1. I think I have my most interesting thoughts either when I should be falling asleep or right when I wake up from a dream. Too bad I forget all of them.
2. I think all parents should watch the movie Click at least twice a year. It is easy to get caught up in day to day life and lose track of what's really important. Every time I watch that movie it guilts me into spending more time with my kids, which is a good thing.
3. I think this is the most interesting thing I have seen in awhile. Imagine companies changing their business model to reduce spending instead
of gaining profit. Too bad only colleges and government funded projects would invest any time into these types of things, but imagine the possibilities.
4. I think the saying "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" is stupid. What good is something that is wrong 99.86% of the time?
5. I think I hate George Clooney and I'm not sure why. When I see him it reminds me of the scene in Step Brothers when Randy says to Brennan "I don't know what it is about your face, but I just wanna deliver one of these [fist] right in your suck hole". That's how you make me feel George Clooney.
6. I think every time I write one of these I will have a sports related thought dedicated to Delynn.
7. I think this is my sports related Delynn thought; just once I would like to see an NFL draft that is bingo ball machine style . Put the top 64 players names on all of the balls and see what happens. It would be the most exciting thing in draft history....and we wouldn't have to listen to nonstop speculation of who is drafting who and mock drafts and all of that other garbage that happens from January to April. The other cool thing is that since most draft picks don't pan out anyways, the chances of having a good or bad draft would likely remain the same.
8. I think I need to go to a concert soon. It's been too long.
9. I think there was something that really bothered me that I heard a few days ago. Newt Gingrich criticized the president for apologizing to the Afghan government for several Qurans that were accidentally burnt. “There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama’s attention in a negative way,” Gingrich said, “and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the United States, period.” How out of touch is this guy? More than 30 people have died in protests and attacks directly related to the burning of the Qurans. Yes, it was an accident and no, the Middle Eastern countries we keep invading don't apologize for any of the stupid actions they take, but we live in a diplomatic world. Having the mentality of "F you world, we are the United States, we are better than you" is likely what caused a lot of the terrorism we see today. Maintaining that view will not make things better Newt.
10. I tinhk i wlil sotp gtenitg uspet aobut how poelpe splel tihgns. the pruopse of wirtnig is cmomnuciatoin, not pefrectoin.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
affirmative action
The Fisher vs. University of Texas case that is making headlines lately has brought the affirmative action issue back into the spotlight. Affirmative action is a strange subject because it seems like people of all races fall on both sides of the debate. There are black people who are for it and black people against it. But there are also white people for and against it. The biggest issue to me is the fact that this is still an issue.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Abigail Fisher, the ruling would likely apply nationwide and would make it harder for racial minorities to gain accepted into schools. This seems wrong until you realize the only spots they would be losing are spots that were taken from more qualified students in the first place. People as a whole need to stop feeling entitled to certain things. If minorities are being unfairly denied acceptance into schools then by all means take action.....but not at the expense of a more deserving person.
Growing up in a military town has exposed me to many different cultures. Being multiracial myself one may think that I should have a better perspective than others about experiences with racial inequalities. The problem is that I don't. I don't recall ever being in a class with more than one or two other African American kids, but race has never been a problem in my life. Maybe I just never noticed it, but I think most people I grew up with would agree. I am not ignorant enough to think that the rest of the country is the same as it is here, but I also don't think people in today's America should feel entitled things and still expect to be treated equal.
How can you preach equality by practicing inequality?
Equality in today's society no longer requires special treatment. In today's America where nearly 64% of people are white, and only 12% are black yet we are still able to have an African American president. I am not trying to undermine the efforts of those who fought for equality through the Civil Rights Era. I just feel like the quicker people who lived through that era acknowledge their accomplishments and accept that their efforts have caused race to move towards becoming a non-issue, the better off everyone will be. I don't want to hear what Jesse Jackson thinks about every African American news story; I want to hear what people think about it. I want to watch basketball highlights without hearing about what the Asian American did for the Knicks. I don't care about what race a person is who committed a crime; I just want to know that it happened. I don't want to watch Black Entertainment Television; I just want to watch television. It is one thing to celebrate a person's race, but the unnecessary emphasis on race is what continues to make racism an issue.
I think the younger generations have widely accepted racial equality. I wish I had lived in other areas of the country to gain more perspective on racial issues, but I would hope that people in other places feel the same. Times change those changes require modification of rules and regulations. The application of the phrase "All men are created equal" has changed over the years, but in today's America it is a lie until outdated requirements such as affirmative action change as well.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Abigail Fisher, the ruling would likely apply nationwide and would make it harder for racial minorities to gain accepted into schools. This seems wrong until you realize the only spots they would be losing are spots that were taken from more qualified students in the first place. People as a whole need to stop feeling entitled to certain things. If minorities are being unfairly denied acceptance into schools then by all means take action.....but not at the expense of a more deserving person.
