Holy Comfort

We've had the conversation turn to God a couple of times now in class and each time I roll my eyes. We've heard every argument or comment about God so many times it's obnoxious. Not to mention the rather out-spoken kids in our class seem to have a real attachment to the concept of God. Whatever, to each their own. I personally do not.

Unless you count anytime when Im truly scared first I wish for my dad to be there and then I pray that everything will be ok. I don't ever pray TO anything but I guess it's the thought that counts.

God has always seemed arbitrary to me. My parents never forced religion on me, instead allowing me to decide for myself. My brother took that freedom and ran with it exploring any religion he found intriguing. Then again my brother is brilliant and if it weren't for his lack of emotional intelligence and occasionally common sense I might always feel inferior to him... but that's another blog altogether.

God is an endless question. God cannot be proven and because of that also can't be disproven. Perhaps the ultimate philosophical question? But I guess my question is why do we feel the need to ask that particular question? Why do we feel the need to believe in God? I believe in karma, so I can't complain too much it just seems like an easy out. A nice neat way to make everything feel connected and right.

Maybe God is just the easy out for all the wrong awful things in the world. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" "To keep the rest of us humble" or whatever bs answer sounds good at the time. But ya can't fight city hall and we all need comfort. We seek it out. We seek comfort in each other but that's too risky. It's real. We can be let down.

So I guess my God is just a little different than everybody elses. But maybe everybodys God is different. We each have some mysterious power we have to believe in to make it all worth while. To feel that maybe all of this, the struggle and the ease is worth something. That we're always moving towards something besides death.

I wonder what would happen if we asked people to explain their form of God. What things we would hear....

"Mine is a pink elephant, like the one I had when I was little. Loyal, comfortable, loving..."
"A morally righteous man who keeps me humble and makes me want to be a better person..."

I don't really feel like continuing that but I think it would be interesting.

Fascinating Class Happenings

Recalling from last class while Achtermann was making copies/printing the test when some girls used the term "fag".

Events (which will not be clearly presented by me since I was only half paying attention to the ridiculous scene) were as follows: Girl 1 uses the word "fag", other self righteous girl 2 in class tells her not to use the word because it's insulting, girl 3 cops an attitude (as usual) and becomes a smart mouthed twit, self righteous girl 2 gets really mad and yells, girl 3 makes herself look even more silly and childish, self righteous girl 2 gives up in anger at the futility of arguing with such a stupid, stupid girl in the first place.

I (being a self righteous girl myself - cocky, sometimes silly and generally full of disgust for the likes of girl 3) would've put my two cents in on the matter had I found an opening.

She would be a total waste of space if she didn't remind of what I left behind and everything I now stand for.

But I'll come back to that later...

Back to why I started this post. I find it fascinating how words take on different connotations for different people. For self righteous girl 2 and myself the word "fag" is derogatory to say the least. Having been close with many gay men I think they deserve more respect than "fag" implies. It doesn't even sound friendly, it's hateful and negative.

Now I'm not saying people shouldn't have freedom of speech, they can say what they want when they want, I just think a little respect is appropriate. When you say something that upsets another person either an apology or just an aknowledgement that, hey, it was inappropriate and you won't do it again out of respect for that person... Unless you're Girl 3 at which point you get up on your high horse (even though god forbid she ever ride a horse, maybe horses should ride us because we're sooooo terrible to the animals, woe is me) and start spewing sarcastic idiotic comments like there's no tomorrow.

Which brings me to my other point - Girl 3 and her animal rights issues.

I'm as supportive as the next girl of animal rights and love to see more support to the cause EXCEPT for when the support comes in the form of Ms. "I know everything even though I researched nothing and have a low vocabulary". If she doesn't know what she's talking about, she SHOULDN'T talk about it. All her bitching about animal rights - the whole thing is laughable. Does she protest? Do her actions in any way support her words? No. She's just another stupid girl touting ideas she knows nothing about.

I'd like to see her go out of her way for anything other than herself. To see her step up the plate and really do something important.

Until then I'll resent her with every fiber of my being. Every hour (though few) I spent protesting in the cold, every flyer I've passed out, every news story I've read and every animal I've ever helped make me a better activist than her.

