Hold Up

Sunday Afternoon

I'm sitting here watching the Texans have their typical sub-par first half, to say the least. My break has gone great so far. Significantly less responsibilities combined with late nights with friends has been the theme of these last 5 days. It's been a good rest from a hectic first semester. I still haven't seen all the people I want to , but that will happen. I just finished helping my mom wrap presents for the Jeans' family. For those of you who don't know who they are, they are the family that my family has given Christmas presents to for 20+ years. My parents met them at our old church way back then and decided to sacrifice some money and time to give presents to their 12 kids who are less fortunate than us. It has been a blessing every year, and, honestly, this means more to us than the usual selfish, capitalistic season this is. Tonight, we head over to their house to deliver gifts, catch up, and sing Christmas songs.

In other news, True Grit comes out December 22nd. I am feeling a little midnight showing birthday celebration.

If you are traveling this month then I thank you for serving our country. The TSA's new policy on flight security is at its best, and I wish I could take a part in keeping America safe too. People are complaining about being looked at and being violated. Suck it up. This is America. A woman went on CNN news and complained about having to take out her prosthetic breast for the woman searching her. She was completely "embarrassed" and "ashamed." First of all, you shouldn't be ashamed to be a  breast cancer survivor. Secondly, if you were so embarrassed you wouldn't be signing up to go on national news and talk about it. For the people who diligently claim this is a violation of constitutional liberties, sit down and shut up. This is completely fair. You lose your certain liberties when everyone else's liberties are at risk. So for the greater good of the 200 other people on the flight, be happy you get to be semi-groped, and like it. One guy had an interesting idea as to what to do about security. He called it "Free Market Air." He said you should get rid of the TSA and let the individual airlines decide how tight to make their security. This way if you were a timid person you could fly on a relaxed "bring any contraband you like" airline. Problem solved? As 9 years ago shows us, the issue isn't people on the plane, it's people one the ground or in buildings. So that is perhaps the worst idea to fix security. It doesn't need fixin'.

Happy Holidays

That is such a genius marketing ploy. Now if you have religious differences with Christians, you don't need to worry. It's the holidays, not Christmas. If you don't believe in Christmas, you shouldn't celebrate it. There is no logic in celebrating in something you don't believe in. TV stations and stores are worried about offending everyone so they've switched over to saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." It's offensive to Christians is what it is. Most likely, this is the first step in just creating a co-existing holiday with Christmas. I wouldn't be surprised down the road, but hey what can you do? "Happy Holidays is what terrorists say!" -30 Rock

On a serious note, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. I hope to see most of you. Cheers.

Bashful

I haven't posted in awhile so here we go...

Finals

They are boring and painful, so this is all I have to say

Christmas Break

Not so boring! I was worried about this break being enjoyable, but now the break looks like it could turn out to be the best one yet. I have tentatively scheduled parties and hang outs already that are getting me excited. My birthday is 10 days away. Christmas is 12 days away. Then going to Micah's ranch as much as possible after that. I couldn't ask for anything better. I went home this weekend for a mini break. I got to hang out with my two best friends Micah and Sam. I have two finals left, but the lowest grade I can get is a B now so I have no motivation for either. Christmas break is on the horizon and it's looking good. I gave myself a Christmas/birthday present that should be getting to my house next week. Unfortunately, this season has also wrecked havoc on my bank account, so I will be selling many of my prized records to get back to the black. This is sad, but I would never take any of it back. I've had to buy things for friends and family. It's sacrifice. Selling my own belongings to pay for them just makes them mean more for me.

Burn

For the group of girls that unwillingly, unknowingly roped me into buying them all Christmas presents, I've decided that I am burning them all cd's. I feel this is the most cost-effective, loving gift I can give all of you. You're welcome...Cat Crozier.

I can't wait for a good Texas break filled with eating animals and burning fossil fuels.
The new year is almost here! Be excited Repubs...

