Now reporting from UCF : Notes on Norml

Here I am again! Reporting from the University of Central Florida to inform you of my own personal discoveries, and investigations here on campus.

Starting this week, is one of my personal favorite clubs on campus, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana laws, or "Norml."

Any personal questions on this particular subject, of course, are welcomed but, only at my Email, Seg20@aol.com.

I've done some research and decided to join this very interesting club.

Norml, is an organization for the end of the "drug war," or the prohibition of Cannabis. It is also an advocate for the responsible recreation and medical use of marijuana. I enjoyed talking to a few of the people that were involved in the organization here in Orlando, and also came up with a few theories of my own.

I also find the ideas that exist within the organization were very interesting. As well as strongly advocating for the legalization of conventional marijuana, we also advocate for marijuana as a medical drug. It has been proven help for many emotional, mental, and physical ailments, as well as the more common treatments of severely ill patients. (Cancer, AIDS etc)

I also have done some research on the effects of marijuana on your body, vs alcohol. Interesting findings, my favorite is an article by former law enforcer and a member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-stamper/420-thoughts-on-pot-vs-al_b_188627.html

that's all.

A new league of stupid

So now that you all thought that you could get rid of me: I'm Baaaack!

And it's time for a whole new world of beautiful aspirations and political, economical, and even personal mishaps.

More than likely though, I will of course spew my opinions that no one cares to agree with or like upon the masses of people that will probably never even read the entirety of one single entry. But as long as I'm talking, it makes me feel better, and if it makes me feel better, then hell. It must make SOMEONE feel better.

Welcome to 2009, sorry I was asleep. throught the first eleven weeks of my chosen candidate WINNING!! hurrah democrats.
My last entry was a final paper for my Argumentative English class here at Lake Dumpster.
Enjoy that as my brain stews away for a whole new league of stupidity, that I am about to single handedly take on.

Yes We Can.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice anywhere.” (King, 242) In society today, there are numerous injustices the world feels that it cares not to, or is incapable to, fix. America was not always the country that the rest of the world saw as a problem, but shortly after World War II, the world was also settled in quite nicely, and an ideological slumber fell over the United States. People simply were not paying attention, and were becoming heavily prideful. This slowly progressed through segregation and bloated until the transcendental explosion of the 1960’s. The in-groups of Civil Rights quickly realized that there was something that could be done for segregation. Vietnam quickly awoke the “sleeping dog,” of public opinion, and there was an explosive change that to this day effects the lives and minds of many people in the American public. (Diggins, 30)
Many injustices have become a part of every day life in modern American life. From hometown healthcare, and flaws in welfare and government help, to the more recent corruption of big business and the economic recession that has stricken the country, and the unconstitutional decisions made in proper supreme and federal judicial courts, this as well as plenty of corruptions in our own house and senate has lead to the corruption that is slowly making America fail and flail, and drag other country’s economy down with us. All the while, the military is fighting unjust wars, plural, that seem to be uphill battles and public opinion is finally being awoken from the euphoria it has been living in the years before the Bush administration. This is more than anything hurting the country significantly. Every party tie has their own outlook on how to fix the problems, but what this country needs is a drastic change. Something that will make the problems that exist in the plain view of the public, begin to be solved.
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” (Jefferson,1) The Founding Fathers declared the day our nation seceded completely from their binds to the motherland that one must look to their own thoughts and ideas in order to make a change. Breaking ties is one of the things the American people must do in order to make a conclusive and strong difference in their generation. People have to wake up and make a change on their own. The change starts with each person. Not an individual leader, or administration, but within the people who’s minds are laid to rest by their own contentment. (Dream, 578)
The American people must recognize the numerous “…appalling condition[s]…” that face the country today. Many people stand within the middle group, who do not feel like they can do a thing. What these people do not know is that they have more power than they know. They have to show the resistance and give the tension that those in the out groups are made uncomfortable by. Be a part of the in group. Martin Luther King, JR makes a number of references to be not afraid of the tension. That the time is not tomorrow, but that the “…time is now. Now is the time.” Those who are not afraid of this must quickly learn the “urgency of now.”(Dream, p.4, 578)
Those within the fighters and those awoken must have the fierce determination of Civil Rights Activists in 1963. In this discontentment, one must also find the fine line between change and hate, and the use of the ever popular transcendental thinking. Civil disobedience that will easily shake the country we live in today. Those who do fight these changes “cannot fight alone,” and in the walk of the modern world, it is now even harder to find people willing to cause the uncomfortable changes. (Dream, 579) These methods more than definitely made a difference in the 1960’s, and now that the country is awake again, this use of true political thought, and peaceful non-capitalistic democratic thinking, could rescue the country from falling into past influence.
The out groups of the issues may quickly see the flaws in uprising. Logical thinking will see how conditional “right” and “wrong” are (Thoreau,218). Radical thought can usually lead to some pretty dirty actions. If people do not learn from that past, then they are quickly doomed to repeat it. The quickest way to make and unjust law recognized is to not follow it. Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King JR, both intelligent and strong activists within context, can all agree “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,” and that violence in Civil disobedience will leave more problems than the world started with. (King, 243) This direct action will cause negotiation.(Thoreau,218)
The American people must be dissatisfied with the way things are before anything can begin to change. It must be said: those who are greedy in big business “Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?” (Thoreau, 217) Lawmakers and Judicial authorities that have become unjust: “…Shall we content to obey them? Or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them…or shall we transgress them at once?”(Thoreau,219) The Founding Fathers were rebellious to what they saw as wrong, and now the United States public as a whole in this time of technology, must delve back to the original constitution and its message. “We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality,” (Thoreau,218) but see the country through its hardship, turmoil’s, and utter mistakes, and be “Free at last, Free at last…” Yes, we can.

