Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
A Meal With Papers
Inconsistency has been my closest friend for as long as I can remember. As I write this paper, I’m not even sure how to begin explaining inconsistency. How can such a strong emotion that has such a significant impact on my daily life ever be put into words? It’s exhausting, it’s discouraging, and it’s, well, inconsistent. Sometime I don’t even know what inconsistency is. Is it indecision? Apathy? Confusion? Who knows. The lasting repercussions cannot be defined or put into words, yet it manifests itself in every part of my life.
It’s like having two separate brains that constantly argue and never rest. Two brains that so strongly battle to pull me in opposing directions I can hear and feel the seams of my head bursting and nearly splitting in two. The sound of ripping flesh echoes through my ears, leaving me holding my head in my hands, hoping my true thoughts are never exposed.
Who I am is a total mystery even to myself. Am I an artist, a musician, an athlete, or an intellectual? I’ve never been passionate about anything, never been exceptionally gifted in any area, yet I can do many things at a surface level of satisfaction. It’s like having your limbs stuck in every accessible window, yet still looking for the open door. The whole world is open to me, but I don’t know where to begin. I’m being pulled in a thousand different directions and I can’t stop it.
An endless supply of masks hang on the coat rack, waiting to be donned at appropriate times, and an endless list of roles I play each day patiently wait nearby. I’m afraid who I want to be has lost who I am in this inescapable sea of plastic and acting. In a group of conservatives, I’m a liberal. In a group of liberals, I’m a conservative. In a group of intellectuals, I play the educated college girl, but in a group of spiritual hippies I wear the role of a horoscope fanatic. Whatever situation I am in, I adapt to fit the established social expectations. However, my one constant is knowing that there will always be a wildness about me that will forever seep through the cracks of the masks I create, presenting itself in almost undetectable ways. In a way, this is a kind of comfort; knowing there are still trickles of me left.
Though I am often too embarrassed to publicly admit it, I know exactly what I desire in life: to live a hundred different lives and to live a thousand different experiences. To live the childhood of every culture and person, experience heartbreak and destruction and, as strange and disturbing as this may sound, to hit rock bottom. I have this desire to know for myself every emotion and experience talked about. Many people are satisfied listening to stories of things that have happened or watching movies about heartbreak, but I want to live these things. I want to know what these things feel like.
Eventually, all this leads to a state of sheer and unreserved apathy. You begin not to car about anything. School, relationships, family, and hobbies you once found fascinating become tiresome and vexing. Making simple decisions becomes trying and impossible. Subsequently, you learn to cope by ignoring people, things, and ideas, losing yourself to the endless maze within your own mind. A coat of apathy can be one of the most powerful tools known to mankind.
Even this paper instigates feelings of inconsistent reason and logic. In some ways I find writing this to be surprisingly therapeutic, but in other ways I find it absolutely ridiculous, overly introspective, and disgustingly childish. The feelings I’ve expressed above are very real to me, but maybe this is because I’m overdramatizing the affects they have on my life. Maybe these gruesome battles in my head are because I allow myself to dwell on these things, believing they really do tear me to pieces. Perhaps the best thing to do is ignore them, bury them, and live as though they do not exist.
So I am left with a big blob of confusion and inconsistency for a brain, somehow understanding that life is simply a series of compromises and beautiful unknowns. Nothing can be planned, for I know not what I am capable of or who I am going to be from one moment to the next. Inconsistencies, inconsistencies. As I sit here at 2 in the morning, enjoying the solitude of a meal with my papers, I realize that I am finally at peace with this reality—the reality of a life unplanned.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Concept of a Missing Piece (unfinished)
I set out on a journey to find a key to unlock a bag of truths. I climbed every world, every surface, every cloud but soon forgot who I was and ran around in circles until I fell from my dreams and swam with the fish in the sea of the sun.
Everywhere I look, colossal worlds scratch the surface of space, their massive hands reaching upward, trying to pluck the stars from the illuminated night sky. The vivid stars playfully flit about like the first butterflies of spring, traunting and dodging the avaricious hands the reach always for their wings.
All is warmed as the wind below the sky lazily slumbers in the warm summer air. The soft dirt buries itself deep beneath the surface of the earth, its shy eyes hidden behind the lush grass that dons every facet trampled by human feet.
