I've Moved (On)

This site is obsolete. Check out my new blog at www.whatitscometo.com.

My Aunt Can't Spell "Potato!"

What has become of us? My family got an email from my aunt today about dinner at her house:

"Can you make a LARGE fruit salad for 16 people
Potatoe or Pasta dish for
16
Vegetable dish for 16

Thanks sweetie."

I was flabbergasted until I figured out why: her husband is a Republican. Yes, one of those elephantine rich dudes.

He's an economist. Apparently, one of the best in the world. And he's so smart, but kind of testy sometimes. If you say something he doesn't agree with he will rebut you so swiftly and so skillfuly that you are left holding you bloody argument in your hand.

But back to tubers: you'd think my aunt (really nice, she's a great person) would have learned a lesson from Mister Quayle and his famous incidident. This shows you how disorganized our family is. I think that every year we should round up all our relatives and have a meeting in which we debriefe them on issues like these to prevent anymore shameful mixups. This isn't going anywhere, so... Bye for now.

Dude, Is This Cool

This came from a popular chain letter. The best chain letter I ever got.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt! Tahts so cool!!!

A Terribly Dark Poem

Black

Black air, Black light, Black baby dream.
Black lair, Black fright, Black virgin scream.

Black dead death: formaldehyde,
but it's not as bad as my Black inside.

By Zak

Sorry. That was scary. I needed a vent.

On the Internet

I'm sitting alone in the jet black sorrow,
searching for what I did today and what I'll do tomorrow.
Looking through the pages for who I am,
knowing that the world is just more spam.
So many others out sitting like me,
but I can't feel them through the wires that "set me free,"
Oh so many others out there sit like me.

Fingers type for my material goods,
my mind flirts through reluctant moods
,and my little heart just beats and broods,
late into the darkness.

My self, my word, my beat inside,
it's chilled and left me with the tide,
my heart has gone on override.
I'm googling "heart stop button."

Why are we reduced to this:
giving in to ebay's kiss.
Why do we just sit and miss
ourselves and our analog love.


P.S. Rhyming schemes are kinda hard.
I know that I sound like a tard.

McDonalds McPoem

You know I hate the cutesy stuff, but this poem says something through it, something I should take into account. I don't know who it's by...

God help you if you are an ugly girl
Course too pretty is also your doom
Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
For the prettiest girl in the room
And God help you if you are a phoenix
And dare to rise up from the ash
Cause a million eyes will smolder with jealousy
While you are just flying past...

This was from a forum discussing rape and muslim culture. Enlightened males will enjoy reading these women's eloquent denunciations and explanations of the cultural ideas surrounding rape: http://www.muslimwakeup.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=942&view=previous&

PS ugogirl!

The CIA Wants My Science Fair Project

There were judges from the CIA at the city science fair today. They liked my project, which involved the building and optimization of my computer, SETIStar, to search for extraterrestials in this galaxy (setisciencefair.blogspot.com). But the CIA guys probably thought that I was gonna use it to help the Russians, because one of them was silent and bald and just kept scribbling on a little blue notepad. Or maybe, as my step-dad suggested, they were from the Men In Black or something. They'll be looking at the data that my computer is scanning and see that it contains alien signals, and they'll be like "he knows to much." Then they'll take out the neuralizer and those black glasses and they'll be like "nice project. Too bad you won't remember any of it." And then there'd be this flash of red light, but I'd close my eyes first, so they'd be like uh-oh, and I'd karate chop them, then grab their guns (of course they have guns) and run up the wall shooting backwards behind me, hitting an innocent math geek and one of the agents, but then he'd Enter the Body of the hairy judge lady, but then I'd be right next to him witht the gun pointed at him and I'd be like "dodge this!" and then I wouldn't shoot him and he'd give me a scholarship.

I love being nuts.

