I wish I would have had more time to think about this project, but it was interesting to know what people think of themselves and what people think of you.
Human Cost of War – Joshua Molina
September 1, 2008 at 3:08 am (feelings, friendship)
Tags: army soldiers, Human Cost of War, Iraq Body Count, iraq war, iraqi deaths, joshua molina
A couple of years ago I met a couple of great guys. We were all at Longshores, Alabama for a church beach retreat trying to figure out how to fit Jesus in our lives.
I can’t remember the details, but the overall memory I have of the beach retreat is sweet. I had the deepest conversations with people that understood the struggle of being a Jesus follower. I learned how to forgive myself for feeling unworthy of being saved…how to really accept him and how to look forward to a new life. This retreat was GRAND and life-changing, but I didn’t keep in touch with those great people I met. One of them was Joshua. I started talking to him after my brother befriended him. They were roommates and had a fabulous time making fun of everyone.
He was baptised along with his brother Manuel during the retreat which made me very happy since Josh told me he was going to enlist in the army. We wrote each other a couple of emails back and forth…but I stopped writing back. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that. The last email he sent he said we would hang out the summer he was going to come back from Germany, where he ended up being deployed to, which was last summer. I’m really upset I didn’t keep in touch…because now I won’t ever see him or hear from him.
He died serving for this country in March. I found out before July 4th.
Thanks for my freedom, Josh…thank you.
light humor or racism?
February 27, 2008 at 4:34 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: racism
A student from Colorado University wrote a “humorous” plan for his online campus newspaper on how to hate Asians back, since it has been his experience that Asians don’t like Whites. Reading it felt a bit uncomfortable since I can’t imagine this person sitting in front of his computer writing about racism in such a way. Yes, Russel Peters, Chris Rock, George Lopez and many others have made a living making fun of racism…but reading this article felt different than listening to “comedy.”
”And I say it’s time we started hating them back. That’s right-no more “tolerance.” No more “cultural sensitivity.” No more “Mr. Pretend-I’m-Not-Racist.” It’s time for war. But we won’t attack their bodies or minds. We will attack their souls.” – Max, student from CU
I definitely did not laugh.
a grand solution
February 20, 2008 at 2:58 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: immigration
Debbie shared this video with me:
I couldn’t help but think about my Feminist Theory & Body, Yoga & Dance class. Today,the world was an experience heard, touched and seen by me and somehow discrimination was not part of it. What do you think?
The young are just as wise
December 16, 2007 at 3:13 am (Uncategorized)
I found online an article about a study done on children. They were asked “What is love?” and their responses were simply profound.
My favorite was seven year old boy, Bobby:
Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if
you stop opening presents and listen.
Hope you’re able to feel it this holiday season!
The Human Cost of War
December 4, 2007 at 4:08 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: , Human Cost of War, Iraq Body Count, missing children
Since 2003’s USA intervention in Iraq, around 85,000 Iraqi civilians have been reported dead. On a daily basis, 15 civilians die from vehicle bombs and 35 die from executions/gun fire. That means that every 22 days, the population size of Scripps College is continually being swiped out.
Today, I read an article about a dead American girl. She was found around 5 minutes away from my house, 8 days after my 19th birthday. She’s still at the morgue without a correct ID, age, history. She will be buried with a headstone reading “UNK W N,” for unknown woman.
I can’t image 85,000 headstones with “UNK.” Can you?
A relative of mine decided to start over at another city/state without telling anyone. She was only “missing” less than 48 hours, but all those hours were painful. I searched through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children today. I was hoping I could identify a missing child, and stop the grief for a family. Of course, I wasn’t able to help.
Families of missing relatives survive on the hope that their relatives are still alive. This is why I am a promoter of the Iraq Body Count. It keeps a note on every life taken due to USA intervention. It compels me to abhor war.
Should the cost of War depend on human lives? I wouldn’t want it to be.
Mon résumé!
November 12, 2007 at 3:38 pm (Uncategorized)
I can only define my generation through the events I have perceived to be controversial. To be part of me, you have to understand these events. I have not been directly affected by most things I remember, but my mind has consumed them to be a part of my memory. It’s not selective listening, or in this case selective consumption of information…I think it’s beyond that psychological antenna. And I’ve wanted to write a poem about these events since like sophomore year of high school…and I can’t. These events/people speak for themselves.
