The Agnostic Speaks

Calling intelligent design "intelligent" is about as clever as the use of "Patriot" in the Patriot Act. Although, considering Bush resides in the White House while my man Kerry is trapped in his Boston mansion (poor thing), maybe I shouldn't criticize the right wing's marketing strategies.

At any rate, the Academic Bill of Rights boggles my mind. Is is just me or does a bill calling for academic freedom in classrooms seem unnecessary? It's about as useful as a bill proposing that criminal lawyers represent criminals. I thought colleges were designed to encourage a marketplace of ideas?

I'm not saying that abuses do not occasionally occur at colleges, but do we need a bill encouraging students to sue if they feel disrespected by their professors? While I think professors should be tolerant of their students' ideas, I think the expectation of total objectivity is ludicrous. Inevitably, a student will sue a professor for critiquing their argument, and this will have a chilling effect upon rigorous academic debate.

The only way teachers should teach intelligent design in a classroom is if they teach the origins of man that every other religion espouses. Evolution is scientific based (as opposed to religious/pseudo science based); therefore it should be valued above other views in an academic environment.

Teaching evolution does not prevent students from voicing dissenting views, it simply restrains professors from advocating a specific religion. In my experience, professors are respectful when students express opposing views. Complaints against a professor should be dealt with by the university instead of in a court room.

The one thing that this bill has made me think about though is my own views of religious students. If a classmate prefaces a statement with "I'm a Christian conservative," I instantly discredit what they say. While I still don't think this is justification for a special bill, I am going to attempt to be more sensitive of the difficulties that religious students face on traditionally liberal campuses.

So there you go, anything can happen if Republicans can improve my tolerance. That's an optimistic note to end on...right?

Wake Up

My original plan for this week was to deviate from whining about how self-absorbed and lazy I am, and write a more uplifting entry about positive changes in society. However, Chris Sheppard talked to my reporting class last night, and I got sucked right back into cynicism. Bear with me.

Chris Sheppared is an ASU graduate student who has served two tours of duty in the Iraq War. While I am appreciative of soldiers' service to the country, I generally don't go out of my way to befriend them. I think one of the reasons that I avoid soldiers is because I stereotype them to be macho, ignorant and overly patriotic.

I grew up in a small town in Michigan, which is prime recruiting territory for the military. However, when I was in high school, the only people that enlisted were people who had gotten their girlfriends pregnant or dropped out of school. Not exactly the type of people that you want carrying guns.

Chris, on the other hand, is both intelligent and willing to criticize the government. I'm sure if I stopped being so damn ignorant, I would realize that there are many other soldiers like him. One of the criticisms that he made is that is unethical for our society to let the lower classes fight our wars for us. He believes that mandatory service, similar to Israel's program, should be required.

While I absolutely despise the idea of war, and think it is one of the most tragic themes of history that mankind cannot find other ways to settle differences, I accept that it is inevitable. Given this, I fully agree with Chris's opinion.

At the beginning of the Iraq War, Representative Rangel proposed a mandatory draft. He had voted against the Iraq War, and believed that representatives would be more cautious with war decisions if they knew their own kids would have to suffer the consequences.

I have a huge moral objection to war, and would hate to go to Iraq. However, perhaps even more despicable than the Iraq War, is the fact that I am mooching of the sacrifices of the lower class. It's about as moral as Rockefeller buying a summer house with money that he should have used to pay his exhausted workers.

Last November, when I was getting drunk on Bourbon Street, Chris was watching his friends' die. That doesn't really strike me as fair.

I'm not saying that the whole country should suffer for the entire period of war, but the state of oblivion that most of us live in is appalling. Take my reporting class for example. My professor usually lets the class out at 6:30 p.m. Last night, Chris's speech went past 8:30 p.m.

While none of classmates were disrespectful enough to leave, I saw numerous people roll their eyes at each other and point at their watches. Seriously, if a class of potential journalists doesn't have the time to listen to a soldier, who does? I find it sickening that people believe that the war has nothing to do with them. Perhaps a mandatory draft would make these people more respectful.

When talking about one of his friends who was killed, Chris got choked up and had to stop for a few minutes to compose himself. I will accept that people are selfish enough to lack interest in the war, but a lack of compassion for a person standing in front of you is really intolerable.

