large
numbers of American reporters and editors now work for just a few
huge corporate employers, a situation that hardly encourages
unconstrained scrutiny of media conglomerates as they assume
unparalleled importance in public life.”


So, long story short—Good luck Al Gore.

*If you'd like to read more from the book You Are Being Lied To, go to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/5991212/You-Are-Being-Lied-to-Full-Book

Nature's Sanity

It really is interesting how much emotion governs everyday life. For the past several years I have felt empty (I might as well use the old cliché, something was missing from my life). For only short periods of time would I feel full again, and those were times when nature and love combined in a glorious harmony. Only when I was with someone I truly cared about, and in nature was I at ease.

I bounce around my office job and city apartment with a lost type of acceptance. I run to the park almost every evening to center myself. Yet, coordinated landscaping doesn’t quite cut it, and nothing seems to cut through the loneliness. As with most of my emotions I have begun to analyze my feelings on days when I run to the park in comparison to days that I don’t. I also contrast them with days when I work at the YMCA camp that I have come to call home. And, in contrast to all of these comparisons I throw in the days when I have considered myself to be “in love”.

It is no mystery to most that know me that love has been missing from my life for a long time; it was far gone before my last relationship was even over. I have been searching for that certain connection for so long that I fear I will now miss it when I come across it. Yet the more I analyze the more I know the truth: nature and love are the only things that will make me content. When I look at a macro view of the earth, I realize that this simple fact is true for most people.

It comes down to this simple fact: humans are not content without nature nearby. Even in the city that Sex in the City says people move into to search for love, there is a park. People go to Central Park quite often, and even though they likely don’t analyze why, I think I know. Humans need nature, and without it we are lost, and thrown into violence.

It is more than just needing a plot of trees when it comes to me however, I need love too. Without both I am lost, and without either, I end up where I sit right now. An office, no windows, and no escape until my lease ends next August.

I wonder how long it will take man to realize that he can’t exist without the natural places, not just for technical survival, but for the soul’s sanity as well.

Just recently I met someone that within them seemed to have the same connection to nature as I do, a rare find in this world. I have only ever met one other person that seemed so in tune with all that nature had to offer, and they disappeared from my life quickly. There is something to be said for someone who really loves nature, and thus treats it like one would a lover, with care and honesty. I think that it is with someone like him, whether it be him or not, that I’ll be happy, finally. I think it takes someone who feels that tug when the sun shines through leaves casting a green hue, it takes someone who cringes a little when thinking about meat packing plants. It takes someone with a connection to the earth to connect to me.

I wish we could all find someone like that; the world would be a much better place.

Here is a poem I recenty wrote in regard to nature:


Intruders and Lovers
By: Me

A beautiful view
Rock and tree and air
Blue and white and green and clear
Forget the earth’s despair.

But what is this?

That shiny thing
Emerging from the brush
Hammered in sometime past
But hurting just as much.

The medal here
Does not belong
Its bolt bleeds out the soul
Why is man so violent
To the earth that is his home?

The scenes the places
Of natures’ loves
Desecrated and bare
Unnatural deserts scream
Of mans’ influence there.

The barren forest
The dammed old stream
No longer sway, or creep—
Or drip.
They blow with dust
And swell as lakes
And thus have stopped—
To live.

So fight the fight of the radical
The doomed, the hated, who’ll shove
Frown at greed and grin at green
For what is life, but love?

Divided We Fall

Sometimes tough decisions, that you really don’t want to make, have to be made for what you love.

When I was young I remember thoroughly enjoying wildlife. I watched every nature documentary that was available on basic cable, and literally celebrated when Animal Planet came into existence (I am still to this day disappointed that it isn’t all documentaries). Going along with this animal obsession, I loved a movie about a cheetah. I do not recall what it was called, but I know the general story line of the movie. Basically two children find a baby cheetah whose mother has been killed and raise her until she is full grown. They then, because they love her, have to set her free. Neither the children nor the cheetah want to be separated from one another. Going against every intuition they have, the children throw rocks at the cheetah until she runs away.

