A Letter To Dad

Dear Dad,

It's been awhile --a longer while than I care to admit, really -- since I've come to you like this. We have some things we need to talk about, I think. I know that, in the past, I've had my ups and my downs. I know you have high expectations for me. And to be honest a lot of the time I feel pretty bitter and/or downtrodden when I don't measure up. It sometimes makes me feel like I don't measure up at all, to anything of value. But I know that isn't your intention. Your high expectations are out of your love for me and your hope to see me succeed. I know that sometimes I may not like the way you go about things. I may not understand why you do the things you do; especially when you incorporate "tough love." Often I wonder why and grumble to myself about how unfair it all is. There have been times where my life has been at some low places, and I've come to you to talk about them. You always listen to me; always. You always make me feel better; always. You always help me through the next day, and the next day, and the next day; always. I want you to know that even though I cry and whine and argue with you about everything we disagree on, I understand that you have my best intentions at heart. You have so much more experience than I do, and you want only the absolute best for me. You want me to live up to my potential and do great things in the world. The sad truth is, up to this point, I have not done so. I've been lethargic. I've procrastinated. I've "rolled with the wrong crowd" before. I've made mistakes like everyone else. Mistakes that many of which could have been easily avoided if I'd just listened to you and taken your advice to heart rather than brushing you aside as if I knew better. I've disappointed you. I've brought many a tear to your eye. I've given you a restless night. I've not lived up to potential. These things I have done in the past. We even grew further apart to the point where we hardly ever talked, and I never spoke your name. I know how much that saddened you. Recently, we've spoken more than we have in a long time. Recently, I've faced some difficult times and I've found that the only person I can turn to for that neverending strength and comfort and compassion and genuine love that I need: is you. You are the light in the darkness of my life. You are the light in the darkness of the whole world. I know that I've made mistakes, and that I've disappointed you in the past. But right now, I'm here to tell you that I'm making a change. I'm making decisions. I'm making effort. I'm not just sitting by anymore. I want to talk to you again. I want to tell people about you and I want everybody in the whole wide world to know: that you are my dad; that you are my God.

Sincerely, and forever your son,

Jordan



J R Williams

A Salute of Remembrance, A Sigh of Disappointment

When I was but a wee lad, I went to school like anybody else. Every day after school, my Grandma would be parked outside waiting to pick me up. From there, we had our timing down to a dime. We would go straight from there to McDonalds, where she would buy me a chicken nugget Happy Meal, and from there we would sally forth to her house just in time to catch the beginning of Winnie the Pooh on Disney Channel. This ritual was repeated every day, and I loved it. I miss the "old days." The times when Disney Channel's claim to fame was Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Goofy. The times when Disney Channel won its popularity through ingenuity and REAL kids shows, rather than dramatic teenage soap operas and innuendo-filled shows borderline inappropriate for little children. The times when Disney stars didn't all become sluts soon after becoming famous (I know, I'm stereotyping. But hey, it is what it is). I miss the days when the shows on tv were just plain better, and actually spurred people's minds to think while entertaining them rather than filling them with mindless drivel and dumbing down the next generation. I miss shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Zoom, and Between The Lions, and Reading Rainbow, and Boy Meets World, and I even watched Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. I miss not having to worry about whether what I found on PBS or Disney Channel in the afternoons would be appropriate or not; stupid or not. Have you ever seen what children's shows are like now? They're absolute stupidity. There is not one bit of substance to them at all. They're mindless cartoons to entertain and retardate the brain (I don't even know if "retardate" is a word, but I'm going to use it anyways). They are either completely idiotic or they're based on the premise of "child is somewhat of a genius and always cops an attitude to his/her moronic and spastic parents." And people wonder why the next generation has gone downhill. I was raised to read. Dr. Seuss was a genius. I would just sit in my spare time and read and read and read and read and read. I would go outside to the park and play in the sun. I would laugh with my parents and find no reason to fear or mistrust them. That is how a childhood should be. I like to think I was raised pretty damn well (pardon my French, but it's necessary for my desired emphasis). I'm politically interested, I'm literate, I'm intelligent, I'm creative, and I inherited my father's sarcastic sense of humor (which a lot of people don't like, but honestly, that's their loss. I think it's awesome). I look down at the new generation of junior high kids or even at my own peers finishing high school and entering college and I'm literally disgusted, shaking my head in disappointment as I type away at my laptop. Generations are remembered for the highlights of their existence, are they not? The 70's were the hippie years. The 80's (in my interpretation) were governed by classic rock and "gangsta rap." The 90's were the years of progress. What are people going to remember us for, being the first decade of the second millenium? We are going to be remembered as the people who couldn't find our belts and thought we were cool because people could see our underwear. The people who took an already-declining economy and shot it in the back with whatever we could find. The liberal generation. The illiterate generation. The generation of "change." Everybody wants change, but nobody ever stops to think about whether the change they're making is a good one. I look at my peers and probably more than half of them don't read. More than half of them can't understand anything higher than a 7th grade reading level. I hear things like "reading is only for nerds," "I hate reading," "I only read when I have to," "reading is for losers," and "why would you want to read? It's a waste of time," and it makes me sad. Sad that I'm a part of the generation that is willingly allowing itself to be recognized as the illiterates. The idiots. The destroyers of progress. And what's worse is that when confronted with that fact, at least in my experience, those individuals simply laugh it off as if it's all a big joke or it won't ever matter. Well in the next generation, when we are the ones who have to tie our shoes and pull our pants up and fill positions in the government and other important occupations, there's going to be a massive and unpleasant wake-up call for a lot of people, and I dread what's going to happen. I could go on and on about the decline of the nation, boiling down to the thought that the more we remove God from America the worse off as a nation we get. Think about it for a minute, if you will: nobody wants to allow prayer in schools anymore. They want to take "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. We are pulling backing away from our longtime support of Israel, and in the Bible God tells the Israelites that "whosoever blesses you shall be blessed, and whosoever curses you shall be cursed (I think those are the exact words but I'm not positive. You get the idea)" We've even gone so far as to move the phrase "In God We Trust" from the face of the quarter to the border around it, so it can barely be seen. Consequently, we as a nation have been on an inexorably stagnant downward spiral of economic and moral collapse. I don't see coincidence; I see providence. Obviously there are also many other reasons for America's dire position, but you don't need me to tell you that.

