Of time changes

So, as Scott Westerfeld says, there seem to be Iranian censors roaming about looking for blogs with time zones in Tehran or Iran. Thus, the more blogs set for this time zone, the more confusing it is to find the ones that are actually coming from Iran and the harder it is for the censors to, well, censor.

If you are a censor looking at this, have fun. You’ve hit small fry. It was nice to meet you, sort of. Not really. Actually, it would be nice if you could just go and play poker somewhere rather than quelling rebellion. I mean, quelling rebellion can’t possibly be that fun.

If you’re somebody with a blog, then I suggest you switch your time to Iran’s as well, which is UCT +4:30 because of daylight savings… UCT +3:30 otherwise.

I don’t feel that bad for not doing anything anymore.

On the other side of the world

Something is happening there. More specifically, in Iran.

So the short cut version is that yesterday, Iran held its long-anticipated election where the two main candidates were Ahmadinejad and Moussavi- whose name no two people spell the same way in English- and apparently, it was a complete fraud, as over two-thirds of the vote went to Ahmadinejad, the incumbent.

The reasons people doubt this are numerous but one of the main ones is the fact that there was an extremely high voter-turnout rate and the margin by which Ahmadinejad won seemed to be the same throughout all the regions in Iran. Which is rather fishy.

Moussavi had widespread support among the people of the region he came from and among the young people of Iran, who seem to have tired of an oppressive theocracy and are, well, voting for change, so to speak.

Perhaps, like in Lebanon, things will work out in their favor. Perhaps not.

As Ahmadinejad and his people seem to have pulled a complete coup, putting Moussavi under house arrest, the country seems to be erupting.

It might be very early to say, but I smell unrest.

There are protests in the street and Moussavi’s supporters are like a green tide sweeping Tehran. At least, that is the wording that comes to my mind watching many of these protest videos.

Reports of police brutality at the protests are all over the place, with some claiming that there are up to a hundred or more protestors dead from police beatings.

Anyway, I just had to point out the happenings, but I’m going to go ahead and point to a list of pieces of evidence that the election was stolen.

Nobody really knows if Ahmadinejad really did have more votes, but the next few weeks will show the end of this. Perhaps.

Then again, perhaps we’re looking at a revolution. Only time shall tell.

Of self-esteem

So, apparently there are people who believe that having self-esteem is a bad thing.

However, I don’t think so. The argument was that if you have self-esteem, you think you are so awesome that you wouldn’t have to, say, wash the dishes. Meaning, that self-esteem is basically the same thing as pride or arrogance. The thing is, though, it’s not, honestly.

Self-esteem means that you believe that you, yourself, can do something. That something is within your abilities to pull off; it doesn’t mean that you think you’re better than everybody else around you at that particular thing.

For example, if a person believes that they can become a great swimmer, that doesn’t mean that they think they’re better than everybody else at swimming. It doesn’t mean they think they’ll be the next Michael Phelps or better; they are doing this for themselves.

Then there was another point in the argument in which it was argued that we should all consider ourselves to be nothing because we can’t really survive without other people. We should be grateful to everybody else and think that we, ourselves, are just terrible. That way, we strive to do better; to be worthy of the other person’s aid.

This one doesn’t make any sense either. If you consider yourself to be nothing, why would you try to do better? If somebody thinks that, say, they can’t draw ever and whatever they draw is atrocious, why would they ever try to draw? In order to get better at something, you have to believe that you’ll get better at it. Or at least believe that you have the potential to be better at it than you are.

Thus, it is a bad thing to have low self-esteem. And a good thing to have high self-esteem, because then you believe in yourself and allow yourself to achieve more.

Also, low self-esteem is just pointless in general. You pity yourself and regret past actions when you could be doing something productive and useful now.

There is always a way to fix things and there is never a good time for any regrets.

Morals make us human

So in case anybody hasn’t heard about those CIA memos released last week, in short, they were pretty nauseating to read and thoroughly unpleasant to think about. In fact, my mother asked whether I was sick or not when I went downstairs after reading them.

Currently, there are a bunch of conservatives claiming such things as “the memos prove we didn’t torture” and “waterboarding is not quite torture.”

Excuse me, are you serious?

So making somebody think that they are drowning several times a day for a month after bashing their head against a wall after confining them in a small box with one of their worst fears is not torture? We should be proud of waterboarding? We should have done worse?

What the hell is wrong with you?

The country’s most famous POW even spells it out for you: waterboarding is torture. And yet some people still say we should be proud of ourselves for the things done to them by us. Because there’s always a them and an us, isn’t there?

Evidently, we should be proud for destroying people’s minds and bodies. After all, there’s no real physical evidence on those people. We just have a few legal memos as evidence. Really, who needs morals, anyway? Those are just silly things for elitists to cling to and whine about.

