The 4th of July is a strangely ironic holiday.

It's the only holiday I can think of where we celebrate our freedom by blowing stuff up.
While we're stealing the freedom of others by blowing them up.

It might be funny if it weren't so sad.

Apple

I'm participating in National Blog Post Month.

Now I've tried the father of this program, National Novel Writing Month. Which I will do this year! I've said that the last four years but I'm serious this time! You guys just have too...prod me with a cattle iron and get me going on it. But this should be easier. But I'm going to create a schedule. Now obviously I have a life (*cough*) so I won't do a post every day. But I'll try. Every other weeks I'll try for five out of seven days. And here is the schedule of what will probably, not likely, happen.

Sunday - Random. Whatever I feel like.
Monday - Recent Events. Where I invade the news and post my response.
Tuesday - Rate Ur Site. Where I rate a website. Probably the ones everyone knows about.
Wednesday - Again, whatever I feel like.
Thursday - Rant day. So I get all my anger out.
Friday - CASUAL FRIDAY. Where I get lazy and just go off of whatever LiveJournals prompt is.
Saturday - Short Story. So I'm still stretching my creative gene.

This will go on starting this Sunday. That way we'll be even. And it will go until the fourth week where I'll decide whether it works.

I'm also going to start getting into LiveJournal communities. Suggest some too me! Or I'll find them myself. Either one works. I want more readers. That takes effort. Suppose I have to exert myself sometimes.

Also, stagehand work is hard.

Apple

it's a world of laughter a world of tears
it's a world of hopes, it's a world of fears
there's so much that we share
that it's time we're aware
it's a small world after aaaaaaaall!

it's a small world after all!
it's a small world after all!
it's a small world after all!
it's a small, small, world!

there is just one moon and one golden sun
and a smile brings friendship to everyone
though the mountains divide
and the oceans are wide
it's a small world after aaaaaaaall!

it's a small world after all!
it's a small world after all!
it's a small world after all!
it's a small, small, world!

Thank you.

So recently, the losing side in the Student Association elections, the incumbent party, wrote a bill declaring that they wanted to hire a personally selected lawyer for $7500 of the students money to recount the vote. There's a million things wrong with this. First of all, the By-Laws outline how the post-election process is supposed to go. Complaints are filtered through the election committee to the Board of Justice who decides if they're valid. The Student Association, ESPECIALLY when many of them ran in the election, has no say in this and yet took it upon themselves to write this bill. The funniest part is they say it's to protect the integrity of the students vote, but they never presented this bill when they won last semester, so the motivation is fairly clear.

Besides, why do they just skip all the basic steps and hire a lawyer for $7500 first? WHY?

It's alright though. The students in the Student Association don't have the power to sign a legally binding contract and the administration recently announced that they won't be signing the contract and vetoed the bill.

Let this be a lesson to you. When you specifically have councils that are supposed to overlook these matters, LET THEM DO THEIR JOBS. Thank you. :3

We won! As of 2:00PM today the ARC Students for Change have won the Student Association elections and given back the Student Association to the students. These are the new Student Association representatives:

David Fischer - President
Shaine "AJ" Johnson - Vice President
Akilah Parks - Director of Legislative Affairs
John Throm - Director of Finance
Chuck Stevens - Director of Activities
Kindra Pring - Secretary

Student Representatives:
Joy Cordova
Melony Ford
Chris DuCray
Nick Hartkopft
Jeremy Palmer
Brice Robinson-Wasley
Toni Abney

We won by about 250-200 vote difference on average. Thank you to all the ARC Students who voted and our volunteers! Now we can give the school back to all students and do what the Student Association was intended to do and help the students further their educational experience. Thank you so so so much!

Election results are going to be up tomorrow at one (that is Friday at one) and I am so. Nervous.

I'm optimistic too but mostly nervous. Banging my head on the wall nervous. Like, I'm fidgety and everything. But I'm still pretty confident. But...but...graargh!

Wish us luck.

I spy with my little eye, sitting on the ARC lawn:

• Four tree in a row.
• The theatre.
• The weird, cone shaped fountain.
• A guy from the construction site.
• The construction site.
• The drill spiral sculpture things.
• A fire hydrant no where near the sidewalk.
• The directional signs.
• Lots of dandelions.
• Street lights that are still on.
• A stick by my foot.
• Some pieces of wood made into a triangle.
• Gates.
• A transit bus.
• A bug flying by my face until I smack it.
• Nothing.
• A box where the Current puts it's papers.
• A laptop.
  
  • LiveJournal.
    
    • This text all in a row.

I truly dislike this philosophy. No longer just because it's, well, a silly philosophy to begin with. But people are starting to do it without even noticing they do it. And this last Thursday was the perfect example. At the Student Association meeting, where they decided to oppose the Day of Silence.