Word Count: 1003

Bibliography
Diggins, John Patrick. The Proud Decades. W.W. Norton and Company. Boston. 1988.
Hatch, Gary. Arguing in Communities. King Jr, Martin Luther. “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”
Ed. 3. McGraw Hill. Boston. 1983.
Slaughter, Beverly J. Ed. The Rhineheart Reader. King Jr, Martin Luther. “I Have a Dream.”
Thompson Wadsworth. Boston. 1999.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Resistance To Civil Government. W.W Norton and
Company. New York.

On a more personal note

I know many of you, all like 5 of the people who actually read this, are used to me going on about politics and philosophy serious, intellectual things that are far more interesting than one's personal life, but I feel as though I need to update.

I haven't been keeping up with this like I have so usually because of numerous things happening.

I was away from work for near a month and a half so that closes up some time there. College is starting up so that busies me even further, but most of all in the past month and a half something amazing has happened. I believe with all of my heart I have met my match.

It's actually a guy I've known for a long damn time, but the truth of the matter is, we've finally gotten together and something amazing has happened. I've decided he's the one for me, and Vice Versa.

When you fall in love with someone, there's so many things that should happen, and usually don't, but when they all do, amazing things start happening. My entire life feels as though it's been turned around simply because love found me. I can't believe that THIS is happening to ME. I'm quite possibly the most cynical, horrid person you could possibly ever know when it comes to this stuff and yet it even happened for me. Who would have ever thought.

I love this guy with all my heart, and I hope that life stays as great as it is right now for a very, very long time.

Office Jobs: Great Job? or mental torture?

The desk job jungle is certainly taking it tole on unsuspecting free spirited workers and blue collar spoiled brats alike. All of us, young, old and middle aged, are trapped behind the desk in front of a computer every day, without a damn hint of change in the menotony. As I sit in my own personal hell in office, I found a breif on the mediavangelistic question I asked myself a few weeks ago. Well, for those of us who spend a large amount of time behind a desk surrounded by four entrapping walls.

We, as a general consensus of deskies, are a group of people who can get around our office's computer system, get around the firewalls to watch or look at mostly anything, we know how to make our systems move faster, adjust printers, and hell, we learn how to do a lot of other things and stay heavily informed on all of what's going on in the outside, because let's face it, we're not exactly in it. Is this why we're so bored? Is this why there are businessmen jumping off of buildings because they can't take the heat...is an office job actually a form of intellectual kinetic defeat?

We're so bored, driven to a point of general madness, that we pick up hobbies and interests that didn't seem appealing when the job first started. I've begun writing more often than not. Watching political news like a hawk. Grown adults playing volleyball in the late afternoon for lack of a better idea has become something we do on a regular basis around my office, and truly, there's nothing better than almost breaking everything in the office because we've gone mad! It's lack of kinetic endorphins. We're not moving. Everyone in this office has a gym membership, because 5AM is the only time of day anyone has time to move. I personally, find that the slightest bit disturbing.

There's some cons in my personals...but the pros are there too! It's a great gig doing diddly squat a beautiful amount of the time. The pay doesn't suck...At the end of the day, you've helped some people with a necessity that we can't live without. I work for the company listed 32 on the fortune 500 list. That beats flipping burgers I guess. But I can't help but wonder how so many, like me have ended up working a day to day, that could just give me a headache. Coffee, news, work, lunch, news/soda, snacks, work. That's a routine right there my friends.

