First of all, this letter (word-for-word) appeared in a recent issue of the Macon Telegraph. And I’m not sure what to make of it:

“The Telegraph should be ashamed to use a huge headline endorsing housing.

People should always work for a living and if they don’t they should be rejected by society. Your liberal rag will always endorse the wrong thing.

This is the age the Bible tells us we will live in—when right is wrong and wrong is right.

Be prepared, because this may be the age you nonworkers should fear. You will be held accountable for your inactivity. You may even live in a police state as your leader fits the bill as the one who will cause this nation to become one out of fear if not necessity.

Americans are not as confident as they used to be. The policy of fear preys on the weak-minded. An example of this is how you approach a green light.

Instead of confidently going through it, you put on the brakes, thinking it may turn on you.

If Obama was a good leader, he would attack welfare instead of Social Security. Attacking Social Security is robbing the working class. And you wonder why we have tea parties.”

What do you think? Is it a joke? Is it serious? I’m trying to decide.

I’ve tried, really tried, to be patient with Conservatives since the election of Barack Obama. I know that after 8 years of Dubya, a defeat as overwhelming as the one they suffered in November (and I’m not referring to numbers, I’m referring to a Democratic control of the House, Senate, and Oval Office) can be a bitter pill to swallow. After all, George W. Bush in office gave them a chance to get cocky, and the man himself certainly both embodied and encouraged a self-centered attitude regarding this country. So I have sat back relatively silently and listened to their calls of Socialism, and even, according to a delightful Fox “News” graphic, Communism. I watched them bring assault rifles around our President, and even supported their right to do so (albeit, cautiously). I’ve heard them complain that giving health care to people who can’t afford it (“poverty is a SIN!”), instead insisting that we should be spending that money on the war (its what Jesus would do!). I’ve chuckled to myself as they demonized the first lady for daring to wear a sleeveless top in public (are the “good ol’ boys” afraid that they might *gasp* find Black woman appealing?). I’ve watched them have their own modern day tea parties and threaten to secede from the Union. And I’ve watched as they scream incoherently at town hall meetings across the country. But that’s a story unto itself. However, I have zero, zero patience involving their complaints concerning President Obama’s upcoming speech to students.

Barack Obama is not George W. Bush. He didn’t grow up having things handed to him, taking opportunities for education for granted. I’m not saying that there aren’t people in this country today who are worse off than Obama was growing up, because there certainly are. And I’m not saying that not having money made for a terrible upbringing, because it obviously didn’t. What Barack Obama lacked in money, his family made up for tenfold in support. That support motivated him, and that motivation is how he earned his education, as well as his future. From Welfare to President- you can’t get much closer to “the American Dream” than that. So if anyone is qualified to speak to our youth about education, it is him. The high school drop-out rate in this country is around 30%. Do you honestly think students want to hear about how important education is from someone who doesn’t understand the appeal of working full-time now so you can eat, as opposed to waiting to finish high school or even college? They don’t want to hear some recycled script from someone who grew up in the midst of suburbia about how you have to “stick it out” now to succeed long-term. They don’t need to hear how far they can go if they “just apply themselves”. Because the truth is, it’s not that simple. College isn’t as accessible as some people like to think it is. And a lot of schools in lower-income areas don’t adequately prepare students for a post-secondary education. They don’t have the money, the materials, or the teachers. There is a painfully real chance that a student in America today can work their tail off and get straight A’s in school, graduate at or near the top of their class, and not be able to go to college. Because, as anti-Public Service Announcement as this sounds, it is not easy to get scholarships. Not at all. I graduated 16^th in my class over 300, with a 3.65 GPA and a decent amount of extra-curriculars, from one of the best school systems in the state, and it was difficult for me to get scholarships. I can’t tell you how many I applied for, but I can tell you that I only got 3. HOPE, Pell, and a scholarship from the Air Force because my dad is retired. And while they paid for my relatively inexpensive university, they certainly wouldn’t have covered the cost of a more expensive college, like say, UGA or Georgia Tech. For that, I would have had to go into debt like so many of my friends have. Loans are a tricky business, and no one should have to go into debt just to get a degree. Ever. The thing is though, to get a loan, you need credit (just for the record, I loath the thought of a credit score), or a co-signer with credit. And guess what a lot of lower-income (and in this economy, middle-income) families don’t have? Good credit. So even on the off-chance that they can get a loan, the interest on it is going to eat them alive the second that diploma hits their outstretched hand.

So what does that leave? Community college? Trade school? How can you look a 17-year-old in the eye and say “If you work really, really hard, you can become a plumber/hair stylist/truck driver!” Just to be clear, I realize that those, as well as everything that one goes to community college or trade school for, are admirable, honest, and absolutely necessary careers, I know I’d be screwed if there were no plumber/hair stylist/truck drivers, and I know that there are plenty of people who thoroughly enjoy those careers, and earn a better living from them than I ever will if I make it in journalism. My point is, it is completely unfair that these students, who are bright and determined, have to limit their dreams to what is “realistic”. Realism should play a part in your career aspirations, but in the sense that not everyone can be an actor or an astronaut. The sentence “I would love to be a teacher, but I can’t afford school” should never, ever have to be spoken in this country. School was difficult for me to obtain, but I was lucky because it was always an option. And as much as we like to believe otherwise, that’s not always the case, not matter how hard you work.