I have news for you: America tortured. Did it produce effective results? God only knows.

Would it be worth it, even if it had? Never.

This isn’t about whether we are willing or not to dirty our hands getting revenge and information that is quite possibly false. This is about the fact that we tortured, we broke the Geneva Conventions, and we shouldn’t ignore that and not take responsibility. We can no longer claim to be the golden land of promise and hope and morality if we choose to “move on.” We’ll be down there with the Khmer Rouge and Stalin’s USSR if we choose to do so.

As much as I like Obama, I have to disagree on this one: the people who authorized this should be held accountable.

The people we tortured had absolutely nothing to do with any ticking time bomb scenario. We sold our souls to the Devil and gained the enmity of the entire world in exchange for some false information, a paper sense of revenge, and a little added confidence.

We have lost our morals in this mess of secret dealings and dark hidden locations and the torture of other human beings, and in doing so, have lost our humanity as well.

I am obviously going to hell

Because no, I am not Christian and nor do I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.  And because I believe in gay marriage. And a number of other things. Damn.

Guess I’m screwed.

See you guys there.

PS. Motivated by my other insane friend (I have a number of them) who told me that I was going to hell today because I said that gays should not be legally treated differently than anyone else and also that I didn’t think Jesus was the son of God.

She’s nice as long as you avoid talking about religion and politics with her, I swear.

I don’t understand your Bible

I don’t understand homophobia. Or people who think gays are somehow evil or being one is a “sin.”

Will somebody please explain this to me?

So there’s this book, it’s called the Bible, that explicitly condemns homosexuality in two different places… but also says that God is benevolent and loves all people.

If he loves all people, what the hell are the gays? Martians?

I have this friend who is a rather brainwashed Jehovah’s Witness. Her argument against homosexuality is that “the Bible says it’s a sin” and “if it was meant to exist, then we would be able to reproduce that way.” I really hate people who use the first argument, and for the most part we avoid Bible talk. But I seriously don’t understand- she thinks that homosexuality is something like a disease and will be cured one day. That day being Armageddon. Homosexuality… is… a disease? But… what about genetics? How can you believe in genetics and not believe in the fact that being gay is not a psychological disorder?

I try not to argue science with her because it’s hard to argue science with a creationist. There is no logic involved. But still… homosexuality being a disease? Honestly?

Are we not in the 21st century here? We’ve figured out that whether or not somebody is gay is determined by their genes, not how they’re raised. I mean, I’m a firm believer in nature over nurture, so I’m a little biased in this argument, but seriously, what the hell?

I have another friend, though, who is an independent atheist and also believes that homosexuality is a psychological thing. I think that it’s in your genes. And, I, not being gay myself and thus not really having any authority to speak on this, still can’t help but feel that man, it must really offend gay people when they hear stuff like “it all roots from your relationship with your parents.” I mean, what the fuck is that? Come on! Not every gay person has a bad relationship with one of their parents and not every straight person has great relations with both of their parents. Doesn’t that right there disprove that entire theory? Can we move on, people? Please?

On a different related note, my first friend- the totally insane Jehovah’s Witness- does not believe in gay marriage, because according to her, homosexuality is a sin. My second friend, being infinitely more liberal, believes in it although she still believes that homosexuality is a “psychological disorder rooted from how your parents brought you up.” However, I can excuse her for believing that, seeing as her father is a psychologist who has probably told her this opinion for a while now. And this is the same girl who didn’t believe in global warming for three years. Logic is not high on her list of priorities.

Going back to the beginning, though, the Jehovah’s Witness is fine with gays being around, she just doesn’t want them to act gay.

Excuse me, what?

Take this moment to reread that sentence, blink a few times confusedly and continue. According to her, they shouldn’t practice their homosexuality openly by getting married because it’s a sin. It’s a sin because the Bible says so. This is circular logic, here.

What she does not comprehend is that she is playing the Devil’s advocate in this case. I am, to the majority of the intelligent world, the good guy. Her perception is so skewed, however, that I am the evil guy who consorts with sinners from her viewpoint. When I argue with her, I always make the point that by asking people to refrain from homosexual acts even if they are homosexual, she is asking people not to express their love because their love is a “sin.” She is, in effect, telling people that they can’t feel thus-and-thus emotion for this person because they are the same gender, or that they should at least should hold themselves back from acting on that emotion. That is denying people love. She doesn’t get that. The whole “they can’t express their homosexuality because it’s a sin” entire train of thought makes me want to hit my head against a wall several times.

And she says that I’m making her out to be the bad guy. And I am. But the thing is, she is the bad guy, to most people with minds of their own.

I was not raised by liberal Democrats, I was raised by a couple of independents who didn’t vote in most elections because they didn’t like either major-party candidate. I became a liberal Democrat after doing a lot of reading and thinking of my own.

