Yellow Card

Your vote is meaningless if it merely bolsters the desires of a small privileged minority
-a sign a the Yellowcard concert

I went to a Yellowcard concert today. My coworker's friend randomly won two tickets from Utah Calendars and he doesn't like Yellow Card, so he gave me the tickets. He is my new hero. I went with my climbing buddy, who incidentally got kicked out for moshing. That sucked,but other than that it was a pretty decent show. The Starting Line and Days Away opened, along with another band that I really didn't like. Yellowcard is cool because they not only make good music but they at least try to get a message across and i think that they really mean it.
I'm headed 'home' to New York tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing my family. I would be sad that I'm missing out on the social scene here during the week where there are no classes to get in the way...but I'm sort of glad that I get to go home. It gives me a break from people and it gives people a break from me(which I think everyone needs a break from my wierd awkwardness from time to time).
If you're into indie emo music, you should check out Days Away. They are a little wierd and they're wierder live...but they play good music.

Homesickness

I don't have anywhere to call home anymore. It isn't even like when I go home I see familiar places. I go home and I see new places. When I go to the familiar places, there aren't any familiar people to go along with them. It's pretty sad actually. I miss this imaginary place, this place that will never come back and now only exists in my memory. I can't get over it.
I don't understand why the collective displeasure with christmas advertisement has failed to stop advertisers from doing it midway through November. It just adds to my general feeling of homesickness. I mean, I'm going home for thanksgiving and christmas, but it's just not the same thing as it once was. Being an 'adult' has its benefits. For example, I can sit on my bed writing on my computer at three in the morning. But at the same time, being a kid is appealing too. As a kid you basically have no responsibility. Now I have responsibilty but I'm not responsible so there's a lot of stress involved. I'm responsible for getting enough sleep, but I don't so I'm really tired all day long. It's an interesting dilemma. I will never be a kid ever again, and that realization has stressed me out a bit as I had defined myself too much as a kid. I still have yet to define myself as an adult.
Tonight was rather dissapointing. I got home from work at nine determined to go to a party or something interesting. But the night passed on and all I did was watch Garden State by myself. Oh well. At least I already have plans for tomorrow.

The Cosby Show and Life...

11:43 AM I'm watching the Cosby Show right now.
3:03 PM It is funny, I sat down to write a post at home and so I wrote that I was watching the Cosby Show, because I was. But now, I'm not. So I'm tempted to erase what I've written, but I'm going for the flow of conciousness writing style. Whatever it is that I think, I'm going to write down. Now I'm sitting in the wilk eating a bbq chicken sandwich and IMing my friend who's in France. I'm contemplating doing my statistics assignment for my Political Science Class, but doing homework is overrated. Sometimes when I'm on campus I just....can't remember what I was going to write. Sometimes when people sit down next to me and I hear their conversation I just want to butt in, but I know it would be incredibly awkward so I just stay quiet. These BBQ chicken sandwiches used to be pretty darn good, but I think that I have out-BBQ chicken sandwiched myself.
I took my spanish clepping test today. Took fifteen minutes and I got a 93%. I was pretty stoked. When I was in eighth grade I bought the Suicide Machines cd. The cover is just the band rocking out and the singer is wearing these black Etnies with white Es on them. I resisted buying them for 7 years but I finally had to buy them this past weekend. I would have felt weak, but after I went in to the store to buy them, I found out that they were on sale. So both my wanting them for years and the fact that they were on sale contributed to my eventual decision to purchase them.
3:33 PM Still here in the Wilk and I just realized that the piano that I just looked all over for is like twenty feet in front of me. Shocking. Anyways, I just looked at the title of this post and realized that I should say something about the Cosby Show. I really think that we need a new show like that. I think that if you watch that show enough, you can learn some seriously good parenting techniques from Cliff and Claire Huxtable. There are christmas decorations in the wilk. There is something seriously wrong with that. It's not even the twenties yet. crazy-ness.

Watching movies with girls

Watching movies with girls has to be the most pointless endeavour ever invented. I mean really. What's the point of dating? To get to know girls better. So sitting there in the dark watching other people talk is really no way to get to know people. I watched a movie with this girl I like tonight. I wish I hadn't. Not because anything happened in the dark- we were sitting on opposite sofas - but because I think I wasted an opportunity to get to know her better and instead we both got to know Ben Stiller and Jack Black a little better. Watching movies with people is a waste of time spent together. I wish I was more creative. Then I wouldn't feel so stupid after having successfully asking a girl out.

