I just stumbled on this article from Time magazine. I’ve known for a while that being poor in the US is harder than here in the UK although I never truly understood why. I remember seeing an episode of Morgan Spurlock’s show 30 days in which he challenged people to do various things out of the norm of their lives for 30 days, this particular one involved him and his fiancé spending 30 days working minimum wage jobs. It really shocked me to see how difficult it was to live on that little money and the strain it had on them as well as how a small event can completely screw them over money wise. I’m pretty sure in the show they both worked two minimum wage jobs and it was still a very close thing. Now the thing that shocked me most about the article wasn’t reading about the worst jobs in America (although that was pretty bad in itself) it was the discovery of the minimum wage in the US, it’s never something I’d looked up so I never knew what the minimum wage actually was until now.

Wow. $5.85. Lets just compare that to the UK, here the minimum wage is layed out like this:

* £5.35 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older
* A development rate of £4.45 per hour for workers aged 18-21 inclusive
* £3.30 per hour for all workers under the age of 18, who are no longer of compulsory school age.

(Source: HM and Customs National Minimum Wage)
Before even converting the currency thats $0.50 more, I think we’ll work in pounds since its less converting. Currently (according to Xe.com) $5.85 = £2.80, that is £0.50 an hour less than I would get paid, right now, as an (almost) 17 year old. That translates to a whole £1000 when spread accross a year and at my age that minimum wage isn’t designed to be enough to support someone with their own rent, bills and food. I think I’d always known being poor was hard in America, but this…this is just silly. It seems so wrong somehow that a country so founded on the “American Dream” can basically crush people like this. It’s all very well people getting out of poverty themselves but how can they do it? Seriously. How is it even possible? It’s a wonder survival is even possible really yet people struggle on. And you’ve got to remember that these people are the ones on the tills in the supermarkets or handling your dry cleaning, they’re not lazy and they are probably having to work extra hours just to get by.

It wasn’t that long ago that I basically decided that I didn’t think it was personally worth it for me to bother with a soul crushing job down in one of the shops. I don’t think I’m really the kind of person who can just take that, well, not without needing to and at the moment, I don’t need to. I’d like more money sure, but I think I do have enough. Now that I look at this my own arrogance seems shocking, here I am complaining about that (and being lazy) when there are people working full time for 50p less an hour than I would be getting (more than that actually, since most places pay above minimum wage). People who are struggling to survive. Really, I don’t know how you can possibly justify that. I don’t claim that escaping and making yourself rich is still not possible but it would take a very rare luck and talent that most people don’t have and denying others the possibility to live a live free from the constant fear of financial problems hardly goes about damaging the wealth and well-being of the rich. Hell, giving these people a bit more of a chance might even enrich the economy and actually enhance your country.

Disclaimer: I know that such direct comparisons don’t really work properly as cost of living depends on many factors but I have always been under the impression that living in America is expensive. Also, I know this post is pointless and won’t affect anything but I’ve always believed in standing up for things, regardless if you’re even in the right country to be counted.

Recently I was thinking about all this and I realised how stupid this all is. It really makes no sense. Now, basically, liberals are generous and promote freedom whilst conservatives are selfish and seek more control. Neither of those ways are inherently good or evil but that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. In America it generally seems to be the liberal atheists versus the religious right(basically all Christians). This really seems quite strange to me.

First of all it doesn’t seem very logical that a religion founded on the good deeds, the charity and loving care of Jesus would now be selfish conservatives. More than it doesn’t seem logical – it doesn’t make any sense at all. Surely it makes more sense for Christians to be generous and try to help those less fortunate than themselves, I mean, Jesus himself was clearly against materialism. Yet for some reason so many Christians choose the selfish and materialistic conservatives.

This may sound a bit harsh on conservative views but that’s not how I see it. I actually hold quite a few true conservative values myself, I’m a capitalist and although I do support helping people that’s no excuse to not even try and get a job and simply live off other peoples taxes. In fact almost the more I thought about this the more I realised that I actually am quite conservative, its only because of the fucked up politics in the US that I feel the need to call myself liberal.

To be fair, its not just America that seems to suffer this confusion. Here in Britain it seems that Labour (who are supposed to be liberal) are becoming conservative whilst the conservatives seem to be becoming more liberal. Perhaps all this confusion is down to the fact that ideas of right and left are outdated and don’t really make sense any more. Nothing can really be boiled down to being a part of either left or right politics.

