Ok, ok, America is cool and all, but what the hell is up with seventy percent of our population? 70% of America believes in or is not sure on the subject of ESP. 58% for Devil Possession. 55% in ghosts. 55% in mind-readers. 41% in witches, for God’s sake. What happened to these people? The first thing on the list, using the mind to cure the body, at least has some plausible possibility in empirical research (placebo effects and whatnot). The rest are ridiculous. And what’s even worse is that the numbers of people who believe these things *are going up*.I’m truly scared. A girl I know, who’s not that stupid, seriously and truly believes that the world began 10,000 years ago, because that’s what could be extrapolated by a literal reading of the Bible. I think I understand why the US always scores lower on science tests than every other country in the world. It’s because we have a lot of really stupid people. What’s even worse is that Americans aged 18-29 are the ones most likely to believe in witches, haunted houses and all that. Witches! In 2001!
Heh, I think the Mormons are affecting me subconsciously. I went to usher at the Graduation tonight, and people noticed that I was dressed like a Mormon Missionary. Or else Agent Smith from The Matrix. Someone said I looked like the IRS.
I saw an interesting story that relates to the supernatural thing I just mentioned. Carl Sagan wrote something about a guy who proposed that he had a fire-breathing dragon in his garage. So you come to his house, and he mentions that the dragon is invisible. You say to put some flour on the floor to catch his footprints, but he says the dragon floats. You say to use infrared lasers to detect the invisible fire. He says it’s heatless. Etc. and on and on. Suffice to say, what’s the difference between this fire-breathing dragon’s realness and not realness if there is not test, technologically possible or not, that could detect the thing? I believe that if such a condition exists, it doesn’t matter whether such a thing exists or not, since it can not affect anything in any way. Interesting thought.
Not sure why I was thinking about this either. Oh yeah, someone was talking about the Death Penalty in class, and my bud Andrea assumed I was for it. I’m not. First of all, it’s not a deterrant to crime. But in the general scheme of things, I think it should be illegal to use one person’s punishment as an “example”. You should be punished for your crime and nothing more. No one should go to jail for 10 years for doing something little because the police/whatever want to discourage other people from doing the same thing. It’s wrong.
Britain had its election the other day. It’s really wierd that Britain has no libertarian anything going on. A guy like Tony Blair is considered right-of-centre, which is wierd. Khatami won the Iranian Ministry, too, which is good. Too many fundamentalists in the world already. Heh, I don’t think anyone else cares about International Politics except for me.
Big trend at our school recently: Lesbianism. Don’t ask me, heh.
So I’m probably gonna design the school paper next year for this Arts certificate thing in Graphic Design. It’s gonna be tight. I’ll scan in some PageMaker demos when I do it. I like a lot of the English papers, like the Guardian, so I’m thinking something along those lines. Bold pictures, 10pt font, bigger everything else.
I’m gonna go chill with EB tomorrow. Rockin’!
MP3 Prime Cut: What Would You Do? by City High
This Fugees-style hip-hop/R&B track is going to be *massive*. Good beat and nice rhymes.
MP3 Prime Cut: Me and Jesus the Pimp in a ‘79 Granada Last Night by The Coup
This is the actual name of this song. Rap group from the East Bay, with a wicked fly rhyme set about 2:30 into it.
