» WHY THANKYOU, THAT LOOKS DELICIOUS...

I've always wondered this. People carry on and on about how they're "helping the less fortunate" when they go overseas somewhere on a "missionary" trip. Because that's exactly what starving people need: a book and your preaching. You know what those people need? Food, clean water and medicine. Not your fucking dogma. 


To give "missionaries" some credit, I did know a few in highschool who built schools. Which is nice. But if there is no one to teach in the school, and the kids don't have food or water, a school really isn't going to help them too much. I mean, if after you have fed and clothed them and provided schoolteachers, yeah, sure, a school is nice. But lets try to focus on our priorities, ok? 


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» HOLIDAY BREAK UPS

So this morning after a long drive back to my college town home from the city where my parents live, (yay, anonymity!) I got on Facebook in my dorm room and noticed at least 5 "so and so is single" posts in my feed. Wow, I thought, what a time to break up! It always seems to happen that way, doesn't it? Like someone puts a little heartbreak in the water source and all the sudden everybody gets dumped all at once. But then, of course, one has to come to one's senses and look at the hard facts.


A good friend of mine brought this article to my attention. It displays a series of graphs that, after gathering "relationship status" info from thousands of Facebook pages, the times of year that people are most likely to get dumped. In case you're too lazy to click the link, here are the graphs and some excerpts from the article.

British Journalist and graphic designer David McCandless used Facebook statuses to put his data together. In fact, he and a partner perused over 10,000 statuses looking for the words "breakup" and "broken up". And that's how they came to the conclusion that people were more likely to get dumped during certain times of the year.

The article goes on to say  basically that the graphs speak for themselves. Building up from the beginning of the year to spring break people break up more and more to, figuratively speaking, "spring clean" their lives to make room for all the steamy, spring flings coming up. If you happened to stay with your beau or lady through the spring, you're likely to stay with them through the year until, the weeks leading up to Christmas. One can argue why this might be so, but you have to look at the evidence and say that probably there are alot of reasons. Maybe cold weather just makes people irritable, and by the time December rolls around they're so sick of their sig-other that they're dying to get rid of them. Or maybe it is, as the article points out, "And if you're dating someone you really can't stand, you'd want to break up with them before Christmas comes around so you don't have to waste money on their present."

Personally, I usually keep people around through the winter months and then finally break it off during the spring. Usually, it happens during April, when I realize that I'm happier without them. But that's just me.


So, kiddies, keep in mind that when you holidy-dump, you become a statistic. And also, put your FB on private.


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» CINDY MCCAIN SLAMS MILITARY "GAY BAN"

So I woke up this lovely autumn morning with two things on my mind: the first being that I had overslept dreadfully by about 3 hours, and the other that I was very, very hungry. So, since I was spending the weekend at my parent's house I snuck upstairs hoping to have some sort of autumnal breakfast feast (which, in my mind, included lots of delicacies like pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles, hashbrowns, muffins, cinnamon rolls and pop tarts). Instead of eating, however, I spotted my computer. And, inevitably, decided that seeing just what was going on in the internet today was much more important than sustaining my body with heavy carbs. Once again my diet is saved! by the computer and here I sit, eating an orange because it's the only thing within reach of my laptop.

Anyway! I sauntered over to Yahoo to check up on my email when I discovered that, apparently, Cindy McCain slams military "gay ban", even as her senator husband (John McCain) fights to uphold it. Before clicking on the link, I spotted a Harry Potter article and had to read that. After I had gotten my fill of pixie-haired Emma Watson, I backtracked to Mrs. McCain.

Cindy McCain stars in a dramatic advocacy video that says the government's actions--including those supported by her husband, Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain--encourage anti-gay bullying in schools.

Granted, I haven't watched this video yet, but I imagine that it must be powerful if the wife of a noted conservative senator who has done everything in his power to uphold DADT is speaking out against anti-gay bullying and standing up for gay youth. Read on:

"Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future," she says in the video, which features an ensemble of famous people speaking out against bullying. "They can't serve our country openly."