The right decisions often go against every intuition.

The same general story can apply to teamwork. Sometimes, people who do not even like each other, who have opposite views on how certain situations should be handled, have to work together. During this campaign season we see a nation divided in what I sometimes think is a frightening way. The division of democrats and republicans has existed for years, but this division was ignored for quite some time after 9/11. People were AMERICAN and that is all that mattered. It was all about doing what was needed to protect the homeland, to ensure security (even if some politicians obviously abused this power).

So why in a time when the far-reaching effects of a horribly run government and a crooked presidential administration have finally caught up with us (and not many politicians deny this) are we unwilling to work together? The 700 Billion Dollar bail out plan has not passed the vote. I do not know how I feel about the plan itself, but I do know that I am just fed up with the politicians of America. SINCE WHEN can we not get off of our high horses and work together when our country is in need? The militia during the Revolutionary War got over their personal differences and worked together to turn the tide of it. I am sure that the many heroes of 9/11 had different viewpoints when it came to politics, yet that did not stop them from saving so many. I guess what it really comes down to is this: our political system does not work anymore. Some thing has to change, and soon. Don’t start screaming “RADICAL!” yet either, hear me out.

If the governmental leaders that America has elected to keep the country stable, and the people safe, refuse to get over their partisan affiliations to do so, something is inherently wrong with the system. I do not claim to know what can fix this problem, I only want to bring it to people’s attention. SOMETHING has to change, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something major does, very soon. It will take more than a new president to reform this crooked nation run by politicians looking for votes and fat wallets before they look for the common good.

Perhaps it will take a little hope, real hope. Our country had that once.

She's Just Not That Into You

I was talking to one of my good guy friends today and realized that men are utterly clueless when it comes to women. Obviously this is a well known fact, but I think their ignorance goes deeper than what I had originally imagined. Below I have compiled a list, with the help of a few of my girlfriends, to aid men when they are trying to date. The most important thing to remember, guys, is that women won’t actually SAY what they want to, they will try to signal you to their true feelings by a series of actions. Also, keep in mind that you are not deserving of all women, no matter how great you think you are. Some women aren’t just playing hard to get, they ARE.

SIGNS SHE DOESN’T CONSIDER IT A DATE:

-She looks pissed when you try to pay for her

-Her arms are crossed throughout the entire movie

-She doesn’t talk to you much during the movie (not even during previews)

-She talks about herself throughout dinner and doesn’t ask about you

-She keeps looking at her watch

-She says she is inviting friends to come with

-She wears a tshirt and jeans when she normally dresses up

-She leaps out of your car as soon as you pull up by her apartment


THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

-Just because a girl snuggles with you doesn’t mean she’s into you

-Sometimes girls will kiss you goodbye just so you’ll leave

-If you have been friends with a girl for awhile, and she asks if you are still dating someone, this DOES NOT MEAN SHE HAS FEELINGS FOR YOU. Sometimes girls are just your friends, and that is it. Making conversation about significant others is something friends do, it is a common practice. Get over yourself and realize she is just trying to be friendly. If she wanted to come on to you, she would.

-If she cancels plans, she doesn’t want to date you

-If she kisses you when she is drunk, it doesn’t count as a kiss. Refer to this quote from the movie Death at a Funeral:
Justin: You can't fight what we had together. Martha: Justin, it was one night. It was a massive mistake. I was drunk out of my mind. You could have been a donkey!

