"#7: Bibliography"

Bower, Tom. Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21^st Century. NY: Grand Central Publishing, 2010.

Branden, Nathaniel. Taking Responsibility: Self Reliance and the Accountable Life. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Hamburger, Tom. Wallsten, Peter. One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21^st Century.  New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc, 2006.

McChesney, Robert. Newman, Russell. Scott, Ben. The Future of Media: Resistance and Reform in the 21^st Century.NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005.

Pletka, Bob. Ed.D. Educating the Net Generation: How to Engage Students in the 21^st Century. Santa Monica, Ca, Santa Monica Press LLC, 2007.

Wehr, Kevin. DIY: The Search for Control and Self Reliance in the 21^st  Century. NY: Routledge, 2012.

"#6: President in Hiding"

Glenn Greenwald in one of his many articles takes a look at how the president of the United States, Barack Obama, has persecuted more people under the espionage act than all other presidents combined.  The presidents original stance back in 2008 was that whistleblowers in this nation are a thing of patriotism and should be protected because it can “sometimes save lives and save taxpayer dollars”.  Greenwald points out Barack’s flaws and his flip-flopping along with his killing spree of innocent people using drone strikes that has, in the last two weeks, killed three American citizens.  I’m sure if this gets out to the public in a more mass media fashion there could easily be calls for an impeachment trial regarding his lack of regard for our rights as American citizens.  One bad representation of Obama, such as this, could change the nature of the political game at this time, especially with it being election season.  Of course any president is going to want to hide the fact that they’re doing something illegal when it involves citizens of the United States and could make his lose his candidacy for presidency.  I am fairly certain that if one were to delve deep into the archives of American history, past what we learn in school, one would be amazed and in horror as to what they could find out about our nation.  The secrecy did not begin with and will not end with President Barack Obama unless the people rise up and quit being led around like sheep.  I do not see the American citizenry giving up its laid back and lackluster view on the world in which we live.  Being led like a sheep is what most citizens want, they don’t want to think for themselves, but they do want the ability to take of or be taken care of. 

If you want to read some of the claims, I have copied the link of the article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/05/obama-campaign-brags-about-whistleblower-persecutions

"#5: Occupy Language...Fail"

Occupy Language? This just sounds like a fancier term to replace the term political correctness.  What is the point of using a word to make sure people feel better about themselves because they are too weak in themselves to handle what is being said? Or not even that, but as an example Microsoft banned a user on their X-box because the guy lived in Fort Gay, West Virginia.  Their reasoning the removal of his usage rights was because the word “gay” is always offensive even though many towns have it in their name and many people have Gay as a name.  Several prominent sports players have the last name Gay and is their fault that this is their surname and part of their history? No.  Sometimes the political correct phrase could have a dual meaning and in the dual meaning that is where a lot of the context could be lost.  Originally gay used to mean happy but now it is derogatory because a group of people do not like how it is associated with them? Personally I have nothing against those who are gay/homosexual/queer, take your choice of word to describe someone’s sexual preference.

One of the many different definitions for queer: strange.  For example, a queer situation.  In this example there is nothing degrading towards people who are considered gay and it doesn’t even refer to a person.  As we try to limit the usage of words we limit our ability to depict and describe what we see happening around us.  In the moment if I use the word queer referring to a strange situation and there is someone around me who takes offense because they have been belittled by said word then maybe it is time for them to mature and look at the other various usages of the word.

#3: 21st Century De-Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was a great and much needed growth in society when it occurred between 1650-1800 has it allowed for more free-form thinking and got us away from religious rule.  Before the Enlightenment most knowledge was universally accepted as truth if the church said it was true.  For example, if the Pope were to say the sun revolves around the earth, well that would have been accepted as true even though many scientists and mathematicians could prove otherwise.  We all know now that the earth revolves around the sun, but it wasn’t taken so lightly when it was first discussed.  If you disagreed with the Church you were considered an enemy of the Church and could therefore be punished or put to death.  Thankfully through the Enlightenment scientific reasoning and deductive logic made such an impact on the foundation on the rest of the world that it became vital to many countries, including our own as it shaped our Declaration of Independence.  Another idea that came from the Enlightenment was the need for education and not just for the wealthy but for all children of all societies.  At first there was discourse as people believed that many of the kids could not read and write and argued that we should not waste our time on them.   The free market of education won though and from the middle of the seventeenth to eighteenth century it began to take shape.  Before then though, there was no such educational system.  The system was to be paid for by taxes and since this was around the time of the industrial revolution socio-economic systems were vastly improved.  As the system as moved forward though, it has lagged behind and has been unable to keep up with the changes in technology.  Education has become boring while distractions outside of the classroom are more engaging to the minds of the people who see them.  This causes an epidemic of ADD in children today and they are given Ritalin, Adderall and other forms of ADHD medicine to help calm them down and keep them focused.  Sadly in my mind this has turned them into a zombie stuck a cage to be tortured with math and science all the while excluding the ability for them to be creative because the music and arts in most schools have or are being cancelled.  People do not realize or maybe seem to forget that music and arts help create better test scores, since that’s what our system seems to be solely focused on.  Hopefully one day we will wake up and see that our education system needs to be fixed again with this time, removing standardized testing.  Let creativity and free thinking flow from the minds of the children and watch what happens to society.