When it comes down to war in Iraq it seems to be a battle between all the different points. For liberals there is the want to help others to be free from the tyranny of rule under Saddam perhaps against the view of non violence. In the conservative camp it is wanting to keep out of other peoples business versus wanting control.

In Britain a liberal government went to war under the premise of weapons but surely that is a conservative stance? Once everything was over everyone started claiming that the war was about freeing the people from oppression which is surely the liberal view. So apparently, things started conservative and then went all liberal.

Now I don’t know about anyone else but to me that seems damn well confused. It seems that neither the politics or religion of anyone really makes any sense, everything starts to clash. The fact that so many religious are right wing must mean that there selfishness and need to control outweigh the power of their faith in charity and good deeds as promoted by Jesus Christ, who they apparently love and worship. I think I really have to call bullshit on this one. If anything demonstrates that religion is about control it is this, clearly, for a lot of people, this has got nothing to do with Jesus, or Mohammed or any other special feller and everything to do with control, controlling peoples thoughts, actions, beliefs and apparently, controlling all their oil money as well.

I was talking about this earlier today because the village where I live has posters up about her disappearance, however long ago it was. This kinda pisses me off on a few different levels.

1. I seem to remember at the beginning of this whole media frenzy it was mentioned that she had been left alone whilst the parents were having a meal. Woah, wait a minute right there! The parents just went off and had a meal whilst they left their four year old alone in the hotel room? Right from that minute I felt it would be very difficult to feel sympathy for these parents. I still feel that way now.
2. Shit happens all the fucking time, there really is no reason whatsoever why this particular case deserves so much attention, along with all the other stuff the parents have gotten out of it (I can’t really give examples other than a visit to the Pope but since they got that I think they probably got more).
3. Since they going and visiting the Pope, who can do fuck all about finding their daughter, I can’t really come to any other conclusion other than they are enjoying the attention from the media and the apparent privileges that come from that. I personally find that sickening.
4. I’m generally quite apathetic to the suffering of individuals unless I know them. You might think this as harsh but I more see it this way: I can’t be sympathetic to all the bad shit going on for the millions of people I don’t know, at least if I care about none of them I’m not discriminating. Worrying about individuals in such a manner doesn’t do anything, I can’t help them but maybe I can make a difference in general such as helping to end poverty and improving education. The people around me maybe I can help so they are the only people worth devoting my energy to, not because they are “better people” but because they are people I personally know and care about and more primarily I can actually maybe do something to help.

Ultimately this pretty young white girl thing just pisses me off. The media will keep it up until more people change their attitude and see how much bullshit it is.

Before I start, yes, ok, Christian aid is a UK charity but I think what I’m about to say is about a general problem.

This week is Christian aid week. I know because I saw a sign outside one of my local churches, they tend to have varying signs telling me to read the bible or whatever and they are usually pretty cheesy. When I saw this one I couldn’t help thinking about the irony of Christian aid, surely without taking from poor people over hundreds of years these churches would never have come into being. Surely these grand buildings are no more than a tribute to hundreds of years of theft not to mention all the other crap that Christianity has been a part of.

Ok, so, maybe they have changed their ways (which I do believe is the case) and now they are trying to make up for the mistakes of the past by doing something really good, which is commendable and…well…Jesus would be proud I’m sure. But having just read this post on God is for suckers I really can’t help thinking that this is really just a really half arsed attempt.

“According to our estimates, annual giving to U.S. protestant churches is $93 billion.” (Source)

$93 billion. That is a lot of money full stop but that’s every single year. According to wikipedia “War on Want estimates that US$45.7 billion would be required for 62 countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals“. Mega church construction currently stands at $28 billion annually and that is set to rise by 2010 to $40 billion.

So if the US, instead of building mega churches for a couple of years perhaps you could spend that money on stopping poverty, making sure that everyone in the world has enough food to eat. Perhaps you could do some real good around the world, maybe you could even try and be a bit more like Jesus, instead of just slagging off gay people and picketing about abortion.

You might call me hypocritical because I’m not out there doing a load of charity work but lets face it I don’t have the means to gather $40 billion. The church does, not only does it have the means it is already in excess of that every year. Just think of the amount of good this money could do for people who really have nothing? Surely even if you don’t agree with my stand point on religion you can see that this money could do a great deal more if it was used to relieve debt and poverty.

