Are you a bigot?

Imagine this...thousands of people are on "The Oasis of the Seas", which is currently the largest cruise ship. On board there are eight men wearing traditional clerical garb, so the passengers assume there must be a Catholic meeting taking place. However, these eight men ultimately blow up the ship and kill most of the passengers on board. Wow...what a depressing way to initiate a post. Now ponder this, if you were getting on a cruise ship after this event and saw men who appeared to be priests, would you be apprehensive?

The reason posed this example is because a political commentator, Juan Williams, was fired by NPR because he stated that he still feels uneasy when he gets on a plane and sees people wearing the traditional muslim clothing. The rationale behind his firing is that his comments were offensive. Thus, this got me thinking. Is it irrational to be nervous or apprehensive because something or someone reminds you of an extremely traumatic event? Juan did not state that muslim made him apprehensive or that he had any problem with muslims, just merely that he felt uneasy in the abovementioned situation. Now, I am not sure if many/any of my 2 readers know who Juan Williams is, but he is a left leaning commentator who also appears on Foxnews, primarily on the O'Reilly Factor. If you have any history of watching him, you would realize that he is about as open-minded as a person could be. So, my question to you, was NPR justified in firing Juan? Were his comments hateful and inappropriate? Or, was he putting forth an opinion that millions of people share, but are not willing to admit?

Voting Season

Well, we are less than one week from voting again, and I have an ambivalent attitude toward most of the candidates. I do know that I will vote for Prop. 1, which will provide funding to the Utah Museum of Natural History. The family and I went there last weekend and saw how run-down the building is, and Stacy and I would like to see an upgrade for our children. I am not here to discuss my polictical view, but would like to bring up a topic that could be viewed quite differently in our kids' generation, depending how voting goes next week in California.

In California Prop. 19 has been introduce, which will legalize marijuana for the state. I was reading an article last night from Newsweek that discusses how more conservatives are jumping onboard its legalization. The article discusses a devote Catholic woman who was a strong opponent against legalization, until her son suffered a severe spinal injury, and marijuana was one of the only drugs that helped him function. Well, her son ultimately started a school in California, "Oaksterdam University", that is devoted to studying pot, and is now a millionaire. Anyhow, I just thought I would bring up the topic and find out people's opinions on the subject of legalization because I am curious to see what unfolds in our lifetime and be able to look back on this post and see if any thoughts come to fruition.

Right to Life

So, I am in my final quarter of graduate school. For a class I am currently taking I have been given a writing assignment of advocating for the Governer of Nebraska in an on-going debate about whether to provide prenatal healthcare to undocumented immigrants. The governer is taking the position that all illegal immegrants should not have access to any resources since they are in the country illegally. Conversely, the pro-life advocates are taking the stance that a child born in the U.S. is considered a legal citizen regardless of his/her parent's status, and thus prenatal care should be provided to decrease costs associated with premature births and other varing ailments. Well, the intent of my post is not to discuss my assignment, but to put forth the question of, how can someone not be pro-life? Here is a brief description of what is done to an unborn child..."second and third trimester abortions utilize an instrument with sharp metal jaws to grasp parts of the child's body, tear it away from the uterine wall, and the child's head must be crushed." This is of course from an article from someone taking a biased pro-life stance. However, having two children of my own, I cannot fathom doing this to what I consider to be a living person. Maybe may view is obscure, however, if you have been to any doctor's appointments and seen your child's heartbeat, could you envision doing those things to said child? I doubt not. Anyway, this is my rant for the day because I could not stop thinking about the article.

Drastic Change

This morning I did something drastic...I deactivated my facebook account. The last few days I have pondered doing this, and it hit me, why do I waste so much time reading other people's status when I could be writing about my life or my family's? If I were to look back on life ten or twenty years from now, would I really remember anything that was posted on facebook? My answer is, not likely. Thus, I decided I would spend more time blogging and creating memories that my family and I can look back on years later. While some people may ask, why not do both? My answer to this question is...because it will take too much time away from my family and doing something meaningful with my life. For example, I was reading posts on facebook prior to deactivation, and noticed that I continually see posts from the same people, and the posts are usually ubiquitous and quite dull in all honesty. I am not trying to sound like an ass, but too many people spend too much of their life posting about life's mundane events, instead of doing something worthwhile. I find it diffiult to believe that these same people are going to be pleased with their choices later in life when they finally realize how much time was wasted posting on facebook or reading about other's memories instead of making their own. Hence, I am trying to be more proactive, and make changes so I do not become that person. So, look out blogspot, you will be seeing much more of me in the future.

