A Girl named Anne.

Recently Justin Bieber has been in the news for a rather controversial note he wrote in the Anne Frank House's guest book. For those of you who have been unaware (lucky you!) here is what he wrote:

“Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.”

Now, my biggest problem isn't what he wrote (though we'll cover that in a moment). It is all of his fans asking "Who is Anne Frank?"

This outrages me. HOW can you NOT know who Anne Frank is/was? What are you being taught in school that you skipped over this important piece of history?

Here, let me enlighten you:
Anne Frank was a young girl living in Amsterdam during World War II. She was Jewish and her family hid from the Nazis in what Anne termed the "Secret Annex." She dreamed of being a writer and she kept a diary during her time in hiding. She, and her family, were discovered and taken to Bergen-Belsen (a concentration camp) where she, and her older sister Margot, most likely died of typhus. She was 15.

Her diaries were published 1947, by her father, Otto Frank. He was the only survivor of their family.

When I was about thirteen or so, my grandfather gave me "Anne Frank: The diary of a young girl" for Christmas. It was one of the most precious gifts he ever gave me. I was Anne's age (when she started her diary) at the time. I remember the impact it made on my life. My sadness that this bright light had been snuffed out so early in her life. My heart still aches whenever I think of this brilliant young woman who never had the chance to properly shine.

What angers me the most isn't Justin's comment, though it was uncouth in the situation, it is that so many young people have no idea who this beautiful young woman was. And they have no interest in finding out!

America is lacking in Education. We spend more on our weapons and our wars than we do our children. Prisoners get better educations than some of our children.

For example: The US ranks 14th in Reading, 25th in Maths and 17th in Science as compared to Finland (purported to have the best educational system in the world) which is ranked 2nd in Reading and Maths and 1st in Science. If you don't believe me you can have a look at the following chart created by PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) of the top 34 countries.



This isn't the only comment to outrage me lately (as to education).

As many of you know, I am a huge BioShock fan. Recently BioShock Infinite came out (a game I have waited a couple years for) and I was pleased with the historical details it went into.

A, somewhat, brief synopsis of the game: BioShock Infinite is much like its predecessors in that it covers different ways blind belief and -isms can destroy us. Unlike the previous two, we were not in Rapture. We are no longer in the world originally created around Andrew Ryan (Ayn Rand) and Objectivism (Ayn Rand's philosophy). We are in Columbia (not the country Columbia), a world in the sky and very much like America in 1912, partially because it is an extension of America.

There are a few historical battles mentioned in the game. Namely Wounded Knee and the Boxer Rebellion.

There was a comment that my husband found by someone who played the game. It said "BioShock makes the best Skyrim references" and had a picture of the Battle of Wounded Knee sign in the game. He was referring to the "I was an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee" line said multiple times by various guards in Skyrim. He seemed blissfully unaware that there was a real event called the Battle of Wounded Knee.

I've said this before, I know I have, but if we don't learn from the past how are we to ever survive the future? How will our children make it in this world? What happens when we all stop learning, when we all stop reading? What happens? What happens when we forget young women like Anne Frank and battles like Wounded Knee? What happens when we no longer bother?

To Justin: Your comments were inconsiderate and uncouth. You didn't come across as being cute or witty. You came across as ignorant and proud. Too proud to realize how much of an ass you made yourself look like. Anne Frank wasn't your typical teenage girl. She probably wouldn't have floundered at your feet. If anything, I think she wouldn't have liked you at all. If you had read her diary maybe you would realize she wasn't into the whole self-appreciation crap.

I used to think you were funny Justin. I didn't like your music, but you were a cool kid. I hate the person you have become. You are so self-absorbed and rude. So proud and arrogant. I hope, one day, that you grow out of it.

Today in Boston

Today in Boston there were several explosions. I don't know all the details yet. What I do know is that there was one at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and that 2 people have been killed. There are stories going around saying that some of the marathoners continued to run all the way to the hospital so that they could immediately begin giving blood to the victims.

Cell phone service had been shut down. I don't know if it is up again.

