Kudos for a real ad

The election has been going on for what seems like forever now, and the backstabbing and cat fights have escalated to unbearable proportions. What gets me the most are the commercials that the candidates are running; negative smear ads that make this seem more like a high school student body president between two popular girls. But, in the wake of the last eight months or so of negative ads, there was a break. I recently saw an ad that actually made me sit up and take notice, (no not because it included a funny caricature of the opposing candidate or questioned their credentials, but because it didn't elude to anything negative.) Thus, I give my kudos to Barack Obama for running the first real ad seen in this election in a long time. Take a look:



Props to Obama for actually laying out what his ideas are in a nice, concise format, and for not mentioning John McCain once. Because, really isn't that what an election is supposed to be about; people presenting their ideas in an orderly format and letting the people choose based off of that? It shouldn't be people basing their ideas off of what dirt can be found on one candidate, I mean because quite honestly as long as we don't have a serial killer running for office, I don't really care about their past. Before I go any further on this post though, a disclaimer will be put in order: keep in mind that McCain may have run similarly upright ads, this was just the first one I that flashed across my television screen, and so this is not an attack on the Republican Party in the least. And keep in mind that this ad is certainly not typical political advertising, the vast majority that I have seen are attacks, and this goes for both parties, on the opposite candidate. Now I digress though, on with my praises. I like the way that Obama sets out his policies in two minutes of filming and although he really tells you nothing about how he's going to do anything (which ultimately leads to questions as to whether he even knows, but that's not important now,) he leaves you with the feeling that you know exactly how our country will take shape over the next four years if he is elected into office. Thus, in the end I must say that I admire this ad and wish that I had seen more like it over the past few months. However, now that November 4th is less than a week away, I am more relieved that the ads will soon be over.

Bullying is a joke

Jay McGraw, the son of trusted TV psychologist Dr. Phil, informed me of something earth-shattering this afternoon. Did you know that over 50 percent of kids are bullied in schools today? What, you say you didn't know that? Well, guess what neither did I.
Now this could be because we all have our heads buried in the sand or because we just don't care, or (and this is a big or) this statistic could seem incredibly big because it's wrong! Yeah, that's right I said it, this is wrong; I mean think about it, 50 percent, really?

The focus of the October 28 episode of Dr. Phil was cyber bullying and while I admit that I learned a little bit about how crappy some peoples lives are and how crazy some people are, the whole show was just really a joke to me.

Now, I will admit that I haven't really dealt with bullying much in my life and maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant, but the whole show seemed ridiculous.

Dr. Phil kept trying to push what a problem this issue is in America, and to do that he brought on his son, (the weird one that he drags out whenever he needs a hip, fresh point of view because he knows that he can't connect with teens the way his good-looking son can.) And while I wouldn't have minded listening to Jay McGraw yammer on about how much of a problem bullying is and his new book, Jay McGraw's Life Strategies for Dealing with Bullies, which releases today by the way, it got to a point where the show was so kooky I couldn't even handle it.

The truth is that very few people are bullied in a severe sense of the word, and there really aren't that many extreme bullies in the world. Yeah, we're all jerks sometimes and we all say things that we don't necessarily mean, but that doesn't constitute us as bullies. Honestly, I can think of only a handful of experiences from my 12 years of schooling that could qualify as bullying, and even then it wasn't severe in the least.

Now, this is not to say that I don't acknowledge that there are kids out there who are bullied relentlessly by mean-spirited people for no apparent reason. But seriously, that's rare to say the least. We all have our own cliques in high school and while you might vaguely murmur about how one is weird, they're doing the same thing back to you, and if you're phased by this in the least, then maybe you don't have the guts it takes to make it in the real world.

Here's just what I think it comes down to: we over dramatize things today. We find a few severe cases of bullying and we plaster them over shows like Dr. Phil to make problems seem worse than they are. And if we're manipulating ideas and views, isn't that just perpetuating the problem?

