Do we Really use Algebra in Life?

I have spent so much of my time pondering a single question, do we really use these things we are trying so hard to learn in the real world? Back then, I did strongly believe that we did not. However, I have started to realize how important these skills are. Not just math, but also chemistry, writing skills, foreign language, government. Have you ever stopped to think about how much the world changed in the last century? New fast cars, instant messaging, Internet, cures for diseases. None of this would have been possible without a high understanding of the modern world, and a full modern education.

People are like ticking clocks, every second brings us closer to the day our batteries finally run out. Hundreds and thousands of years ago people discovered the things we learn before we turn ten years old. Why? Because we will advance the worlds knowledge and understanding a little bit more with our generation. Then we will pass and the next generation will learn what took us a lifetime to discover. And so on and so forth until one day maybe all disease will be curable, all the world will know things that we can't even imagine now.

When people at my school tell themselves that we will never use math or science, I always have this same thought in my head. The world is engineered to work with people that are not very highly educated. Most things in our life our laid out in a way that you would have to have little to no education in order to not understand them. If they are not this way less educated people will sue them for hundreds of thousands.

Even though the world is like this, the 1 in 10, in fact maybe the 1 in 1000 that does something because of their education to change the world will be worth the hard work of the other 999. That person who expands our worlds understanding of mathematics or science will be helping out with the cycle from generation to generation. If one person discovered something about the ocean floor, maybe a way to reach it in all areas. Think of the things following generations would discover because of it. All of the education we receive goes into this chance that we will actually use it for discovery, or to teach.

So if you ever find yourself thinking that the work you do in class is pointless, think about the things I have said.

Think Green, Actually Thinking.

Think Green, it seems as if there is no thought involved. What do I mean? I will show you. This is a typical "Green Light bulb" shipping route. Starting in china, the yellow circle. In some factory likely in the vicinity of the red square. From there it is shipped across the ocean on a terrible pollution emitting cargo ship to America, where it is then shipped to stores across the country.

Does this raise any alarm to you? Pollution, China? Think about it, our best plan for saving the energy in order to save the planet is by getting light bulbs from China, which is already dangerously polluted. It is like America believes that we don't share an ozone layer with China. Not only are we killing our economy a little bit more by losing jobs, we are giving them to China, where they can legally work people to death for horrible low wages, and pollute as much as they want.

Why? It is simple, people feel like they are doing something good by buying these light bulbs, and we can sell them cheap because they came from China. Now look at the picture below, this is the shipping route for the old light bulbs, you know? The ones that are a big part of American History, the invention that proved America to be a powerful new country?

It starts in Cleveland, America, and is shipped across the country. Who's economy does this support? America. No black smoke, no disgusting wages, no disregard to basic human rights. When I first learnt of this while watching the news I was very surprised, but then it started making sense. The book Twilight is aimed towards teenage girls, they added ridiculously beautiful characters to a mediocre easy read and suddenly its a best seller and blockbuster. Just like twilight, companies use think green to target people who feel like they haven't done enough for the world. Those people never ask where the product came from, only that it is "Green"

My point is simple, being green is smart. Don't get me wrong, I may have distrust towards Global Warming, but I still believe that we can screw up our planet. If our country invests in solar energy, hydrogen powered cars, and green house items, we can stimulate the economy. Forget the stimulus package, put all of that money into green energy, into finding a safe and cost efficient way to run cars. If we can solve the worlds energy crises we could prove ourselves again. It would be an invention to rival the original light bulb.

Keep up recycling, and keep on switching off lights when you leave a room. My solution is a two birds one stone scenario, the economy, and the environment. The people in my generation, and the next after it need to invest in these things. Humanity's knowledge and invention is always expanding, it will never wear out. In the last 50 years so much has changed, just imagine what the world will look like 50 years from now. 50 years of smart energy, or 50 years of what we thought was smart energy. It is time to stop sitting down and complaining about the economy, complaining about the environment. It is time to start do-ing.

Adam and Eve, the start of the world?

Up above is a depiction of Adam and Eve in their perfect world while the forbidden fruit was being consumed. This is a favorite story of many people, because this is what happened right? These two people birthed the entire world we live in today, therefore we are all related. Which would mean that the world has been practicing incest for all of time. Gross, right? But hold on one second, we have a few things to bring up that might just make this story seem a little less true.

