Comments from an under 30 yr old:

You’d think that the youth of America would be throwing the country into an all out revolution with all the crud going on, right? There’s more than enough causes to stand and fight for, but I believe this “inaction” is merely the result of a ‘good cause overload.’

Today, in the United States, is Natl. Coming out day, Gay day, Jendaa Free Nichi (JP), or whatever. Why it is in October during the raining season, I’ll never understand. What I do understand is that the message is for young people to accept that gender norms are a form of restriction on freedom. I have to beg the question of those who ask of me to acknowledge the legitimacy of homosexual and transsexual behavior,

“Is it that gender is imposed on me, like slavery by society, to be a masculine heterosexual male, or is that you are imposing on me your belief to accept that your view and orientation must be accepted as normal behavior for the 21st century, by me?”

I’ll pose it another way…

To the normal folks who joke with friends, fall in love, and kid around.. A boy is a boy and girls fall in love with boys and boys chase girls around (and act like total doofs doing it), am I right?

That’s the norm ’round here. It’s the norm in high school and in college. However, the issues of gender bending have, without a doubt, been imposed on us and we’re forced to either accept them as normal behaviors or recede to being anti-gay. Haa haa ha.. what a joke.. Anti-gay? Is that what people who don’t get their way result to calling those who don’t buy in? Oh I’ll just call you a name like homophobic and you’ll feel some guilt and cross over to a gay loving dude… please~

Here’s the revelation folks… Our generation doesn’t want conflict. You wanna be weird? Go ahead. You’ll be treated weird and if that’s ok then ok.

We don’t want to fight that hard,
raise too much hell,
Or sit in a prison (with basic cable) for protesting,
or get busted for smoking joints.

We are a non-serious-conflict prone group who chat online…
If you step out of line or out of sync– you know what you’ll get out of us?

“Dude.. not cool”

or

“Well whatever… so I heard about…..”

That’s the difference in our generation. To y’all (freaking out conservative folks) some of us don’t agree with the whole Gay thing or gender bending thing, but we’re not about to get all up in someone’s face about it… because it’s not cool. We let a dude shoot up Ohio, because letting him be his own thing, roll’n his own way… that’s our style– flawed, but free.

Society is a ying and yang relationship in constant balance. In the 60′s you saw a forceful over abundance of yang being thrown down on the youth which, naturally, forced a greater amount of ying from the youth to balance it back… worlds collided~

In this new world and new century we’ve learned that if you keep them relatively balanced– ying & yang– your %age of backlash drops significantly. Ya gett’n it yet?

So parents– when you see your kid, my age, plopped down in front of a computer, ipod, T.V., or handheld gameboy– be somewhat thankful that you’re not getting that phone call to bail them out of jail for busting the windows out of a government building or anything like that…

Be free, Be Cultured, Be informed, Be active, Be yourself…

~J out

Luckily Radiohead came to save the day with their new album ‘in rainbow.’ The album features an unique aeclectic Radiohead sound that you can’t really find anywhere else. The news about is that they’re distributing it via, and only via, the web. After googling “Radiohead” or “Radiohead in ranbows” and getting to their site, it takes about 10 or less minutes to pick your price (yes you choose how much to pay. Be it 0.00 pounds or 10 quid) registering and then submitting your info. A link then shows up and the file (a .zip) pops up like you would download any thing.

I enjoy the sounds of Radiohead, but I don’t enjoy the ignorance of my peers. A twist, if you may, in the conversation– News, as I thought, was all around us. Like a plague or privy to have it whirl about you and to always be ‘in the know.’ I am a news hound- I have my nose in every scandal, election prediction, War assessment, Legal battle, and international headlines. Yet, that’s just me.. And I don’t expect anyone but me to be that way. However I found it shocking that my peers in class and at work are clueless and must live under some rock their entire lives. For example, someone I knew asked if it had rained today– I said, “yeah this afternoon I think, but did you see that giant swirl off the coast?” “Oh” they replied, “I don’t look at weather reports…” Now this comes from a person, like most of us, who spends time at their computer for hours and they don’t know that a massive swirling weather system was just off our coast? Do they not know of ‘the danger zone?’

