Ignorance

So I'm in this one class that is primarily discussions about world issues.

I'm cool with that, I guess. It's totally weird, but I've learned a lot, including about people.

In that class, a third of your grade is participation. You all know I don't like getting bad grades. So naturally, I try to contribute every day.

However, the other people in this class aren't like me. These kids are primarily not from rural backgrounds. We are on completely separate pages. Not that they aren't smart! They're really smart. Like, they're engineers, and architects, and anthropologists, and all of this. They know about all kinds of engineering and energy things I have no idea about. But they have not a clue about rural life. Not a clue. So when I try to bring that opposite side of the table (which I frequently do, because that's what I know), they don't get it. I've been laughed at, told I was wrong, ignored, whatever. That is so... not normal for me. And it's frustrating, because I know I have good points sometimes, but since I am from a completely different place than most of these other people, they can't see it.

So frustrating.

Example: one day, our class was complaining about the food we have available to us. So I said that we have options, for instance, we could grow our own, like we do at home. The class told me that was not possible, because people have jobs and lives. The next week in class we watched a video on basically localizing food sources, and then they thought it was a great idea.

So I'm sitting there, like what the hell? Am I not clear? What? Why? Why is my thought process so different from that movie?

I don't get it. It bugs me. I reeeaally don't like feeling dumb. I just want to get into my niche and take classes that I like that make me excited about learning the content. I want to be around people who understand where I'm coming from and what I mean.

I'm not that damn intellectual. I want people to have common sense and a sense of normalcy. To me, upper-middle class, suburban, left wing, engineers are not normal. Not that they're bad, but seriously, there's more than that in the world. Most of us are blue collar, hard working, common sense, down to earth, middle class people.

People who know what silage is, and people who understand the necessity of GMO crops to a growing global population.

Seriously needing an agronomy class,
Chrissy Joy. <3 p="p">

Political rant. Surprise, surprise.

< rant >

Barak Obama: "Women are not an interest group. They are mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives. They are half of this country, and they are perfectly capable of making their own choices about their health."

This is a good quote. That is not why I am blogging. Why I am blogging, is that he states, CLEARLY, RIGHT THERE that women are capable of making their own decisions about their health.

THEN WHYYYYYYYYY DID YOU MANDATE CERTAIN BIRTH CONTROL OPTIONS THAT MANY WOMEN ARE STRONGLY AGAINST IN OBAMACARE? ARE THEY NOT CAPABLE OF DENYING IT? ONLY ACCEPTING IT? THIS IS NOT OKAY WITH ME.

Personally, I think all health care should be a-la-carte. Maybe I just want to cover heart and joint issues, because other than that I think I'm pretty much okay. That should be fine. But like, why does a nun need birth control? Why is/are she/we paying for that when she took a vow of celibacy? That's just stupid. Even if it's not violating her 1st amendment rights, which it is, which I won't get in to.

Also, the president of the United States of America should NOT be making hashtags like Romnesia like a 12 year old girl.

You're trying to run a country, not wear the same boy's jersey on Friday. Grow up.

</ rant >

This is another political rant you can ignore if you want. :)

Last night was the vice presidential debate. Sadly, I was at a meeting for most of it, so I didn't get to see a whole lot of it. However, from what I did get to see, Biden was the most rude debate candidate I have ever seen. Honestly, if I would have tried to do something like that in high school debate competition, I would have been disqualified. Kicked out. Game over, you lose. But now on twitter, all of these people ate it up! I don't get it! He interrupted, threw his hands in the air, laughed, never listened, complained to the mediator when Ryan used a good chunk of time, and then continued to use more time than he did. 

From the sampling I saw, the debate was a joke. You can't possibly portray your ideas when you're bitching each other out like Kevin and me. That's all it looked like. But I think that's a major issue in the entire political system these days.

Politics today are centered around hate.

95% of the commercials you see will be hate ads. Maybe even more. Actually, probably more. And you know what this causes? Our country hates each other; our country hates itself. This goes right on up to congress, where nothing gets accomplished, because people don't want to accidentally agree with somebody on the other side!

Well guess what, if anything's going to get done, we need compromise. We are too damn stubborn, and it is throwing the entire country down the toilet. It seems like what little does get discussed in office, doesn't get discussed well. And none of it really is compromise, because both parties have vowed not to sway, so they just wait until they have the most people in office. 

Then there's things like the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill covers so much stuff. It's really intense. I should read more on it, but I haven't yet. Anyway, the Farm Bill would take food stamps away from a large number of people. It would do a great number of things, but this is the most prevalent for congress, apparently. However, since everybody in congress is apparently only there for the paycheck, they put off discussing food stamps just to ensure they wouldn't piss anybody off and they could still have their job next year.

Excuse me for living, but I'm pretty sure that's not how you do a job.

If I went in to Wal-Mart to work one day, and I told my manager, "You know, I don't want to work register today, because I could bag somebody's stuff the way they don't like it, and I still want to come to work tomorrow. So I'm just going to sit in the lounge and eat all day," I'd get kicked in the ass, and told I was fired. That would ensure that I wouldn't have a job to come to tomorrow. So why is it that congress gets away with this?

Here's another major thing I have a problem with: presidential campaign funding. It has been proven that whoever spends the most money wins (I don't know the percents or stats or exceptions, but I heard the study on the radio). So really, all they're doing is buying votes. This is astronomical to me. Jimmy Carter gave a speech that was on IPTV a couple weeks ago, and he said this did not happen in the past. Back then, they only got to run off of the $2 or whatever checkoff on the taxes. When you only have that to work with, hate ads didn't get run. Hell, Nixon and JFK were golfing buddies, and they were on opposite sides of the party line. That's where we went wrong. We're now thriving in this culture of hatred, ignorance, intolerance, and stupidity. If you say something someone doesn't agree with, you're automatically a sick man and you get gifs made about you and fake twitter accounts and ridiculous memes with your face on them.

But think of what could happen. If we were honestly a civil culture who took time to understand concepts and debate them rationally. That energy that it took to make a gif could be spent advocating, reading, being involved, or discussing ideas. There is more to politics than who is right and who is wrong. It is about who we trust to run a country.

Our country.

My dream last night included an octopus.

Last night, I dreamt that Heidi and I were essentially wandering the countryside. Sometimes we had a car, sometimes we were walking.

And apparently I'm scared of octopi.

There was an octopus sitting on fence that I needed to cross. It was a big octopus, man, it was taking up the whole fence on that side. But the other side of the fence was all wired shut, so I needed that octopus off. So, naturally, I started swinging the fence violently until the octopus fell off.

Then it started crawling at me.

I freaked out. I ran out of there.

Scary land octopus.

And then there was something about like dead bodies or something... OH! There was a pediatrician who was pretty much dictating whatever we did in our little village or whatever.

They were a bad pediatrician.

They had these healing session type things when all of the kids in town had to be present. It was outside. It kind of reminds me of the Hunger Games in that aspect.

But every time that this practitioner did this healing ritual thing, a kid died. It was very sad. I cried.

But then the doctor thing changed from a lady to a man to a cross between Darth Maul and the Red Skull man.

Clearly there was a battle. There's almost always a battle in my dreams.

Then I woke up.

:)