Growing up in a military town has exposed me to many different cultures. Being multiracial myself one may think that I should have a better perspective than others about experiences with racial inequalities. The problem is that I don't. I don't recall ever being in a class with more than one or two other African American kids, but race has never been a problem in my life. Maybe I just never noticed it, but I think most people I grew up with would agree. I am not ignorant enough to think that the rest of the country is the same as it is here, but I also don't think people in today's America should feel entitled things and still expect to be treated equal.
How can you preach equality by practicing inequality?
Equality in today's society no longer requires special treatment. In today's America where nearly 64% of people are white, and only 12% are black yet we are still able to have an African American president. I am not trying to undermine the efforts of those who fought for equality through the Civil Rights Era. I just feel like the quicker people who lived through that era acknowledge their accomplishments and accept that their efforts have caused race to move towards becoming a non-issue, the better off everyone will be. I don't want to hear what Jesse Jackson thinks about every African American news story; I want to hear what people think about it. I want to watch basketball highlights without hearing about what the Asian American did for the Knicks. I don't care about what race a person is who committed a crime; I just want to know that it happened. I don't want to watch Black Entertainment Television; I just want to watch television. It is one thing to celebrate a person's race, but the unnecessary emphasis on race is what continues to make racism an issue.
I think the younger generations have widely accepted racial equality. I wish I had lived in other areas of the country to gain more perspective on racial issues, but I would hope that people in other places feel the same. Times change those changes require modification of rules and regulations. The application of the phrase "All men are created equal" has changed over the years, but in today's America it is a lie until outdated requirements such as affirmative action change as well.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
the kid with autism
For practically my whole life I had no real clue what autism was. I always thought of autism as people who refuse to speak and are smarter than 99% of the rest of the world, yet are unable to accomplish simple tasks. It is a confusing disorder and I have a hard time accepting things that confuse me. One of my biggest worries in life is that my son Aidan will spend his whole life fighting to be understood and accepted. I have been his father for almost 9 years and just in the last few years am starting to understand him. Here’s a look at my life with my son so far. Hopefully it will help others to understand him the way I am beginning to.
So I’ll just get this out of the way first, I know my son does not have full blown autism. When I first started learning about it I was kind of surprised to learn that there is a whole spectrum of behavioral disorders ranging from autism at one end to people like my son who fall toward the other end. We have been taking my son to the doctor regularly for the past 3 years. They all have their opinion of what condition on the spectrum he has, but whether it is Asperger’s Syndrome, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or something else I could care less. The important thing to remember is that his brain does not operate like most peoples and he is not in direct control over it.
Sandra and I were the first of our circle of friends to have a child. By not having a lot of other children to compare our child to, I guess it was easy to assume he was normal. But from the time Aidan could walk and talk, Sandra and I knew something was a little bit different with him. He has always been very loving, he laughs a lot, he is independent, and is one of the most naturally intelligent kids I have ever been around. Most of the time he seems to be a “normal” child. But then out of nowhere comes his other side.
Here are just a few of the “normal” things we have dealt with over the past few years. Aidan went almost 2 years without wearing jeans because he did not like the buttons on them; he still will not wear a shirt with buttons. He has several times torn apart worksheets in school not because he didn’t want to do them, but because he could not get over the frustration of having to ask his teacher a question. He punched through a window when he was 4. He sometimes runs and hides when he is not sure how to deal with a situation and he has done this for the past 5 years. He flipped over a desk in the principal’s office in 1st grade. He won’t brush his teeth most of the time without his mom present. He gets so angry after falling off his bike that he still will not even attempt to ride it. There was a long period of time when he not only had to sit in the exact same seat in the car every day but also required everyone in the car to put their seatbelts on in a specific order.
For people that are not around him everyday, it is easy to dismiss one of these actions as normal behavior problems, every child has behavior problems. Every child gets angry sometimes, throws things sometimes, yells sometimes, misbehaves in a store sometimes, hits sometimes, or refuses to do things asked of them sometimes. So how do you deal with a child that does these things almost all of the time? When Aidan first started showing problems I just figured he was going through a phase, like the terrible twos….only it kept going. When the behavior continued I just thought maybe it was a parenting problem. When you have a child who misbehaves there is no shortage of suggestions to improve their behavior, and my wife and I heard all of them. You aren’t strict enough, you aren’t punishing him right, he needs time outs, you give in to him too much, time outs are useless, my parents would have given me a spanking, he watches too much TV, and on and on. The problem is what do you do when your child fails to respond to any type of punishment? What do you do when you feel you have tried everything people have suggested and you start to doubt your own ability as a parent? Oddly enough the thing that helped me through it the most was my daughter Alyssa. For all the problems we were having with Aidan and all the “parenting mistakes” we were making, Alyssa had no behavior problems whatsoever. She was arguably the perfect kid which made it obvious that there was something more to Aidan’s behavior issues.
