I just got an email from a Scholarship foundation that emails college students tips on scholarship applications. Tip number 2 in their line-up of tips is this: Do not talk about your GPA on your scholarship essay. "Because of grade inflation," they say, "GPAs are now irrelevant. Sometime ago some people decided that it was far more harmful to a child to see a D or an F on his report card than to not understand grammar or mathematics, and so now grades have lost their meaning." Hm...sounds conservative to me. They continue. "If you have an extraordinarily bad GPA, you may not be accepted to a scholarship. They may ask you to list your GPA to be sure that it is above 3.0. But do not talk about your GPA in your essay, because everyone has a great GPA."

Sounds like that movie, the Incredibles. If everybody is super, no one is.

Maybe people are starting to get it?

Proof that common sense may prevail in people my age...eventually.

I was talking to my very liberal friend on the phone. He told me his great aunt is in a very serious health condition. She has always been very overweight but just last year went to the doctor to see if she could get on a diet to lose weight. They discovered she had extremely high cholesterol, but it wasn't because she was overweight. It was because her entire body was riddled with tumors, that effect cholesterol and other systems. She was a ticking time bomb, but the tumors could be removed with surgery. She didn't have health insurance, and couldn't get it now...but my friend's dad knew someone who worked at the agency that runs the emergency surgery list for people who cannot afford the surgery but need it to live. That person helped my friend's great aunt get all her forms together and submit a copy to get her placed correctly on the list (it is my understanding that her criteria would place her extremely high on the list). However, she refused to do it. She made up excuses and decided not to turn in her papers. My friend was totally confused, and seemed very hurt by this. "Why wouldn't she want to help herself?" He asked me, flabbergasted. "She's going to die!"

"I don't mean to sound insensitive, man, but some people just don't have any initiative."

"You would think your life would be an initiative! How can she just stand by and let this happen to her?"

"Millions of people are standing by and letting their health care be killed right before their eyes, by the federal government," I told him. "They don't read bills, they don't look into the details...and they're going to end up dying because they couldn't get on some list."

He didn't have anything to say to that, but he told me an interesting story. "There once was a man who lived in a hurricane ridden area," he said. "And the police knocked on his door and told him to get out, there was a Class 5 coming and it was going to wipe out everything in its path. But he refused. "God will save me," he said. The police went away. The whole area was evacuating. His house began to flood, so he climbed to the roof and sat there. A rescue patrol came by in a boat and said, "hop in!" but he refused. "God will save me," he said. The patrol went away. The flood waters rose and he tread water above the roof of his house as winds made the waves crash down on his head. The Coast Guard flew over and lowered a rope. "Grab on!" they yelled, but he refused. "God will save me," he said in between breaths. He eventually went under the water, and drowned. In heaven, he met God. "God, what gives?!" He exclaimed. "Why didn't you save me?"

God said, exasperated, "Well, I've BEEN TRYING!"

The moral, my friend said, to this rather funny but true story, is that God doesn't want you to sit on your a$$ and wait for a miracle, if you see a way you can be proactive. And also, more importantly, that God speaks to people in ways they may not see.

I smiled, and told him, "You know, that's the most conservative story I've heard all week."

He repeatedly denied it until we switched the topic to a Cubs-Sox debate...again. But my point is, there is hope.

Yep!

MR2, are you an X-files fan? Your icon looks like Frohike. :)

It's strange. I can't see anyone else's reply except for yours.

Yesterday at work, I tried a little experiment.

We got talking about taxes, and with a completely straight face, I said, "You know what? I think none of those damn rich people work for what they get paid. I mean, seriously. Some rich people don't even go into work. You don't see *them* getting up at 0500 for a shift. You don't see *them* staying late because a project needs finished. You see them playing golf and hanging out at the country club. If they don't want to work, they shouldn't be able to keep what they earn."

"But wait a sec," one person about my age said. "Some rich people *do* work for what they earn."

I shook my head. "No. That's impossible. You really think anyone works harder than we do? What time do we get up? What time do we get to sleep? We work our a$$es off and all we get for it is crappy pay--I'm *glad* the rich are being over taxed. You know what they should have to do? They should all have to earn their right to vote. The rich people should have to live as poor people for two years before they can vote."

"What happens to their money?" they asked.

"They give it to the poor, obviously," I said. "Someone will give it back to them later. Remember--they don't earn anything. All they do is take from us. The more they make, the less our class earns."

The room was silent. Then one person had the courage to ask me, "You don't really think that rich people are that evil, do you? I mean...if they make a lot of money, they'll be able to run companies and organizations and give us jobs." Someone else said, "And rich people do give to charities."

I smiled. "If you don't mind my asking, how do you guys vote?" I asked. "Do you go for one party over another?"

"I'm pretty liberal," one said. "Yeah, me too," another agreed. "Democrat, all the way," one told me. "I'm sort of moderate, but leaning left," another said. They all agreed that left of the middle was better.

"What you just said, though, your argument to me, that was a conservative one. I'm a conservative--I believe in basically the opposite of what I was saying. And you guys agreed with me."

They paused. They had nothing to say to that.

And then they jump all over it, whining and crying that they were treated unfairly.

This is my vision for America, and I hope we get there someday. A place where it doesn't matter what race, religion, gender, etc you are, you can come here and be treated equally. A place where no race, gender, religion, etc gets precedence over others. A place where selection for jobs, colleges, schools, elected office, and other tough accomplishments are won not by quotas or on the basis of skin color or gender or sexual orientation or ANYTHING ELSE, except for the SOLE CHARACTERISTICS that the accomplishment requires. Such as, for a college, no names, no races, no genders or sexual orientations should be recorded on that application. Instead, it should be a number, an essay, a list of credentials and test scores, and that's IT. For jobs, no names, no races, nothing like that--just a resume with past credentials. For elected office--names, races, etc are fine, but the American voter needs to hear about the person, not about the person's ethnic status.

I don't know. Being a racist and being a supremacist are not necessarily the same thing. A racist is someone who believes they are superior to all other races or one other race because of their specific race. If Sotomayer believed that all Hispanics were better than all whites, I might believe that she is a racist. Instead, I think that she believes HER status as a Latina makes HER a better judge of situations than white men, which makes her a supremacist. A supremacist, in my book, is simply someone who believes THEY are better because of their race.

But who really cares...both are equally wrong and equally damaging to society.

Are you being sarcastic?

Most people in my age group have still not reached the age at which the frontal lobe is fully developed, about 26 or 27. This means that they can't fully think for themselves, so whatever the majority around them is doing, they will also do. This is why most of them think the way they do--they will likely change their minds to a more solid, reasonable opinion (which could go either way, it will just be more solid) when they reach 26 or 27.

As for those of us who escaped, I think it boils down to the personality trait of conscientiousness. Now don't get me wrong. I am the first person to jump out of a plane, go white water rafting, risk hypothermia to prove I can kayak Class 4 rapids in near freezing temperatures...it is not risk aversion I am talking about. It is recognizing the consequences of our actions. It is one thing to go blindly into a risky situation. It is quite another to go in knowing full well what will happen, and accepting it.

I think that must be what's going on. Maybe I should switch my universal translator from 'normal' to 'for dummies'