The Ironic Second Semester

I have only a few weeks of school left.  You'd think that I would be home free by now, having virtually no homework.  That's what I thought at the beginning of the year; but it's just the opposite.  I have so much going on at the moment that this post will only be a paragraph long as opposed to two!  To start off, I have a "Marketplace of Ideas" project that I chose to do on global warming, which shouldn't be too stressful but I'm making it overwhelming for myself.  Then, next week, I have the dreaded AP Calculus exam, and the week after, the AP Biology exam, so I need to review for that.  And for Music Theory, I have to write my final composition for May 14.  Then of course, the motherload: the senior project.  In a previous post, I summarized it, and now I'm finally writing it.  It's due a week from today.  Who would've thought that I'd have so much going on in the last couple weeks of my senior year?

Senior Ditch Day

Today is Monday, the first school day after our high school prom.  Apparently, it's tradition that seniors pull a Ferris Bueller on everyone and 'ditch' school on this day.  So you may ask, what are the possible reasons for doing this?  For some people, it's to catch up on sleep; they take Monday off to plop themselves down on their beds for several hours.  For others, it's to simply follow the tradition and keep it alive.  For most people, the idea of having an extra day off from school is very enticing.  And then of course, there are some prom groups who are out at their lake houses recovering from their hangovers for the day.  But what really bothers me the most about senior ditch day is that some students have their parents call them out.  I'm serious.  Their parents let them ditch, and then call them out.

Any senior that ditches for senior ditch day without their parents calling them out of class is penalized with a 3% grade deduction from every class.  Thus, seniors that choose to ditch are fully aware of the consequences of an unauthorized absence.  But when parents call the attendance office saying that their child won't be in school for the day, they authorize the student's absence and prevent the 3% reduction.  To me, that's just silly and unfair.  First off, why would a parent be willing to call their children out of class?  Wouldn't they want their child to be a diligent student and be in class?  Second, these students who are called out have no consequence to skipping Monday class as opposed to the students who actually ditch and receive a 3% reduction in every class.  It's just dishonorable to me that the students who are called out would say that they're ditching when they're really not because their absence is authorized.  If you're going to ditch, DITCH and face the consequences!  I chose not to ditch because I think the detriments outweigh the benefits!

Extraterrestrial Life

If you think about life, it is really phenominal.  How is a cell the smallest form of "life?"  What makes something "alive?"  How did life first come about from a bunch of molecules, a so-called "primordial soup?"  Where did molecules come from?  Matter cannot be created nor destroyed, so where did matter initially come from?  It's amazing how our planet is just the right distance away from the sun, just happens to have the right molecules necessary for life.  Heck, look how far life has gotten on this planet.  Life now can reside in trillion-celled vehicles that can function for years and years on end.  Genes, or replicators, continue to be passed on from generation to generation in different methods.  The possibility of life on a planet is rather slim if you really think about it.  Yet, in a constantly expanding universe, how can life not be possible?

There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth.  Think about the size of the sun.  The sun is larger than the volume of 100 earths.  The quadrillions of millions of grains of sand on Earth is a lesser number than the number of stars in the universe.  Thus, there are probably trillions of sun-like stars in the universe, and where there's sun-like stars (or any stars in general), there are bound to be planets revolving around them.  There is no doubt in my mind that there is some planet out there among the millions of galaxies and millions of millions of stars that houses life like Earth.  The probability is very likely.  How can you not believe that there is some extraterrestrial life out there?