Rant About the City Science Fair

Today was the city science fair. I got to go because I did well in my school-wide. The judges were cool and nice and met the whole geek contingent from Wilson Hight. This one dude was kind of cool but he was a math fiend and he had a unibrow. I tied for first place out of the three people in the computer science category. Then the next round of judges came and tried to figure out my project. They didn't seem to understand a single word I said, and this bitchy blond lady started leaning her filthy elbow on my pristine case. They were fidgeting like little kids and looking at the floor and at me like I was stupid and boring. But everyone else had the same problems with them, so it's probably not a bad sign competition-wise. Tomorrow, I find out if I placed (I'd go to the next round in Arizona) or got an award from a special judge from an independent organization like the CIA, who seemed to like my project. I bet they're gonna go and cross-examine me from their scary looking building downtown. But I should be nice to them because apparently those corporations are coughing up $20,000 of prizes tomorrow.
- Show quoted text -

YoMamaology

Today in the cafeteria, as I was going through the usual motions of trying to be cool while eating a 4-inch mound of stewed green beans, I started jonin' on somebody's mama. I do this ALL the time. *Yo Mama's so fat, her volume is 4/3 pi times the cube of her radius!* There it goes again. But I was realizing that when I jone on people's mamas, I'm usually not really trying to put them down; I'm just sort of making a little turd of wit that mildly insults whoever I direct it at. That volume joke could just as well be directed at your broker's mama, not yours, and it would serve the same purpose-to make the teller, me, look smart.

This, along with some flamboyant hand gesticulations, led to my developing of YoMamaology, a new, and exceedingly bullshitty brand of philosophy dealing with yo mama jokes. Here goes:

The basic tenet of YoMamaology is that yo mama jokes (at least the kind that are told in good fun) are not directed at the other person's mama, but at a sort of universal entity. This entity takes a little hit for everyone's mamas, so jokes toward it aren't that insulting to this one dude your jonin' on's mama. The jokes just show how witty you are. At lunch I said that this universal mama entity represents the Tao of all mamas, existing in a kind of Platonic Super-Reality (Trademark). Perhaps it represents mother nature, parent to all living things.

I can't believe I just wrote a whole post about that. So I'll deny it-yo mama wrote it.

Mr. Cerf and Coming of Age in the Digital Era

I introduced my brother to The Internets today, at least one part of Them: instant messaging. I'm finally setting up an AIM account for him so he can chat with his friends. He doesn't have that many friends at school, but I hope he'll find more on the internet. (He's not popular at school because all the other kids are Hell Munchkins.) He's resisted this for a long time, but now he's ready to enjoy the true bounty of the world wide web. He asked me to think up an SN that was wierd and cool. I said PizzaYak. He said Can'tYodel. I said YodelYak. Then I said MamaSaidYodel. This was mahvelous, so we stuck with it. If anybody wants to meet my little brother, who's almost as cool as me, shoot him an IM at MamaSaidYodel on AIM.

Speaking of The Internets, I met Their creators. *God who does not exist, was it cool!* We crossed paths at an award dinner for presidential science and technology laureates. I think our meeting was preordained by some higher power, like google.com or the devil. I looked up at the guy-there were two-who invented TCP/IP, and I'm like "I love the Internet!" right in his face like I was talking about some new kind of ostrichburger or something. The dude's like "Me too!" We really hit it off. The funny thing is, his name was Cerf. I said "That's an appropriate name! Hahaha!" No one else at my table thought of that stupid two-bit pun. (As in, I'm CERFing the Internet.) So then we walked over and started talking about TCP/IP, and I'm like "I thought Al Gore invented the internet." We laughed. For all of you who don't know me, I'm not that stupid, ergo that was a joke. So anyway, I was totally in awe of these two guys. It was awsome. Think about how much of our lives you and I owe to them. Without the internet, I wouldn't have any way to comfortably talk to girls! Another f*cking lame pun.

Anyway, I guess you can see that now the internet is such a seminal part of American life that coming of age requires getting a screen name. That's deep, huh? Deep and shocking.

My Career In World Domination

Do you think this will come true? Post a comment.

