Fresh Baked Bits: Anthem to the Outcast in All of Us

Fresh Baked Bits: Anthem to the Outcast in All of Us: Every senior at our high school is invited to write a commencement speech. The following speech was written by my daughter....

The Politics of Pot.

Yesterday I watched a video called "The Pot Republic." It was about Canabis related businesses and talked about Proposition 215 which they explained as being a very easy process consisting of filling out a form, $100 for a wristband that says you're legal and a short visit with a doctor. That sounds pretty simple for something that the government doesn't necessarily condone. Oakland was the first city that auctioned of grow licenses, 4 of them. People are starting to call whats going on in California as the "Green Rush" relating it to the Gold Rush which also took place in California. Although the politics of pot are currently at a stalemate.

Marijuana: A Short History of Changes in Law and Public Opinion

Marijuana: A Short History of Changes in Law and Public Opinion

It's interesting how different public opinion is now than it was years go during my parents childhood. I predict it won't be long until pot is legal in Illinois. If the government were to legalize marijuana I believe that there would be far more benefits than consequences to doing so. Jails wouldn't be so swamped for one thing. Plus the government could regulate the hell out of it!! Monitoring grow fields and the cultivation of the plant and then taxing it all over the place. What the government should do is make cigarettes illegal and replace that industry with the marijuana business. The outcome from such a thing would be higher cooperation between people within the country, more of us would get along with one another, and the country would probably get along better with other country's as well. All in all everyone would be happier and peace would spread all over the place for years and years to come.

A New Beginning

As my last college tour is coming to an end and my plans for after high school have pretty much been figured out I realized how ready I am for something so totally different from what I have known for the past 17 almost 18 years. Deerfield and Tuscaloosa are two very very different community's, different lifestyles, different people. It's a big change but change is good. There's a lot of rich history all over Alabama and its amazing. I hope I get the opportunity to take a class on the civil war and the civil rights movement while I'm at the university even though I've taken courses at DHS which have covered both topics but I'm curious to see if either are taught different in the south versus what's taught in the north. I'll be exposed to so many new people who are different than me and I want to learn everything I can about as much as I can over the next four years.

Hidden Bias

After taking three different IAT tests and the results from each I don't think that these tests are an accurate way to determine a hidden bias. But with the slight exception of the Fat Thin test which I think was better able to detect a hidden bias due to the subject matter because fat and thin are easily seen. Although I would probably get a slightly different result if i were to take the same test a different time, since I had just finished completing two other IAT tests which tested using the same format so maybe I was already use to pushing the i and e keys when I saw the words on the screen which were the same for the other tests. It was a fun and interesting experiment despite my thoughts towards its inability to accurately capture a persons bias but it was something new and different and I enjoyed it.

Talking Education

In Obama's State of the Union Address earlier this year he emphasized practical education in addition to academic achievement. He proposed an expansion in early childhood education which hold a very high importance. The idea if this proposal is to provide high quality pre-k for 4 year olds from families whose incomes are at or below 200% of the poverty line, at or below $47,000 for a family of 4. Studies have shown what early stimulation and education can be highly effective for your children. The program aims to create a greater equality of opportunity for youths to succeed and go far with their education, starting in pre-k. The organisation of Economic Co-operation and development (OECD) concluded in their 2012 report that early childhood education "improves children's cognitive abilities, helps to create a foundation for life long learning, makes learning out comes more equitable, reduces poverty and improves social mobility from generation to generation." Americas poor children suffer more than Europe's from malnutrition which affects the ability to learn. Malnutrition is a product of poverty. The US is far behind other countries in terms of educational performance. Pre school really can give children significantly better lives but only if the teachers are well trained and held to rigorous performance standards, ensuring that children receive the proper education and the level of education they rightly deserve. When pre school programs are well designed and staffed by trained teachers they can be the single best intervention to breaking the cycle of chronic poverty which affects a number of families and children across the nation.

College drinking

I think it's amazing how someone could want to drink so much on a regular basis that they can't remember half the thing that try do most weekends. I don't understand why drinking such excessive amounts of alcohol is viewed as a fun thing to do with friends or other people and why people in college and high school drink and drink as much as they do weekend after weekend. There's nothing wrong with having a couple of drinks but people need to know when enough is enough but no one ever learns from others mistakes.

