I haven’t posted in a while… So I figured I would post something about just a random mind set/thought I’ve been coming back to non-stop.

A friend of mine inspired me to make a huge change in my life. He is a very happy and outgoing person. He’s an optimist and makes the best out of everything. I’ve been reading his blogs and let’s just say Carter is brilliant. I’m guilty of being a life-long pessimist but the past few months have been getting better. It’s sort of like breaking an addiction, it’s hard.

This isn’t political but it affects all people. Why do we always see the glass half empty? Happiness is in us if we let it come out. Just telling yourself “everything will be ok” brightens up so much. This just goes to show how much we value life. We always want more and are rarely content. We take advantage of how precious it is.

Carter has such amazing energy and is always smiling. It rubs off on all of the people around him. I guess it’s just time to change how I think. Everything happens for a reason. There are downs in life, many of them. But it’s not worth taking years off of your life.
“An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?”
–Rene Descartes

I’m ready for a change. Maybe someone else is… Ill ask him to join this site and post some of his blogs up on here. I can’t say it like he can…

 fem·i·nism      /ˈfɛməˌnɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fem-uh-niz-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.”

 Why is it that so many people are convinced that the Feminist movement has no more purpose? Men and women have not reached the point of equality. To begin I think I have to clarify what a feminist is and what one would commonly believe. As you can see from the definition above, we do not believe that women are in anyway better than men. We simply want equality.

Women have come a long way since the battle for equality had begun. We now have the oppertunity to get an education and follow our own carreer paths. We can opt for divorce, own property, sell property, have our own bank accounts and manage our own finances that are in no way affiliated with any man. 

 I think this is a good time to point out some history. Womens’ suffrage has been a struggle from the 1820’s until 1920. In 1920 the nineteenth amendment was passed that granted women suffrage. The struggle for mere voting has lasted roughly 100 years. Remember that I am only referring to America. Women have been fighting for the right to vote in Europe long before America’s birth. We have had to work 10x harder than men to just get closer to their level in society.

Throughout the mid 1900’s a woman had to stay at home, cook, clean and take care of the children. In 1959 20.8% of families lived in poverty. On average most families had at least 2 children. Think about it, how can one income provide for a family of 4 at the least?

Problems still exist. Though the tension between the 2 sexes has died down there are still obvious issues. In my opinion the biggest one being discrimination of women by health insurance companys. Sadly, not very many women are even aware of this. Since the 90’s women have fought for insurance companies to cover contraception. 82% of women use it and still today, most insurance companies do not cover it. American women pay 68% more for health care expenses than do men. But consider this also. Viagra was approved by the FDA in 1996. It had no health care functions unlike contraception. But yet, it took less than 2 months for insurance companies to cover the drug.

This is only based off of my own personal opinion. I believe that women are also terribly degraded in the media. Take for example the famous MTV. In music videos the women are barely clothed and the lyrics to alot of the music (especially in the rap community) are completely disrespectful. I don’t understand how any woman could sink so low and completely disregard what her mother and grandmother have been fighting for. Now to point out a different side of our culture let’s look at shows like Laguna Beach. In that kind of a show the women just come off as stupid, airheaded and spoiled.

 Remember, your daughters are going to grow up watching that type of trash. Girls nowadays will do whatever it takes to look like the airheads they put all over your magazines and television screens. There has never been such a high percentage of anorexia and eating disorders up until now. Women are competing against eachother for a false sense of beauty. When instead we should all be united as one community.

Our great grandmothers did not picket out in the streets for days, weeks, months and years for this. They did not expect that girls would die everyday from depriving themselves for beauty. Nor did they want for us to mimic what we see all over the media. Point is, the media will still portray women as toys, not human beings.

I beleive that society’s expectations for women are absurd. I may personally follow some of them but that is purely for myself. Being skinny and tan and whatever else they throw out there is nothing but retardation. I think every woman is beautiful. Now if only we can all change our mindset a bit the feminist movement can move forward. They may try to throw things in our way but females in reality are not airheads and are not stupid. We need to lose our current vocabulary. Women are not sluts, whores or bitches. And you know what? We degrade ourselves when we put one another down.

We need to stop mimicking what we see and unite again. We’re all sisters. No matter where you’re from, what color you are or what religion you are. We still have work to do.