Kindergarten was probably the pinnacle of problems we had with Aidan. I think in a lot of ways I was in still in denial that he even had a problem. Having a child in school made it a lot easier to realize I was wrong. Having a class of 30 kids and the years of experience of his teacher forced me to reevaluate my opinion. Throughout Kindergarten Sandra spent most days in Aidan’s classroom with him just trying to help him get through his day without any problems. The days she was unable to stay with him and had to drop him off at school usually resulted in about an hour of him begging her not to leave, running away, crying, and refusing to go to his class. She was basically forced to stay there because in a lot of the schools was not prepared to deal with these situations. Aidan was able to get an 504, but there is not a lot of individual help available when your child does not have a “learning” problem even if they have failed to learn common behavioral skills most people take for granted. Social and behavioral skills are probably more important at a young age than any other skill a child learns, but as long as your kid gets good grades and scores well on tests it is easy for them to be ignored by people that are not with them on a daily basis. We were lucky to have amazing teachers that were able to work with Aidan in addition to everyone else in their oversized classrooms. It was through the help of these teachers we learned about the Autism Spectrum Disorder and finally sought professional help in dealing with our child.
There have been 4 different child psychologists that my son has seen in the past 3 years. The first one retired, the next one was less than helpful, but the third doctor really helped me understand what my son was going through. She was also the first one that made me seriously take a look at medication for my child. Prior to speaking with her I was adamantly against any kind of medication for my child. I don’t even take Tylenol for a headache, but my thoughts about trillion dollar pharmaceutical companies and how much they actually care about improving our health is another story. The way she explained it to me was that when Aidan faces adversity his brain turns to a fight-or-flight response. The fuse attached to this response is short. His medication will not cure him or make him behave how we want him to; it will simply lengthen this fuse and allow him more time to consider how he wants to respond. Sandra and I debated for months over whether we should medicate Aidan, and eventually chose to. I’m not sure if it was because we felt we had no other options and had just given up, but it wound up being one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Within a few weeks we started to notice a considerable difference with Aidan. He was his usual misbehaving self at home, but his behavior at school started to improve a lot. Instead of celebrating the days he did not have a meltdown we were celebrating the weeks. The medicine was only a small part of what has helped him, most of it revolves around figuring out what exactly triggers his anger and trying to proactively solve problems with him prior to him becoming angry rather that reactively trying to figure things out. Our goal is to eventually get his behavior to a level where he does not need medication to work through his frustrations.
Although we have gone through and will continue to go through a lot with Aidan, I am glad for the opportunity he has given me. I am a very opinionated person, but he has given me perspective about the different types of people there are. Not every person mentally accepts things the same way. No specific type of punishment works for all children, no specific type is right or wrong. Not everything is as black and white as I usually perceive things.
Dealing with my son led me to a book called The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene. There are tons of books about different behavioral problems in children, but this was the first one that I read. I would encourage anyone to read this book regardless of whether they have kids. Most everyone is at least around children enough to form opinions of them and their behavior. Raising my son has caused me to think differently whenever I see a child misbehaving. It is also nice to see TV shows such as Parenthood giving awareness to these types of issues. These are real issues and I they can have a strong negative impact on the way a person lives their life. Autism Spectrum Disorders and other behavioral problems with children are sadly misunderstood. It’s important to remember that Autism Spectrum Disorders are in fact disorders. They are not diseases or viruses that can be confirmed with a blood test. They are not the result of kids with bad parents or children who watch too much TV. These disorders are difficult to diagnose and easy to misdiagnose which causes a lot of confusion and controversy.
I don’t blame people for not understanding my son. After almost 9 years I am just beginning to understand him myself, I just hope that recognition of these problems continues to rise. The hardest part of having a child with behavioral problems is dealing with people who do not understand him. I know he will always be a little different, but that's why I love him. Raising a child is a never ending learning opportunity. Hopefully those around him are able to learn as much from him as I have and can gain a new understanding for the everyday struggles some children deal with just so society can label them "normal".
So I’ll just get this out of the way first, I know my son does not have full blown autism. When I first started learning about it I was kind of surprised to learn that there is a whole spectrum of behavioral disorders ranging from autism at one end to people like my son who fall toward the other end. We have been taking my son to the doctor regularly for the past 3 years. They all have their opinion of what condition on the spectrum he has, but whether it is Asperger’s Syndrome, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or something else I could care less. The important thing to remember is that his brain does not operate like most peoples and he is not in direct control over it.
