Blood Money

I've been trying to avoid this issue for a long time. After all, you're not supposed to bring up sex, religion, or politics, (I guess because everyone is afraid of actually having good conversation) but as a political science major at North Carolina State University (GO PACK!) currently residing in Washington D.C., the time has come to defend my political views.

I am a Republican. Please, refrain from sobbing, screaming, cringing, or throwing rotten vegetables.

I am a Republican because most of the people in my life, some of whom I love very much, are in the military or planning to join the military and the Republican party supports the military better than the democratic party. Now, this is a free country and you are entitled to disagree with me, but allow me to explain myself.

Every Democratic representative I have researched thus far voted against the war in Iraq, but voted to send military forces to Afghanistan and is in favor of not only continuing our stay in the land of Afghans, but also wishes to continue searching for terrorist threats in Pakistan and have spoken positively about sending troops to Libya. However, the same representatives have continually voted against increasing military and department of defense funding. In fact, some wish to decrease it.

Now, can anyone find Waldo and what the hell is wrong with this picture? Whether you agree with any of the aforementioned conflicts is irrelevant, but please, no matter if you are a Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Democrat, Independent, Green, please understand that we cannot fight the war on terror, or whatever the heck we're doing in Afghanistan or whatever we might do in Libya, on a shoe string budget. In fact, if we try, we risk putting the lives of U.S. troops in danger.

Republicans on the other hand, have continually voted to increase military spending and have drafted a 2012 budget that will increase department of defense funding by
4%. Knowing that my family, my friends, my neighbors, and their, family, friends, and neighbors will have funding to be well equipped in combat is what keeps the nightmares at bay.

So, to all the people out there that have made faces every time I have owned up to my right wing status; now you know, I bleed red in hopes that others won't have to..

I should just pay you to teach me how to dougie

I didn't realize that college was a euphemism for: more pointless classes. Except this time, you have to pay for them.

In high school, I can remember wondering why I had to take pointless classes in so many subjects that I was never going to use in my adult life. Granted, I enjoyed some of them, but let's be honest with ourselves, not one of my future employers are going to ask me to name all of the major rivers in America and demand I draw them on a map to prove that I indeed the best gal for the job.
Yet, these are the tests that I had to study for my Junior year of high school.

But, I muddled through. I pushed, I stressed, I succeeded, I failed, I toiled, I squeaked by, I managed, I survived four years in a cell block prison, following the man's rules and learning what I could from the few exceptional teachers I did have. Mentally rolling my eyes at the one's that didn't want to be there any more than I did, all so I would be rewarded. So I could finally go to college, a place where I was sure I would finally find the intellectual stimulation I have always craved. A place where I could study what I wanted and leave the nonsensical hullabaloo behind.

What a red herring.

Since arriving to my location of higher education, I find myself slipping into the same vicious cycle of mundane, inane, shenanigans. I have to pay for, and take, classes I don't care about. Classes that will never help me get into law school or onto capitol hill. Classes in which I have to do assignments that no one will even grade. Classes that require ridiculously long papers that my professors don't want to read. Papers, that are graded more on how much I agree with my instructor or how many complex sentences I use,rather than my actual grasp of the concepts presented in class. And when I'm sitting in a lecture, asking questions, trying to start discussion, really trying to dig into a concept; I'm more or less brushed off and politely told that I have no idea what I'm talking about because I do not have a PHD. Honestly, I've just had enough.

In this country we push education. We demand everyone go to school until the age of 16 and if you drop-out, you're considered a social deviant that will never amount to anything. We cut arts funding and stifle creativity. We discontinue vocational training, forcing potential electricians and mechanics to wither away in science class, coloring diagrams of cells, wishing they were anywhere else. We create tests to measure progress and find fault, when they really prove neither. We demand that kids become "well rounded", that they break there necks doing hundreds of things they really don't want to do to get to college only to do it all over again and graduate feeling like they still haven't learned anything useful. Still lost. Still wanting to know what they should be when they grow up.

