My own summer - I love it!

(apologies to fans of Deftones, a band that I also like, regarding their song "My Own Summer (Shove It)", one of my favorite metal songs ever)

Summer so far has been greatly lawless for me. The third week of summer is beginning, with just a few days to go before we Americans celebrate our 232nd year free from tyrannical British rule and as an independent nation. Yippee! Also on the 11th I'm leaving for a week up in the Yellowstone National Park and some other places in the Rockies.

The first two weeks, I admit, have been a bit unproductive. My average daily wake-up is usually at 9:30-10:30am, and sleep usually 11-11:45PM, the same late-night timeslots when I've had to sleep during the Junior Year of Abominations (especially AP English Literature). During the day, my usual activities: TV, workouts, reading. Nope, I've never done anything majorly "social" this summer yet; hopefully I can do so on Independence from Britain day - hell, school has been over for about 18 days, and I still express pedantic obsessions (yes, "pedantic" is an SAT word, look it up in a dictionary if you've been playing too much Super Smash Bros. Brawl).

Starting on Monday the 23rd I joined cross country training. I think I will be improving my running over the course of the training, but I'm doubtful about going to the team. But at least going to the team = enhancer for college apps.

On Thursday the 26th, I got my SAT Subject Test scores back. Spanish = 520; US History = 690 (I thought I'd get a 750 on that one!!). So now is crunch time for me: October 4 =retaking SAT I (first attempt on May 3 was a 1990); November 1 = retaking US History and possibly the English Literature test if I get a 3 or below on that test.

Saturday the 28th, spent the day at the library, home, watched some TV, edited Wikipedia, slept too late again.

Sunday the 29th, went to lunch at Chinese restaurant with family, went to Barnes & Noble trying to find a copy of Chris Matthews' book Hardball in the political books section (actually its called "current affairs"). No luck, but I did reserve it at the library. However I did find some interesting political books there:
- The Real America by Glenn Beck, host of his self-titled program on talk radio stations nationwide and on the CNN Headline News channel. I borrowed his other more recent book An Inconvenient Book, which has some pretty funny and intelligent commentaries to issues in America such as political correctness, global warming, and poverty. One part of Real America I did read was Beck's take on abortion, which he supports only for women in the most dire conditions (such as rape or any other disgusting extramarital B.S.). Now I have to tell you, although I'm a liberal, I have to say that Beck is arguably one of the "smarter" conservatives (unlike [coughcough] Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly) who actually tries to use his brain. The part about the "women in dire needs" in the abortion debate is rarely uttered by any right-wing commentator I've heard. Thumbs up Beck! The other chapter I looked through was one on "Celebrities", with the typical conservative belief that Hollywood has...well...a liberal bias! Basically, the simplest explanation for that would be it's a more comfortable opinion against Big Entertainment...unlike some of the more extreme rhetoric pushed by groups like Parents Television Council.
- The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce, who considers herself on her own website one of the most bizarre political positions I've ever seen: "openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush authentic feminist" and "lifelong Democrat". Yes, you've seen all those normally conservative/Republican positions back there...and the vote for Bush...and the dreaded long "F-word" (generally conservatives opposed feminism)...and then the word "Democrat". However, I have read another similar book by a "conservative democrat", A Deficit of Decency by former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller. In the book, Bruce condemns what she considers sex education and its "robbing innocence from kids", vulgar rap music in the popular culture, and other travesties such as moral relativism. But Bruce's book also discussed two other issues that I became so interested in that I looked them up online once I got home:
-- In 2002, a student of Lakeland Community College near Cleveland, Ohio nearly failed a criminal justice class for not wearing a pink ribbon for "Gay Pride Day". Although Bruce has confirmed she is, err, of the "other" sexual orientation, she opposes "LGBT pride" type of stuff as she believes that sexuality is a private matter. This sort of opened my mind a bit: ALL "oppressed" minorities have been known to hold "____ Pride" events for their respective groups over the years, including black pride dating back in the Civil Rights Movement era. Then I was thinking to myself: "It's really the anti-gay conservative's fault that the LGBT community needs to hold 'pride events' yearly: Because they need to push for tolerance!" If conservatives had grasped a hold of reality and accepted that sexual orientation is indeed genetic then there wouldn't have been as much "LGBT Pride" to begin with. I do accept that sexual orientation and genetics have a close relation, but I personally prefer heterosexuality. Speaking of which, Bruce also speculates what would've happened if the college ever held a "Heterosexual Pride Day": All hell would've broken loose! Similarly, I've always wondered why "minorities" (such as gays/blacks/Asians/other non-white/straight people) are allowed to express "pride" but for majorities (white in America) there's a taboo?
--Also Bruce brought up a 2002 controversy regarding the 9/11 (Patriot Day) commemorations in the University of California-Berkeley. She complained about how two students requested white ribbons instead of the usual red/white/blue to express dissatisfaction of President George W. Bush's handling of post-9/11 domestic policy. What i didn't find in her book (maybe because she ommitted it for a stronger argument?) was that UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Berdahl quickly countered that the "unpatriotic" celebration was NOT a campus-wide thing!! If it was indeed ommitted, then obviously it shows her bias - which the liberal group Media Matters for America has documented.
- And Jack Huberman, the liberal author of the hilarious 2006 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (a response to conservative Bernard Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America) has a new book for 2007: The GOP-Hater's Handbook - let the title explain itself, Huberman finds every reason to trash disgraceful, lying Republicans!

After B&N, went home to study SAT vocabulary, chill, watch Gossip Girl and One tree hill.

gnight