Other speakers chime in, denouncing the ban on gay marriage and gay adoption in some states as also contributing to a climate that leads some gay youth to take their own lives.

Then Cindy McCain asks: "Our government treats the LGBT community like second-class citizens. Why shouldn't [bullies]?"

And now my mom is complaining about wanting lunch, so I'm going to come back and continue my anti-gay rant in un momento.

... OK. 7 hours later and now I'm back. And (now that I've watched it) the video in question is very powerful. 

I wonder what it's like inside the McCain household? I mean, putting aside that John McCain is old. Not just kindof old, like, old. Putting that aside and looking at his young, photoshopped wife, it makes me wonder what they talk about or if they've even discussed this issue outside of the media. It makes me wonder if the political pressures of right-wing agendas is keeping John McCain from supporting pro-gay legislatures that his wife obviously also supports? Or perhaps there is some sort of domestic turmoil between nazi-conservative John and his obviously more caring, liberal wife? 

The world may never know. Until then, John, take a lesson from the women in your life.

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» MY FIRST POST...

Well hello, internet world :) I've never really "blogged" before (except in the privacy of my "me only" livejournal account...) and so I feel as if I am undertaking on a new and exciting adventure. I figured that since this was my first post that I would kick-start my blogging career with a few goals in mind:

1.  My first goal is that I'd like to stick with relevant, modern topics that interest me. Be them politics, social issues, commentary, injustices, or what have you. Or maybe I just feel like being on a soap box about something that day. Knowing myself as I do I imagine I might just post up links to things, say my two cents and then be on my way. Regardless, I don't want this to be a place for me to ramble. I want to stay on topic and have, oh, I don't know, a point.
2. I'd like to post regularly. I also foresee this being an issue and I'm going to try to make it a point to update at least once a week.

Hopefully these things aren't too difficult ;) 

And now with that administrative business out of the way, onto my most recent outrage:

I would like to direct you to Joe. My. God., where today he/she (I'm assuming by the mustached man on the page that the blogger is male? irrelevant!) posted this disturbing article : 

A 12 year-old Mississippi middle school student was surrounded and beaten by a group of students who had been bullying her because her name is Randi. Which is a boy's name. The students had just come from a bible-study meeting. 

Ahhhhhh, the ever present "bible-study". Who knows what goes on there? Apparently some sort of anti-unisex name propaganda in which some asshole teacher stands up and says to the class: "Anyone who has a name that does not go with their gender must be an enemy of the church." And of course the children, dumbfounded and brainwashed, nod in agreement. Satisfied, the teacher continues: "And you know what we do to enemies of the church?" At this, all of the students stand up and slam their fists into their palms dramatically and chant:

BEAT THEM.

This might sound outrageous, but I have no other way to explain this. Read on:

After a Fellowship of Christian Students meeting, four girls and a boy surrounded her. "They started talking about me like I was a man, and like, stuff like that. That I shouldn't be in this world. And my name was a boy name," she said. Foster described how these people attacked her. "I was kicked in the rib. I was kicked in the leg. I was hit in the face. I was sat on top of and my face was jammed into the floor. I was thrown onto the cafeteria table. I was thrown in between the seats." Her mother, Meggan Foster, is appalled at the whole ordeal. "She was sitting in a chair. Her glasses were broken. She had been crying. She had a bloody tissue in her hand from her nose bleeding," Foster said. She said that a surveillance camera caught the whole thing, but that the principal could not give her a copy because it involves other students.

I feel like this is going to be hard to explain. If they got it on surveillance camera, then they (meaning the religious) can't try to point fingers at the victim as "starting it" (like most religious like to do) or try to make her out to be the "bad guy."

As Joe. My. God. points out, the news link is broken. Maybe at some point it will reappear and I'll post it up so that you can read it in the flesh.

Until then,

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