Free Thoughts, or Thought Police

I read an article today where people are really upset that Anne Coulter used the “F” word. No not that word! The other “F” word, you know, like what the English call cigarettes. This word is so bad that NBA star Tim Hardaway had to go to rehab last year for saying it. A group of 40,000 people signed an online petition (which doesn’t make any sense to me, how can you sign something online) asking Universal Press Syndicate to release her column from print. Now this baffles me. These “über-liberal” people are trying to block Ms. Coulter’s first amendment rights. It seems that the 1st Amendment is a matter of convenience. This is something that I think we see a lot now-a-days. When someone speaks their mind, says something offensive, then all of these sensitive people come out of the wood works to attack a person and try to make them feel bad for having an opinion or silence them completely (think police). It appears to me to be a real case of the thought police. Sure, I think that the word was used in bad taste (she used it to describe presidential hopeful, hopeful indeed, John Edwards), but it seems that every time someone uses a word that may be offensive they get hammered. What if all of a sudden Anne was able to use the same card and say that she has been discriminated against being a white female conservative and tried to fight back against her oppressors?

The point I’m trying to make is that I think that a lot of Americans are too sensitive. What are we 5 year olds in the back of mom & pop’s car on a 5 hour trip to grandma’s? “She called me this, he called me that, you hurt my feelings, whaaa, whaaa, whaaa!” So what she used a “dirty” offensive word, grow up! I think that she could have been more classy and not so childish about the way she conducted her speech (or the rest of the way she acts), but why do people have such an equally childish reaction by trying to silence her. I think this is why America has come into the state that it is. We bicker back and forth like little kids over he said she said. What are y’all’s thoughts? Should we truly be free to say whatever we want? Or should we have the thought police, telling us what we can and can’t say? Tipper Gore would be a good commissioner for the thought police, after all she tried to silence musicians already.

Lent, our sacrifice.

Alright, I know some of the people that read my occasional blogs and blog comments might be thrown off by this topic. And for those of you joining me for the first time, I’m not the most religious person in the CSRA, but it is Lent and my mind inquires. So Lent started on Ash Wednesday, February 21st; you know the day after Fat Tuesday; and will continue until Good Friday or Easter depending on what denomination you follow. For Catholics this is a time of “fasting”; they give up eating red meat. For other denominations, members are encouraged to give something up for 40 days. It is supposed to be a test of will power, where you give up something that you enjoy. It is a sacrifice that one makes to God, and lets face it giving something up out of your daily routine is much more difficult than sacrificing the fatty calf as was done in the Old Testament. A friend of mine and I both gave up consuming alcohol for Lent, which has turned out not to be as difficult as I thought it would be. Once I got past that first weekend of hanging out with my usual crowd and not drinking it’s been fairly easy, plus having someone doing it with you and having the encouragement of friends and family doesn’t hurt either.

I want to know what you readers gave up for Lent and why? Also, if you did not give up anything, why not? Obviously if you’re Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. I know why you didn’t.

On the Road Pet Peeves

What’s going on with the dumb stuff people put on their cars? Everyday I drive around and see stupid stickers or accessories on the "classy" citizens of the CSRA’s automobiles. First I would like to touch on people who have enormous flashy rims of the chrome and/or spinning nature. Now I think that dubs, rims, blades, spinners, and shoes are all dope, cool and fly; however, it is not cool when you put $1,200 rims on a $600 car. Chrome does not make you cool when your car is primer grey/rust color. It also doesn’t look cool when you have plastic ones that fit over your car’s normal rims and you’re driving a busted up P.O.S. car.

Ok next stupid thing that I hate on cars: old political stickers (really political stickers in general, I already know W’s the president, and F the president is just bad taste, and your political preference is not going to make me take exception to you when you cut me off in traffic. It will still result in me getting under you, getting you loose, and putting you into the wall). I hate it when I see someone that’s got a “Support (enter any losing politician’s name here)” sticker on the back of their car. They lost; having the sticker on your car isn’t going to make them miraculously become president, governor, or mayor; get over it. You might as well have a sticker on your car that says “I support a loser”.

The next thing is a recent trend that I’ve found interesting … well a better word might be disturbing. I don’t know who came up with this idea and I don’t know what guy was the first to see one and go “Man that’s cool, I’m gonna get me one on my truck”. But what is the deal with these plastic testicles that hang down from underneath trucks? I even saw a guy driving a two-door Saturn that had a pair bolted onto his rear bumper. This has by far got to be the tackiest and tasteless accessory one can own for their automobile. Are you trying to say that your truck is a guy? Are you trying to say that you love testicles? And it’s always the über-macho (probably homophobic) redneck dudes that have them. There are some serious psychological questions I would like to ask some of these guys that have fake testicles hanging down from their cars. I don’t like to see testicles when I’m driving around town and neither do probably the majority of the people on the road.