After college, I will go into accounting. This unassuming field will serve as a disguise for my actual ambition: world domination. I’ll start out by leading the liberal Universal Peace SuperHappyism movement. It will stress love, freewill, and fair conduct. The crux of SuperHappyist philosophy will be a kind of communism that respects all people according to their merit, not their religion, income, gender, race, ethnicity, age, location or favored barbeque meat. I’m sure people will buy into this.

Religion and Politics

There is a difference between separation of
church and state and separation of religion and state. In Feudal
Europe, the church not only influenced the government with moral and
ethical/religious initiatives, but had literal economic and government
power. The church officials in certain countries controlled more
wealth than large parts of the government. So when the church was
separated from the state, it not only weakened the hold of the ethical
and moral/religious standards of the church on the government, but
allowed the rulers in control of the state's secular existence to
actually rule the state in the first place. That is "separation of
church and state."

Even now in the USA, where church and state are still separated, we do
not have an atheistic government. Government leaders still take their
ethical and moral/religious ideas into account when making a decision,
and nothing can be done about that. Their religion is part of the
ruler's identities as human beings, and nothing can be done about
that. So we have separation of church and state, but not separation of
religion and state.

Take Israel as a real-example: they have purposeful fusion of religion
and state, which is a tenet of the country's identity. If they were
to separate religion and state in Israel, it would not be a Jewish
state. The question is, should Israel eliminate the fusion of church
and state which still remains there. And it does remain; you know that
having a Jewish mother allows you admission to Israel, and there are
government decisions made with the ulterior motive of keeping a
predominance of Jews.

So... modern political philosophy, being based on the real, tangible
world, requires separation of church and state, but not complete
separation of religion and state, since "religion" encompasses moral
standards that even atheists like me hold. If we killed the religion
in Bush, he would likely lose his weak moral ideas, (remember, this is
a hypothetical situation) ideas that are applicable to the real,
secular world as well as his twisted religion. Democratic religious politics is NOT
simply about separating religion and church from the state,
although it may include that. It's about putting things in an
orientation that is relevant to the world, and right now that means at least some blurring between religion and state.

Imani on Neurology

My friend Imani rocks. Here is her theory about the evolution of the brain (edited by yours truly):

The human brain is probably the most studied organ in the body. Not only do scientists study what it can do but how it go to this point, they ask if it will get any bigger. I also have these same questions, but I have my own theories about why it expanded and whether it will get any bigger. Maybe it got bigger due to evolution or the body knew it needed more knowledge. In this essay, I plan to express to you my theories on the past and future of the brain.

I unfortunately have only two short theories on why the brain expanded. My first theory is that maybe the brain got bigger due to evolution; maybe it was just its time to do so. My other theory is that the brain is so advanced and complex that it knew it needed more knowledge to survive, the same way the brain knows to knock you out when you hold your breath, so it can survive. It may be a stupid theory, but does make sense, right?

My first theory on the future of human brain size is that the human brain is expanding. It is called cancer. Although people die, the cells are reproducing at an abnormal rate, more than they do in average humans. The brain is still expanding and chemotherapy is holding it back. So I believe that brain cancer is an example of the expanding brain. Now you may wonder, "What is she talking about?," so I have developed another theory that will support this theory. And I have a quote from Einstein :)

The great genius Einstein said that we only use 10% of our brains. And that with the right amount of brain power, we wouldn't need our bodies. So maybe, just maybe, these brain cancer victims aren't dying. Their brains have grown to the point where they don't need their bodies anymore. So when they leave their bodies, we think it is death, but they are actually just using their extra brain tissue. I know you probably think I'm crazy, but just think about it. Maybe cancer is just extremely fast evolution! Don't you think the Neanderthals looked at the Cro-Magnons weird with their big heads? Yes! So just think about it and it will start to make sense.


I hope that through this essay you know my theories. I don't expect you to understand, because you only use 10% of your brain, but just hear me out! Thank you for you time.