Sandra and I were the first of our circle of friends to have a child. By not having a lot of other children to compare our child to, I guess it was easy to assume he was normal. But from the time Aidan could walk and talk, Sandra and I knew something was a little bit different with him. He has always been very loving, he laughs a lot, he is independent, and is one of the most naturally intelligent kids I have ever been around. Most of the time he seems to be a “normal” child. But then out of nowhere comes his other side.
Here are just a few of the “normal” things we have dealt with over the past few years. Aidan went almost 2 years without wearing jeans because he did not like the buttons on them; he still will not wear a shirt with buttons. He has several times torn apart worksheets in school not because he didn’t want to do them, but because he could not get over the frustration of having to ask his teacher a question. He punched through a window when he was 4. He sometimes runs and hides when he is not sure how to deal with a situation and he has done this for the past 5 years. He flipped over a desk in the principal’s office in 1st grade. He won’t brush his teeth most of the time without his mom present. He gets so angry after falling off his bike that he still will not even attempt to ride it. There was a long period of time when he not only had to sit in the exact same seat in the car every day but also required everyone in the car to put their seatbelts on in a specific order.
For people that are not around him everyday, it is easy to dismiss one of these actions as normal behavior problems, every child has behavior problems. Every child gets angry sometimes, throws things sometimes, yells sometimes, misbehaves in a store sometimes, hits sometimes, or refuses to do things asked of them sometimes. So how do you deal with a child that does these things almost all of the time? When Aidan first started showing problems I just figured he was going through a phase, like the terrible twos….only it kept going. When the behavior continued I just thought maybe it was a parenting problem. When you have a child who misbehaves there is no shortage of suggestions to improve their behavior, and my wife and I heard all of them. You aren’t strict enough, you aren’t punishing him right, he needs time outs, you give in to him too much, time outs are useless, my parents would have given me a spanking, he watches too much TV, and on and on. The problem is what do you do when your child fails to respond to any type of punishment? What do you do when you feel you have tried everything people have suggested and you start to doubt your own ability as a parent? Oddly enough the thing that helped me through it the most was my daughter Alyssa. For all the problems we were having with Aidan and all the “parenting mistakes” we were making, Alyssa had no behavior problems whatsoever. She was arguably the perfect kid which made it obvious that there was something more to Aidan’s behavior issues.
Kindergarten was probably the pinnacle of problems we had with Aidan. I think in a lot of ways I was in still in denial that he even had a problem. Having a child in school made it a lot easier to realize I was wrong. Having a class of 30 kids and the years of experience of his teacher forced me to reevaluate my opinion. Throughout Kindergarten Sandra spent most days in Aidan’s classroom with him just trying to help him get through his day without any problems. The days she was unable to stay with him and had to drop him off at school usually resulted in about an hour of him begging her not to leave, running away, crying, and refusing to go to his class. She was basically forced to stay there because in a lot of the schools was not prepared to deal with these situations. Aidan was able to get an 504, but there is not a lot of individual help available when your child does not have a “learning” problem even if they have failed to learn common behavioral skills most people take for granted. Social and behavioral skills are probably more important at a young age than any other skill a child learns, but as long as your kid gets good grades and scores well on tests it is easy for them to be ignored by people that are not with them on a daily basis. We were lucky to have amazing teachers that were able to work with Aidan in addition to everyone else in their oversized classrooms. It was through the help of these teachers we learned about the Autism Spectrum Disorder and finally sought professional help in dealing with our child.
There have been 4 different child psychologists that my son has seen in the past 3 years. The first one retired, the next one was less than helpful, but the third doctor really helped me understand what my son was going through. She was also the first one that made me seriously take a look at medication for my child. Prior to speaking with her I was adamantly against any kind of medication for my child. I don’t even take Tylenol for a headache, but my thoughts about trillion dollar pharmaceutical companies and how much they actually care about improving our health is another story. The way she explained it to me was that when Aidan faces adversity his brain turns to a fight-or-flight response. The fuse attached to this response is short. His medication will not cure him or make him behave how we want him to; it will simply lengthen this fuse and allow him more time to consider how he wants to respond. Sandra and I debated for months over whether we should medicate Aidan, and eventually chose to. I’m not sure if it was because we felt we had no other options and had just given up, but it wound up being one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Within a few weeks we started to notice a considerable difference with Aidan. He was his usual misbehaving self at home, but his behavior at school started to improve a lot. Instead of celebrating the days he did not have a meltdown we were celebrating the weeks. The medicine was only a small part of what has helped him, most of it revolves around figuring out what exactly triggers his anger and trying to proactively solve problems with him prior to him becoming angry rather that reactively trying to figure things out. Our goal is to eventually get his behavior to a level where he does not need medication to work through his frustrations.
