Obama's Yahoo Question

Today I went to check my mail at yahoo and I saw a very interesting thing in the side bar. Barack Obama had asked a question on yahoo answers which I thought was interesting. So naturally I clikced on it to check it out, and I would have to say for a politicain he asked a pretty inteligent question: How can we engage more people in the democratic process? Which being the opinionated guy that I am I thought I would throw my two cents in (Funny thing is I'm not even 18 and I know 100x more than the average adult about politics.). It turned out voting was closed and a best answer had alread been posted. So here's my answer to the problem it's not that we have few people in the democratic process its that we have several people that don't know anything about the canidates and the issues. Take for instance where I live near a small town called Duffield in southwest Virginia, most of the people in this area are farmers and they really don't like change they just want to surrive. If you were to ask them who that they would vote for in the next election of a represenative for our section of the state ninty percent of them would say Kilgore. The day before the election if you were to ask them the same question you would again hear Kilgore, but if you asked them who else was running in the election forty five percent of them wouldn't know anyone else besides Kilgore. Why? They have no desire to learn because they already think that Kilgore is the best (Not sayin he isn't.) I would surmise that only twenty five percent of all americans acctualy care about the political process and thirty five percent of the people don't vote and the rest just go by what the twenty five percent tell them. How is this a problem? Well take my recent phone call with a dear friend of mine we got to talking about politics (something you shouldn't ever do with me because it tends to run up the phone bill). We got on the subject of the next President the only two people she thought were running was Obama and Hillary she didn't know anything of the republican candidates or even the other democratic candidates. I quickly corrected her on her mistake and told here about some of the other candidates that were running. Then we talked a little bit more and she said "did you know that Obama guy is a terrorist?" I asked her what she was talking about she was quick to tell me how someone that she trusted told her that Obama was a muslim therefore he was a terrorist (please keep in mind this was a girl that was about twenty years old). I was quick to correct her yet again. My point is that a lot of the people who vote don't know the issues and the only way to do that is to have a desire to learn. One of the things that I propose is that all the candidates in an election pull together some money to buy a two hour long TV spot on the major stations including PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS , and FOX and have a debate on live TV. Secondly instead of having mudslinging ads have ads that acctually mean something to the american public. Last election I could not tell you how many ads I saw downing the other person. Secondly I would like to see our kids get involved (no I don't have any but I'm just saying) teach them in school from an early age what voting is all about. We also need to teach them how to think for themselves about the political process and stop letting the twenty five percent flood our minds with crap. If we don't teach them this stuff while they're kids then there's nothing we can do when we get older. Finally I would restrict all religous interaction with government activities like voting. Why you ask? Because religion is part of the twenty five percent and it's not letting people make their own decisions. It's being a part of the problem by making the decision for them (By the way I believe in God and I go to church just in case you're doubting it now). I would like to see the schools reformed the most if they could do any one thing to help out. Senator Obama I applaud your action in asking us what we think would help make it better. In summary if people were better educated and better informed I think it would make a world of difference.

Woman in the emergancy room: An all too common problem

I woke up this morning and dad had already turned on the TV and was watching the news I sat down to eat my breakfast and this story came on. A woman laying in the emergency room dying was not cared for by the hospital I was appalled at this act of arrogance by the hospital and the nurses. While riding to work with my mom I asked her what she thought about it since she works at a nursing home. She said this kind of treatment is common "If they don't have insurance they most likely won't care about you". I was appalled. The rest of our conversation went something like this.

ME: "You mean these people who are supposed to care for our lives in case of an emergency and they won't care for me just because i don't have insurance?"
MOM: "Most likely."
ME: "What about your patients that go to the emergency room?"
MOM: "They just rush them through and send them back to the nursing home to die."
ME: "Your kidding with me right?"
MOM: "Not at all."

Why would these people do this? How come if I've got insurance I get treated better than everyone else, but if I don't I get thrown into some corner. Our medical system is obliviously flawed and something needs to be done to help these people. Sick people need to be cared for no matter what the conditions are.

Fear

Fear - the disdain of unknown. Believe it or not that is the basis of fear. People fear the unknown. It's a simple point for example say that I was going to jump off of a plane without a parachute; your natural response is fear for my life. I then run and jump out and land on the pavement 5 feet later. You feared because you didn't know all of the variables in the problem, at which point you feared because of the unknown. If you had known all of the variables would you have said go ahead jump you will be alright. I said all of that to say this; There are always going to be unknowns, however we can never eliminate all of the variables. We may eliminate a couple but never all. So fear is a possitive and negative emotion. Possitive in the fact that it may help you stay out of a dangerous situation, but neagive in the fact that is may hold you back from your true potential. Fear is the reason that everyone conforms to everyone else's ways. We need to break away from fear to a certain extent. I guess the best way to put it is we should take fear with wisdom. If wisdom tells us we're going to be alright but fear says there is always a chance you'll crash and burn listen to both and make up your mind. Fear used to hold me back from even talking to other people and really being me. I then decided to pay fear no mind at all and just go for it and I got in a lot of trouble this way. Don't always trust fear.

Why I'm crazy

Yeah weird title I know. I wanted to illustrate a point though. Believe it or not some people do and I don't blame them for thinking that yeah I'm different but that's no reason to judge me. My parents are the main ones who don't get it, they think I'm a retarded guy that no one cares about an embarrassment to mankind. Especially my Dad he thinks every guy should be able to take a car apart and put it back together; which there's nothing wrong with that I admire people that can do that it's a good thing to know and I know how to do the basics change the oil rotate the tires stuff like that, but Dad thinks I should know it all. Then when I ask for some help with something that I don't understand he goes off on how I should know this stuff, like this evening I asked for some help with my Chevelle I figured we could spend some father-son time together working on the car but when I asked him he said no he didn't have time the couch was calling him. That really hurts me then I said just show me how to do this one thing and I'd let him go he went off on how I should already know how to do that. My friends know that I'm sane I just learn different than most folks. It's like my mind is always on always running away and I can't find the brakes. I do my best work when I've already been up for hours and hours right now I'm writing this on just 1 hour of sleep in the past 48 hours. Why can't he just understand and accept me. He's the only one that has this opinion my cuz says I'm the one that will take our family name somewhere, my youth pastor says I could work for Bill Gates, and my mom thinks I can do anything (I love my Mom LOL). Does anyone know why? Why can life be so cruel? Why was I born to this family. Why do I even exist? Just to fill up space? Just to make Carbon-dioxide for plants? I'm tired of living a life that has no meaning I want to go somewhere and break out of my shell I want to tear down these walls and climb over and see what's on the other side.

Coloring Outside the Lines

When I sat down to write this evening I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to say (a first for me I usually do everything on impluse). Anyhow on to my story. One day when I was little I went down to stay with my grandma which really wasn't anything special mom and dad both worked back in those days and my grandma was off on that day. Anyhow when I got down there she had bought me a new set of crayons and a new coloring book. So we started to work our way through the books and I looked over at my grandma and saw that she was coloring outside the lines. This intrigued me I looked over and her and said "Grandmawy what are you doing coloring outside the lines?", she look over at me smiled and said "Sometimes your picture will end up looking better if you're not afraid to color outside the lines". I just recently took this advice to heart in a new sort of way. Don't be affraid to change something in your life step outside the boundarys that you set for yourself. Don't be affraid to climb that next mountain and cross that next valley. Step outside your comfort zone do something you've never done before jump over that next hedge walk around that next corner and see that it's not your doom that awaits your but rather your salvation.