Spreken ze whatever.

I love trying to learn a language. The sense of listening to English and automatically knowing, without having to translate from a basic, a medium; but when your learning another language you struggle to translate from English as others try to translate from their basic, their medium. It’s like dunking your head in water, passing into something else, something foreign and you know that others are doing the same thing when they try to talk to you in something other than their native language. It’s annoying when the other speaks so quickly that you struggle to pick up the translations and miss the proverbial or literal boat but it’s worth it to know that now you possess the ability to speak to an entirely new culture of people, people that can educate you in things that you may want or need to know.

And there’s that little bit about speaking in another language to a person that doesn’t understand it.

But mostly the culture thing.

Support Our Troops! They will need it.

Dear God this is terrible. Injured troops in Fort Benning, Georgia deemed unfit for combat are being sent to Iraq to fill the gaps in the regiment. Men and women with medical problems have had their profiles examined and changed by a medical team commissioned by Lt. Col. George Appenzeller and downplayed the soldiers injuries without any physical examinations or extensive view of medical records so that they could be sent overseas. One soldier, Master Sgt. Jenkins, is 42 years old and has had surgery to fix back problem he acquired overseas in which they fused three vertebras in his neck and the regular doctor has said that he is not allowed to wear heavy Kevlar or carry ordinance is being sent overseas where he would be required to do this.

When the Appenzeller, the CO, was asked about this he said that they had changed some of the files to keep soldier home which was contradictory to what the soldiers and the files themselves say. He said in response that our soldiers are and quote, “ our most important resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country.” PEOPLE ARE NOT RESOURSES AND SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS SO! THEY ARE NOT EXPENDABLE; THEY CANNOT BE CAST ASIDE! These brave men and women served their country and were injured doing so, you have to take care of them not push them back into battle. The guidelines for not being sent over were not being able to fire a weapon or not being able to dive and roll for cover. I’m once again disappointed, oh well.

Opinion: Structured

So yesterday I was sitting and watching the news with my grandfather. We ended up watching ABC because there was nothing good on PBS (which is weird because there usually is) and on came a segment about atheists “attacking” the American religious complex. Though I saw the point of view of the atheists that were presented to be almost as extreme as the fundamentalists themselves, I.E.- blatantly referring to religion as superstition, I could understand where they’re coming from. The separation between church and state is needed in order to have not just a balanced judicial system but also a fair executive branch. Well, back to what I was talking about before. I lost some respect for ABC on this report because of their sloppy polling, like placing atheists in the same margin as agnostics when they differ greatly. An agnostic isn’t sure what to believe, whether or not there is a higher power or deity, or if they do believe in such a thing it doesn’t follow the mold of major religion and highly respect that because it takes a lot more thought and self-analysis to come up with your own philosophy than to regurgitate what someone else told you and no matter what you believe or think, so long as you came about these beliefs this way nobody can rightly call you wrong or ignorant.


“Religion is the opium of the masses.”
-Karl Marx