Love you all

Yearnin'

I decided today that I want to make a lot of money. This may be shallow, but that's just fine by me. I want enough money to have a big family and afford it. I don't know what my childhood or life would look like without all my brothers and sisters. My parents have certainly paid for having such a number of children with lots of hard work. So ya...I wanna work really hard and make enough money to have a family that doesn't want. My suite mate has a pretty cool view too. He wants to make enough money to fund his own missionary operation. I think that's awesome. I think God gave us money as a tool. If you aren't attached to your money, then there is no problem with wanting a bigger tool.

I discovered my English teacher is an alcoholic yesterday. This is only my hypothesis...but I feel like I am usually right. A couple of months ago he mentioned that his grandfather was an alcoholic and said alcoholism was hereditary. That didn't sell me, but yesterday he stopped in his lecture and started talking about confessional poetry. He talked about how it is therapeutic for some to get things out in the open to strangers. That's when I realized that's what he does when he comes to class. The little off subject stories he tells are him using the class as his medium of confession. This and other factors have convinced me he is a current or recovering alcoholic. 

The most interesting thing he has said in class is about the draft. He doesn't think the draft will come back because of women. He's right. The draft was pre women's rights movement. If they brought it back now then technically women should have just as much of a right to be drafted as men. There would be uproar over this. It will never come back. It's ironic when you dwell on it...

Today was one of the worst days I've had in quite a while. It did not feel lonely but rather was filled with sadness, coldness, and darkness. It reminded me why I am attached to blues music so much. It doesn't pick you up. It relates. Everyone is searching for a relation with another human, and blues music relates on a deep level saying "hey I've gone through rough times too." 

You fell down of course
and then you got up of course
and you started over
forgot my name of course
then you started to remember
pretty tough to think about
the beginning of december
pretty tough to think about

Dirty Pool

Doing Laundry...
I squeezed what was realistically 8 loads of laundry into 5 and spread them out across 3 washing machines in my dorm. It was a competition for machines on my side of the hall, but I finally walked to the other side of the building where all machines were open. It's a good thing I grew up with 2 sisters and a crazy mom. I realize that more and more in college. Some of my neighbors don't know how to do laundry, or dishes. This doesn't bother me directly, but what is worse is most of them don't know that there is a lint guard in all of the drying machines. This means I am the one who must clean them all out.
Cleaned my entire room today including throwing my pile of trash away, sweeping, and organizing. It's been a busy, but efficient, several hours. My music is getting me through it just fine. My roommate should come home to quite the surprise since my side of the room has been wrecked for a while (I blame tests).

Math v. Dead Weak
So dead weak is finally here. This means no more tests or homework in classes! Right? Wrong. I have math homework due Thursday night. How is that even allowed? Math final is on friday. This is a bittersweet moment for me. It's going to suck taking and studying for this final, but I will finally be done with all math. Trying to use that as inspiration.

Tomorrow I schedule for classes. I am totally unprepared. This is what I will be spending my time doing tonight. I am pretty sure I literally have the last schedule time out of all the students at Texas A&M. This means I will get nothing I want. It will be a busy add/drop week the first week of school. Hopefully I take some of these courses: Oceanography, Pols 207 (State and Local) , History 106 (Texas), Business class (not sure which), Lit class, and/or Philosophy. Wish me luck!

I made my own graph this week! If you click on the link below you can vote (rate) for mine and it may make it to the actual website. Either way, it's funny.
http://cheezburger.com/redorchid/lolz/View/4233571328

Level

My Record Player is Long Gone
No worries, I have another record player in the mail. Today, I worried that I will be out of touch with everyone younger than me, or even the same age as me. At least musically that is... When I told a guy in my dorm hall I have a record player in my room, he asked if I was a DJ. That's sad. Most friends that have never been in my dorm ask me to play a record on the player. Yesterday, Amanda Kirkscey had me play a record (a Black Keys record mind you), and she had the most shocked/happy/surprised reaction that there was sound coming of off the black circular disk. That's awesome. Most of my friends don't understand my obsession/collection of vinyls...on the other hand most 30+ year olds think it's the coolest thing ever that a young person has such an obsession. A little like the 70 year old volunteers at the voting center were excited when they saw me walk in the door. A lot of people tell me that vinyls are antiques and vintage history. This can be true, but vinyl is not dead. All of my favorite musicians know enough to keep releasing on vinyl. I love my vinyls. Everything about them is what music is supposed to be. The sound quality is immensely superior to that of audio files or cd's. The sleeves have large artwork of the album which actually makes it art! I could go on...

