The War on Christmas

The thing that irks me the most during the Christmas season is how everybody has gotten into the habit of saying "Happy Holidays", even here in America, the most non-secular officially secular nation in the world. I prefer Merry Christmas instead because if it weren't for Christmas, December would just be another month with a Jewish holiday. If it weren't for Christmas, you wouldn't see snowflakes, trees and lights everywhere around town. If it weren't for Christmas, we wouldn't be saying "Happy Holidays" at all.

 People say "Merry Christmas" is offensive to non-Christians. But Christmas is not just a Christian holiday anymore. It has grown into much more than the celebration of the Birth of Christ, in-fact the only place he's mentioned on Christmas is in Churches. Now its more about gift giving, kindness and togetherness (and mass consumerism of course). Completely secular celebrations.

Is saying "Happy Thanksgiving" offensive to Native American's? Probably, but that doesn't stop it from being mentioned everywhere in ads and on TV. Is saying "Happy Halloween" offensive to non-Pagans? No, because Halloween has secular celebrations as well that are widely practiced.

So say Merry Christmas this season. And if they say they're offended, remind them of the giving spirit of Christmas and not just the birth of Jesus.

The Most Influential People in History in One Picture

Scroll sideways to see the entire image. Mouseover each figure to view his name and click to view his Wikipedia article.

The painting was made in 2006 by three Chinese artists. Learn more about it here.

My Top 5 Biggest Irrational Fears

1 - Atherosclerosis

Otherwise known as clogged arteries. This is a legitimate concern for a 65 year old but certainly not an 18 year old. I am always afraid that my arteries might clog up at any time, that fat goop is building up inside my blood vessels and that there is little I can do about it. You'd think that this would drive me to exercise more but it does not. I don't eat fatty foods at all, so that makes me feel a little more secure.


2 - My Teeth falling out

According to my dentist, my teeth are very strong, hard and deep rooted. Yet for some reason I am always paranoid that they may come loose and fallout. It probably has too do with the pain and bleeding that I often associate with loosing teeth.


3 - Viruses

I always knew viruses were a germ, but when I learned in detail about them in biology class, these really began to scare the shit out of me. These microscopic pieces of genetic material wrapped in a protein shell have the ability to hijack your cells and use them to replicate, sometimes destroying the cell in the process. But the really disturbing part is their ability to actually change your genetic makeup by modifying your DNA one cell at a time. In fact, it is estimated that up to 8% of the human genome is made of viral DNA. There is very little that can be done about viruses. They cannot be killed, they can only be stopped from reproducing with anti-viral drugs. Even so it does little to stop their spread. Everyday, they are infecting your cells and using them to reproduce, sometimes messing with your genes, and there is nothing you can do about it. It drives me insane sometimes. Although most viruses are harmless, their ability to spread rapidly can make them very dangerous. This shows a good example of what they are capable of. (Before you comment on that link, read this)

4 - Silence

Some kind of background noise is a must for me, especially when Im trying to sleep. The absence of noise  seems to make one think that something is wrong. It also makes you feel paranoid that something bad is about to happen to you. I could be all alone in the house at night and I would be fine if I had the TV on. But if there were no background noise I would feel creeped out even though Im inside my own home.

5 - That someone will literally grab my Heart

For some reason I imagine my heart to be a very sensitive organ, so I am always worried that it may suffer some form of trauma. Whether its from being overworked, shot, operated on or grabbed out of my chest.     

Fear

This is an essay on fear and its effect on our society that I wrote for creative writing class. When you really think about it, we really do live in a constant state of fear even when in fact our world has only gotten safer.

Fear is a basic survival mechanism that all humans experience. It is a discomforting feeling that arises whenever we perceive a threat, regardless of whether or not that threat is real. People fear many things such as heights, death, spiders, small spaces, etc, but there is one thing which almost all humans fear and that is the fear of the unknown. The question of “what if?” has an endless amount of possible answers and it is that uncertainty that drives us to be fearful. The fear of the unknown does not only apply to possible situations, but people as well.  

Regardless of what we say, our minds are subconsciously bias toward people based on their appearance. This often plays a large roll in racism and fear of other ethnic groups and people who are different in general. When we see a person walking down a shady street towards us at night, our fear instinct kicks in because we realize several of the signs that that person might be dangerous, such as the fact that he is alone, it is night time and, he may be dressed provocatively. For each consecutive flag, our fear becomes more intense. It would spike if you were to see him holding a gun, and it would also probably spike if he was black, because it is typically blacks who are the perpetrators in many muggings. These are all characteristics of what leads us to fear. We fear him because we don’t know if he will try to mug us, it is that uncertainty that is the fear of the unknown. If we don’t know what is going to happen we automatically worry that something bad will happen.  

