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I hate mudslinging in general, but Democrats, we especially need to stop the mudslinging now. Why? Because John McCain is sitting in his campaign office listening to what we have to say to each other, and he’s taking some good notes. Instead of attacking people in the same party, how about we work on displaying our strengths, instead? The campaign should instead focus on why the given candidate is the better candidate against John McCain, not whether one person is credible for one thing or not. You know about that plagiarism farce that Clinton accused Obama of? That’s going to come back to hurt us if Obama wins the primary. We can’t play the “it’ll be me or no one over here” strategy; we have to play the “we’re going to win no matter who takes the torch” strategy.

This is a very competitive primary and the Democrats are pretty divided between two candidates. We’re going to need to come together to win, though, and that means that Obama supporters need to go to Hillary if she wins, and that Hillary supporters need to go to Obama if he wins. The last thing that I think we would need is another Republican in office that is basically President Bush but older and probably more into overseas conflicts. Think about it: Four more years? Or change? McCain is not change…he is more of the same, he is what we are currently facing, if not worse. I feel that we need Obama for his charisma and his ability to bridge gaps. I know some people call all of this fluff and “just words”, but they really aren’t. Words are what we need to drive us to move. Think about it: the pen is mightier than the sword. The pen can drive us to do so many things. If the pen lies, we move to fix its inaccuracy. If the pen gives us hope, we move to work for that hope. If the pen unfairly works against us, we move to strike down the unfairness. Obama wields the pen. Let’s move to vote for him, and move to change our country for the better.

Valentine’s Day. The day of love, flowers, roses; you name it. Personally, I find it a heavily commercialized holiday with no real point except to make money and an injection into culture. I also find it a day of bad luck, since I’ve broken up (or been dumped by) every girl I’ve gone out with before Valentine’s Day hit. The “Will you be my valentine?” stuff is annoying, and giving a man or a woman a holiday just to grant them the excuse to ask for flowers is disheartening to me. Valentine’s Day really benefits the companies who arrange the roses and carnations, the high schools that have Valentine’s Day sales, and pretty much every business. Of course, if I was in a business setting, I’d love V-day because it would be an opportunity to make money. But from my personal point of view, I think Valentine’s Day is a waste of time.

Let’s see if I could ever get that past my future girlfriend, though.

Is Grading Ever Fair?
That’s the main question. I don’t believe that there’s ever going to be a completely fair way to grade students. There’s the static grade system, in which the raw number you get is changed into a letter with a plus, a minus, or neither. There is also the bell curve (standard deviation) and scaling. Everyone feels quite differently about these systems of grading (and sometimes, grading in general), so it seems as if there is no right answer.

Grading by a static number becomes unfair if the teacher’s tests are too difficult and everyone does poorly, or if the teacher’s tests are too easy and everyone passes with flying colors. Bell curves become unfair when everyone is within a small range and the standard deviation is low (for example, if everyone scores within 90-95%).

It all depends on the situation. But which is a teacher to choose?
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I have many an opinion about our political system and the way it works. So I don’t confuse you, let me start by saying that I don’t like it. The two party system, I believe, is oversimplified. There are not two sides to every story, and two sides certainly cannot cover every possible opinion that people can have. People should not just stand on one side of the fence and dislike what’s on the other side of the fence even if they don’t see it.

There should be no such thing as “being a Democrat” or “being a Republican”. There should be no such thing as lobbyists. There should be no such thing as scare tactics or tarnishing another person’s name. Candidates should say, “Hi, I’m candidate X, and this is what I’ll bring if elected”. Process of elimination shouldn’t cut it; candidate X should not say “vote for me because candidate Y is bad”.
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