Good News For Obama Supporters Like Me

I'm very excited about how much closer to the nomination these 2 primaries put Obama. Both candidates have fought hard, and mostly admirably. But read this article and then try and tell me that Clinton does not sound more and more petty everyday. I'm an Obama supporter (if you couldn't tell from the title of this post), but all throughout this race I haven't entirely dismissed the possibility of voting for Clinton of she would happen to get the nomination. But after all of these primaries, the more and more I see about her makes me rethink that scenario. If nothing else, the issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates makes Clinton sound whiny and petty every time she brings it up. "Why aren't those states being seated?", she says. Because they broke the rules! They moved their primaries without the sanction of the Democratic National Party, but yet they expect to still get the thumbs up?! Clinton is grasping at straws at this point. She knows that she has very little chance of winning, and so she is trying to come up with whatever scheme she can in order to take the nomination by force rather than by electorate. That's a great precedent to set, letting people break the rules and get away with it if it helps her case. Granted I'm not saying Obama is perfect. He's got his baggage and faults just like she does. It's just that when I see the way Obama has carried himself all throughout this election, I see a more honorable candidate in him than in Clinton. I still have some respect for her, as she is probably better than McCain at this point, but still, her methods are questionable and I'm not sure if I would chose her as the next president. And that's my $0.02.

The Unexamined Life

unexamined, So here I am at the end of the year, these are the last few days in my undergraduate career. It is both a happy time and a bittersweet time. I'm happy because for almost a year I won't have to do anything academic, which I desperately need. I've discovered this semester that I just don't have the energy or desire to do much scholastically. I need this time to just get into the habit of a 9-to-5 or whatever kind of job I can find and be a worker-drone. So the end of papers and tests and studying (ha, as if that last one ever happened anyway) is a welcome one. It's the social part I'm going to miss. This past year and a half has been an interesting one. Ever since getting back from Harlaxton, it seems like there have been a lot of changes. I've gained new people in my life, and some of them have become the best friends I could ever ask for. Other friendships seem to have grown apart. People come and people go, but the important ones will always be around. I think that in essence my entire college career has been one big transformation for me. I came into college a backwards, shy, mild-mannered reporter, well, or maybe just the backwards and shy parts. I was a pretty strict conservative fundamentalist with regard to politics and religion. I never questioned what I believed in, I just believed what I thought that I was supposed to. But throughout these past few years I've been challenged to examine my life, questioning what I believe in and why. I think it's an interesting coincidence, but I was thinking about something the other day. I started college reading Plato's Apology as the second book in the reading list of World Cultures. One of Socrates' most famous quotes from that work is that the unexamined life is not worth living. Now here at the end of college we translated the Apology in Greek class, and thus I revisited that same quote. When I came into college I wasn't true to that motto. My life was thoroughly unexamined and I didn't much think about it. But here at the end, there's been a great amount of examination, and I think that I'm a different person than I was when I first read those words. When I came to college, politics and religion were connected for me. I was a Republican because that's what my church told me to be, somewhat indirectly. I've gone through lots of changes, however. First on the chopping block was religion. I'm not exactly what you would call a religious person anymore. I believe that there's a God, I believe that Jesus was a good teacher, in the same vein as Socrates, but there are a lot of questions that I don't feel are adequately answered through that route. Now I'm more interested in actually helping people, not just praying for them and hoping that their problems go away. I'm not saying that religion isn't authentic for some people, I think it can be. But not for me. Maybe that makes me a heretic, but I'm willing to do the best that I can to be a good person and help my fellow human beings and then leave things up to God. My politics was then the next thing to change. As I said before I was a Republican because that's what my church told me to be. I'm not saying that all Republicans are religious nuts, that would be an untrue extreme over-generalization. I just feel like the Democratic party is more in line with my views at this point, with the most important thing being the common person and their well-being. I'm not saying I'm tied to the Democratic party forever, if their views ever change and don't meet up with mine, I would be with whatever party embodied my views. In all of this, I've seen that the words of Socrates are more true than I understood them to be four years ago, that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Everyone really needs to know who they are, what they believe in, and why. Otherwise I don't think that you're being true to yourself or anyone else. What the future holds, I don't know, but I do know that I will always be trying to understand myself and sorting out what I believe. And more importantly than that, I will always try to help people in anyway that I can, because if we don't help each other, who will?