All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

     This is actually a response that I had to another blog and its subsequent discussion.  It was going to just be a comment, but as usual, it became something that would be better off left as its own entry with a reference to the original work.  Make sure you read it first (it’s not that long) and also the blog it references (also not very long.  Seriously, what is my problem?) so that what follows makes sense.

     Ugh.  I am so not reading what I think I am reading.  No, I agree that fiction is not inherently “wrong” or “evil”.  However, the problem with fiction is just that.  It’s fiction.  It’s a complete other world, universe, belief system, etc. that does not exist but in the minds of the participants.  If taken too far, this becomes a means of escapism for people, a way to leave and ignore the world as it is in favor of this more pleasing alternative.

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*** AUTHOR’S NOTE***
     My mind was very…foggy and my train of thought quite fractured when I wrote this.  Consequently, it will likely seem more rambling and incoherent than usual.  Rest assured, however, that the mind that attempted to write it would have filled it with such grandeur and patriotism that it would have brought tears to your eyes and inspired you mightily.  So there.
*** END AUTHOR’S NOTE***

     I didn’t have time today to make much of a post for the Fourth of July.  Between cleaning the house and then hanging out with Faith and my…wonderful second cousin Felicia, my day was fairly busy.

     However, as I was going about my business today, I thought about how fortunate I am.  I mean, I’m rich.  Filthy stinking rich, no less.  When compared with the population of the world as a whole, I’m easily in the upper ten percentile.  Then if I were to compare this with the population of the world in time, that may put me into the top one percentile.  This is almost exclusively a result of which country I was born in (and then time, if that’s being considered).

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Zacarias Moussaoui was formally sentenced today to life in prison. You should all know that name, but I also know that not all stay up on current events. Moussaous is the only person to be charged for taking part in the September 11 terrorist attacks. He was indicted on December 11, 2001 and his trial began in October of 2002.

Once it started, his trial had an initial burst of coverage and then largely faded into the background. I don’t know why, the proceedings were rather comical, in an offensive manner, due to his frequent outbursts and attempted belittling of various US figures, including his judge, John Ashcroft, and of course President Bush.

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     Well, I feel all warm and glowy.  I finally held myself to my word and wrote my representatives!  As I have mentioned, I’ve been listening to KUER, or NPR, a lot recently.  I haven’t missed the music radio stations one bit.  Listening to the news and debates on current issues in our country and world has been very intellectually stimulating.  I’ve been following the war in Iraq, Iran’s worrisome nuclear program, immigration reform, oil prices, foreign affairs, market trends, science developments, and much much more!  I even find listening to the jazz they play nightly to be more engaging.

     I’ve been troubled greatly by a lot of what has been going on.  I don’t agree with President Bush’s immigration plan and I don’t like the Democratic solution any better.  The bickering and mudslinging over the war in Iraq is despicable.  And the solutions congress is proposing for the spike in gasoline prices I think are self-serving and harmful to the overall situation.  Being confronted with these issues has made me think about what I would do to solve the problem and why I think some of the plans suggested are bad.  While it’s a discussion I only have with myself and the radio (like people who play bridge, I haven’t found many people my age that regularly listen to NPR), it still has made me stretch and think in ways I haven’t before.

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     While perusing an associate’s writings, I came across this article of his on homosexuality and the subsequent discussion on it.  It’s an issue I’ve wrestled with in my mind a great deal, especially when I found out one of my step-brothers was gay.  To me, he was a shining example of what a faithful Latter-Day Saint should be.  He knew of the doctrine and of current events and enjoyed discussing them (not debating them, which I still find amazing).  He was kind, funny, and almost always pleasant mannered.  The only time I heard him raise his voice or yell was at me once and I thoroughly deserved it. 

     I looked forward every year to Christmas and New Year’s as a kid, not because of the presents or time off or holiday season, but because Robert would come up from Salt Lake City and I and my step-siblings would get together to play games.  We played board games like Monopoly, Life, and Scrabble.  We would even play a couple of card games and games like Jenga. 

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In this blog I am asking you to go to the sources, read them, and decide for yourself for the most part (but hey, here’s my opinion anyway in case you need one). Also, if from the title you were expecting this to be about the Pledge of Allegiance, this is not that discussion and that must be saved for another time (which is difficult for me since I tend to shift topics like a car in desperate need of transmission repair shifts gears).

This is about the Articles of Confederation, the original system of government to run the United States that failed dismally, and the Constitution (nearly 220 years and still going strong). I want to first say that I am not as knowledgable as I would like to be on the topic as I am especially devoid in familiarity with the formation of the Articles of Confederation. Much as I would prefer not to admit, for a long time (probably until junior high or maybe even high school) I thought that the Constitution formed the original government of the United States. I had no idea that we were under the helm of the Articles of Confederation for the first ten years.

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