Doubt

Let me preface this post with a little background information. I was raised Christian, in the Methodist church. My grandmother on my mom’s side was a Mennonite, and my father’s dad was a minister. Religion and spirituality have always been an important cornerstone of my family, but never at the expense of humanity. I was taught that helping others is the most important thing we can do with our time here on earth. Religion isn’t about condemning others; it’s about leading by example, and supporting others through the good times and the bad.

That being said, I’ve been struggling a lot with religion over the past few years. I’ve been studying sociology, which has opened my eyes to the vast inequality and greed that exists in the world. I have learned about pain, discrimination, hatred, and the sheer lack of opportunity available to groups of individuals. Mostly, I have learned that the vast majority of individuals are painfully unaware of this fact. When people close their eyes to others’ suffering, there is no way that change can occur. I have become disheartened by the lack of knowledge, lack of curiosity, and lack of compassion in the society around me. This disappointment has shaken me to the core, making me question: How could any God that I believe in allow such pain and suffering to continue?

I recently learned that I am not alone in my doubt. When I was visiting my sister a few weeks ago, we were discussing her work. She is a nurse in the E.R. She discussed several heartbreaking cases with me, and expressed concern at the number of patients she receives that are addicted to drugs. At one point in our discussion, she exclaimed in an exasperated tone, “Why would God create substances that can make people so addicted to them?” Her words stuck with me. Though her question came from her own experience, they seemed to echo the question that had been weighing down on me for years.

I’ve spent a lot of time being angry. And I’ve directed much of this anger at God. How? Why? How can you allow such suffering? Why am I so blessed? Instead of feeling grateful for the many amazing things I have experienced in my life, I have felt guilty—that others were not in similar situations as me. That no matter how hard they worked, they will most likely never be able to achieve my same successes, through no fault of their own. This mixture of guilt and anger is toxic. It creates a sense of hopelessness, a lack of motivation, and an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and despair.

“Why would God create substances that can make people so addicted to them?” For weeks I tried to forget about it, but it just wouldn’t go away. This nagging question in the back of my mind. “Why?” And suddenly it hit me. God didn’t create these substances. We did. Human greed did. The most addicting drugs were created by humans. Who were trying to take their high to the next level. Who were trying to make money off the addiction of others. Who wanted to become rich. Famous. Powerful. God didn’t create these drugs, nor did God create inequality. Humans did. And if humans created these things, they can also unmake these things! And for the first time in years, I felt hope. Hope that things could change.

 I’m not saying that all of my questions were answered. Or that I’m not still angry with God. But I realize that we need hard times in order to appreciate the good times. I know that God created free will. Because while forcing people to love you and to always be happy may be possible, it would not be genuine. It would be quite a lonely eternity. Allowing people to choose to love you—to make their own mistakes—that’s what love is all about. So God gave us free will, and we have abused it. We have caused pain and suffering on others. We have created inequality, greed, addiction, and pain. But if we have created these things, we have the ability to unmake them as well. We have the power to love others, to heal them, to support them, to give second chances, to forgive.

I’m not naive. I know this road won’t be easy. We certainly cannot right every wrong we have committed in my lifetime, but we can take a step toward forgiveness. And slowly, together, we can work for a more equal world.

The 99% vs. Citizens United

I will consider corporations people when they can be drafted, sent overseas, and put their lives on the line daily to fight in the wars their greed has created. I will consider corporations people when they can be jailed, imprisoned, or face the death penalty for their crimes. I will consider corporations people when they know what hunger is, and how to feed their families on minimum wage. I will consider them people when they are forced to watch their children, brothers, mothers, and friends slowly die from diseases that access to health care could have prevented. I will consider them people when they must watch their children attend underfunded, broken, and dilapidated schools while schools across town are equipped with the best teachers, new buildings, and the latest technology. I will consider them people when they are called pariah, raccoons, and lazy free riders for going bankrupt and getting bailed out on the taxpayer’s dollar. I will consider corporations people when they show compassion to their workers, a truly human emotion, instead of exploiting them for their own gain. I will consider them people when they know what it truly means to be powerless; to not have a voice. I will consider corporations people when they stop privatizing their profits, but nationalizing their costs; expecting American citizens to clean up their pollution, abandoned cities, and waste. I will consider corporations people when they are expected to act as ethically and financially responsible as we, the 99%, are all expected to act.