Although we have gone through and will continue to go through a lot with Aidan, I am glad for the opportunity he has given me. I am a very opinionated person, but he has given me perspective about the different types of people there are. Not every person mentally accepts things the same way. No specific type of punishment works for all children, no specific type is right or wrong. Not everything is as black and white as I usually perceive things.
Dealing with my son led me to a book called The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene. There are tons of books about different behavioral problems in children, but this was the first one that I read. I would encourage anyone to read this book regardless of whether they have kids. Most everyone is at least around children enough to form opinions of them and their behavior. Raising my son has caused me to think differently whenever I see a child misbehaving. It is also nice to see TV shows such as Parenthood giving awareness to these types of issues. These are real issues and I they can have a strong negative impact on the way a person lives their life. Autism Spectrum Disorders and other behavioral problems with children are sadly misunderstood. It’s important to remember that Autism Spectrum Disorders are in fact disorders. They are not diseases or viruses that can be confirmed with a blood test. They are not the result of kids with bad parents or children who watch too much TV. These disorders are difficult to diagnose and easy to misdiagnose which causes a lot of confusion and controversy.
I don’t blame people for not understanding my son. After almost 9 years I am just beginning to understand him myself, I just hope that recognition of these problems continues to rise. The hardest part of having a child with behavioral problems is dealing with people who do not understand him. I know he will always be a little different, but that's why I love him. Raising a child is a never ending learning opportunity. Hopefully those around him are able to learn as much from him as I have and can gain a new understanding for the everyday struggles some children deal with just so society can label them "normal".
Saturday, February 11, 2012
ten things i think i think
1. I think there will come a day when I regret not taking more pictures.
2. I think it will be cool when equal rights for everyone are expected instead of newsworthy.
3. I think I a big dry erase board the single most useful thing at my work and I need one at home.
4. I think the Colts better hit a home run with their GM/coach/draft this year or they might lose a fan. My 3 favorite players on their team are all most likely gone and it's mostly due to the terrible job their last GM did. People were upset about Bill Polian getting fired after the huge amount of success he had.....the only problem though is the success wasn't due to him. Yes he drafted Manning, but that was a no brainer. Most every decision he made after that (especially the contracts) was pathetic and I'm glad not having Peyton this year exposed it. Now go build a real team Colts before I stop caring about you.
5. I think a 1-on-1 debate between Ron Paul and Barack Obama would be nice to see. I don't really care who would win and in a lot of ways I could care less about who is our next president, but I think that it would be the best opportunity to see a debate where the candidates actually debate a topic rather than fight for votes.
6. I think it would be cool to see music videos be popular again. Musicians are artists and music videos are like the 4-d of art. It's a shame they have taken a backseat on MTV to a bunch of drunken Italians and their pre-orchestrated drama and exploited teenagers with babies that are probably sending the wrong message to young girls.
7. I think the next major scientific breakthrough should be how to be fully functional on limited to no sleep.
8. I think if those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it then I am screwed. I only seem to remember funny things, trivial things, and embarrassing things. Things that make me or others happy, mad, or sad seem to get lost in my brain somewhere and I wish I could find them.
9. I think 2012 is going to be a great year, sorry Mayans.
10. I think the comments section of articles on the internet is hilarious and is usually more entertaining than the story itself. No matter what the topic is, people start an argument with other people they don't know. A lot of the time it has nothing to do with the story at all, but all of the time it makes me laugh.
2. I think it will be cool when equal rights for everyone are expected instead of newsworthy.
3. I think I a big dry erase board the single most useful thing at my work and I need one at home.
4. I think the Colts better hit a home run with their GM/coach/draft this year or they might lose a fan. My 3 favorite players on their team are all most likely gone and it's mostly due to the terrible job their last GM did. People were upset about Bill Polian getting fired after the huge amount of success he had.....the only problem though is the success wasn't due to him. Yes he drafted Manning, but that was a no brainer. Most every decision he made after that (especially the contracts) was pathetic and I'm glad not having Peyton this year exposed it. Now go build a real team Colts before I stop caring about you.
5. I think a 1-on-1 debate between Ron Paul and Barack Obama would be nice to see. I don't really care who would win and in a lot of ways I could care less about who is our next president, but I think that it would be the best opportunity to see a debate where the candidates actually debate a topic rather than fight for votes.
6. I think it would be cool to see music videos be popular again. Musicians are artists and music videos are like the 4-d of art. It's a shame they have taken a backseat on MTV to a bunch of drunken Italians and their pre-orchestrated drama and exploited teenagers with babies that are probably sending the wrong message to young girls.
