Objects

It is sometimes difficult to treat women as subjects instead of objects. Particularly because many of them seem to like being treated as objects. Hence "formals": they don't want to be a person, they want to be Barbie.

Lyra

There is a girl who sits in front of me in my Buddhism class named Lyra. She draws and doodles constantly in class, and some of her pictures are very pretty. Yesterday, she got up to go get a drink of water and I looked at what she was working on. It was a profile portrait of an old lady that had cold, cruel features to her face. Across the top, Lyra had written:

"Blank paper has a tendancy to stare
Eyelessly with a strange sort of accusatory
Non-expression. And expectation perhaps."

Diversity(?)

I've never met anyone who was significantly like anyone else. I am completely overwhelmed at the fact that I probably have met thousands of people -- all of whom are startlingly unique. The human race is unfathomably diverse. So why are so many people's facebook/myspace profiles really really bland?

Kids

3 of the top 10 most viewed news stories on Yahoo today were about child molesters. Are we really that offended by pedophelia? Or do we enjoy the paranoia and righteous indignation we can feel while simultaneously being perversely, unhealthily interested in the combination of children and sex?

Thrifty

Ethnic slurs have never been funny, but one that particularly bothers me is that when someone is reluctant to spend money, he or she is sometimes called "Jewish." This is deeply wrong for several reasons. First, and obviously, it is wrong to refer to someone's ethnicity in a derrogetory manner or to stereotype (in a derrogetory manner) an ethnic group's behavior.

But on an entirely different level, one is tempted to ask "since when did thriftiness become a vice?" Does materialism so permeate our lives that it is now informing our morals? Shouldn't we admire someone who spends their money wisely and frugally?

Artt

I want to form a Ratt cover band for the sole reason that I would call the band "Artt."

Overheard

Here are three sentences I overheard from people as I was passing them this week. I am going to assume I heard them out of context.

[girl on cell phone, angry]: "Well what kind of God are you?"

[girl holding a door for me while talking to someone else]: "I mean, I'm sure he won't rape her in broad daylight."

[intoxicated guy on a scooter talking to his two passengers]: "If you had seen Spiderman, you'd be gay to."

Maybe

Maybe Christianity is more like learning to play a musical instrument rather than merely holding a series of intellectual beliefs.

Media II

Is it possible that media has a negative influence on "youth" in society -- but not just because of some of its particular content, but by its ubiquitous presence? I certainly believe that media is ultimately a good thing -- a gift from God -- but is it possible that there is such a thing as too much? Maybe listening to Christian music for several hours a day could be almost as bad for you as listening to the same amount of heavy metal that advocates aggression or rap that advocates materialism and the oppression of women? Media has a distracting influence that probably results from the fact that it occupies most of an individual's conscious attention and because most media consumption occurs when the individual is alone, when he or she would be most likely to be engaging in personal contemplation.

Maybe the destructiveness of media does not lie primarily in its content (although some content is definitely destructive) but in the fact that we adolescents use it for 8 hours a day. Granted that some of that time overlaps, there are still several hours a day when the average adolescent is neither thinking heavily nor interacting with othe people. Maybe making value judgments about the content of media is like making value judgements about different kinds of food. Some foods are more healthy for you than others, but too much food is always bad for you.

Loudness

I think concerts and bars have loud music so as to eliminate the possibility of conversation. That way, people don't feel awkward hanging out for several hours together without speaking to one another.