More power to the educated activist.

Anything that helps fight the good fight.

What makes a fact a fact?

What a question....

A fact by definition is "something that actually exists; reality; truth."

To dissect that, lets examine the part about reality and truth. As we discussed in class (and is really obvious) everybody has a different reality and a different truth... so does that mean that fact is subjective?

For example when I was telling my boyfriend about how when I was little I would have terrible nightmares and would run to my parents room, so my brother tied a broken stick to my parents door and when I went to open it I scratched my arm from wrist to elbow leaving a very fine scar. My mom who was in the room at the same time promptly called me a liar and told me it was from a biking accident as a child. I vividly remember the stick, it was blue, he'd found it in the yard, that was my reality, my fact, my truth but my mom's was entirely different.

It's also interesting to consider that your reality is affected by what you forget.

When I was 13 I started hallucinating (for lack of a better term) and I dealt with it until I was 16 and I had a breakdown and had to see a psychiatrist and then a therapist. After talking at length with my psychiatrist he called my mom in to talk to her about my childhood, as it turned out it had started at a much younger age and I had no idea. I started seeing things when I was 6 so I was never allowed to look at mirrors, all the mirrors in my house had posters taped over them. I couldn't sleep in certain rooms or on previously owned furniture...

My reality changed. Seeing things became something I had to take more seriously, not some passing phase.

My psychiatrist told me it was sleep deprivation and prescribed me ambien in it's beginning stages, a hallucinogen. It didn't help my seeing things, sometimes it made me see beautiful things and sometimes it made what I normally see even more terrifying. After a few weeks I just stopped taking them because it was such an awful experience, helping nothing, making everything worse.

After that I saw a therapist who told me I was an "earth mother" and due to my Native American heritage I could shift realities. Or that somehow my reality occassionally crossed with "theirs". The whole thing was shifty if I may say so.

Sometimes I think she's right, sometimes I think I'm slightly pschizofrenic, sometimes I think I make it up and I'm just such a good liar I believe myself.

Who really knows. The point is my reality changed a lot. My facts were all mixed up.

So, I guess, what makes a fact a fact... is belief. The bone deep belief in something. For whatever reason you know it to be true, it is your fact.

Fascinatingly baffling personal opinion

For class tomorrow I decided to look up and explore any letters to the editor I could find until I came across something fascinating. Now, the thing that caught my eye was an article written by the mayor of our fine city about immigrants and the letters recieved in response to it.

We must have some SERIOUSLY backwoods people living in Lancaster County, which makes me equally as proud to not have been born here as I am of not having been born in St. Mary's County. Sure all places have their problems but I was too young to remember the problems from my hometown... (besides being born near the Mexican border and being taught French in Pre-School).

To show what I mean:

IMMIGRATION

No comparison
It is very apparent that the mayor of Lancaster (a former defense attorney: If you can afford me, I'll get you off) has little regard ["In My Opinion," Sept. 9] for certain laws of this country.

Illegal aliens (undocumented workers, in the words of the mayor and most liberals) have broken the law of this country. To compare their treatment with the black slaves and their offspring and the legal Irish immigrants to this country is the typical and contrived liberal political/racial rhetoric. If this country is to remain a free and great experiment Mr. Mayor, the law is the law, just as "a rose is a rose is a rose."
-Dick Weber, East Hempfield

Sides with mayor
The "In My Opinion" column by Mayor Rick Gray [Sept. 9] is 100 percent correct. I recall my father telling me union bosses would not hire him for work as a carpenter because he was of Italian descent.

That resulted in his going to night school to learn English. Being able to talk in two languages to immigrants who worked on the Atlantic City trolley line, he became the foreman for some 42 years under six superintendents who knew little about how to run a railroad-track gang.

We must give legal immigrants the same chance we had to pursue a better way of life. As a Roosevelt Democrat all my life, my hat's off to mayor of the great City of Lancaster.
-Henry R. Boney Sr., Reinholds

++++ Alright now to interject here before the next letter lets focus on the fact that the first letter is laying it down, illegal immigrants=illegal (OBVIOUSLY) so that part speaks for itself... the second letter starts to lend itself more towards the emotional side of the argument. Hey, we all immigrated here, or our ancestors did, so we should show some respect to those who are doing it now. A good point but we still need to consider that we have the laws we do for a reason and as such we can't get teary-eyed every time somebody without a green card gets shot down for a job. It puts the employer at risk, it's not fair. There are proper channels to go through to get things done and we need to respect the need for order. Now, back to the show...++++

Speak English
I believe Mayor Barletta [Hazleton] has the proper perspective concerning immigration.