I am sure that speaking about the war is therapeutic for Chris. Like he told us, many soldiers will probably end up returning to America, and putting a bullet through their heads. The least my classmates could have done was let Chris achieve some therapeutic relief without begrudging the fact that he was taking up their time.

City of God

So I am a little behind on the movie scene, but, I finally did manage to watch City of God, which is an amazing film. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a foreign movie based on a true story of an impoverished and violent community in Rio de Janeiro.

The movie is riveting, but painful to watch since it features images of little kids shooting each other. On the DVD, there is a documentary about the City of God included in the extra footage. It is just as mind-blowing as the film.

When the chief of police in Rio de Janeiro is interviewed in the documentary, he admits that the police are trying to protect the status quo instead of making the slums a better place to live. Basically, they have turned their backs on City of God citizens, and are just trying to contain the violence so that it does not affect Rio de Janeiros' tourists and middle class.

After watching this film, I suffered from extreme guilt. This is the exact way that I felt after watching Hotel Rwanda. I believe that people makes these movies to motivate people to become socially active, and to educate society so that it will not perpetuate similar atrocities.

While I think being enlightened is important, it also increases my guilt. I am fully aware of the injustices that exist in the world, yet I do nothing to help. I am entirely absorbed in the struggles of being a broke student--poor me.

My apathy has been a constant source of self-loathing. One one hand, I think that I am being too hard on myself because there is nothing that I can really do to stop women from being gang raped in Pakistan, or end starvation in Africa. On the other hand, I think that admitting defeat without making an effort is pathetic.

Sure I've donated some time and money to volunteering, but I've always made education my top priority instead of humanitarian efforts. I have conflicting opinions about the value of education, especially higher-level education.

While I think that schooling does generally cause people to become more tolerant citizens, I also think that it contributes to a culture of ambivalence. Take my current class on freedom of press. The only consensus that the class has come to over the course of the semester is that there is no easy solution to protecting both people's civil liberties and the welfare of the state. And this same sort of circular discussion has permeated most of my college classes. Indeciveseness seems to be the hallmark of critical thinking.

Growing up, I was dragged to Mass every Sunday. I always thought it would be a better idea if, instead of attending service, the congregation actually volunteered somewhere for an hour. Practice what you preach. And I feel the same way about school a lot of the time. Why doesn't my freedom of press class start a protest against the Patriot Act instead of just talking about how idiotic it is?

These days, I over-think everything. I don't want to contribute money to the poor citizens in Rio de Janeiro because they might use the money to buy a gun that may kill a police officer. I don't want to contribute to the police because they may use the money to brutally keep the citizens mired in their sub-standard living conditions.

I justified attending journalism school by telling myself that I was going to one day write stories and make documentaries that exposed social evils. While I still dream of this, I wonder if my work will actually rally my audience to action, or if it will just confirm individuals' sense of helplessness.

Let Gays Marry

I don't understand what the big deal is with gays getting married. I've heard people argue that allowing gays to marry makes traditional, heterosexual marriages less meaningful. Have these people ever read a celebrity magazine? If society wants to protect the sanctity of marriage, then individuals would be better served to make laws banning actors and actresses from coupling.

Why do people feel the need to measure their relationship against everybody else's? It's like people can't be happy unless their relationship fits into a neatly defined box. Love is hard enough to find, why should society begrudge anyone from experiencing it?

In college, I moved into a house with two girls who both had boyfriends. Three years later, they are a happy couple living together in LA. Was it strange to realize that two of my best friends had fallen in love with each other? Yes, definitely yes. But did this revelation cause me to do anything so silly as to question whether they were checking me out the entire time that we were living together? Absolutely not.

The stereotyping of gays as sexual deviants is unjust. I think this is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church implied when they began an examination of gay priests following news of the church's sex scandals. It is insulting to insinuate that there is a link between homosexuality and child molestation.

While the Roman Catholic Church irritates me on numerous levels, I at least can rationalize their opposition to gays. The Bible speaks out against homosexuality, so it makes sense that church laws don't condone it. However, I have no way to justify the various legislative movements that have occurred throughout the U.S. to ban gay marriage.

Nothing in our Constitution disallows homosexuality. In fact, the First Amendment guarantees citizens' right to freedom of religion. Opposition to matters such as homosexuality or abortion are religious objections; therefore, I object to laws being made against either issue. Let people exercise their right to freedom of religion by making their own choices.