The Presidential Debate: The Resident vs. The President

Salem-Keizer Scoring Guide
John Kerry
19
George Bush
12

Bush vs. Kerry

John Kerry’s argument was better presented, supported and delivered than George Bush’s. The senator delivered his ideas on foreign policy clearly and supported them with factual evidence and historical references. All though he started off the debate scared by Bush’s incumbency, the audience found him relaxed less than ten minutes in. Kerry fell slightly short of my standards when he failed to use vivid vocabulary, but made up for his error by rapidly putting a halt to the president’s insistent hedging. Bush avoided answering pointed questions and intellectually supporting his ideology, equivocating by falling back on his clichéd American value speeches. Our president also provided his trademark circular argument, scolding Kerry’s campaign for scaring troops in Iraq, and misused a ninth-grade vocabulary word: “vociferously.”

Does This Flaming Revolutionary Sermon Make Sense?

With Communism eradicated, the next large-scale economic issue for Democratic countries to resolve will be the moral corruption of Globalization. Globalization has opened the door for many international economic opportunities, but so far only mega corporations have taken advantage of the world’s new economic interdependency. They have mainly outsourced, which only benefits a select few rich individuals and corporations. New transportation and communication technology should help small businesses and independent workers by providing goods and services at lower costs and reducing inflation. A step like this will likely be carried out by the U.N. or another globally presiding body, since Bill Gates (worth forty six billion dollars) and Phil Knight (worth five billion dollars) don’t intend to give up any of their precious income to independent convenience store owners in Guatemala.

Political Correctness

Here's a definition of political correctness for all you honest, American folks (courtesy of urbandictionary.com):

Political Correctness: See "bullshit." Proof that George Orwell was way ahead of his time when he wrote his "1984" novel.

Examples of politically correct bullshit:

midget = vertically challenged
fat = horizontally challenged
perverted = sexually dysfunctional
alive = temporarily metabolically abled
Negro = African American
Indian = Native American
Anyone from Central America, South America, or the Carribean = Hispanic
body odor = nondiscretionary fragrance
dishonest = ethically disoriented
gay = different
wrong = differently logical
dead = living impaired
pregnant = parasitically opressed
fired = laid off
poor = financially inept
homeless = residentially flexible
tall = person of height
garbage-man = sanitation engineer
blind = visually challenged

Designer Crap and Spiders and Bulgaria in Cambodia

I went to a party in the suburbs today. Most of the kids there were jerks by some standard. The one that took the proverbial cake was a muscley hot shot wearing some piece of transparent designer crap. He thinks he’s so cool because he doesn’t know what cool is. He’s never thought past whether his friends laugh at his petty jokes or not. Typical bozo. Yesterday he wore mismatched shoes and rudely imitated my voice, whose melodious intricacies he fail to communicate. Duh.

I can do more than just complain.

To avoid people like him I hung out with my Smart Friend from Bulgaria in Cambodia (He lives in an embassy compound.) and his friendly cousin. We played foosball and watched a spider spin her web. My Smart Friend is fifteen and knew all about spiders. He said that their muscles can only close their legs, not open them. They use a pressurized fluid to hydraulically open them when they relax their muscles. This is why a dead spider’s legs, drained of fluid, bend closed with the pull of the muscles. This reminds me of a flower closing.

Bam!

There aren't words to describe what a huge day this was. Very passionate. Smash bang. Wiz zam. Halleluja amen. I feel good! This might sound strange, but I just saw spiderman 2. Whenever I see an action movie I feel this way afterward. I feel scared and then happy then amazed then terrified. Afterwards it's like I've been taken apart and put back together again with all the kinks taken out. I know that was irrelevant to the rest of my blog, but I thought you'd like to know what's going on with me. YEAH!

Thanks--
Zak

Country Bill

I have a new acquaintance, Country Bill. He's sitting next to me right now. He's nice, but he's wearing an incomprehinsible shirt. He's jealous of my microsoft intellimouse optical wireless five button mouse with ergonomic scroll wheel.