Recognizable Face

Tonight I was in the walmart parking lot. And I said something in spanish to my buddy, cause he knows spanish and for some reason its cool to talk in spanish. Or maybe it isn't, but I do it anyways because I'm terribly uncool. Anyways...this kid who's like twenty feet away if not more, started staring at me. And then he yells out...'You from New Jersey?'. So I answer, 'Yeah'. And then he says that he knows me. And it was true. I knew him from scout camp when we were both kids. So, apparently I have a really recognizable face. Or so it appears.
I'm really questioning what my purpose here is. I know that I am here to work for my salvatiion and everything, but I feel that I should do something more significant with my life and I am struggling to figure out what is significant. I thought I had an idea of what that was, but now I am questioning if I was right about that. I could just go about my life doing insignificant things and I would probably be happy. But, I just have this feeling that I need to do something that will help people. Lots of people. but I just don't know where to start. It frustrates me that it is so difficult to determine what will really help people. Lots of people try, but there is a lot of vagueness about what is really good and what is just good intentions

Hollywood

Our lives are dull. This is why the entertainment industry has business. We all want to escape and pretend that our lives are interesting. We need to pretend that our lives have meaning and that we can be beautiful and strong and skilled and be so much better than the other guy that we make him look stupid and ignorant. We need to believe that there is something out there more interesting and important than the 9-5 monotony of daily life. When we watch an action movie, we don't take what the guys who get beaten up feel like. I always feel bad for them. I think that if I was an action figure...I'd wind up like them. Well, I would like to be like Jason Bourne, but then I think that maybe I would really be like the guy he kills with a pen.
I went to the Final Cut Film Festival tonight. It was fun. The movies were ok. Some better than others. A guy from my ward was in the funniest movie. Jon Heder, from Napoleon Dynamite was in another. There was this one film about a crazy mortician. There was this one scene and the mortician was trying to close his eye because he had some disease that didn't let him close it. It was a very frustrating scene. Come to think of it, one time I couldn't open my eye for like..three days because I got into poison ivy. It was frustrating and maybe that's why it frustrated me more than the people I saw it with.
On a separate note, a hotel workers' strike in Sa n Francisco made my Arabic professor postpone our midterm. I was happy as I didn't study and I now have two more days to study.

If I agreed with my political heritage professor, this would be an example of the flaws of modern liberal democracy. It's funny even though it's not true. 

Universalism

Today I was accused of being a universalist about politics. And I am. There should be a focus on truth during the campaign season. Campaigns shouldn’t ‘spin’ or anything like it. There is a need for universalism and truth in politics. When we analyze the merits of one candidate or another, we should be focused on what is good for the country, and not on what is good for us and our party. Politics is corrupt in America and the system doesn't help us. This country is not a democracy. We are ruled by an oligarchy that ignores us. The exorbitant costs and the deception which accompany campaigning have built this oligarchy. This deception supports only fear and loathing and supports the interests of the rich oligarchs in lieu of serving the interests of the majority.
It is interesting that throughout the campaign the president refused to admit errors, and yet as soon as the election ended, he started making changes in his cabinet staff, implying error. It does no good to have an election process that forces the candidates to lie just to get elected. This system doesn't allow us to see candidates for what they are. They make campaign promises and then do the opposite once they are in office. This causes us to be dissatisfied with both political parties. The election process in this country merely wastes time and money. It infuriates me that the last two years have been spent so futilely. These have been two years of lies from both sides. What a pointless and disheartening endeavor.

Consumerism at its corruptive peak 

Once Again, the media sucks

I was watching Dayside because my friend told me to watch it. This vapid lady was talking to people about how the Democrats need to re-invent their party because they have lost touch with the American people. What is she thinking? 48% of voters voted for Senator Kerry. That's almost half. So apparently the Republicans are in touch with 3% more of America than Democrats are. Basically, this election is a result of good campaigning by the Republicans. We aren't talking about landslide victories here. We're talking about a 3% difference. And yet it's somehow a crisis. They don't need to re-invent themselves- they just need to learn how to campaign.
This goes to the root of the problem with American politics. There is no focus on real issues. The campaign propaganda instead sought to portray each candidate's opponent as something that they weren't. There was a concerted effort by both sides to take credit for everything good in this world and blame their opponent for everything bad. I couldn't watch the news for more than five minutes without recognizing false arguments and logical fallacies from both sides. And yet they go unchallenged. There is no quest for truth. We managed to elect a man who was an alcoholic until his fortieth birthday, whose brother got divorced partly because of infidelity, and whose daughters have both been charged because they were using alcohol as minors. I could understand and I would be willing to ignore those facts if we had done this because of his superior policies and whatever else. Yet we elected him because he supposedly stands for moral values. I don't understand.