Fear is often something that is acquired by learning. If a person falls off a boat and nearly drowns, that person may develop a fear of water because they’re afraid they’ll drown based on that past experience. However one cannot learn about the unknown. Since the unknown is something that is unable to be understood, we fear it. Another aspect of fear of the unknown is anticipation. We anticipate that bad things might happen because we know they can happen. If we see a plane crash on the news, next time we fly we anticipate that the plane may crash. We don’t know that it will happen, but we’re afraid simply because we know it can happen. 

In humanities class, we watched the film Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore, which mainly focused on the issue of guns but also went a lot into our perception of fear and how it possesses us to no end. Moore explained that American’s fear of the unknown has driven us to horde weapons and become less reluctant to use them because they make us feel safer. One of the biggest motivations for this trend in recent years has been 9/11, where a group of terrorists hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing 3000 people. Since then, terrorism has become one of America’s biggest fears, almost to the point of paranoia. In this sense, the attacks are working just as planned. The objective of terrorism is to intimidate and strike a sense of fear into a target, and 9/11 has led us to become more fearful of the unknown then ever before. It seems like no matter how many laws we pass or how many police officers we put on the streets, this fear never goes away even after the immediate threat has passed.  

Nine-Eleven has also caused us to fear not just terrorism itself, but anyone who could potentially be a terrorist, especially those who have a similar profile to those who hijacked the planes on 9/11. This has caused us to become fearful of people who are middle eastern or even just look middle eastern. After finding out that Islamic Jihad was the motive for the attacks, we have also become fearful and suspicious of Muslims, even if they are otherwise ordinary American’s. In recent years people have become harshly opposed to the building of mosques in their communities or the idea of Muslims working in jobs that are responsible for public safety, because we fear they could be terrorists, because their faith makes us associate them with 9/11 and raises a red flag in our conscious that they fit the description of a typical terrorist. This mass state of fear has even caused us to give up some of our civil liberties if it can make us fear safer. A good example is the PATRIOT Act which allows law enforcement to circumvent parts of the criminal justice system in the name of fighting terrorism, or the invasive pat-downs and other procedures we are forced to go to whenever we fly. We accept these laws because they make us feel safer, but this can lead us down a slippery slope where we exchange more and more of our civil liberties for the perception of safety, even if they don’t actually make us safer. 

Perhaps the biggest aspect of our sense of fear of the unknown comes from the fear of our own future. The future is completely clouded in uncertainty and is constantly changing based on the actions we take in the present. Our futures can hold many hopes and prospects but also many terrible things that could go wrong. Our fear of the future may ultimately stem from its inevitability. While we can avoid participating in dangerous activities, we cannot avoid our own future. The inability to control what has yet to come may be what causes us to fear it so much. Personally the future is likely one of my biggest fears, especially given the trends that are pointing where the future is headed. I often fear that I will not be able to have the same living standard as I do now. I also fear that the rights I enjoy as an American will be taken away in the name of fighting “terrorism”, as well as the impact of global warming on our environment and ultimately the food supply. Even the most optimistic of us must have some sense of doubt and fear for the future. 

Fear is ultimately caused by experiences and learning. Even if something didn’t happen to us personally, we fear it because we know it can happen and that it is bad and/or will have a negative effect on us in some way. The uncertainty of whether or not something bad will happen is what makes us fear the unknown. It is a flaw in human nature that allows fear to easily manipulate us. Our fears can often be irrational, but it is these instincts that have kept us alive for millennia. Our fear of the unknown may ultimately be a good thing, as it helps us avoid situations where danger can often develop. Fear can consume us but is also an everyday part of our lives. Having a fear of something is human nature, but submitting to fear without questioning it cam lead us down a path of paranoia and self-destruction.

Raspberry Pi

UPDATE: The Raspberry Pi is now availible! Get it here!

Now this is an NPO I can really get behind. The Raspberry Pi foundation is a Non-profit organization based in the UK who's goal is to get young people more interested in computers and to reintroduce computer education into public school curriculum.

Its downright pitiful how stupid people can be in regards to computers, as well as the shallowness of computer instruction in schools. Raspberry Pi wants to change all that, by offering a compact, easily affordable system-on-a-chip computer that students can use to explore and experiment with to learn about computers in a fun, hands on way.

Yes, that is a whole computer. And a powerful one at that. Its only got a 700MHz ARM processor and 256MB of RAM, which is slightly more powerful than an iPhone 3GS, but its enough to playback 1080p video and run Quake 3 on max settings.

Its a bare motherboard so you can do anything you want to it. Its got a USB port, an SD card slot for storage, an HDMI video output, a Composite video output, 3.5mm sound output, and an Ethernet port. It comes bundled with Debian Linux, which is a great distro for exploring and learning Linux.

And it can be yours for a measly $25 for the A-model or $35 for the B-model. Its a fully functional computer! Just plug in a mouse, keyboard, monitor and internet and you can browse the internet, watch videos, and create office documents. All for $25!