Let me know if any of you have any “On the Road Pet Peeves”.

Sunday alcohol sales

I saw recently on the Chronicle online that there was a poll taken asking “Should Georgia Eliminate laws that prohibit Sunday beer and wine sales in stores?” Now I can understand why this law was made when towns were less populated and everyone was worried about the town drunk Fred coming into Church slammed. I just don’t see how in our modern times that selling alcohol on Sunday could hurt anyone. Sunday is my day to rest and re-juice my batteries for the work week ahead and a lot of times I want to have a beer and play some games, do some house/yard work, or just chill with my friends and having a afternoon beer or 8 is right in line with that. It would help out store owners and there wouldn’t be a bunch of drunk people out on the roads Saturday night making a beer run at 11:30 so that they can continue drinking or so that they can have some beers for Sunday. Can anyone tell me a good reason why we should still not have alcohol sales on Sundays? Or for that matter the wacky blue laws in South Carolina that won’t let me buy dog food or a plastic container on Sunday before noon or whatever time it is, what’s the purpose of that law?

There is a God

Proof positive that there is a God, he is awesome, and has great taste in music!

Harry Potter turning our children towards witch craft?

A few weeks back I recall reading an article about a mother in Loganville, GA who wanted to ban the Harry Potter books from school libraries because she claims they encourage children to practice witch craft. Today I say an article in the “TEEN Xtreme” section of the paper this week where a young journalist was writing an article about it. It made me think about certain stigmas that we place on groups. Today we see pagans and people that practice “witch craft” or voodoo as evil people. Fact of the matter is though if you are an American from white European ancestry, most likely (if not definitely) your ancestors were pagans. I don’t think everyone in non-Jewish parts of the world before the birth of Jesus was evil. It’s funny how we lump people in like that. The woman that made this comment appears to be a rich white suburbanite Christian, with probably nothing better to do, but it made me think about how this stigma has been placed on people that follow another religion or set of beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition, Puritan witch hunts, and other various Church backed activities and propaganda made it so that the masses believed that all non-Christians are evil. I wonder why this woman attacked “witch craft” and Harry Potter, and not any other religion, because she’s mad that they are not Christian themed and apparently has little control of her children. Wicca, probably the most popular western version of what people consider witch craft (aside from Voodoo), has its own set of moral rules contained within the “The Wiccan Rede”; the core rule being: “An it harm none, do what thou wilt” or if you cause no harm to anything or anyone, do what you want. This seems to be ambiguous, sure, but I think it’s in the right direction of western morality. They also have the “Law of Threefold Return”; “good deeds are magnified in like form back to the doer, and so are ill deed”. This is known otherwise in modern culture as “The Golden Rule”, just with an added kickback. In a country that is supposed to have religious freedoms why are we so hard on non-Christians and non-Jews?

I apologize for my “stream of consciousness” writing, I won’t claim to be a writer. Main point: why do we assume that all things that do not follow the Judeo-Christian beliefs are evil?

America Depressed

I read an article today about how the youth of developing nations are happier than people who live in developed nations, such as the United States. Reading this made me sad, not about my life but sad that other people are not satisfied with theirs. The survey that determined this information was conducted by MTV Networks International. The survey was taken by more than 5,400 people ages between 16 and 34 in 14 countries. In my opinion that’s not a large enough sample of people to make such a claim because it’s estimated that there are one billion people between the ages of 15 – 24, which leads me to believe that there are probably about two billion between 16 - 34. That means that about 0.00027% of the world’s population between those ages was polled. Statistics aside, it makes me wonder why people in America, most European nations, and Japan would be so sad.

People said that the pressure to succeed and concern over their job. I have a very stressful job and sometimes I feel pressure to succeed or the anxiety of “am I living up to the company’s standard?”, “am I doing this right?”, “will I meet the deadline?”. But at the end of the day I take a moment collect myself and say to myself, it could be worse. I have a good job and live comfortably and I’m thankful for that. At the end of the day when I’m relaxing I’m really happy that I have a good job and can afford the lifestyle in which I have become accustomed to. I’m happy that I live in a nation where I can speak my voice freely and act freely (for the most part), and not in a poverty stricken nation, or a dictatorship, or a communist or socialist nation, or a nation where there’s not freedom of religion.