Gay rights are the civil rights issue of my generation. Discrimination against both gays and blacks are based upon archaic stereotypes. Many liberal-minded people that I know are alright with people being gay, but don't understand why they have to get married--especially in states where gay couples already receive tax breaks.

Sure the economic benefits are nice, but the big issue is acceptance. By banning gay marriage, our society sends homosexuals the message that their relationships are unequal to homosexual ones. Apparently, Anna Nicole Smith's motives in marrying a 80-something-year-old are much easier to tolerate than two females who actually love each other taking their vows.

WNBA player, Sheryl Swoops, recently admitted that she is a lesbian. She said that one of the reasons why she waited so long to come out was because she was afraid that kids would no longer look up to her as a role model. Sure, it's fine to look up to the alleged-rapist Kobe Bryant, but heaven forbid if kids admire a lesbian.

To add a silver lining for my optimistic friend Nancie Dodge, I predict that gay marriage will be allowed in most states within the next 20 years. One of the great qualities about Americans is that we do tend to eventually adopt tolerant positions on controversial issues. But do we have to be so slow???

LAZY ENVRIONMENTALISM

As I drove to school today, I listened to Rush Limbaugh spew his hate all over Mother Nature. He called the Democrats "wacko" and "anti-progress" for opposing such proposals as ANWR. A caller asked Rush if he should feel guilty about buying a big Christmas tree, and Rush advised him to buy three trees and burn the first two. Now there is progress for you. Perhaps Rush has been eating too much mercury soaked fish.

I understand that environmental regulations can be very costly for small companies, but come on. Is losing employees to cancer caused by toxins really a better option? According to the Sierra Club, "State and federal governments allowed polluters to dump more than 175 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals into our air and water in 1996." Just check out my photo and tell me if you would be brave enough to stick your big toe in that water?

Since Republicans are supposedly supportive of the business community and compassionate about humans, why aren't they more supportive of tax breaks that would encourage companies to reduce pollution?

And here is where my horribly embarrassing, hypocritical confession emerges. I don’t recycle. Isn't it awful? When Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu signed the budget proposal at the end of last year that supported ANWR, I wrote her an extremely nasty letter claiming that irresponsible politicians like her made me not want to bring children into our filthy world. I fault a woman for crumbling under the extreme pressure of Louisiana oil riggers, yet I can't drag myself to a recycling center. Who do I think I am?

During my undergraduate career, I was my house recycler. Ann Arbor provided recycling service to the entire city and I was more than happy to drag my green bins to the curb on a weekly basis.

Upon moving to Phoenix, I was idealistic about doing my part to save the environment until I realized that the city of Glendale doesn't provide curbside recycling service to apartment buildings. This derailed me for a while. I had a hard time getting excited about an overfilled bin of garbage riding around in my backseat.

However, pangs of guilt soon washed over me and I finally went to Glendale's recycling website and printed out all of the information about where to take my papers and plastics. I vowed to buy recycling bins the next time that I went shopping.

It's five months later, and I still haven't bought bins.

Intellectually, I realize that my apathetic actions are inexcusable. Emotionally, I rationalize my laziness by telling myself that one person recycling doesn't make a difference. I sound like the numerous members of my peer group who explain not voting by saying that one vote doesn't matter.

I need to recycle and my generation needs to vote. It's time to stop my arrogance and realize that I'm never going to be Mother Theresa. Even if recycling aluminum cans doesn't save a person's life, it still makes the world a tad bit better. The Supreme Court's decision in Bush V. Gore may have validated the non-voters' claim that the popular vote is meaningless, but I'd still rather say that I voted against Bush than sat at home on Election Day. And when my kids ask me in ten years why they can't eat fish, I want to be able to say that I at least tried to clean up the earth.

What happened to MTV?

Growing up, I was effectively blocked by my parents’ HBO password from watching any adult movies. However their ignorance of MTV entitled my babysitter and me to a cornucopia of music videos and edgy documentaries. If you ask me, I think I got the better end of the deal. I would much rather watch TLC dress up in condoms than watch Richard Gere and Julia Roberts idealize prostitution.

