National anthems

I have come up with a new habit. Well, maybe not that new, but it has gotten worse. Yes, it's true, I listen to national anthems for fun. Whenever someone asks me how many anthems I have on my iPod, I will invariably answer, "Only eight." Even worse, I blast them out of my iPhone on my bus rides home, and occasionally I will break out into song. My friend Xavier says that I'm the nerdiest kid in the world; a claim I cannot dispute.

In case you were wondering, the eight best national anthems (the ones on my iPod) are as follows (country in parentheses unless obvious):

8. O Canada

7. God Defend New Zealand

6. Samoan national anthem

5. Hatikvah (Israel)

4. Russian national hymn

3. İstiklâl Marşı (Turkey)

2. Mongolian national anthem

1. Jana Gana Mana (India)

Now, anyone observant (or any-freaking-body I tell about my national anthem kick) should notice a very notable anthem that I excluded. That's right, I love my country, but with all due respect, our anthem is horse shit. Not only is it an incredibly dull melody, but the words suck too. I'm sorry, but America the Beautiful is way better. The star spangled banner talks about our flag, and rockets, and bombs. Seriously. I'm usually a big hawk about God references in national material (such as the pledge of allegiance, to which end, I do not recite the "under God" line, or the BS motto of our country), but even though America the Beautiful has God references in it, it's still better than a dude looking at our flag to make sure it doesn't get blown up. Maybe it's my hatred of English class, but I want symbolism to go fucking die, and the flag is just that. Call me a curmudgeon, but I don't think that the great parts of our country have anything to do with a piece of cloth. If it helped America to burn a million flags, I would do it. Anyway, I have composed new lyrics that better show our need for another anthem. Something I learned in the process is that Francis Scott Key's rhyme structure is diabolical.

Oh say can you see,

how this anthem does suck?

What so proudly we hail

o'er America's wellbeing.

Whose dull tune and false words

make true patriots say "fuck."

And does not take account

of our nation's forseeing

For false national pride makes our interests collide

for this anthem sucks, we should give it to Canada.

Refudiate that Star Spangled Banner that tune

to the land of maple leaves, and the home of the loon.

If we can't switch to America the Beautiful, we could also change the words in one of the eight best. I guess our exceptionalism wouldn't allow it, but it would be a vast improvement over our terrible anthem. By the way, Francis Scott Key's poem is not bad if it considered to be a poem about a flag (and I hate poetry), but in terms of encompassing our country enough to qualify as a good national anthem, I don't think so. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my rant. I actually wasn't planning on this being about our national anthem, nor was I plannign to write poetry (EGAD!), but I guess that's how rants work...

My MLK day

I'm often asked what my favorite holiday is. I often struggle with that question, but I usually decide that my favorite holiday is Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Well, not really. In fact, I don't think I've ever said that, but I made that decision this MLK day. I decided that for a few reasons. First of all, Martin Luther King, Jr. is almost certainly my favorite historical figure ever. I don't know how many thousand times I've seen his "I Have a Dream" speech, but I still get huge chills every time I see it. I really know very few African American people, unfortunately (a common nickname for my city is Lake No Negro), but of course I support full rights for them. I remember in preschool, untainted by society, I wondered why people were racist, since you can't choose your skin color. How can a 6 year-old understand that, but not a 60 year-old? But I think that King was about more than just Black rights. He had a dream that one day, black people and white people, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics could join hands and say, "Free at last!" He was unique in that he harbored no hard feelings against white people in general (when I was 6, I was basically wondering what the fuck white people were smoking, and that we were absolute assholes, which was kind of ironic since we were all white). That is the spirit of his I have a dream speech. The other thing is that he didn't expect special treatment. One line in his famous speech even mentions his dream of going to jail together with white people. My favorite line in the speech that I think sums up the whole thing is, "I have a dream that one day my four little children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." (I got the chills a little just typing that). What better way to sum it up.

