The Invisible Still Invisible.

Today I took time out of my dull day to help out for a screening for my school. The documentary: Invisible Children. It describes the War in Sudan, in a few words. By far, one of the more emotional productions I’ve witnessed in a while. I’m surprised my school even approved of it.

The audience was relatively small. The auditorium holds around 500 people. Less than 100 showed up, most likely out of boredom or one of the club members that advertised for the screening bothered the hell out of him or her. Assumptions don’t bother me at the moment. Either one of the situations probably occured.

Who will actually take time out of their huge schedule to help out these children? Few. Very few. We, as a society, or at least my society, will have probably looked at this and thought about it for an hour afterwards. By tomorrow, it’ll be insignificant to them, or it’ll barely be lingering in their minds like a foul odor. By a month, it’ll undoubtedly poof away as a figment of their memories that broke away like a useless puzzle piece. They forget, every piece of the puzzle is useful.

Usually I’ll keep typing until my frustration winds down to a level that’s microscopic. This time, I refuse to follow the regular pattern of fluctuation of anger. I’m at a high, and it’s not coming down for quite a while.

Hopefully you’re looking at this post and thinking I’m an arrogant pompous bastard. Maybe I am. But people made me that way. The lack of compassion is disgusting. Yet people seem to ignore how little, if any, compassion there really is in the school. When’s the last time you’ve seen someone donate more than a dollar to any foundation?

These small things can add up to something I don’t want to deal with anymore. Show some sympathy. I don’t mean shed some tears. Do something about it. That goes for me, too. The world could become such a better place if the majority, and I mean the majority, of us worked together for a common cause.

There is one scene in the aforementioned movie that nearly brought me to tears. There was a young boy, Jacob, in a refugee camp describing how he got there. His brother was brutally killed by the rebels, and he had lost all hope for living. He didn’t even mind if he was shot during the moment of the interview. The resilience of the boy, only 12 years old or so, was absolutely astounding. That is, until he began talking more about the love he once had for his brother.

When asked what would he say if he saw his brother once more, the response was awing. Emotional is an understatement. Jacob said he would tell he loved him and missed him, but would want to see him in Heaven now. It was at that point that he broke down hysterically. He began to whimper like an abandoned dog. The American doing the interview tried to “comfort him”, saying “it’s okay, Jacob.” What’s okay about it? Of course it’s not okay until the war is completely over.

Why must we allow such cruelty? We, as a planet, must come together. But it starts from the bottom: everyone who is reading this. Stand up for once. Spread the word. Get people to burst out of their bubbles, their shells of ignorance. For goodness sake, try to make a difference in the world. It’s your imprint, make it a big one.

Bailout the Automobile Industry… please… now?

There always comes a time for bluntness in dire situations; now is one of those times. If we don’t save the economy soon, we’re going to need another New Deal. The automobile industry is in shambles, and bailing out is the best option, i.e. regulation.

If the auto industry doesn’t pick up, there is a very large possibility that millions of jobs could be lost, and this alone could lead to something worse than the Great Depression. Automobile production provides one of our main exports. Its failure could even severely halt the growth of the GDP. We need the auto industry to pick up. An increase of jobs is the best solution for this crisis.

Bailing out the industry directly follows the concept behind bottom up economics: a successful economy depends on the workers. Keynesian economics seems to the best option, which calls for government spending in economic crises such as the one we’re in now. We definitely have the capacity to produce jobs, but government has been relying on income tax cuts to answer all economic issues, while the national debt creeps past $10 trillion.

We’ve had eight bailouts in this year alone. A bailout essentially means that money is injected into a corporation or bank to stimulate it into producing jobs. In fact, this wouldn’t be the first time an automobile industry was bailed out if it occurred. In 1979, Chrysler Company needed to be bailed out to avoid bankruptcy. They ended up fine. So it’s not as if government has no expectations or no idea as to what will occur.

Hopefully, government will lean towards a bailout, but without anything, not only will the industry collapse, but so will the economy in its entirety.

The End of Invisible Boundaries

What’s happened to us?

I’m not a man of extremes, but stating the extremes in terms of this topic will hopefully show us we must avoid them.

Oh, and this isn’t meant for anyone specifically. And it’s none of this “you know who you are” stuff. If any description sounds a lot like you, this passage wasn’t meant to offend you specifically. Oh, and I’m not perfect, as is the case for anyone. I have no authority. I only say this because no one says a word about how messed up this school can be. But, for the most part, we know that some things we do are just plain stupid. It may sound obvious for some of you, but not everyone knows what the hell is going on.

This won’t affect everyone who reads the following letter if you will, but it’s out of anger that’s lasted for years.

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Dear kiddies,

These invisible boundaries that surround us as teenagers are entirely pointless. We can’t get near each other without entering a state of paranoia: What does he/she really think of me? You think I’m nuts? Put it this way: Suicides don’t happen because the victims always hate only themselves; they hate the world because they think the world hates him or her.

We’re too homophobic. Why do we have to resort to calling bisexuals d—s in the locker rooms? Or even think about whether all members of the Gay Straight Alliance are gays or lesbians? Do you really have to be that inquisitive or suspicious? People are different from you, deal with it.

Stop the macho-ness. Really, you look like a total nitwit. Who do you really think you are? Just because you think more girls like you than others or because you think you’re athletic, or you think you’re attractive doesn’t mean you go around making fun of people’s moms and dads and siblings and anything else your minds can think of. Of course this applies to everybody who’s like this. Please grow up. I feel the coldest chill up my spine when I see such people.

What are you smoking for? What are you drinking for? This made up unit known as popularity doesn’t skyrocket because you got drunk or high at three in the morning. This isn’t designed to be a stereotype. I’m just sick of people knowing how bad the substances are for you, but they still try it once. I get if you’ve had problems of some kind, or to relax, but drugs aren’t the answer. And posting the pictures of you high or completely wasted on the Internet doesn’t help either. If you try it once, you’re hooked. Anybody knows that, it’s the whole point!

We judge too much on how a person looks or the tiny things he or she does. So a guy has long hair (i.e. a fringe) or his pants are tighter than you want it. Or maybe… say it ain’t so… He or she likes Yu-Gi-Oh. Who cares? Is it so important that we start to make the most outrageous assumptions over such minuscule issues? It’s just way too much, period.

This is why I write. I don’t care if you hate me for it. I do it out of rage. And I’m not the only one that feels this way. We just don’t take the chance because we know the reaction won’t exactly be completely in our favor. Somebody will most likely look at each of the words in each and every single sentence and look for something to say against me… god, help us.

Many people have the same feelings expressed in this note, but refuse to say enough or anything. “One of the things I’ve learned is to just not get caught up with the high school standards everyone worries about,” says Bryan McComb of Lynbrook High School. “You have to focus on you. What they say or think are just ignorant comments. Take it from me, as long as you’re okay with yourself, and this goes for everyone, then what they say to you shouldn’t get to you or anybody else.”

To the victims: keep your head up, it makes you the better one. Trust me.