Instinct Blues
My favorite genre of music is blues. I love blues from every generation. I am searching for some vinyls from black blues artists from the 50's. Yes, I think that is cool.
I don't know if I would be considered "open" when it comes to music. I hate the majority of rap and pop and perhaps as Alyssa puts it "John hates everything mainstream." This is not entirely true, but I am ok with it. I am always finding new bands I fall in love with though so I think that gives me some degree of openness.

Music is infectious. It's very interesting. I infect people with my music all the time. People show me new stuff that I end up becoming crazy about. That's part of the joy of it all. Music is discovery. I am gonna wrap this up now because I am rambling, but if you ever wanna talk about this I am ALWAYS up for it.

To end, these are some bands or songs I am currently obsessed with:

Anything Jack White (Dead Weather, Raconteurs, White Stripes)
Kings of Leon's first two albums and Back Down South
Black Keys
Led Zeppelin revival
The Kills
The Happen-ins
You Only Live Once-The Strokes
Something- Beatles

Could go on for pages but I'm done.

Something

So this is what stress is like?
 I am in the Evans Library studying Political Science 206 with my friend Tiffany. I got a 90 on the first test and an 88 on the second test. I have done the math, tests are weighted differently, and I will have to get a 92 tomorrow to achieve an A in the course. That is the bad news. The good news is, short of a complete mental lapse, I can not get lower than a B. This doesn't put my mind at ease at all. This sucks. In history it's a similar situation. In English I have to get a 97 on the final to receive an A, not fun. I don't care to add up my Math grade...I'm hungry and tired.

I've decided that I don't like the phrase "live within your means." That makes me think hey it's just as fun being poor. It's not.

I am trying to count my blessings, but it is hard during finals in my situation. I am going to try and recover from this. On the positive side, I have great friends and family that will be here. This semester, despite my stress over grades, has been one of the best periods in my life.

I've been criticized for having a dark sense of humor. I'm trying harder every day to keep it up.

I think it's funny that Jimmy Kimmel had a "National Un-Friend Day" for facebook users. The premise was to delete your friends lists down to your actual friends. Jimmy Kimmel is a pirate. I did this over a year ago. I decided that facebook was for staying connected with friends not building a friend base and weeding through futile posts. I find it humorous that some high schoolers (and even people in college for that matter) have somewhere between 700 to 1500 friends. Really? I don't understand why you would have (or want) that many friends on your facebook. I deny more people in requests than I accept. You should do it.

Somebody come give me food. I'll be your friend if you do.

Blog break over.

P.S. I am experimenting with Labels to see what it does to my Stats.

These Days...

Busy Break

Thanksgiving was anything but rest and relaxation. Thanksgiving afternoon I drove up to Austin for the Texas game. The experience of going to a Texas game in Austin was really fun, despite A&M playing poorly. We won the game nonetheless, and we got out of there just before freezing to death. The next day I went to my cousin's rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, a very enjoyable time. My siblings and I used this time to draw names for Christmas. This year we decided to just draw one person to buy a present for, instead of buying six presents (literally). This is going to be interesting. I am all for it though. Now I can not only save money but focus on a more personal styled gift. My cousin's wedding was awesome of course. From playing "The Final Countdown" as their entrance to the reception to having Futurama characters on their cake, they had one of the more dorky awesome weddings I have been to. Sunday morning consisted of me driving back to Houston and then up to college station completing a event filled family break consisting of the two things we do the most: eating and driving.

Back to the everyday now. I have 3 classes that are borderline A/B's. I'm just ready to be done with this semester. This week I will probably spend around $600 on records and another $150 in December on gifts probably. This should be interesting with my bank account...

