Loren+H’s+OpEd+Article

= = = "Loren is "TIRED!'" = = by Loren H. = = = Three days ago, I was at the gym, loathing the fact that it was the day that I had to work on my weak upper body, and I witnessed an interesting phenomenon. While doing sit-ups on the machine there, I saw three generic freshmen/sophomores, one boy and two girls, sitting on the stair machines and talking. They weren’t stretching, lifting weights, or even pretending to work out at all; they were merely talking, looking like the stereotypical teenage slackers that seem more prevalent these days. This pisses me off for two reasons. First, they are perpetuating the dreaded stereotype that teenagers are lazy slackers that I have been trying to erase! Second of all, they were slackers! Being an A.P. student who goes to the gym three times a week and has a myriad of other obligations, I have a sort of bias towards these cretins which I will never compromise on.

So, after seeing these kids, I have decided to create a list of people, places, individuals, and general things that piss me off. To balance it, I will name two things that I have, over the years, grown to respect.

The first I can think of right now is inconvenient sickness! Right now, I am in the middle of a cold which had just started on Wednesday. At this point, I am sitting in my room with water to my left and tissues to my right, wondering why I am not asleep yet. The worst part is that this has happened before. During sometime in December, I caught what I believe now to be a strain of the swine flu, and was basically quarantined to my room. Missing 4 days at foothill is like missing a year in elementary school, so recovering from the lack of work and the horrors of a cold were difficult to say the least. Now, it is happening again, but on a lesser scale! Christ this sucks.

Second, and what this blog was initially going to be about, I would like to discuss Glenn Beck. Now, I know Hannity and O Reilly are pretty bad individuals when it comes to their respective shows, but at least they have some amount of rationality injected into their arguments. Beck, however, uses the same demagoguery that libertarians such as the “great” (notice the emphasis) Ron Paul, and Ayn Rand. Famous for selling gold, stimulating the chalkboard industry, and learning to cry on cue, Glenn Beck has the intelligence of a fundamentalist Christian, and is the leading voice of a newly libertarian Republican Party.

Third, I really dislike slackers. Though I go to a school where slacking is practically a sin, I have met many slackers in my day. When I was a FIRE leader for 11th graders, I quickly saw that motivating these kids to work would be equivalent to beating a dead horse to operate a McCormick reaper. Due to this, I did not have many strict rules in my FIRE class, and many of my students ditched everyday to spite my authority. These slackers basically got the tools that they needed to succeed HANDED to them; however, they decided to shit on them and bury them so they could be of no good use.

Fourth, I dislike ASB. As a former member of leadership at Anacapa, it too me a while to figure out what ASB was ACTUALLY about. However, after finding out a year into it, I resigned immediately. From what it appears to be, ASB has not changed that significantly. It still seems to be the same group of upper class females and males who constantly flout their drama amongst themselves while trying to design posters and appease a perpetually alienated student body. Specifically, I believe that the ruling on David White was not a genuine condemnation of racism, it was a partisan attack! ASB, as I have described to many people before, is like an appendix: useless, vestigial, and almost asking to be removed.

So, now that I have got that out of the way, unto the things that I have learned to respect.

The first thing that I have come to respect more is Catholics and their beliefs about God. As an ex Protestant/current atheist, I am always wary of the Catholic Church, especially due to the scandals of the recent years. However, nearly every Catholic that I talk to admits that there is something wrong with the church and how it is being run. Second, most Catholics I have run into are extremely open minded. Brent Ocker, Mr. Geib, and Manuel Gonzales are a few examples of cool Catholics who don’t seem to be as tethered dogma as members of other churches are; specifically, the Presbyterian Church. Third, Protestantism is sort of stupid and divisive. It seems like Luther and the protestant churches have created over 30,000 versions of God, while the Catholic Church have been fairly consistent in what they believe about God.

Finally, I have grown to respect local restaurants and places that do not serve fatty foods. Specifically, Chipotle has changed my opinion on how fast food should be prepared and served, along with Fresh and Easy. I have actively been pursuing places that try not to lower their prices and lower their standards simultaneously, whilst, at the same time, catering to someone who has the stature of Paul Bunyan.

Well I’m off, and to you Georgians who see this blog posting: Sherman was right! And I would also like you to send me some of your great grits! What is so good about them anyway? I think that grits are like a local cuisine that one culture likes above other cultures, like how those from Chicago and how those from New York prefer to eat thin crust pizza. So, I would really like to try some grits. Pretty please? Thanks in advance. media type="file" key="lorenh-muckraker-0910.mp3"