PC|Bluestocking

With Spring Break 2010 quickly coming to an end, many  of us seniors cannot help but realize that we will soon be leaving PC and starting a new life in “the real world.”  Considering that I, myself, realize that I will not be able to have such a care-free vacation again in the near future, I am wondering how all of the other seniors on campus feel about their last undergraduate spring break.  For those of you who would like to comment on how you feel about your last undergraduate vacation, this post is for you.  Please feel free to write about your last spring break at PC, and tell us how you feel about graduating in only two more months.

It’s Oscar time, and no I do not mean our wonderful Chilean guest at PC, but the more annoying award ceremony that decides to take several amazing films of the year and give only a handful the awards that they all deserve.  Here are the nominations (for categories people actually care about).

For Best Picture the nominees are Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air.

The Best Actor Nominees are Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up in the Air), Colin Firth (A Single Man), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker).

Best Supporting Actor Nominees include Matt Damon (Invictus), Woody Harrelson (The Messenger), Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), and Christopher Waltz (Inglourious Basterds).

For Best Actress we have Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Carey Mulligan (An Education), and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia).

The nominees for Best Supporting Actress are Penelope Cruz (Nine), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), and Mo’Nique (Precious…).

Finally, Animated Films: Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess and the Frog, The Secret of Kells, and Up.

Okay, so we have some interesting choices (The Blind Side?  Really?), and a few shattered expectations (10 BP nominations?).  I’m glad Up was nominated for Best Picture, the first animated film since Beauty in the Beast to pull that off.  Still, I’m not excited about the dang awards since the main problem with any award ceremony is that it forces people to pick one good movie when there are several good ones.  Take my advice, and see all of the movies nominated for Best Picture.

You all remember Proposition 8 right?  When the election was over and Obama was in office, there was one disappointment and that was the California masses who decided majority rule should decide a minority’s rights.  But it was all for the sake of preserving the sancitity of marriage, which cannot and should not be redefined (ignoring the fact that it already has been-I’m sure you might notice some discrepancy between how we practice marriage and how the Hebrews did over 2000 years ago).  So in the interest of protecting the sancity of marriage, John Marcotte wants to pass the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act, that bans divorce.  Hey, they said ’til death, didn’t they?

“I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more,”  said John Marcotte.  This is no joke.  About half of all marriages nationwide end in divorce.  It is a real problem, and we have a fine gentleman acting to protect the sanctity of marriage.  There are about 17,000 Facebook fans so far, and he has dozens of signatures on his petition.  It’s uncertain how California would react if it did make it to vote, but we’ll probably never know.  He needs nearly 700,000 more signatures by March to make it, and this usually costs a lot.

For those who supported Proposition 8, ask yourself a question.  If you’re really willing to sacrifice another’s right to protect traditional marriage, do you have a leg to stand on when someone comes looking for your rights?  For those who were as disappointed as I was that cold November morning last year (for the same reason–not Obama), join the club (on Facebook).  I’m certainly a fan.  If you disagree with this reasoning or have any other reductio ad absurdums for the protection of the sanctity of marriage, comment.

I was talking with my mother the other day about life at Presbyterian College and she expressed interest in the dating scene, to which Iresponded, what dating scene? When my parents met at PC, people dated. Boys asked girls who they thought were pretty or interesting out on dates and they went to dinner or coffee and got to know each other. And by going out with one guy for dinner or something, that guy would tell his friends if you were fun and then you would get more dates. However, nowadays, no one does that anymore. I asked Savannah Truesdale what she thought about the subject, and she responded as such: “I think it has a lot to do with technology, as cliche as that sounds. We surround ourselves with communication devices that inevitably limit communication. We’re so satisfied by texting someone that we rarely have a conversation with someone that we are actually interested it. Instant gratification at it’s best.” I agree with Savannah, because it seems to be that people can just get on facebook and read all the information they need to know about you without ever speaking to you in person. I mean, that is how I found my roommate, for example! Yet from all of this, we never get to know the person at all. Some people sound like total freaks from their facebook’s, yet are the coolest people ever in real life. I was scared to death before I moved into school last year because of what I read on facebook about one of my suitemates, who is now one of my best friends. Basically, what I am trying to say is, you can’t possibly get to know a person well enough from their facebook or from texting them even. There are no emotions conveyed without face-to-face contact. So get off the internet and go on a date. And don’t blame the economy either– you can just as easily get Springs to go and go on a picnic.

