ZAP!

Columbus Day

2009-10-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

I've heard that a lot of schools are either wanting to rename Columbus Day, or just get rid of it all together. They're teaching kids that Columbus was bad to the Indians and was just a horrible person.

Now, what I've always heard, is that Christopher Columbus was an explorer who thought that America was the Indies. And that he and the Native Americans actually worked together. He didn't poison them or treat them badly.

So, what do you think about this? Please comment!

President Obama wants year-round schooling?

2009-09-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

President Obama wants to extend the hours of our school days and take away our Summer. Why? He claims that kids with year-round school do better on the state tests.

My theory on this is that the more time in public, government-run schools and less time with their parents, kids will learn his views on the issues and not their parent's.

But other then that, hard-working students and teachers get a lot of stress from school. I know that adults will say that "kids have it easy", but a lot of them have forgotten about the pain and struggle it is to be a kid. The only thing that kept me going at the end of the last school year was knowing that a break from it all would come up. If it was year-round, I would probably have just given up. And this is coming from an A/B-Average student.

Here is an argument from a thirteen-year-old student about the subject:

"Obama is wanting to make our school times much longer..3 hours longer..Thats nine and a half hour days.. Plus the two to three hours of homework I recieve every night.. He also wants to take away our summer break, And He wants to make us go to school on saturdays. Isnt that just great? -_- Horrible. Absolutely horrible. If this even gets passed I hope that kids stay out of school for like a week, to prove a point and get it taken away. How am I supposed to come home and be expected to do even more homework??! I would come home around six, And let me tell you this..It gets dark around then once time changes and the bus doesnt go to my house..So I would walk home worrying about people snatching me or something and then I would come home and do tons of hours of homework. Then the fact that would take up any free time I have isnt nice. I dont know about you but once I get home I rather relax. So I would probably get done with homework around ten, And would most likely just end up going to sleep from my exhausting nine hour school day. Then we have the school cuts because of this horrible economy.Do you know how much money that would cost to keep us in school even longer??! I am more then sure that my school wouldnt be able to survive that. Our teachers get underpaid enough and truly our schools are trying to CUT BACK hours because they cant pay for stuff. And to keep schools open on saturday is just absolutely wrong. If he thinks this is going to help improve education its not. Its just going to make everyone much more stressed out. Also what about the kids at school that get picked on? Three more hours of complete heck for them? How is that at all fair? And how about the teachers? I am more then sure they have lifes when they get home. OH and if kids cant have enough time to do activities such as football basketball ect..How is that going help to the obesity problem? How about the public buildings that have kids on their sports and get money like that? Those will be gone.
I swear Obama is not thinking. I refuse to go to school almost every single day per year. How about you? "

And let's not forget the teachers! They have lives, too (as said in the above rant). When my mother was a teacher, she was always stressed-out near the end of the day. She was a great teacher, but sometimes dreaded going to school as much as teenagers and kids do.

So what do we do about it? Hope that congress doesn't vote on the law? How about we all show that we don't want it? While anyone against the idea can help, the people who are most affected ; the students, parents, and teachers ; would be the best at going against it. Organize a petetion, or start a ralley. Do something to get their attention.

School is important, but it is NOT everything in a kid or teen's life!

Common Misconceptions About Mississippi

2009-09-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, a lot of you people think a lot of stuff about MS, and the south in general, that's not true. And, as a guy who's lived in the state my whole life, I'm here to clear up the misconceptions :

We Don't All Own Farms! Seriously! I've only BEEN to a farm a few times! Sure, SOME houses have a lot of land, but we have all kids of stuff here. We have suburbs, neighborhoods, cities (ever seen downtown Jackson?), and, yes, some farms.

Those Metaphores And Idioms - You know how on TV, the southern people say things like, "That's like a possem lookin' at a toaster in a oven" (Yes, that was off the top of my head.) Well, I don't talk like that. No one at my school talks like that. It's only the old women that say ANYTHING like that, and they don't use it to an extreme.

