This semester I learned that I lost interest in english. What was once my favorite class has become something that I could not be less interested in. English used to flow from me, it used to be something to get excited about. Recently english has been more like vacuuming. My vacuum hardly works at all. But vacuuming is something that has to be done. I make myself start vacuuming, and just as I suspect, it clumsily tries, and fails to make any progress. I think “this used to work, maybe if I could just try to find someway to unclog it, than it would work.” And than I always just end up finishing up as quickly as I can, and call it quits with the disappointing feeling that I have not done what I set out to do.

There was a time when I would get an english assignment and feel an unprecedented sense of excitement. I would instantly start thinking about what I was going to say, and how I was going to say it. I would sit down at a computer and start thinking of all the things I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say them, and I would just type my ideas out as fast as my fingers would go. When I got the end of the paper, I would go through and improve it several times. When I did finish the paper I would have something that I was proud of. Once I was finally done with the assignment I would impatiently wait for the next one, like a crack addict waiting for his next fix. This semester when I would get an english assignment I would think “I’ll worry about it later, I have a week.” I would decide to start working on the paper on wednesday, one day before it was due. On wednesdays I had a two hour period between classes, so I would start working on it then. I would pull out some paper, think about the assignment for a little while, decide I had lost interest, pull out my iPod, and spend the remaining one hour and fifty five minutes listening to music and (since it felt weird just l sitting there listening to music) pretending to read. Looking back on my assignments no longer invokes pride. I just saw one where we were supposed to write a complaint about our gender from the perspective of the other gender. Mine was titled “Why do men have to be such pigs”, I saw the title and thought “certainly I realized how that whiney, uninspired tone sounded like a stereotypical girl, why did my paper that was supposed to explore sexism have a sexist title?” It only took a moment for me to see that I probably did realize how the title was sexist, but that it didn’t matter because the paper was done. I had reached a point where my assignments were not loved, they were tolerated.

I could learn math, or science, of history, or whatever, and the amount of passion behind these things never seemed to matter. If someone knows a mathematical formula, then they know the formula, it makes no difference wether they loved learning it and would have been happy to do it there free time, or they hated it and forced themselves to learn it on the bus ride to school. It made no difference because the student wasn’t really doing that much. They were just remembering what other people had done. The one exception to this was english class. In english you had to create, you had to think of new things, not just regurgitate what had already been done. This is the reason that I loved english than, and loath it now. When you want to create, and think of new things, nothing is more enjoyable. But when you struggle to do so nothing is more frustrating. When you can’t make yourself do something, you feel helpless. When you feel like it is something that you used to be able to do, you feel like there is a mysterious barrier. You want to get whatever you had before back so bad.

English used to be my favorite class because it let you think. Not just think about thoughts that had been thought up by someone else, but it lets you have your own thoughts. English was the only core class that let you, not only lean concepts, but explore and create them yourself. But this freedom is driven by passion. I can think of nothing more frustrating than being really good at english, and having the passion, and than excitedly starting an english class to find that your passion is gone. It seems a bit over dramatic to think that I have passed my prime at the age of nineteen, but why do I hate, and suck at something that I used to love and be good at. I think back to my old english teacher singling me out in almost every class to tell me how much she liked my most recent work. And it just makes it suck more to see my mediocre work of today. It seems like all I can do is hope that someday my passion will come back.

Water has always been one of the biggest concerns of mankind. This is evident in some of our earliest beliefs, among the first gods there were those that controlled the water, some of the first technologies that were developed for the purpose of distributing water to crops and people. And now, thousands and thousands of years latter, we are beginning to believe that our earliest biological ancestors started out swimming in it, and that the building blocks of life (amino acids) started in a primordial soup that was mostly just water.

Even after all that, water may still have more to offer, it may be able to act as a catalyst that gives us affordable energy. By harnessing the movement of water that is caused by the sun and gravity, we could have water that was renewable and created virtually no waste. When something is as versatile and giving as water, it may do even more for us in the future.

Free market capitalism leads to, and does not discourage inequality of power and money. When wealth and the potential production of wealth belongs to private groups, it creates a vicious cycle where a select group become more and more powerful and wealthy where the majority become weaker and poorer. There are times when businesses have incentive to help those on the bottom reach higher by giving them capitol that can potentially let them compete with the already powerful, and than have those people pay them back more than they gave them in capital. But those businesses have not been doing there jobs very well lately, they have been giving capital to people who have not been able to compete with the bigger companies. However this dose not mean that those big companies are doing well themselves, they have been struggling as well, and since they are so big, and so powerful, and so many people rely on them, they want the people that they take the power and wealth from to join together and save them. So basically they want to take power and money from people, and certainly won’t help them, but when they start to fall to a level that is way above any of us, they want us all to get together and help push them even further above us.

What role, if any,do you think the government should have in preventing the collapse of free markets?

