Oh the perspectives we gain.....

I was reading a book titled The End of Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachs for my Comparative Politics: Inequality (awesome book, read it) class today on the bus and it definitely rattled/changed my viewpoint on sweatshops in regards to poverty. So the first chapter began to talk about the hardships of people in Malawi. There was a drought and there was less food to go around the already starving village of mostly young children and older women. The young men in the village were struck hard by the AIDS virus and the part that shocked me was how little the more developed nations did to help the country fight off the virus. The book talked about antiretrovirals being the main hope for survival if you already have AIDS. Problem is, those drugs cost patients a dollar a day, something that view people there have. When Malawi asked the developed nations for more financial aid to help make the AIDS drugs more affordable, they originally only asked for the money to help 300,000 people (about a third of the people suffering) and then because the developed countries thought it was "too ambitious and too costly." Eventually about five years later, the accepted the proposal that gave 40,000 Malawians treatment. So that's Malawi. The part about Bangladesh was a little more uplifting. The book talked about the sweatshop conditions of women and I've always been pretty anti-sweatshop but this book has a good point in saying that countries like Bangladesh are one step up from places like Malawi and we should not be advocating that sweatshops be taken out of those countries, but that wages and conditions be a little more fair. It also said that the women who work at those places feel lucky compared to others because they have extra money to spend and don't have the live out in the rural areas where they would probably have to be married and pop a kid out by the time they were 17 or 18. When they work in a sweatshop, they get extra income and can start a family when and if they want to. I don't know. I'm enjoying this book so far. I'm definitely not as anti-sweatshop and anti-US jobs going to other countries as I was before.

And I love it when a plan comes together.

I feel the need to update this basically since I changed all the colors around and everything. I'm beginning to wonder why I started blogging again anyway. It's not really like anybody reads this crap and it's not like I have anything truly interesting to say. I guess lately I've been thinking of what I want to do with my major and lately I've been thinking of going into education. I'd get my Master's of course as it's only another year of schooling and then teach high school I suppose. How did I concoct this idea out of the blue, you ask? Well it was always in the back of my head and then I saw some poll results showing how little Americans knew in the aggregate about politics. Here's a study the Pew Research Center did back in '08: http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions (it's quite fascinating). So I thought that even though there are already tons of teachers out there trying to educate their students, maybe I could go out and educate a few more and maybe even help curve the growing evidence that suggests that Americans might actually be getting less informed about politics as the years progress. And I would like to get a PhD eventually and teach college. I think it might end up being kinda rewarding too. Who knows? I also can't get enough talking about politics so I like the idea of getting paid to educate kids who are forced to listen to me drone on and on about how awesome it all is. I have thought of other career options too: working for a polling firm, working for various candidates on their campaigns, or being a community organizer. We shall see.

And Snow Day tomorrow! So question is: stay up and surf stumbleupon or get a decent night's sleep before work tomorrow?

My thoughts.

I do not think that I could write about one specific thing on my mind and have it be long enough to look like a decent blog post so here's a few:

1. I feel a small amount of pressure to dress either more feminine or masculine to develop either a femme or butch identity. I'm leaning on trying to dress more feminine since I plan on wearing my hair long (I like it long) and I rather like the way that women's clothes look and a lot of them are rather quite pretty. Part of me, however, thinks that some men's clothes fit my body better (I have broad shoulders so some women's clothes can be too tight in the shoulder/chest area) and the shirts and sleeves tend (they're not always) to be longer and short shirts are kind of a major pet peeve of mine. Also, I really like the more preppier men's clothing (argyle sweater vests) but I guess they sell those in the women's section so I could just wear that. Decisions, decisions. Maybe I'll experiment a little?

2. I think I'm becoming a little more against organized religion. I just have somewhat of a hard time believing that the pope, the archbishops, and the priests say is really what God thinks. How do they know? Last time I checked they were human, not demigods. I understand they all studied religion very thoroughly, but to err is human and I don't think that anyone can know for certain what God wants, no matter how much they study the Bible (And yes, I understand that I could be wrong since no one really does know what God thinks). Also, I have a problem with reconciliation. I don't think that you need to ask forgiveness from a priest necessarily to be forgiven. I think all you have to do is tell God that you're sorry and be genuinely sorry for whatever wrongs you may have done. And finally, I think the money they spent on to mail about 400,000 anti same-sex marriage DVDs to various Catholic families in MN (I got one) could've been used towards a more noble cause.