I'm not looking forward to the cold, but I am now ready for the cold due to the purchase by my dad of two new jackets for me. A good pick me up this month. Counting down the days until Christmas break...

P.S. My cousin had the musicians at the wedding play her college fight song (UT). I think that is one of the more cool things you could do at a wedding. If you went to a good college you're proud of, you should play your fight song at your wedding. That is all.

Land of Confusion

The Switch
As I have had a Macbook Pro for over a year now I have learned some extraordinary differences from PC. Even though I am infatuated with Macbooks (not necessarily Apple), I have also seen some drawbacks. First, Skype has not updated Mac OS skype nearly as far as they have Microsoft's. This is obviously a skype issue, but it is still annoying when your PC skype friends can do things like play board games with each other and you can't. Come on Skype; I would venture to guess that there are just as many if not more mac users using skype than PC.

I used to be more than competent at using a PC, but now when I switch back it is like watching a Mac noob trying to figure out how to use the trackpad when they have never used a mac. It's embarrassing.
I had better learn to adapt to both if I plan on working for a business because I will need to be able to use a PC. Despite how amazing Macs are, they still lack the business dimension. For me, it's not just the security, I honestly like using Microsoft Office on PC better than OS, despite already admitting that you have to use Microsoft Office on OS. Apple's versions of Microsoft office are just impractical.

Another downside to a Macbook Pro is the price. I can't blame Apple for this one though. It's economics. They have the perfect price set to achieve optimal profits. I would do the same thing. So from a business standpoint it is a success, while from a consumer standpoint it really sucks to dish out a couple k for a high end mac.

The worst difference between Macs and PC's are the people. You are either far left or far right. Obviously from all these graphics, it is easy to glean that some very enthusiastic geeks are out to prove a point. PC snobs talk down to Mac users saying they are simple and confined while Mac snobs talk down to PC users saying Windows is a failure of a system. They both have points. I started using iMovie last year to explore movie making possibilities. It was great. I had fun and was able to become a master at iMovie. The problem is that I became a master. When I started trying to do new things and get things exactly how I wanted, I realized I couldn't. iMovie is limited to a short range of tasks, but sometimes it's the simpler pleasures that make the difference...

One of the more surprising things to me when I got a Mac was iTunes. I had iTunes on my PC, but it's a different story now. iTunes was made for mac (like Microsoft Office was made for Windows). It runs bug free and MUCH faster now. It syncs with my iPod better (which is also made for Mac). This has saved me countless time and frustration. Even though Mac does have it's glitchy moments (the rainbow wheel of death), it is much better than the glitches you receive from Windows. Less viruses yada yada yada...some old song people have been singing, but it's true. iMovie (and similar applications) does have it's limitations, but I would have never created movies without the simplicity it first presented. The operating system of OS is much smoother running for the majority of a college student's purposes.

If I weigh the pros and cons, for me, Apple has me for computers, but I recognize the many uses you would want for having a PC. It just comes down to that Venn Diagram towards the top. What do you need/want a computer for?

Paranoid Android

Dear Verizon,
Please do not add the iPhone to our network.
Hands down Verizon has a better network than AT&T. I don't know if I could say this pre-iPhone era, but I can say it safely now. I have a good view point of view to critique this coverage because my mom has had both an iPhone and a Droid. She had the iPhone first. She loved the apps and such, but she both works for a business and likes to use her phone for uses like calling and texting people, unheard of, so she switched to the Droid (some big businesses don't allow employees to have iPhones due to the lack of security). The best uses for iPhones is to have a friend who has one so you can steal it occasionally to play a time wasting game. I'd like to continue to text and call people even if my phone sadly does not carry a compass. If I had the money, I would definitely invest in the Droid, which is currently outselling the iPhone. It is a smart phone with plenty of apps. The kicker for me, is that it makes phone calls and texts. I don't even need to go into the antenna debacle with the iPhone 4. Another great thing is that it learns how you text and adapts. The iphone? It auto-corrects, poorly at that. My sister showed me a link to a site showing funny graphics; which, of course I loved. It shows screenshots of iPhones auto-correcting failures. I have spent a good waste of time on this site today.