You don’t have to know a lot to live, but at the very least you must have a eye out for when the apocalypse rains down on your area so that you could, at the least, take out your umbrella. God and man have made it possible to know what is happening at a Summit in Karachi from a beach chair in Bangkok- Ponder that folks— the 60′s had a famous phrase they said before going to commercial breaks “Stay Tuned Folks…”

Don’t be caught being those people who focus so intently on their immediate surroundings that they don’t know if they’re indeed in “The Danger Zone” or when the President declares Marshall Law and forbodes you to use your cell phone in a crowded bus (ok maybe that would be a little extreme, but you get the point)

Stay Tuned folks-and the world, you thought you knew, will change dramatically before your eyes.

GO Benazir Bhutto!!! YOU SHOW THEM GIRL!

~J

This band I spotted while checking out a cd shop in Sapporo. Their new album was released while I was over there, but because I wasn’t totally into it then (and their album was spendy) I didn’t get it. I regret not buying it, and I’m still out there looking on ebay for their albums. They’re the Yoshida Brothers… They’ve made a twist on the old sounds of Japan by turning shamisen music into groovy rock style. It’d be like rocking out on a banjo here in the US.

Anyway.. After seeing their music featured on the Wii Ad I thought I’d give them a shout out on my ole blog:

Take it away~

~J out

Much have I been in meditation these hours. Searching for answers when condemning myself for the sins I have enacted on this planet. How can one boy steeped in honor for his accomplishments, for sticking in college till the bitter end, and whose friends and colleagues respect, dive into a world of sin that pours nothing but vanity and guilt upon his life and the lives of those precious few who trusted him? What madness has befallen this hero society has lifted up and called it’s future? Where does the happy thoughts spring from his diluted picture of reality and pleasure?

Deep thoughts penetrate my young, untrained, novice mind. From my pit I cannot dive further, only upwards can I fly… and it is perhaps that only truth that will allow me to escape my self-destructive prison. I must remain humble and vow to keep myself alive and full of vigor. Humans, such as I, have had nothing but hardships to traverse and to give into the easiest of emotions would signal just how truly weak I’ve become.

The skies, though dampened by rain, are above me. I must lift myself in the ways prescribed by Christ and not be a hypocrite by loving others and not loving myself. It is the ego we all face, too much makes us drunk on our own selves; too little leaves us dehydrated and weak to face the next day of struggle.

A fall from grace leaves but one path the fallen must take. Upwards bound I must go if ever to restore such public credit that I currently have much debt of.

So rise up, I shall, meet the rain soaked day of tomorrow and with my battered self I will train myself to fly once more with the eagles who soar above me waiting for my return.

From a reflective, yet humble and optimistic soul.

~J out

New Rain… It’s almost been ages since I’ve seen the drizzle of rain pour over my wind shield. I like it… it’s refreshing and reminding of where we are. It brings the rivers back and the lawns. Rain is good…

So on to my thesis. What on Earth is worth spilling hours of research to write something worthy of a Lewis and Clark essay? That’s what it boils down to. For at least two years I’ve managed to stay in and stay involved as a LC student, but this is what codifies it. There’s two battles you fight that’s worth anything in college. The one to get in and the one to get out (with something in your teeth). Walking out means I got to pull something together that is worth the time to write and worth the time read. LC knows that whatever I produce and is stamped by them is what LC stands for. Their credibility comes down to the 35-40 pages of concise critical thinking.

First I was the one boasting, now it seems everybody has it harder then me.. “just BS the middle” they say, but they don’t get it. There’s one paper which is the last battle of college that absolutely doesn’t get BS’d. To all sophomores, freshmen, etc. know this… learn it and learn it well. 4 year rich highly acclaimed schools will let you off the hook in many of the their classes and final projects. You can go ahead and do it the night before, BS it all, whatever… But not the capstone of your education… This one they watch… They read it– And once approved– their credibility lies in the students own hands.

Make it good lad…. We’re all counting for a paper we can stand on with pride.

~J out