3. As I continue making more homemade cards than buying the ones in the store, I'm beginning to think that I will try not to ever buy greeting cards again. I think cards are more special if they're homemade because more feeling goes into them. It's more personal. The card that you give to whoever you're giving it to is made for them and no one else. Especially cards you're giving to your significant other. Who would rather have something that the person at the card making factory thought of saying than something that their own lover thought of saying to them? It's really much sweeter. Plus, the designs that you can make yourself can be SO much cooler than the ones in the store.

The pledge of allegiance.

So today, I was rereading one of my favorite books, Catch-22, and I came across what has always been one of my favorite parts in the book. In this part, Captain Black wants to make it look like he's the more loyal than some of the other people in his squadron so he begins to make all the soldiers sign loyalty oaths. Eventually, the loyalty oaths get out of hand when he begins to make them do things like sign 3 loyalty oaths, say the pledge of allegiance twice, and sing the star spangled banner to prove they're loyal to America and not communists before they get to eat in the mess hall. I'm not sure if that's the exact number of times they had to do all that, but you get the idea. This is one of my favorite parts in the book because Captain Black made a point that is kind of funny/relevant to today's society when he said to a group in his squadron, "The important thing is to keep them pledging. It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean. " It really makes sense though. I mean, in first grade me and my fellow classmates all stood up to pledge our allegiance every day. I certainly didn't fully grasp the idea of pledging allegiance when I was six and I would guess that not many other people did either, so why does society still have kids do it? I think it takes away from the meaning of pledging allegiance to something if the people that are pledging don't understand the gravity of it all and are just following along and pledging with the rest of their classmates. Why do we pledge anyway? It's not like pledging at a young age would really stop anyone from being a traitor against their country later in life or anything like that. Maybe we do it because we like tradition.  The fact that kids are socialized to pledge like this seems a little totalitarian in nature too, even though it's not like it's really taken that seriously anyway. To be honest, I do like the star spangled banner before pro sports games and stuff like that. I like the song, and I also like having it before games because I view it as more of an ode to the revolutionary war than a verbal loyalty oath, which is what the pledge is.

Also, if anyone was wondering how I got the url....

I have a horrible habit of weaving when I drive. It's not that I'm not paying attention or I drive drunk or anything, I just have a hard time holding the wheel straight sometimes. I've slammed into curbs numerous times recently. I hit a huge pothole on the way home from work, but that really couldn't have been avoided. I had a tire pop on the side of the freeway once and had to change the tire. I feel bad for my car. He puts up with so much from me. I'm getting better about the curbs though.

Spam/Forwarded crap

Just to be clear, this blog is not going to turn into something where I rant about all minor, yet irritating things that go on in my life. But since I lost nearly every amount of inspiration that would be necessary to write (type?) about something good, I've chosen this first post to be about how fucking annoying forwarded texts are. And I don't mean the forwarded texts that my friends send me from people they're fighting with and asking me how to reply back. No. I'm talking about the annoying "you're my best friend and I love you forever send this to 15 people and hopefully you send it back to me" types of texts. What's even worse is the ones where the forward actually sorta threatens you with something, usually bad luck. I believe in karma and whatnot, but I certainly hope that no one believes that your life will be ruined by not passing on that shit to your friends. I mean, the email version was annoying enough, but now my phone is invaded too? Not to mention, it's sort of a letdown when I open the text someone sent me to find out that it's not anything worth really looking at. When I take the time in class to be distracted by my phone, it better be for something good. I understand that the forwards are usually very sweet and tell me how great I am, but if my friends think I'm a good person, they can just text me in their own words. And anyways, the fact that the people who send me those cute, sweet, adorable text messages are people that I rarely talk to anymore kinda takes away from the sentimental value from them.

**** I really like pro liberal political humor so to anyone that sends me that, that's completely fine. This isn't a tirade against all forwards. Just the stupid ones.