I really doubt that anything this radical and good would ever happen but the next time someone talks about the amount of good Christianity has done I would challenge them to think of the amount of good Christianity could do but doesn’t.

“We should be outside frolicking” he repeated.

Again, everyone took it as a joke but in reality he was right.  We’ve had a week of beautiful weather and managed to spend as little of that time outside as possible.  Too drawn into progressing the generations on The Sims 2 to bother going outside. It’s possible that a slight change of wording would convince us of the truth in the statement.

“This is what summer is going to be like, just us festering here in the sideroom”.

Not exactly how he said it but it gets the message accross. Really, if its this warm and sunny now I can’t imagine how bad its going to get. And of course, we should be outside, enjoying the nice weather before it gets so hot that heat becomes an excuse. I always go up there with the intention of arriving earlier than usual, with more time to do other things, yet I still always manage to get there at around the same time. I don’t know how it happens, some sort of intrepid laziness that forces me to stay in my house up to a certain time.

What we really need is another expedition, another walk through the countryside surrounding the area we have lived for years yet never explored. Some might say 16 is too old for such escapades but not me, even having said this it did only happen once although I dream of it happening more. Perhaps one day I will finally break out of this and get on with things, I don’t know when that day will be, probably when I really think I have nothing better to do. Could be a while, what with the prospects of internet piracy.

Quite an odd mix, wouldn’t you say? I don’t really want to talk about Easter, more I want to talk about Scientology, having just seen this video it has reminded me how amazingly stupid this “religion” is. I really can’t imagine how gullible and stupid you must have to be to get sucked into that lot, the whole thing is a big joke. First you take a story of blatantly invented bullshit and propose that what you just came up with actually happened when really it was just made up right there and then. Just go and read the wikipedia entry, the story summary quite amazingly demonstrates how much crap you have to believe to be part of that religion. Really, when you get into it, it sounds like a science fiction adventure game more than a religion and I really have absolutely no idea why the hell anyone would fall for any of that crap. Some places don’t classify it as a religion, which is quite right in my opinion, given that you seem to have to pay to get anywhere in it. How it can really call itself a church is quite beyond me and watching that video seems to scream cult, their techniques of attacking people seem to be instilled into the members and it would seem their response is not against the norm for any kind of attack on their religion.

This brings me back to seeing John Travolta on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, now don’t get me wrong, Travolta seems to be quite a nice guy and not particularly stupid but his claim that Scientology does only good and tries to help people seems a bit rich considering the number of deaths and disappearances surrounding the church. What Travolta said probably made the British public slightly warm to the idea of Scientology, which is something that makes me uncomfortable because I really can only come to the conclusion that these Scientologists (is that even a word?) are no less than delusional, or at least, brainwashed. Actually it probably doesn’t matter if its a word or not, Hubbard (Scientology “founder” and science fiction writer) tended to just make up words. Just look at this dictionary of Scientology terms.

This post has been rather jumbled but I guess that suits the subject matter, one last thing, this quote I found on a church of Scientology web page: “A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology. — L. Ron Hubbard“. I’m sure they are the aims of Scientology but apparently the ways to go about these aims is through brainwashing. I am sure insanity, criminals and war would all go away if we thought like Scientologists, but that is not real freedom to do anything, part of the joy of humanity must come from the pain of war and grief, through the thrill of diversity and happiness. That and, he just fucking made it up.

Yesterday I watched a documentary on the Westboro Baptist Church. Now, let me get this straight, I don’t actually have a problem with “fundamentalism”. Why? I believe very strongly in freedom of speech and belief and I would fight very hard for someone to be able to say something that I disagree with. Some people might find that strange but I look at it this way, the moment someone is not allowed to express their beliefs through words (not through violence and not in a way that insights violence) then my beliefs become at risk. So long as everyone can express their beliefs I know I can as well, and that makes me feel safe. Now, back to the topic in hand, the WBC seem to be a prime example of “fundamentalism”. Fundamentalism is basically strong literal interpretation of religious text. See here’s where my problems arise, the Westboro Baptist Church are prime examples of what fundamentalism seems to mean at the moment, they take a very small part of the bible literally (or perhaps not, some of the quotes on godhatesfags.com seem very ambiguous) and then turn that into their major belief. Now I really, really can’t see how this works. Ok, so these “Christians” seem to think they are getting into heaven but quite frankly, according to their own religious text, they won’t be.