I do not that it should be within the power of any government to try and control any markets. I think that it is particularly unfair to make people pay taxes, and than give those tax dollars to groups that make it harder for a majority of the tax payers to compete with them if they chose to do so. In America about 1% of the people have 50% of the money in terms of net worth. I think that the idea of the lower 99% helping that top 1% keep things uneven is absurd.

Is competition important in free markets? why or why not?

It would be hard for someone to argue that competition dose not make pretty much everything better. When you are doing something, and someone else starts doing the same same thing, and they are competing with you, you both have more incentive to do better since you are trying to beat them. When you interfere with competition, you make things worse. Think of GM, they made cars that were appealing to consumers for many years, and were by leaps and bounds the biggest car maker in the world for many years. People wanted big gas guzzling cars, and they knew that they could count on GM for those cars. But than gas started to cost more, GM spent over a billion dollars developing an extremely efficient electric car called the EV1, but decided not to bring it to the market. In lieu of the EV1 they introduced more big gas guzzlers, despite the fact that the market was turning to cars that used less gas. So Toyota, a company with just a fraction of GM’s resources built cars that did use less gas. Toyota knocked GM off the top and is now the largest automaker in the world. Now GM wants to use tax dollars to make up for their lack of foresight. GM could have built cars that got better mileage, and they even did, they just decided not to sell them. Why should we try to save a company that essentially grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. The point is if something dose not have what it takes to survive on its own, why should it survive along side companies that do?

Ever since I could understand what Santa Clause and the Easter bunny and stuff like that were, I could immediately dismiss them and things that were just made up for kids, but how could the same be true for God? God was more than a few stories now and some decorations now and then. We were told how great he was and how we all needed to believe in him, we prayed to him every night be dinner, and than again before bed, and on top of all that we went to a giant building that was built just for him, so that we could pray to him.  It just didn’t make any sense. 

I had to get to the bottom of this, but it wouldn’t be easy.  It seemed like my mom took this guy pretty seriously, and I started thinking of ways to get her to admit that thinking that there was an invisible man in the sky, that had amazing powers, that was everywhere all the time, that would send us to an awful place if we did not listen to him, was made up and just for children.  So I approached it by getting her on the subject “mom I’m not afraid to die” I said nervously “what?” she said stunned at the fact that her four year old was not only thinking about death, but was unafraid of it, “I’m not afraid to die because I’m going to heaven”.  I said this not as a fact, but as a prompt to get to the bottom of God. That’s my side of the story.  The one that she tells people today goes like this. “One day when John was just about four or five, he told me that was not afraid to die, I heard that sometimes little kids remember God from when they were up with him before they came to earth, so I guess that he just remembered after most kids forget.” Any time I bring up my side of the story she just says,” no, you were too young to remember.” I think about when she herd my side of the story and how offended she was, how disappointed she was to find out that I was questioning  God.

That made me really mad, why would you not question something, why were we supposed to hear something as strange as the idea that there was an invisible man in the sky, and not wonder about it? I started to think about how she probably only believes in this because it was the only way that she could wrap her head around how we’re here. It made me angry that people thought that they had any chance of figuring something out that was so insanely complicated. We are all just specs (people), on a spec (earth), in a spec (the galaxy), in a spec (the universe).  At some point humans were formed. Humans are extremely intricate and complicated, and some people think that they know how we got here. 

I think that the human brain is an astonishing thing, and I have very much faith in the human race. But why do so many of them so strongly think it is wrong to question something that do not really make any sense. They often use the term “blind faith”. Why would anyone think it was a good idea to have “blind faith” in anything?  And how they think that it is a good idea to scold a child for questioning something as questionable as God. That’s like saying “your thinking? Well you need to stop”.

 Now as a nineteen year old I can look back at that and see the first time I got upset over the insistence of God. People see amazing things all time, they imagine weird things in their dreams, they cannot wrap their heads around anything, but they insist that they know where we all come from. It was also the spark of the very humble way I see myself today, I look at everything and am able to think about how little I know and how important it is that I keep an open mind since I never know how much faith should be put into what I already know. Since I have no explanation for the universe, I think things are more amazing to me than the people who think they have it figured out.

And so began me and my neighbors learning of our world. But there was more to come, everything from toys to T.V. seemed to be on the boys side. It seemed to say, men have the brains, and women have the braun, or at least they should.  The fathers on T.V. ran the family while the mothers seemed to assist, upholding his rules and serving him and him and rest of the family at home while he went into the world to do what the woman could not. In the movies he was a tough and intelligent hero while she was a damsel in distress, waiting for him to do what she couldn’t. 

