My Life In A Nutshell

"No Fighting, No Biting"

The title I used for this is something my mom used to say a lot when I was younger. If she’d leave me and my siblings alone in the house to run an errand or something, on her way out, she’d go, “No fighting, no biting! And please try not to burn the house down while I’m gone. Although, if you do, keep it in the kitchen, maybe then the insurance company will get me a new one…”

Well, we never burned down the kitchen, and we never actually bit each other, but that’s not to say we didn’t fight. =P

Now, why did I start off this blog post the way I did? Well, I’ll tell you:

I just looked at my last blog post (which was posted in JULY!! Sorry it’s been so long), and while I haven’t been on in ages, my last post was a back and forth between several bloggers on here (one in particular) about the state of America and why it’s so bad.

I would like to make an official statement that I did not leave Tumblr because I didn’t know how to respond to their last post, but because of summer school and then a major death in the family. Unfortunately, I had little time to blog, and with all the stress in my house, even less than I’d hoped for.

With everything calming down now, I have some time to come on here, but with my comeback, I don’t want to start up the “argument” that I had going on when I left.

I originally started my Tumblr as a way to express myself and have myself heard by others in an open forum. I would like to continue that and not feel suppressed by dwelling on one particular topic.

If you’re all ok with that, then let’s shake hands, agree to disagree, and move on.

And please, don’t worry. I have more controversial things to contribute to the world. ;) So just stay tuned….

~BT

:o)

Teaching kids to hate America? Who's for it?

There are few things I enjoy more than hearing other peoples’ opinions on what I have to say. [That’s actually one of the reasons I opted out of home-schooling and back into school.]

However, when I came across this reblog of what I wrote, I was slightly confused.

squashed:

I came across the most amazing post this morning. LovingCaringandAppreciating may be the authoritarian I’ve been looking for.

The post attributes a many of the ills of society and a general decline in freedom in part to public schools and

• Americans are basically taught to hate America
• Americans history courses are greatly lacking in facts and major details
• The abuse and behavior of children in school is completely outrageous and teachers can’t/won’t do anything about it

(I’m sorry if this post is less crisp than others—I just read this post, which actually says, “Why do we allow things like Columbine to continue to happen? That all goes back to one court case in 1969 [holding that students could not be suspended from school for wearing armbands to protest the Vietnam War].” It puts quotes around “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression.” I think I’m in love. Except not love. What’s that other feeling that makes you sort of queasy? Also, “there’s a fine line between freedom and complete pandemonium. True freedom comes with boundaries, and when those lines are erased, that freedom becomes chaos in an instant.” A true super-villian couldn’t have put it better!)

Back on topic, what do people mean when they claim that children are taught to hate America? So long as the Pledge of Allegience is a fixture in classrooms, this is an extremely dubious claim. Generally, it means that children are taught to question our popular national myths. It means that they learn not only about Squanto and Thanksgiving and Maize but also about broken treaties and about Lord Jeffrey Amherst and the small-pox blankets. It means talking about slavery and legal segregation—beyond mentioning that they ended. It means reading the greatest literature in the world, even when it wasn’t written by white men. And it includes efforts to be honest about present controversy and present problems in society. Recognizing that America is imperfect is, apparently, hating America.

However you slice it, the U.S. is a powerful country. The stuff we do has consequences. It is irresponsible to pretend to the next generation that those consequences are only and always good.

At first it seems to be for what I wrote. “LovingCaringandAppreciating may be the authoritarian I’ve been looking for.” However, if you take a quick jaunt over to their blog about looking for an authoritarian, they say that they want to find someone who, “trusts the government implicitly—and wants to make sure you do too.”And I don’t think that point ever came out in, and certainly was not the focus of my blog.

And then there’s the slight, “there’s a fine line between freedom and complete pandemonium. True freedom comes with boundaries, and when those lines are erased, that freedom becomes chaos in an instant.” A true super-villian couldn’t have put it better!” Wait…I’m a super-villian? I’m trying to destroy the world? If anything, I was stating from an observational point how the world has been destroying itself.

When I made the comment about American’s learning to hate America, it was a slight suggestion to the fact that in schools where everyone has to be politically correct, they sort of slip and slide over stories that might offend someone in the class. Anything that could be deemed as “racist” is immediately removed from the corriculum.

