Hello

Well how do we start this off. A little bit about me, well that would be pretty boring on most days. In fact if I blogged about my daily adventures you would be incredibly bored or maybe depressed before the first good stuff hit you. I'm just a guy in a funny hat, I'm tempted to say a normal guy, but I think most people who know me would disagree. I am definitely unique, for better or worse and usually a little of both. I like to hang with my friends, watch movies, eat, drink and basically be merry. I am opinionated but not fanatical.

I tend to see people as people and try to avoid labeling and stereotypes. We all are human beings underneath our differences, now that is easy to say, but it can be hard to actually follow through on what we say. We may look different, we may have different ideas of right and wrong but down deep we are the same. Those differences are what keeps life from being boring. I have friends across the spectrum of all races, beliefs, nationalities and orientations. You can learn so much from people when you go beyond the fear and bigotry. Why limit yourself? Why do we as a country let ourselves continually be torn apart by our differences instead of celebrating them? How boring would a box of crayons be if there was only one color? It's not a sickness confined to America but the whole Human Race. Around the world we kill each other for minor differences. We fight over religion. We fight over race. We wage war at the slightest provocation with each other.

I guess we should feel lucky that at least here our fights are mostly with words now. That's not to say there isn't violence between groups here at home. Churches are burnt, abortion clinics bombed and doctors murdered. Perhaps the days of lynching are over but their are still instances of racial violence and there is still gay bashing. Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, Muslims are still looked at with distrust but acts of violence have slowed. I remember not long ago when a local murder was justified by my neighbors because he was "just a Mexican." As a species we need to get past this but I don't know if we ever will. It's hard and there are no easy answers. We can punish the guilty but that doesn't fix the problem and we can't legislate feelings. trying to control what's someone thinks is going down a dangerous pathway anyway. The government has the authority to legislate our actions but not our thoughts. We have a right as Americans and as humans to our prejudices and hatreds. We don't have the right to act on them though.

There has to be a way to go beyond these differences and slowly do away with them from within. The problem once again is how? I think the first step is to do away with the fear of something different, just because it's different. The fear that everyone of a certain race or belief is going to act the same as everyone else of that race or belief. Why should a person of the Islamic faith be any more scary than a person of the Christian faith? Turn it around and why should a Christian with a assault rifle be any less scary than a Muslim with one? Not every black man is going to rob you and not every gay man is going to seduce you. We have to learn to judge people by their actions and not by the color of their skin or the god they worship. A bullet hurts just the same regardless of who pulls the trigger.


I didn't mean this to be a rant but just an introduction. If you didn't know me before you probably know just as little now. Maybe some of my long time friends might be a bit surprised that I am not quite as much a southern redneck as they might have thought. I grew up in the south and I grew up with bigotry and intolerance, hopefully I have risen above most of that. I know that there is some of it left deep inside me but it gets harder and harder to justify those feelings. If I do continue this blogging thing you might actually learn more about me. I did intend this to be lighthearted and fun but some days fun just doesn't leak out onto the page. Until the next time.
Peace