Archive for random rants

my take on gaza

{ December 30, 2008 @ 2:11 pm } · { politics, random rants }
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Hundreds of Palestinians have lost their lives in the past few days. 

Men, women and children have died. Many of those who died were not fighters. They were schoolchildren. They were mothers. They were fathers. They were sisters and brothers and best friends. They were in love. They were loved. They had hopes and dreams. They had lives that were ended by this violence.

Two girls, two sisters, the oldest aged eleven, were killed. No matter what you believe about the politics of this conflict in the middle east, no one with a heart and soul can say that is right.

Israel has always claimed to be on the right side of things. In the United States, we have always heard that Israel is on the right side of the conflict, that Israel can do no wrong. Our country has supported Israel’s claim on the Palestinian homeland, because of guilt, because of a prejudice against Muslims, because of many things that we, as everyday citizens, don’t really understand. Our country has ignored the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people.

Palestinian militants have commited inexcusable atrocities in the name of their home and their right not to be displaced by Israel. But Israeli forces have done unthinkably horrible things in the name of the homeland they claim based on history, a place already home to an entire population of people when the Jewish immigrants poured in.

It’s not about who has been right and wrong in history, though, because there are a thousand ways to decide that. It’s about who is right and wrong today. It’s about the country that has American support, the country that the Western media will show over and over again in a positive light, no matter what. It’s about Israel’s decision to sacrifice the lives of innocent Palestinians who get in the way of what Israel wants.

And yet, our media will never see it that way. Our media will always glorify the Israeli cause. I am not condoning anything that the Palestinians have done that has cost innocent lives in their effort to reclaim their home; I am simply condemning Israeli actions today. Condemning is not a strong enough word, though; I have cried for the lives lost in Gaza these past few days, and for the lives that will be lost on both sides as Israel refuses to step down. 

And still, the headline on Fox News blames the Palestinians for retaliating, rather than addressing Israel’s murder of civilians. Fox News, an American media giant, chooses to focus on the handful of Israelis who have died. As regrettable as those deaths are, and believe me, they sadden me greatly, it angers me that the American media chooses to vilify Palestine rather than focus on the hundreds of lives lost to Israeli attacks and the lack of proper medical care and supplies and even food in Gaza.

It is time to forget the past. It is past time to stop giving Israel a free pass because America believes Israel has been wronged in the past, or because our media and mainstream society is prejudiced against Muslims. It is time to see people as people and not political entities. People are people everywhere, and in Gaza, as I write this, innocent people are dying.

Where I’ve Been

{ November 18, 2008 @ 9:14 pm } · { future, random rants }
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I’ve been immersed in the college applications process. I’ve been writing essays about why I want to go to each of the colleges on my list. I’ve been writing essays about how I fit into their missions and communities. I’ve been writing essays about my life experiences. I’ve been filling out my biographical information and talking about my extracurricular activities. I’ve been requesting and mailing my school transcripts and teacher recommendations. I’ve been paying application fees, which are certainly adding up. I even made a trip up to Washington, DC to visit some schools (and decided to apply to George Washington University). I’ve been working hard in school to try and improve my chances of actually being accepted into some of the schools I love.

And, yes, I love every one of the schools I’m applying to, even though my application list is far too long. I would be thrilled to go to any of them. Money, I think, will be the deciding factor. And that makes me sad. Money has too much control over our lives. Money will be deciding where I spend the next four years of my life. My parents are a little reluctant to contribute to my college education. They’re not paying my application fees, and they won’t give as much as the government will say they should be able to towards my tuition, not by a long shot. I’m not sure what I’ll do next year if some college or another doesn’t offer me a very nice scholarship.

I’m worried. I’m worried about the fact that my future is not in my control anymore. It’s in the hands of admissions committees and financial aid offices. I believe that I would be an asset to any of these schools; I’m just not sure how to make them believe it enough.

Wish me luck, and luck to all those going through this process with me!

modern skepticism, religion, and prophecy

{ November 2, 2008 @ 12:04 am } · { food for thought, philosophical musings, random rants, religion }
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Jesus. Ellen G. White. Noah. Muhammad. Buddha. Abraham. Moses. Joseph Smith.

What do all of these names have in common?

These people were all believed by a significant number of people to be “special.” In most of those cases, I mean they had visions from God. Or, at least, people believed they did. Some of those people are now founders of major religions. Others are at least major influences on religion. The most recent of them is Ellen G. White, whose first vision was in 1844 and who died in 1915. The earliest was thousands of years before that.