I'm sure every iPhone holder has some similar stories. Don't get me wrong though, I do not hate the iPhone. It has many cool uses, but for a phone I would want something with a more reliable network. The iTouch is a much smarter buy for me.

If you are reading this post, I compel you to buy me a meal this week. That is all.

Endlessly

I don't know about your week, but my week was hell. Here are a few pictures to liven your mood...

This next one epitomizes my current English class....

In honor of going to the movies tonight....

A couple of the best movies of all time...

Shallow post I know...funny none the less...

Wasted Time

Try it!
So I came across this list of TV shows that were scored by Political Parties. So, I picked out which shows I like and added up the scores. You add the scores in parenthesis to the other party (2 scores for each show). See what you get!

I scored 936 for Republican and 1,020 for Democrats. Basically, I am in the middle. Tell me what you get!

Apple Of My Eye

The morning after...

The Baylor game! What a couple of days. Drove up to Waco with Nick Ebner to support the Aggies
against Baylor. There were thousands of Aggies. So many, that when we sang the fight song you could hear it louder than Baylor's. It was epic. The Aggies had a rough first half, but after controversial first half calls, they came out fired up for the second half. Wrecking Crew finally showed up in the second half after a shaky first. Baylor didn't score in the second half. There were 2 hits so crazy, they left the crowd in shock. It was uncontested in the second half. A&M is now in the top 20. Good season so far. Maroon out this week against Nebraska.

Now Accepting Donations

It's hard to concentrate on studying today (It's gonna end up being an all-nighter). It's hard to concentrate because I have a bunch of listings on ebay. I am trying to raise $600 to buy this:

What you are looking at is the following:

1 x White Stripes 7-inch red vinyl “Merry Christmas from The White Stripes”
{value incalculable}
1 x custom White Stripes Nixon headphones
{value $225}
1 x custom White Stripes portable record player
{value $165}
1 x custom White Stripes LP vinyl carrying box
{value $80}
1 x custom White Stripes 7-inch vinyl carrying box
{value $40}
1 x custom White Stripes record cleaning brush
{value $22.50}
1 x custom White Stripes turntable slip mat
{value $10}
3 x custom White Stripes vinyl adapters (aka 45rpm “middles”)
{value $9}
Yes I am crazy, but I've raised $300 in a 4 days.

Spring Break

Looks like I may be going up to my sister's place in Colorado to do some serious skiing. I've never been before, but I may be learning to on Aggie Mountain, which is not ideal but better than nothing. Hopefully this trip pans out. If it does, It will be a long road trip with at least 4 other guys. I can't wait.

It's Funny Because It's True

Two posts in one day? We'll see...

P.S. Pray for me. Love you.

Lord, Send Me an Angel

KFC
This last weekend I had the enjoyment of attending my sister's, Katherine, wedding. The wedding was incredible. From the vintage invitations on 45 records (swore she stole my idea ;) to the beautiful chapel that she was married in, the same one my parents were mind you. The entire evening was filled with excitement. This is the second wedding I have been an usher in. I feel the experience from the first time, plus 5 or so years, helped me better fulfill my special duty of ushering. I was a success. We rehearsed the wedding to a tee,  but there were a few slip ups. That is to be expected, and I thought it actually makes sense. Life isn't perfect. Nothing goes exactly according to plan, but when you step back and look at things they will either be a success or not. This wedding was a success. I went to the wedding with the lovely Miss Grace Courtright, one of my dearest friends. She was awesome as usual. We took some awesome pictures, had some great conversation, bonding with family, and avoided, unsuccessfully, people thinking we were dating. Good Times. Here's to a hell of a wedding Katherine and Cody Foote (KFC ;)

One More Cup of Coffee

School just got rough. Real Fast. It was looking like I'd coast into the end of the semester with 3 A's and a B, maybe better. Now, it seems I will be fortunate to get over a 3.0. Math sucks. Going back to the very first post I had, I hate math. It may require me grade excluding it and retaking it a community college. Life. If I get an A on my last political science test, I get an A; If I get a B, I end up with a B. Life. History is a similar story. Archery is amazing as usual. Enough of bad news....