So anyway, Martin Luther King day (since 2000, a holiday in all 50 states... Thanks Utah!) has now become a national day of service. The president left his whole president gig to paint apples on the wall of a school cafeteria, for example. As for me, my Jew leadership group had our annual MLK day "retreat." We started off the day by going to the Children's Book Bank, which is a truly wonderful organization that takes donated children's books and distributes them to low income kids. In low-income areas, there is an average of one book per 300 children. That is absolutely horrifying. And not having books in early childhood years is hugely detrimental to their academic success, their imaginations, and even the bonds they form with their parents. So anyway, we all left our schoolwork and essays to come clean kids' books. By pure coincidence, we were lucky enough to choose the same location to volunteer at as our wonderful governor of a week, John Kitzhaber, who took over my summer. So, I can say that I worked with the governor. I assumed he was just going to stop by, see what we were doing, talk to the organization and be on his way, but what ended up happening is that he walked in with his girlfriend, and they sat down and started to clean books just like we were. It was really powerful to work in a small room with a few very young kids, my Jew group, some adults, and the most important person in the state all working together to do the same thing to help the community. We also had the added bonus of being able to talk to the Governor, tell him about our group, and ask him what sort of activities our group would be able to do and pursue to be able to help Portland and Oregon the most. What he said was that what we were doing at the book bank was hugely important, and the other huge issue is hunger. Oregon has one of, if not the highest hunger rates in the country. We have wonderful land and great farms, but somehow people aren't getting food, and it's really unfortunate. So, the governor left, and we did too a short while later, but we were able to take back a wealth of ideas for the remainder of our day. So we went back to the Jewish museum to finish our day. We did various things that are of little interest to the reader, but one thing that I want to mention is that the main thing our group does is that we form smaller groups to actually do things in the community. So we formed those groups today. My group's main issue was hunger, which the Gov told us was important, but we decided to bring basically every single other issue into it too, including education, which Dr. K said was important too. So, what we're doing is creating community gardens around the community, starting at lower income schools. We were also thinking about creating them at homeless shelters and subsidized housing complexes, so that people would be able to eat (and eat healthy) regardless of their social status, race, religion, or background. I would like to think that it's somewhat of a continuation of King's dream, and that is the ultimate important thing.

Why I am an elitist: A personal account of today's culminations

Well, the title is actually not completely accurate. I've been an elitist ever since I started working for Gov. Kitzhaber's campaign, but you can ask me about that later.

This morning, I was devastated to hear about the tragic shooting in Arizona. Among those shot was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D). My first thought was most certainly that she was shot by a right-wing extremist. Having examined facts, including that the shooter was described as a left-wing radical in college (and he's only 22 now, so it wasn't that long ago), I have come to the reasonable (and somewhat disappointing) conclusion that the murder had absolutely nothing to do with the Tea Party and their associated demagogues. One such demagogue, Sarah Palin, posted (prior to the shooting) an ad that marked some members of congress from districts that McCain carried in 2008 who voted for the healthcare bill. Now, Ms. Palin is a friendly and tasteful woman, so she had the good sense to mark them with crosshairs. Ms. Giffords happened to be one of those people. Initially I saw that map as something that could have compelled the shooter, but upon research of him, I found that it is highly improbable that he is a teabagger, so I left it at that.

Now, Americans Against the Tea Party is a facebook group that I am a member of. While I agree with their platform, they are the facebook page that I argue with the most due to their semi-radical views. Now, I often (semi-facetiously) say that once I get an idea, no matter how much evidence disproves it, I will never admit that I am wrong. Now, I admitted that I was wrong. Anybody who holds on to their views after I admit that I am wrong is stupid, mainly because they are at the point that they disagree with me (and most people who disagree with me are stupid, according to elitist philosophy), but also because I have so much compelling evidence that I'm right that I can make a damn good argument (and anyone I actually argue with is only smart if they present real ideas. If I am truly convinced that there is no factual connection between the other party's arguments, which is usually, then they're stupid), and they still don't take it in. That is sadly the tragic case with AATTP. Not only did they stick to their flawed beliefs, evidence be damned, to the point where they accused the tea party of sending out "death squads" (and I quote), but when I tried to insert rational thinking, they completely disregarded anything I had to say, even resorting to insults and even accused me of spreading (and I quote) "Right-wing lies." Laughable! Of course, I was not offended, because I already knew that they were stupid and reactionary, but I came to the important realization that anybody who is not an elitist really needs to take a fact check (or maybe they're stupid. Probably so, actually)...

As an elitist, I will keep attempting (and probably failing) to keep people from a life of stupidity, and try to reform people who are already stupid. AATTP is only one example of stupid people failing to shut up (and if anyone shouldn't be stupid, it's AATTP). I would urge you all to either become elitists or realize that you're stupid, reform yourselves, and then become elitists, because we'll all take over the world someday [editor's note: I actually am getting to the point in my elitism where I'm beginning to realize that having people, the vast majority of whom are stupid, voting is really a dreadful idea, so I'm beginning to form the belief that what we need is a benevolent dictator. Screw voting for congresspeople to go and fuck up the country; a dictator would make everything run smoothly, and a good dictator would also make life great for all of us without having to worry about stupid people stopping every good thing from happening. Besides, dictators tend to have amazing mustaches.]

Which party is dead?