The belief that homosexuality is wrong comes primarily from Leviticus 20:13 “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Now that’s fair enough, if you are a Christian you believe that the bible is the word of God and so you heed it. What’s interesting is a few other portions of Leviticus, here God really is laying down the law. Leviticus 11:9-12 says:
“These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” So essentially, God doesn’t want you to eat shellfish. I guess this really makes me wonder when was the last time I saw the WBC protesting against “Shrimp Enablers” or picketing sea food restaurants with signs saying “Shellfish eaters die God laughs”. Yeah, that’s what I thought as well. And that really is far from the only thing, if you read Leviticus you will find a huge number of different things you have to do, otherwise you are either going to be killed, be childless or cut off from your people.

So this applies to all Christians that like to take any part of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) literally. If you believe that homosexuality is wrong because that’s what the Bible says then you surely must also believe a whole load of other laws, you surely must shun any those committing the abomination of eating shellfish. There is perhaps a bit of ambiguity when it comes to the translations from the original Hebrew but really if you decide that only Leviticus 20:13 is worth listening to that’s just blatantly to cover up severe homophobia, which is really what I think is the true cause of this gay hate. I would really love to hear a response to this, mainly because I have yet to hear a Christian argue that their Bible remains worthy of belief when so much of it is either completely ignored by Christians or just complete nonsense.

Then comes my other part of this, the way the WBC protests against this stuff totally seems to go against everything that Christianity really stands for. Really, I don’t think that any of these “fundamentalists” are responding in a way that Jesus himself would appreciate, he was all about love, loving sinners, loving neighbours, loving people you don’t like and loving people that you do. Regardless of what these people say (for example that they are displaying their love by trying to educate and therefore “save” these people from their lives of sin) I think this really has to come down to deep rooted problems. Even as an atheist I pity these people that seem to call themselves Christian but have failed to truly understand the message of Christ. Ultimately, the WBC is a very small minority of the Christian world but I still see quite a lot in what they say reflected in those people who seem to be more in touch with reality.

The first part of that documentary can be found here if you feel like getting a bit of an idea of what I’m talking about.

So much seems to have happened yet I don’t seem to be able to remember any of it. I had my last session of the 6 week course at the university on Wednesday. It was pretty crap really, as it started I felt quite comfortable and happy but it collapsed into a pretty boring and otherwise uninteresting evening. Really its about the social side, I like to talk and be around people but I’m very bad at initiating and of it being the shy person I am. The big problem throughout the course was that all the other people there knew other people on the course as they went to the same schools but I didn’t so there wasn’t even the possibility of moulding my group with another because I simply didn’t have a group. After the first session I was feeling very positive because the ideas of these pre established groups didn’t really surface and I didn’t really realise the problem it was going to be. The first session was actually really good and lots of fun but it all started going down hill after that really, some sessions better than others but nothing anywhere near as good as the first one. That first session I felt so alive, really being around other nice people who I didn’t know but felt I could get along well with but any openings there were for me to join on to groups were quickly demolished by my shyness.

In the end I learned nothing I didn’t know before I guess, without that first session I guess there wouldn’t have been much hope for anything different. But there was. I was given that preview. “This is what your life could be”. The teasing little dash of possibility that there is a hope and better future for me. These things come along once in a while, when they come they bring me great joy, for those moments in time nothing could really be better, there is my heaven and paradise. The moment is gone too soon, only to be left with the thoughts of this as a real life, left in my memory, for me to meander over for days, weeks, months maybe. Its a pretty destructive process. All I can really hope for is that university will be what I need, allowing me to establish a mixed group of friends and finally find what I want. Without this hope…well I just don’t know where I would really be.

It seems like forever that I have seemed to be wish to be part of a bigger group of friends and to have more of a normal teenage existence but then reading bits and pieces on the internet and hearing people talk about all the trouble they have has got to make me wonder if its worth it. Is the happiness gained from this really worth the pain of it when things go wrong, I guess I have somehow skipped that (at least for a few years) by being part of such a small and solid group. I wonder if anyone is on the other side wishing they were part of what I am, probably not… I might go into more detail about what I mean at some point in the future, I dunno yet.

Perhaps the greatest actual part of it is the experience, its all very well being numbed from the pain of life, numbed into an existence that lacks any real depth but that’s not really what I want. It must be a part of being human, to ride the waves of life. Ah, shouldn’t think about it too much as its never going to change things by just pondering over them but this is one of those things I think about which really makes me wonder and I just have no idea, I really am just the observer.