That brings us back to the President and his speech. I can understand parents being cautious about what their children get exposed to, but this is the President of the United States talking to high school students (not kindergarteners) about their education. For 8 years, 8 YEARS, I got verbally attacked for my outspoken opposition to Dubya’s policies. I was told over and over and over that even if I didn’t agree with him, it was important to support the President, especially in war time. Well, Obama is President now, and we’re still involved in a war the last time I checked, but now it seems the Republicans are singing a completely different tune. Are they supporting the President, who is, like it or not, THEIR President too? Of course not. Because apparently, the same standards of Patriotism that they tried to force onto me for nearly a decade don’t apply to them. Apparently, they’re above the rules. Or perhaps they’re just obnoxious, conspiracy-theorist hypocrites. I tend to believe the latter. What do they honestly think Obama is going to say to these kids? That is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to hear, from anyone Republican reading this, what do you think President Obama is going to say to these students that has you so angry? He can tell these kids first-hand how important school is because he gets it. Education is (well, ought to be) politically neutral. It should be the one thing we can agree upon. But instead of presenting a united front to students across this country that school should be more accessible, more realistic for everyone, instead of being able to look past their opposition to his politics and see a man who fought what he has achieved and giving him even an ounce of respect for it, these Conservatives are treating him like they think he’s going to brainwash their teenage children into Communist hippies, undo everything they tried to instill in them for their entire lives over a television screen in a matter of minutes. Forget the message you’re sending to the rest of the world, that you don’t support your President (during war-time, no less), forget the message that you’re sending to your country, that working together for a better, more bi-partisan America is beyond your ability as fully-functioning adults. Think, for one second, about the message that you’re sending to not only your children, but every student who is paying attention to the debate over this speech- that a strong work ethic, that a respectable climb up a very steep ladder in our society, that a genuine appreciation for what a good education can help you to accomplish, has absolutely no merit unless you’re Republican. That this man, this President, has nothing to offer to your children because you don’t agree with him. That you, their parents, do not possess the ability to look past what side of the political fence he is on and see how much he has done in his short life, and understand that maybe he has a valuable perspective on education that your children can benefit from.

Raising our children to be these bitter, ugly, spiteful, partisan creatures is going to hurt them, and hurt this country, in the long run. It’s easy to preach support and patriotism when your man is in office, but it takes a true American citizen, a true Patriot, to do so when “the other guy” is. If we want this country to progress beyond what it is today, we have to raise future generations who will be able to work together for what is best for the whole country, not just their political party. That means making sure they have the education it takes to support their vision. And sometimes, that means swallowing our pride so that they have the chance to grow.

We are living in a conspicuously (and unapologetically) partisan political age. The Monica Lewinsky episode during the Clinton years combined with the massive stray from Democracy that was the “election” of George W. Bush has made for a lot of bitterness among Americans themselves. For me, watching politicians cut into each other is eerily reminiscent of two small children watching their parents argue. At some point, the children feel it necessary to pick sides, one standing with each parent. And just like that, two children begin fighting, not because either of them has done anything to anger the other, but because the adult they agree with. And that is what politics has turned into in this country. And the sad thing is, no one could even tell you what the fight is about anymore.

The American two party system was supposed to make make politics better for the common man. The purpose is to take the two opposing viewpoints on any given issue and have them work together to find the best solution for the country as a whole. At least, that used to be the purpose, at some point in the distant past. If you watch the network news shows or listen to the pundits, or read the newspapers and magazines published today, you would get the impression that the goal now is for one side to “win” and have its agenda honored, while the other side sulks and vocally discredits the “winning” position. Elections have become a contest of “I’m better than you!” instead of “What I have to offer is better for the American people right now”. It seems that politicians, as a whole, only care about us for as long as it takes to get our votes. After that, we are kept in the dark, we are treated (all of us) as potential enemies at our own airports and train stations, we are spoken to with an air of “Daddy knows best” or “Because I said so” by the people that we put into office in the first place. We are not given the entire story (or given the story at all) when we deserve to have it, our concerns for safety (from ourselves and each other, apparently) are placated by an arbitrary color-coded chart, and our elected officials speak to us eloquently and confidently enough to make us forget that the neglected to answer our questions in the first place.

The Internet Age should put fear into politicians. We have limitless access to instant information from anywhere in the world. We can connect with each other from coast to coast with practically no effort. We have the ability to broadcast directly to each other what is happening in this country, what is affecting “main street” on a daily basis, and see things through our own eyes, not “the eyes of the Party”, as Orwell put it in 1984. But instead, we use it to turn into those two children, yelling at each other over the problems of their parents.

