Bob’s Blog

I mean, what else is there to say?

Above is a video of some US marines shooting at some civilians in Iraq. Watch it at your own risk. The video is making its rounds on the internet and a lot of people have a lot to say about it.

I have a serious, serious problem with what many on the far left are saying about this video. After reading what people have said about these soldiers and this video, it has genuinely bothered me.

It is very easy to dismiss these soldiers and pass judgment on them. It’s even easier to carry a holier than thou attitude and say things like, “I would never do something like that, no matter the situation I’m in!!”

Can anyone of us honestly sit here and tell ourselves that?

You are 19 years old. You are fighting an enemy that is elusive and invisible. You’re being shot at day in and day out. You’ve seen your friends get blown up. It’s 100 degrees outside day in and day out. You have to drag 50+ lbs of equipment wherever you go. There’s sand blowing in your face constantly. You are fighting a questionable war.

Imagine going through that every single day for an entire year. Or, for some of these guys, 2-3 years.

You experience what they go through and then come back and tell me you haven’t changed as a person. You experience a war like this, and then come back and tell me you would never do the things that you’re passing judgment on. None of us will even slightly even know or understand what a lot of these guys are going through – and we shouldn’t sit here and pretend like we do.

When I read things on how this army is “molded” after President Bush or that horrible are wished upon these soldiers…it just makes me shake my head.

You know what? I’m all for human rights (see: Amnesty International link on the side), and I am not at all excusing what these soldiers are doing – because you can’t. Those actions are not ok. But we need to come to an understanding of why these things are happening and put into videos and stories like this into context.

I recommend to you all a book I recently read by Mark Baker called Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There. It’ll absolutely open your eyes on the soldier mentality and how an average, decent person can be driven to do a lot of horrible, horrible things.

On Tuesday night, Ted Nugent is speaking on campus. I’ve got two tickets for it. How can I pass up a chance to see Ted Nugent? Especially when it’s FREE? I’d have to be an idiot to miss this.

I’m excited about this, to say the least.

I hope he whips out his guitar, plays some unbelievable solo, then all of a sudden shoots a deer from outside the Union and then proceeds to grill it on the back of his guitar (all the while, still playing his awesome solo). That would be amazing, and only The Nuge can do something as potentially awesome as that.

And, let’s be honest with ourselves for a second. Cat Scratch Fever is one of the greatest songs ever. Additionally, Ted Nugent is way cooler (and less hateful and ignorant) than Anne Coulter. I respect Ted Nugent a lot. The College Republicans got this one right.

This is a promise to myself:

After tonight, I’m officially letting go of UAO. I can’t keep being in this role that I am in and being Superman everyday. After 4 years, I can’t do it anymore. I’m not enjoying myself, I’m not having fun, I’m burnt out. It’s time for other people to step up, make their own decisions, and take action. This is their organization now – not mine.

I’ve given everything that I possibly could, and more. And I’m just not happy.

I want my last semester as an undergrad to be fun and filled with nothing but good things so I don’t walk away bitter and jaded about people and college. And it’s not happening right now.

So, no more.

I’m now letting go now and starting to move on with my life.

I went to the annual Cleveland St. Patrick’s Day parade yesterday. And, there was a brief few minutes in the middle of the parade where everyone standing around me got silent, scratched their heads and went, “wtf am I watching?”

The Chinese cult group, Falun Gong marched. And almost immediately after, the Ohio 501st Garrison followed.

Weirdest St. Patrick’s Day ever.

I’m having a ton of problems sleeping. I think I got about an hour of actual sleep the other night. On most nights, I just lay there in bed. And I lay there for a few hours.

It’s getting old, to say the least. Maybe I’ll try reading before I go to bed.

I’m hitting the job search hardcore now. Looking all over. I have my first interview with a school in Texas. I’ve applied to various places in Ohio, South Carolina, and Georgia. It’s a bit nerve-wracking and stressful but also exciting. It would be amazing to have a job before I graduate. It would just make things easier.

Life is just stressing me out right now like whoa. It’s been like an avalanche of stress and worry in the past week.

300 was amazing. It had no plot development. No character development. It was nothing but an hour and a half of pure violence and  dialog about glory, death, and more glory that will get you pumped up.

