Le Sigh

I was hunting around tumblr earlier today looking for something when I stumbled upon the post shown above. It is both telling and painful to read, on many levels. If you'll indulge me...

1. The girl wants to buy TOMS...obviously, I am not the biggest fan of this sentiment. Moving on...

2. Apparently everyone already has them. Well that's just unfortunate.

3. Since everyone has them already, the girl apparently feels the need to purchase the most expensive pair she can find in an effort to remain somewhat unique within this perpetually popular fad. I thought the point was to help kids, right? Or maybe it's still materialism after all.

4. Emoticons. My nemesis.

But hey, to each their own, I guess.

And so on...

The Epitome of Bachmann

I know, Michelle, I don't get it either.

Earlier this week, world class rhetorictocrat Michelle Bachmann added to her long list of unachievable promises, baseless statements and shows of ignorance that have littered her campaign thus far. While speaking at a campaign stop in South Carolina on Tuesday, she made a promise to the crowd in attendence: "Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen." On the surface, that sounds great. According to AAA, the current national average for regular gasoline sits at $3.57 per gallon, while diesel fuel is running at $3.88 per gallon. Assuming that she was referring to regular gas, Ms. Bachmann is promising to reduce fuel prices by 44% in order to get gasoline back to late 2008/early 2009 prices.

If you're anything like me, stepping up to the fuel pump and having to brace for paying $50 or more for a tank of gas is not something you look forward to. If I were the type of person who took promises at face value and trusted that politicians would deliver, Ms. Bachmann's promise to cut gas prices nearly in half would be music to my ears. Unfortunately, that's precisely the opposite of how I do things.

Victims in Name Only

Once again, Stewart came through in the clutch. Before I go on, I'd ask that you watch the clip I've embedded below.

The Daily Show - GOP - Special Victims Unit
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I'm not sayin'...I'm just sayin'.

You see, a big piece of why I'm so sick of the political atmosphere in this country has to do with the seemingly constant stream of individuals and groups playing the victim card. Honestly, it's like a giant playground where everybody is still in pre-school. But where I come from, nobody likes a tattle tale. I mean, I never would have guessed that people would want to play the victim card. It just doesn't seem to be beneficial.

Whenever I watch the news, I hear about terrible things happening in the world which I as an American am not affected by. Genocide, religious intolerance, racism - these are things I do not have to encounter in my day to day because of the life I was born into. Yet almost constantly I hear rich, powerful, usually white politicians and commentators claiming to be victims simply because someone called them a name or misrepresented their beliefs. It all seems quite over the top to me. I guess what I'm saying is this: conservatives aren't victims; children growing up in war-torn Iraq are. American Christians aren't victims; those giving their lives to living their faith in China are. Sarah Palin isn't a victim; those affected by the tragedy in Norway are. Al Gore isn't a victim, but everyone who had to sit through An Inconvenient Truth is.

Okay, while that last one might be a bit of a stretch, the larger point still stands. It seems like it has become not only acceptable but fashionable to claim victimization in our nation's current political environment. I don't care what your politics are, it happens on both sides of the spectrum. Nancy Pelosi does it, Sheila Jackson-Lee does it, Allen West does it, Fox News does it, and so on. And every time I hear it, it makes me cringe.

I don't expect the victim-claims to go away anytime soon, and I don't expect anyone to ever admit that their rhetoric might have gone a little overboard. That's the America we live in now. But I guess I keep coming back to the fact that even while it seems that our politicians do whatever they can to rub me the wrong way, there is always hope that tomorrow things might start to get better. Will they? Probably not. But I'll always hold onto that hope.

And so on...

At First Glance

Last night I moved into my new apartment. I had been preparing for the move for a while, but to actually do it was exciting and scary and wild all at once. My family and I walked down to the beach at sunset, and we were greeted with one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen; in the moments I spent wondering at the immensity of that sight and the relatively miniscule nature of my own issues, my fears and worries were melted away. God, it turns out, is good.

I haven't had the time to think much, but I have made a number of observations in the short time I've been here.

My apartment is fantastic, couldn't have asked for a better location.
From time to time, the building smells like fresh-baked bread from Jimmy John's; I enjoy this.
If I look out the window, I can see the beach and Lake Michigan.
If I walk outside my building, there are six restaurants, a winery and tons of shops within a block.
This morning, the city parade went right by my window.
During the summer in St. Joseph, it seems that there are only three kinds of people: old, in bikinis, in boardshorts.

More to come.

And so on...

Motives and Outcomes

I spent a little bit of time this morning thinking about the things I have written about in the past, and in the process I began to notice something. Over and over again, the things I have gotten passionate about enough to write about have had a similar theme: the overwhelming importance of outcomes and the (relative) irrelevance of motives.

What I mean by that is this: it seems that in many situations in life and in this world, we give credit or support based solely off of the motives of people involved. If someone has good intentions, often that is enough for us to write them in as good and worth supporting, irregardless of the outcome of their endeavor or pursuit.

A Change of Scenery

The last few weeks have seemed like a perpetual writer's block for me. Whenever I have tried to sit down at home and write, something always has seemed to come up. I decided this morning that I wanted to do some writing this afternoon, and for the sake of avoiding the distractions which always seem to follow me at home I decided to try a little change of scenery. So here I sit in the library in my hometown, typing away while everybody around me appears engrossed in one book or another.

Oddly enough, this new location has me thinking all about changing scenery. This morning I was (finally) able to lock down an apartment to live in when I move up to Michigan in a few weeks. While I am undoubtedly excited to get that monkey off my back, it also makes more real the fact that the place I have grown up the last many years will no longer be my home.

The End of a Journey

Today perhaps the greatest journey I have traveled thus far in life comes to an end. For the last four years, I have studied and learned and grown and changed, always moving with today in mind, with this end on the horizon. Strangely enough, I never really expected that today would come. Yes, I knew it was a relative certainty. But I also never thought that these four years would go by so quickly. In four years I have formed lasting friendships, traveled the world, developed as both a leader and a learner and grown immensely as a person. If today I met the person who walked into this place in 2007, I wonder if I would even recognize myself.

Spending this time at Our Lady's University has been wonderful, an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my time on this earth. Being able to find a place that becomes home so quickly yet so truly is something I doubt I will ever experience again.

Yet while this path is coming to an end today, another path begins. I am not entirely sure where it leads, but the surprise is half the fun anyway. I don't expect that the next journey I go on will come near to what this one has been, but perhaps it doesn't need to match this one. Regardless, I know now like I did four years ago that there is but one way for me approach this new journey before me:

Afoot and lighthearted, I take to the open road.

And so on...