I live in a Red State, and I am Liberal. I live in the Bible Belt, and I am Atheist. So I know firsthand how much I should appreciate this country. I live and work among people who vastly disagree with me on most of the issues that define who we are, what we do, who we marry, and how we raise our children, and I have never had my opinions used against me in a way I found unfair. I’ve been in my fair share of heated arguments, but most of the time, I get the chance to experience people’s tolerance and respect pretty regularly, and it has had a huge impact on my view of humanity as a whole. We do have some improvements to make concerning civil rights in this country, but I’ve found that the most vocal people who oppose human rights (“pro-lifers”, “traditional” marriage advocates, the “love it or leave it” types) are actually a minority. And the fight is fueled by politicians who want their agendas furthered. Because the citizens, as a whole, like each other. (For the most part), we don’t run around on the street condemning each other, instigating riots, committing hate crimes, etc. Yes, those things definitely, definitely happen, and far too often (even once is too often), but most (not all, however) of the time, the people who commit violent acts are on the fringes of their political affiliations, and certainly do not represent their viewpoint as a whole. Someone who murders a doctor who performs abortions does not represent the “Pro-life” movement. Someone who beats a homosexual man on the street does not represent the “Traditional Marriage” movement. Someone who “boos” soldiers returning from the Middle East does not represent those of us who oppose the war. And someone who flies an airplane into a building does not represent Islamic teachings. For the media to spin tragic stories like these into messages against those movements as a whole is not only damaging to the political process, but to Americans’ tolerance for each other on a daily basis. It creates rifts between us that, although they occur in an instant, can take decades to heal. After all, are Muslim Americans not still being profiled unfairly in airports (and in the media, when educated Muslims express opinions that differ from those of the White House), or (in some cases) being held indefinitely in detention, and illegal action made “ok” by The Patriot Act’s suspension of all of our (not just Muslim Americans’) habeus corpus statute, promised to us by the founding fathers? All this, eight years after 9/11. Innocent American citizens are being persecuted simply for having a religious (albeit a far-stretched one) or geographic connection to those who are actually guilty. Were White Christians treated treated similarly after Timothy McVeigh bombed a building in Oklahoma City? Hardly. In that case, the man who was guilty was punished, not the people who looked or worshiped like him.

[The media dropped the ball big time in the case of the 9/11 hijackers. They failed to perform their civic duty of reporting the facts. They were quick to loudly proclaim that the hijackers were Muslim, but failed to report the fact that Islam is no more violent a religion than Christianity. And in doing so, the did a violent disservice to all American citizens who practice the Islamic religion.]

A very vocal, and very violent minority of citizens, whose values are a far cry from those of the party or movement they claim to represent, are portrayed as mainstream by the media, and unfairly become the poster children of the political and ideological beliefs held by the rest of us. Politicians use the media spin to further their political goals, and the goals of the people who fund their run for office. And while we, the citizens, should be focused on holding our elected officials accountable, making sure they live up to their campaign promises and that they do so within the bounds of the Constitution, as well as national and international law, we instead are so bitterly engrossed in pointless spats among ourselves that we fail to notice when politicians break the law, lie, cheat, steal, and take our liberties away from us. And even worse, when we finally notice what’s been done, we put most of the blame on the people who voted for the politician, and not where it belongs, on the shoulders of the politician himself.

When our elected officials abuse their power, we the people get defensive. And while we do hold some responsibility for electing them in the first place, our responsibility ends where their campaign promises do. People are so afraid of the inevitable “I told you so” after a bitter election stand-off that when the man (or woman) they voted for does something gravely and almost indisputably wrong, they feel the need to defend their decision to the death, so to speak. Because, even if they were to take the high road and say “I don’t agree with you [the politician] on this one”, there will always be the pundit or neighbor who is ready to spout, quite immaturely, “Well you shouldn’t have voted for him then! Look what you did!”, even when, more often than not, this is not the case. I know countless people who defended the unwarranted occupation of Iraq back in 2003, but now tell me “I don’t agree with the war, and I really didn’t back then”. But after the way we all acted during the 2000 “election”, admitting that George W. Bush did something wrong probably sounded just as appealing as sawing off your own hand and eating it. It would, unfairly, illicit a smug “Told ya so” from your more liberal friends. But the fact is, Bush didn’t promise us a war when he ran for President. He spoke of values held by many Americans, he spoke of the religious beliefs he held with a large portion of the population, and he told us about the improvements he hoped to make to our country. The people who voted for him voted for the promises that he made, not for the “Mr. Hyde” he turned into once he went power-mad. To hold them responsible for his actions is unfair to the democratic process, and confirms to politicians that their actions are not their own fault, but the fault of the voters who gave them their power. All the blame that was placed on Republican voters should have been placed on George Walker Bush and his cabinet. He has yet to be held responsible for what he did to this country, and I find that appalling. Elected officials today, who should be held accountable more than ever, thanks to the World Wide Web, are held less accountable than ever before because of the bitterness among the American people, caused by our very own media. Freedom of the Press was supposed to unite us, it was provided for us by the Founding Fathers to prevent a tyrannical rule from invading this country, to ensure that “we the people” always had the chance to be informed of what was going on without reprimand from our government. It was not supposed to be apologetic to the Politician while blaming his transgressions on the Citizen. The media should be encouraging and enabling us to work together to ensure that our election officials act in ways that make us proud, that enhance the America we live in. It should not be setting us up against one another, instigating the fight and then standing back as it becomes the next headline for them to profit off of. Blatantly partisan people like Bill O’Reilly should not be promoted as “fair and balanced” when we all know he is far from it, because it cheapens the reporters who actually do their job and keep their politics out of a story so that we can get the truth. Bill O’Reilly and people like him, on both sides of the political fence, are insulting all of us by giving us their opinion instead of the facts. They are so afraid that the opinions we form on our own will disagree with theirs that they don’t give us the information we would need to form them. Instead, they give us untruths, conservative- or liberal-spun stories that contain an ounce of the truth and a pound of their opinion, so that way they ensure that we can only see things “through the eyes of the Party”.

This is not Journalism. The mainstream media today would make Thomas Jefferson choke on the words of the First Amendment. An unbiased press is absolutely necessary in order to maintain a Democracy, and at this point, America does not have an unbiased press. Some politicians get demonized for the slightest infractions, while others’ transgressions are either ignored or excused relentlessly by the press. Journalists who allow their personal beliefs to cloud their vision and slant their stories should find a new occupation if they truly value the importance of freedom of the press in this country. As citizens, we have to hold our politicians and our media accountable for their actions, or else they will cease to speak for us completely, and end up speaking only for themselves.