It puts quotes around “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression.” I think I’m in love. Except not love. What’s that other feeling that makes you sort of queasy? IT puts quotes around… Ok, so now I’m an “it”? I’m just an object? Not a person anymore? And what other feeling could be confused with love in a nauseaus sort of way?

Of course I put quotes around freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It makes them stand out! Although, that’s not the real reason.

When taken out of context, it makes it seem as though I view these freedoms as complete nonsense. But that’s not what I was doing. I was making a statement that, at the time, these children didn’t exactly have those rights and freedoms. They weren’t considered adults, they couldn’t vote, and in a general sense, couldn’t affect the government the way adults could. At that time, those freedoms and rights were upheld for adults; citizens who took part in continuing the building America, people who paid taxes and raised money for causes. Those freedoms didn’t apply to their children who felt they had those freedoms. So for them it was nonsense.

Until the government decided that children do have rights, as well as adults.

The whole topic of Americans learning to hate America was something that I specifically didn’t touch on in my blog, because I was thinking more about recent events of attacks in schools in my area.

Americans being taught to hate America is a topic I might touch on sometime in the future, but not at the moment that I wrote that blog. In fact, it didn’t really come up at all during all that I wrote, so I’m unsure as to why that subject was singled out in the “reblog” of what I posted. (Yes, I put reblog in quotes, because technically it wasn’t a reblog, it was a blog that quoted pieces of mine.)

And just as a wrapper-upper: However you slice it, the U.S. is a powerful country. The stuff we do has consequences. It is irresponsible to pretend to the next generation that those consequences are only and always good. Um, yeah. Wasn’t that what I was saying? That the actions we take have consequences and we have to be careful of what we do and what statements we make?

Maybe not in those exact words, but if that wasn’t clear before, it should be now.

What I did in fact end my blog with, was as follows:

We feel we have rights [and freedoms]. We feel that our rights need to be respected and honored. We feel that without them, we won’t become good adults.

But what we fail to realize is that there’s a fine line between freedom and complete pandemonium. True freedom comes with boundaries, and when those lines are erased, that freedom becomes chaos in an instant.

Every decision we make effects the future. Our personal futures, the futures of separate communities, and the future of the world as a whole.

Look around you.

Did kids honestly act the way they do now, 100 (even 50) years ago?

Now, having tried to reasonably explain (some might say justify) the comments seemingly made against me, I’m still left confused.

Was this “reblog” for or against my point of view?

~BT

The Old Switcheroo

So my brother was just watching The Bourne Supremecy on TV and in the description box, it says something like,

Just as Sean Connery was born to play James Bond, Matt Damon was born to play Jason Bourne…

And it occurred to me that there are some series that can switch actors for the main character and some can’t.

James Bond has been doing it for years. With each movie that comes out, a new person plays the lead role. All of them playing the same character, but each of them playing it differently.

However, I don’t think that the whole Bourne series would have worked out the same if Matt Damon only played the first and someone else played Bourne in the second, etc.

The same applies to series’ like Harry Potter. Totally wouldn’t be the same if someone else played harry in each movie.

Another one is Indiana Jones; although Harrisson Ford played the role incredibly, it might have been interesting to see if in each new movie, someone else played Indiana.

Can you think of any others for either side of the argument? What are your general thoughts on the topic?

~BT

:o)

"With Liberty And Justice For.... Some"

So, it’s become apparent to me as of late [yeah, how many people do you know start a conversation with THAT?!] that freedom isn’t what it used to be.

I’ve been reading parts of a book [I won’t mention the name now, but maybe sometime in the future], which discusses problems with our society, where they come from, and how they’re not being helped.

One of the biggest problems that’s mentioned is generally in the schooling system. The American public schooling system used to work, but lately it hasn’t. Why isn’t it working, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you; for various reasons. Those reasons include:

• Americans are basically taught to hate America
• American history courses are greatly lacking in facts and major details
• The abuse and behavior of children in school is completely outrageous and teachers can’t/won’t do anything about it

The third point is the one that really bothers me and is the one I wish to address here.