Now there are plenty of things wrong with said bill. I've already touched on one, which is the fact that it misconstrued what the Day of Silence is. Another is that the problem is lays out is teachers spending too much time on the subject and decides that remedying what teachers do means telling students not to practice it. But I think I just found the major flaw - the justification and motivation behind it is an eye for an eye mentality. At the meeting, several (that is to say about five) audience members came up, and rather than talk about the bill or the Day of Silence, talked about how they'd been discriminated against as Christians. That's fair. I understand that problem. I even mentioned that faculty suspending a student for speaking their voice in any situation is unfair. But the Day of Silence did not do that. I know I get rather peeved when people watch proclaimed Christians do very unChristian things and blame that on God or Christianity. But how is this any different?

Secondly, amongst the other members who spoke, most of them were trying to urge the council not to pass the resolution. And they too brought examples of discrimination. Melony came up with examples of gay men and women who'd been killed. The councils rebuttal is that they had escaped a country where they were silenced for their beliefs. So that makes silencing of others okay? I can't believe I have to explain a simple rule that I've known since kindergarten but, two wrongs don't make a right. If you are discriminated against, you don't respond by discriminating against others. It's in the Bible even! In fact the Bible says that if someone takes from you, you respond with ultimate love. "If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic." - Luke 6:29. Pardon the random bold.

What basically happened was despite my giving them the definition of the Day of Silence and trying to stress that it's a day just as much for remembering Christian martyrs as it is homosexual victims, they still passed it because they felt it would silence them.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have never been silenced by a liberal, homosexual, atheists, or anyone who other Christians seem to think are "evil" or have some sort of agenda. And I hang around a lot of them. Most of them not only don't care when I talk about my faith, but they encourage it. They enjoy having an intellectual discussion about it. I have faced more Christians who want to silence me than I have faces atheists at all I believe. What kind of sense does that make? Well Christianity as a religion isn't a singular religion any more. Someone something as simple as "trust the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" has been twisted just so that hundreds of denominations now exist that all think differently to the point where they judge who is and isn't Christian. I personally, think that is up to God.  You tell someone "I don't think you're Christian". It's an entirely different story to say "You aren't Christian". And while my atheist friends are accepting and many of them even encouraging, many of the Christians on my campus are set that I have to believe exactly like them or I'm obviously not a Christian. I never in my life thought the bulk of my criticisms would come from people who SHARE my religion.

Moving on, this council can't stay consistent even in their own context. One of the members, directly after saying he is the one persecuted against for his Christian beliefs, said "homosexuals commit suicide because of an unhealthy lifestyle". Regardless of what you believe about homosexuality, that response is just ignorant. Read every study you can find. Just watch a gay teenager in school. Those kids commit suicide because they're teased and made fun of by their peers. And as far as that goes, that doesn't make sense. If homosexuality is a choice, wouldn't you sooner choose NOT to be homosexual than commit suicide (then again, wouldn't you sooner choose not to be homosexual than be made fun of and lose the respect of your friends and family?) Point is: you can't saying your discriminated against and then make such an ignorant statement.

Finally, I'm tired of hearing Christians in America say they're "discriminated" against or "persecuted". Persecuted is a word I would never use to describe anything  I face as a Christian here. Because my understanding is that I should not only expect it but respond lovingly, but not only that I believe to call what at the very least this council members face is belittling the martyrs who've died and the Believers overseas who sacrifice their livelihood to share the Good News. Our life is good here. Get called a few names and end your day in a comfy bed. This council takes it farther by saying Prop 8 and Day of Silence is persecution, which doesn't even make sense to me since neither ever forced Christians to do anything. And what discrimination that happens is never strictly because a person believes in God. I can't for the life of me find or think of a hate crime that's been committed in the U.S. because a person was Christian. Muslim, Jewish, etc. but not Christian. Most of the time it's when Christians say or do things purposely to offend people. I get tired of having to explain that when you wear a shirt that says "Homosexuality is Wrong" or any variation, or you hand out pamphlets talking about how evil Muslims are, you should expect retaliation. The Bible says you should expect retaliation anyway, as I've already explained. When you take controversial issues and put them on a big screen and say in the loudest and most obnoxious way possible that this is what you believe, people are going to be irritate. And when you respond with "You're just offended by God", you're not helping yourself. Because they aren't offended by God, they're offended by you.

It's like Rob Bell's "Bullhorn" clip. If you stand on a corner shouting at people to believe in God or go to hell, people aren't going to listen. If you put up a table that lists the Ten Commandments and shout at people that they're evil, evil, evil, people aren't going to listen. And when people don't listen, they aren't offended by God. They're just annoyed. I don't know how I can say this any clearer.

I've gotten way off track in this little rant but I simply can't stand this anymore. I feel like because of this bullhorn, that sharing the Commission is difficult for those who want to. For me. My atheist friends listen. But it's very hard to clear their mind of the image of Christianity they already know: an angry council of Christians declaring at every meeting that homosexuality and punk rock music is immoral and unnatural. The more people hear what God doesn't like, they less they'll want to hear about Him in general. People are turned off by negativity. And you can respond by saying that it's okay because people hate you. But you should know them first. I once made assumptions about non-Christians when I was a young Christian. Then I talked to some of them. They don't hate God. They don't hate Christianity. They hate hearing over and over that they're going to hell when they don't believe in hell. I would love to say yet but I don't think it'll get that far. And besides, if someone converts to avoid hell, they're missing the greatest part about believing in God. The God part. The relationship. You can go to church, follow the Ten Commandments, and everything that these Bullhorn Christians tell you to do. But if you don't truly know God, it isn't worth it.

