Arrogance is the issue.
I see a lot of signs of arrogance all around. To me this is ways that people (for the most part) live in their own world, and not the world that we ALL live in. What are some of these simple signs I've picked up on you may ask? Well here's the list.
-People parking their car in front of the grocery store with no intention of moving while other cars have to drive around. What is this...a personal dropoff?
-Bringing dogs into stores where they are not allowed (like around food). *For clarification, I have no problem with seeing eye dogs or dogs for the purpose of helping people with disabilities. It's when people manipulate this privilege.
-People showing up late to something of upmost importance... and acting like their time is more important than someone else's.
-People not listening to all sides of a story.
-When our country involves ourself in problems of other countries when we should let them handle it on their own.
-When people are close-minded and allow sterotypes to persist. Believe it or not, this country is not 100% Caucasian Christian Males (or whatever your race,religion,gender may be).
-When people don't keep up with what is going on the world. There is life beyond Great Falls, Montana and I am determined to keep in touch with it.
Well that was the list. I'm sure there are a lot more to come. To the readers out there...I know I am arrogant. Everyone in this world is to some extent or another. It cannot be avoided or eliminated...but it can be reduced to the point where we embrace others and forget about our selves for five minutes of the day. That's the end point.
So apparently Maria Cheng and the health experts of European countries were really questioning if galavanting in the sunshine was REALLY good for kids.
For a while, they fully believed that sitting in front of a tv all day, playing X Box, and popping open a bag of Cheetos was remedy enough for a child to be well on their way to a healthy and productive life. Who DOES these studies? Like a group of well known and respected doctors really need to convene to get to the bottom of whether or not kids should be outside using their legs instead of inside using their remotes?
Obesity is such a prevalent problem in society today, particularly in America, so questioning a child's level of activity and energy is the last thing we need to be doing. I would rather have a child be hyperactive and healthy than lazy and obese. Hyperactivity can be channelled, laziness cannot be.
If after all the advancements in medicine, and the realization that inactivity is a killer (slow but deadly), how are we JUST grasping the fact that when kids sit on the couch all day, they do nothing. When they do nothing, they gain weight. When they gain weight, they become unhealthy. When they become healthy, they develop diabetes. Does that mean I could be a doctor? What revolutionary discoveries are these doctors going to develop next...smoking causes lung cancer?
I don't know what's the worst...that these doctors wasted their time testing something that was so blatently obvious, that Maria Cheng was stupid enough to report on something like this (although I like to give her the benefit of the doubt and wonder if it was a slow day in the news), OR maybe what's the worst is that I took the time to read this entire article, then spent time on my computer bitching about it when I COULD be out running around for short bursts at a time. I better watch out, I'm well on my road to developing diabetes.
So the leaders of our country wonder why we don't trust them. They wonder why they are being compared to snakes on a daily basis. They wonder why we have little or no faith in the system. This is why. People's hard earned money, money that we think is getting put to good use, is actually funding politicians' extravagent lifestyles. I believe that it is important that young people become more involved and concerned with how our country is run because we are the future. However, with each new election that rolls around, the voter turnout, is less and less. I talk until I'm blue in the face about the importance of voting but sometimes I even wonder myself. I do not go to the polls to elect people that will swindle my money away. It still happens though. Politics equals money. Politicians are motivated by it and the voters are disillusioned by it. If politics became less about working for money and more about working for the people, we would have a better functioning, more hopeful country. It can start by our elected officials not abusing their position of power. Greed has been ruining our country. You could argue that greed was the main reason that our country became the size and way it is today. At some point it's got to stop. Maybe there is hope for this country to redeem itself...but not if politicians are going to continue to serve themselves, and not the people. When our future and safety is at stake, we need to worry about the greater good. As I begin to become disillusioned with the state that our country is in, in particular our government, I don't give up. Yes, like any American, I wonder why I vote. I quickly disregard that question because I remember why. My vote counts, and if other people like me vote, maybe the politics of this country will take a turn for the better. When people like Rep. Cunningham are the only ones voting, they are the only ones getting elected. When they are the only ones getting elected, they only work for themselves and no one else. Furthermore, they are making the hopeful voters, well, lose hope. If I vote, along with other well informed voters, we can turn this around. Someday we will be the majority, not greedy, overly wealthy, and monetary driven people. They are not the majority, we are, and if we vote enough, maybe we will be represented like that.