Fascist America

Today I heard something on the radio that made me nervous. It was a professor comparing fascism to democracy, and it suddenly made me wonder if America could ever become fascist. Sure it's possible. Anything's possible, but for now I'm quite sure we can keep our bourgeois country.

There are various forces pushing our country in the direction of Mao and the little red book, the main one being the power of America's upper class. In a fascist society the elite is actually similar to that of a democratic society, but with more power. Big bosses still run enormous corporations with thought only to themselves. This means that it wouldn't take much to tip the guys with the Rollses into fascism. The other force is our nationalism. Just like citizens of a communist or fascist state, we are encouraged to and do put up flags, pledge allegiance, sware by our country try not to make too many jokes about our national mascot, Uncle Sam. Theoretically, this could lead to blind allegiance to the state, which would allow an easy takeover by a dictator or oligarchy. However, this is very unlikely to happen. Americans believe in America because of what it stands for more than because they were born there, and converting to fascism would mean an uprooting of all those morals.

This unflagging belief in the principles of our country is what keeps us from a government change in two ways. The first is that our loyalty to democracy means it would be near impossible to force upon us the ideological change from entrepreneurial to blind labor. Although the upper class wouldn't have to change drastically to become fascist, the lower classes would need to adopt these morals. The bourgeoisie would need to do this as well as demoting to laborers. The other thing holding us back, in my opinion the real safety net right now, is America's martial patriotism. Although it's been 300 years, compelling ideas of battle for freedom still rack the minds of our countries more conservative men, and I'm sure that should Bush try to build an army of storm troopers, the NRA would mobilize their pick-up trucks so quickly that the army would not be able to fight back. I'm actually serious in this opinion. More than three quarters of American men own a gun, and the do so because they are allowed by the constitution. If that constitution was threatened they would rush to defend it. What would most likely happen in this case is an annihilation of both sides, leaving anarchy. It may be unnerving to have your rights protected by gun nuts, but they're better than bloggers.

Capital Punishment

The death penalty has killed thousands of Americans since its inception in 1776. It has been used as the ultimate punishment, and given to the worst criminals we catch.
From the beginning, there has been controversy about the death penalty, but it’s been most prominent in the last 40 years since the 60s.The Conservatives that maintain it have defenses, which hold water with many weekend patriots. A punishment, according to them, is meant as a deterrent of future inappropriate activity. To kill a person accomplishes this goal and more, ensuring that the person will never harm anyone else again. This argument does make sense from a logical stand point, but, to be properly empirical one must factor in repercussions on a scale larger than crime prevention.

Objectors have various arguments, but all point out the obvious paradox capital punishment poses. Killing a criminal is saying that two wrongs make a right. We thought our politicians mothers, especially the Supreme Court’s, taught them otherwise. By slaying the sinner, we are lowering ourselves to his level, which according to us is low enough to merit death. This leads us to reason that the only fair way to maintain capital punishment is to have it given to those who have lowered themselves by giving it, and give it to those who gave it to those who gave, etc. This chain of death as the only solution is a manifestation of the hypocrisy of the death penalty. Capital punishment is like an equation for a line that, when graphed, illustrates a square.

The Sub-Human Child Mentality

Aside from what adults may think, this site is not intended to give the youth of America a voice. It's intended to give me a voice. I, as a youth do not represent the rest of young America because we are individual people, with different opinions and ways of expressing ourselves. This statement may appear an overreaction, but it's not. Adults have a common problem of classifying young people as one mass, not normal people but sort of semi-human group with relatively consistent opinions and tastes. Think about it and you'll see what I mean. Signs of it are everywhere: Kid's meals, kid's Post, kid's shows. All this because of the mistaken belief that all kids like the same things.