Before you get all "oh no he didn't" on me, read on for a little while. Lets look at the Adam and Eve story in a more intellectual sense, not as something that happened, but as a depiction of something more. Lets think for a second, America is an ocean away from the area where this would have happened. I would say the garden of Eden would need to be somewhere not far from the middle east to north Africa area because that is where the book of Genesis took place. I am going to explore two points about why the Adam and Eve story is incredibly misinterpreted and why it is just a legend and nothing more.

Lets begin shall we, we should have to look at the native tribes of North America. When discovered by the east the Indians were considered savages because their society was so under-developed. So how would these people sail across the ocean and change race? Both are impossible for such people. The only group of people in America that I could think of getting enough together to sail across an ocean would be the Aztecs. They had society, invention and power that could rival Rome's. However, the Aztecs never sailed across an ocean to get to America. They did some crazy things, but not that. So how would the people of the world get spread around, and how would the entire world be re-populated after the worldwide flood that killed everyone but Noah and his pets.

How would Hawaiians have made it to Hawaii? How would animals have made it to America if the only ones that survived the flood were with Noah? Its simple, Adam and Eve weren't the only humans in the beginning, and the entire world was not flooded in Genesis. The fact is that it is impossible! I know what some people are thinking, "Nothing is impossible with God." Well, I don't think that God reached out his hand and threw sheep across the world after the flood, and I don't think that he did that with humans after Adam and Eve.

It is pretty simple, people are taking bible stories seriously that just aren't real. I think that there was a flood in Genesis, but I don't think it flooded the whole world, and I'm pretty sure Noah didn't sail to the tallest mountain on earth, because it was the only land. He just sailed to a higher elevation. And finally, if matter can not be created or destroyed then how would the world be flooded then, but be normal now? You can't take these stories seriously because they are not meant to be taken seriously. They are stories, see that word? The Bible contains an incredible amount of history, but a lot of the stuff in the bible is not meant to be thought of as really happening. It is simply a demonstration of how it happened. Like the birds and the bees. Some parents will tell you about them because you understand it better than the normal "talk." Which would people understand better, Adam, Eve and fruit, or that the world was populated by humans like it was by animals and that they discovered sin. After all, sin is a part of free will.

People just don't know what to take seriously, I believe that people take too much of the bible as actual fact, such as Revelation. People who read this seem to throw logic out the window, because dragon chased women and sealed scrolls are certainly a historical account. People think that Revelation was written to our generation, to warn us about the end. Come on people, do you really think that it was written to us, this scripture that is so old? Sure God can see the future, oh wait, I have a few things to say about that. I don't think that God knows for sure what will happen, I think he is smart and knows how things might happen. He also knows what can happen due to him making it happen, he knew that Christ would come again because he is behind it. He can control things but not know things that haven't happened. Sure, different people believe different things. So to anyone who totally disagrees with this, sorry that you don't analyze literature enough to recognise this as a truth. It comes down to common sense, if you think about it it is obvious. But then again, common sense isn't so common any more.

A Quick Reminder

My posts on racism go in reverse order due to the time of posting, so scroll down to the first before you read them all.

Racism Post Three

Wrap things up




Above is the movie cover for Miracle at St Anna. A movie that I thought was good, but I'm going to pick on it a little bit to prove a final point.

Lets begin shall we? I have talked about To kill a Mockingbird quite a bit in my blog, but this is the best use of it that I can think of. I think that book was a golden piece of literature, it displayed racism without making the south out to be bad, and without making whites out to be bad. Sure Maycomb County was pretty racist but unlike movies or stories about modern times it actually fit the year. I respect Harper Lee greatly for her work on that book. Spike Lee however I don't respect. Because in order to make a point about racism he had to make white Americans out to be disgusting jerks that wouldn't even consider treating a black man like a human. True for some, but not for all. There was not one white male American in this film that was not extremely racist. But every one thing that surprised me was that the African American soldiers weren't made out to be saints either. So he got it half way. But still, in fighting racism the movie became racist. Not terribly, but the simple fact of the matter is that not all white male Americans are bad people. There are bad people everywhere, so why peg them out to be that bad guys?

The picture I used to illustrate the first post on this subject had African American men cleaning up racist messages on a wall. All of them were white supremacist messages. That is where I draw the line, making one side out to be heroes and the other out to be monsters. You aren't fighting racism, you are changing it. Perhaps they don't care, because shifting racism would put them on top. Or, as I believe, maybe the group that made that picture is just ignorant. I will not deny that whites have treated blacks terribly in history, but blacks have treated whites bad as well. That is my whole point, that no side is perfect, that in the end we were and are both in the wrong. If everyone recognised that the world would be a much better place.

