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What I Believe, Part One The GRE is over. My grad school application is complete and mailed. It's out of my hands now. The Lit test was pretty awful, but at least I only ran out of time for thirty questions - the woman next to me told me she'd left about a hundred blank. (Hello? A hundred? Out of 230? The hell?) I have no idea how I did but it's hard to worry about it too much. I'm just glad I don't have to look at the Nortons any more, and I was never so glad to print anything out as I was to print out my statement of purpose. (Actually, I think Greg was probably happier to see it go than I was.) After Greg's guest entry, a few people emailed me about the comment I made at the top (the one about the politics reflected within not necessarily being the politics of Planning A Sky), and asked me what my politics were. That's a complicated question. I don't talk about politics a lot here - I mean, you all know I voted for Clinton twice and that I wouldn't vote for Bush if you paid me a million, billion dollars - but otherwise, I usually write about other things. Today, however, I'll answer the question. At least - I'll answer parts of it. And I'll be honest - I expect to piss people off. But isn't that what this stuff always does? I am a registered Democrat. That's my "official" party status, I guess. The things I believe are as follows: I believe in gun control. Strict gun control, in every area. On the number of guns you can own, on how you can purchase them, on how long you have to wait before you can have one (a long damn time), on the kind of gun you can purchase, on who can purchase one. I don't believe a private citizen needs an arsenal. I don't believe that the Founding Fathers translated The Right To Bear Arms as "Every American should be able to own an assault rifle if he wants one, damn it." Did you know that one of the snipers should not have been able to purchase a gun? The fact that people can buy guns at gun shows without the legal, required background checks is so ridiculous it hurts to think about it. I support The Brady Campaign. On Mother's Day 2000, I took my mother to the Million Mom March. Gun control is probably the issue I feel the most strongly about, and if you aren't in support of it, I can honestly say that if I know that - I think less of you as a person. I don't understand (and never will) how anyone can hear the stories of how these psychotic killers easily obtained these weapons of death and not want to make that if not impossible, damn near so. I really want someone to try to explain to me with a straight and honest face why anyone needs to own a semiautomatic military style weapon. It's gun control, not gun abolishment. No one's trying to take away your precious misunderstood God-given right to own a weapon. Yes, yes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. But as Eddie Izzard says, I think the gun helps. God, I fucking hate the NRA. I believe in a woman's right to choose. I don't know how I would act or feel if confronted with the decision of whether or not to have an abortion - but I do know that the decision is mine to make. I recognize that this is an extremely personal issue, and I firmly stand behind this: my body, my choice. I believe in the active and strict conservation of resources. I think the SUV and all other gas-guzzling vehicles should be required to meet the same fuel economy standards as other cars. The SUV is a car, not a truck. If you want a truck, you buy a truck. It is fiscally and environmentally irresponsible to drive a vehicle that gets only 12/17 MPG (the current gas mileage of the Lincoln Navigator). We won't talk about my other reasons for hating SUVs; that's a rant for another entry. Lest you think I'm ragging on the SUV owners of the world, let me say this: I advocate fuel economy across the board. I think hybrid engines should be required. I think anyone who says that our American habit of buying bigger, slower, more guzzly cars hasn't contributed in a big way to our problems in the Middle East is fooling themselves. If we weren't so dependent on foreign oil, some of these problems wouldn't exist - or they might exist, but they wouldn't be this bad. But that's okay, right? We'll just destroy parts of Alaska. That'll keep us going for a few more years. I also believe in recycling absolutely everything you can (did you know that if your town takes paper and cardboard, that also means cereal boxes and soda cases and taco shell containers and paperback books?). I believe in diaper services and think disposable diapers are horrifying. I use rags, not paper towels, and hide the paper towels when people come over so they don't use them either (it takes us months and months to go through one roll). I'm slowly converting my cleaning products over to natural stuff (Scrubbin Bubbles? Fantastic? Right into our water supply). It infuriates me when people leave their water running. Turn. Off. The faucet. Just because you're wiping your counters/brushing your teeth/peeling your vegetables doesn't mean you should be washing gallons and gallons of water down the drain. Turn it off. Baggies can be washed and re-used. Plastic bags can be recycled at the grocery store (even your newspaper bags). Get rid of the aluminum foil and use Rubbermaid instead. Think about how much you throw away. Since Greg and I really started thinking about it, we've thrown away less and less all the time. We have hopped on the conservation bandwagon big time. Why yes, I do practice what I preach. We turn off our lights, we turn down our heat, we each drive less than fifteen miles to work and would take public transportation if it was possible (and do). I am uncertain about how I feel about the death penalty. I have believed in the past that death was the right punishment for some crimes. However, I believe our justice system to be extremely flawed, especially when it comes to Death Row cases. This makes me doubt the way I think. This is an issue that is always fluctuating with me, and one that I am the most quiet about. I am married to a man who believes the death penalty is wrong; I won't deny his opinions may sway me. I do not, however, believe that is a bad thing. Not in this case, anyway. This has gotten very, very long. I'll split it into two parts. To be continued. |