You: “But the results of their “election” were fraudulent, at best. That’s not Democracy.”

Well, obviously, I’m not talking about the people in charge. People in charge have a long history of not being truly democratic, much less truly honest. I’m talking, of course, about the Iranian citizens. The people who voted. The people who paid attention. The people who protested, despite threats and physical injury, when their election was stolen from them. The people who continue to protest today, even when their very lives are in danger.

Think back to the year 2000. Back to our very own blatantly stolen election. I was only 12 years old at the time, but that election taught me a very important lesson that affected how I was to look at politics for years to come. My entire childhood, I heard about how lucky I was to live in America. How this was the “greatest country on Earth”. I saw the countless “Love it or leave it” bumper stickers, I watched the 4th of July fireworks, I listened to the bleeding heart patriotic country music. I heard about how people fought for our rights, and how we should never, ever take them for granted. And I believed in people’s commitment to this country. I believed that they loved what it was, and what it stood for. I actually believed that, no matter what, people wanted what was best for our country, and I believed in the fact that they were willing to endlessly sacrifice to make sure America survived, and thrived.

Then Florida happened, and everything changed.

I am not going to go into detail about the politics of the Presidential election of 2000. I am not going to talk about George W. Bush or about Al Gore. I am not going to talk about Congress, Jeb Bush, or the United States Senate. Because I never had faith in any of those people. I always knew they were only politicians, and politicians are like fairy tales. You listen to them, they captivate you and tell you what you want to hear, but at the end of the day, you have to hope that, maybe, just a little bit of what they actually said was true. I never had, and never will have, this grand idea of a “Superman/woman” President, who will come in and save the day, who will clarify in 4 years what it took all the other Presidents 200 to mess up, who will unite all factions of this country and remind us what “Love thy neighbor” used to mean. Politicians can only do what they think is best, and if they’re lucky, a few people won’t hate them at the end of their term(s). No, the only delusions I had concerned the voters themselves.

The voters are the people I respected. They were my parents, my grandparents, my teachers. They were all the grownups who I heard lecture endlessly about how special and amazing this country and this system of government were. They were all the people who hung American flags on their front porches, who donated blood to the Red Cross, who attended Veterans Day parades and wept at foot of the Vietnam Memorial. And these are the people who watched their Democracy go up in flames and looked away as if it had nothing to do with them.

I still loath to bring up the results of that election, because I hate listening to the response. Absolutely hate it. The results of the ballot in Florida were, at the VERY least, deserving of a serious, non-partisan investigation. After the election, I waited anxiously to see what would happen. I looked to the adults around me to see their outrage. But it never came. On the Left side of the fence, I saw frustration. I saw disbelief. There were complaints, there were protests, but in the end, the people who voted against Bush didn’t do much more than sulk and pout. They came far short of standing up for their “beloved” Democracy. On the Right side of the fence, I saw joy. I saw relief. I saw the adult equivalent of a 5-year-old sticking out his tongue and saying “nah nah nah nah nah!”. They, too, came far short of defending their American Way.

The Left knew their election was at the very least tainted, and at the worst, completely corrupted. And sure, their were protests. There was vocal disagreement. But did people take to the streets, demanding their voice be respected? Was anyone willing to put their life on the line for what they had claimed so loudly before the election to believe in? No. They pretty passively accepted what they saw as “inevitable”, the Inauguration of George W. Bush. They wondered why their government didn’t listen to them as the held up their signs, wrote letters to their newspapers, and bought their anti-W Tshirts. Once upon a time, an out-resourced America fought a war against one of the greatest powers on the planet at that time in order to obtain it’s freedom. Once upon a time, women and minorities struggled for decades so that they could vote, and in the end, the party that represents them couldn’t even stand up against what was unquestionably an egg on the face of voter’s rights. All that struggling, all that fighting, so that the “Good ol’ Boys” in Washington could place “their man” in office with almost no opposition. And all this apathy grew while the very people who fought for Civil Rights are still living (and voting) among us. They surely must have felt that slap in the face stronger than anyone else.

The Right also must have realized that the election was less of an election, and more of an appointment. Despite the fact that they voted for George W. Bush (twice), they’re not stupid people. The saw what was happening, and they turned their backs. Conservatives cry louder than anyone else in this country about American pride. They’re the ones who claim it means more to them than it does to those “hippie Liberals”. They’re the ones claiming to defend “The America I know”. And when an election breaks down in front of them, they’re fine with it because it benefit’s the guy they voted for, their “lesser of two evils”. They showed the world that they don’t actually care about Democracy and the American Way, they just want to come out on top. If Democracy means having a Democrat elected, then screw Democracy, just let the Republicans in charge cheat. Four years of George W. Bush as President meant more to them than the millions of American soldiers who have fought under our flag. More to them than the Constitutional rights of all those whose votes meant nothing. People in our Armed Services are willing to sacrifice their lives for our rights, and these Conservatives weren’t willing to sacrifice a few differences in Presidential policy in order to preserve what so many worked so hard to create.