America Alone - 5

In the final part of America Alone, Mark Steyn talks about the premise of the book title, that in the end, America will be one of the last ones standing in the so-called "long war" of Islamification, and the only country with the potential to win it.  "Because, if America can't, nobody else in the developed world can," Steyn states, "and they'd be well advised to begin reaching their accommodations with the new realities, an Islamic Europe and a nuclear Iran being merely the warm-up acts" (153).  Steyn's belief is that most of Europe is hollow, and the United States is becoming more hollow to appease Europe.  He says, "...the United States has become a slave to its habitual if largely misplaced fondness for Europe, while Europe has become a slave to its habitual if entirely irrational hatred for America" (160).  Well said.  Europe hates us for our apparent greed and selfishness, but to me, those are only benign factors of America's success; we are the most prosperous nation known to man because of our revolutionary political and economic systems.  Yet there are so many people out there that hate America, and it clearly will not help us in the long run.  Steyn also begins to talk about our Judicial systems and its flaws (example: trials for horrible people taking forever), our diplomatic position at the moment (example: African and Arab League members of the UN voted against the USA position more than 80 percent of the time, and EU members voted against the USA position 54.5 percent of the time in the General Assembly of 2003), our economic position at the moment (example: "Americans are paying for the rope that will hang them" (165) by paying for Saudi oil), and our media and its flaws.  There is so much crap directed towards America that it has become stereotypical, but we don't deserve this, Steyn believes.  "Most Americans are familiar with their stereotype abroad: the ugly American, loud, brash, ignorant, arrogant.  It is, in most respects, the inversion of reality: America may be the most modest and retiring hegemon in history," Steyn says (174). Mark Steyn is a native Canadian, by the way.  So how can we ease the tensions?

Steyn talks about his solution in the final chapter: be proud of your nation.  Yes, it sounds cliché, but most people kind of take the pride for granted and let Europeans and Islam stomp all over them.  "This book isn't an argument for more war, more bombing, or more killing," Steyn says, "but for more will." (193).  Like Europe, we have become somewhat hollow in the sense that our outer layer is our massive military and firepower, but behind it is a lack of will and pride for our own kind.  Instead, as Steyn says (which I agree with), we hide behind the whole 'multiculturalism' facade: "Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb" (194).  I don't think that having multiple other cultures in a society is a bad thing until it begins to dominate, hide, and scorn the native culture, and that's what appears to be happening today in America.  Yes, as I said before I even believe that having diversity in a society can be a good thing, immersing other people into different cultures.  But submitting to these other cultures and having a system of political correctness that advocates this submission is taking will and pride away from Americans.  There are blacks and whites and yellows and reds but we are "The greatest nation on God's green Earth," undivided.  We cannot forget that.  To stop Islamification, Steyn gives three possible resolutions: submit to Islam, destroy Islam, or reform Islam.  Obviously the first two are farfetched, and reforming Islam "...is not ours to do.  Ultimately, only Muslims can reform Islam.  All the free world can do is create conditions that increase the likelihood of Muslim reform, or at any rate do not actively impede it" (205).  Steyn then talks about ten things we can do to induce Islam reform, including supporting women's rights, supporting economic and political liberty in the Muslim world, transforming the energy industry to decrease dependence on Saudi oil, and ending the Iranian regime.  His general hopes for America though are low: "We have been shirking too long, and that's unworthy of a great civilization.  To see off the new Dark Ages will be tough and demanding.  The alternative will be worse" (214).

America Alone is a bit of a roller coaster to read.  The topics Steyn talks about are often scattered and unorganized.  His contentions and ideas are perfectly valid, but in my opinion, a little intense.  Islamification is probable, but not as probable as he thinks it may be.  The Muslim extremists as I see them have very little infrastructure, just a bunch of firepower and the will and hatred for America.  I feel that once we stop funding the regime by cutting how much oil we buy from them, they will die out.  Who knows though, maybe his predictions will end up being correct.  So, I would probably not recommend this book to anyone; it's a big spiderweb of ideas and it's difficult to pull ideas out of it.  Don't get me wrong, I agree with plenty of things that Steyn says in this book, but I just found it difficult to read.