MTV was both daring and informative in the 1980s and 1990s. It aired documentaries about real people with real sexually transmitted diseases. It promoted freedom of expression and gave youth a forum to discuss matters that were important to them. Even the first seasons of The Real World, the absolute peak of MTV, were designed to explore issues of sexuality and race in the hope of enriching the public’s understanding. Clearly, this differs from the more recent episodes where nymphomania seems to be the only problem that the casting directors embrace.

MTV has always been oversexed but, in the good old days, it seemed to care about representing the voice of youth. Its recent focus upon the rich is an unwelcome change.

My unease with MTV began a few years ago with the debut of Rich Girls. Having formed a strong bond with MTV, I stuck with Ally Hillfiger and her equally spoiled sidekick long enough to watch them buy everything in sight in LA and make pseudo-profound comments about starving children in Ethiopia. If Rich Girls was MTV’s way of showcasing ignorance, then fine, I could have dealt with it. In fact, I probably would have even called it a brilliant social commentary on vanity. However, the lineup that has followed over the last few years makes it clear that MTV has officially abandoned its social and political agenda.

With the creation of such shows as Laguna Beach and Sweet Sixteen, MTV has joined the competing networks’ quest to celebrate the most worthless human beings. Being a broke college student who has worked a slew of miserable jobs since high school, I find the teenagers’ sense of self-entitlement on these shows absolutely insulting. It is appalling that so many 16-year-olds feel justified to scream at their parents for not buying them a new car.

Old habits die hard, and I still flip to MTV at the end of a mind-numbing day hoping to find an inspiring show--the kind that they used to feature. Or, at the very least, a program that is entertaining in an informative way as opposed to a “I can’t believe these people really exist” way. But I am consistently dissapointed.

In all fairness, MTV’s Rock the Vote is an excellent project, and their series True Life does usually feature individuals who are struggling with serious crises. However, these types of programs seem to be on the way out the door while there is no end in sight to Sweet Sixteen, Cribs (check out a funny mock of Cribs), The Ashlee Simpson Show and other programs that pander to the wealthy and self-absorbed. MTV may have earned my loyalty in the '90s, but I think I may cancel my cable package if I watch one more adolescent spend the equivalent of my weekly salary on a pedicure.

A recent New York Times article revealed the results of a Yale survey that found that 60 percent of Yale women plan on stopping their careers once they have children. While some do plan on returning on a part-time basis, others said that they wanted to become permanent homemakers. I’d provide a link to the article but the new “Times Select” policy makes it impossible to view without paying a fee--damn capitalism.

Therefore I’ll link you to a LA Times editorial where Karen Stabiner makes a great point that these woman must be planning on a “cushy” existence since it is nearly impossible for a family to survive on a single paycheck in this day and age.

I am reminded of my freshman year roommate who dreamed of being a “trophy wife” and would study at the law library in hopes of snagging a rich husband.

Then there’s me. Growing up I found the idea of becoming a housewife repulsive--I didn’t even want to have children. Unlike the rest of the female race, I just didn’t seem to be programmed to go gaga over babies. I thought the idea of a biological clock was some sort of myth men had spread to further enslave women.

Then, all of a sudden, my clock kicked in! I find myself actually stopping now when I pass babies and I have even started to experience feelings of jealousy when I see pregnant women.

While I’m definitely planning on delaying kids for a couple of years (let’s hope marriage comes first), I’m thinking more and more about how they fit into my lifestyle. And, Anna Quindlen cover your ears, I have even thought about staying home until my kids are all in school.

While Anna Quindlen is sympathetic to the conundrum of working mothers, she recently wrote an editorial in Newsweek expressing remorse that females of my generation did not seem to have as much appreciation for our right to work as her generation does.

Personally, I think I am very appreciative of the changes that the woman’s right movement achieved. However, I think the past generation’s diehard work attitude is not necessarily the healthiest idea. Some people do actually love their job, but I think a greater number find work repetitive and would prefer to stay at home for at least part of the day. The lesson of the woman’s right movement should be that women should be allowed to follow their passions—not just obtain employment.

I think it is my generation’s job to make political changes that makes it easier for parents to take care of their children. Most countries have shorter work days than America and provide cheaper and better child care services. I think our goal should be that a parent from every family, not just Ivy Leaguers, should be able to afford to stay at home.