Reclaiming the Active Body

In the article, “Exhuming Women’s Premarket Duties in the Care of the Dead,” Rundblad discusses how the preparation of bodies for burial used to be women’s work. This work was seen as an extension of the care work that women typically engage in, and these women earned the title “shrouding women.” As the economy grew and occupations became more specialized, the funeral industry developed, and men took over primary care of the dead. To justify their usurpation of what used to be a job only for women, men claimed that caring for the dead went against the “nature” of women. Advertisements put out by the funeral industry depicted men in active roles and women as props to be looked at. In this way, women were subordinated by the spread of these sex-stereotypical beliefs about the passive nature of women. When I stopped to consider this, a series of other papers we have read this semester came to mind. I realized that women’s subordination stems from one, core assumption about the difference between men and women’s bodies. Men’s bodies are active, and women’s bodies are passive objects that exist for the pleasure of men. This theme of active versus passive gendered bodies is readily apparent in discourse surrounding differences in reproduction, physical space, and beauty ideals.

When examining reproduction literature, the article, “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles,” serves as a primary example. In this paper, Martin analyzes biological literature and finds that when the egg and sperm are discussed in the context of reproduction, the sperm is cast as the active “swimmer” who forges ahead and penetrates the egg. The egg, on the other hand, is painted as being very passive during this whole process. Recent evidence, however, shows that the egg is indeed an active participant in reproduction by trapping the sperm with adhesive molecules. Despite this new evidence, the old account of the active sperm and the passive egg still persists. Even during childbirth, a very active, physically draining activity, women often act passively by being polite and deferring their own needs as to not imposition doctors or their husbands. When they do actively make demands, Martin finds, they often feel guilty about their behavior later. This shows that women have internalized beliefs that they should be passive, even in physically demanding tasks like childbirth.

Likewise, the active versus passive nature of gendered bodies is apparent in literature about physical space. In, “Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools,” Martin finds that boys are not discouraged from having active bodies that take up space, but that girls bodies are much more regulated. Girls were often told to raise their hands before speaking and passively wait for their turn to be called on. Play space is also confined for girls as they take up about 1/10th of the physical space that boys do on the playground. In addition to this, Thorne also finds that boys are much more likely to encroach on girl’s play than vice versa. This reinforces the notion of boys having active bodies that not only physically take up more space, but that can also encroach on the space of others.

If women are merely passive objects that exist for the pleasure of men, it makes sense that beauty norms are especially poignant for women. Weitz discusses how women both accommodate and resist oppression through their hair style choice. By choosing a style that accommodates traditional ideals of feminine beauty, women accommodate their oppression but also gain power as they are treated better than the women who choose to resist traditional hair ideals of feminine beauty. This shows how important looks are for women, and how they negotiate their power through their appearance rather than through their competence. Glen also emphasizes the importance of beauty ideals for women. In, “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin lighteners,” she finds that women go to extreme, potentially dangerous lengths to lighten the color of their skin in order to come closer to the ideal of feminine beauty. Similarly, the ideal female body is not only beautiful, but also young. This means that aging women face higher pressure to resist the aging process through dieting or getting their gray hair dyed. These articles show that women have internalized their ascribed role as passive objects for the enjoyment of men.

This review of the class literature supports my assertion that the oppression of women is fueled by an assumption about the difference between gendered bodies. Men’s bodies are active, and women’s bodies are passive objects that exist for the pleasure of men. This assumption is internalized by women and is reflected in their reproductive processes, the physical space they demand, the beauty work they engage in, and in the strategies employed to resist aging. Women who resist the role of passive objects face negative implications. In her work on aging, Clarke finds that women who do shed the burden of beauty ideology resign themselves to exclusion, invisibility, and social devaluation. Internalizing this oppressive assumption about gendered bodies causes inner conflict as well. This is reflected in women’s eating disorders and in the drastic measures they take to alter their bodies through cosmetic surgery. In order to alleviate these complex social problems, women must reclaim their active bodies.

The Way I See It #5

Jesus ate with tax collectors. He said, let he without sin cast the first stone. He overturned the tables of corruption. He fed the hungry. He loved his neighbor. He preached forgiveness. If Jesus were alive today, he would be called a socialist and a liberal extremist. I am truly honored to be called the same.