Right on Time

I was worried about what I am going to do this summer. Now, after a talk with a good friend of the family, it appears it is likely I will get an internship at a law firm this summer. I am scrambling to get my new college resume together now. I am a little nervous about not having a GPR yet and not having much experience, but I have to start somewhere right? In other good news, I am going to the Texas A&M game in Austin this year compliments of the gracious Aunt and Uncle. They gave me and my siblings some fantastics tickets in the alumni section.

Life is up and down. Now I will leave ya'll with two graphs. One is a good stupid laugh, and the other one is funny because it is so true...
Love ya'll

P.S. Have you seen my bottle of liquid courage? I have misplaced it....

Same Old Thing

10 A.M. Automatic
College has been awesome so far. One of the hi-lights of last week was Halloween. My brother, David, and I dressed up like the Black Keys. A former Indie band from Akron, Ohio that plays Southern Blues and Rock. They are amazing. They held a look-a-like contest on their website so we entered in. You can see us on their webpage on the third page maybe? (It changes)
http://www.theblackkeys.com/gallery/lookalike
I died my hair black for this. I originally thought it would look bad, but it turned out not so bad. Let me know what you think...





"Old Mary....now until the moment of your last breath!"
Inside joke between my sister and me.
My sister, Katherine, is being married away on Saturday. I will be going back down to Houston for the wedding this weekend (yes, missing the OU game). I am going to be an usher in the wedding. Hooray! At least no singing like last time ;)
Seriously, I am happy to be going to her wedding and can't wait to be a apart of it. (Like her getting the records from me ;)




The worst times during school is before test, while the best time during school is after tests. Currently, I am done with tests so I am in a relaxed mood. It's great. Let's hang out.

Finally, I am unsure about what I want to do in summers between semesters. I was set on studying abroad, but now I think that an internship would be better. Thinking of internships either in DC or in a law firm. I need some feedback for real on which direction I should head.

I love you all

P.S. Listen to Pony Up by Kings of Leon.

Strange Times

Seeing as it is election week, and I am a political science major, I thought it seemed logical to do a slightly political based blog. I will try to stay away from stating specific political opinions, but rather analyzing the system as a whole. Seeing as politics bores the average citizen, I will get right into the meat of what I am going to say so please read on because if you don't, you will prove my point that people have no attention span. Prove me wrong.

In 1492....

So it's usually this around this time when people become political experts and/or panic. The former statement is not much of a surprise. We had an argument in my History class last week. The argument, initiated by two students, was whether the American public as a whole is more politically aware now than they were around the Founding Era. As to be expected, the argument got rather heated, and, as usual, I stayed out of such nasty arguments. Here is what I think: In America, we have more politically aware citizens than we did in the Founding Era. In America, the percentage of politically aware citizens has decreased since the Founding Era. Of course we have MORE citizens who are politically aware. That is what happens when you have 307,006,550 citizens, give or take a million. My favorite example of this is when Howard Stern interviewed people of the street during the Obama Presidential election. His intern was in a black section of town and asked people if they supported a specific Obama policy. Instead of stating the Obama policy, they would state the McCain policy. The people supported it nearly every time thinking it was the Obama policy. I say this to show the unawareness of the general public, not the people who voted for Obama. I am sure if they would have done the opposite idea in the South, something similar would have happened. The point is, yes, our general public has decreased over time as far as political awareness goes, but is that to be expected? It seems historically this has been true. Our public education system, as far as high school, has decreased incredibly in the past 50 years. Panic? No. Like I said, we have more citizens that are still politically aware. We will be fine. 

John McCain's Black Child

If your immediate reaction when I said " In America, we have more politically aware citizens than we did in the Founding Era," good; you are American. One thing to be careful about this week is how the media words statements and polls. Polling is a science, and if you are good at it you can manipulate your results by forming the question right. For example, in a poll several years ago this is what happened... 