When I was 12 years old, I learned that the patriotism around me was a farce. I learned that people, for the most part, don’t care about Democracy. They don’t care about the Constitution. They only care about what is affecting them in any given moment. They don’t think about what happened eight years ago, forty years ago, or 200 years ago. They don’t care about the America they are creating for their children and their children’s children. They only care about getting their way, here, now. When our Democracy fails to exist as a Democracy, they only shrug and say “Oh well, better luck next time” or “Hey, at least the guy who agrees with me is the one with his hand on that Bible”. I learned that Patriotism has become synonymous with Capitalism, and that apathy has become the new American Way. I learned that people don’t really care who the President is or how he came to be President, as long as their taxes don’t go up and they’re allowed to keep hating whoever they choose to.

People buy the Stars and Stripes in massive quantities, but has the price tag replaced its meaning? Does whether or not it will be convenient to vote mean more than having the privilege to vote in the first place? Does the 4th of July have mean anything more to us than hotdogs and fireworks?

This America isn’t what I was promised. This America isn’t what you told me it would be. How did I come to inherit this false Democracy, this environmental ruin, this homophobic, xenophobic, polarized, partisan core of what once was?  At what point did we fail to realize who we are as a Nation? At what point did it no longer matter?

We have lost the America of 1776 in a flurry of reality television and plastic surgery. Patriotism has become circumstantial at best. But maybe one day, after the dust has settled, we’ll wake up to find that soldiers from Iran have arrived at our doorsteps to bring Democracy to our country.

And if that idea horrifies you, then the first step has been taken. The rest, though, are up to you.

5.) Toyota Prius- “Harmony”

I’m not sure that this commercial does the job its actually supposed to do, because I don’t even look at the car the entire time (what color is it? Blue? Silver?).  I just like that everything else is made of people. Clouds, trees, grass, water, the sun, everything. Kinda creepy, but mostly awesome.

4.) California Milk- “Happy Cows come from California”

I love cows. Cows are one of my favorite animals. So when I first started seeing these commercials, they made me way too happy. And they just keep getting better and better. This is the most recent one (that I’ve seen at least).

3.) Bing.com- “The Cure for Search Overload Syndrome”

I love this commercial because the first time I saw it, I had no idea what was going on. And ever since, its just absolutely hilarious. Plus, the acting in it is top-rate, especially for a commercial.

2.) Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption- “I’m Just a Kid”

These kids are absolutely adorable, but when that little boy says “a pwofessional skateboawduh”, it just kills me. And I hope those glasses are real, because he couldn’t get more adorable.

And finally….

1.) Housing Discrimination

I picked this one as number one because

a.) Its advertising something that affects everyone

b.) Its not trying to sell you something

c.) Its simple and to-the-point

Now, you’ve seen some of the commercials that I actually enjoy. But don’t worry, I’m working on another round of terrible ones for you to laugh at, and it will be here soon.

♥

Just to be clear, I have been a supporter of same-sex marriage since I learned about it back in middle school. I think that love is more powerful than anything the Bible has to say, and I think that with the way straight people have been treating marriage, we hardly have room to talk about taking it seriously. But I do not not NOT think that Ms. Prejean should lose her crown over an opnion she has. Was it necessarily a smart move on her part to jump into that debate before she had a chance to make a name for herself with her charity work? Not really. Does she have the right to speak her voice? Absolutely.

I don’t watch beauty pageants. Why? Beacuse I cannot relate to the women in them. They do not represent women in this country, not by a long shot. I absolutely abhor pageants and the fact that people put their daughters (and sons) through them (I defy you to watch an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras without gagging). I think our society outgrew them way too long ago. So when Ms. Prejean stood up in front of America and expressed a controversial opinion, I was floored. Absolutely floored. My family complained about how much the story was played on the news, but I couldn’t get enough of it. Because even though I couldn’t disagree with her more, I am ecstatic that she had the guts to stand her ground.

Beauty queens perform in a pageant, do their year of charity work, and then they’re done. They don’t make a name for themselves. They are known for their looks, and not much else. We don’t expect the women who represent us on a state and even a national level to say much, just to look nice while they’re cutting ribbons and hugging little kids. So I love the fact that Ms. Prejean is pissing people off. I don’t like what she’s saying, but I love that she’s saying it. I love that FINALLY, one of these beauty queens is using her voice and not just her body. I love that she’s letting the world know “I am a citizen of this country, I pay attention to what is going on, and I have an OPINION.” People say that she’s sending a bad message to her younger fans. But what message did Donald Trump send those little girls, with the support of a large part of the American public? That pretty girls should just be pretty, and not have a voice? That to be a part of the Miss America pageant, you’re not allowed to say anything of real value? What kind of message does it send that no harm came to Miss South Carolina here, while Carrie Prejean got the axe? That no one cares if you sound like a babbling moron, as long as you’re beautiful- but you better not say anything someone, somewhere, might not like? Our most renowned actors and actresses speak out on political issues all the time, often while they are filming or promoting a film for a particular production company. Why don’t they get sanctioned?

I understand that the Miss America organization doesn’t want people to think that Ms. Prejean speaks for them, but I think that they handled to situation totally wrong. They could have issued an official statement saying “We don’t share her opinion as a corporation, but we support her right to voice her opinion.” Instead, they fired someone for exercising her first amendment rights. She answered an honest question with an honest answer. I would have been more insulted if she had P.C.’d her way out of it somehow without even really saying anything. I also understand that people have the right to say she’s wrong and call her any name they want to. And in the same breath that I will disagree with her opinion, I will also tell them they’re wrong for reacting so childishly.

