Great question.

And I don’t really have a good answer.

Okay, okay, there are the obvious ones (i.e. cure AIDs and cancer, end world hunger, eliminate poverty, etc. etc.), but really? I think of it more as a personal question. Like, if you knew that you couldn’t fail – if that unrealistic fear of failure that possesses almost all of man suddenly was lifted from your soul – what would you do? Would you learn how to dance? Would you write a novel?

It’s not so clean cut for me as curing illnesses and stopping worldwide epidemics. I have an obsession with failure, it seems. Why do we fear it like we do? I mean, really – if we were to embrace failure instead of running away from it, what could we accomplish? “I didn’t fail; I’ve just found 40,000 ways that don’t work.” Why don’t we think of our failures as a process of eliminations until we get the right answer?

I mean, I understand need for near-perfection in the business world. But in school, for instance – if a child fails to complete a project correctly, then the failure becomes a learning experience. If placed in the right circumstances, the kid learns the wrong way to do something (though whether he applies this knowledge or not is up to him). Instead, the child is scolded and punished for his failures. Is that why we associate failure with something bad? Because as children we are punished when we fail at something?

Instead of punishment, maybe we should encourage learning from failure. It certainly worked in other places – households that later became hotbeds of invention and creativity. Because, really, if you have no fear of failure, then you don’t need to be afraid to try. You don’t stop and question yourself – “What if I do it wrong?” – because you know that if you do it wrong, you’ll learn, move forward, and make something better on the next try.

Maybe I’m full of hot air. Who knows? What I think is that every time a kid fails, we should point out the things that caused the failure. “That’s not right – how could you fix that?” Maybe he’d learn something. Maybe he’d do it better. Maybe he’d get some self-esteem. Maybe he’d make something out of his failure that he could be proud of.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

Panda out.

Politics are idiotic.

No, really. In case you haven’t noticed, the country is in a downward spiral. The only president I can name that I would trust with my life is Washington, and really? Wooden teeth. Come on. It cannot possibly be that no intelligent, moral person ever stood up and said, “Let’s try to be President!” Or maybe they did and the cunning, weasel politicians pushed him down, trampled on his dignity, bludgeoned him soundly about the head with a blunt object, and left him for dead on the House floor.

Every single candidate for the upcoming presidential run has lied at least twice in their campaign this year.

Clinton? Let’s run for cover from the crazed gunman! Oh, wait, you’re the crazy one. My bad.

Obama? “GOD DAMN AMERICA!” After which he proceeded to feed the media utter bull about how he can’t denounce his white grandmother, etc. etc. In case it escaped notice, he’s not bound body and soul and blood to his pastor. 

McCain? He abandoned the decent policies that he once upheld, deserting his morals to gain favor for the more hardcore right-wingers. Bah.

Maybe the decent politicians weren’t stampeded. Maybe they got out while there was still time. But then that presents the theory that all power eventually corrupts, which leads to anarchy, which is a long shot worse than democracy and the system of checks and balances that we have today.

I don’t know. All I’m really aware of is that I’m a fifteen year old high school girl who sits in her classes and listens to her teachers go on about the destruction of global warming on today’s environment. I listen to their lectures as they go on and on, citing no one, not even offering counterexamples – the patterns that show that fluctuations in global temperature are normal, the faulty model on which we base our conclusions on environmental statistics today, the thickening of the ice, the drop in temperature, the change in terms from “global warming” to “climate change” – but instead feeding information to children who, for the most part, will not be motivated to go and look up alternative sources on their own. They will accept the drivel they are taught and go on to falsely educate all who are stupid enough to bring up the topic.

It’s enough to make me sick.

We had to do an “Ecology Portfolio” as part of a huge lab grade in Biology this past school year. We had to talk about the effects that CO2 had on our environment. Did anyone ever notice that when we exhale we breathe out CO2? I can’t honestly believe that I’m the only one to think about this, but I never see it brought up or addressed in debates. Not the mention that the flora happens to, oh, I don’t know live off of CO2.

I believe that stupidity and insanity, in the right dosage, are contagious. But don’t worry. The antidote is fairly simple – honesty. Plain, old, honest-to-God truth, with no fancy packaging or ribbons or bells and whistles. It’s not there in global warming or climate change or whatever we’re calling it now. It’s not in government anymore. Dignity, chivalry, and modesty have all practically disappeared. Is the truth supposed to go the same way?

I don’t even know any more. Sometimes, I can’t even bring myself to care.

[GLOBAL WARMING LINKS:

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/12661711.html

http://icecap.org/

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

Please look at the below links in order.

(1)    http://longrangeweather.com/images/GTEMPS.gif

(2)    http://www.longrangeweather.com/ArticleArchives/GlobalWarming.htm

Thank you!

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/07/weather-channel-founder-global-warming-greatest-scam-history

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/04/global-warming-tutorial-media-should-be-required-watch

Panda out.

Hello dere! Writing from the lovely state of Wisconsin, land of cheese and…well, all I know is cheese. So kudos to Wisconsin, because cheese is cool.

Not originally from here, in case you can’t tell. I’m a New Orleans native, born and bred for fifteen years. Mardi Gras, drive-through daquiri stores, French Quarter, Cafe du Monde, canals, levees, gumbo, crawfish…so this is kinda weird for me. Like, it’s June and it’s sixty-something at night. NOT NORMAL, PEOPLE.

Anyway.

So we’re potentially moving up here because of my daddy’s job. Yeah. I’m sort of excited, because, hey, new house, new neighborhood, new school, new start…and I’m freaking out because of the same reasons. I mean, really. New is nice. New everything? Not so much. All things are good in moderation and all that jazz.

I’m in the middle of editing chapter one of The Book…yeah. Don’t actually have a working title, so The Book it shall be until further notice. It’s giving me a hell of a time – I’m so totally bad at first-person narration. Oh, well. At least I’m sticking to my guns this time.

Now, back to writing with Viv. Ta, chicks!