Will Obama's "change" platform be hindered by issues of racial tension?

If you're ready to throw up on some racist, white trash hillbillies, watch this:



Yeah, that's right, you just heard all that! Now go ahead and tell me that there aren't crazies in America. It's amazing how two minutes of video, accidentally downloaded to this blog I might add, got me so worked up. But, in all reality I am still simply dumbfounded that people are so ignorant and stupid. Who are these country bumpkins anyway? I mean, honestly, if this is the cream of the crop out there in Ohio, it's a disturbingly redneck existence; a time-warped world where racial conflicts run rampant and you can cut the tension with a knife.
In all seriousness though, I will go ahead and admit that I have never been fully exposed to the horrors of racism; as a upper-middle class, white gal growing up in Iowa with pretty tolerant surroundings, the issue of race hasn't presented itself a lot. I have never discriminated against people because of their skin color, ethnicity or religion just because I was never taught to do that. And up until a few minutes ago, I was pretty sure that racism a dead issue, the kind history teachers drag out to make an important point on Martin Luther King Jr. Day or to explain modern genocide, but not as an actual issue of America today. Now, after watching 20 hillbillies from Ohio, I have been forced to reevaluate everything that I have ever thought about the subject.
While it's evident that fear, the kind of weary post 9/11 leeriness that lingers in the minds of many adults today, is a prominent feature in politics, rarely has it reached so far. And with the mix of racial and gender differences in the most recent election, this fear, which began to slowly slip from our minds as the years went on, has been reawakened with a vengeance.
Now, to be cautious in today's world, where most adults have a decidedly jaded view of society that contrasts starkly with my idealistic outlook, is completely understandable. We want to be given the facts and to stay one step ahead of scanners, to sense fraud and foresee troubles; to essentially know the future. But, is there a point where this reaches absurdity?
Did I honestly just hear not one but a handful of men and women assume that Obama has terrorist affiliations?!? What kind of evidence to they honestly have, the fact that he has a strange name? dark skin? an ethnic friend? And although there is no doubt in my mind that the people who made these accusations should be castrated so as not to perpetuate the stupid in the gene pool, what about the rest of the people who preliminarily jumped to conclusions, the ones who subscribe to the Wall Street Journal rather than 'Coon Hunting Monthly? What should we do with them, the ones that are supposed to be our best and brightest? I honestly don't know.
I remember having a conversation with someone about Barack Obama once, after I declared my support for his candidacy. They commented that America simply couldn't have a black president. Now this wasn't because they were racist or afraid of Barack's bogus "terrorist affiliation" reports, but because they didn't think that America could handle it. "He will get assassinated," I was cryptically informed by this person. I sluffed off this comment as crazy; people, I thought, were not psychopaths. We all just want the candidate that will do the best job for the country and his skin color isn't what forces him to hit the war button. But now, after watching that video, I don't know what to think anymore.

Change isn't as enchanting

As the election drags on and I have been bombarded with images of Barack Obama and John McCain for the past two years or so, I have begun to grow weary, and what's worse, critical.

The image of Obama used to symbolize what is great about our democratic system to me, the fact that normal people, (or at least people with t

he ability to make themselves seem average,) could be eligible for the highest position in the country. That, after so many years of failure, an fresh face could take the country by storm with his new, radical thinking.

Yeah, I was one of the crazies at the Obama rallies who waved their sign and listened intently as he spoke. I proudly advocated my support for him to my parents and defended him with vim and vigor whenever they put any doubt upon him.

However, now that the election is nearing what seems to be it's thousandth week, I have really started to look critically at Obama, and what I found is quite troubling. Really, my emerging problem with the fellow, is that although I really like him, he doesn't seem to have actual action plans. I mean, we can mindlessly yell "Change!" as many times as we want, but that doesn't mean that it's going to do anything.