According to major studies, students, as well as teachers and administrators, all agree that abusive/disruptive students make the classroom a very difficult place to learn.

So why do we put up with it?

Why do we allow things like Columbine to continue to happen?

That all goes back to one court case in 1969. There is way more that went into the case that I have time to share, or that you have the patience to read, but I’ll go over the basics:

The case was titled “Tinker vs. Des Moines School District” and involved 3 public school students (two who’s last names were Tinker) who were suspended because they wore black armbands to school in protest against the Vietnam War.

The school found out about the silent protest beforehand and made a school rule that armbands were not to be worn for any purpose. Two of the three children went ahead and wore their armbands and were immediately suspended. The third wore his the next day and was suspended as well.

The children got their parents and attorneys involved and they ended up suing the state, claiming that it violated their constitutional rights of “Freedom of Speech” and “Freedom of Expression.”

Up until that point in history, constitutional rights were upheld towards adults; people who had a say in the government that instituted those rules.

But on December 16th, 1969, all that was thrown to the dogs.

The case was officially argued in 1968 and decided on in 1969, but while the case was in court, the world hang in a balance.

If the court ruled in favor of the children, their constitutional rights would be upheld and it would be known to the world that the children have as much freedom of speech as adults do. However, if the court ruled against them, it would send a message to the world that people don’t have the rights they originally thought they did.

“First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

“The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all of its creatures—Boards of Education not excepted. These have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights. That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.” 319 U.S., at 637.

“On the other hand, the Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools. See Epperson v. Arkansas, supra, at 104; Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, at 402. Our problem lies in the area where students in the exercise of First Amendment rights collide with the rules of the school authorities.”

The court recognized that there needs to be authority instituted in schools to keep children in line, but at the same time, they realized that these children would soon become citizens of the same state, and would need to know that their rights were being respected.

It must be stated that the school originally enforced this prohibition because they thought the wearing of armbands would be majorly controversial and would cause a disturbance and possible fights among students. However, the wearing of the armbands was a completely silent protest, and in no way effected the learning atmosphere or caused disturbance and violence, the prohibition that the school enforced did not include other possibly controversial items that would invoke a more outrageous reaction from students, such as political buttons, religious symbols, and even the Iron Cross (symbol of Naziism).

In our system, state-operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are “persons” under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments that are officially approved. In the absence of a specific showing of constitutionally valid reasons to regulate their speech, students are entitled to freedom of expression of their views. As Judge Gewin, speaking for the Fifth Circuit, said, school officials cannot suppress “expressions of feelings with which they do not wish to contend.” Burnside v. Byars, supra, at 749.

So all in all, what they were basically saying is that students are people, too.

Students have rights that need to be recognized too.

Anything that the school administration does to keep their students in line violates their freedom of speech and the administration can be sued for even trying.

And that, my dear friends, is why children have the power. And why adults feel powerless when it comes to disciplining them. And why the school system is pretty much a hell-hole.

In the “olden days” children had a place in society. My parents grew up in the era where all this ruckus was going on, but they felt respected and guided enough that by the time they became official voting citizens, they were well-adjusted adults.

So how is it that now, when things are supposed to be better, because we’re letting our children know that their rights are respected, things are worse!? And at a time when things were supposedly worse, because children didn’t know that their rights were respected, we got high functioning adults??

Albeit the baby boomer generation has its fair share of problems (just as every generation does based on what it goes through), our parents are better adults than most of the people graduating college right now will ever be!

We feel we have rights. We feel that our rights need to be respected and honored. We feel that without them, we won’t become good adults.

But what we fail to realize is that there’s a fine line between freedom and complete pandemonium. True freedom comes with boundaries, and when those lines are erased, that freedom becomes chaos in an instant.

Every decision we make effects the future. Our personal futures, the futures of separate communities, and the future of the world as a whole.

~BT

The specific quotes all came from this site: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/tinker.html
Check it out to learn more.

Can I hear your thoughts on the topic?

"Sexy & Dangerous"

Anyone who knows me and anyone who’s read any of my blogs anywhere online knows that I don’t really watch TV, but I was just in the other room watching with my sister and my father.