Now this has gotten really off topic but I have it all off my chest. I apologize ahead of time if I said anything offensive or hypocritical and I may delete this later. But I have to say it to someone other than Melony. So that means now I say it to Heather and Melony

P.S. Heather can you find the Rob Bell video I was talking about?

Top Five Worst Ways To Convince People You Aren't Mafia When Playing Mafia

This is a protest day that people seem to misunderstand to a degree that's almost harmful. So I feel obliged to explain it.

The Day of Silence began as a student run protest where students were completely silent for an entire day. The point was "being silent for the silenced". It was meant to be a day to remember those lost to hate crimes and bring awareness to the problem. A hate crime is defined as any offense which is motivated by the victims race, religion, sex, gender, disability, age, and in many states sexual orientation. Every year the day is dedicated to a life lost to hate crimes. For 2009, the victim the Day of Silence is dedicated to is Lawrence King.

Many people have a misconception that the Day of Silence is a day to promote homosexuality. I don't know where people get this idea. Actually I kind of do. The Day of Silence is specific towards victims of hate crimes because of their sexual orientation. But the reason for this is because several states don't have sexual orientation in hate crime legislation. Many states have recently added it but nearly half of the states still don't have laws protecting sexual orientation under the hate crime laws, making offenders who commit crimes against people for their sexual orientation or gender identity receive more lenient sentences. For example, in 1999 in Sacramento, two white supremacists  burned down a Jewish synagogue and murdered a gay Redding couple. They received 21 years for arson and only 33 for the double-homicide. California has since revised their hate crimes laws but many states still have these lenient sentences. Because of this, the Day of Silence targets mostly LGBT victims, but is applied to victims of any sort of hate crime.

The reason I'm writing this is because the ARC Student Association recently presented a bill opposing the Day of Silence, saying it "has been used to silence and harass religious students at local public schools for expressing their viewpoints;and...seeks to pressure all grades in public schools to commit valuable classroom time to the Day of Silence, disrupting the school day, politicizing classrooms, and pressuring impressionable students to abandon their conscience on sexual boundaries..." In my fourteen years as a student, from K-12 and into college, I have never been forced or felt intimidated by a teacher or student about how I should feel about homosexuality. I have never even heard a teacher speak about the Day of Silence, though I think that as long as they aren't misconstruing it or using their entire class to talk about it, it should be okay. I see nothing wrong with talking to kids about the effects of hate crimes. I have been far more intimidated by fellow Christians on campus who put up rules and tell me I'm not a Christian for this or that. Never in my life have I faced the above quoted situation.

Regardless of your views on homosexuality, the Day of Silence is nothing to be opposed if you understand why it's practiced. Not as a pro-gay protest, but more as a memorial and a reminder of those who've been victimized for petty reasons. To misconstrue that as trying to force religious students into a certain viewpoint is harmful to everyone.

Here are some things that I believe should be implemented in Student Elections:

It should be a requirement that in order to run for something you should know what you're running for. "Director of Uh, Uh, Uh" is not a position. When you are a currently standing Student Association member, you should know this.

Saying stupid things like "As a Student Representative, I only represent those who vote for me" should be a sign that you need to research what your position is about before you run for it.

When in office, you should listen when people are explaining what the purpose of a Bill is. Saying "Earth Week is for people who worship the Earth" about a bill which says nothing of the sort is ridiculous and ignorant.

Hypocrisy should be punishable by removal from office. For instance, passing a resolution stating all students have the right to an opinion and in the next week creating a bill discouraging a peaceful protest advocating what you do not agree with, is incredibly hypocritical.

The point of public forum is for students to voice their opinions. If you have a public forum, and talk the entire way through it or knowingly ignore what they're saying, you probably shouldn't bother having it.

You can't record minutes and text at the same time. It is impossible.

The point of a translation is so non-English speakers know what the English side says. Writing something in English, and then writing something completely different in another language, isn't a translation. It's also highly unethical.

Don't say "We're supported by this club" to a video camera unless you're sure.

Thank you.

I found this site when I randomly decided to research the game Mafia. If you don't know what it is, just look it up. I'm not very good at explaining it evidently.

Anyway, I've been playing this site for like a week, and I think I'm addicted. It lags a lot but the site itself is well put together and there's a large variation of roles and combinations to play. It's really a lot of fun. I'm not exceptionally good at it. But it's still fun. The biggest problem is the people. Most of them are fun and amiable, but there are some that are just sore losers. And they'll keep going at it. If you mess up, or if you don't mess up, or even if they mess up, they'll keep it on and on and ruin other games for you. I picked wrong in a game once where it was completely random and one chick just blew up on me. A few games later I was maf with her and when she got caught she decided to out me as other maf. Just as a poor sport.

But for the most part, the people are okay. Kind of crude but not in a mean way generally so it's fairly easy to put up with. You should check it out, random 2 people who see this. I'm hooked. Got Heather hooked. It hooks you!

K bai.