Rwanda genocide
Darfur genocide
Congo genocide
War on terror
Columbine school shooting
Virginia Tech School shooting
Stockton massacre
Resendiz serial killer
29 total school shootings
KIPP
Romanian Revolution
Zapatista uprising in Chiapas
Croatian War of Independence
US in Afghanistan
Congo Civil War
Selena
Anna Nicole
Tia Johana
Rocio Durcal
Rocio Jurado
Celia Cruz
9/11
HR 4437
Jena 6
Cell phones
Hurricane Mitch
Hurrican Katrina
President Fox
“Kennewick Man”
Clinton’s Sex Scandal
Terri Shiavo
Berlin Wall
Dalai Lama Nobel Peace Prize
World Wide Web debuts
Nelson Mandela
Text messages
Gen Noriega convicted in USA
Vladimir’s Suicide
Ani DiFranco
Olympic games
Stem cell
Kim’s Death due to Leukemia
Mormon church
Facebook
Princess Diana
Myspace
Enron’s scandal
Saul Williams
Computer Virus around net
Pluto
NAFTA
Japanese Earthquake
Nuclear testing
UN additions
Mother Teresa
I’ll be adding to this list as I remember more things
The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) life…
November 6, 2007 at 1:57 pm (KIPP Academy, KIPP Houston, Knowledge Is Power Program)
I hated KIPP.
When I graduated in 2003, I was set free. I was no longer attached to the contract I had signed three years before. I no longer had to step on campus at 7:15am each morning, leave at 5pm each evening, attend saturday school, summer school….ahhhhhh! I was set free.
But now that I’m in college, I can look back and see that I WAS set free…intellectually.
I hated KIPP, but the million doors of opportunities it opened has made me realize how blessed I am for having spent three years there.
Fragile: This Drunken College Life
September 27, 2007 at 2:42 pm (Fragile, Jesus, claremont colleges, claremont students, college, college life, drinking in college, feelings, friendship, injustice)
I need Jesus.
There is an aftermath–
Not realizing Kims die, leukemia, blood clot, vegetable—life support, prevention, before
Not realizing Vlads die, depression, friends, hung, prevention, after
Not realizing in sin we all ( d i e)
Yes, we think it’s far, this death
And is it really simple to say “I need Jesus”?
When Drugs, Alcohol, Sex (in that order?) usurp as an illusion of freedom?
The rulers of self stupidity
How do you forgive yourself?
How do I forgive myself?
With saliva wasteful words.
I’m sorry I’m the deliverer of Y O U R news
Reality: Walking, running, dying alone
Being beyond the gateway,
Only the angels to protest the
Lights, the
Shouts, the
Sleep, the deprived sleep
Dresses making you shatter to pieces
Sick, wounded, hurt— just ill
Torn emotions—can you remember?
Finding new masks in someone else—You drunk
Do you feel fulfilled?
Your purpose gone
Un n o t i c e d
In some twisted way, the lights, the shouts
Shout against you, just Die along
Catalyzing that process, much?
STOP!
Frustration is the element,
No zinc
No sulfur
No potassium
No tungsten
No roentgenium
GOLD?
YES! Give us GOD sowecansurvive
soyoucanweep, really, the liquor from your system
I’m sorry I don’t comprehend this–
frustration
interruption
bad days
good follow then bad
more good than bad
Drinks.
But I smell his shirt and his shirt
his shirt smells like disaster
Know the feeling?
Literally and analytically upset–
the sensation in which everything is surrounded
by a pack of futile butterflies.
The sheep killing rush where–
Y
O
U
Are the sheep and
YOU
Are that homicidal psycho, loser
It’s the science of death catalyzed
into a recognized bloomy school…
–ground zero’s location’s traffic jam making me so…so
Ill
I need Jesus.
I have not collapsed into the fluid cycle, submissively
But I dwell in the now, and it’s hard to keep on paddling away, should I submit?
These booty-trapped minds enslaved by possible capsules shocking me
Turning me ill
And sickly, I sit on the earth’s trash vomiting it all
Loving this campus life, not realizing the effects of its aftermath
———————————————–
Loving a lie, not realizing in Adam all die
Loving a lie, not realizing in Adam all die
Loving a lie, not realizing in Adam all die
Loving a lie, not realizing in Adam all die
- Lauryn Hill, “The Mystery of Iniquity”
Are the Claremont Students supporting racism?: Jena 6
September 20, 2007 at 1:08 pm (Uncategorized)
Every student around me has a drive to become the next MLK, Gandhi, Oprah, whoever. Stop trying and begin to think about the actions you support!
I applaud whoever decided to have the 5 Claremont schools unite and march around campus. It’s noble and it shows we care. However, whoever though that wearing a BLACK shirt would help the cause, I need to meet you. YOU did not think about all the different labels the color black contains.
Black students are being oppressed. Black students were threatened with a gun. Black students were bullied. But Black students fought back and are now charged with ridiculous accounts. However, if these incidents were different—-if the white students were being oppressed at school, if the black students were threatened with a gun, if the black students ended up beating up a black student and were being charged with similar accounts, the whites would be fighting for lesser charges, and the blacks would fight for greater charges.
This world is not white and black. I am a beautiful shade of brown. I will personally not wear a black shirt. Wearing a black shirt would make me feel as though i’m fighting for those “black brothers” or those “black sisters” and not for the simple fact that our justice system is not fair.
I am fighting the injustice. I am not fighting racism with racism. And I advise you not to either because then your steps around campus WILL MEAN NOTHING.
I am marching with a GREEN shirt.
Green—a symbol of growth and of nature. We are naturally equal.
