So, I decided that I'm not willing or able to write a short story in here presently. Check back later.
Instead, I found one of perhaps three things on which I agree with Bush. Here, he slams an affirmative action policy because it's fundamentally flawed, despite its heroic intentions. Still, why do I feel so unjustified? Despite the fact that his rhetoric mirrors mine in essentially every way, I feel like he's full of shit for some reason. But why? It probably has something to do with his legion of black friends and his own personal heroism in the area of civil rights; it looks like he's using the truth as a loophole to keep minorities out of prestigious institutions.
The most important thing I got out of high school American history was the concept of paternalism, that slaves are treated as substandard people and need the guidance and care of the white man. From that standpoint, how is the policy of affirmative action any different? And why the hell do these underrepresented minorities wish to be treated as substandard? How degrading. It's unfair to them, as if we expect less, and are willing to grin and give them a leg up.
This could be acceptable if it were combating racism, but when race is not even stated on the application, how is racism even an issue? Why don't you lobby for better primary and secondary schools in the elusive 'inner city' along with better libraries, better teachers, and ways to motivate kids the same way the pampered suburban kids are?
I don't want to go on with this point any longer, though, because I've already harped on it before.
Next Time: In case of emergency, DDR, Masturbation and 'The End'
The most unfortunate thing about having this weblog is that I'm not always capable of writing things that reflect my hulking intelligence. There are myriad moments when all I can do is sit motionless at stare at the wall, and trying to formulate any coherent thoughts results in sentences with no more than four words. Therefore, this will be updated regularly, if not exactly daily.
So, how do I feel about grades? I hate them, and think they're a terribly inaccurate reflection of your understanding of a subject. Let's look at this logically - what use is there in midterms, if you're going to have a final which covers the same material? First, this puts undue emphasis on certain parts of the course, and second, if you learn the material by the time the class is complete, who gives a shit? Even more salient, why have tests at all? There's no profession in life that pays based on performance on a written exam, so why should school be based on them?
Of course, do I have a better alternative? No. But just because I can't do better doesn't mean that the system is credible. It's one reason why a lot of people don't like complaints about this flawless country in which we live. If you don't like it, why don't you move to Somalia? Fuck you, just because I think it needs improvement doesn't mean that I'm trying to leave as quickly as possible. Shit, there's no place in the world that's perfect. It's hard to be perfect. It's hard not to make mistakes.
With all this talk of America and mistakes, it seems like we should take into consideration the death penalty. Acknowledging that mistakes will be made, how can anyone possibly condone a system that doesn't take mistakes into account? If there had never been a case of mistaken execution, I would have no beef with the system. But as it stands, people make mistakes, and innocent people die, and that's not OK. So I applaud the great governor of Illinois for his heroic action of commuting the death sentences in his state, and encourage the rest of the country to look at the cost of fucking up.
People are only in favor of the death penalty because they want revenge for whatever poor family member got fucked up, but there are plenty of ways to vent your anger and frustration without killing somebody. Hell, that's what those dunking tanks are for. You get to throw the ball as hard as you can at the target, as many times as you want, and hitting it means humiliation for the dunkee. This, I can accept. Hell, this person lost someone very close to them, and they're pissed. Even if I'm innocent, I could understand why they would want to dunk me. But killing someone, that's just infantile. As if life in prison weren't bad enough, let's cook them in a stew. We can even broadcast it on television, on a cooking show, and they can serve the concoction to the next of kin. Yay, vengeance!
Myself, I don't mind death in and of itself. In theory, it's less strain on the prison system, and getting rid of evil-doers altogether isn't necessarily such a bad thing. In fact, I advocate that anybody, especially prisoners, should have the right to kill themselves, even to have the government do it in a relatively painless manner. Why should we be allowed to exterminate people, if they can't even exterminate themselves? This solution would reduce the number of people in jail, save the government millions annually, and generally make the world a better place.
Except for disgruntled relatives, but you know, they were bound to be disgruntled anyway.
In switching from a basic details of my life forum to a basic details of my life interweaved with longwinded opinons forum, this journal has brought to light a whole slew of questions that I might not have pondered otherwise. I look at what I've written so far, and what I'm bound to write in the future, and it kind of occurs to me that I'm not putting forth any startling new ideas, just rehashing the generally accepted and oft mentioned socially liberal viewpoints. Regardless of how 'radical' my diatribes may be, it seems like being original is a pragmatic impossibility.
This, of course, begs the old and wholly unoriginal question of whether or not its possible to create something original, or have an original thought. There's a pretty strong argument for both sides, but what seems to hold the most water for me is a mix of the two. It's the same as losing your hair. Losing one single hair barely makes a difference, and it would be tempting to say that it makes no difference at all. Yet at the same time, you lose enough hairs one at a time to make a difference. I think the same is probably true with originality, that people keep making small adjustments to preexisting viewpoints eventually coming to some slightly altered state that's scarcely, if at all distinguishable from said viewpoints.
I guess the best evidence for this viewpoint comes from music, that significant changes in music can take place through this process of drift. Or evolution, should you choose to accept it, also seems to rely on this. That wholly original organisms aren't created instantaneously, but rather mutate slowly from preexisting species.
So with respect to myself, and my life, should I try to be breathtakingly original, or is that too difficult to accomplish in any appreciable manner? And should I let the fact that there's no original answer to that question influence my own answer? Does making an active decision to be a distinct individual contradict my own natural tendencies to be a distinct individual?
And perhaps most earth-shatteringly, who gives a flying fuck?