7. I think the next major scientific breakthrough should be how to be fully functional on limited to no sleep.
8. I think if those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it then I am screwed. I only seem to remember funny things, trivial things, and embarrassing things. Things that make me or others happy, mad, or sad seem to get lost in my brain somewhere and I wish I could find them.
9. I think 2012 is going to be a great year, sorry Mayans.
10. I think the comments section of articles on the internet is hilarious and is usually more entertaining than the story itself. No matter what the topic is, people start an argument with other people they don't know. A lot of the time it has nothing to do with the story at all, but all of the time it makes me laugh.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
musical influences
I just got done listening to a new mixtape by my favorite dj (Dieselboy) for about the 5th time in the past 3 days and it got me thinking about why I even like this music to begin with. I have listened to many styles of music throughout my short lifetime and have an appreciation for most styles....well except for country (sorry Sandra). So here is a list of my top 5 albums and how they influenced my appreciation for different styles of music. BTW this is probably the most random selection of albums you will see....
5. Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire
It's funny how all music takes you back to a time and place in your life....and this one is no exception. For me it was going to football practice in Jr. High. But anyways, this was probably the first cd I listened to that I actually enjoyed every song top to bottom.
4. Nirvana - Incesticide
I still remember when I got this cd....I was in 6th grade and was in California for a few months. I was already a Nirvana fan, but there was something I really liked about this cd. It may not have been their most popular or best selling album, but it is the one I will always most associate with the best rock band of my lifetime.
3. Nas - Stillmatic
I know a lot of people think Illmatic is his best work, but for me Stillmatic ranks #1 for a few reasons. I think in a lot of ways this cd kind of breathed life back into hip hop for me. The funny thing is that is was my sister who actually had the cd, but the more I listened to it the more I liked it. And sorry to all the Jay-Z fans....Nas is and will always be better.
2. Dieselboy - A Soldier's Story
I know a mixtape is kind of lame since it is a compilation of mostly other peoples music, but I think what makes this my number one is the fact that it single handedly opened me up to a completely new style of music that I had never really even heard of prior to listening to this. I was just starting to get into electronic music a little when I came across this cd and it has changed much of how I have viewed music for the past 12 years. Although Dieselboy has made several cds since this one, including a ridiculous new mixtape "Wake The Dead" (87 songs in 84 minutes!), A Soldier's Story will always be my favorite.
1. Michael Jackson - Thriller
I know, big shocker....but I don't think any list of top albums can leave this one out. I think the fact that it requires no explanation says enough.
not quite making the cut:
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Clipse - Lord Willin'
5. Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire
It's funny how all music takes you back to a time and place in your life....and this one is no exception. For me it was going to football practice in Jr. High. But anyways, this was probably the first cd I listened to that I actually enjoyed every song top to bottom.
4. Nirvana - Incesticide
I still remember when I got this cd....I was in 6th grade and was in California for a few months. I was already a Nirvana fan, but there was something I really liked about this cd. It may not have been their most popular or best selling album, but it is the one I will always most associate with the best rock band of my lifetime.
3. Nas - Stillmatic
I know a lot of people think Illmatic is his best work, but for me Stillmatic ranks #1 for a few reasons. I think in a lot of ways this cd kind of breathed life back into hip hop for me. The funny thing is that is was my sister who actually had the cd, but the more I listened to it the more I liked it. And sorry to all the Jay-Z fans....Nas is and will always be better.
2. Dieselboy - A Soldier's Story
I know a mixtape is kind of lame since it is a compilation of mostly other peoples music, but I think what makes this my number one is the fact that it single handedly opened me up to a completely new style of music that I had never really even heard of prior to listening to this. I was just starting to get into electronic music a little when I came across this cd and it has changed much of how I have viewed music for the past 12 years. Although Dieselboy has made several cds since this one, including a ridiculous new mixtape "Wake The Dead" (87 songs in 84 minutes!), A Soldier's Story will always be my favorite.
1. Michael Jackson - Thriller
I know, big shocker....but I don't think any list of top albums can leave this one out. I think the fact that it requires no explanation says enough.
not quite making the cut:
Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Clipse - Lord Willin'
Eminem - The Eminem Show
Outkast - Stankonia
Radiohead - OK Computer
Side note here, I was just reading some comments in a review of the new Dieselboy mixtape and thought it was funny how many different adjectives were used to describe "good". Sick, filth, solid, brutal, amazing, rude, cool, baller, epic awesome crack, great, sickness in motion, ground breaking, ridiculous, elite rollin, off the chain, nasty, beast mode, insane, dirty, straight vibing, and a bunch of others. English may be the hardest language to learn but it's definitely the best!
