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I really don’t get why, when marching, there are certain chants that do nothing but antagonize the police. A chant about Police Brutality like “From Oakland to Greece, Stop Police Brutality” makes sense. However a chant like “whoop whoop, that’s the sound of the police” does nothing put taunt someone to be violent. A chant like “Obama, come out, we’ve got some stuff to talk about” illustrates the idea that we’re pissed off but also that we want a discussion (it’s also kind of funny). However, in most cases a chant like “From Oakland to Greece, FUCK the police” doesn’t help anything.There are rare exceptions to this rule, for example when Zuccotti Park/Liberty Square was raided by a coordinated police attack then I’d say we had the right to chant about something the police were doing directly to them. However, in most cases, when the police are just following a march, and USUALLY just present in the case something should happen, why antagonize them. Granted it’s just a chant and unless a protester acts on it, which usually doesn’t happen, it’s nothing more than free speech. However, when we are all taking part in a chant that does nothing more than potentially antagonize a group of men trained in combat tactics who have billy clubs, pepper sprays, and guns on them, just because you have the freedom of speech to say something doesn’t mean you should take advantage of said freedom. Honestly, I’m REALLY glad these chants are NOT used very often because I personally hate them. They have nice rhythms I’m not gonna deny that, but we should all really be more mindful of what we’re saying. There are plenty of other chants that work just as well, which don’t potentially alienate people who are there primarily to keep order, but at the same time (when they are with their families) might be in the same position as the protesters.
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I was hanging out at the Occupy office a few days ago having a discussion about the following issue:
There are plenty of people in this country with very sub-par internet connections. Due to monopolies, providers have no interest in providing better services as they are faced with little to no competition. The public suffers greatly as a result of this. The providers also keep raising their rates and losing customers because their customers simply cannot afford said rates. The discussion then turned to the United States Postal Service’s recent filing for bankruptcy.
I said, “Well, yeah, things like Gmail made mail delivery instantaneous.” The person responded, “Yeah, but the postal service is a country-wide entity, instead of just filing for bankruptcy why didn’t they try and compete with the internet providers? Make their own internet service. It would be the perfect adaptation with the times, and they wouldn’t have to go out of business.”
A week or two I attended an open-mic where I had a short discussion with someone who was an SAT tutor. If I remembered his name I’d mention it because his routine onstage was great (it was 7 minutes of cute puns put together in a story format) but I don’t so I’ll just get to the point.
When I took the SAT’s they were still doing the 1600-is-perfect score so he had to explain the dynamics of the new test where apparently 2400 is the new perfect. It is possible that he was simply being pretentious in his description but he explained the concept of the new exam structure through a magic trick (I’m not kidding). He performed the trick, then asked me which hand the quarter that disappeared was in. I answered. He then he showed me the exact same trick, but this time with a nickel. When he asked what hand the nickel was I knew the answer since I’d seen the same trick before, just with a different coin.
This apparently is the concept behind the SAT’s now: keep asking the same question in a different way until you answer correctly. He further explained that the test was changed in order to raise the overall score results since those on the 1600 test were embarrassingly low.
It is possible that he just exaggerated the test’s simplicity but I don’t know. Truth be told I scored a 1010 on the 1600 test so I’m no genius and I’m not afraid to admit it. His demonstration did get me thinking though:
Parents generally want their children to do as well as possible on the SAT’s. This is why Kaplan and The Princeton Review were created. Problem is, what if the test is “too hard” and its structure is altered solely to find a backdoor method of getting students to do better overall (as opposed to just improving the schools). What does this say about our educational system?
It’s no surprise we have had problems for a while. However, parents and schools are not helping and it seems to be getting cyclically worse: Students have to take the SAT’s and their parents want them to do well so that they can get into a good school for a better education. The schooling system looks terrible if students consistently score low as it exposes the flaws in their bureaucracy (everything’s a bureaucracy, I’m not complaining about that). Instead of trying to fix this, the way to amend it is to make the test easier and more obvious to take. Here we see a lack of interest in where the problem actually resides, and parents, instead of questioning the schooling system, take measures to help their children do better with the exam’s current structure (though that last part isn’t too surprising, and not in a bad way). Ultimately, students may do better but in the long run, but the system as a whole is still crap for not doing what’s necessary and the problem only grows. We therefore come to a very disturbing query:
Parents, understandably, want their kids to do well in school. What if the schools just don’t care?
I had a discussion on facebook about how some people treat others like shit. This was my contribution (truth be told I just copied and pasted this from the discussion, but it was all one comment, written by me, is just as truthful, and I thought it was worth blogging about).
Women and men tend to have different insecurities just based on their chemical makeup. Lets leave seduction out of this because that’s a whole other story. If assholes or bitches get women or men, it’s because they know what insecurities to play on and how to manipulate members of the opposite sex. Same goes for a woman who treats a man like shit. Generally if a man is in a relationship (and is serious about it) he will try to make the woman feel better about herself if they are upset. That’s how I see it and the same goes for a caring woman with her man. It all depends on how insecure and caring the male and the female are of themselves and each other. When we’re young, EVERYONE is very insecure. Finding that insecurity is key, then you exploit it, and you have someone at your beck and call. Personally, I can’t stand it when either sex does this to their significant other. But I do find their behaviors fascinating, and for that reason I hung around them to figure out what seems to make them tick. I’m dark I know :)