To be short, I find myself deeply disappointed in my generation. I wish I could be living my years during the 80's and 90's, when everything was so much simpler and so much better. I miss the days of innocence and conscience that are now so far gone. I miss the good, clean, magical, classic Disney movies that have been now succeeded by such inferior replacements. I miss everything that is now gone. I hate having to wake up and hear constantly about how bad everything in the world is. And I know it's foolish to want to think everything is okay in the world, but that's how I feel. As cliche as it is; I just want peace. So to the past times, I salute you. I shall never, ever forget you. And to my generation, I'm disappointed in you. In us. In all of it.

J R Williams

Big 48

Today I reach 48 blog posts. I truly never thought I would even make it this far; generally things like this that I start dry up/lose my interest fairly quickly, and yet I'm rather fond of this blog. I find it to be an effective tool for the venting of frustrations or the expression of political opinions. It's also been rather instrumental in starting a lot of debates and/or other random arguments that I quite enjoy stirring up every now and then, to tell the truth. Something about a good argument (that I can actually hold my own in) is just engaging and entertaining and gets the creative energy flowing. It also comes accompanied by the utter feeling of complete success whenever I'm able to hopelessly troll somebody's feeble comeback, per se.

I digress. Actually... no, I don't, seeing as there was never really any original point to digress from. On this completely random note, I've decided to share my love of naming inanimate objects. Well, I suppose it's not so much a love as a fondness. For example: my old car was named Pancho Villa, after the famous Mexican outlaw, because I drove it illegally/unregistered for several months and it was a broken down POS of a car. My laptop I have named Megatron in light of some friends of mine seeing it and saying it looks like a Decepticon due to its lit keyboard and large size. It's an Asus gaming laptop, and it's quite large. It's also quite beautiful. My shotgun I'm honestly torn between names for. I may call it Drobovik (drowe-bow-vick), which is Russian for "shotgun." But I may also call it Ich Glockma, which is German for "the goat." I don't know why, but I find it hilarious. My phone is named the Professor, because it knows everything. Yeah. I name things. It's odd, but entertaining and makes for some interesting conversations at times.

Aside from that, I really have nothing to say today. When I have a lot on my mind, or a lot of stress or emotion, or I'm as bored as a blind person during a silent film, I blog. And thus, here I am.

Oh, one more thing to briefly touch upon before I leave all my faithful readers today (are there even any? Meh, I don't care much if there are or aren't. But if there are, great! I love you guys!). Three days left until we leave for California for the week to visit family there. While I'm down there I'm also going down to visit my girlfriend, whom I don't get to see nearly as often as I should be able to. I'd say it's unfair, but that would only be an admission of self-pity in an otherwise unpitiable situation. We chose this, so we can live with it. But anyways, yeah, we're leaving in a few days. Here's hoping that everything goes well..