If I needed another reason not to support the Miss America pageant, I certainly have it now. I like my beauty queens with some fire in ‘em. I like them to stir the pot, to cause controversy. I like them to let the world know that they are intelligent, conscious human beings, not living, breathing Barbie dolls. To expect them not to have an opinion is beyond absurd. To expect them not to speak their opinion is pathetic and outrageous. I think Donald Trump and the American people handled the situation immaturely, disrespectfully, and unpatriotically.

Its not easy growing up as a girl in this country. Its been almost a century since women received the right to vote, and we still don’t get equal pay for equal work in many cases. When Hillary Clinton ran for the Democratic Presidential ticket last year, I heard from more people than I care to count how a woman shouldn’t be President because women “can’t control their hormones” enough to make logical decisions.

Pageant girls are not exactly good role models (unless your idea of a good role model includes looking pretty and saying as little as possible), and the first time one of these girls breaks the mold and actually says something, everyone tells her to shut up, sit down, and just keep smiling. Its disappointing to say the least, sexism to say the worst.

This whole country just needs to grow up.

Have a photo instead.

 So who is right? Both of them, or course. They’re also both wrong.

*Note: I am not advocating free file sharing in any way. If you get caught, don’t point your grimy little fingers at me.*

In order to calm the brewing storm, I’m going to address both parties with my humble thoughts on this issue. Hopefully, someone will listen to me. But I doubt it. You can’t fix stubborn.

  Dear American Public,

You are not entitled to free music. You are not entitled to free anything. The Constitution guarantees freedoms, not free stuff. Huge difference. You are promised an equal opportunity to work for a living, earn as much money as you want to, and spend it on whatever music strikes your fancy. Downloading music is not an expression of freedom of speech, it is stealing. In an ecomony, people produce goods and services in exchange for money. CDs are a good, the music on them is a service. Just because you aren’t capable of physically hiding something down the front of your shirt and walking out of the store with it doesn’t mean it can’t be stolen. Downloading music for free via file sharing is the same thing as taking a CD from a store, minus the fact that the profit loss comes from the recoding industry and the recording artist instead of from the store that sells the CDs. You can say that these people are overcharging you for music, and you’d be correct, but that doesn’t make you right for stealing it from them. You’re not “sticking it to the man”. You’re letting their greed make you a felon. And we both know you’re better than that, America.

  Dear Recording Industry,

As I stated above, in our economy, people produce both goods and services. When goods are being sold, the cost they are sold for is determined by the cost it takes to produce them. When a service is being sold, the cost is determined by how much the consumer thinks the service is worth. You wouldn’t pay $5,000 for a haircut because people value their hard earned money more than having short hair. Now, lets say a CD costs $20. Most people look at how long it would take them to earn $20- let’s say 3 hours. So, our hypothetical consumer works 3 hours to earn $20, and they’re considering spending that $20 on your CD. They pick it up, look at the track list, and decide that the talent-to-”filler” ratio of your CD is quite low, and not worth their $20. They don’t buy it. My point here is that we all know you’re making a pretty large profit off of CDs, otherwise you wouldn’t be complaining so much about free file sharing. You have been overcharging us, because for a while, if we wanted music, it had to come from you. That is no longer the case. Over-pricing music is just as bad as people stealing it, because you’re taking money from our wallets. In a free market, the consumer decides what a service is worth. We decided a while ago that music was not worth what you were charging us for it. You didn’t back down, so now you’re getting what’s known as a wake up call. We’re sorry it had to come to this.

Now, what does any of this have to do with Michael Jackson? Its simple really. He reminds us of a time when music artists actually MADE GOOD MUSIC. Because the fact is, that’s not the case anymore. Before, people in the music industry used to slave over albums. Each song had its own voice, its own story. Each song could stand on its own. Each song was an experience. Today, artists produce one, sometimes two, and rarely three decent songs on a 12-15 track album, and the rest is just what I referred to before as “filler”. Crap songs that have no merit, and no effort behind them. Frankenstein songs thrown together from ideas and beats that didn’t fit in anywhere else, so that an entire CD could be produced and marketed in half the time (or less) in order to turn a quick profit. Most CDs today are filled with “cash cow” songs, instead of works of art, carefully crafted and performed with pride and passion. Say what you want about Michael Jackson, but you can’t deny that he had passion. Most performers today either never had it, or had it wrung out of them at the hands of a recording industry who prefers profit over talent. A real song can be dissected, the lyrics standing on their own as poetic genius, the music something to be heard and felt independent of the words. Together, they should make something beautiful. Today’s music rarely has that quality. Music has become an industry instead of a gift. Music artists are stylized and made-over to fit a mold, and the fact that their talent is limited is glazed over. Computers are used to synthesize a voice that can’t quite carry itself. Lip-syncing is used for the performer who lacks the ability to provide a live demonstration of their “talent”. Song lyrics don’t mean anything, and the beat that backs them up is created by a computer instead of someone artfully yeilding a guitar or piano. And the consumers eat it up.

Of course, it goes without saying that people have the right to listen to whatever type of music they happen to enjoy. I’m just worried that by the time the infants of today can appreciate music, all the true music artists will be long gone. Most performers today aren’t artists, nor are the musicians. They’re faces to sell on a CD cover. They’re the human face of what is mostly created on a computer screen. So, to the recording industry, you can’t demand that we pay so much for generic, emotionless garbage disguised as music. People aren’t going to pay $15-$20 for a CD filled with 2 good tracks and 10 that are “filler” songs. Stopping file sharing won’t make people start buying CDs. Even if they’re not downloading them, they still won’t pay more than they think its worth. Make music that is worth our money, and we’ll slowly, but surely, return to you. But our business should be earned, not assumed.