Why were these people not seen as crazy or fraudulent? Why did so many people actually follow them? Why do large numbers of people continue to follow their teachings?

Part of the development of any religion is the culture and circumstances surrounding it, which I won’t get into with the above because this is not an analysis of the beginnings of specific religions. But what makes these figures not insane cult leaders? Conversely, who’s to say that insane cult leaders aren’t really divine visionaries?

Why is Ellen G. White the most recent of those names, and not one of the most major (she was a Seventh Day Adventist reformer, in case you didn’t know)?

All valid questions, I say. While I could analyze each case individually, and might at a later date, right now I want to make some broad statements.

First of all, to be followed, one has to have the right type of personality. Leadership ability and charisma play a big part here. What you say must also be attractive to a significant number of people, for whatever reason; they must be unsatisfied with what they currently have (for example, Buddhism appealed to lower castes in India because Hinduism was unsatisfying to those whose lives were already set to be less than wonderful, and who could not change that).

I also think that we’ve grown more skeptical as time goes on. People today know far more about the world and how it works than people thousands of years ago. With scientific explanations in place for those unsatisfied with traditional religious beliefs, we have less of a need to turn to the supernatural to explain our world. And with more knowledge and education, we become more skeptical. We don’t believe everything we’re told. We are constantly drowning in a flood of information; we have to be discerning. We can’t believe everything that is shoved in our faces on a billboard as we drive down the highway. We can’t believe everything in the magazines at grocery store checkouts. We can’t believe everything we see on our television screens or read on the internet.

We want proof. We check our facts. We’re right to do this; plenty of false information is floating around out there (my grandmother, for instance, believes that Barack Obama is a Muslim terrorist who hates white people and America). We have learned not to trust advertisements.

Overall, as a society, we are more skeptical. This provides less of an opening for someone to step in and start a new religion. We also have contact with far more people. If we encounter half a dozen different religions, we know they’re not all right, so why add more to that confusion? A few hundred years ago, most people didn’t travel far from home, so they didn’t encounter too many different sets of beliefs.

These days, someone who would formerly have been a prophet is a lunatic. What does that make the names I mentioned at the beginning of the article? I’ve no idea.

It’s a combination of factors, obviously, and I can’t explain it all, but it’s certainly food for thought.

the value of the internet

{ October 28, 2008 @ 4:45 pm } · { random rants }
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As I discuss my various activities on college applications, I am concerned about how admissions committees will view some things. One of my concerns is that people often do not understand the value of the internet. The will see how much time I spend, for example, blogging, and I’m worried that they will take blogging, which is hugely interactive, as being shut up alone in my bedroom. Yes, I am alone here, physically, but I am making connections with people all over the world, discussing everything from books to education to politics to, well, anything you can think of. My interactions with people on the internet are often far more worthwhile than the real-world conversations I have at my school lunch table, which often focus on things like who’s dating who or what happened in band class (almost all of my school friends are self-proclaimed band geeks; I have not one bit of musical talent).

I do spend quite a bit of time in front of a computer screen, and I know this can be seen as mind-numbing, antisocial, any number of negative things. However, a computer and an internet connection are tools that can be used in a number of ways. It is a bit mind-numbing and antisocial, not to mention gross, to spend loads of time looking up porn on the internet. However, that’s one extreme, and certainly not what most people utilize their high-speed connections for (or so I’d like to think).

My internet activities are varied. I write emails and blog posts. I look up news stories. I read blogs on topics from books to fashion to politics. I study languages. I learn about topics that interest me. I search for answers to questions that would be almost unanswerable without this resource! I connect with people across the world. I talk to friends in California, Brazil, and the Philippines.

I use the internet to talk to people whose lives are very different from mine, and I learn from that. I use the internet to improve my communication skills, reading and writing constantly in three languages (English, Spanish, and my often-cringe-worthy French). I use the internet to expand my horizons, to do things I could never have done without it. I use the internet to find information, to form my own opinions, and to share them in what I hope is a relatively articulate manner.

I am concerned by the close-mindedness of some people. I am concerned by the fact that so few activities are considered worthwhile or educational uses of time. I have done most of my learning outside of the classroom, and the internet has facilitated that. Almost anything can be a worthwhile use of time and a learning experience, and I wish that was better understood by most people. (Also see on my book blog: fiction, television, and a previous post on the internet).

the purpose of school

{ October 25, 2008 @ 9:26 pm } · { random rants }
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I’ve been in the same public school system since my first day of Kindergarten, when I was dragged into the classroom kicking and screaming. I’m now a high school senior eagerly counting the days to graduation. (131 school days, not counting weekends and holidays.)