Maybe if everyone realized that everyone has suffered then everyone would be able to understand each other better. Just because I am white and from Georgia does not mean you know the slightest bit about what I go through, but just because you are black does not mean that I know about what you have gone through either. So please, see people as people, and stop telling yourself that you go through any more or any less then other people, you might, but that's not because of your race. Its because of your mindset, and the mindset of others. The "N" word does not mean a black person, it means ignorance, and slaves were called that because they were ignorant to our society. It, like many other things, has been perverted from a word to a swear, but if people went by its true meaning, then the world would be full of them. The simple fact that they try so hard not to offend makes them one. The fact that they see people differently by race means that they are one. I am glad I wrote these three posts, and if they offend you then I'm sorry. But that isn't for what I have written, It means I am sorry for you. Because you can not recognise the fact that I want the world to see people for their actions not for their race.

I end on this note, Every man is born equal, its what they do after that that sets them apart. That is from Glenn Beck's book, An Inconvenient Book. I agree with it 100%. That doesn't mean that I am racist because I may not see one man as equal to the other, it means that I see people for their actions. Not for the color of their skin.

Racism Post Two

Fear of Racism

Oh no, its a picture of Obama, this is clearly going to be an offensive post! Nope, I will try to not slip my views on our president into this post, simply his race and how it effected America.

I heard something very sad the other day, I heard someone say that he believed that if he did not vote for Obama that people would think he was racist. You know how I feel about that? I feel like every single person who felt that way should not have been allowed to vote. How is it fair to gain voted due to fear of racism? That isn't the biggest reason he won of course, but I will say that it is ridiculous that that ran through Antone's mind.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for change. Just not the change he's selling, I mean a change in racial ignorance. That is the change I am looking forward to. Sadly however people flock to ignorance like bees to flowers, it is almost a worldwide tradition. You will hear me talk about how if people just thought the world could be a better place, well this is it. I am challenging everyone who reads this to think about racism for a second, to recognise ignorance and exterminate it. (I mean in their own lives, not by killing people who are ignorant) I'm sure that a lot of people are reading this because I told them how to find my blog, I did that because they are people that I want to show my thoughts. They are people that I know have good Head's on their shoulder's. So if you are one of them, then I simply challenge you to take in my writing and think about it.

My problem is that people are so wrapped up in not being racist that they end up being biased, and also being a little racist towards people who they see as having been racist in the past. Most often it isn't racism though, its generalization, which I believe is just as bad, no worse and no better than racism. For instance, Michael in NBC's The Office is a boss who tries so hard not to be racist that he ends up being biased and giving colored people special privileges. He also shows a large amount of racial ignorance, Steve Carell is not this way but Michael is. People see his behavior as ridiculous, but they then go and do the same thing. Hmm, do I feel another rant coming on? I will shorten this one up a bit, hypocrisy, racism and generalization are all bad things. And they are all things that everyone struggles with. Except me. Just a word to all readers who just got offended, that was a joke, but I forgot two important things, if they weren't smart enough to understand my use of italics then they probably wouldn't be reading this far into my post, and secondly I don't have any readers. Back to that however, it is pretty easy to stop the cycle of racism-generalization-hypocrisy. It is simply by stopping. Stop generalizing. that's it. Stop being racist, that's it. I would ask the world to stop being ignorant but that would be like asking a brick wall to walk across the room. I doubt I can change the worlds ignorance, but if I can change one persons then all of this writing will be worth it. However the cycle is something I believe I could help stop, because the work has been done for me. I don't need to stop racism, I need to stop people from going from one extreme to the other.

This basically wraps up the topic of racism, but I have one more thought on it that is burning up inside my head, so I will finish up by writing it.

Check out the next post, Racism Post Three

Racism Post One

The Race Card

Lets take a moment to look at racism. I know what you are thinking, that this is going to be offensive. Or maybe you are wondering why I would write about racism, everyone knows what racism is. Right?

What comes to mind when you think of racism? Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, Hitler? That is the problem, why is racism limited to these huge scale events. Why is it limited to the holocaust and slavery? Probably because they were the most recent, but I think that sometimes people love to run their mouth about the two. Its just another thing to blame, another thing people can hold on to just to make themselves feel good, because they have experienced real pain, the kind nobody else has. That's just another way of setting people apart, racism. And I don't mean judging people because of race by setting them apart. Like I often do I am looking at racism from the other side of the coin. The way that it can be used to inflate egos and the way it can be used to set us apart because we know pain, and he has never suffered like we have.