She is completely brainwashed, though. Her parents instilled all her thoughts into her. I don’t understand this. Why would you purposely tell your kid things like “evolution doesn’t exist” and not let them decide for themselves? It’s called free will, guys. You know, independence. That thing we fought a whole shitload of wars over. Children are not lumps of clay to be shaped into whatever you want them to be. They are more reminiscent of plants that need a little help making more flowers or growing taller or greener. They will grow up to be independent individuals one day and will have to make their own decisions. Stop brainwashing your kids. Brainwashing is not the way to go.

So, my three messages of today, in short:

1. Don’t brainwash your kids.

2. If you argue that homosexuality is a psychological disorder, you will be punched in the face one day. Quite possibly by me if I see you.

3. The Bible is full of crap.

I apologize if any of that offends anyone. To make the hurt less, the Bible is also full of very progressive and wonderful things, like “thou shalt not kill or steal.” It’s those parts that I firmly believe in.

By the way, I still need someone to explain that whole God-loves-all-people-but-not-gays-atheists-Jews-Muslims-or-people-who-consort-with-them thing. Still don’t get it.

Over and out.

Creationists are totally insane

No, I’m completely serious. They are probably the least logical people I have ever met in my entire life. I honestly think they’ve been brainwashed.

What they say does not make sense.

I mean, it probably makes sense to them, I’m sure it makes sense to them, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Whatsoever.

Is it brainwashing? I think it’s brainwashing.

Their argument is that a magical invisible man in the sky was just chillin’ and then decided one day that he was bored and thought to himself, ‘Hm. I need something to jazz up this shithole I call paradise. I think I’ll make something I can play with.’ So he made a pretty green-and-blue ball and called it Earth for some weird reason. The word just came to him or something. Then he was still bored so he thought, ‘Hm. I bet it will be really entertaining if I make some awesome things that look like me out of mud and give them magical LIFE and call them humans? Yep, that would be pretty sweet.’ So he made a person and called him Adam.

But then Adam complained that he was lonely so God took his rib and made somebody with different genitalia and general body structure and called her Eve and said she was a she since Adam was a he. And then God magicked Adam’s rib back, so, you know, Adam could survive. God was like ‘Poof’ and it happened. BAM. Humans.

Okay, stop here a moment. God made Eve out of Adam’s rib. I have a couple of serious problems with this argument.

Firstly, why is this whole thing so damn sexist? Women are made from men’s ribs, of all things? Seriously? I demand to know why the Bible doesn’t say that men are made out of women’s, say, teeth.

Secondly, this entire thing demands a true, honest-to-God belief in magic. God needed to magic a person out of mud and magic Adam’s rib back and magic Eve out of the rib and magic Earth and light and stars and all that other pretty stuff into existence in the first place. If the average creationist believes in this, how do they explain the fact that other magical things don’t exist? For example, why don’t we have unicorns? I want a freaking unicorn. Somebody show me a unicorn and I will believe in your rib-turning-into-a-female theory, I promise.

On with Genesis, as interpreted by me.

Continuing, after God decided that he would grant Adam’s whim and make Eve, he told them to go forth and make lots of babies. Reproduce until they’re swimming in offspring. But then the Devil showed up in disguise as a snake. That talked. A snake that talked. Eve, being not-too-intelligent, accepted the fact that this snake talked and decided that it would be a smart idea to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge even though God (ie. That Invisible Dude Who Gave Me Life and Very Practical Advice That I Will Now Ignore in Favor of That of a Talking Snake) told her not to. So she went and did it.

Now is this just me, or is this the second instance of downright sexism in this story so far? Why the hell didn’t Adam get tricked by the snake? Are women more gullible than men or something? Obviously, according to Genesis, we women are totally inferior to men in every way. Ever. So gullible as to listen to a talking snake.

So anyway, Eve ate the apple and then saw that she was NEKKID (OHNOES) and got Adam to eat an apple too and then he saw that he was NEKKID (DOUBLEOHNOES) and they both attempted to cover themselves up. God saw this and was like “What did I tell you guys about EATING THE F#$%ING APPLES?!” and they cowered in fear and then God was like “GTFO MY PARADISE” and snapped his fingers and BAM, they were banished to Earth. Oh, by the way, God told Eve that because she got knowledge, she ruined it for the rest of the human race and now she had to suffer in childbirth. Sucks for her. And, you know, the rest of us.

God has some anger management issues. As my friend likes to say, “He’s like the bully on the playground that takes a magnifying glass and uses it to burn ants alive. Only we’re the ants.”

Now, why would people who believe in a benevolent God think that he has anger issues as serious as the ones portrayed by Him in Genesis? I don’t understand the logic here.

The dots don’t connect in my head. Benevolent God Who Creates Life and is Magical = Angry God Who Throws Adam and Eve the F#$% Out of His Garden? Where is the logic behind this?