We Gots No Edjamaction - Yeah, we do have education. We're strict about it, too. I go to a school, and no, the 8th-graders don't struggle with "C-A-T".

We're All Conservative Christains - I'll admit, Christianity is more encouraged and widespread here, and you can talk about conservative ideas without getting mobbed, but not EVERYONE is like that! I know some non-religious people, I know some bisexual people, I know liberal people! There may be a majority here of Christain conservatives, but we're not as extreme about it as a lot of you think, and there's people different.

The Accents - The only people with those annoying "Southern" accents I've heard are from old people and a redneck girl at my school.

We all love CUNTREH MUSIC! I myself like country music, but half the people here I've talked to hate it. They listen to what most teenagers listen to here, as well (for some) as country.

The Heaviest States - Yeah, there's overweight people here, but aren't there where YOU live? There's plenty of average sized, and even THIN, people in Mississippi.

There. So, yeah. We're like everyone else pretty much. We're not all rednecks, we're not like the old people who give the steriotypes, and I've never been or heard of someone who's been to a barn dance. :P

(PS. If you can think of a steriotype that's been bugging you, post it in the comments!)

Energy?

2009-09-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

I posted on a forum (me being the conversational geek I am), and I told the story about how a hardcore-aithiest converted to Christianity.

My dad has a friend who's a pastor, but used to be an aithiest. What happened was, the guy's dad (who was a pastor) wanted him to sing at a rivival. Although the guy was a hard-core, "Prove-Christians-Wrong" aithiests, he still sung. A woman there had broken her arm. Another woman laid her hand on her and prayed for her, and the arm healed.
Ever sense then, this guy has been a hardcore preacher.

Somebody replied to it and said that it was energy that healed it. The person was a Wiccan, so I thought it was a wiccan thing. But according to some agnostics (people who think there might be a God, but don't know for sure), energy-healing is a universal term.

Now I wanna know, if it's not okay for me to talk about my religion as fact, how come they can talk about the energy healing as a fact? True, it could have been the energy of God, but I don't think it's in the way they thought.

If anyone knows more about this than me, please comment.

In other news, I finally cleaned my rats' cage. Yes, I have pet rats. No, I did not catch them from the wild. They're like gerbils except bigger and not as jumpy. If you want to know more about the keeping of pet rats, comment this post about it.

Before I end this post, I'd like to recomend a couple of radio stations. K-Love plays positive Christian music. I know a lot of people who it has really helped in their lives. And AFR (American Family Radio) is a good station if you're both political and religous.

That will be all.

Over and Out,
The Lightning Knight.

First Blog Post

2009-09-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

My dad, who is a big talk-show fanatic, was listening to Rush Limbaugh in the car today. Hearing him voice his oppinions made me think that I would like to start a blog. So, here I am. On the annerversery of 9/11. I kow, bad date. But I really wanted to do this.

I am a conservitive Christian who believes in what the Bible says. I also believe that all people should have equal rights and opprotunities ; black, white, male, female.... everyone.

I have been watching a series of videos called the "American Heritige Series". While I do not recomend them as a base for your beliefs, I do think that, if you want to see how God worked in our history, they would be a great tool for that. They talk about how America was not founded on the economy. True, that was a reason, but ot THE reason.

In other news, President Obama has made a speech for the students of America. I have not watched it yet, but I will try to soon. While I do not agree with most of the President's views, I will try to watch the speech and open my mind to the fact that there might be something insightfull in it.

Something I have noticed on a kid/teen website that I often debate on, most of the Christians are pre-teens who quote the Bible and can't even spell right, getting beat by older aithists and agnostics. What the Christians are trying to do is admirable, but ONLY quoting the Bible does not work when you're talking to people who don't believe in the Bible. Try instead to talk about how God has helped in YOUR life, or how He had an affect in history.

Remember, I am just a kid trying to voice my views. I would NOT want you to just believe everything I say. I'm still learning myself. Hopefully, though this blog will get people thinking. Plus, you can send comments that I might respond to and put on my blog. This is where people can voice what they TRUELY believe!