Topic #4: 2/21-2/28

HEY!! It looks to me like we've had a little slack appear in the chain of blogs. Keep up, folks -- we will not be going to the lab every week, especially not as the state testing season heats up. Checking this blog every week, writing on each new topic, AND commenting on the prior week's topic, is your responsibility. Don't forget!

If you have neglected to post on a topic, go ahead and post now; it will be late, but late work is ALWAYS better than no work. As for comments, you need to make two comments for each week, not just a total number of comments, so you should have commented on two blogs on regret, and two blogs on heroes; this week, after writing on the new topic, you will comment on two Valentine's blogs.


Since last week's topic was all peace and light and happiness, I think this week, we should get down in the mud and grime. So I bring you:

TEN THINGS I HATE

Yes, that's right. I may look like a hippie, but I am full of rage and hatred and malice, and now it's time to let some of it pour out. Hey, that's what blogging is all about: venting your frustrations for all to see.

So here we go.

1. Stupidity
Specifically, I hate people who are intentionally and proudly ignorant, who refuse to learn the truth when it is obvious, when it is all around them. People who think it's okay to drive 80 mph down a residential street, for instance. Or people who get 6 DUIs and keep on driving drunk, thinking they can handle it. Or people who keep eating food that gives them heartburn, or an allergic reaction, or makes them fat when they don't want to be.

2. Artificiality
I hate celebrities. I don't mind successful people, in fact I admire them, but when they take that success and turn it into glamor and act like idiots, I hate that. I hate even more that our society is fascinated with them, and with lies like nationalism, or the open-mindedness of our society -- a society which bans gay marriage and wants to build a wall along the border and plant landmines.

3. Hatred
(Yes, I see the irony.)
Our society has banned gay marriage and wants to build a wall along the border and plant landmines. Weren't you listening? I honestly don't know why people can't get along, or at least leave each other alone: it really isn't hard for me to live and let live, and it doesn't seem to be hard for many, many people I know. And yet . . .

4. The death of reading
Books are a miracle to me. There is really nothing better, not as a source of information, or entertainment, as a means to learn and grow and become a better and happier person. They are cheap, plentiful, long-lasting, infinitely varied and deserving of multiple repetitions. So it breaks my heart that people hate reading and hate books, and would rather spend all of their time online, and playing video games, and hanging out with friends, and working, and so on. Hey, I do all those things too (except for the friends part), but I also read.

5. Television
Video didn't just kill the radio star, it killed books too. And there's so much crap to swim through to find the few nuggets of gold. It's like bobbing for apples in a septic tank -- even if you manage to get a good one, you really don't want to eat it, because it's covered in . . . commercials.

6. Twinkies
I've had a pair of twinkies in a jar in my classroom for three and a half years now. They aren't moldy. 'Nuff said.

7. Sports
Hate 'em all, though I think games are fun and excellent and good for you, and that can include friendly games of baseball and football and hockey and so forth. But when those things turn into actual competition? Hate 'em. And America's obsession with them, which has contributed to the demise of books, and of education, and of conversation about things that matter, because everybody's busy talking about The Big Game.

8. Capitalism
I don't dislike the free market system, but I hate the rule of the almighty dollar, that profit is all that matters. People have killed millions, destroyed the environment, turned all of our goods and services into crap -- all for the sake of profit.

9. Wal-Mart
Prime example of #8, and probably the worst offender in the world today, which is why it's so successful. And I hate that we live in a town where Wal-Mart is sometimes the best option for buying certain things.

10. Food that looks good, but isn't
I love food, and so the worst thing in the world to me is when I'm hungry, and I take out my delicious looking apple, and bite into it -- and it's moldy on the inside. Or I order something in a restaurant that sounds fantastic, and I get a plate of fishsticks and cold canned peas. Or I take something at a potluck that looks delicious, and it tastes like fried snot.


That's what I hate. What do you hate? Make a list -- it doesn't have to be ten things -- and explain why you hate those things.