The man in the fifth row down
I love observing people. Every day I just sit. I sit and watch the people that go by. Last semester I took a Physics class. It was Elementary Astronomy, clearly not up my alley but I needed to fulfill a natural science credit. On the days I did find my way to the lecture hall, I almost always sat in the same row, behind this old man. He was probably in his late 60's, early 7o's, and always dressed to the T. Had would wear his nice slacks with the perfect creases and a nice blazer, of tweed like material. He would carry with him his leather messenger bag, the kind with the silver buckles that fastened it shut. He wouldn't used normal spiral notebooks, with the college-ruled paper. Instead he had a matching leather book with paper inside, graph type of paper with the little squares. As I watched him, he would put his head down and write with a fury, pausing every couple of minutes to look up over his bifocals as to make sure the professor was still there at the podium. I would peer over his shoulder and look at the detailed notes he took. They were always complete with visuals, graphs and circles. The arrangement of the moon, sun, earth pattern right there in bold, black, ballpoint pen ink. I wonder why a man of his age was in a lower division Science class. A man that is probably 50 years older than me, sitting right in front of me, clinging onto every word that comes from my professor's mouth. I liked to conjure up reasons as to why he was there. Maybe his wife just died and he needed to do something to take his mind off her death because he was so distraught. Perhaps he joined the military right out of highschool, got married, and started to raise a family. He soon only equated himself with her and once she died, he didn't know what to do with himself. His kids suggested he move closer towards them, or somewhere where it was warm, like Florida or Arizona, but he couldn't bring himself to move away from that house that carried so many memories. Babies first step, first word, first prom. In an attempt to get his two grown kids off his back, he agreed to go to school, take classes, get a degree, and maybe find a job in a lawyers office, or becoming the manager of some business. Perhaps one chapter of his life closed, and another one opened. Or maybe he just wanted to take college classes for the hell of it because he was bored. It's all just a thought. Either way, I know he got a better grade in the class than me because while I was paying attention to him, he was paying attention to what both of us were supposed to: the lecture content. I may have gotten a C, but I have a memory, an idea, a thought, a dream, that will last me a life time. I suppose if I go back to school when I am his age, that man will pop back into my head.
Apparently in South Dakota the lawmakers are seriously considering to ban abortions in the state which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Montana. The thing that scares me is that the mentality in the state of South Dakota is not that far off from that in Montana. What's next, Montanan women will have their rights ripped away from them too? Someone can believe in the right to reproductive rights and not necessarily agree with abortions. I would never get one done but still, it's reassuring to know that I have that right to if it ever came to it. It says that under the legislation that doctors would only be allowed to perform abortions if it was necessary to save a woman's life. What about rape? If a woman was raped and became pregnant, her life wouldn't necessarily be in danger if she had the baby but I assure you that she would not want to carry the child of someone who violated her. That child would be born into an anger filled family and would never be right again. Women in this country have rights that women in other countries only dream of. In countries such as India and China, women are forced to do back alley abortions and risk their lives doing so. The danger factor does not cross their minds, just as it won't in our own country. So why take away the safety from it? Either way, women are going to have abortions. We might as well ensure their safety and have them done by licensed doctors. If this right is taken away, I guarantee the lawmakers are going to regret it.
It's weird to think that a freedom that Americans are granted (free speech), one that we take advantage of so often, is leading to killings in other countries. Because of a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a bomb under his turbin, ten people have died, and the cartoonists are being threatened with death if they are found. There is even a reward of $25,000 and a new car to the person who captures the people responsible for this mutiny. Everyone always thinks of the first amendment as a right that is granted to the people, something that distinguishes the strong countries from the weak ones; the developed from the developing. No one ever stops to think about how free speech takes things away. It takes lives away. It may perhaps temporarily allow freedoms, but soon takes those away in an effort to respond to backlash. Speaking your mind sometimes leads to supression, this case is especially true. Americans do take their free speech for granted, but also take the actions thereafter for granted also. If we say something controversial, what's the worst that could happen? Someone could lose their job. If something controversial occurs in Pakistan, what is the worst that could happen there? An entire religion becomes up and arms and people lose their lives. The difference is overwhelming.
So basically, Wal-Mart is taking over my town, my state, my country. I am a consumer, just like everyone else. I am not going to deny it. I ingest biproducts, I spend too much money on clothes while people who are so poor are lucky to be wearing any. I even waste food. Perhaps I am hypocritical because I am criticizing the same thing that I have shopped at before. Great Falls is my town though, so I feel as though I have room to talk.
For years, Wal-Mart has been planting its seeds all around the country. It starts off with them scoping out an area of a town, looking at where grocery stores are, and malls. Then it looks to see which businesses are the weakest, and, funny enough, it plants itself right down there. Like a hawk eyeing its prey, it doesn't stop until it gets what it wants and it will take down anything in order to get that.
Great Falls has a pretty abundent population of people which constitute as a poverty level which of course makes Wal-Mart lick its lips. These people will never escape what they were born into, therefore they end up shopping and working at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has everything to do with money, business, corporation, and stocks and NOTHING to do with people, loyalty, compassion, and communities. What ever happened to mom and pop business that varied from city to city? Oh yes, I remember, they got ingested by Wal-Mart.
Respect our journalists.
I'm sure everyone knows of the two men injured in Iraq. True, they have received more publicity than if a soldier was to have been injured. One of the men being Bob Woodruff, the other being his photographer, Doug Vogt. They put their lives on the line, just like any soldier, to deliver a story, which is something that most Americans don't understand. They weren't looking to hold a gun, or kill someone, or free someone. They just wanted to observe things, and put them into words that the average American could understand.
Usually, when I write something on this blog, it is out of frustration of the story, or the reporter reporting the story. However, this time is different. I am appalled with the comments. The comments of Americans in response to the topic. I can't fathom how our citizens can be so cold-hearted and possibly suggest that these reporters who were just doing their jobs 'brought it onto themselves'.
Ever since the war in Iraq, there has been an overload of 'Support the Troops' declaration, and anyone who is against the war is seen as a traitor who doesn't love their country enough. Then, once reporters try to go out there and show the war for what it really is; a bloody battle between how one group of people think a country should be run versus another, they are ridiculed for it. To put the price of one person's life (who is just trying to do their job) lower than another is beyond me. We need to respect EVERYONE that is out there on the lines, not just the people in camoflage. The pen IS is mighty as the sword, so let's ACT like it.