The cinematography and lighting were absolutely incredible.

It was a movie that didn’t try to pass off itself as something other than what it was. It is what it is. And that’s refreshing. Because Hollywood tends to have that problem where they can’t deliver or they pass a movie as something that it really isn’t.

It’s such a Man Movie. And I loved every second of it.

Speaking of movies, I found Zodiac to be mixed. David Fincher is a great director. Robert Downey Jr. is a great actor and did a stellar job. But if I’m sitting through 2 and a half hours…I want a better pay off. Now granted – I knew nothing regarding the story or the real life events but, still. I expect a better pay off in a movie especially if you’re sitting there for that long.

Would I go see it again? Probably not. But it was by no means terrible. I suppose I just walked away disappointed.

CNN is saying hip hop is dead.

While rap has been in essence pop music for years, and most rap consumers are white, some worry that the black community is suffering from hip-hop — from the way America perceives blacks to the attitudes and images being adopted by black youth.

‘Look at the music that gets us popular’

But the rapper David Banner derides the growing criticism as blacks joining America’s attack on young black men who are only reflecting the crushing problems within their communities. Besides, he says, that’s the kind of music America wants to hear.

“Look at the music that gets us popular — ‘Like a Pimp,’ ” says Banner, naming his hit.

“What makes it so difficult is to know that we need to be doing other things. But the truth is at least us talking about what we’re talking about, we can bring certain things to the light,” he says. “They want (black artists) to shuck and jive, but they don’t want us to tell the real story because they’re connected to it.”

I hate it when the media does stories like this because they have really, in essence, no idea what they are talking about. What hip-hop is going through right now is exactly what rock went through in the 1980’s with hair metal (the excess, the women, living large, etc.) and what rock went through in the 90’s (violence, i.e. Marilyn Manson). Hip-hop is not going anywhere anytime soon. The record sales may be slipping and radio airplay might be dipping, but music has always been about cycles. No more than 10 years ago, people were declaring rock was dead because of radio stations switching formats, lack of sales, etc. (and people are still declaring it dead as we speak)

There is still plenty of relevant and creative hip-hop out there. Hip-hop that is not about bitches and ho’s, and fake ghetto lifestyle stories told just to earn some money. There is still plenty of hip-hop that is positive, meaningful and that actually has something to say. Common, Talib Kweli, Atmosphere, Sage Francis, Brother Ali, K-OS, Hieroglyphics, P.O.S., the list goes on and on about what’s out there and what is the antithesis of what is currently on the radio and MTV.

You just actually have to search for it a little bit and support a group/artist that can become hip-hop’s Nirvana.

Probably my favorite historical fact, next to French Dictator Napoleon Bonaparte building a brick wall in his bedroom to divorce his wife, is President Taft getting stuck in a bathtub. Mistakenly, I’ve been thinking for a while now it was President Garfield who was stuck. But rather, it was President Taft.

So, in honor of President Taft getting stuck in a bathtub, here are some other fun facts you might not know about President Taft:

- President Taft was the heaviest president ever. Weighing over 330 lbs. and at one point, close to 350 (hence explaining why he got stuck in a bathtub).

- His new bathtub was over 7′ long and 41 inches wide.

- He was the first president to own a car.

- First president to throw out the first pitch on opening day in baseball.

- President Taft loved milk. In fact, he loved it so much that he had brought in his own cow to the White House. The name of the cow? Mooly Wolly. She was later replaced by another cow named Paulin. They were the last cows to hang out at the White House.

- He is the first and only former President to be elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

- His father co-founded the Skulls and Bones society at Yale, in which he and other various other presidents were a part of.

And so, there you go. More about President Taft than you ever knew before.

I’m giving up on ABC’s Lost. For the past 2 and a half seasons, I’ve sat through a whole lot of nothing, a lot of vague explanations, and poor writing. And after tonight’s episode, I’ve finally decided to give up on it. I sat through what seemed like over a half hour’s worth of commercials and Hurley’s story that explained very little, and them fixing a van…only to find a decent secret in the last 30 seconds of the show.

Thank you, Lost creators for explaining next to nothing in the past 3 seasons and for driving this fan away.

Maybe I’ll finally check out Heroes.