Clutays

Or however you spell that word. It sounds like clu-shays. I think it means something, mainly an idea, that is overused. It is a bit of a cycle. A clutay is used over and over until it is so overused that is is funny, then a new idea is invented, which in itself may soon become a clutay.
I don't think that many people stop and think about the original idea. Sure, some of them might seem a bit stupid, but some of them are legitiment ideas. You don;t want to go around saying "I came up with the phrase world peace" or "I invented the idea of the tractor beam" because both of those are overused. But they both represent something that would seem interesting, had we heard so much about it (Sure, the idea of world peace carries a lot more meaning, but both of them seem out of reach for the near future unless major changes are made).
I wonder how I would feel if I made up a clutay. My idea used and reused until no meaning remained and it was almost a joke.

I'm back

Camp kind of left me worn out, but with only 2 days left of camp, I think I can blog. I posted a while back about being inclusive about gays and lesbians. I have known for a while that being mean to them is very bad and has lead to many suicides. And I thought I was above thinking it weird.
That all changed when I started reading When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. It is a hilarious book, though very vulgar, but the thing that really struck me was when he talked about his husband.
At first I thought it was a girl named David (I know a boy named Erin), but when he straight out said he was a homosexual, despite my better reasoning, I felt like it was a bit weird. I hope that know gay, lesbian, or  transgender readers are offended by this, but I felt it was a bit unnatural for a male to be referring to his husband.
It kind of makes me wonder why people would actively tease and harass people of different sexual orientation. Sure, I felt like it was a bit weird hearing about David Sedaris's husband, but I wouldn't actively be mean to him . I guess there are some people that, when they find something distasteful, they try to weed it out, even if the distasteful thing is a harmless human trait. And actually, the only reason I found his homosexuality weird was because it was the first time I had actually heard being gay referred to casually. If I talked to someone who was Lesbian, Gay, or Transgender on a regular basis, I would probably find it normal.  

Sorry about the contest

I realized that very few people want towrite on this blog, especially at such short notice.

Kindergartners

You remember how I said I was volunteering for VBS? Well, I heard the lessons that they were teaching them and I realized that they were inaccurate. I tried explaining to them how it really worked. Unfortunately, I got assigned to be the leader of the kindergarten, so it wasn't that easy. In the lesson that day, they talked about how Mary went on and on about her toddler (Jesus) would walk on water and stuff. I told them that there was no clear record of Jesus' life before he was 6, so that was completely fictional. Then they told us Jesus read the bible, and I explained to them that Jesus didn't read the bible we read today simply because it didn't exist. I told them that Jesus read the Torah (They thought I was saying tuba) because he was Jewish (Odd, isn't it. The person that started Christianity wasn't a Christian at all). Then I started to tell them about how the new testament was made hundreds of years after Jesus ascended into heaven. I told them that the part that told Jesus' story was made up of 4 gospels, one of which had different sources than all the others (John). The other three had 4 different sources that the later ones borrowed off of each other (The Q source, Luke, Matthew, Mark).
They started tuning me out, which made me realize it was a mistake to try to explain the Q source to 4-year-olds.

God gave his only son to save us from our sins

I have heard those eleven words over and over throughout sunday school, always wondering what it means. They never specified which sins in particular, or why, even though our slate has been wiped clean, there is still a lot of sin. But then again, why did Jesus die on the cross?
I think it was a sign of god's peace. He sacrificed his son, and there was no bloodshed over it. When the Israelites imagined their savior, they imagined a warrior. Jesus was showing them he was the opposite, a pacifist. He would not conquer his enemies by killing them, but by convincing them of his ideas. Killing leaves behind dead bodies and angry friend and family at the killer. Convincing them leaves nothing bad in its wake. Jesus couldn't have killed those who tried to crucify him, not because of a lack of strength, but because it would go against his teachings and make the whole teaching irrelevant if the teacher was hippocraticical.  

Gender Steryotypes

We had a party for the last day of school, and I was going down the stairs to the bus when I saw two girls hugging each other. At first I thought that they were hugging each other to say good-bye for the summer or they were lesbians (Which I do not disapprove of, for new readers). Then I saw that one of the girls was crying. I opened my mouth to say something, possibly ask what was wrong or try to comfort the crying girl, then I realized a simple truth. I was a guy. Guys are not supposed to care about people who prominently show emotion. I know it's weird, but I also know that people of both genders think you odd if you show a trait of the opposite gender.

So I ran as fast as I could down the cement stair case, hoping I wouldn't slip and possibly severely injure myself.  

Looking back on it, it seemed stupid and cruel, running away when I saw someone displaying emotion. It probably made her feel even worse about herself that someone would run away when they saw her crying. 