And to the American public, no wonder they think you’re going to be dumb enough to pay those prices when you go completely crazy over music that they know is worthless. Learn to appreciate quality over quantity. If you demand something new every 5 seconds, you’re inevitably going to be fed something mass-produced and meaningless. When music is good, I mean really good, support it by paying for it. Don’t think you have the right to listen to it for free, because real musicians can’t survive that way. Most music artists, in today’s world, make most of their money from live shows and endorsements. The real musicians are spending their time writing and making real music, so it is their main source of income. If you don’t want them to die away completely, support them.

People have gotten so caught up in greed, sex appeal, and filling up their iPods that making music has been almost completely forgotten in the music industry. It takes the death of a music icon to force us to slow down and remind us of a time when music brought tears to our eyes and helped us to grow as people. Most current music artists’ best songs combined don’t have as much talent and passion as Michael’s worst. Ever since his death, people have lined up by the millions to describe how his music touched them, changed them, and inspired them. I can’t think of a single music artist today who has had that effect on me.

You know how some kids pick some random career path when they’re 4 and stick with it until something better comes along? I did that. Mine was “teacher”.

Only, nothing better came along. In fact, when I was in 5th grade, I was made a “group leader” for a project. I was in charge of 3 other kids, and it was my job to make sure we worked together to get our project done. I relished in it. I knewI wanted to be a teacher, so I could encourage kids to use their talents to their advantage. Pretty freakin smart for a 10 year old.

Satisfied with my career choice, I smugly went through school declaring every time someone asked me (which was a lot) what I wanted to be when I grew up, that I was going to be a teacher.  Adults would smile sweetly and say “How wonderful!”. Peers would shrug and say “Cool”. I never put much thought into the whole thing.

Fast-forward to my senior year of high school. I picked a college with a great education program. I went into college as one of those annoying freshman who declares their major early. I didn’t deal with that “undecided” garbage. My future was set. I shook my head and smiled at the “percentage of college students who will change their majors” lectures from R.A.s, professors, advisers, etc. I had more forethought than that!

Guess what?

I changed my major. Not only did I change my major, I did it during the middle of my junior year. I was on track to graduate in exactly a year and a half, and I decided to change my mind and throw away a year’s worth of Early Childhood Education work that I had put in. You’re reading the blog of a journalism major.

The question I’ve been getting pretty consistently since then is “Why”? From everyone. Friends. Family. Random people who remember me as “that girl who used to play Twister in the dorm hallways freshman year”.

This is me thumb-upping right after falling

Or even better, “that girl who used to boy’s bathroom on the second floor”. And before you proclaim how gross this is, I would like to say that my friends’ room that I was visiting was right across from the boy’s bathroom, and my former boyfriend’s room was 3 doors down. It made more sense to just yell “cover up!” as I opened the door than to climb 2 flights of stairs to the nearest girl’s room on the third floor of my co-ed dorm. And also, the girl’s bathrooms were no less gross than the boy’s. Hush.

The one person I haven’t told is my father. Simply because I don’t tell him anymore than is absolutely necessary for him to know.

Anyway, so all these people have been asking why I changed my major that I was so excited about. And like a mature adult, I’ve been shrugging them off and feeding them b.s. “I just wanted to try something new.” “I might come back and do it later”. The truth was, I didn’t exactly know why. All I knew was that I left the education building with a knot in my stomach every day.

But now that I’ve had some distance from it, I’m beginning to realize what was causing said knot. The education program killed teaching for me. Not only killed it, but destroyed and maimed it beyond recognition. What I ended up learning was not education, but robot-building. Children weren’t children, they were little mini-military troops to be controlled and forced into a mold. They were small adults that were to act maturely and responsibly all the time or else.

I love kids. But my professors made me despise the thought of being around them for hours a day. I can’t be around kids who are acting eerily like adults. It would totally creep me out. One professor in particular forced me to care so little about her class that I stopping even pretending to listen to her lectures and did word searches instead. Needless to say, she wasn’t pleased. Needless to say, I didn’t care. I remeber begrudgedly making an example schedule for a first grade classroom for her once. I ended up quite pleased with the result, only to have it returned to me full of red ink. Mostly pointless nit-picking on her part that I ignored, but one thing that caught my eye was the fact that she tore me a new one for providing my fictional 6-year-old with a 30 minute recess. “This is far too long!” she said. “15 minutes is more than enough time!” she said. I balled up the paper and tossed it in the trashcan as I left the room, fully aware that she was watching me do it.

Before I go any further with this story, I want to make it known that I am very respecful of my teachers. I always have been. Very rarely do I dislike one. I’m not one of those students who decides they hate a teacher for assigning too much work. I recognize that it’s their job. However, I do begin to despise a teacher for two reasons.

1.) They are rude to me. I have had a few teachers in my life who were just plain rude. And I don’t mean to the class as a whole, because that wouldn’t bother me. I’d just do my work and stay out of their way. I mean to me specifically. This tends to happen after my short attention span catches up to me and they catch me doodling in class or staring into space. I try to pay attention, but sometimes people are boring. And when they chose to speak harshly to me in the middle of class and then proceed to glare at me for the remainder of the year/semester despite the fact that I’m easily pulling an A in their class, I get a little annoyed.

2.) They’re a dumbass. I’ve had some teachers who make me wonder if they cheated their way through middle school and beyond. I find the mere fact that they can presume to teach me anything insulting. I can’t learn anything from them that reading the textbook won’t teach me. Submitting to the authority of these teachers has always been a pet peeve of mine.