The Way I See It #4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBaKMpA0JbU&feature=related

Blaming the Victim

When reading the articles this week about violent and victimized bodies, I was surprised at the lack attention given to the phenomenon of blaming the victim. Two articles in particular stuck out to me as overlooking this important theme. Jocelyn Hollander discusses in her article, “Vulnerability and Dangerousness: The Construction of Gender through Conversations about Violence,” that everyday conversations reinforce views of women as vulnerable to violence and men as potentially dangerous. She points out that though men are most often targets of violence, women fear being a victim of violence much more than men. She claims that this is because widely shared conceptions of gender associate femininity with vulnerability and masculinity with dangerousness. In her discussion, however, Hollander fails to consider that this fear of victimization is exacerbated by the knowledge of the blame that will be attributed to a woman if she is victimized.

Hollander points out that women who are seen as being at the peak of sexual desirability are considered the most vulnerable. She does not, however, consider that this may be due to the fact that society is likely to blame women for being raped because by being sexually attractive or dressed too provocatively they were in some way “asking for it”. Angela, a participant in Hollander’s study highlights this in her statement, “I have a feeling for these young girls, when they’re running, and they wear this little provocative stuff. And I make [my daughter] cover up.” This shows that Angela is not only fearful of her daughter being victimized, but also that she knows that society places fault on women who decide not to “cover up.” Women in this study also frequently mention walking in groups, avoiding sketchy areas at night, asking men to walk them to their cars, and practicing other protective measures. While these examples support the author’s point that women feel more vulnerable to violence, they also speak to the idea that women are required to take these steps in order to avoid double victimization. In other words, women that do not take precautionary steps are often blamed for any violence directed towards them. Women should not walk alone at night, wear tight clothing, travel alone, and go running by themselves, along with a multitude of other constraints. Women know that should they violate anything on this expansive list of restrictions on their personal agency, they are not only more likely to be victimized, but also blamed for their victimization.

Brent Staples article, “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders his Power to Alter Public Space,” also neglects this theme of blaming women for their victimization. In this reflection, Staples discusses his experiences as a black man walking the streets of Chicago. He explains the multitude of constraints placed on him to give other pedestrians, especially women, a great deal of space so that they do not feel threatened by his presence. We see through the eyes of a young man facing the stigma of discrimination, and fearing that one false move might set off an altercation. Throughout the article, however, I could not help but consider the perspective of these women walking the streets late at night, clutching their purses close to them and crossing the street. Just as discriminatory beliefs create a societal fear of the young, black man, these beliefs also tell women that they should not be walking alone at night, flashing around their money, and talking to strangers. Women are not only fearful that they may be victimized by some strange man on the street, but also that they will be blamed for their victimization. It seems, then, that it is not just discriminatory beliefs about young, black men, but also sexism and blaming of the victim that is causing women to cross the street.

The “Ideal” Body Type

In, “Women and Their Hair: Seeking Power through Resistance and Accommodation,” Rose Weitz explains that the body is a site for struggle over power, especially between men and women. Women use their bodies in ways to gain power either by accommodating conventional ideas about beauty or by resisting these norms. Weitz claims that hairstyles are a prime example of this power struggle. Some women seek to gain power by embodying cultural norms about hair, while others seek less feminine, professional styles so that they will be taken more seriously. Similarly, Evelyn Glenn argues in, “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing of Skin Lighteners,” that light skin operates as a form of symbolic capital, and that women use skin lighteners to climb the social hierarchy. She stresses that women use these skin lighteners in an attempt to achieve conventional ideas of whiter skin color to gain power. While both articles state that ideas of attractiveness vary by region, class, ethnicity, and country, they still operate under the assumption that there is some “ideal” conventional view of beauty. Weitz claims that the traditional view of attractive female hair is long, curly, blonde, and intentionally styled hair. Glenn claims that women seek to achieve white skin. By assuming, however, that there is an “ideal” beauty type, the authors are insinuating that some females could possibly possess these ideal traits and embody this powerful, self-confident woman who has no insecurities about her body. This seems highly unlikely. Instead, I argue there is no sole ideal body type for women, and that beauty is sought by altering one’s natural appearance.