For anyone who doesn’t know, “America’s Got Talent” is on and there was just an act that calls itself “Sexy & Dangerous” or something like that. That’s how they presented themselves, anyway.

On a side note that will tie in to what I’m saying in just a minute, I just got finished rereading the 3rd book in a series I like by Caroline B. Cooney. The series is about a girl who finds out she can time travel and ends up back in the year 1895.

Now, it’s been apparent to me for ages how drastically things have changed in our world, and so quickly at that. But it was even more of an eye-opener just a few moments ago.

In the book I was reading, “Prisoner of Time”, a girl from 1898 came to the 1990s and one of the things you hear from her perspective a lot is how shocked she is at how few clothes people wear in our time.

I look around and it seems so normal to us that a person can walk outside in shorts and a t-shirt.

And then someone gets on stage during a “family-friendly” show and they’re wearing the minimum. They’re covered enough so that the TV station doesn’t have to bleep anything out.

And I think about our standards.

And how far we’ve fallen.

It used to be such an honor to wear huge flowing gowns full of beading and ruffles. To wear suits.

It used to show people how established one was.

Even the poorest people a hundred years ago wore more than the “upper class” of our time.

Men weren’t supposed to know what the female form looked like until he was married.

Now a guy can get off just looking at people who pass him on the street.

And although I agree that women should be empowered and independent and be able to do as they please, I don’t agree that the standard of dress we uphold is correct.

Women objectify themselves now “because they can”, which was something they couldn’t do a hundred years ago.

And yet, it seems that many of them get into trouble because of it. And most women don’t like the way they’re looked at, or should I say leered at when they dress that way.

But getting back to what I saw, this “sexy” woman was wearing what would have been considered too scandalous for a wife to wear for her husband a hundred years ago.

Why is that ok for a young child to see on TV now?

~BT

Happy Fourth!

OK, so today’s little bloggy thing is about this lovely place we call our home.

America.

The United States.

The USA.

Whatever.

The thing that I’ve come to realize about our home-country (for those of you who are from the US) is that we don’t have a name.

Seriously.

Think about it!

“America” refers to the entire continent from all the way up in Canada to down below in the most southern tip of Argentina.

So, yeah. There’s Canada, there’s Mexico, and smack in the middle, are the “united states.” In this case, “united states” isn’t a formal name. “United” is an adjective that describes the random states that we all live in that have formed together into a country. BUT IT’S NOT A NAME!

Here we are on this weekend celebrating the amazingness of our independence, when in reality, we’re not independent! The “name” of our country is totally dependent on the concept that our continent remains “America.”

Oh, and just so you United Statesers know, Canadians get really mad when we call ourselves “Americans”, because technically, they are, too.

I just thought I’d put that out there and see what you all think.

Do you agree with me?

Am I right?

What do you think?

I’ve thought about this A LOT and always come up with the same basic point. We as a nation…. are nameless.

~BT

Just A Couple Of Those....

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and the evolution of the English language [which I think should really be titled the “American” language] is completely baffling.

I was working at a food stand at a local stadium [yes, a big one that seats about 100,000] and I got to serve hotdogs. It was a small stand and I usually worked with one or two other people, but if one of them was in the warehouse and one was on break, it was just me.

I was totally cool with that.

What I wasn’t cool with was the way some of the customers acted.

“Ok, so I’ll take two Cokes, a Sprite, and a couple of hotdogs.”

“Alrighty, now that was two hotdogs?”

“No, three.”

Ok……

And then there was:

“Alright. I’d like to get four hotdogs and a couple of Cokes.”

“Sure, no problem.” …gets the hotdogs…”Now, how many Cokes was that?”

“Um. 2.” *looks at me like I’m a moron*

Yeah.

Now, I completely understand that the word “couple” should mean “2”. I also understand that the way it’s used these days, it could mean two people who are seeing each other romantically, and it could also mean “a small amount,” which makes 3 a viable number when saying “a couple”.

However, everyone speaks differently and you can never be too sure.

But, when there’s a long line and you have a small order, it’s just nice to specify exactly how many you want of something.

I also had a similar problem when people said “a few”, because again, that’s not a number. That’s an amount.

And nothing can amount to the weirdness of our language.

~BT