Like I said, running away was stupid, but it would I was afraid it would be awkward, asking a girl I didn't know well what was wrong. So should I have done what was natural and talk to her, or do what was supposed to be natural and run. In my opinion, gender stereotypes don't enhance our lives, only limit them. And social scientists have found that most of the gender differences are learned by society, rather than inherited. 

If it weren't for gender stereotypes, life would be a lot easier. 

V.B.S.

I have recently signed up to be a helper for my church's VBS (Vacation Bible School). I figured why not since I didn't have much else going on this summer. I had happy memories of VBS when I was younger, but oddly none of the good memories are religious. Most of them involve heckling the Romans that were about to re-enact the prosecution of Jesus. Unfortunately, the teenagers in Roman legionary costumes were given wooden spears, and if you annoyed them enough they wouldn't think twice about poking you.
Another one of my fondest memories is my endless war against the children's minister at my old church in Oregon. See, I had a bit of a dispute with my sunday school teacher. She was convinced that religion and debate were incompatible, and no one had any right to question her. Sadly, the religion she taught as law involved hell for all none christians, satan being an actual being, and a completely literal interpretation of the bible. I, allied with two other sunday school students many times tried to challenge her on that, but she wouldn't hear any of it. So I took it upon myself to challenge the entire children's ministry of that church. Fortunately, I have no qualms against the children's ministry in my new church.

2nd amendment

I have recently heard about Sarah Palin messing up on her American history, saying that Paul Revere went around town firing shots into the air and warning that the british were going to take away their gun rights.  I would like to point out that their was no second amendment back then, so there wasn't any real reason why the British shouldn't shut down the American rebellion, and taking away their guns would be the smartest thing to do.
I find that one of the great mistakes of American history is making a big deal about how we can say what we want, publish anything we want, and practice any religion we want within reason, then screwing the whole thing up by saying we can also keep guns under our pillows the the next amendment.
Of course, there is reason to have protection of gun rights if the guns in question are used for hunting. You may say hunting is cruel to the animals being shot, but it's a lot less cruel than genetically modifying them so they have breasts so big they can't walk (As KFC does). A swift bullet seems a lot more humane than a life immobility. But the fact stands that you can buy a riffle with only a short background check. If I had it my way the only guns allowed should be low powered, and any person above 18 can only have 1 gun at a time. As well as that, guns should not be allowed as self defense. If I had a gun in my hands every time I got angry, I'm sorry but sooner or later I'd get so mad I would be tempted to pull the trigger. And I doubt anyone reading my blog can claim to be any better.
I heard a ad over the radio one day, and it went something like this "(Gunshot) Come over and try our wide selection of guns at (I can't remember the name) (Gunshot). Protect you and your loved ones! (Gunshot) Don't let intruders endanger your family any more, so come over to-"
I am appalled, because it seems to be implying that you would potentially wound or kill an intruder. If it were up to me, I would let however breaks into my house take my valuables and not live with the guilt of cutting a humans life cruelly short for the rest of my own life. Which is more valuable, possessions or human life?
  

Film

I have a friend who I have included in multiple posts (See the links below). He is a triplet, and multiple births generally lead to birth defects. He isn't in a wheelchair and he acts somewhat normal, but when he told me he was going to write a book, I was surprised.
I have attempted to write a book before, and I have concluded after nearly a dozen failed attempts that a middle schooler does not have the attention span to write anything longer than a novella, and a short one at that. So I was shocked when he came up to me and said he was done, I was shocked.
It isn't short either. It takes up almost all one of those big notebooks. His handwriting wasn't that readable, but the parts that I read were incredibly good.
And this was made by someone that many people consider inferior to themselves.
 Anyways, he wants to do a movie with me based on his book. He already has a lot of it planned out. Once he asked someone if they would help with the movie, and with one look at them I could tell they were thinking are you serious? And I would be lying if I said I think we would finish the movie.
Then again, I would be working with someone with the constitution to write a whole book. And if he convinces me to stick with it, well, maybe by the end of it we'll have a full length movie.
http://name-not-shown.blogspot.com/2011/05/talents.html

http://name-not-shown.blogspot.com/2011/04/miracles.html

Getting better

I have a very good book called "Pick me up". It has a lot of stuff you never knew, never wanted to know, but are glad to know anyway. One of the sections is on philosophical questions. They were the usual ones like "What is the meaning of life" (Which they didn't answer, only gave opinions about), but one in particular caught my attention. "Is the world getting better".

Apparently, the idea that the world was getting better was originally thought of by ancient greek philosophers. They thought that which each generation life would get better, but we would never reach a perfect world. I like that idea, and if you look at things, in a way it is coming true. Only half a decade ago (Which is a very short amount of time, relative to the entire history of the world) telephone was the best to communicate. Now we have facebook, skype, cellphones, email, and countless more communication forms. 

But  some people say the opposite, and they have a point too. In the coming years there is expected to be overpopulation, water and food shortages,  extreme global warming, and much more. So which one is right?