Another reason people stated they were sad because of the scare of terrorism and cancer. I thought about this for a while, because these are not things that I’m scared of. Maybe I’m just optimistic. I think that one reason that so many people are terrified of this is because of the media. It seems that a lot of the time when I’m watching the news it has something to do with terrorism. There is also a lot of media exposure to terminal illness like A.I.D.S. or cancer, like the T.R.U.T.H. ads that are run on television. Some examples are the ads that were run on T.V. about if you buy marijuana you are contributing to terrorist. Every time a big day in our nation rolls around there’s always the terrorist alert that’s orange, green, red, taupe, magenta, or whatever color means that people want to kill us. People are scared to fly now because of terrorist. The media seems to use fear to captivate us. Like this year’s hurricane season. Global warming and all these things were supposed to contribute to the “worst hurricane season on record”. The only hurricane to make landfall in the eastern U.S. was Ernesto, which did minimal damage, but the coverage leading up to it was so built up that you would think that the whole Eastern Seaboard was going to be wiped out. I think that so many people are not happy and are scared because of the way information is presented to us. If we live in fear then we can’t live full lives. I just try not to worry about it and go about my life and if I get killed by a terrorist or a natural disaster, well I guess it was just my time to go.

How do y’all feel about your lives? Are you happy or sad overall? Do you live in fear because of what’s going on in our world today? What do you think can be done to help raise moral in our nation? I just have trouble understanding why people in India are so much happier than people who live in the U.S. Maybe because it’s the vision of growth. They see their country developing and say to themselves that next year our nation is going to be greater and stronger and we’ll all have a better quality of living. Maybe here in the U.S. and in other developed countries we think we’ve reached our peak and are looking down the slope.

If you’d like to check out the article it can be found at:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-11-20T000837Z_01_L19430195_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-GLOBAL-SURVEY.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Cindy Sheehan loves her kids?

I don’t know how many of you have gotten e-mails regarding Cindy Sheehan, but lately I’ve been hearing a lot about this loony. I got an e-mail yesterday that had a picture of an unmarked grave with flowers on it. Apparently it is the grave of Casey Sheehan. According to the e-mail two years after her son’s death and after receiving $250,000 payment from the Department of Defense, Cindy is yet to put a head stone on her son’s grave. Also since he died in battle the government will pay for the grave stone if applied for.

"The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) furnishes upon request, at no charge to the applicant, a government headstone or marker for the grave of any deceased eligible veteran in any cemetery around the world. For all deaths occurring before September 11, 2001, the VA may provide a headstone or marker only for graves that are not marked with a private headstone. Flat markers in granite, marble, and bronze and upright headstones in granite and marble are available. The style chosen must be consistent with existing monuments at the place of burial. Niche markers are also available to mark columbaria used for inurnment of cremated remains."

She has time to travel the world (getting arrested), go to Hawaii for vacation, and sit out in front of the President’s ranch and the White House all day long, but no time to get a head stone made and placed on her son’s grave. She got arrested again yesterday (11/8/06).

I received another e-mail this morning that stated that Cindy didn’t even have custody of her children (including Casey) from her first marriage because she was an alcoholic. The e-mail goes on to say that she wasn’t around when they were growing up and hadn’t seen or talked to her son Casey for years before he went to Iraq. Also that before she started protesting she gave over custody of her kids from her second marriage voluntarily because she didn’t want the responsibility. Apparently now she’s going through a third divorce and giving up custody of another son. It sounds like she’s really got her priorities in line and up holds strong family values. Has anyone else received these e-mails or ones like this? And does anyone know how valid this information is?

Evangelicals: Save us or enslave us?

As I'm sure many of you have read in the past few months about the new film "Jesus Camp" which is a documentary basically about a hardcore Evangelistic Bible school or arguably a training camp. I saw some clips of the movie from when it was first brought to my attention on the Daily Show. I've not seen the film in its entirety, but from what I've seen it appears to be quite similar to any sort of "brain washing" tactics used by any fundamentalist group. They are taking these young children and instilling in them Christian doctrines but what appears to also be hate towards anyone that’s not a Christian. Sound familiar? Now imagine if they were given guns. It's one thing to inform your children about Christianity, but it's another to shove it down their throats. This is America, inform and let them decide.

Also lately in the news one of the people involved with this project was a man by the name of Rev. Ted Haggard who has been accused of gay sex and drug use. He led people on to believe that with his help he could save their souls from eternal damnation when really he was taking their money and using it to buy a male prostitute and drugs. This man became famous within his evangelical circle for condemning homosexuality. If you care to read more:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-haggard6nov06,0,7806096.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/06/D8L7OAK80.html

For those of you who follow the basic Christian beliefs, the Bible warns of false profits and religions; how do we know which one is right? Is any certain denomination the right one, after all so many have a variety of takes on Christianity from predestination , to mulitple wives, to the Eucharist? Or is Christianity even the right religion? Are the Jews right; was Jesus not the Messiah? Then when we look at the stats 33% of the world claim to practice Christianity the next largest chunk being Islam at 21%; and how many of those people are actually true Christians or Muslims? With so much corruption within churches how can we be sure we're following the right spiritual leaders, the right faith or even the right religion?