The professor from my story before falls into the second category. She was completely lacking a personality. She gave off the aura of someone who hated life. The only time I ever saw her smile was when she was boasting about her own accomplishments. She was everything I hated in a professor. In fact, I disliked her from day one. As soon as she began talking, I knew I wouldn’t like her. If I have anything resembling a 6th sense, it’s the ability to know when someone just isn’t going to rub me the right way.

So back to the story. Aside from insisting that I give a group of 6 and 7 year olds a total of 15 minutes in their entire 8 hour school day to play outside, she also made sure that I devoted an entire hour to math and reading. Reading I understand. Reading is awesome. But an hour of math? In first grade? How much math do first graders need to know? That irritated me. When I asked her about it, she said “Well, they have to pass their CRCTs”

I cannot put this more bluntly-a child’s happiness is MUCH more important than their score on a test. We are teaching children that school is a place for them to be trained on test-passing, not a place to receive an education. Why do they hate school so much? Because school is boring. They have to sit in a desk and act like adults for hours on end. They are drained of their creativity and drilled. I know, it happened to me. When I was in high school, I went 3 years without writing. I love to write, I always have. But I was so drained by school-the endless routines, the worksheets and SAT prep, that I became a zombie. I went through my school day, did hours of homework, watched maybe an hour of TV, went to bed.

Why are we doing this to our 5 year olds?

Because our society is so success-oriented that we’ve forgotten what success actually is. People aren’t pushed to nurture their talents, their passions. They’re taught to find a way to form those passions into a job in the corporate world. For example- I stated earlier that I like to write. Upon telling people this, they suggest that I teach writing or English classes for a living. I look at them blankly and reply “Or, I could just write”. They look at me like that’s the dumbest idea ever and scurry off to their generic ungraduate business classes. More people need to do what they love instead of finding a way to turn what they love into something “socially acceptable”. You waste precious time doing that.

Also, maybe the reason your kid can’t pay attention in school has nothing to do with them having ADHD. Maybe they’re just bored. You know, that feeling you get when you’re 7 and you have to follow the same mind-numbing routine every day of your life? I remember being very young and seeing the world as a wide-open, mysterious green place. Then, I went to school. I learned that it was already totally mapped out and discovered, nothing left for me to do there. “Here’s the world. It is what it is. Go find your place in it and for god’s sake, be beautiful!” You can’t remove all wonder and excitement, every ounce of spontineity and surprise from a child’s world and then expect them not to be bored. We are killing our children. We are replacing their souls with corporate logos and stupid facts.

Dear adults,

Has 90% of what you learned in school ever come in handy?

My answer-no. Most of what I needed to know in life came from talking to adults (parents, grandpatrents, friends’ parents), reading books and newspapers, and paying attention to mistakes (my own and those of others).

I wish I lived back in the days when you learned to read and write, then you were an apprentice and learned first-hand the skill you were interested in, then you worked. Straight to the point.

So, when people ask me “Stephanie, why do you want to be a journalist?” I will respond thusly:

I want to seek out people and events that amaze me and share them. I want to tell the stories of the world. I want to show the robotic citizens of this society that their fate isn’t sealed. That they have options. That passion is not useless. I want to inspire someone to do something.

People need to wake up and snap out of it. Life is more than anything you can learn in a classroom.

~Little boy loudly kicking the bleachers 4 feet away from me while his dad ignored him. And let him wander around and climb the bleachers without guidance. Guy’s lucky his kid didn’t trip and roll away. He was also oblivious to the dirty looks I shot him occasionally while I silently screamed “DEARGOD PLEASE MAKE YOUR KID STOP KICKING MY SEAT”

~ Other little kid in front of me who was playing video games instead of watching his older sibling perform what they have been working on for months. Way to promote family unity, parents!

~ Crazy blonde lady in front of me who kept “PSST!”ing at her daughter to sit up taller. And then dancing like a banshee to “Surfing U.S.A.”.

Parents, if you’re going to bring your young children to an older sibling’s performing event, please actually watch them. Letting them wander aimlessly and assuming that the other parents are going to make sure they stay safe is rude, dangerous, and incredibly stupid. If they’re old enough to walk around and climb bleachers, they’re old enough to know how to sit still.

Also, they are there to watch their sibling perform. I used to be in chorus in middle and high school, and if I had looked out at the audience during a show and saw that my parents had allowed my little brother to play a hand-held video game instead of watch me, it would have broken my heart. Your child worked very hard to get to that performance, and is no doubt very proud of themself. You should be teaching your other children to show them respect by observing what they’ve accomplished. You should not be telling them “I know this is goingto be boring for you, so bring your toys”. How completely unfair to your other child.

Your job as parents is to raise respectful, courteous, polite adults. Letting your kids run wild at a family event is the polar opposite of what you should be doing. If you can’t teach them to be supportive and respectful of their family, how do you intend to impart these values upon them concerning total strangers?

You are teaching them selfishness, plain and simple. The world is not there to be thrilling to them every single second. Even if they find something “boring”, they still need to act respectful. That’s life, they need to learn to suck it up and deal with it.

As for the crazy lady: Publically embarrassing your pre-teen daughter is not a good way to begin your parents/adolescent relationship. Plus, you looked like you were high. (Were you?)

To the other parents: When you have selfish, spoiled, bratty excuses for teenagers in a few years, don’t you dare blame their friends, their music, or society. It’s no one’s fault but yours.