Since the beginning of Obama’s inauguration health care has been a main concern within the poltical realm. On one side there are those who claim that the potential approval of a national health care system would only succeed in taking our country one step closer to being a socialist nation. On the other side, however, there are those who say that a national heath care system is an absolute necessity. What do you think?

With that question being posed, I will take the honor of being the first one to write on the matter.

It is my honest belief that a national health care system is absolutely vital to the well being of our country. How can we call ourselves American if we let our fellow citizens go without a basic necessity for modern living? Every year 45,000 people die because they cannot afford to pay for healthcare. That being said, I would like to pose the following question: If, as most Americans claim, the political ideals of America are based on the ideal of Justice, then how could one possibly claim that national healthcare is something which must be avoided at all costs? Is it not a major act of injustice to deny many something which seems to be a real neccessity? Wouldn’t letting 45,000 Americans a year die because they cannot afford health care be something that is considered a pure injustice? All the citizens of our nation are morally obligated to give of ourselves in order to provide for the needs of others, and if we fail to recognize our obligation to others, then we fail to uphold what it means to be an American. A national health care system must, in order to uphold our American sense of morality, be approved and enacted.

Let the discussion begin!

Photo courtesy of  http://www.etftrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/medical-sign.jpg

Crap, here I go with another Campus article, is there no end in sight?  Probaby not, I still have to interview the new religion professor, and I’m not allowed to be funny with that one, but that actually probably means you’ll all like it more.  In case you’ve been living in a cave for you entire life (and if so, kudos that’s impressive, Nader would be proud I’m sure) Ralph Nader, three time presidential candidate (if you have been living in a cave, he didn’t win), spoke at PC.  You may have certain preconceived notions about him, but love’em or loath’em, Nader spoke out on green issues and called corporations out. 

In a nutshell, he spoke of the unseen violence committed by large corporations.  Personally, I don’t trust any word with more than three syllables, which could explain my distaste for all things republican, libertarian, and conservative.  If you want to poke holes in this joke just think democracy, homosexuality, and adenosine triphosphate–all of which I’m kosher with.  Where was I?  Oh yes, that guy I liked.  Ralph Nader also challenged preconceived ideas.  Nobody thinks of white-collar crime when they here the word “crime,” (unless you’re an obese rabble-rousing documentary maker with a new take on COPS–look it up) but it’s devastating.  War and street violence kill a fraction of those dead at the hands of money makers.  Welfare for the poor isn’t such a bad idea when you consider all the large corporations that are carried on the backs of the taxpayers.  Why do they need it?  You can argue they’re doing a service, but ultimately they’re in it for themselves, so they should use their own money.  There was a booksigning and Q&A session afterward followed by a luncheon provided–not by GDH and that’s the important thing, as well as another Q&A.  All in all, it was good fun–if you’re a liberal.

I’d like to take a small segue and talk about the book he wrote that MFB was selling at the front of the auditorium, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! written as a practical utopia, possible only through the knowledge and funding of America’s top billionaires.  I’m actually nigh-on halfway through, so I thought I’d insert a quick review so far.  It’s good.  It’s fun, it’s interesting, imaginative, though it’s not easy.  In other words, the cave-dwellers out there would not like it since he uses real people and expects some degree of savvy on the subject, and I a lowly bio-bumpkin do wish the concepts were a bit better explained.  Still, it’s better than Atlas Shrugged, partly because it’s shorter, but mostly because doesn’t have characters give 50-page long monologues on the theme…yet.  It’s obvious the point he’s trying to get across, and it also makes you think about what you could do, since he names all of these strategies and litanizes the evils of Wally World.

Off that segue.  Bottom line,  Nader was here.  As effective as he has been in legislating change (something anyone who knows the word Corvair can bitterly attest to), you can’t help get the feeling that he’ll forever be screwed if he stays in a third party.  Which begs the question, why only 2 parties.  That forces us to turn republican and democrat into umbrella terms.  Think if there were only two Christian religions, Roman Catholic and Protestant, how would you choose?  It’d be easy to find something you identify more with, but Protestant would contain Calvinists and Arminianists, biblical literalists and looser interpreters, pacifists and neoconservatives.   We need viable third parties, and electoral reform is the only way that can happen, since the winner take all forces umbrellization.  Also, please comment, I love to get the feeling my articles are being read.