This amalgamation of America's youth is a symptom of a bigger problem, which I call the "Sub-Human Child Mentality." This, quite obviously, is the belief that, as a very wise man so cogently put it, "children are in training to be people." People with this mentality (most of the adult population) assume that children have not developed a full enough spectrum of emotions, thoughts and experiences to be treated as relevant members of society. I, as someone who has recently undergone the change from a childlike mind to a more adult one, can testify that this isn't true. As a child, one is more fresh, more alive, more human in many ways than an adult. A young person hasn't had as many bad experiences as an adult, so their minds aren't clogged with fear. This is why children's opinions should be respected.

I'm not trying to pretend that young people can decide everything by themselves. It is incredibly important, especially in the early years, that an adult's experience by factored before a decision is made. In an ideal world, experienced adults would explain the guidelines and limitations they understand from a long life, then let children decide within those parameters what they believe.

The Sub-Human Child Mentality has grave repercussions in a young person's life, the primary one being inability to express oneself. Because children are not viewed as people with valid opinions, they don't get chances to say what's on their minds when they're young, and grow up not knowing how to communicate. It's satisfying to avenge all the young people who were classified as "below normal intelligence" or "ADD" because their culture disrespected them and not because they were born with a sub-normal cranial capacity.

There are two fronts that must be tackled in the destruction of the Sub-Human Child Mentality and it's replacement with a respect for the young. First, there are the adults who must be re-educated to understand the ideas stated above. Second are the children, who will need no more than freedom and encouragement to make their mark on the world.

Gay Marriage And The American Family

I am pleased to announce that for the first time in American history, a Christian priest has blessed a newlywed gay couple. Marrying in Massuachussetts, gay couples are sprouting like dandelions accross the country. Although their unions are still not recognized by all as valid, they are completely legal marriages.

Along with shaking up the Right Wing severely, this raises a lot of questions, the biggest one being "What is a family?" If a family can be two gay men, then how can the standard man-woman-children relationship be addressed by the same name? Americans everywhere have complained and will complain that a gay marriage is just too distinct to be considered a family.

I beg to differ. We can prove that gay marriages form valid families if we expose the root of the traditional institution of family, then show that it has the same basic purpose as a gay family. The first step is easy. Anyone will tell you that love is the foundation of family. It holds a group of people who know each other very well in a mutually beneficial relationship. Also, the American institution of family manifests itself in economic priveleges for married couples such as housing discounts and tax cuts.

Now I must show you that a gay marriage has the same core as the traditional American family described above. Honestly, I don't know how to do this yet. Attach a comment if you have any ideas.

Under The Ice

This is a poem I wrote a couple years back and the namesake of this site. It won an honorable mention in the nation-wide Potato Hill poetry contest.

UNDER THE ICE

The back of my mind has the thoughts I don’t think about and others I don’t understand.
It feels hard but hollow
like a creek that’s frozen on top but still
making life underneath. The ice
is the
ominous thoughts
that first come up when I look at the back of my mind.
The river is all the
things I
don’t understand and
those that
were too great
for me to grasp. If I can break the ice-fear with
my patience,
I can use my reward. The light is dim and the air warm
under the ice. It smells like the absence of a smell
in a forgotten dream and cork grease and jazzy reeds and tennis
and soccer
balls and basketballs and baseballs. It sounds like mine
and John
Coltrane’s saxes and pride and
Math that softly stings
and defeat from people
younger than me and the voices and the breathing
of the people that I
regret
not
helping.

True, very true. Check in a few days for a follow up article. This comic was found at spewingforth.blogspot.com, Jordan Barab's blog.
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The man that, if given a chance may save our hides.
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The Election

I need to get it off my chest. I'm worried about the election. Surprisingly to me, I am not particularly informed on politics; most of it seems so pointless and egotistical. Still, I know what's at stake for November. Bush's presidency, honestly folks, has not been exactly a walk in the park. "Dubya" has started two wars, tinkered naively with our educational system and eased our economy gently down the drain. To support Bush now is to deny the existence of other countries and many of the acute problems infringing on our "homeland security." That's why if I could vote (I am fourteen years old), it would be for Kerry. Our democratic candidate's apparently both peaceful and warlike background and conservatively liberal approach to our nation do put blind loyalty out of the picture for me, but I'll stand by John Kerry as not the best of two evils, but the right choice for Americans who want to make up for Bush's blunders.