This morning, I was reading my facebook feed, and I came across this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x576454

It made the case that the Democratic party was dead or dying. What struck me about it, though, is that I often make the case that the Republican party is dying. My thought is that the Republican party has split into so many factions that we'll end up with results like those in 1860 and 1912. It has split into the Tea party, which I don't think can survive since it's basically the modern equivalent of the Whigs, not ideologically, but organizationally, which is really what killed the Whigs. Another faction is the party of No, which is probably the majority of Republicans today, who don't have any plans other than to say no to any and everything that the Democrats present. Then there are the dying (although I expect them to make gains soon) mainstream Republicans, who actually care about the country despite their conservative views. My hypothesis for 2012 is that somebody wins the GOP primary (no dur), and whichever end they will be from, the other end will not approve of the candidate, possibly throwing their support behind Obama, but more likely putting forth their own candidate, similar to the Northern and Southern Democrats in 1860 or the Republicans and the Bull Moose party in 1912. Now, obviously the parties were (more or less) reunified after 1860 and 1912, but this time, the Tea party is sort of what's both the "cool" conservatives and the most hated group in America, so I almost wonder if they'll survive and the Republicans will die, and then they will die later on, not unlike the Whigs. This could be very interesting.

So, which party is going to die?

My Bill and speech

I'm doing JSA, which is basically the best thing ever, except maybe science bowl. In JSA, we write bills. My group's bill repeals the 26th amendment and makes it so that you have to pass a test in order to vote rather than be a certain age. I'm only posting this, because I wrote the best speech ever, which is as follows:

As we all know, our former president, George W. Bush, had an IQ of 20, while his vice president fabricated 9/11 in an effort to get Oil.

Our current president, a Kenyan national who is hiding his birth certificate, is, of course, a communist who is hell-bent on destroying America.

I know that it’s hard to vote for a warmongering man with anger management issues, but you know, voting for John McCain can be justified, because Sarah Palin is hot.

Believe it or not, there are people who actually will make decisions based on those ideas. The idea of popular sovereignty exists so that people are able to pick who is best suited for the job. Unfortunately, some people will forget that the popular sovereignty involved in government actually does have higher stakes than those involved in American Idol. While some of us might feel very strongly about our favorite singer on American Idol, whoever wins will not be setting up your death panels, which leads me to my other point.

As we all know, John McCain is senile, and Barack Obama wants to raise taxes. John Kitzhaber thinks that Oregon is ungovernable, and Dino Rossi is a hypocrite who hates the poor. Every politician seems to be slammed for having negative campaign ads, and we all hate them. The sad truth, though, is that they work, true or not. As a result, politicians will often hide behind negative ads and they won’t talk about their actual beliefs. What if there was a way to make misinforming the public disadvantageous and making it an advantage for politicians to tell the truth? In addition, we have somewhat of a demagoguery problem. We hear about the 9/11 conspiracy theories, the birthers, and the death panels. As much as I’d like to believe that the average thinking American wouldn’t believe a second of it, but sadly, I’m not so sure that I can say that definitively. Sadly, demagoguery is serious. Those people who subscribe to these outlandish ideas then proceed to vote based on these lies. What if there were checks on that? What if we made it so that people could not vote based on lies? What if we made it so that people couldn’t vote for people because they’re attractive? Well, here is a constitutional amendment to do just that! Currently, the 26th amendment says that the only thing that can keep people from voting is young age. Now, I’m sure that I’m not the only person in here who is unable to vote because of age, and feels that it’s somewhat unfair that we can’t vote, but the nation’s least informed adult can. Having phonebanked for a political candidate, I’ve talked to a lot of voters, including one who thought that the other candidate was his niece, Christa Lee. The fact that he didn’t even know so much as the gender of one of the candidates shows that he probably shouldn’t be voting (and, by the way, he did decide to vote for the right guy when I told him that Chris Dudley was a man, but he still shouldn’t be voting). Wouldn’t it be better to allow people of any age to vote, so long as they know what the candidates stand for?

Some may accuse this idea of being elitist, unfair, or even anti-American. Well, if you’re saying that, you might want to take a look at yourself, because you are the exact reason that this bill exists.

Snow, Thanksgiving, and various other things (or I was guilted into writing a post this thanksgiving break)

I was guilted into writing a post for Thanksgiving break. Thanksgiving break doesn't officially start until Thursday, but tomorrow is a furlough day because Ted Kulongoski is the worst Democrat to ever happen to Oregon and thus, the schools have no money. Today was a snow day, which is kind of lame, because we were watching this movie in Spanish class, and it was really good, and we probably won't get to finish it. And she left off at a ridiculously suspenseful part. And in any case, I really hate snow. It's stupid. We didn't get much, which is good, just the eighth of an inch that Oregonians can't drive in, so they cancel school. We'd better the hell not have to make this day up.

Now, why would we get 2 or 4 days off of the week this week? Thanksgiving, of course! Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks. Oh, who am I kidding. It's a day to eat, and eat a lot. We're actually going to two houses (both in the Portland area). At the first house, they don't really like turkey, so we're having lasagna and Cornish game hens instead. At the second house, we're actually having turkey. I also made molasses cookies the other day. They're ridiculously good. I also used 3 sticks of butter. Maybe that's why they're so good. In any case, they're doing their part in expanding my stomach for thanksgiving.

