Well...
It's hard to tell everyone this, but I am moving,
To a new place... on the internet.
Check out the new permanent home of No Man is and Island unto Himself
All old posts and comments have been transferred up to the last post. If you want to comment, please comment on the new site. Thanks!
Recently, I have thought much about the best form of economic system the world has to offer. After reading a novel about the effect of communism, seeing what socialism is doing in France and Venezuela, and learning about our market economy, I have concluded that capitalism is the best there is.
It allows people the inherently free choice to decide what they want to purchase. They have complete economic freedom to work where they want, buy what they want, and even start any company that they want.
Even though I believe it is the best type of economic system existing, in some aspects, it is inherently evil. I worked as a cashier at unnamed electronic super store for 3 months. (I am now breaking the rule I established for myself last February when I got my first job: that I would not blog about my working experience or things I learned from the company.) As as an employee, we were instructed to encourage customers to apply for a ** credit card because it was proven that customers with a store credit card on average spent more money than customers without one. In addition, as a cashier, we were required to offer every customer a free trial magazine subscription, at times without informing them that their credit card would be charged for 18 issues after the third issue if they did not cancel. These two examples show pure exploitation of the customer. For every subscription "given out" the corporation made enough money to pay me for an hour and a half. This practice is deceiving the customer into making a decision that ultimately does not benefit them yet financially benefits the corporation. This practice is exploitive and ultimately evil.
In this light, I read the following verses in the Bible today.
"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her [Babylon's market] because no one buys their cargoes any more— cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men. [emphasis mine]
-Revelation 18:11-13
"and the bodies and souls of men"
To me, that is a powerful statement. It acknowledges that we are indeed trading the bodies and souls of men. This earth is at war: physically and spiritually. While at times the battles do indeed coincide, our spiritual war is being fought today at home in America. Some would call it the "culture war". I would tend to agree.
This seems like an incomplete post and idea. That is because I wrote no thesis that I wanted to argue before I started. I just want to see what everyone thinks about this and express how that verse impacted me.
So I propose a couple of questions: In existence physically on this earth, what is the best economic system? How do you think we personally and nationally trade in the bodies and souls of men? What do you think is the most important "battle" to win in the "culture war"?
** Please do not mention in your comments the unnamed corporation that I technically STILL DO work for. I believe it would be violating one of my agreements as an employee. Thanks.
FARRELL HOUSE- Last night
Opie: "We should all just go out women hunting"
Me: "I can't do that Opie, I'm in for the long haul... tomorrow."
Ryan: "Do you mean tomorrow or tomorrow, cause tomorrow is 25 hours long so you truly are in for the long haul tomorrow."
And yes, I just used the word "vehemently" correctly in my college essay!
Musings in my attempt to write a FANTASTIC college essay
Her name is ~*Claire*~.
This is her picture:
She is obsessed with me.
This is what she posted on MySpace:
27 things i love about connorhis really cool myspace page
how he is smart enough to know how to make linebreaks
he has such PRETTY BLUE EYES
all his gooorrrrggeous pics
the fact that he is single
i love how is a republican
and how he is a "man of God"
i love his school spirit
and how he is not afraid to paint his body for his cause
his display picture is sooo cute with his like elvis lip *giggle*
he has soo many friends and he still added me even though i've only seen him once!
he is so cool
all of his cool polo shirts
multi colored, baby
he is really smart
i like tall guys and he is suuuper tall
hes athletic
his blog is SO cool i read all of his archives and *WOW* but there are soo many girls that comment and i hope he doesn't date any of them! *pout*
he doesnt ever message me back, and thats sad but hes probably super busy with all of his school stuff and stuff...its still sad though. i bet he messages OTHER girls
he goes to grace chapel and its pretty cool there. or thur, as connor would say.
he talks really cool.
he likes cool musicokay, i just love everything about him. you may think it's weird that i love everything about someone i've only seen once, but it's CONNOR. you love him too. you know it.
did I mention I have never met this person?
STALKER
This is her MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/ilovewcw
This is her song on her MySpace profile: "I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You" by Savage Garden
These are the lyrics: here
This is an example:
Maybe it's intuition
But some things you just don't question
Like in your eyes
I see my future in an instant
And there it goes
I think I've found my best friend
I know that it might sound more than a little crazy
But I believeI knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
Her background picture on her MySpace page is my senior picture.
I definitely have a stalker.
My AP US History teacher is crazy.
She expects us to read 25 pages in the text book tomorrow night.
On top of the 10 pages in the textbook we read tonight. On top of the other 9 page article at size 9 font we read tonight.
On top of at least 25 other pages of articles that I have to read before Friday.
The only thing I do homework in these days is history. Seriously.
That might explain why this is my first post in a bunch of days.
... Some jobs are so dirty, you can only send in someone who has the finely honed hatred of liberals acquired at elite universities to do them. The devil is an abstraction for normal, decent Americans living in the red states. By contrast, at the top universities, you come face to face with the devil every day, and you learn all his little tropes and tricks.
-Ann Coulter
BATON ROUGE, LA. – The White House announced today that President Bush has successfully sold the state of Louisiana back to the French at more than double its original selling price of $11,250,000.
“This is a bold step forward for America,” said Bush. “And America will be stronger and better as a result. I stand here today in unity with French Prime Minister Jack Shiraq, who was so kind to accept my offer of Louisiana in exchange for 25 million dollars cash.”
The state, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild.
“Jack understands full well that this one’s a ‘fixer upper,’” said Bush. “He and the French people are quite prepared to pump out all that water, and make Louisiana a decent place to live again. And they’ve got a lot of work to do. But Jack’s assured me, if it’s not right, they’re going to fix it.”
The move has been met with incredulity from the already beleaguered residents of Louisiana.
“Shuba-pie!” said New Orleans resident Willis Babineaux. “Frafer-perly yom kom drabby sham!”
However, President Bush’s decision has been widely lauded by Republicans.
“This is an unexpected but brilliant move by the President,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. “Instead of spending billions and billions, and billions of dollars rebuilding the state of Louisiana, we’ve just made 25 million dollars in pure profit.”
“This is indeed a smart move,” commented Fox News analyst Brit Hume. “Not only have we stopped the flooding in our own budget, we’ve made money on the deal. Plus, when the god-awful French are done fixing it up, we can easily invade and take it back again.”
The money gained from ‘The Louisiana Refund’ is expected to be immediately pumped back into the rebuilding of Iraq.
Source: World News Stand
