Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Another Funny Thing About School Internet
Websites spreading hate-filled propaganda and pro-republican sentiment like foxnews.com and glennbeck.com go unblocked on the internet for Spotsylvania County. But when it comes to respectable news organizations like the Huffington Post, it's blocked. Why is that? Is it because the Huffington Post tries to spread sensibility to a public that is caught up in a world of hysteria and paranoia agrivated by the propagandists at Fox News?
A Funny Thing
I can access blogger.com to update my blog with new articles from my school internet, but if I want to view my blog itself, the website is blocked. Does anyone else find that amusing?
Russia Invades Georgia?
Earlier this week, a Georgian newschannel staged the biggest disgrace to journalism since Glenn Beck. Georgian reporters played off of the fears of their people to say that the Russian Federation had invaded the country. To add to the panic and fear, the news channel used archival footage of the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia and panicked civilians fleeing Tbilisi and Gori. Not only did they use that, but they also used archival footage of US President Barack Obama, and dubbed it in Georgian to make it appear as if he was condemning Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and PM Vladimir Putin while pledging support for Georgian President Mikhail Saakhaashvili. This however, was an erroneous claim. The speech itself had nothing to do with Georgia or foreign policy towards Russia! Now, the Georgian government is acting like immature children on the playground. If Georgia wants to stay safe from a war with Russia, they need to make damn sure that they stop poking the angry bear (literally)!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Opiate of The Masses
We all at one time or another have heard the false statement that communists believe religion is the "opiate of the masses". This idea came from a piece written by
Karl Marx, but it has been taken widely out of context. To put it back into the true context and meaning, we must first evaluate the time period in which Marx lived. Comrade Marx spent his life living in the 19th century, during the time of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. During this time, medical technology was quite behind (yes, I can hear you saying "Thank you, Captain Obvious" from here). It was during this time that opium was prescribed by doctors as a pain killer and a way to treat cholera and malaria (even today opium is used as an ingredient in morphine). Second, we must think about some of the things that opium does to people. Being an hallucinogenic drug, opium causes you to see things and have vivid fantasies while being intoxicated. Comrade Marx felt that religion had the same effect on people. He observed that in times of need or hardship, people would reach for their rosary and say a prayer. From this, one is able to conclude that people use religion as a way to pacify themselves and to keep themselves from feeling the pain of everyday life; whether it's the death of a loved one, or struggling from the economic oppression they face under capitalism. Then, during this process of being religious, people believe in stories like the world once flooded and one man was able to build a boat large enough to house two of EVERY animal species (with the exclusion of fish, I assume). Next, we must analyze why religion was started in the first place. In the very beginning of human history, man observed several natural phenonomenon that made him think. Where does that bright yellow thing in the sky go at the end of the day? What's with that weird white thing that you can only see parts of sometime? Why does water just fall out of the sky? It then became clear that he needed to explain this. So, he created myths about powerful beings who controlled the lives of everyday people. These myths would later be known as religion. Today, as scientists begin to find out more and more about the universe, people will begin to turn away from the stories they learned from practicing religion. Though there are still a few stubborn people who wish to live in the past, and disregard scientific fact, religion will one day fade away as an idea of another time. As you no longer see people today sacrificing people to the Gods in order to insure that the sun will come up the next day, there will once be a day where people don't say that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago by a supreme being. Instead, the population will become more agnostic, or deist, or perhaps even atheist. Will this future that lacks spirituality be a brighter tomorrow? That question can only be answered after the passing of a few more centuries.
Karl Marx, but it has been taken widely out of context. To put it back into the true context and meaning, we must first evaluate the time period in which Marx lived. Comrade Marx spent his life living in the 19th century, during the time of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. During this time, medical technology was quite behind (yes, I can hear you saying "Thank you, Captain Obvious" from here). It was during this time that opium was prescribed by doctors as a pain killer and a way to treat cholera and malaria (even today opium is used as an ingredient in morphine). Second, we must think about some of the things that opium does to people. Being an hallucinogenic drug, opium causes you to see things and have vivid fantasies while being intoxicated. Comrade Marx felt that religion had the same effect on people. He observed that in times of need or hardship, people would reach for their rosary and say a prayer. From this, one is able to conclude that people use religion as a way to pacify themselves and to keep themselves from feeling the pain of everyday life; whether it's the death of a loved one, or struggling from the economic oppression they face under capitalism. Then, during this process of being religious, people believe in stories like the world once flooded and one man was able to build a boat large enough to house two of EVERY animal species (with the exclusion of fish, I assume). Next, we must analyze why religion was started in the first place. In the very beginning of human history, man observed several natural phenonomenon that made him think. Where does that bright yellow thing in the sky go at the end of the day? What's