I don’t think school has taught me much.

That isn’t to say that I don’t know much; I know plenty. Of course, there’s loads more that I don’t know, but isn’t that true for everyone?

However, with the exception of a very small handful of classes, what I have learned has not been in class.

Perhaps some of it has been a result of class; I peruse my textbooks on my own. I don’t necessarily read the required parts at the required times, though. I read what interests me.

I have learned through reading books on my own. Some are what you might call educational. Most are not. I successfully wrote an essay on last year’s AP World History exam (on which I received a 5) using information I’d gotten from fiction.

I have learned through the internet. Just by reading blogs, doing google searches to answer whatever questions occur to me, you know, just general messing around on the internet, I have learned about topics from technology to unschooling.

Which is what I’m about to discuss. I first discovered unschooling, I believe, from Lisa Chellman’s review of Brian Mandabach’s wonderful book …Or Not.

From there, I did my own research into the topic, using books and the internet, and I only wish I’d discovered it earlier in my school career. It seems a bit pointless in my final stretch to wish I’d been unschooled, but I do.

I am curious. I learn on my own. I only wish I could have that much control over my education! I believe in education. I just don’t believe in school. Though I’ve had two classes which are the exception to this rule, school is not about education. School is about test scores. School is about doing as you’re told. School is about not thinking outside the box. School is about conformity.

No, not in all cases–if you’re a teacher reading this and disagreeing, maybe your classroom doesn’t follow these rules. This is a generalization.

In any case, I would love to learn on my own. I would love to have the time to explore all the topics that interest me, rather than memorizing formulas for my chemistry class. Is chemistry important? Yes. But I already knew some of how it worked, just not the technicalities of it. And I figure that, if I had never taken the class, I’d still learn what I need to.

When I have a need or a desire to learn something, I find answers to my questions (of which I have a lot). I think that most people (were they never brainwashed by typical schooling) would be the same.

In general, I do not believe that school has served me well. I used to beg my mother to homeschool me almost daily. She always said I needed socialization. I firmly believe that there are other ways to get that besides going to school. School is not necessary for education or socialization. It’s more of a hindrance to the former. Natural curiosity would serve us well enough, if only our parents would believe that!

bowling

{ May 28, 2008 @ 6:02 pm } · { random rants }
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I generally suck at bowling. I once got a 34, to give you an idea of how awful I am. Tonight, I bowled two games. The first, I got a 59, which is pretty decent for me. The second? 101! Without gutter guards! My all time high score! Three digits! Two strikes in the game!

Just wanted to share the excitement.

summer

{ May 27, 2008 @ 9:00 pm } · { future, random rants, summer }
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Many of my friends are going to governor’s school this summer. I applied and really wanted it, but didn’t make the cut. Now, all my friends can talk about is how excited they are and how much fun they’re going to have. But guess what I’m doing this summer? Nothing exciting. I’ll hope to be productive, certainly, by working more (and thus earning more money) and applying for scholarships and figuring out my college application plans, but productive and exciting are very different things. It’s more than a little disappointing.

My summer is going to be stressful. I have to apply for scholarships, and narrow down my list of colleges to apply to, and figure out what I need to do for the actual applications. I am a little worried about all of this. Okay, a lot worried. First of all, though, is figuring out what to do, and I feel like I’m just floundering without a clue. I wish I had someone who’d gone through all of this around to help!

living in the moment

{ May 27, 2008 @ 7:11 pm } · { future, philosophical musings, random rants }
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It’s common advice to focus on the present, live in the moment. It’s also common advice to think wisely about your future, especially for seventeen-year-olds who will soon be applying to college. It’s contradictory advice.

But, really, is it? Don’t we need a balance? We need to appreciate the present, and to make the most of it, but not at the expense of the future. We have to consider today and ten years from now with every decision we make. Sure, it’d be easier to decide that your life philosophy is to live for the now, or to live for the future, but you’ll never really be happy if you choose an absolute, I don’t think.

And that’s true with a lot of things in life. Absolutes are rarely the answer. Nothing’s black and white. Nothing’s that easy. Sure, life would be a lot less difficult if there were no shades of grey, no need for balance–but it would also be a hell of a lot less interesting, less terrible, less wonderful. You can’t have the highs without the lows, and I guess I, like everyone else, need to remember that more.