Time has been left in the past and the numbers have fallen from the faces of the clocks; their is nothing left to steal the years. The days that pass explode into a million seeds that fall to the earth and ripen into all that surrounds us, heartbeats resonating in our ears.
At night, the gardens become the roadways to our hearts, the maps of our eyes, and the unopened book of our dreams. But come morning all our stories hide beneath the streets we walk, disappear inside the vaults we've lost , and die within the sculptures we've become.
The phantoms never seen construct the walls of the world with the words from our lips, and paint them with the photos of a thousand vacant faces.
A Breath of Fresh Air
Smoking. It loos like the delicate fog that escapes the lips of passersby on a crisp, winter day. It's the shapeless words muttered under the breath, always drifting, moving, sailing away. Never stopping it softly floats into cumulus clouds like a balloon that's been freed from our grasp. Uninhibited, it gently clings to the wings of the wind and quietly falls like autumn leaves.
The sound of smoking is the sound of breath, a constant reminder of the gift of life. It's the sound of insanity-- doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Like the sound of a soft kiss with a heavy sigh, like the dull echo of an empty bank account, it captures the petite sounds that encompass our days.
A torrent of sweet nostalgia floods my veins as a haze of smoke breezes past. In a life marked by relentless change and transition, it feels like the one constant. The feeling of a cigarette between the lips and the warmth that wraps itself around my fingertips tells me I'm finally home. The captured sensation is that of a new beginning or a fresh perspective. It's the 5 minutes of tranquil reflection in a world erupting in chaos and pandemonium.
Journal Entry #6
Let's start off with the basics. I have sic-pack abs, biceps the size of Zeus' thighs, thighs the size of delicate twigs, and posture that can only be compared to Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. My masculine appearance often scares off potential candidates but on the inside I'm like a delicate Toucan trapped in a shimmering gold cage.
In my spare time, I like tactfully constructing loincloths from various wild flowers and tree branches, crawling around like Rambo through plastic houseplants, and attempting to stuff the computer speakers up my nostrils. On the weekends, I enjoy participating in miscellaneous tribal warfare, mentoring racially confused/ questioning baby monkeys, and monitoring the development of thermoregualtion in poultry embryos. During the early hours of the morning when I'm in need of a good laugh, I amuse myself by omitting various keywords from classic literature and replacing them with the phrase "baby llama". Hey, simple minds, simple pleasures.
I spend 25% of my time awake but wishing I were asleep and another 25% half-awake and incapable of forming lucid thoughts. The other 50% of my day is spent missing buses, running to catch buses, and calling people begging for a ride because I missed my bus.
In my spare time, I like tactfully constructing loincloths from various wild flowers and tree branches, crawling around like Rambo through plastic houseplants, and attempting to stuff the computer speakers up my nostrils. On the weekends, I enjoy participating in miscellaneous tribal warfare, mentoring racially confused/ questioning baby monkeys, and monitoring the development of thermoregualtion in poultry embryos. During the early hours of the morning when I'm in need of a good laugh, I amuse myself by omitting various keywords from classic literature and replacing them with the phrase "baby llama". Hey, simple minds, simple pleasures.
I spend 25% of my time awake but wishing I were asleep and another 25% half-awake and incapable of forming lucid thoughts. The other 50% of my day is spent missing buses, running to catch buses, and calling people begging for a ride because I missed my bus.
Faces Worth Observing
Admit it: We've all hated someone because of the way they style their hair, the clothes they wear, or the car they drive. If allowed to fester for too long, our small, uneducated assumptions can grow into roaring rivers of hatred and egotistical preeminence. On a daily basis, we are attacked by a barrage of rumors and gossip that taint our view of people we have not even met. Though not realizing it at the time, my first party as a freshman in high school would forever change my judgmental, arrogant mindset.
Palms clammy and nausea twisting my stomach into unidentifiable shapes, I drunkenly stumbled onto the over-crowded balcony where my lungs desperately gasped for fresh air. The night offered me overwhelming smells of marijuana and cheap cigarettes. Gagging and coughing, I fumbled with the glass door for several moments and returned to the noisy hotel room. Collapsing on the floor of the stuffy, overheated room, my disoriented and inebriated brain frantically scanned the room for any familiar face, any friendly smile. The only things I encountered were the blurry, coked-out eyes of a dozen college students looking straight past me, not capable of registering the fourteen-year-old who didn't belong. Empty eyes. I was going to vomit.