I no longer know that childhood neighbor, but I imagine that as we get older he will role out of bed and shower and be off to work when I am still wasting time with my makeup. He is likely to run a family, where the wife make them dinner, and dose most of the cleaning, and takes care of the kids. Where I am likely to take of the kids, and clean, and make dinner, and be a secondary partner to the man. And it will all be because of the teachings laid out for us by Barbie and the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Ever since I could understand what Santa clause and the Easter bunny and stuff like that were, I could immediately dismiss them and things that were just made up for kids, but how could the same be true for God? God was more than a few stories now and some decorations now and then. We were told how great he was and how we all needed to believe in him, we prayed to him every night be dinner, and than again before bed, and on top of all that we went to a giant building that was built just for him, so that we could pray to him.  It just didn’t make any sense. 

Now it looked like my mom took this guy pretty seriously, and I started thinking of ways to get her to admit that thinking that there was an invisible man in the sky, that had amazing powers, that was everywhere all the time, that would send us to an awful place if we did not listen to him, was insane.  So I approached it by getting her on the subject “mom I’m not afraid to die” I said nerviously “what?” she said stunned at the fact that her four year old was not only thinking about death, but was unafraid of it, “I’m not afraid to die because I’m going to heaven” .  I said this not as a fact, but as a prompt to get to the bottom of God. Thats my side of the story, the one that she tells people today goes like this. “One day when John was just about three or four, he told that was not afraid to die, I herd that sometimes little kids remember God from when they were up with god before they come to earth, so I guess that he just remembered after most kids forget.” Any time I bring up my side of the story she just says,” no, your to young to remember.” 

The fact that my mother and pretty much everone she tells belives her side over mine makes me cynicel of the human race. I can’t help but be partly angered by the people who insist that god must be real, no matte what their justification of it. Why dose God not help kids with aids, and why the hell did he make them with aids in the first place, why did he even make aids, why dose he do any of the twisted stuff that he dose, if he wants people to belive him why not just appear in front of everyone and a say”het guys, just wanted to give all some eviedence that I’m real that was not a bunch of bullshit, thanks”. I hate the arrogant part of the human brain that belives in the man in sky rather than just thinking “the universe is extreamly complecated and im just a spek, on a spek, in a spec, in a spec, and i wasn’t even there when it happend, I could never figure that out.” 

Now as a nineteen year old I can look back at that and see the first time I got upset over human arrogance. People see amazing things all time, thay imagine weird things in their dreams, they cannot wrap their heads around anything, but they insist that they know where we all come from. That was the spark to my lack of faith in most humans, they could do all these amamzing things but they were cripled by their arogance in a world of ever increasing complexity. It was also the spark of the very humbel way I see myself today, I look at everything and am able to think about how little I know and how important it is that I keep an open mind since I never know how much faith sould be put into what I already know. Since I have no explanation for the universe, I think things are more amazing to me than the people who think they have it figured out.

Obama and King both believed that America had potential that was laid out by our founding fathers that was unfulfilled and that when we worked together we could fulfill that potential. Both mentioned America’s beginnings as being strongly rooted in freedom and equality. Obama’s aforementioned speech takes its name from the first line of the Declaration of Independence which says “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Obama talks about how the document was meant to set fourth a democracy before going on, “The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery”. King, in the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech compared the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution to a bad check “America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.” King knew that America was founded on principals that would allow all people to be equal, and believed they could be. Obama knows how far we have come, in ‘A More Perfect Union” he says “I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”

Obama is teaching people that race relations are not yet perfected, but they are something that we need we all would benefit from working on improving. Where King’s time was so filled with hatred and racism that it was not necessary for him to stress how horrid the situation they were in was, here in Obama’s time many people are unaware of the racism. Obama showed many Americans how big of a problem racism still is. He says “But race is an issue that this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” Obama goes on to talk about we still have not fixed the “inferior” segregated schools of yesteryear, he talks about how blacks at one time being unable to own property or get loans explains income gap we see in between black people and white people today, and he talks about how a lack of basic services in black urban neighborhoods.

King and Obama both emphasized how important it is that we all work together, King thought that white people would stand up against the injustices that the black people were put through. King said in “I Have a Dream” “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. At a time when many black people probably looked at the white community as a bunch of bigots, King warned them not to turn into bigots themselves. By doing this he brought some white people to his cause and set an example of peace. Obama said in “A More Perfect Union” “we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.”  I know how cliché this sound but we need to work together, no one has anything to gain from us focusing on our differences.        

Martin Luther King and Barrack Obama both helped Americans realize that although we are struggling with racism and that the union may never be perfect, we can always be working on making it “More Perfect”. King help show that if we band together with great determination we can move mountains. It was not easy for King and his fellow crusaders, but through that we learned a little more about how to deal with our problems, and we got an incredible example of how to remain peaceful when the people against you are anything but. We got an incredible lesson in hope, and keeping it alive, we learned about turning our enemy’s children into our allies. Obama has become one of the most powerful people in the world and acts as a milestone in our progress. King saw a country that he could not eat at a certain lunch counter in, or go to a good school in. Obama brings us hope in a country he can lead. Racism is not gone, but if history is any indicator people born today could see a country where almost is.