Tags: american
as simple as I can put it
By hezamarie on Jun 16, 2008 | 203 views | 5 feedbacks »
I like smart people. Sometimes, I’m even envious of them. You know why? Mostly because I don’t exercise my brain enough and maybe because 99 percent of the time my moments of genius evaporate into the thin air. But that’s me dealing poorly with my own insecurities.
Like I said, I really like smart people and I want them to be in jobs that require superior and incisive intellect.
Don’t you want that too? Do you want, as much as I want, the head of state, head of government, the head of the executive branch, the freakin’ commander-in-chief, the person who makes treaties and appoints federal officers to be SMART?!?
Please say, yes. Pretty, please.
Okay then. Let’s put on our thinking caps..
Hmm, so far, we’re off to a shaky start. What are the causes? Well, maybe some of you have envy issues with smart people too. Personal insecurities have a way of running wild, right? But let’s not let them influence the way our country functions in this world. There are books, gurus and surgeons to alleviate our personal uncertainty.
What else? Blind spite. Ladies. Offering your vote to the other side of the issue spectrum because the female candidate didn’t gain the nomination is irrational. You’re helping to perpetrate chauvinism. Stop tuning the gender peg. You might just achieve the very thing that requires all that energy you wasted jiggling about how great it is to have women in power. Look at Germany’s Angela Merkel. Her approval rating is over 70 percent (or is it 80 percent). How often do you thing she attributes her success to being a girl?
What else? Prejudiced beliefs and ‘black man’ fears. Shame on you. Even if you’d never admit this out loud. I’m shaking my head if this is in any way a factor for you that would cause you to vote the ‘other’ way. So let me challenge you.
Open both of these links and pick five (5) issues you want to see implemented in the next 4 years -or not from either of the candidates and discuss them with yourself and then your wife, brother, or neighbor. Know what is important to you! It’s that simple. You don’t even need to leave your chair to get to know a candidate’s position on whatever. It has never been so easy as it is now to get smart about a candidate. (See. You too can get smart. I can feel your excitement.)
Before your vote comes down to a candidate’s skin color, which candidate you most likely see yourself popping open a brewski with or which candidate’s wife has better hair, look at the issues.
Oh, don’t you cop out either and wantonly vote for the older guy because he’s punched in more political hours. If this guy’s style of doing business is full of what you judge to be oopses and retractions or his work ethic doesn’t correspond to your ideals as a leader, then pick up a few facts to help you decide.
You can’t fain ignorance or not enough time. If you’re reading this crap you have time to open those links and inform yourself. I promise it won’t hurt.
-Let’s get this right this election. It does matter who you vote for and why.
But no matter who you vote for, make sure you vote!
a German take on American food
By hezamarie on May 16, 2008 | 405 views | 12 feedbacks »
Ah, the finer things in life. Or maybe not. So here’s my rant. A local grocery store is having a special on all things American starting next week.
Sadly, one look at the specials listed on their advertisement the impression is clear: American cuisine equals junk food.
Germany’s image of a typical American’s diet is a hard but overstretched reality: Millions of Americans starting their days off with either donuts, muffins, bagels or pancakes and sometime within the week hot dogs, hamburger buns, popcorn shrimp and platefuls of barbecue spare-ribs will be consumed.
But the hunger doesn’t stop there. We’ll gorge on american pizza and sandwich pickles, guzzle down blueberry and cranberry juice, and we aren’t ashamed to dip our grubby index fingers into an open jar of peanut butter and once our digits are clean we’ll lean back and smack our lips together in sugary nirvana.
But of course, you couldn’t let us forget the American all-time diabetic favorites: jelly beans, marshmallows and brownies.
It really is all too much. Behind every unhealthy and poor, nutritionally valued food substance you smugly decorate it with the American flag as if to say, “This wasn’t our idea.” I’m half embarrassed. Sugary items, refined grains, starchy and sodium polluted snacks: Is this what America really has to offer to the world? Or is this what you really sarcastically think America has to offer?
Okay, so maybe it’s true we eat individually almost 300 tortillas and 23 pounds of pizza per year*. We know these junk foods, those you want to sell so badly here, are bad for us, for you, for everyone. But this food is in the US, we developed it and now it’s an addictions we have to deal with. So I’m baffled. Why, Germany, with the negative stigma these food carry, why would you feed this food to yourselves?
Okay. I’ll give you some credit. I myself am having a hard time thinking up of typical or commonly known American foods that would be consider mildly healthy. How ’bout them tortillas? Or pecans and cashews? It’s not on your list, but how about soybeans?
Yet, I forgive Aldi. Germany may have a weakness for life’s seductions. Who can fault them or us? And anyone who believes scones are American is clearly confused.