I asked my brother about this while my dad was in the front seat, rocking out to coldplay. Here is what he said.

"The world isn't black and white like that. I think that it is very uneven, the way that the world changes. For example, Albert Einstein made discoveries leading to nuclear power, which is a good thing (Unless there is a crisis like in Japan). But that discovery led to the atomic bomb, capable of incredible destruction, which is obviously a bad thing. Einstein didn't want the destruction of countless people like that, but he accidently got it. It's is uneven".

That is what I think too. I don't think the world will lie in ruins and starvation, but I also don't think everything will be great. Like my brother said, it's uneven.

   

Finals season

Right off the bat, if you have read my intro, it states nothing about what this blog is really about. I had no idea what this blog would be about when I started.
WHen I went in to get a haircut today the barber asked me what I was thinking about. I told him that I was thinking about finals.
Only later did I realize that he was asking about what haircut I wanted.
Speaking of finals, on a few tests before this I prayed to god to help me through it. I seriously doubted that I would do any better. However, I did do well on those tests. So did god help me?
My answer is no. And I'll tell you why. I read in an Andrew Clemans book once that there once was a test that was supposed to show which students would progress noteably in the following year. And those students did make suprising progress, the only thing was, the students were randomly picked. But they were expected to do better, so they did.
I think that when I took the tests, god wasn't guiding my hand twords the right answer, but I expected I would do well based on some insane hope that god would help me. And so I accidently helped myself.  

Intelligence

Going to school in a somewhat affluent part of Austin, I see really intelligent students, and students that are labeled as "Dumb". And I am struck by  how similar they are.
Obviously, the more intelligent students are the ones that do the work, but why don't the the "Dumb" students just do the work. Aren't they fed up with being thought of as stupid? Don't they want to do something with their lives?
I don't think that it is their faults. Actually, scratch that, I do think that they had a choice about whether they   do well or not, obviously there isn't some person in their house stopping them from doing their homework or studying, unless child abuse is accruing. I personally think that they are all different and have different reasons for not doing well, from laziness to having a deceased family  member. But these are just people in good districts, think about bad ones.
I think that the main problem with bad public schools is not enough funding, although that is a problem. I think the biggest problem is they aren't using the money they have well. if you look at how much money is put into each student, you wonder why they aren't excelling. If I had it my way, that money would go to getting really good teachers. Of course, other supplies are needed too, but you can learn with a great teacher and terrible supplies better that you can learn with great supplies and a terrible teacher. Of course, some schools it's not an either/or situation, in which case the school probably isn't receiving the funding due to low test scores, in which case it shouldn't be ignored but whatever is impeding academic excellence should be addressed.

50th post spectacular

This is my 50th post, so I will do something I rarely do.
I will post about religion on sunday.
It is odd, many students at my school are atheists, yet they take follow one of Christianity's cruelest traditions. An anti-gay standpoint.
I'm not saying all christians are anti-gay, in fact many christians I know are pro-gay or (Possibly, they don't straight out say it) gay themselves. but the fact stands that many christians say that being gay is a sin. In fact once I heard an entire sermon about how, and I quote "Marriage is between a man and a women, so we shouldn't be tolerant of anything else. So why is the church being attacked for that view-point". Sadly, it was the only sermon I have ever heard applause after.
yes, it is a fact that it blatantly states in the bible that it is a sin to be gay, but consider it is against everything this religion stands for. Jesus is all about love and inclusions, which is the farthest thing from the minds of bullies who tease students that go to the urinals next to each other.
But why is it in the bible? It is a common misconception that everything in the bible comes straight from god, or at least half-honest story tellers. The truth is that things weren't written down right when it happened in biblical times. It went through year after year of word-of-mouth story telling, changing ever so slightly every time it was said. Even the four gospels don't agree. I don't get why such a big deal to follow small part of the bible while ignoring the entire spirit of it.
I have been accused of being a "Cafeteria Christian" or someone who cuts out the less tasteful parts of religion and only follow the easy parts. But to me, being nice to your enemies is worlds harder than excluding homosexuals. And if I'm wrong and St. Peter sends me to hell (Which I seriously doubt exists) then I invite you to laugh. Anything to lighten up the mood of eternal torment.  

Facebook

I am on facebook, and I enjoy it. The problem is, after seeing the social network, it shows that the person who made it cheated his best friend. So is it still moral to use it?

Blogging

Please excuse the fact that most of my posts are rushed, as I have little time to blog at night. ALso, nintey eight is not a goo number.

D&D

Today I had a Dungeons and dragons game that went late, so I can't do a long post. I want to do a retraction from my I'm sorry post. I did remove the original, offensive post. On another note summer is coming, and so it is time for camp half-blood! I get so worn out from it I most likely won't have time for posts for a two-week period, though.