But don't get me wrong, if the election was today, and I was 18, I would still check the box for Barack Obama, undoubtedly. And, when it comes down to votes, I think that's what the democratic campaign is banking on; the fact that Americans won't get sick of Obama by November 4, (I mean give them a few more months and they would all be ready to swing to the right.) That's probably why the people of the democratic party are such strong advocates for early voting.

This is not to say, however, that as my love for Barack Obama has faded that I have begun to advocate John McCain in any way. Nope, he's still pretty boring in my eyes too; and when he croaks I would not want to be left with Sara Palin as our president, because she actually seems really stupid. Maybe, we should all just take the path of writing in Mickey Mouse as our candidate and we could have a much simpler existence as a nation, because both of our candidates are beginning to suck.

So here's the plan: dress the candidates up in super hero costumes and make them more interesting, that's the winning strategy!

We're all 'Smurfs on Ice'

Stumbling in upon a usual Torch work session is a lot like watching a magic trick; even if you pay close attention to the slew of scatter-brained events, you will never know how everything all comes together.

The word magic is actually thrown around a lot during a Torch work session, mainly because nobody knows the proper terminology for how they did anything, but that's okay. Unlike a magic trick, however, the Torch editors do not hold all the secrets to executing a perfect trick, in fact we are often surprised that anything comes out in a cohesive manner. A well-oiled machine, we are not. Let me break it down:

While there are, I admit, a few people who can whip out a page in two hours be able to call it spectacular, or who are quality Nazis, the rest of us not so much. Amid loud music and funny stories, Elise is running through the hallways in a lion suit or pulling out our super-secret "Just Like Dads" or saying quotes we all can enjoy, ("Do you know that beer called 'Smurf on Ice'??" Megan is ad libbing High School Musical scenes (portraying both Troy and Gabriella), Alex is waving his phone through the air in the hopes that his texts might go through or telling me to put a "how gay are you" quiz on my page and Reid is threatening to drop someone's grade or telling a hilariously inappropriate story or honing his backup dancer skills or just generally being my favorite person of life. Nobody knows where Ben is or what's going on his page, (but when he does dane to show up he always brings fun hats and the best music selection, so that makes up for everything), Cassie has been done with photos for two hours so she just sits back and laughs at us suckers and Ashley makes a delightfully homicidal comment. I generally just wander around the room and talk in spurts with everyone, while generally making fun of people along the way, because it's what I do best. (These situations, mind you, are only a glimpse into about an hour of last work session, but generally it's just magic.)

But seriously, I love the people in Torch and work sessions until late at night would not be bearable without them. GL, on the other hand, must be dumbfounded by our stupidity at times; the fact that the majority of us laugh at nothing and have stupid inside jokes must make his skin crawl. But even with all of our goofing off, I'm sure that he still adores the majority of us, because who wouldn't enjoy a fun lot such as ourselves. I mean, don't get me wrong, we definitely do work hard and fun generally comes out of it, even if we spend hours griping about how much work we have left to do. Ultimately, Torch is just magic; who knows how we do what we do? (Evidently we don't even know.) But it always turns out the same: a lot of really neat people hang out and somehow make greatness. That, when it's all said and done, is what's really neat to me, that a few kids can sit down and create a whole newspaper from scratch (award-winning by the way), without being to serious and boring about it.