Outkast - Stankonia
Radiohead - OK Computer
Side note here, I was just reading some comments in a review of the new Dieselboy mixtape and thought it was funny how many different adjectives were used to describe "good". Sick, filth, solid, brutal, amazing, rude, cool, baller, epic awesome crack, great, sickness in motion, ground breaking, ridiculous, elite rollin, off the chain, nasty, beast mode, insane, dirty, straight vibing, and a bunch of others. English may be the hardest language to learn but it's definitely the best!
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
are we getting dumber?
The other day I was reading an article about electronic media and how it affects the education of people today. It immediately made me think of the movie Idiocracy. For those who haven't seen it, it is about a guy who, through a failed experiment, ends up 500 years in the future. In the world he arrives in people have basically evolved to become stupid. The movie is pretty funny for those who like stupid comedies, but it does address the same topic of the article I read, is technology causing people to become dumber? One can argue that there is an increase in laziness caused by technology, but I don't think this means people are getting dumber.
Every time I hear someone say people are getting dumber, it makes me a little confused. I guess it depends on how you define intelligence. Some people base it strictly on IQ scores, but I'm sure the average 10 year old today knows more than a "smart" person 200 years ago. Some people base it off of whether or not a person knows specific facts that "everyone should know". If someone doesn't know who the sixth president was or what the capital of Nebraska is, does that make them stupid or just bad at Jeopardy? Some may base it off of literacy, but there is no solid evidence to suggest that the literacy rate has declined in America, and it would be nearly impossible to do a study accurate enough to form a realistic opinion anyway. So why is it so many people think Americans are getting dumber. To me, I think it has more to do with people feeling that their generation is somehow better than the next. Each generation will (hopefully) always be more technologically advanced than the last, so one would think that people would continue to advance.
Technology has decreased the need to memorize information, but has also given people access unlimited knowledge. I still think of myself as young but I am old enough to remember having research papers in school that I had to read through 10 different books and surf through a bunch of outdated encyclopedias just to find enough information to compile a mess of a paper on some lame generic topic because that was all of the information available at the time. Last year my daughter did an assignment in Spanish for her kindergarten class on the clouded leopard. When I was younger my school would not have even thought about having an assignment like this. Knowledge is more readily available now than at any time in history which is a good thing. The only problem with it I see is that people are so quick to form opinions based something they see on TV or the internet that they lose sight of what is truth and what is persuasion. There are always two sides to a story, but the first persuasive thing you see is the easiest to believe I guess. Rather than blame technology for causing these problems why not embrace it for its benefits and focus attention on teaching kids to think for themselves, research both sides of a story, and form their own opinions. I may not be smart enough to memorize the directions to someone's house or memorize a person’s phone number but I am smart enough to know that I don't need to. If that makes me dumber then I am happy to be an idiot.
Every time I hear someone say people are getting dumber, it makes me a little confused. I guess it depends on how you define intelligence. Some people base it strictly on IQ scores, but I'm sure the average 10 year old today knows more than a "smart" person 200 years ago. Some people base it off of whether or not a person knows specific facts that "everyone should know". If someone doesn't know who the sixth president was or what the capital of Nebraska is, does that make them stupid or just bad at Jeopardy? Some may base it off of literacy, but there is no solid evidence to suggest that the literacy rate has declined in America, and it would be nearly impossible to do a study accurate enough to form a realistic opinion anyway. So why is it so many people think Americans are getting dumber. To me, I think it has more to do with people feeling that their generation is somehow better than the next. Each generation will (hopefully) always be more technologically advanced than the last, so one would think that people would continue to advance.
Technology has decreased the need to memorize information, but has also given people access unlimited knowledge. I still think of myself as young but I am old enough to remember having research papers in school that I had to read through 10 different books and surf through a bunch of outdated encyclopedias just to find enough information to compile a mess of a paper on some lame generic topic because that was all of the information available at the time. Last year my daughter did an assignment in Spanish for her kindergarten class on the clouded leopard. When I was younger my school would not have even thought about having an assignment like this. Knowledge is more readily available now than at any time in history which is a good thing. The only problem with it I see is that people are so quick to form opinions based something they see on TV or the internet that they lose sight of what is truth and what is persuasion. There are always two sides to a story, but the first persuasive thing you see is the easiest to believe I guess. Rather than blame technology for causing these problems why not embrace it for its benefits and focus attention on teaching kids to think for themselves, research both sides of a story, and form their own opinions. I may not be smart enough to memorize the directions to someone's house or memorize a person’s phone number but I am smart enough to know that I don't need to. If that makes me dumber then I am happy to be an idiot.
Friday, February 3, 2012
does my vote count?