Truth and Evil Political Parties

I am no longer a fan of cable news networks. All of them. I am predisposed to dislike Fox News as I despise Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, but I really couldn't stand Dan Rather and Wolf Blitzer on election night. It infuriated me that they refused to admit that Kerry had lost. And the way that Wolf Blitzer jumped on the soldiers' refusal to go on a convoy as a possible political message really bothered me as well. I just wish that we didn't have to see the world through these red and blue glasses. By the way, apparently the red and blue is new from 2000. I remember watching the 2000 election coverage and thinking that the colors were all wrong. I thought that Democrats convey more of a red feeling than Republicans. Back to the topic at hand. We deserve better news coverage. We need news services which focus on truth. I shouldn't have to have so much patience just to sift through the spin and lies which are so rampant in politics. I shouldn't have to be so cynical. Reporting the news should not be motivated by partisanship but by a sincere desire to inform the public. Jon Stewart made some very good points as a guest on crossfire[Transcript]. I know you're thinking...'he's talking about truth and Jon Stewart in the same sentence?'. But seriously. Jon Stewart had the chusma to go on CNN and tell them what they should be doing. And I agree with him entirely. This election was based on things other than the truth and the news networks are largely responsible.
Partisan politics will be the end of us. Politicians have told us for two years that their opponent is basically the human incarnation of infinite evil. And now i'm supposed to support one of them as a Senator and the other as President because the ex-candidates are calling for healing. How is that possible? How am I supposed to forget all of the bad things said about each of them? I have been on the verge of tears today because I can't get into the post-election mindset. I can't understand that it is over and I can't get a grasp on what I should do now.
We need and deserve socially responsible candidates who are willing to determine what is honestly in the best interest of the country and not candidates who are willing to do whatever they can to discredit their opponents and remain in power. Our entire concept of campaigning is dangerous. We call ourselves a democracy, but I don't see how 51%-49% constitutes a democracy. That means that 49% of the people in this country felt strongly enough against George Bush that they voted against him.
Once again, I'm thinking too deeply for this time of night.

Running, Elections and Truth

I went running today. I went running yesterday too. Unfortunately, I had not gone out for a run in a while, and it has definitely been a very long time from the last time I worked out two days in a row. Hopefully tomorrow will be day number three.
I woke up this morning and immediately turned on the television to make sure that nothing bad had happened yet. We did well. A few false alarms in Pennsylvania, but as far as I can tell, it went smoothly. I voted for the first time ever. It was an interesting experience. There were a couple things that I was not aware of, such as voting for justices to continue being justices.
I am just realizing that so much of what i have been focusing on for the last two months; namely the positions and character traits of John Kerry and George Bush, is completely irrelevant. I do not know what I am going to do for fun now. Seriously, I am on the verge of tears. Not neccesarily because of the results( although the results are not to my liking)- but because all of these things that I know that are now forever useless. And the sad part is that these things were important and I felt it my civic duty to know them. So it is not as if I was memorizing video game statistics or something equally unimportant. And yet, these things are now on that level.
Truth...is too big a topic to tackle at 12.51 in the morning when I have a paper due tomorrow and an arabic midterm on friday. I promise that I will do it in my next post (not sure who I am promising this to, as I only know of two people who have read this and that is because I told them to).

This is from the 1980s, but I think it's still relevant today. 

FHE and Voting

Tommorrow is FHE(Family Home Evening). This is the second year that I am FHE group leader. This means that I have to develop creative ideas each and every week. Last week we carved pumpkins with another group. It was fun. Definitely fun. Planning FHE is just so difficult though. You have to make sure that everyone is happy. I'm not good at planning my own activities, so planning for 18 people is just that much more difficult. But it's all good. A learning experience if you will. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Two different bishops have called me to the same calling. It's the only calling I've had in a student ward and I bet I'll have it until I learn how to do it well.
Tuesday is election day. If you don't know who to vote for: don't vote. I really oppose voting in ignorance. It is irresponsible to vote on anything but issues. If you don't feel that one candidate will perform better than another; don't vote. If you are voting solely because of party loyalty: don't vote. Basically, unless you have a good idea what's going on in Washington, you don't have any business voting. It might seem harsh, but really, if you haven't studied for a test, you might as well not take the test because all you're going to do is fail miserably(from personal experience). You would be better served by taking the time you would be taking to vote and studying up on one position and writing a letter to your congressman or senator expressing your opinion. When people say that you are exercising your power by voting, it's a half-truth. You exercise your power more by making yourself heard. Voting for a candidate who sort of shares your positions isn't as powerful as making the politicians know that you mean business and that you want a good steward leading the country.