I'm going to be looking at this in three ways, firstly, slavery in comparison to the holocaust. And after that I will look at why those are such popular perspectives on racism. Finally I will talk about how racism is not confined to one versus the other, but how races have judged each other for all of time.

First Section The Holocaust and The South

Alright, why is it that on television or in everyday life you hear about racism between whites and blacks. You see on the news about hate crimes between the two, and another special about the heroes that rescued slaves and the evil southerners who made slaves work. Here is my question, in all this talk about racism why on earth is it confined only to slavery and blacks and whites. I won't deny that blacks have been persecuted, beaten, judged, enslaved and even sometimes killed because of race. But what about Jewish people? Did it even cross your mind that Jewish people have had slavery, a holocaust, and have been driven out of their rightful homeland because of crusades and holy wars. Jewish children would have to watch their parents gunned down at their homes doorsteps, and then be dragged off to concentration camps. They would have to live in ghettos or even in hiding just hoping that someone would come to save them. Egypt enslaved them and made them work in bible times. Their homeland has been in conflict for almost all of recorded history! But we never hear about big bad Nazi who came and killed a Jewish person. We hear about big bad farmer who was raised to have a slave work his farm, isn't that farmer just the devil!

I'm sure much of it is because slavery happened in America, and the holocaust happened in Europe. However, isn't it time that people quit pulling the race card? You see it every day, on television and in real life. Its simply a matter of fill in the blank, "Is it because I'm a ____?" I'll give you an example really quick, when I write this post many people will call me a racist, but the fact that every white American in the movie Miracle at St. Anna is a terrible racist is just historical. Because after all, there couldn't be a white man who isn't a complete racist, that wouldn't make sense? Why is it that modern day society is blinded by the past and can't see whats happening now?

I won't deny the fact that America has treated blacks very poorly in its day. But I do not tolerate racism towards whites just because of slavery. Lets me tell you something, when I moved to Pennsylvania I left Georgia, and I had many African American friends there, but the second people heard I was from Georgia I was branded a redneck racist scumbag who wasn't worthy of being in the great north. African American kids didn't even acknowledge my existence. What did I do to them? I never owned a slave, I never committed a hate crime. But I'm from redneck infested Georgia so I am bad. I'm going to let you in on something, Georgia isn't full of rednecks. I met more rednecks in PA then I even thought existed. Georgia had some racism, but I noticed as much if not more in PA, and Ive noticed racism in Oregon as well. But the south is the cesspool of it all, the south is automatically bad right? Wrong.

Second Section: Racial Ignorance, the most common form of racism.

I can't even count how many times in my middle school someone would hear the word Negro in to kill a mockingbird, and they would laugh. Or how they would be eating mnm's and see a dark one and say "Mnm dark, that's racist ha ha ha." This is just ridiculous. It disgusts me, yes DISGUSTS ME that people are so ignorant. Without ignorance, the south would be recognised as a good place, racism would be cut in half. Mnm dark wouldn't even cross someones mind as being racist, even in jest.

The fact is that racism is mostly made up of ignorance. Some people truly hate blacks, but others hear about slavery, the holocaust, it goes in one ear and the remainder of their intelligence jumps out the other. People joke about racism, that is a lot of the ignorance there. People look at African Americans, they see a different culture and they either worship it or hate it. Because they don't think about equality, its one extreme or the other.

Lets look at the worship part, people see African American styles and boom, all the kids are wearing them. People see a black person in a gang and here comes a new style. People see the music they listen to and bam! Hello new favorite style of music. There is a line between being intrigued and interested in different cultures, but intrigued and interested is a lot different the infested into it. People become obsessed.

Here is the other side, hate, or racism. Which is pretty simple, people dislike the other culture because it intimidates them. That is it.

Section Three: Greed

You all remember greed, if you read my blog that is. People use racism to their own personal gain IE the "Race Card." You remember the "Is it because I'm ___?" That is it, the race card, you want someone to do something and that's their reasoning. their race. Pretty simple, I have pretty much ranted enough on the subject in this post, I am sure that you understand my point.

I try to avoid general statements, but before I go to post the second and third installments of this little miniseries I want to inform you all that I know there are good and bad people everywhere in the world, no matter the color of their skin. I am simply combating racial ignorance. Nothing else.