A lot of people are saying this is a terrorist attack. I am unsure if that is true, or just the sensationalist media we have here. It is a tragedy nonetheless. And my thoughts are with those injured, dead and so on.

Will update as I know what is happening.

Stoplights are a Go.

I was on StumbleUpon (one of my favorite websites) and came across this concept for a new stoplight. I find the idea intriguing and think it would help with traffic quite a bit, because you'll know exactly how much time is being spent while at a stoplight.



The concept is simple as you can see. The hourglass shows how much 'sand' is left before the color changes. In the case of a yellow light it shows you how much time is left before you are either able to go or how much time you have to stop.

However, this thought on time swiftly followed the traffic lights leaving me wondering if traffic lights that show how time runs out would be a good idea after all?



I can't imagine life without time. I can't imagine not having an i-phone or a clock or a computer somewhere near by to tell me what time of day it is. What did our ancestors do before they began marking the passing of time with sundials? Did they worry over all the things we worry over now? Did they imagine their time, their lives, slipping like sand through a vast hourglass, slowly disappearing?

We have a tendency to see time as a finite thing. A thing that ends. And it does, in a sense. For all of us the clock will eventually cease to tick, the sand cease to fall, the sun cease to set. We end, therefore, for us, time ends.

Time however is immeasurable. It is like taffy, pulled out into endless ropes of forever. It pulls further and further. We do not have the capability to even begin to comprehend the infinite amount of time there is stretching out before us. Yawning out like a black chasm, an endlessly long tunnel.

I think that makes it scary. Time will go on. Life will go on. We won't. We will end. Everything ends. But even after everything is gone, there will still be time. In the abyss of everything there will always be time.

A Fool, A Day

I should know better than to argue with fools. Especially on the day of Fools. Does this day give them super powers or just make them EXTRA stupid? Just curious.

If being Liberal is wrong, then I willingly embrace it. Last I checked believing in the Freedom of the Individual didn't make me a Satanist or a Liberal Pig. It made me a human being!

Why do we put labels on ourselves? Why do we feel the need to do that? It makes no sense to me. We are all HUMAN. What labels are needed? What does it matter what I believe and what I don't?

I'm not sorry that I believe in Equal Rights and I don't understand how that makes me wicked.

I'm not sorry that I believe EVERYONE should have the right to Health Care, Education, Marriage, Religion, etc. And I don't understand how that can be so wrong. I don't think I'll ever understand. I don't think I WANT to understand. I want to continue believing in what I believe is right.

I see nothing wrong with being who you are in the supposed "Land of the Free." You know, the one that says I have the right to LIFE, LIBERTY and the Pursuit of HAPPINESS?

Never Ceasing.

Human stupidity and arrogance never ceases to amaze (and annoy) me.

We are all human. Therefore, when we say "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." shouldn't that mean EVERYONE? Since, "all men" is the equivalent of "mankind" which means EVERYONE.

Am I the only one who thinks that makes sense? Am I the only one who thinks about how we escaped from England because there was no separation of church and state? How often Religion blinds us, because we never follow it the way it is supposed to be followed?

I'm sorry, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe when Jesus said to "love thy neighbor as thyself" he was talking about killing people for being different and denying them the right to marry and denying them food and healthcare. I'm sorry, I missed that part of that verse.

I must've misinterpreted the portions where Jesus spoke of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. And treating "the least of these." I thought Jesus fed people, with no payment. I thought Jesus healed people, without payment.

I thought God was supposed to be loving. Did I miss something? Are we living in an Old Testament scenario? God in the Old Testament; Jealous, cruel, homophobic, racist (Racism is funny coming from God, because God is the one who created us...), etc. Do we really want to worship someone who orders small children and women to be enslaved or murdered?

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it irritates me.

And I keep hearing Simon and Garfunkel in my head singing about Freedom Riders, and thinking about Civil Rights and how we just keep killing because we don't know how to love and we don't know how to accept.

I keep hearing my marriage vows and wondering why some are denied the right while others abuse it.