"Do you agree the country isn't spending enough on the poor?" 63%

"Do you agree the country isn't spending enough on welfare?" 19%

Right off the bat, if you only saw one poll that would be hard to catch. This is why you have to be careful about poll bias. Follow these rules when looking at a poll. Who sponsored the poll? Who did the polling? Who is interviewed and how many? What is the margin of error? What questions were asked? If the poll hides many of these aspects, not a good sign. Finally, my favorite form of propaganda: the push poll. This is where they ask a question that is not necessarily true at all, but will plant a seed (seeding the electorate). Karl Rove did this in the Republican primary in South Carolina (McCain v. Bush), he had people call houses and ask 

"Would it change your vote if you learned that McCain has an illegitimate black child?"

American Media

No it's not worse today. The American media is kinder and less biased than it was in the Founding Era. During Adams administration, it got so bad he passed the Alien and Sedition Act, making it illegal to criticize the government. Direct contradiction to freedom of press and speech? I think yes. It was repealed in 1802. In that time, it was not abnormal for newspapers to call candidate's mothers whores or be blunt on the stupidity of the candidate. Now we have moved towards a less harsh and less biased media- an organization at Vanderbilt University started a media archive in the 50's to try and prove media bias. They have not been able to since. This is because there is a 3 to 1 liberal to conservative ratio amongst journalists, but this liberal bias is mostly washed out by editors, publishers, and sponsors who tend to be conservative. It all comes down to "Who is the audience?" Having said that, you will catch bits of bias in news, not to say editorials, but for the most part it is fair (enough) on network television. 

Interesting Facts

1. U.S. does not rank in the top 100 in voting participation (ranked 139)

2. I am not voting on Tuesday

3. You will post a comment or question

To Wrap things up...

Seeing as this post is rather lengthy, I am not going to include a section that pertains to my personal life. Today you get what I think you should know about this week politically. Tomorrow you will get what I think you should know about me right now. That is all. I love you.

P.S. Listen to The Black Keys song "Everlasting Light"

Black Math

Before I start this, let me get this clear. I have read very few blogs. This is my own thing. It will only get better because this first post is a little rushed. Please do comment (anyone can). This is a hate free zone.

"That's not Constitutional!"
I feel like I am not the only one with a friend that says that. This is one of the more ignorant trends out there. Have you read and studied the Constitution? The more I read documents from the Founding Era, the more I realize the ignorance of the average American. The biggest shock I have come across in college is not being independent or experiencing "new things." It was finding out most people hate Political Science. This wasn't comprehendible to me (PoliSci Bias) because there are few more important topics that are relative to every person. It seems the general consensus is, that not only is it a hard class, it combines science with critical thinking. You have to know all the material AND how to apply it. To me, that is why it is so wonderful. After reading Freakonomics (must read) and Superfreakonomics (double must read), I realized the education is only good if you can create something new out of it. The most successful people to me have created something, whether an idea, invention, business, or principle. The great part about political science is the room for creation. The worst part about political science is the people. The point is:
1. Don't be ignorant; educate yourself.
2. Don't follow public opinion- "Much Madness is Divinest Sense" (Emily Dickinson FTW!)
3. Don't Live on Northside

Math 141
As far as how school is going....things are good. A's in all classes. So why the title Black Math? Math is the most futile subject that it brings out the worst in me. Apparently I am not bad at math, but It is the most dull area I can thing of. If you're an engineer great. The way my mind is geared, I can't be stimulated mentally by the mundane, meticulous rules and repetitions of The Math. To each his own.

So if you don't read any of that^, at least READ THIS

3 Things You Should Know

1. Freedom of speech was extended to the state level in the case "Gitlow v. New York." Gitlow wins and the first amendment is extended to a state level. Gitlow then does jail time for being a convicted Communist.
2. Roe v. Wade significantly dropped the crime rate (Freakonomics).
3. Vibram 5 fingers changed my life

P.S. Latest Obsession is The Ettes. Give them a listen. Red in Tooth and Claw.