Buttons and bows

Politics are a tricky thing and the line between right and wrong often melts into a murky shade of gray. We are supposed to learn about candidates and endorse the one that we most agree with, ultimately culminating in our vote for them. But on the other hand, we're not supposed to let people know our views, for fear that we might slant them.
Yeah, I think that it's all just dumb. Recently I read an article from The New York Times called "Buttons and Bows" that enraged me. It talked about how teachers, no actually professors (who teach adults mind you) were banned from wearing political endorsement buttons on school campuses. Furthermore they were not allowed, in some cases, to have political bumper stickers on their cars because administrators felt that they might run the risk of influencing students towards one party or the other.
Okay now stop, if I'm the only one that this sounds completely stupid to, then there is a problem. Never mind that this is a flagrant abridgement of the First Amendment, (yeah guys, that's the important one!) but it's just ridiculous in general.
My first problem with this little situation is obvious; if administrators sincerely believe that a professor would ever be so important to me that I would throw my vote away (which is anonymous anyway) on a candidate that I didn't support just because I wanted to conform with them, then they are stupid. Honestly, if I were dumb or impressionable enough to be conforming on the basis of a bumper sticker, I probably shouldn't be voting in the first place. Secondly, even if these 'buttons and bows' were influential on my psyche, in a truly well-balanced campus, I would be equally bombarded with messages.
Yeah, maybe that's the real reason for this problem; campuses attempting to cover up how biased their faculty is. And even if they were an openly one-sided school, like a private Christian school would more presumptively be right-wing, they wouldn't care about the influential messages because practically everyone is voting for John McCain anyway, and if they're not the pressure isn't going to be pushed upon them in the way of harassing promotional buttons.
So, really what this comes down to is stupidity and nit-picking; people at some loser universities have nothing better to do than regulate insignificant rules and make up consequences. If I were a professor at one of these schools, I would wear 26 buttons just to be cute, of course half endorsing Barack Obama and the other half plastered with McCain's face, just to annoy my superiors. I mean really, what repercussions would really result from this ridiculous infraction? They would take away two dollars worth in merchandise from an adult? I don't think so.

I am Homer Simpson

How do you formulate informed opinions? I know, that's a silly question; by being informed, right? It seems simple enough that by the simple act of watching the news, going to school and asking about the world would give us basis for forming cohesive thought. Why is it then that I, one of the most politically, economically and globally inquisitive person (from my age bracket mind you) that I know, find myself at a total loss for independent thought?
It's an absurd realization that although I have no trouble voicing my opinions on fashion and movies, when it comes down to what really counts, my years of absorbing Charles Gibson's riveting stories and avidly reading The New York Times and The Washington Post have left me virtually as smart as Homer Simpson.
What are my views on politics: if I hear the words Obama or McCain one more time I might scream; on the economy: the bailout bores me; and on foreign policy: I've given up hope of ever understanding war strategies. On a whole, I have never had to present my ideas in a cohesive form, or even really formulate any ideas for myself, they were always just kind of there for me.
So, who is to blame in my opinion blunder? NPR for always spoon-feeding me my opinions? My teachers for transforming AP courses into fact regurgitation sessions? My parents for never engaging me in opinion-based conversation? Or myself for never taking the initiative to think through the important issues of today?
Really though, the saddest part about this information, is that I am not alone. No, I am not just a deadbeat of society, quite to the contrary I am one of the masses simply conforming with the norm. In this sense, it probably shouldn't bother me, because I have always seen fitting in and being average in a positive light, but honestly it digs at my conscience. I guess what I'm saying here is that I realize that as a people, Americans are morons and I don't want to amass among the total stupidity of our culture; not learning is not okay and sitting blankly at this blog screen for large chunks of time because I have nothing to write about is not alright. From this moment on, I commit to learning and staying as far away from my Homer Simpson parody as possible, because although the world could use more doughnut-obsessed, dim-witted fat men for entertainment value, in the realm of knowledge they provide nothing.

Politics are pointless

Why do people even pay attention to politics? I mean really they're dumb. We're all so wrapped up in the latest presidential debate or the last government scandal; isn't this just counterproductive?

What got me thinking about this was my third hour class. I have to spend an hour each day, which any other time of the year would be mildly enjoyable, in a virtual hell. I constantly have to be surrounded by politically over-opinionated people; barking about foreign policy and economics. Really, it kind of makes me sick to my stomach and I think that if I hear the words Obama or McCain one more time I might scream.

