Friday, April 08, 2005

Brace yourselves this might be a long one.

Well I am back. I got back from the Omega conference that was in New York City this last weekend. This was the reason that I haven’t written in my Blog for eons and eons. Yes I did fall off the face of the earth. Sorry to those of you who read this sometimes. I didn’t really forget a bout you I just was very very busy.

I got to work 12 – 14 hour days and yell at people all weekend.

NE way… this is becoming my fish story. It gets bigger every time I tell it… that is when I realize that I need to stop telling the story and move on.

It went well.

When I got home I tried to tell people about it, starting with my family. We have a Website on Myfamily.com dedicated to our family on my fathers side. We like it. So I decided to write on there to tell them all about the things I have been doing. To clue them in on my life here. Because it seems that all everybody was saying this winter is how they thought I had died or something because I never told them how things were going. Right? So I am making my effort. Well… the only person who seemed to care was my Aunt. And she didn’t really care so much about what is important to me, but more important to her. Because of coarse if I worked long hours at the Omega Conference then I didn’t spend enough time doing what she wanted which was watching the LDS Conference. Blast it… I can’t win for loosing.

You know it’s a good thing that I have good humor about all of this. They sure do give me a lot of fodder to start hating that church. I know people who hate things for a lot less than what I am given when it comes to this religion.

Don’t worry. I don’t hate it. I just don’t care for some of the opinions that some of its practitioners cram down my throats. And as far as I can see they aren’t even the views of the Church at all. I can’t remember if it is the 11th or another commandment, but I think that it says something like we like to practice our religion as we see fit and allow others the same courtesy. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Well off my soap box about that.

I just watched 2 very good movies. (I am giving myself time to unwind from the conference by taking time off from work and just relaxing)

The first is Magnolia.

Wow… What a marvelous movie. I was sooo impressed. And dumbstruck. I highly recommend. I was planning on writing more but realized that I don’t want to give anything away. So watch it and enjoy.

The other is Maria Full of Grace.

Another impressive movie. Because most people I know don’t like movies with subtitles ZI will tell you more about this because you might not see it anyway. So warning this contains spoilers. But I love to see the world from the eyes of someone that I don’t normally think of looking through. This time we get to experience the story of Maria Alvarez who lives in Colombia. She is trapped in a world where she feels her only escape is to accept a job as a Mule for a drug trafficker. If you don’t know what a mule is, it is someone who swallows cocaine capsules to smuggle them into the United States. It’s very dangerous and people can die very easily from this. While I was watching this I couldn’t help but think of two things that believe in very strongly.

One is that I can’t believe that we have the nerve to claim this land as our own, call it a free country and then kick others out. First off it isn’t our land. If you get down to it, it’s Gods land and who the hell are we to say we deserve it over any of gods other children. Second, it isn’t free. If we made drugs legal the drug “war” would be over. People would be able to buy it without killing or stealing for it. The traffic trade would disintegrate into an import and export that could be managed and taxed into revenue \for the government. (maybe we could start researching and building better schools instead of better bombs, but that’s just crazy Idealistic talk now) yes there would still be the addiction and that would be something that we would have to deal with. But I think that it could be managed especially since we seem to be managing alcohol and cigarettes just fine. Well ok I don’t know that much about the really hard stuff to say we can manage. But I do know enough about marijuana to say that it is absolutely ridiculous that it is illegal.

Neway… the other is why we give ourselves permission to kick people out of America when they are doing the same thing that our ancestors did. They felt oppressed by the government so they moved. That is all that the people there want to do. Chris Rock says in one of his stand up routines “Why do we feel like we belong here more than someone else? We didn’t do anything to be here. All we did was come out of our mothers. And now we feel like we are entitled or something. If you came over from Cuba in a barrel, then YOU deserve to be an American. Because that is the American way. Or the American dream. It’s how this country was started.” Well… this wasn’t word for word but you got the gist with out the profanities. I believe that very much.

Ne way…

I feel like I might burst with all the exasperation that I feel when I think of the typical American.

“Why they gotta come oer here an take r jobs an not e'en know the language?”
(Is there anyone out there, other than someone who studies our language for a living, that can speak our language?) And by the way there is no National Language for the United States of America. So back off buddy, and show some compassion toward your fellow human being.

It’s most funny to see because these people are most likely the ones that go into another country and act like buffoons and give Americans a bad name. “excusa mea. Doa Youa Speaka Englisha?” Like putting an A at the end of every word makes it French.

Well … I think that I need to learn a third language. I would like to learn at least one other spoken language so that I can have a better time in Europe when I go there. Who knows maybe I can pretend not to be an American so I won’t get taken advantage of, or made fun of. Sad that stupid Americans make me ashamed of the country I love sooo much. And I bet they are the ones who say they don’t have time to get into politics.

Ne way…

Love ya
dlb

Oh yeah p.s… I forgot to abridge a previous statement. Utah doesn’t have one of the highest pregnancy rates in the country… Texas does. Or something like that. I was mistaken. Making Statistics up from my experience. But you know what they say… those who know the least, yell it the loudest. So I guess I know the least.

But abstinence only programs taught in schools are still not the solution
dlb
mr dlb style