There is the argument that Latinos are learning English like other immigrants. Why, then, do we have to push "1" for English and "2" for Spanish, have bilingual Spanish education, translators in hospitals and public buildings, ballots in Spanish, etc.?

The compassionate thing to do is to have all learn English and become educated so that they, too, may succeed as other immigrants do. If they don't want to, then they may return to the country where they are more comfortable.
-Edward L. Rhawn, Lancaster

++++ So I'll go ahead and say it, this guy is a tool. Sure when we go to foreign countries we're expected to have some vague understanding of their language, but most of us don't. "Mooch-ass Grass-ass sen-or" I mean c'mon. How fair is that, we'll only judge immigrants by their ability to speak our language because, face it, that's what makes them really belong. No, I refuse to accept that. PLUS, Spanish is a beautiful language, why should one have to abandon their heritage to live here? If you head out to the Southwest the good ol' U.S.A. becomes heavily flavored with Mexican and Spanish influence, it's delightful. In cities you've got China Town and Little Italy, we need the cultural differences to improve our country, to gain a better understanding of who we might be.

What makes Edward L. Rhawn of small town Lancaster, PA better than anybody else? Ignorance is a terrible crime, and one could argue that I'm denying him his right to pose his argument in the first place, making myself ignorant to his point, but I'm ok with that. I heard his point and I am positive based on my core values that he is wrong.

I'm Native American (that's right, I claim it, I go there) and maybe I want Ed Rhawn to speak my language.

The whole thing is just bogus and we need to be more accepting of each other. I don't ask him to stop being a narrow-minded jerk and he shouldn't ask an immigrant to speak "his language" because he's too lazy to learn their's.

Ridiculous!

social misconduct as seen by two very different people

Is it necessary to care for others? To think beyond the self?

Do we think beyond the self because we want to, or because it's what we're taught to do?

Does emotional intelligence or intelligence at all have anything to do with it?

Is there such a thing as emotional intelligence?

On a different note I find it a bit hard to swallow the "ideals" and "ethics" of people whose actions don't support them. If saving the world meant so much wouldn't people be more active? Or I guess, more proactive.

But in saving the world, in saving the cause you support, what if you damage the world? What if by going to that protest to save the chickens I, in some way, hurt another persons life. What about those people who work at that KFC we want shut down, what if that's their only income. What if they need that job. My ideals could be skewed because of not viewing the whole picture. But if I view the whole picture will I get anything done because I'll be so busy questioning myself I won't know where to go or what to do.

It strikes me it's become harder and harder to do the right thing. What if I want to be anonymous? What if I don't want my name attached to every little thing I try to do. Will it still be taken seriously? Or will it be thrown out? "She didn't care enough to give her personal information so it's obviously not important at all."

I wonder if people seriously think about the way their actions impact other people's lives. Like my brother for example. He'll smoke cigarettes in the car with me even though he knows it makes me sick and makes it difficult for me to breathe. He understands I have medical conditions but still maintains it would hurt him more to not smoke than for me to be there while he smokes.

The people who live above me smoke constantly. Fall being a lovely time of year, I like to have my windows open for the cool breeze, but I don't feel it's ok for me to be ill in my own house just because the smoke comes in through my windows. Should I close my windows and cool the house via air conditioning? I pay a lot of money to live here, to live on my own but I can't have my windows open because of somebody elses life choice.

Is that appropriate?

Am I even allowed to decide that?

Furthermore, should I be viewed negatively for being upset about this whole mess?

Should my dislike of smokers be seen as unfair and terrible when their disregard for other people is alright just because "they don't know I'm allergic and have asthma"? Should I have to inform them of that for them to consider that maybe I don't like being around it? Or should they be socially concious enough to know that not everybody smokes, not everybody wants to smell it and it just might make some people sick.