Another thing I like about Thanksgiving is that it celebrates the pilgrims.

The pilgrims were the only colonists in America who weren't basically Nazis. The puritans (or, as my history teacher calls them, the American Taliban) were all about religion over person and stuff, and they were not tolerant people. I could go on, but basically, the pilgrims believed in a separation of church and state and tolerance. The quakers were good too, now that I think about it, but the

American Nazi party tends to obscure them. The pilgrims were also one of my favorite parts of our summer reading for AP US. In fact, that whole page which went from Bacon's rebellion to Anne Hutchison was the best page of notes ever. That page of notes can be seen to the right. They're pretty awesome, I know. I even drew a picture of a turkey next to the pilgrims.

Now, I guess I haven't updated my blog in so long that I haven't talked about the gubernatorial situation here in Oregon, or at least how it turned out. I did talk about how John Kitzhaber is freaking awesome and that Chris Dudley is terrible. What I have not yet mentioned on here, is that John Kitzhaber won it! It was a terrible night, though... As we know, the Democrats got massacred in the house, although I thought we would do worse in the senate, so it can't be that bad. Better than both the house and the senate, though, is the west coast! I don't know much about how things went in California or Washington, except that Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown and Patty Murray won. I can tell you, though, that in Oregon, We didn't lose either houses of the state legislature. Not a single one of our federal representatives lost his job. Our senator absolutely dominated. For governor, that was really exciting. The night of, I went to John Kitzhaber's party. We went in knowing it would be close. Kitzhaber took the first few votes, but Dudley started climbing quickly. A teacher from my elementary school was there and saw those numbers. She then went on to describe Oregonians as "fucking idiots," which is completely true. That night, I was pretty sure Dudley would win. I totally couldn't imagine Governor Dudley, so I was running that through my head. At 11:00, John Kitzhaber made a speech. Not only did he say that he was optimistic, he did what he's great at: he explained why. That could be because he's a doctor, or maybe just a really good politician, but in any case, you could tell he wasn't just saying it. He explained quite clearly that the only real set of votes left was in Multnomah county, which is hugely democratic. I went home not knowing what would happen. I didn't think Kitzhaber was going to win, but I didn't think Dudley would either. I went to bed that night, but I didn't sleep much. The next day, I had AP US, and we went to the computer lab. Since it was an AP US class, instead of going on Facebook to screw off, we all went to the New York times or Oregonlive or whatever to screw off and look at election returns. By that point, there were no significant voting centers left other than Multnomah county. Kitzhaber was still behind by about 25,000 votes, but by then I was feeling pretty optimistic. I had C++ third period, and so my AP US friend and I were looking at the results. The numbers hadn't changed much, but we extrapolated the numbers, and found that, unless the only part of Multnomah they hadn't counted yet was Dunthorpe or something, there was really no way that Kitzhaber could lose. With that knowledge, I was fine for the rest of the day. I went home after Orchestra and went to check the results. Sure enough, Dudley was still ahead, but I kept watching. When Dudley was still about 5,000 votes ahead, KPTV, none other than our local FOX station, called it for Kitzhaber. At that moment, I felt so relieved that I was able to go up and get the mail. As I was doing that, my mom called out the door that Oregon live called it for Kitzhaber. By then, I knew it was a done deal. As other stations started calling it for Kitzhaber, I felt that I would be safe going to Jew school. So I did. And I made a lot of Jews happy with that news. After dinner, I checked the numbers, and much to the satisfaction of many of my Jew friends, Kitzhaber had pulled ahead. It was done. As I was leaving, I saw that my mom had texted me that Chris Dudley conceded. I remember, I was walking up the stairs, but they weren't the stairs I normally use, for some reason. So, that's how my election went here... Yesterday, I learned that my rich-ass and fairly conservative suburb of Lake Oswego, home of former NBA player Chris Dudley, ended up voting for Kitzhaber by a margin of about 200 votes, which was quite surprising but extremely satisfying to me.

So, I guess that's all I have to say, but now you can't be mad at me for not updating my blog...

Excuses, excuses

So I haven't posted in a really long time. I have been doing much more important things, but that still does not rectify my absence. I hate poetry, so I will punish myself by making myself announce the more important things I was doing in Haiku form (some may be 7-12-7 haikus since the usual 5-7-5 isn't badass enough. There may also be more than one haiku for each occurrence).

1) I went to Florida

Yes, Florida's two syllables

You got a problem?

We visited their Club Med

It sounds dumb but it was actually very fun

I played poker quite a bit

No web access there

Although I had my iPhone

You can't update blogs

2) I finished learning

All of the world leaders

Since I have no life

3) I hate poetry

So I am going to stop

writing these haikus.