Rape on College Campuses

Lately I have heard more and more stories of women being rapped and drugged and taken advantage of in college. And I am and have always been very aware of the danger that vulnerability can put a person in. I know never to leave my drink unattended or accept a drink from a stranger or walk around at night all alone, sober or not on a college campus and just in general. I've always been taught and thought that bad things rarely happen when you're doing the right thing and when you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Talking to my cousin, who is a freshman and Mizzou, he told me multiple different story's of times when girls were found laying in the bushes half naked and passed out and his frat brothers attempted to help this girl who they didn't know and they had no idea what happened to her. Different story but even more frightening is that his friend was in the library one night studying for a test and got up to go to the bathroom and left her stuff where she was sitting. During this time that she was away from her studying someone put something in her water bottle and she didn't know that when she returned from the bathroom and drank from her water bottle. The next thing she remembered was waking up in an unfamiliar place not being able to remember how she got from the library to where she now was. She went right to the hospital, had a rape kit done and found out that she had been rapped. This is a girl who was doing the right thing, studying in the library. It sickens me to think that there are so many people out there who are capable of drugging people just to take advantage of them.

I'm Special....

Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity by Hal Niedzviecki #2

In addition to wanting and trying to become a “special” person, or known for doing something or being someone, the “I’m Special” lifestyles that we see celebrities living makes us crave what ever it is they have even more. As Niedzviecki writes about this phenomenon of celebrity status and this goal of being/becoming someone special, I have begun to see a pattern in how he describes the how and why people are affected so much by certain things and why they do certain things. These are all efforts to become something other than themselves. More of this and a bigger this and a different that. Having certain things makes people feel special, of course it does, but the need and struggle to reach that celebrity status and be that special is something I’ve found very overwhelming. Niedzviecki says, “This material all promotes a whole new relationship to the self: a philosophy of “I’m Specialism,” a belief that not only do we want to live in fancy houses and drive fancy cars like pop stars to, but we also desire their all-powerful sense of self, the validation they exude just by being who they are.” We want what ever it is that we see that celebrity’s have and they have what they have because they are special. Peop0le see this and feel that they need what ever it is in order to reach the same level and be as special as that celebrity on TB. As Madonna puts it “we are living in a material world,” and it’s becoming a growing problem. That is because as a society our focus is being taken away from more important things and problems which material possessions, money, and celebrity statues are not going to fix. 

"Where We Are Now"

Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity by Hal Niedzviecki #1

Part One: "Where We Are Now"

Part one discusses the issues currently consuming the everyday person on their quest to become their, very own person. Original, unique, and one of a kind. But while attempting to be as unique and as “special” as possible, certain things are beginning to take a back seat, being more of an after thought. Traditions are being rewritten, religions are redefining and rewriting themselves, and what success means and what it symbolizes and what symbolizes it. Niedzviecki writes: 

“This is the new conformity: part sociological phenomenon, part (pop)cultural practice, part challenge to the old orthodoxies of institutional expertise, and part expansion of an me-first agenda long promised by the abundances of techno-capitalism.”

Different people want to be special in different ways, seeking celebrity status any way they can. Today, society says that you can become a celebrity for almost anything. Niedzviecki says, “Where once scandal might have embarrassed those included, today it is welcomed as a way to get noticed.” Describing those who become famous for something they did which in reality they should be more so ashamed of. 

“If there is a single constant in the emergence of individuality as the new conformity, it is the ubiquitous preserve of celebrity” he writes. Celebrity doctors, celebrity chefs, celebrity entrepreneurs are just a few of the examples Niedzviecki gives as being new celebrity categories. He gives these examples as evidence to his argument that there exist more celebrities today than ever before and despite that fact, new categories of celebrities are popping up increasingly. 

The beginning of this book points out what nobody wants and has wanted to hear before and that is that it is almost impossible to be 100% special or unique and that many people try so hard to achieve that level of status that becomes less and less unique as people catch on. Everyone wants to be able to say that they are special, thus causing people to search for more, new, and different routes or ways that will allow them to be the person, the “special” person they want so much to be. But a reacurring problem conflicting with achieving the “I’m Special” status we all seek, is that there is always something could be better or something more that would help us and make us better and more special.