Have we overcome?

March 7th was the was 45 year anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a historic march and turning point in the Civil Rights movement. So the question is, have we moved on?

We have and we haven't.
Black people are still largely suppressed under an air of white supremacy, and whites are still filled with a feeling of their own supremacy. The latter statement is more pertinent to the older generations of American whites, but their mindsets are being passed on to their children. In terms of rights, black people have been afforded civil rights etc. But in terms of treatment, black people still receive blaring imaged of whites being dominant, are kept in poverty by welfare and gentrification, still suffer the terrible effects of slavery, and experience the patronizing glares of older whites. So we've moved on, but not by that much.

MV #1 - Gax

EVER HEARD "GAX" BY BOYS NOIZE?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEZf8i0-3Pw 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
GAX
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEZf8i0-3Pw


Congrat!!; now you have.

So with every song, I'm going to post a music video as well.


IMAGINE THIS:
THE SCENE begins with the camera looking down at a puddle. 
Everytime the listener hears the bitcrushed pulsing sound, a light flashes in the puddle.
Unbeknownst to the listener, though, is the fact that there's a giant SQUD in the SKY. 

The puddle begins to grow dark. This is because the Squid is spewing ink.

So the Sqiud enters the shot at an upward facing angle, and the second the beat drops, a winnebago comes flying and splashes through the puddle, bringing the camera with it (so that it's like the camera got latched on to its rear bumper). 
On the static, the camera switches to a view of its top where the lights are reflecting, and pulsing with every PpUuuLllllSssssE.
The view drifts to the side to show the contents of the car, and on the static, locks on to the hood of the car.
From here, we can see a giant Siuqd behind it, spewing ink in an overcast sky.
The winnebago zooms into a cavern and begins falling on the smooth part with the ducking, with lights flashing every so often on its way down.
About a quarter through, it hits the ground. 
A boy gets out and wanders through the cave, which is lit by bright  crystals and populated with small versions of the lighted Qsuid.
He pets them, and they give him a blessing of light. 
This is about the middle of the smooth part. 
As its ending, the sQiuDs have the winnebago pushed to a dead end at the end of the cavern.   
The boy gets in, and one of them comes behind it, and pushes it through on the static. The Winnebago dis ap pears.
(On the static, of course)
It comes back (on the static, of course) all staticy and unavailable-channel-y. 
Then the rest of the journey, through a [FOREST], is a cake walk, since it jumps ahead leagues every static-BLAST.

The come to a space station in the middle of the desert, and enter on a static.
When they're inside, the boy exits, and whenever he goes to take a step, the static effect is in effect.
Scientists in lab coats show him a bruised and broken lighted sqIId, whose broken lightbulbs sputter on the static. 
They launch into the air in a pod, and fall into the mother SqiuD. 
She stops spewing ink, and the video ends with them doing a barrel roll.  

SOTA's on a mission.

My school's mission statement is as follows: OUR MISSION IS STUDENT SUCCESS... ACADEMIC, ARTISTIC, AND HUMANISTIC.

So the question is, has our school actually took any steps to fulfill its mission? Well first, as we analyze how much my school does or does not suck, we have to define what it is that its trying to accomplish.

STUDENT SUCCES - Easy enough. All the school has to do is teach kids stuff and give them books. Right? Eh. SOTA does a good job of affording students who want to succeed with the means to do so, but when it comes to extending a hand to the less motivated students (which make up %300000 percent of probably ever high school's student body ever), it's a little less generous with its means-giving. Sure, there are guidance counselors etc., but SOTA's amount of "I don't giveaf****" student support isn't that great. It's more like, if they fail, it's on them. Their work ethic is their work ethic. Although, if you have good, concerned teachers, they'll call home and encourage you to stay after school etc.

ACADEMIC SUCCESS - Yeah, we're pretty good academically. Not much to complain about, save for the fact that teaching for understanding isn't too popular in the math and science courses here.

ARTISTIC SUCCESS - This is most certainly achieved, at least in the departments that I've observed. The art programs here are wonderful, giving students real, in-depth study of their art and its forms. The only thing I'd like to see changed is more flexibility between the majors; people in college change majors all the time. Teens in high school change interests all the time. So how about a little leeway?

HUMANISTIC SUCCESS - Ha. I don't even know what this means in context of our school. We don't do any community service, unless you're in National Honors Society, and fund raising is limited to the student government.  

Now if I could change anything about this school, I'd change the way that teachers teach math. I'd base it more around exploration, and help students understand concepts first and foremost. I'd also increase the amount of student cooperation in our community, and help students intergrate the arts into things like school festivals or walks or exhibitions or whatever else it might be. Basically, I'd try to develop more excitement in the school environment and make it easier for students to grasp and cherish the idea of education.

Coproration of Clouds; Octopus Tent

The landscape was golden; the ground was most likely sand.
                                                                                                  
The sky was clear blue, and seemed to be radiating.
       ----                              ----                                ---              
There were bigtops, red and white striped, situated all over.
                                                                                                 
There was a man in a white collared shirt, who had a tie that was blue.
-------------------------------------                                                 
On his back was a pack metal propeller.
                                                                                                  
He asked us, the crowd, with an amiable look on his face, if we wanted to tour the sky.

