Joe Kalicki
Well-Known Member
They're busy rocking the vote on American Idol.
Moonmaster: Ace Journalist!
- Thread starter moonmaster
- Start date
They're busy rocking the vote on American Idol.
moonmaster
Without him, all of you would be lost souls roamin
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"But David Arculetto is hotter than all the candidates combined!"
What I find interesting is that no one had a problem with the process until "their guy" lost.
moonmaster
Without him, all of you would be lost souls roamin
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I don't know, I thought people were mad because they had no idea that things actually worked that way. (The last time someone won by the electoral college and not by the popular vote was in 1888, which is a long-*** time ago.)
Iceshadow
Well-Known Member
I thought most people knew what the electoral college was, they usually teach it in middle or high school.
moonmaster
Without him, all of you would be lost souls roamin
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I don't ever remember learning specifically about the electoral college, unless it was in discussion of the election, after the fact.
Last edited:
Joe Kalicki
Well-Known Member
I definitely learned about the electoral college in at least high school.
I remember because I was all like "WTF? OMG!"
I remember because I was all like "WTF? OMG!"
the watcher
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Moonmaster you need to calm down. You need a Mentos...
I didn't hear a single person gripe that they didn't know it worked that way. Every complaint I heard was that it's a stupid system. And the people that were complaining were the Gore voters and people that I had never heard nor seen complain about the system before.
If the system is that broken, then people who complain about it should complain no matter what the result. If it's bad, it's always bad.
And frankly I find it a little hard to believe that a person who knows how to vote can not know how the actual voting system works.
moonmaster
Without him, all of you would be lost souls roamin
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The last article of my high school career:
NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S WHAT I REALLY HAVE TO SAY
A Message for the Class of 2008 and Everybody Else
Let me tell you a little bit about Buddhists. Buddhist monks are just about the most incredible people in the world and the religion is founded on some pretty great ideas. For instance, meditation. The first thing you're supposed to do when you meditate is learn to fully clear your mind. Not easy, but once you've accomplished that, you move on to the next step: you express, with all sincerity, your love for yourself. Then you extend those feelings to everyone you know, everyone you've ever met, everyone in the world, animals, inanimate objects, all over the place until you can earnestly feel love and compassion with the whole universe. Psychologists have studied Buddhist monks and found something pretty incredible. They're much, much happier than the average person. And much calmer, less worrisome, and more empathetic.
Senior year is almost done and the air is ripe with tired platitudes about going out into the world and being ambitious and successful. But there are much more important things that we have to learn before we can start pretending like we're adults. In fact, everyone should learn such things, though few ever do. I've had my soapbox here at the ECHO for quite a while now, but I feel that what I have to say now is far more important than anything else I've written about, and it's a fairly simple message. Bear with me while I get around to it, the three of four of you who read my articles should know by now that I take a while to get to my point. (As obtrusive as it is to the rest of the article, I should probably take this opportunity to thank those of you have read my articles over the years, this being my last. There's nothing that affirms one's crazy half-baked opinions more than an audience willing to sit and listen to them.)
Nowadays, it feels like everyone's got Apocalypse Fever. Such attitudes have always been prevalent, (Humans have always been convinced that their time and their place is the most important of all.) but that's beside the point. As Evangelists gleefully await the Rapture, people lap up disaster flicks and doomsday specials on the History Channel and obscure prophecies like there's no tomorrow. (As I'm sure they're convinced there is.) It's like people are so bored that they actually want the world to end. As we scan the skies for killer asteroids or ancient Mayan gods or Jesus or whatever, we become distracted from the real doomsday that's happening as we speak.
It's an intellectual Apocalypse, a moral, spiritual one. Technically speaking, anthropologists have all but proven that things are better now than they've ever been before. Thanks to technology, medicine, and civilization, less people are dying than at any other time in human history. That's excellent, but another part of us is dying and Ground Zero is right here in America. It's too much to even sum up. Materialism, a perpetual obsession with money, with the absurd notion that it will make us infinitely happier and that all other concerns are secondary. A sense of impassioned indifference, because the world is too scary and messed up to even bother thinking about and besides, it's much easier to ignore it and think about something more pleasant. Fear and bitterness and a fearful retreat into conservatism. Corporations rule our lives through influence and marketing. It's all around us.
And the worst part is that it seems like all of these things are most evident in our own generation. There was once a time when people our age cared, when young people felt that love could do anything and peace was achievable, when college kids stood against the army at Kent State to say that war wasn't the answer. Where is that? Why do so many of us live with so little care for anyone else?
It goes back to those crazy monks. One must ask, why are they so happy? It's obvious. Love. It's as perfectly simple as that. Not necessarily romantic love, just pure, unconditional, perfect love for everyone and everything. That's what makes them so happy. I've spent the past few years pointing the finger at the CEOs and the politicians, but this isn't about them, and it's much bigger than politics or the economy. This is about you and me. I rarely make it a point to tell people what to do with their lives, I don't feel it's my duty, but I can't avoid it this time.
I won't pretend like what I'm asking of you is so easy, but it's worth a shot. What I'm asking of you - begging of you, really - is to let that kind of unconditional love become a part of your life. You don't have to make a big deal of it, you don't even have to let anyone know, it's only about how you think and that'll affect how you behave soon enough. Don't let people agitate you, and avoid the tendency to hate them. Treat people, even people you don't know, with a little warmth. Try to be a kindler, gentler person. You may feel that this is a bit pointless, but you have no idea what difference it could make.
