3 More Days

So excited.

My geology class, which I have a midterm in the day after break, has this crazy teacher. She is basically exactly what you would expect a large female geologist to look like. Yes, there is a bandanna. We now get our midterm online during break and can work on it all we want, but still come in and take it on the day after without any notes, so basically just regurgitating what we figured out earlier and then memorized. Seems dumb.

I'm also taking a history class about race and politics in the US since 1945. It strikes me almost daily in class how one-sided everything is. And no one ever says anything contrary. For example, we watched a video today all about the election of the first black mayor of Cleveland. It switches between blacks proclaiming his greatness and how he will understand their issues (95% of the black vote went to him) and whites skittishly admitting they want a white mayor (52% voted for him anyway). The music changes from inspiring to harsh, you can only hear the questioner against the whites, and even the lighting makes the white people look like terrible human beings. The black people railing against the whites for voting against him for being black need to look in the mirror and ask why they are really voting for him. No candidate gets 95% of any demographic based on issue positions. Call it reverse-racism or whatever else you want, but it's just as dumb as the white bigots.
(The one main difference I see between this and Obama is that this was a primary, whereas Obama won 95% of the black vote in the general, where at least 80% always goes to the Democrat anyway. Doesn't completely excuse it and it was definitely present in his primary too, but it's a little different to me.)

So everyone knows gays are the next up on the social rights agenda. Don't ask, don't tell will probably end in early 2010 and gay marriage will continue to progress (at a slow pace). What's next after fixing up the lives of the homosexuals? I'm hoping for some progress for those of us who don't believe in Him. The most recent survey shows 2.3% (and growing!) of the nation agrees, which makes it statistically equivalent to the gay population in the US. Hard to pursue an agenda with such an unfocused group and few issues to easily solidify around. I'll take a crackdown on churches flaunting tax exemption laws and advocating politics illegally and a decrease in the amount of religion seen in public ceremonies to start. Wouldn't mind taking 'under God' (back) out of the pledge. Quite a few other things...

I hope to see an open atheist as a serious presidential candidate sometime in my life. Hopefully I'll be running his/her campaign. Should be fun to figure out how to assure Florida s/he isn't going to sell them to the devil for extra sex and drugs.

In case you are wondering about the history of it, there has been one Member of Congress ever who was openly atheist. His name is Pete Stark and he is currently serving in the House representing the area around from Alameda down to Fremont. We have a ways to go.

AI Predictions (7/9 so far):
Out: Michael, Jasmine
Close: Jorge, Anoop
Surprise: Judges pick eliminated contestant out of bottom 2/3