Weitz claims that women with long, curly, blonde, styled hair best fit the conventional idea of beauty. If this were true, it would seem that women with curly hair would not have to do much to style their hair. This is not the case, however. Many women with naturally curly hair spend hours applying straitening lotion and flat ironing their hair until it is strait and smooth. Many females with straight hair, on the other hand, spend money on perms to give volume to their so called dull hair. It does not seem that there is some “ideal” hairstyle, but rather an idea that hair in its natural state is not beautiful. Glenn explains that darker women use skin lighteners in order to achieve this ideal image of whiteness. She briefly mentions tanning, but then quickly moves on saying that this was a craze in the 30’s and 40’s but has largely gone away since the 80’s when sun rays were found to be damaging. Glenn dismisses tanning too quickly without considering how many women still go to tanning beds, as well as products geared toward darkening the skin like spray tans and lotions. Again, it seems that there is no ideal skin tone, merely the idea that one’s natural skin tone is not beautiful enough.

It is obvious that certain norms about beauty do exist. Being overweight, being a minority, and having acne are obviously strikes against ideas of feminine beauty. It is also important not to overlook historical context in which whiter skin has been valued at the expense of those with darker skin. To suggest, however, that there is some ideal type of female beauty suggests that some women are safe from scrutiny. This, however, does not seem to be the case. It is more plausible that there is a looser framework of ideals of femininity, and while some may fit these ideals better than others, no female can be considered the ideal type. Instead, females are conditioned to believe that they are not beautiful naturally, and must substantially alter their bodies in order to achieve this elusive “ideal” type.

Double victimization

Today, I read that a girl had been sexually assaulted at an FSU frat party. This information was disturbing enough, but what I read after that was even more disgusting. The writer directed this statement to the victim, “you went to the party, what did you honestly expect would happen?” I can guarantee you that the victim was not expecting to get raped. I am sick of hearing crass and untrue statements such as this that only perpetuate the idea that somehow rape is the victim’s fault. “She was wearing revealing clothes, so even though she said no she really meant yes.” “She didn’t lock all of her doors and windows at night so it’s her fault.” “She was walking down the street at night by herself, she was asking for it.” We never hear these statements about men. Men are allowed to wear what they want, walk where they want, and forget to lock a door without fear of being blamed for any mishaps. If someone robs them, the robber is at fault. Why is it not the same for women? Women are expected to live in this sheltered, cautioned world with a fraction of the freedoms men get. Yet, when something goes wrong, we instinctively blame them. “They weren’t careful enough,” or “they should have known.” Until we, as a society, start pointing our fingers at the real perpetrators, the rapists, nothing will ever change. We have laws against rape, yet so many women are afraid to press charges because of how they will look. The one’s that do press charges have the added burden of proving there was no consent. Because of our hostile view of victims, many rapists simply get away with it, and are free to continue their heinous behavior. It is time for a societal shift in view point. We need to stand up and point our fingers where they truly belong; at the rapist.

The Way I See It #3

I’ve never really subscribed to the notion that there is one person out there, made just for you, and that you must find this person in order to be happy. You may be thinking that I am a terribly jaded person, but hear me out. Love, to me, is about compromise. Love is caring so deeply for someone else that you see past their flaws. The beauty of love is in its unwavering forgiveness. The idea of having a ‘soul mate’ diminishes the power of love. If there is truly someone out there who is perfect for you, then you never have to make compromises, or learn to forgive. You will never grow as a person discovering how to love an individual despite his or her faults. No. Love is much more powerful and transformative than that. Love is caring so much for someone that you both grow together. You compromise, forgive, and laugh together. And though the two of you were not ‘made’ for each other in the beginning, through love, you are perfect for one another in the end.

Arizona Immigration Law SB 1070

It is astounding to me how many people actually believe that our country is beyond racism. It is easy for whites, including me, to forget all the privileges we receive daily solely because of the color of our skin. It is much more difficult to recognize that our power and privilege comes at the detriment of others. People who do not discuss race relations and claim that our nation is now ‘colorblind’ are ignoring the facts. They say that liberals are racist for not jumping on the Pleasantville bandwagon. These political pundits are either under the misconception that ignoring racism will make it disappear, or they have a much more sinister plan at work. Maybe by convincing people that racism doesn’t exist, they can exploit the system while calling all of their critics crazy. After all, how can you exploit a system that doesn’t exist?

While I’d like to believe that these pundits are just misinformed, recent legislation has shown a much darker side. Arizona has passed Immigration Law SB 1070. This law proclaims that law enforcement officers, with “reasonable suspicion,” have the right to question individuals on their immigration status.

“For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.”

