Today, I topped out at 15 reps, on my 4th set of Seated Calf Raises, at an awesome 275lbs. 33 more lbs, and I am then pressing 2 of me! Isn't that cool?!?! Yeah you know it is.
Now, for my rant, I hope this picture will give you a rough idea.
Book Banning and Burning
Book banning and burning, has long been a tradition held by extreme elements of society, to stop either the progression of thought (ie the dark ages), the progression of heresy (the Spanish Inquisition had many of these), the destruction of an old ideal, to forge a new identity (Nazi Germany and the Holocaust), right wing religious nutjobs who think that books will turn their children into Satanic little wizards, running around spewing anti-capitalist, pro homosexuality little hellions that will destroy the very fabric of society (ie, the Christian Right and the Taliban).
See what I did in that last sentence? Yes, you did, didn't you? I put the Southern Baptist Tea Party supporting Republican nutjobs, and their big foe, the Taliban on the same footing. Yes, folks, you read it here first! Or maybe you didn't. But this is my rant and not someone elses, so I declared it first, on my blog!
When I was growing up, books were something to be treasured. Before I had left highschool, I think I had read nearly 75% of books, that certain zealots would have you never lay eyes on again, because they cover things like open thought, friendship, homosexuality, mistrust of governance, self reliance, and oh, heaven's forbid, Allegory and thought through subversive means of animal's acting out things that humans die over on a daily basis, Free Thought and Speech. I know, totally shocking isn't it? Well, to some people, yes it is. I think I had read all of the Richard Blade books by grade 8, I always liked how the hero would end up getting laid at lest three times a book, and often wondered if real life hero's got the same treatment. Then, I started reading the bad books. 1984 by George Orwell. Fantastic book. Scary, in the fact that I see it happening around me. Animal Farm, was another awesome Orwell novel. The brave sheep, the caniving super intelligent pigs. The loyal Clydesdale, they all had their place in the perfect socialist utopia, but found out that it all ends up in the hands of one person. If you ARE looking for the perfect Socialist Utopia, I have a few ideas, and an avid interest in a small nationstate. Feel free to apply.
But what this all really boils down to is this, there are people in the world, who get a small amount of power *cough* library and schoolboards. These are usually dominated by people who have a self-professed air of righteousness, and feel that by informing children of reading age, that they can learn to have a voice, will turn them into little wand waving Satanists, and not the good little citizens that Cold War Democratic America strived for. People, this is scary shit. Really scary. So instead of children learning morals and guidance from actual anecdotal books, like Huck Finn (he stuck up for the slave kid remember), or Animal Farm, which taught you that while there is someone who says they are looking out for you, really, you should start to work together and look out for eachother.
If there is anything that they should try and ban, is governments spending less of their GDP on blowing other people up, because you want their shit, and more on spending people how to read, learn and make the world a better place. Remember, for every dollar you take out of education, you are removing a chance that a child may learn that they want to be the one doctor that will cure cancer, or HIV. Or they may find a way to increase crop yields safely so that no kid will go to bed with an empty stomach. And logic forbid, that through reading, that they may realize, that being in control of one's emotions, and thoughts and actions, you may not need the Tea Kettle in the orbit between the Moon and Mars threatening to poor hot spicy tea on your head because you did something bad, and actually say "Hey, I did something wrong, and I appologize. What can I do to fix it?". You know, human's just might grow a little more if we read a fucking book. READ "BANNED" BOOKS people, and learn.
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