Rawr

Right. I guess I should really do something to update this thing. I just keep forgetting about it. Not because I don't think it's interesting (really I think it's very interesting, I'm just lazy and I have slightly too much on my plate. It's really easy for me to overlook this when I'm doing so many other things.

I suppoooose I should actually touch on something that was assigned to us, but then I might go off on my own thing because I'm weird like that.

So. Where are facts?

Facts are everywhere.

I'm on a PC laptop computer. That's a fact. I like PCs better than Macs. That's also a fact. It's my opinion, but for me personally it's a fact. Now if I said that everyone likes PCs better than Macs, that's an opinion, and a wrong one. Because I know that several of my friends (Sarah, Maggie, Jordan, a lot of people at PCAD) like Macs more.

Other facts. It's 1:09 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. In England right now it's 6:09. In France it's 7:09.

But those facts are different from the fact that I'm on a computer. Those facts are ideas. They're based on the fact that the earth turns on an axis, creating night and day, and night and day happen at different times in different parts of the world, but whoever decided that the east coast of North and South America is five hours behind Great Britain and Ireland made that idea a fact. They backed it up with other facts, but it's still a floating idea that has come to be accepted as fact.

Some facts are in people's heads (like time) and some facts are physical things (like this computer). I didn't make up this computer, but I believe in the idea of time, like most people. I also believe in daylight savings time, and I think it's useful. I like having longer summer days and shorter winter days. But the fact that it's useful is debatable, since there are many countries throughout the world who no longer use/have never used DLS.

I like it though. I think it's cool.

I also wonder a lot about why people can be so horrible. Like how people can kill other people, and how people can abuse children so badly. What did any little boy or girl do to be raped or whatever? What kind of adult would think that's okay? What kind of person really thinks that it's okay to murder? Because there's obviously some kind of switch in those people's heads that's broken. It's disgusting and I hate it.

But anyway. I don't really feel like dwelling on that. It'll only make me more angry. And when I get mad about something I'm really bad at figuring out the right words.

Something I'm really curious about it why people can think that dinosaurs weren't real. When I was about 10, the school board of the Elizabethtown Area School District (EASD) actually voted to put stamps in the biology books on any pages referring to dinosaurs or evolution that said that dinosaurs and evolution weren't necessarily real.

Now, this might just be me, but for a public school district, that seems just a little wrong. Isn't the separation of church and state supposed to extend to the public schools? And EASD actually did it. And when I got to 7th grade, my parents refused to let me use the school's biology books until they were allowed to cover up the stamps. Because they worked long and hard to keep that from happening, and they sure as hell weren't going to let their values be overrun by E-town's conservative Christian views. And they won that small battle and put stickers in my book and I was allowed to use it again.

But really. I understand that religion is important to people, and I understand that not everything taught in a public school will correspond with those beliefs, but still. A public school education isn't supposed to favor any one ideology. If my school had offered a philosophy course, and the idea of dinosaurs not existing came up, that would be one thing, but my school didn't (and doesn't) offer philosophy. And instead, they higher ups were trying to push those ideas into a science class, where facts and logic should reign supreme.

Basically my school was run by idiots. Now it's run by fewer idiots. But still idiots.

Why do some people feel the need to force their beliefs on other people? Why do
some people feel that their beliefs are just better than everyone else's, and not equal to them. Ann Coulter is an excellent example of someone who forces their beliefs on everyone else and doesn't think for even a second that she's in the wrong. The other day on the show "The Big Idea", hosted by Donny Deutsch, she actually said that "Jews need to be perfected," and continued to argue that she didn't see anything wrong with what she said (Fox News, 8 Oct 2007). How can ANYONE AT ALL think that's okay. Seriously. I'm an agnostic, and I know that because I grew up in Elizabethtown, which is an extremely conservative area, even for Lancaster County, I have a less than tolerant view of Christianity, but at least I acknowledge that. I don't think Ann Coulter should be shot or anything, but I do think that she needs a good slap across the face, and anyone who thinks that she's right deserves exactly the same thing.

I try to get along with people. I really do. But there are just people out there who grind my nerves so badly with their outright disdain for the opinions, lifestyles, and beliefs of others that I want to wring their necks.

I guess I should probably stop ranting about that now.

And I think I'm done with this for now.

Source Cited:

Coulter, Ann. Interview with Donny Deutsch. Fox News. 8 Oct. 2007. 16 Oct. 2007 .