Why is that? Why do we stop discussions in classrooms before they even start? Why do we force kids to take classes they don't want? Why do we teach everything for a test that won't matter when the bills need to be paid and the rent is due? Really, I don't think anyone could give me a satisfactory answer, but here's my suggestion:

Let people learn how to think, not what to think. Let artsy kids create. Give mechanically minded kids an outlet. Put the tests away and connect with a classroom. Indulge kids, let them learn what they want, let them get really good at one thing instead of expecting them to be good in a thousand things that don't really interest them anyway.

In the eternal words of the Beatles - Let it be. Life is too short to waste with all of this bureaucratic red-tape. It's time we started cultivating minds that are content and confident in their abilities. Not hazy mounds of grey matter jam packed with needless information that will just get data dumped to make room for the topics on the next exam.

Jays or Stilettos, I'm always Barefoot.

I'm a feminist. I believe in equality. But, I'm also not easily fooled, and ladies and gentlemen, it is my inherent belief that women everywhere are hoodwinking society into believing they truly want equality when really, they want their own set or rules. Confused? Allow me to explain.

When women wanted the right to vote, they did everything in their power to make it happen. Now, women vote just as much, maybe even more than men. In this respect, women are equal.

When women wanted to go into the work force, they fought and are still fighting to get payed just as much as men doing the same jobs. In this respect, women are becoming equal.

When women wanted to join the military however, they made their own rules. They decided that there had to be, for lack of a better term, "easier" physical requirements because they were weaker than men. They decided that even though they wanted to serve when they chose too, being excluded from the draft was just dandy. And, when women decided they had the right to attend the academies, they shouldn't be exposed to the traditional hazing and ludicrously strict and uniform environment, because they were women. They needed privacy from each other in the bathrooms, blinds on their windows so as not to tempt peeping toms, and yet again, they should not be expected to physically perform on the same standards as the men at their institution.

I know someone is going to hate me for saying this, but that is not, by any means, equality. In fact, as a feminist, I am disgusted. Not only are military men and the male students at the academies held to higher standards only because they are men and women do not feel capable enough to meet said standards; neither the men, nor the women at the academies, are receiving the education they signed up for. Take VMI for example. The last military academy to remain males only. It was an institution grounded in tradition, formed on brotherhood, and revered for it's commitment to the scrupulous training of young men who wished to serve their country. They had rules that did not allow doors or stalls in the bathroom, showers were open and communal, blinds were never installed on windows, beds were rolled each day to avoid napping, freshmen or "rats" were hazed in good humor by upperclassmen, and traditionally, before the rats graduated to sophomores, they had to climb a steep mudded hill to both literally and symbolically join the upperclassmen on the other side. These things, along with many others, made VMI, VMI. When women joined, all of this changed, therefore making VMI less than what it was. So really, women aren't even receiving the education they wanted so badly to be a part of because it has been watered down to accommodate them. Again, this is not equality.

Now, women in the armed forces want to be allowed in submarines. Historically they have been excluded because having men and women in close quarters with each other almost always leads to more passengers if you know what I'm saying. I would have no problem with a co-ed submarine slumber party, if women also wanted to be allowed to be drafted. Or, if they were striving to meet male physical requirements, but the cold hard truth is that they aren't. Everything is on female terms, and I can't stand it.

Equality for women will not come if we simply try to fill men's shoes or cobble them down to fit our feet, but when we fill their shoes and then start designing our own.

In historically male professions, we're going to have to play by their rules to get any kind of credit, to eventually "design our own shoes", just as men in historically female professions have to play by our rules to design theirs.

Only after these steps have been taken can I dream of a world when I no longer have to worry about who's shoes I'm wearing, because I'm going barefoot on my own path that I have forged, not by bending the trail to my will, but by stumbling through the brambles and transforming into a stronger woman by the time I reach my destination.