with that weird white thing that you can only see parts of sometime? Why does water just fall out of the sky? It then became clear that he needed to explain this. So, he created myths about powerful beings who controlled the lives of everyday people. These myths would later be known as religion. Today, as scientists begin to find out more and more about the universe, people will begin to turn away from the stories they learned from practicing religion. Though there are still a few stubborn people who wish to live in the past, and disregard scientific fact, religion will one day fade away as an idea of another time. As you no longer see people today sacrificing people to the Gods in order to insure that the sun will come up the next day, there will once be a day where people don't say that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago by a supreme being. Instead, the population will become more agnostic, or deist, or perhaps even atheist. Will this future that lacks spirituality be a brighter tomorrow? That question can only be answered after the passing of a few more centuries.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
People Watching
I think one of the best things to do in public is people watching. For some reason, I just enjoy it endlessly. To walk around and notice people going about their daily lives and habits. Its almost as if I'm in their life. As I was waiting to be picked up from somewhere a few days ago, I was standing near the front entrance, just watching people come in and go out. As I people watch, I like to imagine stories about their life, and being a writer, sometimes I work their life stories into whatever project I'm working on. There was one thing about that evening that I will remember (and which has made its way into the novel I'm currently working on): a mother and her son. I don't know what it was about them, but something about them just seemed so peaceful. The woman gave off this aura, this vibe, of being a good maternal figure. I'm sure you're reading this now and probably think I'm a psycho or some crazy stalker, but its true. People watching really does inspire me. Then, I noticed the way she looked after her son. Helping him get his coat on, helping him across the parking lot. It was such a sweet and idyllic sight. Yet, it not only provided me with some inspiration for my novel, but it made me think of my own life. It made me ponder things with my mother. Our relationship, or lack thereof. Ever since I was ten, we've been having severe arguments. Always fighting and yelling at each other. I hate it. I want things to go back to the way they used to be, when we could get along and be happy, like that mother and her son I saw while waiting to be picked up. Its a sad thing, really. But, I suppose that's just the way it is. I know I could try to fix things with her, but she is always uncooperative. She never even acts like she wants to try, so I just give up each time.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The Best of Things, and The Worst of Things
1) ABBA
2) The Onion
3) Animals
4) Music
5) Being alone with peace and quiet :)
6) National holidays (no school!!)
7) Coffee (with tiramisu coffe mate and sugar ^^)
8) Telling jokes
9) Friends
10) People who have a good sense of humour :)
11) Eurovision Song Contest
12) FarmVille
13) Russian accents
14) IKEA
15) Panera Bread
16) Ushanka hats
17) Soviet history
18) The Swedish language
19) Acting
20) Communism
21) Karl Marx
22) Friedrich Engels
23) V.I Lenin
24) Leon Trotsky
25) Che Guevara
1) Quite a few people
2) The smell of bananas
3) Country music
4) Lifetime original movies (idk what's worse, the acting or the story line!)
5) Spiders
6) Baseball (Could we have picked anything more boring to be our national pasttime?)
7) Nascar (What's the point of it? They drive around in a circle!)
8) PETA (They can't euthanise over 21 000 animals and then yell at people who eat meat)
9) Hearing people's vacation stories (seriously, like I care about what you did in ______)
10) Capitalism (The reason why the economy went down)
11) Jeff Dunham
12) Dancing With The Stars (is there anything more masochistic than watching that?)
13) Waiting for things (I have no patience)
14) People who have no sense of humor
15) People who get offended easily (they are ssoo annoying and then they lecture you about it, just take a joke for God's sake!)
16) "Reality" TV
17) Math (algebra is the devil's subject!!!)
18) Republicans
19) Hannah Monatana
20) Jonas Brothers
21) High School Musical
22) Sirusho (She should die for making us have to suffer through Qele Qele)
23) Zac Efron
24) Rush Limbaugh (satan)
25) Glenn Beck
26) Ann Coulter
27) People who are perky and happy 100% of the time
28) People who brag
29) People who talk about their money all the time
30) Memories of POMS
31) People who don't accept others
33) Optimists
34) People who say I'm too pessimistic (I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist)
35) Living in Spotsylvania
36) When people use cliches with me (especially if they say I'm sure things will be better or well, when you're older you can ______)
37) When people show me photos from their vacations (I don't want to hear about your vacation, what makes you think I want to see photos?)
38) Kim Il-sung and the DPRK (they give Communists a bad name)
39) The colour orange
40) People who constantly use exclamation marks!!!!!!!!! (Doesn't that annoy you?)
41) Kosovo
42) Those who use religion to spread hatred
43) This whole Balloon Boy crap
44) Black Eyed Peas
45) Fascism
46) Hypocrisy
47) People who use poor grammar
48) Materialism
49) Small towns
50) Che Guevara merchandise
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Best English Essay
I had to write an essay for English on A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Long story short: I hardly read more than a page of it, but when I wrote the essay, it was easily one of the best essays I have ever written. Here, take a look and see.
“May we all have our hopes,
our will to try, if we don’t,
we might as well lay down
and die.”-
Happy New Year by ABBA
If a person loses his hopes, then he has lost all of his humanity. It is hope that makes us run the last mile of the marathon; it is hope that gives us reason to wake up the next morning; it is hope that defines us as a human being; it is hope that can make us good people of virtue, or people of evil, because hope can serve both as an olive branch, and a sword.