This is beautiful

Think of this. The data may be a little old but the numbers have only gotten higher. According to the census, in March 2003 11.7% of the population were foreign born citizens. Have you ever wondered why everyone is itching to get here? I know I have. After receiving my March 26/April 2 issue of U.S. News & World Report I lost all understanding in why we are so special.

Everyone always tells me that we have luxuries here that others aren’t fortunate enough to have. And I don’t doubt that but how come everyone always acts as if America isn’t a country but the country. Let’s take a look at how life is in a few other countries. You be the judge of who comes out on top.

Can you imagine driving on a road with no stop signs or no clearly drawn lanes? No traffic lights? What about no speed limit? Ipswich, England is putting a new theory to the test. Traffic signs give people a false sense of security and by taking them away people are forced to be more aware and have better reasoning. Holland is now beginning to take down traffic signs. Why? Because there’s less accidents. Finland took a different approach to reducing accidents by targeting speeding. Unlike the U.S., speeding fines are based on one’s annual income. Here everyone pays a standard amount. Is that a good thing? No. The wealthier you are, the easier it is to break a law.

Gas taxes have been raised all over Europe in order to promote cycling and walking. According to the magazine “Every 10th trip in Berlin is made by bike.” Most Americans (including myself) would have a difficult time with such a task. How many of us actually ride a bike or walk to school or work voluntarily? Which brings me into a new topic. Our laziness and lack of health has taken a high toll. Compare the adult obesity rate for America and Japan. 32% vs. 3.6%. Still proud to be an American?

In my opinion teachers shape our society. They should be highly respected and looked up to. In Finland the status of a teacher is similar to that of a doctor or lawyer. Our overall education ranked low. The U.S. was 18th in reading literacy, 22nd in science and 28th in math. Sex education is very vague in the states. It is argued that by teaching children about such things we would be promoting it. But Sweden is the perfect example of the success of such education. At age 6 children begin learning anatomy and from age 12 and on they begin learning about disease and contraceptives. So let’s compare, Sweden has the least cases teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. The teenage birth rate is 7 per 1,000 births. In the United States it is 49 per every thousand. My point here is our education is weak. Are you sleep deprived? Well it’s no shock that all Americans are. In Taiwan all workers take lunch breaks from noon to 1:30 (compared to the typical 15 minute break in America.) During those breaks it is typical to see workers taking naps. Sara Mednick, a sleep expert at the University of California says, “Even a nap as short as 5 minutes can increase alertness and memory skills” It’s been shown that sleep deprivation is the cause of minor accidents and some not so minor. Just that caused the famous Chernobyl accident. I can see why the United States is a nation of “the walking tired.”

Norway allows for 53 weeks of maternity leave 80% pay with a job to return to. 5 weeks of paternity leave is also given along with the standard 5 week vacation (typical vacation here is 2 weeks.) The U.S. placed close to last in child well being while Norway placed 7th. The divorce rate has dropped in Norway by 6% in the past decade. We are a dirty nation. That is something no one can deny. I can’t walk down the street without seeing gum stuck to the cement or a wrapper on the ground. I constantly see liquor bottles just lying around. Maybe we should pick up a few pointers from Singapore. If you drop a piece of trash on the ground you get a fine of about $1,000. We are number 28 on the Global Index of Environmental Protection. And we rank number 40 in life expectancy. We did not make it into the list of top 22 countries with the least infant mortality. Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. America has more people in prison than any other country (2,135,900). We also have the highest rate of gun-related homicides of all industrialized nations.

So my point is, what is everyone raving about? Why do people dream about living here. We didn’t even make it in the top 20 countries with a higher quality of life. We’re simply an over worked, uneducated and tired country. We need fixing and a lot of it. Sure we are a good country. And yes, we are better than some but why settle for ok? I am in no way implying any type of competition between American and the rest of the world. I just think that politicians aren’t focusing enough on the people. Incase they haven’t noticed, the people makeup the workforce and the country. It’s not America without the Americans and we deserve better.

I’m not only pointing fingers at the politicians. The people are partially to blame. We have to stop being lazy. That’s that. There are many things that we can control but don’t care enough to do so. Big changes start small. We have to stop saying “oh, I’ll start next week” and “well, no one else cares so why should I?” and the most famous “what difference can one person possibly make?” A change is a change no matter how small or big.

Ilona.2007 Writtin by Ilona on 3-31-2007 For Vast HTML™