-If she always tells you about plans she has later in the evening, she doesn’t want to date you

-If you tell her to pick a restaurant and she picks one that is geared towards children, she doesn’t want to date you

-If she talks more about her cat and tv shows than her actual interests, she doesn’t want to date you

-If she never calls you except to cancel or see what your status is on plans that you made, she doesn’t want to date you

-If she hasn’t added you on Facebook and you know she has an account, she doesn’t have a thing for you

-If she flat out ignores every compliment like you didn’t say it, she doesn’t want to date you

-If you are hanging out with her and some of your guy friends, and she starts flirting with them, she is looking for a way out

-If she mentions her ex in passing conversation, she is not ready to date you

-If she avoids your phone calls/texts/emails/instant messages/Facebook messages she doesn’t want to date you

-If you write on her Facebook wall and she deletes it, she doesn’t want to date you

-If she refers to you as her “friend” to everyone she introduces you to, she doesn’t want to date you

-If you work with her and you aren’t having sex in the broom closet, she doesn’t want to date you

-If you are the one that asks her to spend time with you, and never the other way around, she doesn’t want to date you


Perhaps these clues can help the clueless among you to take a hint, and quit going after girls that have no intention at all of dating you. These should also help you recognize the ones that might be interested.

Slanted Media, Dangerous Statistics

I have known for a long time that the media was slanted. I learned in high school the power of an unbiased question on a survey or poll. Results of a poll or survey are not reliable if a question is slanted in any way. Slanted questions lead to slanted statistics (as if they couldn’t be skewed even based upon reliable questions).

Today I thought I would punch someone when I read this story. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26612538/

It wasn’t the subject matter that made me so mad; it was the way the story was written. The statistics used were so slanted in their portrayal it made me want to scream. Here, is one example:

“More than 5,000 U.S. teens die each year in car crashes. The rate of crashes, fatal and nonfatal, per mile driven for 16-year-old drivers is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30 to 59, according to the National Highway Safety Administration. Many industrialized countries in Europe and elsewhere have a driving age of 17 or 18.”

It is like they have totally disregarded the age group that they are intending on shifting the driving age to. Perhaps looking at the statistics involved with those ages 17-18 would be something important to look at. Or drivers ages 19-25.

There is a poll at the end of this article that is such a leading question it makes me want to be sick. Here is what it says:

Do you think states should raise the age for getting a driver's license? * 8339 responses

Yes. Raising the driving age would help save lives. (65%)

No. Teens can be responsible as adults when driving. (35%)


If a poll is going to be given as a yes/no option the two answer choices have to be the opposite of each other. They cannot contain different explanations. The way this poll is written is obviously trying to steer people to vote yes. Because making the age higher would save lives, but that isn’t necessarily because teens are not as responsible as adults when they are driving. If everyone stopped driving today it would also save lives.

At the very end of MSNBC’s horribly written article is an attempt to seem unbiased. In this section they talk about the debate over the driving age, citing examples of how states have dealt with the danger of teen drivers without raising the age. The survey, however, is before this section in the article. Also, they still fail to discuss traffic accidents that are caused by drivers older than 16 that are not caused by alcohol. They say “Karen Sternheimer, a University of Southern California sociologist who studies accident statistics, cited federal data from 2007 showing that drivers ages 25 to 34, as well as those ages 45 to 64, were nearly twice as likely to be involved in alcohol-related fatalities as 16- to 20-year-old drivers.” But this is obvious. With the ability to go to bars comes an increase in drunk driving. This still does not even begin to address the issue of dangerous teen driving.

Perhaps MSNBC needs to reevaluate their writing technique

Damsel in Distress Disorder

I opened my eyes and found myself in a war zone outside of a high school. I sat in the back seat of a car, my body draped over a set of screaming twin girls who appeared to be around four years old. With a shocked breath I assessed the situation and realized that the girls needed to get into the building in order to stand any sort of chance. The problem was that the people shooting at us were on the roof of the school. Taking a chance I unbuckled both girls, wrapped them in my arms and started to sprint toward the school.