J R Williams

Alta High School Controversy

"We are visiting all Language Arts classes this week to speak with students about their role in creating an atmosphere free of discrimination, and alerting them that any acts of racism, intimidation, or bullying will not be tolerated. We are notifying our students, faculty and administrators of their duty to report discrimination and civil rights violations..." Hello, Communism! It's been awhile. I haven't seen you appear so strongly in society since everybody voted NO to the REAL stadium (twice) and they built it with taxpayer money anyways.


Going from class to class informing students that they are required to report acts or words of racism or discrimination is a pointless waste of everybody's time. If somebody cracks a black joke in the halls, are you going to arrest him, or suspend him, or both? But let me rewind for those of you that don't know the entire situation. At Alta High School, a student wore a KKK hood to a pep rally and pulled a Nazi salute, presumably targeting it at a specific black student named Larz. The racist boy has since been suspended and the NAACP has essentially but the school on lockdown for a thorough investigation into the school's "rampant racism." Students are being stopped and questioned by police officers throughout the halls, and though I'm unaware of any other suspensions there apparently have been several more reported racial or discriminatory incidents. I'm not racist, but I DO advocate equal rights. Yes, people, there is a difference between not being racist and advocating equal rights. Put it in this light: if that Larz guy were to show up to school in all black with a t-shirt that says "Black Power," nobody would even blink. Granted, it was in very poor taste to don a KKK hood even if just for a few laughs. But at the point where Larz takes that isolated incident and turns it into "this entire school is racist, do something about it".... that's where it gets ridiculous. If you stop a guy in the hallway and ask him "are you racist?" what happens if he replies with a "yes"? Do you arrest him? Detain him? Suspend him? For the sake of free speech, I certainly hope not. I truly would not be surprised in the least bit if in the near future it becomes illegal just to make a racist joke in public. I'll be outraged, but unsurprised. I'm no racist; I have nothing against the African American people. What I have issue with is the inherent reverse discrimination prevalent in society today. "African American Golfer's Digest" is just one arbitrary example. If anybody tried to start a "White Golfer's Digest" somebody would get shot, or sued, or arrested for discrimination, or all of the above. Yes, it was wrong of this guy to show up in a Klan outfit. But NO, it is not okay to waste taxpayer money by having police roam the halls of a high school interrogating students about how racist everybody else is. That's pointless and ridiculous and won't solve anything. If somebody makes a racist comment and ends up suspended for it, that's impeachment of free speech, and if this continues I will soon lose all remaining faith I have in America.


J R Williams

Official Homefront Review *Warning, Graphic Game Content*

Sunday afternoon I realized starkly that I had a big test the following morning in Criminal Justice. Talk about a gun-to-head moment. Frantically I printed out the 28 pages of study guides (the ones I should have filled out over the past couple weeks so I could actually STUDY them for the test) and wondered how I would even fill them out in time for the test, much less actually study them too. Luckily a friend of mine came to my rescue and gave me all the answers, essentially saving me hours and hours of reading through the textbook. Now I could focus on cramming for the test itself... which took me hours and hours. And my intensive, panicked studying came through for me! I pulled through and think I did very well, actually. Hoorah for cramming.

Alright, so I've logged double digit hours playing Homefront and I'm going to present my official review/opinion of it now. It was essentially Call of Duty with the widespread feel of Battlefield. The visuals were very much like Call of Duty, if somewhat better. The game would probably pin its claim to fame on its reputation for brutality, and for its vision of the destructive Korean occupation of America. It is an experience of intense warfare literally in our own back yard. The first ten minutes of the game are a fairly accurate depiction of what to expect throughout the remainder of the game. You are loaded onto a prison bus and treated with a slow roll through a terrorized Colorado town with a front row seat to the oppression of the American people. You see men lined up against a wall and shot down. You see a soldier throw a bag over a man's head to strangle him. You see two soldiers beating a man to death on the side of the road with their rifles. You see a weeping child forced to watch his parents shot down in front of him. This is a very, very brutal game. At one point later on, you uncover mass graves where tractors simply dump dozens of bodies into holes in the ground. You are very shortly thereafter forced to jump into the pile to hide from the enemy. I was continuously struck by the sheer graphic nature of the game. I believe the point to this was to instill a feeling of nationality, or a rally-around-the-flag way of thinking in people. I believe it was intended to bring up sympathy and heartache for the game's characters and these poor American people. The impression I got, however, was one of almost distaste. The brutality was just that: brutality. Yes, it was all very tragic. But I wasn't emotionally stricken with grief for the game's characters. They were angry and gritty and heartbroken, but fickle. They seemed almost to switch personalities throughout the game. And while the single player gameplay was very fun and environmental, much of it was unbelievable and some of it was even a little repetetive. The multiplayer was a vast disappointment. I think the biggest thing I liked about it was the fact that when you shoot at someone, you die a lot faster than in any other games of the kind. There isn't any of this emptying an entire magazine into someone and finally killing them, if you're lucky, nonsense. Four hits and boom, down you go. The emphasis is on vehicular combat; you can literally spawn into a vehicle, and that's your assigned vehicle. You can get out of it, but if you stay outside of it for X amount of seconds, you lose the ability to get back in and now you're an infantryman always on the lookout for other infantry and hiding from enemy vehicles.