Let me answer my own question: there is no logic behind this entire thing.

Belief in this whole fiasco titled under Genesis in the Bible, again, entails belief in magic. Magic. Like, ‘POOF! I snapped my fingers and a waffle appeared out of nowhere in my hand’ magic. I’m snapping my fingers and nothing is happening! Where is my damn waffle?!

Furthermore, I kind of have issues with the whole concept of an invisible guy sitting in a cloud suddenly out of nowhere deciding that he would make people as cheap entertainment.

That all said, the day I believe in what creationists are spouting is the day that somebody shows me a unicorn.

On shoulders (or the lack thereof)

Okay, so, yes, I haven’t blogged in about a month and I know that that is major inconsistency on my part, but, you know, I am one of those people who are endlessly amazed at bloggers who manage to update 10 times a day or some other crazy number above 1.

But anyway, I have something to rant indefinitely about here: is a shoulder for a shoulder really too much to ask for around these parts? Because I’m really starting to feel like it is.

This is going to sound ridiculously self-righteous, but I am goddamn sick and tired of being the person that everybody in my rather large group of acquaintances leans on in times of trouble. I mean, I’d be okay with that, hell, I am perfectly fine with that. Knowing that I am emotionally strong enough to have others depend on me to cheer them up all the time does wonders for my self-confidence.

Besides that, I feel nice when I cheer up other people. This cheering up is pretty hard to do, considering the fact that I’m probably the one with the highest self-esteem in my group of friends, and all the rest are pretty freaking depressed, followed soon after by my good friend who admitted that she only really cares about whether her four or so very close friends are happy or not. Which I find in bad taste, but that’s a rant for another day. Namely, tomorrow. When I’m home sick. Again.

But sometimes, I need a shoulder too. You know, somebody to complain to, who will cheer me up, who I won’t feel bad laying my troubles on. All those friends of mine who talk to me about their problems, I’d feel really god-awful if I began complaining to them. I know that they’re wonderful people but my problems just seem so pathetic compared to theirs, really. And maybe that should humble me and make me realize that my problems aren’t as terrible as they seem to me at first, but you know what? It doesn’t, because there are burdens rampant in the fact alone that I have to bear everybody else’s troubles. Which, again, wouldn’t be that bad if I also had somebody to pour my soul out to, or even just rant a little about being everyone’s shoulder. But I don’t.

The quote “everybody needs somebody sometimes” comes to mind.

Although I know I sound like a sappy melodramatic teenage girl, I am one, so I figure I’m entitled to it: being one lonely shoulder sucks.

End rant.

Inauguration Day

Whatever conservatives say about Barack Obama, the man can make a speech.

It’s been years that we’ve waited for this.

Those years are finally over.

And remember:

Yes. We did.

Political Commentary 1/9/09

So this blog will probably become a diary, of sorts. My thoughts on anything and everything, as I believe I mentioned.

Because of the sporadic nature of when I can write, it won’t be in any semblance of a pattern- definitely not more than twice a day and probably much less than that.

Now, for a political notice:

The fact I heard today that I am wondering about: why is it that conservative Republicans (in particular, the ones who live on my street) think that Barack Obama is a Muslim?

Hasn’t it been proven that he is a practicing Christian?

More importantly, why do they care if somebody is a Muslim?

I’m fairly sure that the Bush presidency, especially after 9/11, considerably upped the amount of racism that Muslims have to deal with on a daily basis. Okay, I do not fully understand the bias- people seem to think that because radical members of a religion initiated the attacks, everybody else in that religion has the same dosage of crazy?

Seriously, guys? I thought we were trying to get past all this racism crap.

But really, what the hell? Why does everybody (and by everybody, I mean the 70% of parents who have teens who use racist insults non-jokingly all the time) in this town think that all Muslims are inherently evil? And teach their children that?

I believe I read this somewhere already, but isn’t the question we should be asking ourselves “Why would it matter if Obama was a Muslim?” rather than “Is Obama a Muslim?”

I understand that we, America, as a country, are not quite past our racial bias towards many people. Hell, we haven’t even had a Mormon President as of yet.

But the thing that bothers me the most is not even the fact that certain people argue against Obama solely on the basis that he is a Muslim socialist (that makes two lies right there), but the fact that Obama himself has not denounced the rumors about his alleged “Muslimness.” He has just publicly announced that they weren’t true.

Now, I am definitely sure this has been said before, but it is worth repeating: Obama should not only denounce these rumors, but say that they are hate crimes. Because they are. A president who stands for change and racial harmony can’t look good in the eyes of all the Muslims in this country if he doesn’t even point out the blatant racism behind the “is he a Muslim?” comments, and just blatantly accepts the bias.

Come on, America. Can we, as a country, or at least in this tiny overrun-with-conservatives backwater town, be just a tiny bit less racist?

Please?