America Alone - 4

At the end of the second part in Steyn's book, he lays out to the reader "The Four Horsemen of the Eupocalypse;" in other words, what are the four main factors that will cause the European Union to crash and burn within the next couple decades (as Steyn cynically predicts).  According to the biblical story, the four horsemen are Death, Famine, War, and Conquest.  Death is fairly self-explanatory.  As aforementioned in previous posts, Steyn believes that not enough Europeans are procreating to replace those who have died.  "One would assume a demographic disaster is the sort of thing that sneaks up on you because you're having a grand old time: you stayed in university till you were thirty-eight, you took early retirement at forty-five, you had two months a year on the Côte d'Azur, you drank wine, you ate foie gras and truffles, you marched in the street for a twenty-eight-hour work week...It was all such great fun there was no time to have children.  You thought the couple in the next street would, or the next town, or in all those bucolic villages you pass through on the way to your weekend home" (109).  The demographic problem is not well-known in general, so I would agree that it has snuck up on Europeans, and even on us to an extent.  In the United States, the number of children per parent is 2.11, and it's most likely in decline.  Our so-called strength in numbers is becoming slowly but surely weaker.  In terms of famine, Steyn mentions the overall deterioration of European economy and society.  "Think of the European Union as that flat in Marseilles, and the Eutopian political consensus as the stiff, and lavish government largesse as that French guy's dead mom's benefits [from welfare],"  Steyn says.  "Take the one-time economic powerhouse of the Continent - Germany - and pick any of the usual indicators of a healthy advanced industrial democracy: Unemployment?  The highest since the 1930s.  House prices?  Down.  New car registration?  Nearly 15 percent lower in 2005 than in 1999.  General nuttiness?  A third of Germans under thirty think the United States government was responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11" (113).  People see Europe as a success story today, but peel back the shiny peel and you've got a rotting continent.

In terms of war, Steyn believes that the "Islamification" of Europe is happening quickly and causing tensions.  He claims that Europe is not multicultural but rather bicultural: "You have hitherto homogeneous Scandinavian societies whose cities have become 40 percent Muslim in the space of a generation.  Imagine colonial New England when it was still the Mayflower crowd and one day they woke up and noticed that all the Aldens and Standishes, Cookes and Winslows were in their fifties and sixties and all the young guys were called Ahmed and Mohammed" (118).  Personally, I don't quite believe that all European nations are bicultural, and definitely not America.  I'm not sure how it is in Europe, but there is still plenty of tensions and racism between whites and blacks in America; it's not just Muslim-Americans versus Americans.  Steyn is definitely not one of those advocates for diversity.  He thinks that multiculturalism "...gives us the worst of all worlds: the worst attributes of Muslim culture - the subjugation of women - combined with the worst attributes of Western culture - license and self-gratification" (120).  His viewpoint here is incredibly cynical, and I'm not quite sure if I agree with him here or not.  There are downfalls to diversity, but there are also plenty of benefits, such as people being immersed into different backgrounds of the world.  I'm a bit like Steyn though in the sense that I don't really advocate for "diversity" or "coexistence."  Finally, in terms of conquest, Steyn is generally referring to the conquest of Islam over Europe and the conquest of Europeans over themselves.  Steyn is foreseeing a new Dark Ages.  He asserts that Europe is imploding itself: "The trouble with the social-democratic state is that, when government does too much, nobody else does much of anything" (126).  I could not agree more on that one.  When government gets more into people's personal lives almost like they're our parents, they're acquiring more political power.  As proven time and time again, political power is addictive, and eventually, the government (or specific individuals in the government) will want more and more.

