No more heroes?

The other day during conversation someone brought up that there are no more heroes for our kids to look up to. I can't but think, "Are they right or just really misguided?" Well, lets see, I guess there's no world leaders or politicians to look up to, a lot of big business is corrupt, and sadly for some elementary and high schoolers the teachers are letting them down. That doesn't mean there aren't any heroes left. Have we already forgot our Sesame Street lessons of the police officer is their to help us, the firefighter to get us out of fires, or the paramedic to save our life. Oh, I get it; they're just doing their jobs. What about on 9/11 when even though it meant their own death those same people doing their jobs from NYPD and NYFD ran into burning collapsing buildings to try and save other people? Still don't think their hero quality? How about we get rid of the 99% and the 1% and look to the 0.45% (yes thats zero point four five percent). That is the percentage of people in this country who have or are serving in the military. Pretty staggering percent considering how many millions have been in this country for a couple hundred years.  Are they still just "doing their jobs". What about retired Marine Staff Sergeant, Tim Chambers? Haven't heard of him? On Memorial Day in Washington D.C. for the Rolling Thunder, a biker parade made up of thousands of veterans, Staff Sergeant Chambers held his salute to these men and women for over THREE HOURS. Try doing a proper salute for more than 5 minutes and you'll start to see some of the difficulty in this. Still not good enough? Then how about Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, during a fire fight in Afghanistan he moved into the line of fire three times to give medical treatment to other military members and to move them to safety while returning fire. He was finally shot through the pelvic bone shattering the bullet which shredded his liver. How about a living Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Specialist Salvatore Giunta, who after his squad was ambushed raced through the fire fight to save his squad leader. Getting shot in the process but saved the squad leaders life. After driving the enemy back, he realized another member of his squad was missing. He raced up the hill and saw Afghans running away with his injured squad mate. He killed one and wounded another then gave his comrade medical attention. I could go on like this for a very long time or you could go to www.cmohs.org to see a list of brave men who all should be considered heroes. Here's a novel idea, how about YOU be your child's hero if you don't like the ones above, you are the biggest mentor. What little boy doesn't want to grow up and be just like dad? After all that I still don't see how you can say there are no more heroes. Just look for the ordinary person, put in an extraordinary position, and see how they adapt and overcome. Just because they don't run around in tights and wear capes doesn't mean they're not heroes. So how about we wake up, get the liberal agenda garbage out of your head, clean out your ears, and open you eyes to see heroes are all around us, we just need to quit spitting at them.

Staff Sergeant Tim Chambers, two bikers applying a neck compress and giving him water during his 3 hour salute, courtesy of http://fullmetalpatriotblog.com/2011/05/lone-marine-salutes-rolling-thunder/

Does my reflective vest make me invisible?

I started a new job to 1 have something to do while I go to school, 2 make some extra money, and 3 not have a gap in employment history. Well part of this job is to round up the stray shopping carts from the parking lot. OK not all of them are stray, some are put in the proper place but you get the point. They send me out wearing a reflective vest, I don't know if this is so people will see me or know that I work there, either way it doesn't help. Just the other day it was over 100 degrees outside so needless to say I was miserable. While trying to push around 15 carts at once, this may not sound like many but it is a heck of a workout especially going up hill, cars and people would look right at me and race to get in front of me. Anyone have any idea about momentum and how once you stop it these carts takes a lot of energy to get started again? To do this for hours at a time, sweat pouring off me, about to get heat stroke, and you run a stop sign so you can miss me by inches only because I threw my body into the carts to stop them from hitting your car. What the hell, was your air conditioning annoying you? I'm sorry I was doing my job and making sure you have a cart at the door (which most of those same people would complain to a manager about if there wasn't a cart). Is that gallon of milk going to run away if you just wait 10 more seconds? Sorry for the rant I just had to get that out of my system.

My mother's curse on me

Everyone has heard the joke about a mother cursing her kid with "I hope your kids are just like you so you can see what you put me through." In a way that's not entirely bad, I mean I think I'm smart and (yes I'm biased) I think my son is brilliant. I think the curse part though is he has no fear of anything. I was a very energetic child, always running always moving. I had stitches around 8 times, dislocated my elbow, broke my wrist 3 times (only once in a cast, couldn't miss playing sports), almost knocked my teeth out, so you get the point. Oh and my mom's favorite, I painted myself head to toe green when I was 4. My son is almost 3 and is already trying to out do me. He's already figured out how to jump off the back of the couch, land on the seat, and bounce onto the coffee table. The only reason he doesn't do some things is I see the look in his eye and know what he's about to try, I guess because it's something I would try to do too if I was him. It really does make me wonder if I will be like my parents and being surprised my son makes it to adulthood. Not because something like a car accident or shooting or something but because the thought process of "I wonder if I can jump this?" and without another thought jumping it.

Technology and Politics

Over the weekend I watched the GOP convention on my XBox. Now whatever you think of politics, this was an amazing thing to be able to do. The show was live, streaming, and you could even see how people were responding to what was being said. At the bottom of the screen was a polling system where you could basically "vote" how much or little the current topic interested you and you could see how it was affecting others. There was even a timer going with it to show at what point people were voting. Again the convention itself is neither here nor there but the technology coming to play in things like this is amazing. Think of what this could mean if they perfect it some, the gallop polls could really show more precisely how the country is looking to vote. If they could keep the American Idol type voting from happening you could possibly someday vote from the comfort of your home through a game console. Yes, this would mean two adults would need two different logins that the government could pin point to an exact person who voted and how many times. That could be a huge under taking too, mailing out user id's that you'll forget by the time of the next election, people having to go down to the local courthouse each time for a number, or any number of other issues. Especially for the Facebook generation, this is huge though. The showing how you like something and how you dislike something along with other people during a live event could have huge ramifications. Imagine the next convention where the "candidate" comes in with multiple prepared speeches instead of just one as someone working for him is relaying how much people like what he or she is currently talking about. One of the other big things of this happening is where did this take place? Was it Foxnews? How about CNN? MSNBC? Nope, it was a VIDEOGAME CONSOLE. That target audience is the young crowd but they turned this into something informative for them. Makes you wonder how many of them actually turned it on.

Worth of the internet

The internet can be one of the most helpful tools in your tool belt or can lead to you "learning" only opinions of others thinking they are facts. People who actually look at more than one source for information and try to see both sides of a subject now have more of an opportunity to gather that information. The only problem is you are going to have to dig through a lot of internet trash to get there.  

Even the news sites are either very liberal or very conservative, neither side really gives the whole story. The biggest example of this is the 99%. How many of those actually knew why they were camping out? How many of them just saw one thing in one persons blog about how they are changing society and thought, "Wow I should do that." For those who actually take the time to see both sides of an issue though saw that most of the 99% were just spoiled kids wasting mommy and daddy's money. I think the internet is worth what you use it for, research topics and gather information or just watch Youtube all day.