In short, it was a fun game, but I found that it tried to compensate for its lack of ingenuity with its shocking brutality.

J R Williams

Libya

Oh, Libya. Where to begin. The hypocrisy staggers me, first of all. Make no mistake, we are at war. Our military has attacked the military of a soverign nation. We attacked; we struck first. I wanted to first say that as a side note. As for the hypocrisy: When Bush got a UN resolution authorizing military force, liberals called military action illegal because Congress did not declare war. Obama has now done the same thing -- in less than a week's time, at that -- and suddenly it's okay. Where are the liberals and their outrage now? Nobody's done or said very much about it. Liberals said Saddam being a murderer was not a valid reason to go to war because Iraq posed no imminent threat to us. But now when Obama does the same thing, it's okay. Hypocrites.

As much of a supporter as I am of the "we want to help" idealism laced throughout our international policy, the simple fact is we shouldn't be anywhere near Libya right now, much less militarily. It may be in the best interest of a decent person's moral code, but it contradicts national interest. Libya is no threat to America. We've been dropping bombs and shooting down Libyan military for days now. We are, in every definition, an imposing military force invading the territory of a soverign nation. Good reasons or no good reasons aside: that is, in very essence, what is happening. If we continue this trend of sending military assets to every country at war with itself, it will lead to indefinite U.S. military occupation of most of the countries in the world, Africa and the Middle East specifically. I hear there's civil war in Somalia; let's send the army and fix their problems too, while we're at it (complete sarcasm: let's NOT go to Somalia). America is the most indebted nation on Earth, with a national deficit of over 14 trillion 236 billion dollars. Considering the average population of America being just over 310 million people (these are generalized numbers that can be verified/more specified at http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/), that means that each citizen's share of the debt is roughly $45,889.53. We cannot even remotely begin to afford yet another war on our hands. Our military is already spread thinly across the world. We are merely borrowing even more money that we cannot pay back to send soldiers out somewhere halfway across the world to settle one of COUNTLESS countries' domestic problems. I'm not insensitively giving the "screw you" to oppressed people worldwide; I AM saying that we need to get our own country in order and back on its feet before we go imposing ourselves on so many others. The King James Bible says: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" The NIV Bible translates to: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" I personally translate this to: don't try to fix the world if you can't fix yourself (in regards to America).

Again, I completely sympathize with the "we want to fix the world and save all the people" idealism, because I hate to see suffering as much as the next man. But that idealism is exactly that: idealism. The reality is that we simply cannot go wherever we please in the world without consideration of cost, motive, or general right to interfere, and make everything better. Yes, bad things happen to innocent people. But America can't control the entire world. We can't even control our own government.

J R Williams

Poetic Insights

I'm currently listening to: "Iris," by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Today I'm going to share some poetry. I've been on a massive influx of creative outflow in regards to both stress and inspiration, and consequently I've not only gotten back into poetry (I used to write it and stopped a long time ago), but I've never written more than I have just over the past few days. When I'm angry, hurt, impatient, upset, or stressed, I write short (or long, if that's what I'm feeling) poems about my thoughts (without details, of course) and I feel better. Yay poetry.

I wrote this two nights ago:

My escape takes me from reality.

Shows me a place where life is good finally.

My mind battles chaos

And jumbled thoughts.

But my hand battles only a pen

As the words flow onto the page.

My escape is constructive;

Beautiful;

Productive.

My escape is both thrilling and seductive.

My escape takes me to a faraway place.

A place without pain or tears.

My escape, my new escape, shall simply be:

Poetry.

-"Poetry," written by Me.

J R Williams