American Alone - 3

Before you read any further, I want to make a disclaimer that this might offend some people.  In my previous post on this book, I asked if a shrinking American-European population and growing Islamic population was a bad thing, but never elaborated.  So why is it a bad thing?  Mark Steyn elaborates in detail on this issue.  He says, "That's the lesson of September 11: the dragons are no longer on the edge of the map.  When you look at it that way, the biggest globalization success story of recent years is not McDonald's or Microsoft but Islamism: the Saudis took what was not so long ago a severe but peripheral strain of Islam practiced by Bedouins in the middle of a desert miles from anywhere and successfully exported it to Jakarta and Singapore and Alma-Ata and Grozny and Sarajevo and Lyons and Bergen and Manchester and Ottawa and Dearborn and Fall Church...And now, instead of the quaintly parochial terrorist movements of yore, we have the first globalized insurgency" (61).  What was once a small strain of Islam extremism has become prevalent and spread like wildfire within the past decade.  Everyone knows about the so-called "muslim extremists," but in an American society where if you say 'black,' it's racist, we completely keep them on the down low.  In fact, we seem to appease them with our "Coexist" and "Celebrate diversity" bumper stickers.  Heck, President Obama did it when he recently had a meeting in the White House with the Egypt Muslim Brotherhood.  Muslim extremists have a strong will and a strong hate for America, while most of us Americans are sheeple, accepting it and going with the flow.  To Mark Steyn and to me as well, this poses a problem for the future of America.

Thus, to Steyn, "...it's not merely that there's a global jihad lurking within this religion, but that the religion itself is a political project - and, in fact, an imperial project - in a way that modern Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are not.  Furthermore, this particular religion is historically a somewhat bloodthirsty faith in which whatever's your bag violence-wise can almost certainly be justified.  And, yes, Christianity has had its blood-drenched moments, but the Spanish Inquisition, which remains a byword for theocratic violence, killed fewer people in a century and a half than the jihad does in a typical year" (62).  In other words, he believes that Islam is a political project masquerading as a religion, and it advocates totalitarian-esque policies.  Like I said before, this may offend some people, but so be it.  To be honest, I can't help but agree with Steyn on this statement.  There's only one inconsistency in what he says: compared to the Spanish Inquisition, the jihad is a modern entity in a modern population, one much larger than the population back then; thus, more people are likely to be killed by jihad because of the larger population.  That's it though; what Steyn says here is very compelling.  There's constantly something in the news about some American guy that converted into an extremist and blew himself up on some subway.  More and more people are converting to muslim extremism, and more and more are born into it; it's a fast growing population.  Then, normal muslims will complain that this branch of Islam is so small that it couldn't possibly take over, and that it isn't a representation of their religion as a whole.  Well, unfortunately, it is.  "A while back I took my little girl to a science exhibition in Vermont," Steyn says, "and we spent a fun half-hour flipping balls into one of those big mechanical contraptions full of levels and runways and elevators.  But no matter which corner of the table you tossed the ball in, eventually it dropped into a little bucket and was deposited in the hole in the center.  That's the way it is with the ideology du jour: you come at it from the Richard Reid or the John Walker Lindh or the Taliban end, but you all drop down the same big hole in the center" (68).  Take a look at some of what is said in the Koran and see for yourself.

Lotteries

Yesterday was my 18th birthday, a huge milestone in my life.  I can vote, buy cigarettes and other....things, and buy lottery tickets.  It's interesting because most people that asked how my birthday was also instantly asked me, "Did you buy a lottery ticket?"  To which I reply "No."  Then the other side of my conscience goes, "Hey wait, why not buy one?  I mean, a couple weeks ago the Illinois jackpot was at $640 million...imagine all of the possibilities with that amount of money..." He tempts me, but I manage to resist.  Never will I ever buy a lottery ticket.  Here's why.

There is a higher chance that you will get struck by lightning on your way to buying the lottery ticket than winning the lottery itself.  There is a twenty-times higher chance that you will get into a car accident on your way to buying the lottery ticket(s) than winning the lottery itself.  As tempting as it may seem, IT IS A WASTE OF MONEY.  It is also kind of demoralizing to the American way.  The lottery encourages you to gamble, to hope to win something for nothing.  The American way is to work and thus be rewarded; the lottery expresses the contrary, receive a bunch of money for doing no work whatsoever.  I don't want to support an organization that contradicts and challenges American principles.  There are some people who claim that there is a strategy to winning the lottery.  Here's their strategy: buy as many lottery tickets as possible.  Doi.  Besides wasting your money on more lottery tickets, there is no strategy to winning the lottery.  The lottery is an un-American game of chance, slim chances at that.  So why not spend your well-earned money on other things that stimulate the economy?