The World Today

Being a humble man, I know what I say doesn't much influence the world, but I know it's good to put out my opinion about things. Since we live in the world, I found it a good place to start.

1. Globalization: The world is changing. Countries are connecting. Nations are dividing. Rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. Why? With the introduction of new information and communication technology, a man can instantly transfer money from his overseas business into his pocket, a woman in malaysia can send an email to her friend in Boise in ten seconds, and I can sit here and share my thoughts with you without needing so much as to open my mouth.

One of the largest problems this generates is outsourcing. Companies that could only afford one factory in the U.S. seemlessly transfer all production to Mexico, China or Liberia where labor is cheap and minimum wage is low or nonexistent. Because the companies stop coffing up for American labor, they are able to lower their prices. This means the middle and upper class buyers of the products save and the bourgois segment of American culture flourishes, but the lower economic strata are left parched of money and dignity, outsuccumbed to lower prices by Mexicans, Chinese and Liberians who have never know anything better than pulling asbestos from walls and don't mind that bad feeling it gives your lungs.

In my opinion, globalization and outsourcing are bad but inevitable. For the first hundred or few hundred years that humanity has the power to easily spread business across the globe, many will take advantage of those who don't have anything better. Hopefully, education and unionization will follow labor and the Liberians will have high school and college diplomas and the ability to create a more productive career for themselves. Petty work will be seen as equally undesirable and desperate in all countries and wages for it will be raised to persuade those who still aren't educated to make the sacrifice.

Another proverbial ray of hope is the continuing advancement of production technology machines are invented every day to do the just humans most abhore and avoid: mine defusing, asbestos removing, sewage processing. Hopefully, robots will not replace people in all areas of blue collar labor before there are cheap educational facilities to provide the former blue collar laborers with another, more desirable career.

The only way to ease the transition from isolated countries to a worldwide civilization is to keep balance and fairness in mind. A governing body, such as the U.N., should keep scientists rushing ahead but be sure their inventions don't replace assembly line workers until those people have another job to do, and that people in Liberia are not forced to take on hazardous work to keep their families from starving.

If we keep our heads over water and see that the human race need to work together and gain eachother's trust in this transitional age, about a hundred years from now everyone will find their place and we will come out of this a better race.

Come back next week (starting June 20) for part two on the war in Iraq.

Zak the Philosopher in c.80 years.
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Who is Zak the Philosopher?

I, Zak the Philosopher, the author of this blog am a 14 year old and live in Washington D.C. with my family and pet rat. I have a history of creative writing and a fair amount of experience with poetry, but blogging is new and intriguing to me.

On the education front (this seems very important to adults,) I have been homeschooled for three years. During that time, I complemented distance learning with a couple college courses at Catholic University (I'm not Catholic) and Montgomery Community College. Next year I will enter 9th grade at Benjamin Banneker Senior High.

He hablado Espanol por ocho anos. El ano pasado tomo un curso avanzado y ahora se hablar mejor. Si quieren que ponga uno de mis articulos en espanol en el blog, digamelo. (Perdon. Los tildes no funcionen en Blogger.)

If you have any questions or would like to read more articles, papers or stories written by me tell me so or leave you email in a comment.

Notices

I have another blog on which I let out my wild side. I you'd like to read some useless but vaguely entertaining and in some cases cruely ironic banter, go to insomniacsloth.blogspot.com.

I have Gmail! Google's new email service gives the user one gigabyte of space among other improvements over the standard mail service. It will go public and free in a couple of months, but for now it's only available to a select few. If you want to get a prized account now, for which you can get almost any address (because Gmail is still fresh,) you can buy an invitation from me for $10-15. The philosopher's got to make movie money! If you want an account, leave your email address in a comment. Don't worry about others reading it. I will see it soon then delete the comment.