Since “reasonable suspicion” is so vaguely defined, this means that officers may stop anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant and ask them for their identification papers. What exactly does an illegal immigrant look like? Hispanic? Black? Asian? But certainly not white. So police officers have every right to pull over a Hispanic driver, solely based on his or her race, and demand to see identification. American citizens, on their way to work, school, or home can be stopped and questioned on a whim. These American citizens can have their daily lives disrupted repeatedly, causing them to be late to work or picking up their children from school. And god forbid accidently leaving your ID at home. I have a feeling that if the roles were reversed, if white middle aged men in suits were being stopped and interrogated on the streets, we would call this law a gross invasion of our privacy. What’s next? Houses searched in the middle of the night? Temporary aliens forced to sew yellow stars on their shirts so that we can keep close watch over them? The unbridled discretion of law enforcement officers resembles that of a totalitarian regime. They don’t even need warrants for arrests:

“A Law Enforcement Officer, without a warrant, may arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States”

Unchecked power goes directly against the principles of democracy we were founded on. We have both state and federal laws so that neither one gets to powerful. Separation of powers ensures that no one branch of the government is more dominant than the others. These officers in Arizona are not answering to anyone, which leaves ample room for corruption. This racist law cannot stand!

Merit Pay for Florida Teachers

Today, a grave injustice was committed. Today, we have turned our backs on thousands of children and their futures. Education in this country has always been far from equal. Minorities and women have had to fight hard for their right to an education. We falsely believe that Brown v. Board of Education has solved our problems. That this ruling has somehow equalized the playing field for everyone, and that those who fail must be doing so due to their own shortcomings. This could not be farther from the truth. Today educational discrimination isn’t blatant racism or sexism. It is a much more widespread and subtle injustice. It is discrimination based on socioeconomic status.

Florida bases the majority of school funding on property tax. Therefore, the property tax generated by a neighborhood is what is used to fund a public school in that neighborhood. This means that the property taxes collected in a very rich neighborhood would be allocated to a school in that area, so the school has plenty of money and resources to work with. It also means that the small amount of property taxes collected by a very poor neighborhood are all that a school gets in that area. As you can see, this allocation of funding is quite discriminatory and far from ‘equal.’ Poor children have far fewer resources to work with and yet they are expected to perform at the same levels as those with abundant funding.

Reading Jonathan Kozol’s book, “The Shame of the Nation,” made me realize the extent of this disparity between schools. In one school in New York, children were sent to school in a gutted roller rink. Black boards were used to create the illusion of rooms. There were not windows to be found. Air conditioning was luxury far out of reach. Yet a short drive away there was a school with a brand new library and models of the galaxy. You may be thinking that this is an exception and not the norm, but that is incorrect. This type of disparity exists everywhere. In your country. In your state. Even in your city.

I grew up in Tallahassee Florida and attended Lawton Chiles High School. My school had a giant marquee flashing upcoming events and student achievements. Digital clocks lined the hallways, and there were enough copies of our textbooks that we could each take one home and have enough left over for a classroom set so that we didn’t have to carry them back and forth. My sister went to Rickard’s high school across town. Their resources were scarce. Textbooks were limited and personal copies were unheard of. The building was old and not well taken care of. On her way to class one day, my sister noticed a student throw up outside a building. It wasn’t cleaned up for 2 weeks. I was floored when I heard this. It couldn’t be true. My denial was proof of the comfortable bubble I was living in. This information was so hard for me to take in because it meant that there was not, as I had learned, equal education for all.

Today, the Florida legislature passed a bill that teachers will now be paid based on merit pay. Schools that do not abide by this rule will have drastic cuts in their funding by the state. The legislature was under a lot of heat because of our broken educational system, and instead of admitting how their current method for allocating property tax dollars was the problem, they pointed their fingers at teachers. “Teachers are too comfortable,” they say. “This bill will get rid of the dead weight.” What the legislators have failed to do is to look at the root of the problems. Failing schools are NOT failing because of teachers. They are failing because they are poor schools in poor neighborhoods with scarce resources and a terrible learning environment. How can we expect these students to perform at the same level as those with top of the line technology in their classrooms, who don’t have to worry about the room temperature or the floor beneath their feet giving way at a moment’s notice? It is outrageous. These legislators have failed to see what the implications of this policy will surely be. Good teachers will all leave failing schools and join well performing schools in order to receive higher pay. My aunt who has taught kindergarten for over 20 years will have to decide whether to stay at her current school where many of her students come in knowing little English, or to move across town to a richer elementary school where most kids that start already know their ABC’s. The kids that already know their ABC’s are starting leaps and bounds ahead of those who don’t even speak English. To pay my aunt less for teaching these less fortunate students or to claim that she isn’t doing her job if her students don’t perform at the same level as those from richer schools is not only preposterous, but plain ignorance. Pulling all of the good teachers out of failing schools will only increase the already expanding education gap. This bill must be struck down. We should be providing more opportunities for our students, not taking their futures away.