Stereotypes

During this morning I was listening to 94.9 Zrock as I do on most Saturday runs. Today I realized I hear the same commercials that annoy me every weekend. So, this caused me to focus on the type of commercials that were being broadcast. What I noticed is that many were related to hiring an attorney or a bailbonds man. One attorney even specializes in defending DUI's. Boy, he must be proud. After listening to these commercials for a few minutes I thought, wow, some stereotypes must be true because why else would advertisers spend so much money targeting one specific group if the stereotype didn't pan out. The stereotype I am referring to here is that rockers tend to consume drugs and alcohol, which leads to DUI's and needing to be bailed out of jail. Additionally, I would assume is the most common evening for drinking after a long hard week of manual labor. I know all of this is just my opinion, but it sure makes sense to me why these commercials are playing on Saturday morning on this particular station.

To confirm my assumption I decided to switch stations to something more reputable. My intention was to listen to 97.9 the Breeze, however, that station is no longer and is currently call "Now", and plays pop culture type music. I listened anyway, and noticed that this station was playing traditional type commercials like obtaining home loans, getting rid on wrinkles, and buying roses for Valentine's Day. So, my assumption panned out.

While there are many untrue stereotypes, I firmly believe that many are true and for a very good reason... to make rich who can afford to advertise richer, and to amuse the rest of us.

What a decade!

During my run this morning I was listening to kbul 93.3. They were playing the top forty songs of the last decade. One particular song got me thinking - "There Goes My Life" by Kenny Chesney. I am not sure why it got me thinking, it's not like I haven't heard the song dozens of times before. But, this time it was something different, and I think it has to do with recent changes, and my resolutions for this year. The song caused me to reflect on changes that have occured in the last ten years, while I would like to reflect on all of them, I don't think it's practical for my blog to become an acutal memoir, so I will focus on one significant event that I feel contributed to all the others.

Most people don't know, but when Y2k began I was going through one of the most difficult periods of my life. At the time I was working a dead-end manual labor job, which led to much stress and ultimately - panic attacks. So, here I was celebrating a new millenium in my bed because I had so much anxiety I was afraid to face the world and had developed agoraphobia. While this was a difficult time for me, this is also what caused me to change my life for the better, and I can attribute this time frame to much of my present motivations. This panic ridden period propelled me to make changes in my life, such as go back to school and change jobs, which subsequently led to meeting my lovely wife, and the creation of two wonderful children. While I may have met Stacy even if I was not in college, my guess is that nothing would have materialized had I not been pursuing an education, since she was also pursuing higher education at the time. In addition, when I finally won my battle with panic disorder, it gave me so much confidence that I was willing to attempt anything, i.e., like approaching Stacy in the first place, which is something I was not accustomed to.

While "There Goes My Life" is about the birth of a girl changing a young man's life, this song caused me to think about my youngest daughter, and how she likely would not be here had I not had all of those panic attacks. Thus, although it has taken me ten years to say it...THANK YOU anxiety, you are inadvertantly responsible for the most precious things in my life.

Renaissance

This year I have decided to make monumental changes in my life and perspective. As many of you may have also experienced, last year was a difficult one emotionally. There were many changes that occured that were quite stressful. Although many of the changes in my life were due to pleasantries; the birth of Audra, purchasing our first home, starting graduate school. There were also many other experiences that were equally as taxing that were not so pleasant: downfall of the economy, which led to many friends being laid off, and a constant reminder that I too could lose my job at any minute. I wish this last sentiment were not true, but unfortuneately it is reality. Do to this unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach, I have decided to alter my behaviors for this coming year. To do this I felt that a couple changes needed to be made. First, I have stopped drinking alcohol for an indefinite period of time. I feel that by doing this I should have more energy and focus to accomplish my resolutions and maybe even more. Second, I have altered my eating habits. I used to avoid eating vegetables as much as possible. However, this year I am going to be diligent in consuming the recommend amount, the same is true for fruits, I just don't have a difficult time eating them. While these may not sound like such an undertaking, if you know me well you know that I consume 1-2 alcoholic beverages every evening, and rarely eat vegetables. I feel that by accomplishing these two feats I will have more energy and better health to fufill my other 7 resolutions listed on Facebook. If you have not read those resolutions, two of them relate to running (run 2 marathons and 1100 miles), which is why I am addressing these changes here. Therefore, here we go on a new journey, and I intend to make 2010 one of those life-altering years - in a positive way of course.