Corpses on Sidewalks

Snow, rain, rain, sleet, hail, snow.
That is what I shoveled today. I would compare it to shoveling corpses off of concrete, but I don’t know exactly if that is an accurate description as I have yet to attempt such a thing. Although, I can hardly think it would be much different.
I find that snowplows are really inconvenient. Sure, they get the snow off of the roads, but they also pile it high at the end of my driveway so that I have an icy, snowy, and packed wall of precipitation blocking the single exit from my house.

My most recent strategy of avoiding calendars  has worked quite well — last week went quite fast, and I expect nothing less of this week. However, I overheard someone say it was December already, but I will ignore this fact and pretend it is October. If I pretend it is October than May should creep right up on me and it will feel like time has flown by.

In other news, I applied to UW-Milwaukee and Madison last week. I should be hearing from Milwaukee within the next week or two, but Madison is supposed to take 6-8 weeks which is absolutely ridiculous.
Wish me luck.

No Look

I have decided it would be a good idea to stop looking at what day it is. It seems every time I know what day it is, this school year continues to feel slower and longer.

As far as I know, today is the day between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

No More Days Off

For the past two weeks I have had Mondays off from school as well as two half-days each week. Next week we have five days off. I think I’m alone in saying this but, I am really sick of the days off.

I would rather have no days off except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Why not just plow through the year and get it over with?

I say high school needs to end; college needs to start.

Strike

When I first heard about the Writer’s strike, I laughed a little. I laughed because I thought there was no way that the network executives would give in to the writers’ demands. I also laughed because people going on strike is in itself funny — they have silly chants, silly signs, and they march around like silly ants.

It wasn’t until I heard that The Office (the greatest show on television right now) only has a few more episodes completely written and will go to reruns if the network honchos don’t give in. That news got me to stop laughing and made me seriously think about this issue.

Basically these writers are striking because they feel they don’t receive enough money and, with the rise of YouTube and web-streaming (which I use very frequently), believe that they aren’t getting a fair share of profit considering how much of their intellectual property is being distributed. To me, I always thought the idea of strict copyrighting was silly — this is why I only have a Creative Commons license on my photography. But, I do understand the writers’ cry for higher pay considering the massive chasm between what writers earn and what actors earn.
It isn’t fair.
Writers by comparison do so much more and possess greater talent than actors (this is, of course, my opinion).

So, my solution to this problem is to:

1. Pay actors less across the board. They don’t need to be earning 5 million a year to do a television show.
2. With the money saved from cutting the actors payroll, pay the writers more.
3. Don’t let The Office go to reruns.

Colbert Can’t Run

As some people already know, Steven Colbert has been denied the ability to run for president in the ‘08 presidential elections by the South Carolina Democratic Party. Although I’m not sure if he was entirely serious about running for president, it does bring up a good point about our the political process of becoming elected: everyone should be able to run if they meet the requirements set in the Constitution. Those simple requirements are that the candidate must be an American born citizen, have no major criminal record, and be at least 35 years old. Colbert met all of those and yet the party wouldn’t let him run.

Why is it that even though the requirements are met, Republican and Democratic parties will not let ordinary people run? This is the problem with our two-party system — they already have a huge stage to work with and won’t let anyone else share the spotlight. In a way, this has created a sort of monopoly on our national politics. It isn’t about who votes, it is about which few leaders decide if a candidate can run. This is hardly democratic or fair and goes against basically every principle America was founded upon.

I really don’t see the harm in letting ordinary people run under the Republican or Democratic ticket. If the people don’t want that person to get elected, then they won’t get elected. What’s to worry about? Instead of this, we get stuck with two candidates who have been swimming in money their whole lives (or most of it), and are mostly removed from the values that make the majority of America work.

I’m glad Colbert is making light of the situation, he could really bring up a lot of reasons why it isn’t fair.
Maybe I’m just over-reacting because my AP Government class has been talking about the lack of third-party candidates in America all week. Although, I don’t think I’m over-reacting. I’ve thought for a long time that anyone should be able to run. I’ve never been able to come to understand why in the world ordinary people can’t/don’t run for office.
I’m curious as to what others think about this.