Unless you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder you will become drunk with the feeling of being able to run on autopilot. And then start to float through every day missing some of the important things you may have easily missed, you quit living life, and end up bored all the time without ever adding flavor. The flavor in my case is people. Every person I talk to at my job on a daily basis adds a new color to my perspective. I like that. I also like my job in the sense that I see every walk of life. It's a matter of success in business mixed with the people who need are service.

At the end of the day, it's how you deal with current situation that takes you to success or failure, I find myself bored out of my mind but it leaves me a lot of time to thinks and better myself as a thinker, a writer, and overall as a person. So, yes, indeed boredom can take control of your daily life, but to embrace what your doing stops the crazy hysteria of an every day desk job. That's, as we say, the bottom line.

The Depressing State of our Nation.

I am just about through affiliating to one side or another. It's so completely depressing to me that people no longer search for level ground, about anything. Republicans want what the Republicans want their money, and their imperialism, their "Free Strong country." The Independants ignore everyone, and then you've got the "Hillary" Democrats fighting for women's right to be president and how great she is, and how wonderful our country could be if we could just put Hillary in the Whitehouse, as the say "again." Then there's the "Obama" Democrats that are "Choosing change," choosing change would be everyone go on a voter's strike and saying shut the hell up for a minute and let me think, to the media.



That brings me to the first depressing subject that poses our nation today. The media's overall effect on opinion, and moreso, it's sway in the election. In itself is throwing the entire nation around, leaving every last person to come up with an unintellgent opinion based on he said she said, and what they see on TV. Take a double take on what's really going on, and people may soon see that there's an intensely logical answer that's acceptable under every term of thinking. Every political, religious, and even personal thought affiliation there can possibly be to date.

I received an email today once again bashing the backround and religious affiliation of Barack Obama. This is such an unintelligent bias. If you don't like that he's so called "unamerican," don't bash him, just don't VOTE for him. One, you shouldn't care if he has a crazy uncle in Kenya, or a cousin named after Fidel Castro. Two, check your facts before sending that crap on, because it's fake. If you plan on spreading weird things, then keep it among yourselves, there are people in this world who look at who he is, not what.

Now, on to you Hillary lovers. United we stand, divided we fall. She's been instituting a lot of citizen involvement in the United States, I like that. What I don't like is Hillary's supporters complaining that Obama supporters are down on her, or give her no respect. What I like even less is that they aren't un based in their opinions. It's a little sickening, everyone in the Democratic party is yelling at eachother of Reuters/CNN/CSPAN and every other Political blog on the internet (besides this one, of course), getting nowhere and causing more conflict than it's worth. Call me a pacifist, but can't we all just get along? (and decide on a cantidate?)

Republican's, for once, are doing alright. Except for the whole Vietnam vet not supporting the GI bill. What's up with that? Is the Iraqi war not big enough for compinsation, or is it out of spite. Come on now John. Please, don't be THAT guy. Other than the capitolism/big business rich-getting-richer poor-getting-poorer, thing, Republican's have done ok at choosing a cantidate...I'm concerned with the running mate desicion.

All in all, this is my great frusteration. There isn't much more to put our country in a pickle than a wacked out election, and a war. That there, my friends, is the bottom line.

Gas Prices Got you down?

Buy a damn bicycle. Carpool, get to work/class/whereverelse however you need to if you are that pushed for money. Or you could, get off your butt and walk. I have this idea that everyone would be 20 pounds lighter if we didn't have desk jobs and drove everwhere...I mean who all is guilty of keeping food in the drawers of your desk. I had a pint of ice cream today. But that's a topic for the upcoming "Why are we so big?" blog that I have in revision, stay tuned.

The point is, we as Americans are still paying about $4.00 less than the average European. They pay more than we do by the liter... That is, in itself a frightening thought. Everyone keeps talking about getting rid of the penny (that would raise gas prices too, by the way.) It's a daunting idea that we're all worked up about $4.00 a gallon, but what's even scarier is that in our inflated market, most of us can afford more than that if we'd stop doing other things, like driving over priced gas guzzlers, spending over $100 in one day, or even trading in our conservative savings accounts for checking accounts.

I'm sorry but I guess, I may be biased. I sold my SUV, that I was in love with, talk about the perfect car, for a little economy car that gets 35 mpg. Was I happy at first? no. Then I went to the gas station...That, put a big smile on my goofy face. I'm also a student, so I think that anyone who isn't 20 grand in debt to some education insitution, can afford to keep their SUV's...

The Bottom Line: We're going to make it people, just start riding those bicycles I hope you go buy.