Suddenly I was inside, seemingly unhurt, and the girls were being taken from me. I saw in the eyes of the woman who took them that they would be safe. It was then that I collapsed on the floor, trying to figure out how I had gotten into this strange and dangerous situation. I was shaking from apparent shock and couldn’t get my facts in order. As I was shivering, wondering if I was about to be killed, I glanced up into the most caring and nervous eyes I had ever seen. The opal color of the eyes threw me off, until I realized I wasn’t frightened. He reached his arms out and circled me in them, and I knew he would keep me safe.
_______________________________________________________________________
It is strange, this endless desire to be rescued. I keep finding myself hoping to be in a horribly trapped situation with my life or mental well being on the line. I don’t want this to happen per say, but I am willing to let it occur if someone rescues me like they did in my dream. Perhaps I could be saved by a dashing man in clothes that I do not even notice because his eyes are so pained at the thought of losing me in any way.

I am not alone in fantasies of this nature; it seems that most women can relate to desires such as this. There are books and movies that play off of this constant want to be helpless just so someone can save you. The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer is one such example. It doesn’t seem to be the fact that Bella isn’t afraid of vampires in this series that is so enthralling. It is the utter adoration that Edward has for her. The love is evident, but it is the fact that she is truly helpless and he saves her many times that sells the books.

Is it simply an evolutionary quality, women’s constant need to be rescued and feel safe? Perhaps it is a hand-me-down emotion that has been inherited from the days of pack mentalities. Being saved by a man could be on par with having an alpha protect the pack and the cubs within it. Perhaps despite the women’s liberation movements, they, along with men, are still driven by instinct.

Or perhaps, I just need a boyfriend.

Tied Down—The Wireless Culture

I have often wondered what effect technology has on human interactions and the way in which we tolerate and relate to each other.

There are obvious facts that show, as far as war goes, that killing people has grown more and more impersonal throughout the short course of human history and war. The honor that was once strongly attached to defending ones’ countrymen and kin has faded to an extreme extent. Could this detached feeling toward war and the military be directly related to the detached ways of killing and defending that are now in place? Now a threat to a country could come from thousands of miles away. The menace in the eyes of the enemy is never seen by many. Perhaps the day men dropped their swords and picked up guns is when they lost the intricate connection between man and country.

The use of cell phones in American society did not alarm me at first. Like most, I was sucked in by the convenience of it all. I got my first phone about six years ago and I could call from nearly anywhere (except my high school which was apparently steel plated to avoid this) and talk to anyone. My parents preached up the phone as an object of safety and necessity. Saying it would come in handy if I was ever stranded on the side of the road or being chased down by a murderer (apparently they assumed I would be fast enough to make a phone call while running for my life). It was after I reached college that I realized some of the negative results these portable communication devices were having on society, especially my generation and those younger than I.

Text messaging only made the problem worse. People seem to no longer be able to communicate with each other in person. The two hour long conversations I used to have on the phone with friends have now become sporadic texts throughout the day. The long walks with inquiry and intense connection faded into the dark when I was merely 16. Text messages don’t tend to be very deep and intuitive either. Have you ever gotten a text that says anything like: “Do you feel that life is being lived to its greatest possible extent?” No, more often than not even my philosophy minor friends sent texts like this: “Work Sucks.” That is not even to go into the typical texts many receive utilizing a horrid internet shorthand. People are now asked out and broken up with via text message. Face to face interaction is rare, but so too is interaction by speaking on the phone itself!

Facebook, as I have only come to realize as of late disconnects the young community from itself even more than text messaging. Having the ability to look at a “friend’s” profile gives the illusion of being connected with them. This makes it far too easy to not actually communicate with people that you truly care about. Relationships are too often defined by what Facebook declares to the world. The lack of a relationship post on the website can cause conflict between two people that truly do care for each other. Facebook demands a definition of relationships, and the lack of this definition is frowned upon by most of my generation. Facebook also makes dealing with death almost unbearable because the profiles of the deceased often remain, untouched and strangely alive, after friends have passed away.

How do we mend this horrible tangle of invisible wires? I cannot think of a way. I could stop using my cell phone for text messaging, delete my profile on Facebook, and campaign for a more personal way to fight wars. Yet, none of that would make a difference on the whole. I would simply extricate myself even more from personal interaction.

Perhaps we should all stop posting on blogs and reading them. Maybe it’s time for a picnic?