Right under all of our noses America has already turned Socialist and many never even realized it. A gradual process spanning from the late 1800’s to today has created a society that many in the early 1900’s would agree is Socialism. Socialism even at its peak in America has never faired well in elections or with the general sentiments of the American public. Maybe it was the Red Scare and fighting the USSR or its the lack of a cap on the success of an individual in a laissez faire system but socialism has never had the foothold in America as it has had in many other sovereign, industrialized nations. Many people may not realize it but socialist candidates are not considered third party runners in many nations including most countries throughout Europe and even Canada. The last election to have a major socialist candidate in the United States was in 1912 with Eugene V. Debs.

The reason America would seem socialist by early 1900’s standards is by the platform that the socialist party of 1912 ran on. Many of the promises stated by Debs during his 1912 run for president have been carried out and still continue through this day and age.  Some of these promises include:

1)Eight hour work days

2)The conservation and development of natural resources

3)Establishing minimum wage

4)The separation of the Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor

5)Child labor laws

While it may seem like these aren’t much because we have been living with them all our lives, these are the issues socialists fought so hard to change in the early 20th century. Many other similarities include the rights of workers and universal suffrage for all citizens of the United States. While we may not think we live in a socialist society today, Debs would look at today and see a society that has progressively moved towards a more socialist agenda. Among his other promises includes the first time a universal healthcare plan was ever proposed in the US.

When looking back we can see that these issues have been debated and fought about for nearly 100 years. It makes you think that if so many policies from the socialist party have been enacted from 1912, how much farther can we go?

Most people have heard of the old saying that a million monkeys using a million type writers for a million years could write the complete works of Shakespeare just by random chance of key strokes. The mere thought of this can make people think that it is in no way possible to do this. Even a small sentence causes each probability of a certain keystroke to increase exponentially. Most believe the same principle applies when discussing a topic such as evolution. It could be argued that the probability of all these chemical and biological mechanisms adding up to what we have today is infintismally likely. To compare the types of probability in these situations is fundamentally different, though.

The monkey metaphor is highly improbable because the probability is adding up each time. We see the monkeys typing each key and each key has a certain probability of being hit. The idea of the monkeys being left in a room is improbable in itself because we have no prior knowledge to base this assumption on. The difference with evolution is that we actually have a situation to base our idea of the probability on. To really grasp the concept of evolution happening probability has to be looked at from the present to the past not vice versa.

The idea of looking backwards at probability can be explained by looking at a deck of cards. If four friends together are playing a card game and seven cards are dealt, the likely probability that those hands are dealt is extremely small.  Millions of possibilities are equally unlikely to occur but none the less one of them occurs each time. One may never see the same hands dealt to each person and the deck stacked in exactly the same way the rest of his or her life. The same can be said about evolution. By looking back at the evolution of species it is more pertinent to realize the millions and billions of other combinations and possibilities that could have occured. Like the deck of cards it is highly improbable that these events could occur but inevitably they did.

The concept of giving is an age-old concept that is preached from people with all sorts of political beliefs.  Most say that giving is certainly a good thing, which is rather hard to argue with.  The fact is, we all have a common bond as people and few of us would actually wish for a fellow man suffer.  Suffering comes from all sources:  economic problems, health problems, political persecutions or occupations by imperialist powers, just to name a few.  People help by giving in ways appropriate to the suffering.  I would like to focus on economic giving as a way to help our fellow man.

It is a fact that most of us will experience times of economic hardships.  Now, the degrees will vary, but all of us must make choices and allocate resources effectively.  For some, this may mean sacrificing a trip to the mall; for others, it may mean sacrificing a meal.  Most people try to help those in need, which is a good thing.  I’d like to make a point that perhaps people would be more willing to give if they were not forced to do it already.

I believe that even though we are a world of individuals, we are not so isolated that we have no concern for our fellow man.  However, when we are forcibly taxed at outrageous rates, our desire to help fellow man is reduced.  There are two reasons for this:  one, the government takes our hard-earned money (all of which is rightfully ours as it is a fruit of our labors) and two, a substantial portion of that money already goes to people in need (or just gaming the system).  Therefore, many of us look at the dismal sum left in our pockets, and decide that giving more is not really an option.    Taxes help to kill our desire as man to help our fellow man.

I propose that if we drastically cut taxes (and yes, slash government spending) for everybody, then there would be an upswing of giving to those truly in need.  And as a country, in a time of outrageous government expenditures, I’d say we are desperately in need of a reexamination of our roots.