2008 was the first presidential election that I voted. The reason I chose to vote was mainly because I assumed that voting is what everyone aged 18 and older is supposed to do. A lot of people have told me that if you do not vote, then you cannot complain about the results of an election. So after watching one or two of the debates and listening to a few speeches, I registered to vote and selected Barack Obama on my ballot. I, like many others at the time, was excited about the various changes that were sure to take place following the election. An end to the war in Iraq, a reformed health care system, and a much needed focus on middle class America were things I was really looking forward to seeing. If Obama could walk as good as he could talk, I figured things would turn around quickly for our country. So why haven’t they? A lot of blame is always pointed toward the president, but I think it has just as much to do with everyone else working in D.C. People vote for a president (hopefully) based on that candidate’s ability to offer changes that you feel are important. So why then is it so difficult to get any of these changes in place. The problems in the Middle East, the inability to come to agree on anything, a 15 trillion dollar deficit that continues to grow….what kind of government is built to allow these things to happen? My confidence in our government’s ability to accomplish much of anything is all but gone. For that reason, I do not think I will be voting in the next election.
I didn’t vote in Bush’s re-election year, but the little I remember about it was something like “Yeah, he’s not the best president….but he’s better than anything the Democrats have to offer”. I feel in a lot of ways that this election is turning out the same way. I have paid pretty close attention to the Republican Party’s up-and-down joke of a selection process. First it was Romney, then Perry, then Cain, Then Gingrich….now Romney again. Instead of hearing why I should vote for someone, I have listened to months of why I shouldn’t vote for someone. It is almost as if the candidate who can raise the most money, and be the make the others look the worst will win regardless of any of their view points. Surely there are more than a few worthy candidates out of the 300+ million people that live here. But instead we get to continue to choose which guy sucks less. Choosing a president has become a lot like choosing which color to paint a car that doesn’t run. Unless the car gets fixed, I don’t think I should waste my time deciding between blue and red.
I didn’t vote in Bush’s re-election year, but the little I remember about it was something like “Yeah, he’s not the best president….but he’s better than anything the Democrats have to offer”. I feel in a lot of ways that this election is turning out the same way. I have paid pretty close attention to the Republican Party’s up-and-down joke of a selection process. First it was Romney, then Perry, then Cain, Then Gingrich….now Romney again. Instead of hearing why I should vote for someone, I have listened to months of why I shouldn’t vote for someone. It is almost as if the candidate who can raise the most money, and be the make the others look the worst will win regardless of any of their view points. Surely there are more than a few worthy candidates out of the 300+ million people that live here. But instead we get to continue to choose which guy sucks less. Choosing a president has become a lot like choosing which color to paint a car that doesn’t run. Unless the car gets fixed, I don’t think I should waste my time deciding between blue and red.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
cur?
So why am I doing a blog? I have always been known to be more of a “thinker” than a “doer”, and every so often I come across things that for whatever reason seem to really interest me. I know a lot of people have blogs that show what's going on in their daily life, but I think I'll focus more on what is going on in my head in my daily life. I have never really had the motivation to sit down and read books (I think I have read maybe 2 non-children’s books in the last 12 or so years), but have always been interesting in expanding my knowledge. One of the great things about the internet is that it has been able to accommodate both my hatred for books and my desire to learn. The internet is a great place to find knowledge and express feelings and opinions on anything you choose….and it seems to me like a blog is the most appropriate place to do such. Other online social media outlets don’t quite seem to apply. So after reading a few blogs made by some people I know, I was inspired to start one of my own.
Often times the things I find most interesting to discuss are also the most controversial and tend to get emotions going. That is what makes it difficult to discuss these topics. I feel like a lot of people have certain beliefs and opinions and there is nothing you can do to make that person change their mind. A person forms an opinion on a subject as soon as it is mentioned and for some reason little to no thought goes into the basis for that opinion. Once a subject is investigated further, often that opinion can change. Hopefully I will be able to learn more from the responses of others. I will try my best to have a wide variety of topics on here so that there is at least something interesting for everyone. My goal is to have at least one new post per week for the rest of this year (depending on if anyone is interested in this). I encourage open-minded thinking regardless of personal opinions and will do my best to do the same.
Often times the things I find most interesting to discuss are also the most controversial and tend to get emotions going. That is what makes it difficult to discuss these topics. I feel like a lot of people have certain beliefs and opinions and there is nothing you can do to make that person change their mind. A person forms an opinion on a subject as soon as it is mentioned and for some reason little to no thought goes into the basis for that opinion. Once a subject is investigated further, often that opinion can change. Hopefully I will be able to learn more from the responses of others. I will try my best to have a wide variety of topics on here so that there is at least something interesting for everyone. My goal is to have at least one new post per week for the rest of this year (depending on if anyone is interested in this). I encourage open-minded thinking regardless of personal opinions and will do my best to do the same.
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