The Way I See It #2

It’s easy to be angry. To loathe the things that you cannot change. To hate what you do not understand. But anger won’t make things better. And Hate will only narrow your view. The only way to make a difference in this world is to love. You must be grateful for everything that you have, and spread that joy to others. Where hate blinds us and prevents us from moving forward, love opens our eyes to infinite possibilities and hope. So let go. Accept the world for all its wonders and its faults, and transform it through love.

Neutrality

My last post discussed perspective and the importance of diversity. I’d like to make a clarification. I stand by my point that it is very important to embrace our differences and to always try and see things from another perspective. While this is important, it is also imperative that we do not become too comfortable. By too comfortable, I mean becoming so neutral that we do not question any actions or policies made by our peers or out government. In philosophy, this is called cultural relativism. This belief claims that nothing is empirically right or wrong. Something is right or wrong based solely on if a society deems it as such. Therefore, one society has no right to pass judgment on another society.

I strongly disagree with this philosophy. It is very important to be tolerant and understanding of other people’s cultural practices. For example, if one culture eats ants, we shouldn't label them as morally inferior. If they don’t wear shirts or don’t bathe every day, we shouldn't judge them as wrong. If, however, a society believes it is a just practice to take children into the back yard and burn them alive for fun, I feel it is our moral obligation to say that that practice is wrong. Simply staying neutral and saying that burning children isn’t wrong because that society doesn’t deem it so is a cop out in my opinion. It is silently aiding in an evil act. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Neutrality is cowardly support for the status quo.” He was referring to all of the people who saw racial discrimination, and yet did nothing to stop it. It is possible to become too neutral. Complacent, if you will. It is important to be understanding of others, but never stop questioning. And when you see an injustice, stand up to it, because by not doing so, you are contributing to it.

The Way I See It #1

This post is to explain the title of my blog, as well as introduce a segment that will reoccur from time to time in my posts. I am a shift supervisor at Starbucks, and have been working there for over three and a half years now. Every time I hand a customer a hot beverage, I am also handing them a perspective. Each cup is printed with a section titled, "The Way I See It," where customers write in and offer words of wisdom based off of their own experiences. Many people grab their drinks and rush off to work, school, or to pick up their kids. They hastily consume their caffeine and discard their empty cups in the trash somewhere without giving it a second thought. Next time you order a drink from Starbucks, I implore you to take a minute to stop and read what your cup says. You may not always agree with it, or even understand where it is coming from, but it offers you a unique perspective on the world that you would otherwise not see. This blog is my opportunity to share with you the world as I see it, but I encourage you to leave comments so that I may also see the world the way you see it.

The first entry is my favorite quote from a Starbucks cup. The following entries, starting with #1 will be my own thoughts.

The Way I see it #61
Imagine we are all the same. Imagine we all agree about politics, religion and morality. Imagine we like the same types of music, food and coffee. Sound boring? Differences need not divide us. Embrace diversity. Dignity is everyone's human right. ~Bill Brummel

The Way I See it #1
True Leadership is not telling others what to do, but setting your pride aside and having the courage to listen. It is not looking inward, but taking every opportunity you have to inspire and cultivate others. Leadership is a subtle, humble quality that has the capability to change the world. ~Kirby Thomas

Welcome!

Those of you that know me are aware by now that technologically savvy would not be one of the top 5 adjectives I would use to describe myself. Not even in the top 500. So I apologize upfront for any blaring issues that may arise during this new adventure. That being said, welcome! I'm so glad that you are taking time out of your day to hear about mine! Many people create cooking blogs, or blogs to discuss their political ideas, or blogs to just ramble on about various issues. Though I will incorporate all of these things, it will probably tend toward the rambling thing. So if you're interested, sit back, and enjoy viewing the world the way I see it :)