Beginning with hope through the eyes of Charles Dickens, we see a desire to inform the public of the need for social reform. Dickens, like most authors, did not just write completely from imagination without any inspiration from his world. Around him, he saw two cities: a city of decadent excess, and a city of poverty and destitution. Because of the stark contrast between these two worlds, Dickens truly hoped that he would be able to bring about social change through a not-so-hidden message. And so, his timeless classic, A Tale of Two Cities was born.
There are some characters in A Tale of Two Cities who utilize hope as an olive branch of happiness. An example of this would be Lucie Manette. In Lucie’s eyes, the world should be a place in which people spread good-will amongst their fellow man and keep strong moral virtues. Because of this, she is a virtuous carrier of the olive branch. Lucie was not the only character who had virtuous hopes. Sydney Carton, the man who hoped to undo the mistakes he made by spending his life drinking heavily, makes the ultimate sacrifice towards the end of the book. Instead of seeing Lucie, the woman he loved, live in misery without her husband, he decided to die in place in Darnay, because it was a “far, far better thing” (367) than anything he ever did. It should also be noted while reading the novel, that Miss Pross, who was for Lucie what the Nanny was in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had very noble hopes of keeping her “little bird” safe from harm.
While hope is able to be used as an olive branch, it can also be used as a sword. An example of this would be the Marquis St. Evrémonde. He was a man of great many hopes, among which was to perpetuate a system of corruption, greed, and inequality as exemplified in his statement: “My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived.” Not only was he a man of greed, but he was a man of terror who would also have those who stood in his way “crushed under the wheels.” (117). Was he a man of virtue and great hopes? Certainly not! If Lucie and Sydney were able to use hope as an olive branch for spreading good will to man, then Mme. Defarge and Monseigneur (though they were opposite in ambitions) used hope as a sword with which they would wreak havoc on people.
If hope is what drove Dickens to pick up his pen in the first place, and it is also able to define us as good or evil, then surely to lose hope is to lose our humanity. But, one must be careful with their hopes and dreams. If they aspire to promote peace and use hope as an olive branch, then it is a blessing. If they aspire to promote fear and use hope as a sword, then it is a curse. It should also be noted that another one of the true messages Dickens was trying to convey was to be careful with your hopes.
To Lose Hope is To Lose Humanity: An Analysis of Hope Through the Eyes of Charles Dickens
“May we all have our hopes,
our will to try, if we don’t,
we might as well lay down
and die.”-
Happy New Year by ABBA
If a person loses his hopes, then he has lost all of his humanity. It is hope that makes us run the last mile of the marathon; it is hope that gives us reason to wake up the next morning; it is hope that defines us as a human being; it is hope that can make us good people of virtue, or people of evil, because hope can serve both as an olive branch, and a sword.
Beginning with hope through the eyes of Charles Dickens, we see a desire to inform the public of the need for social reform. Dickens, like most authors, did not just write completely from imagination without any inspiration from his world. Around him, he saw two cities: a city of decadent excess, and a city of poverty and destitution. Because of the stark contrast between these two worlds, Dickens truly hoped that he would be able to bring about social change through a not-so-hidden message. And so, his timeless classic, A Tale of Two Cities was born.
There are some characters in A Tale of Two Cities who utilize hope as an olive branch of happiness. An example of this would be Lucie Manette. In Lucie’s eyes, the world should be a place in which people spread good-will amongst their fellow man and keep strong moral virtues. Because of this, she is a virtuous carrier of the olive branch. Lucie was not the only character who had virtuous hopes. Sydney Carton, the man who hoped to undo the mistakes he made by spending his life drinking heavily, makes the ultimate sacrifice towards the end of the book. Instead of seeing Lucie, the woman he loved, live in misery without her husband, he decided to die in place in Darnay, because it was a “far, far better thing” (367) than anything he ever did. It should also be noted while reading the novel, that Miss Pross, who was for Lucie what the Nanny was in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had very noble hopes of keeping her “little bird” safe from harm.
While hope is able to be used as an olive branch, it can also be used as a sword. An example of this would be the Marquis St. Evrémonde. He was a man of great many hopes, among which was to perpetuate a system of corruption, greed, and inequality as exemplified in his statement: “My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived.” Not only was he a man of greed, but he was a man of terror who would also have those who stood in his way “crushed under the wheels.” (117). Was he a man of virtue and great hopes? Certainly not! If Lucie and Sydney were able to use hope as an olive branch for spreading good will to man, then Mme. Defarge and Monseigneur (though they were opposite in ambitions) used hope as a sword with which they would wreak havoc on people.
If hope is what drove Dickens to pick up his pen in the first place, and it is also able to define us as good or evil, then surely to lose hope is to lose our humanity. But, one must be careful with their hopes and dreams. If they aspire to promote peace and use hope as an olive branch, then it is a blessing. If they aspire to promote fear and use hope as a sword, then it is a curse. It should also be noted that another one of the true messages Dickens was trying to convey was to be careful with your hopes.
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