Some Short Thoughts
Apparently, this has been another pathetic attempt at trying to get a journal type thing going, but I’m going to succeed, damn it! Today (or rather tonight, as it’s almost 9:30p), some short thoughts…
Sprint phones suck. The service is spotty at best, they charge me too much for my phone, and when I tried to change the contract last year (when my first year came up), it didn’t go through. Of course I have a lower than average success with technology and electronics in general, so I’m not surprised. I did find out somewhere, it was either in Time Magazine or NPR (how’s that for name-dropping?), that since so many people are using cell phones, every phone company is having a hard time keeping up with the demand. However, Sprint has been annoying me for two years now, but if I want to have a cell phone, there’s nothing much I can do. And having a cell phone has been handy more than once. I don’t use it too much, but it’s great if I’m supposed to meet a friend and we happen to be in two different places (something that happens a lot with my friends and I!) or if I need to get in touch with my boyfriend before he leaves the store!
And speaking of cell phones, isn’t it illegal to use a hand-held phone while driving in New York City? The multitudes of people breaking the law shows how well this is enforced. You might say, the police have better things to go after than someone talking on a phone. I say to that, what happens when said phone talking person crashes into someone else because he or she isn’t paying attention. And those handless headsets don’t make anything better. One study that studied people concentrating on a visual pattern (or something like that, the article was a while ago), then concentrating on audio. The participants then had to try to do both at the same time. Lo and behold, when both aural and visual stimuli were affecting the brain, less energy was spent on either one of them than if the stimuli was separate! I just have to say, they needed a study for that? It seems so obvious…
2002 is shaping up to be the Year of the Protest. More students are protesting against things they don’t believe is right. I’ve gotten many e-mails and requests to sign petitions and join protests. The trick is figuring out which causes are most important to you, because it is impossible to fight for every cause out there. If my participation means signing a petition and/or writing a letter, I’ll do it if I believe in the cause. I tend to think twice about protests because I’m not that kind of person. I admire people who are vocal enough in their beliefs to shout it to the world, I do my vocalizing on a smaller scale and try to get the people I come in contact with think a little more about their surroundings. A great place to read about injustices in the world is Mother Jones. WARNING - this site (and the magazine) are not for the faint-hearted. You’ll get sick over what’s happening all around.
Bush is so stupid. He doesn’t care about the environment. Among other issues, instead of investing more money into alternative, cleaner forms of fuel, he wants to drill for oil in Alaska. He gets money from big companies so he has to do what they say. He and Cheney were part of a company that had accounting troubles, but as soon as they’re gone from the company, they decide to give CEO’s a hard time. Granted CEO’s should get punished, but Bush and Cheney are miraculously *exempt*. He needs to save face, so he continues with this idiotic war against Iraq even though many, if not most, people in the world think it’s a dumb war and there are other ways to topple Saddam. And if the US does get rid of all the *weapons of mass destruction* (I hate that term) and does *change the regime* (ditto), then most, if not all, of the Arab countries will hate us more than they do now. Apparently, the most basic foresight is not a necessary quality to be president.
Relax, relate, release! No wonder this has been a year of so many protests in America. I’m better now.
One more thing. This is a funny site. Check it out.