#4: A Polita-wha???

Politics are a very intrinsic part of today’s society but they also can lead to huge debates, name calling, fist throwing and even more inane acts of idiocy.  And this happens between “mature” adults who are supposed to run our country.  A part of me almost believes our country would be better run by infants, but of course we all know that to be a fallacy as they do not possess the cognitive thinking skills required to make decisions beneficial the nation as a whole.  In this I took a political compass test and even though I thought I was more centered it showed that I was left-libertarian.  While I am still debating over what this means for me has an individual I do know I am in good company as The Dali Lama and Ghandi are also left-libertarian.  That makes me feel good about where I stand, knowing that my “test” is almost the exact same as these two famous figures of world history. 

Originally growing up I considered myself republican and nowadays would consider myself more of an independent.  However with this test if may behoove me to take a closer look at my political foundation and delve deeper into its core.  I’ve always found politics to be a bore because they never seemed to affect me much, but as the years have passed that has definitely changed.  It is hard to care about our electoral system when in its setup it feels like one vote doesn’t matter. If the electoral college wasn’t involved and our president was elected by popular vote I know I would feel like my vote had more power.  This year could be one of the most important election years for our society in my lifetime.   

P.S. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are almost the exact same on this political spectrum. Be weary of who you vote for.

#2: A Haunted Reality

A chanting that you can barely hear or understand occurs down a dim hallway with light from a TV escaping the room.  As you walk closer you begin to hear a rhythmic and repetitive chant: “they say, they say, they say” is what your mind takes in.  You turn and begin to run in terror trying to escape the voices, the ones who tell you what you should buy or should do or who you should be.  While you’re running the voices just get louder and louder, you turn to see that the TV that was once set on its stand in the room is now chasing you blaring advertisements in your face.  The horror has just begun as you realize that it’s not alone but accompanied by the very devices you thought you were safe from.  The phone that you so often use to play games or stay in touch with your friends has now become a collaborator, determined to brain wash you.  It has become an ally and enemy wrapped up in one nice, neat little package.  Not very threatening looking or suspicious because after all, it is what is kept closer to you than anything else.  Your next sight you see disturbs you to your core.  You see your laptop hopping a long with a mischievous dark glow.  It’s opened your favorite browser to the next gadget you want showing all these people having a great time and it seems to be hinting at: “you could be one of us” but only if you had what it shows.  You run, headed for the door to escape your nightmare and see it shining like the sun as it seems to offer hope of freedom. Grabbing the handle you twist it open and exit as hurriedly as you can and lock it behind you. Exhausted you place your back on the door and slide to the ground. A few moments go by and you realize that this, this isn’t right.  You open your eyes and there in front of you are even more advertisements targeting you directly, either via social media, billboards, politicians, movies, music, news channels or by clothing worn on a stranger.  Eventually though, you realize you have the strength to move and not be persuaded by what you want but by only what you need and your nightmare drifts away as you wake up.  You realize it was only a dream and breathe a sigh of relief. Or was it?

"#1: God vs Evolution"

In the beginning of Summary: Theory for Beginners the author goes into detail talking about evolution.  I have nothing against evolution or its theory but I do have a problem when someone, no matter how well educated begins to talk about evolution as fact.  Evolution is still considered a theory.  Evolution is as a theory as creation, but evolution is able to being scientifically tested whereas creation is taken as a "God-did" this and anything "God did" is untestable but taken as religious fact.  However as anyone ever really thought about the ability of the two theories to coexist?  What if God did create the beginnings of everything and from there guided nature into what we call evolution of species?  Is this theory improbable? Probably.  Doubtful? I say unlikely.  The chance of anything evolving from absolutely nothing has to be zero.  Even in the Large Hadron Collider where they are trying to create an explosion similar to the Big Bang Theory still has something that wasn't here previously, molecules of all shapes and size.  The smallest known particle or atom had to be created by something, something that can cause physical objects to come into existence. Whether a person believes in the Christian God or not, to understand that nothing is always equal to nothing is a simple test of logic. An outside force of some unknown power had to have a hand in the beginning of our world and our universe.  Even a simple mathematical formula can show this concept: Void*(0) = 0. When something is affected or multiplied by zero, it always equals zero. Now if we change the equation Void*(G) = unknown explanation that we collectively call our universe. The author also suggests that since we no longer have to hunt and/or plant for survival we have “evolved”.  The actual term for this change in our world is called adaptation.  We have adapted to our current advances that make life easier.