Of course we obliged.


We all grabbed on to his legs like an upside down balloon.

He ascended into the air, with us looking up at him in admiration. He had confidence.
                                                                                                   
People began to fall off, until it was only me left.
                                                                                                   

He became worried and started zig-zagging out of control. He warned me that we were in uncharted sky.

                                                                                               
The sky was like a canister, filled with cardboard clouds and golden broth.
                                                                                                   

The sky had  three walls, and situated against one was a plot of land.

                                                                                                   
The man let me off on the plot of land and disappeared. 
                                                                                                     

There were clouds against the wall, and company owned generators along the land with thunder signs on them.

                                                                                                      

 I walked along a narrow pass and came to a waterfall.

I sat behind a power generator and contemplated throwing myself off the ledge due to loneliness, and overwhelming hoplessness.

It seemed like weeks went by, and finally, I conjured up my girlfriend and her brother. 

The dream ended.

Then the dreamscape shifted back to the land, where, in one of the bigtops, there was a meeting of big-time movie producers. They were looking for the next hit. The dream went to a projection of a movie proposal, with a purple                                            octopus with white                                 gloves propelling itself into the air above the bigtops, using its gloved hands to interfere with the lives of the humans below. The dream cut to the most big-time producer of them all, who, red-faced, demanded the "real thing." He wanted God.      

Tandecredo.

Tom Tancredo has recently decided that it'd be good to turn to voter literacy laws again. He announced it at the recent Tea Party event, even though there was this huge movement in the sixties of sort of repressed people who weren't allowed to vote which already overturned them. But I guess we don't have to learn from our mistakes. It'd just be enough to repeat them again. Maybe they'll turn out differently? Maybe this time, with all the political correctness and what not, it'll be absolutely obvious that this isn't wrong at all.
 
I think this is disgusting. It's disgusting to see this sort of bigotry and elitism allowed in the halls of our legislative buildings, and on the podiums of our events, and applauded by hundreds of people. That's probably the thing that sickens me the most-- the applause and whooping at the end of his speech.

A literacy test completes undermines the tenets of democracy; "the people" doesn't just represents those good at test-taking or those who can write. There are plenty of intelligent people who can't write, or who may not be able test-takers. A literacy test basically tells people that if they're not smart enough, they're not a part of our country.

Then there's the fact that they'd be fundamentally racist. Extraordinarily racist. In his speech, Tancredo is obviously gearing this test towards keeping immigrants or minorities out of the vote.

Then, Tancredo blames the election of Barack Hussein (a word he spits out with so much venom it probably burned the stage beneath him, and ran straight to hell) Obama on the absence of a literacy test. What's that mean, huh Tancredo?

Don't deny it, don't buy it.

BLOGGING ASSIGNMENT NUMBER2

"Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts." 
- Margaret Dabble----------------->

Yeah.
It is.

Our desire to conform is really very powerful. We'll do a lot to be accepted in society, including bending our moral compass and deciding what facts are true or not (the irony being that facts are always true). Throughout history, people have decided to join an incorrect thought pool because it's the new "in," the new trend or fashion in mental wardrobe.

For instance, people still deny the holocaust.  

/thread

This first post is forced.

Ah, so my Creative Writing teacher wants us to write a response about Rahm Emanuel's use of the phrase "fucking retarded", more specifically, "retard," as I suppose the rest of the bloggersphere is doing.

Personally, I don't really care, and think it's sort of lulzy. But I guess, as a human being, I owe it to the world to have some humanity. So the question is whether or not the word "retard" should be politically incorrect, and banished with the other non-pc words to the back of our minds to be said quietly in ourselves while we look at people.

So the context of this is whole sitch is as follows: Mr. Emanuel was just a bit exasperated because he believed MoveOn's members were dingbats for planning on smearing the names of those Blue Dog members who voted down the health care bill. He came into the meeting, guns a-blazing, and proclaimed the members to be "fucking retarded."

The only critique I have for this man is to next time, not make such statements in a board-room full of butthurt liberals (I'm not conservative, but c'mon), and other professional types. They're obviously going to whine to the press about you saying something like that, and mask it as politically incorrectness, just to see your name go up in flames. Realistically, saying that something's "fucking retarded" is the equivalent in today's society as saying something's "fucking stupid," or "fucking moronic," or "fucking dumb." LIKE SRSLY? What is the ISSUE? All we need to learn from this is to NOT say any words in a raging political war that might have any gray spot about them whatsoever. "Retarded" should definitely not be deemed politically incorrect.

AND THEN PALIN.
WHAT THE SH*T, PALIN?
ARE YOU RETARDED?
O wait-- I might be offending your down-syndrome child who is
a) not called "retarded" anymore in the first place. Now we have resepctable terms like "mentally disabled" and "socially inept".
b) named after his aforesaid malady. That's disgusting, Palin.
c) a tool you've used to put yourself in the spotlight. God, what a pig.
d) not quite as disabled as you.
That's all I really have to say.