Love renders money and possessions as meaningless objects, governments and media conglomerates who use fear as a weapon become silly little clubs who only think they own the world. It's more effective than protest or revolution. It's the most potent form of rebellion ever divised and you've had it inside you all along. I'm not saying I'm there yet, getting to where those monks are could take a lifetime. But all you have to do is believe in it, so many other people already do, and there will always be more. It's a simple issue of will.
If enough of us can imagine a better, more loving world, then there's absolutely no way of keeping it from coming true.
"I know of only one duty, and that is to love."
- Albert Camus
NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S WHAT I REALLY HAVE TO SAY
A Message for the Class of 2008 and Everybody Else
Let me tell you a little bit about Buddhists. Buddhist monks are just about the most incredible people in the world and the religion is founded on some pretty great ideas. For instance, meditation. The first thing you're supposed to do when you meditate is learn to fully clear your mind. Not easy, but once you've accomplished that, you move on to the next step: you express, with all sincerity, your love for yourself. Then you extend those feelings to everyone you know, everyone you've ever met, everyone in the world, animals, inanimate objects, all over the place until you can earnestly feel love and compassion with the whole universe. Psychologists have studied Buddhist monks and found something pretty incredible. They're much, much happier than the average person. And much calmer, less worrisome, and more empathetic.
Senior year is almost done and the air is ripe with tired platitudes about going out into the world and being ambitious and successful. But there are much more important things that we have to learn before we can start pretending like we're adults. In fact, everyone should learn such things, though few ever do. I've had my soapbox here at the ECHO for quite a while now, but I feel that what I have to say now is far more important than anything else I've written about, and it's a fairly simple message. Bear with me while I get around to it, the three of four of you who read my articles should know by now that I take a while to get to my point. (As obtrusive as it is to the rest of the article, I should probably take this opportunity to thank those of you have read my articles over the years, this being my last. There's nothing that affirms one's crazy half-baked opinions more than an audience willing to sit and listen to them.)
Nowadays, it feels like everyone's got Apocalypse Fever. Such attitudes have always been prevalent, (Humans have always been convinced that their time and their place is the most important of all.) but that's beside the point. As Evangelists gleefully await the Rapture, people lap up disaster flicks and doomsday specials on the History Channel and obscure prophecies like there's no tomorrow. (As I'm sure they're convinced there is.) It's like people are so bored that they actually want the world to end. As we scan the skies for killer asteroids or ancient Mayan gods or Jesus or whatever, we become distracted from the real doomsday that's happening as we speak.
It's an intellectual Apocalypse, a moral, spiritual one. Technically speaking, anthropologists have all but proven that things are better now than they've ever been before. Thanks to technology, medicine, and civilization, less people are dying than at any other time in human history. That's excellent, but another part of us is dying and Ground Zero is right here in America. It's too much to even sum up. Materialism, a perpetual obsession with money, with the absurd notion that it will make us infinitely happier and that all other concerns are secondary. A sense of impassioned indifference, because the world is too scary and messed up to even bother thinking about and besides, it's much easier to ignore it and think about something more pleasant. Fear and bitterness and a fearful retreat into conservatism. Corporations rule our lives through influence and marketing. It's all around us.
And the worst part is that it seems like all of these things are most evident in our own generation. There was once a time when people our age cared, when young people felt that love could do anything and peace was achievable, when college kids stood against the army at Kent State to say that war wasn't the answer. Where is that? Why do so many of us live with so little care for anyone else?
It goes back to those crazy monks. One must ask, why are they so happy? It's obvious. Love. It's as perfectly simple as that. Not necessarily romantic love, just pure, unconditional, perfect love for everyone and everything. That's what makes them so happy. I've spent the past few years pointing the finger at the CEOs and the politicians, but this isn't about them, and it's much bigger than politics or the economy. This is about you and me. I rarely make it a point to tell people what to do with their lives, I don't feel it's my duty, but I can't avoid it this time.
I won't pretend like what I'm asking of you is so easy, but it's worth a shot. What I'm asking of you - begging of you, really - is to let that kind of unconditional love become a part of your life. You don't have to make a big deal of it, you don't even have to let anyone know, it's only about how you think and that'll affect how you behave soon enough. Don't let people agitate you, and avoid the tendency to hate them. Treat people, even people you don't know, with a little warmth. Try to be a kindler, gentler person. You may feel that this is a bit pointless, but you have no idea what difference it could make.
Love renders money and possessions as meaningless objects, governments and media conglomerates who use fear as a weapon become silly little clubs who only think they own the world. It's more effective than protest or revolution. It's the most potent form of rebellion ever divised and you've had it inside you all along. I'm not saying I'm there yet, getting to where those monks are could take a lifetime. But all you have to do is believe in it, so many other people already do, and there will always be more. It's a simple issue of will.
If enough of us can imagine a better, more loving world, then there's absolutely no way of keeping it from coming true.
"I know of only one duty, and that is to love."
- Albert Camus
Iceshadow
Well-Known Member
Well said moony! Are you going to try for a job at your college's paper?
ourchair
Well-Known Member
You overestimate voters.
Planet-man
Well-Known Member
It's been 435 days since I last posted this. Feels appropriate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41lJIhW7fA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41lJIhW7fA