Guess what? I don't want to discuss their differing policies or debate which will be the best next commander in chief. I would really just like to sit back and hear the sound of silence, but no, I'm subjected to the completely obnoxious voices of stupid people bickering about something that none of them really have any influence over.

Plus, and here's the kicker, my class isn't polarized in the least; they are all Obama supporters! Yeah, so even though they shouldn't be debating about anything, but rather commending each other on their fine choices of a candidate in a session of "You're great," "No, you're great." But no, it's just a lot of bickering and nitpicking about absolutely nothing!

Really, I know that this seems ludicrous, but let me paint you a picture of what will happen today in third hour; a pretty much accurate representation of every day. We begin the class with a hello and pleasantries and get most of the class business out of the way, which is fine, but then my teacher asks one fateful question; "So, who watched the debate last night?" he asks. Suddenly hands shoot up and one girl in an Obama T-shirt starts talking about how McCain is such a loser and smirked during the whole thing and that's why he lost. Another gal clad in Young Democrats' Club garb, the most irritating of them all, turns to me, because of course I am sitting next to her, and she begins to yell at the top of her lungs to nobody in particular, "Obama is a formidable candidate for presidency because of his economic..." all the while trying to educate the whole class on Barack's policies. The teacher, having realized his mistake holds his head in his hands and wonders silently why everyone is so crazy, but aloud voices that it saddens him that we don't have opposing views. By now the entire class is all in a tizzy and continue to recount and rehash the debate for the next 30 minutes. I, during all of this discussion, just turn around to the other few sane people in the class and make the motion that I want to drop dead instead of hearing this for another day, they concur, because really, nobody is talking about anything.

So, here's what I think it comes down to, people are dumb and arrogant, and this is not just limited to my third hour class. They are as bad as the politicians that they abhor in that they feel the need to impose their beliefs on everyone, even if they clearly don't care. So really, just stop, because any other situation reminiscent of my third hour will undoubtedly make me go crazy.

Should the commander in chief wear lipstick?

As a girl, and one ambitious to achieve dreams more numerous than getting married and having babies, I often find myself at odds on the issue of women in politics. While there's no doubt that we, as a gender, should someday have a vital role above first lady, when that time should come is still up in the air to me.
I think that the gender controversies in this election demonstrate perfectly the fact that America is not ready for a woman commander in chief. But it's not the bigot hillbillies that I have found to demonstrate this thought, it is more the crazy women of America (and I say that in the most supportive way.)
As a gal from a family of six (five of us of the double X chromosomes), I was subjected to a lot of excitement when Hillary announced her candidacy. My mom and older sister were overwhelmingly excited about the whole affair and became political groupies. I on the other hand, chose a candidate that contradicted their choice.
One day, in discussion of our beliefs, I asked my mom why she wanted Hillary to win, do you know what she said? Because she's a woman! I was appalled; really she had little political basis for her opinion, just the fact that Hillary could wear lipstick was enough for her.
No I don't mean to make a spectacle out of my mom, because she has a right to her own opinion, and in all fairness, she may have had valid thoughts that were not expressed to me, but really the thought that naive women of America could elect our president based on her gender makes me sick to my stomach.And now, Clinton is out and Palin is in, so what does that mean? Will gung-ho feminists pounce at the opportunity to put a female into office despite the fact that she is totally ill-prepared for the job? They argue that these female candidates have valid points and good morals and whatnot, but really, our two have kind of been duds on the spectrum of political abilities; we have Hilary Clinton who selfishly tried to piggyback off of her husband's success and Palin who has no experience with anything.
I think that if we really want to make history for the ladies, we should make sure that it's not a historical blunder; let's wait until a female with some political ability comes around, and moreover let's wait until the women of America aren't so stupid and anxious to pounce upon the first candidate to come knocking.

My blog is great

So definitely this blog is pretty much amazing. Woah, I know it's great. Except for I don't have much more to say about it then that, but it's still pretty neat...just because it is. But yay, amazing post number two is done!! and so great!