Losing the feeling in my legs, I faltered to the bathroom where I spent an hour bent over the toilet trying to throw-up. Or was it five minutes? Time was a blur. Catching a glimpse of my face in the mirror, I noticed that my usually deep blue eyes were almost entirely black from dilatation, and my tanned, healthy face was now ashen and puffy. My body was shaking uncontrollably and though my head was on fire, my skin was icy to the touch. I couldn't stop staring at the face in the mirror. Fear pounded in my heart and quickly rose to my lungs, creating a lump in the back of my throat that couldn't be swallowed. Was I going to make it through the night? at the time, I didn't think so. I wanted to go home. I wanted a familiar pair of arms to wrap themselves around me and tell me that it was going ot be okay. That's when Meghan* first entered my life.
Meghan was nineteen at the time. Rumors of her intoxicated nights and promiscuous lifestyle clouded my view of her. She always had a pouch of cocaine in her bra or a joint in her purse and she would sleep with almost anyone. her boyfriend, a thirty-six-year-old drug dealer had three children with two of his previous girlfriends. This is the Meghan I had always heard about and she disgusted me, though I'd never even met her.
A girl with the kindest blue eyes and the warmest smile I had ever seen came in to see if I was feeling all right. She held my hair as I threw-up into the early morning and, when I slumped to the floor, weary from my body's punishment of the substances I'd pumped into it, she brought me a soft blanket and pillow. She sat with me all night, cooling my burning forehead with a damp washcloth. As exhausted as I was, I couldn't sleep. My body felt as though it were being suspended in mid-air, enveloped by a thick, heavy blackness, my skin almost breaking from the massive pair of invisible hands mercilessly stretching it, ripping it.
A gently hand delicately shook me awake at three in the afternoon the next day. golden sunlight streamed through the windows of the now empty hotel room. The smell and feel of the previous night still hung in the air and clung to every blank wall of the miserable void. Empty beer bottles covered every horizontal surface, most broken few still intact. I wondered who would clean them up. The girl from the previous night asked me if I needed a ride home. She told me her name was Meghan.
Since then, Meghan and I have become very close friends, and I've had the privilege of watching her time and time again help those in need. She gives of herself selflessly, and the amount of love and care she's shown total strangers could fill an empty sea. This experience has changed my life in more ways than I could possibly write. It has forever been seared into the core of who I am and who I am becoming. For the first time in my life, I saw a world beyond myself. I saw people for much more than the drugs they'd used of the parties they'd been to. Each person has a story to tell and an experience that has made them who they are. It's a slow process, but I'm learning to genuinely care for others, to be a friend to the friendless, a comfort to the hurting, and a listening ear to the lonely. I've been given new eyes, clear eyes that sea faces worth observing and minds worth knowing.
Palms clammy and nausea twisting my stomach into unidentifiable shapes, I drunkenly stumbled onto the over-crowded balcony where my lungs desperately gasped for fresh air. The night offered me overwhelming smells of marijuana and cheap cigarettes. Gagging and coughing, I fumbled with the glass door for several moments and returned to the noisy hotel room. Collapsing on the floor of the stuffy, overheated room, my disoriented and inebriated brain frantically scanned the room for any familiar face, any friendly smile. The only things I encountered were the blurry, coked-out eyes of a dozen college students looking straight past me, not capable of registering the fourteen-year-old who didn't belong. Empty eyes. I was going to vomit.
Losing the feeling in my legs, I faltered to the bathroom where I spent an hour bent over the toilet trying to throw-up. Or was it five minutes? Time was a blur. Catching a glimpse of my face in the mirror, I noticed that my usually deep blue eyes were almost entirely black from dilatation, and my tanned, healthy face was now ashen and puffy. My body was shaking uncontrollably and though my head was on fire, my skin was icy to the touch. I couldn't stop staring at the face in the mirror. Fear pounded in my heart and quickly rose to my lungs, creating a lump in the back of my throat that couldn't be swallowed. Was I going to make it through the night? at the time, I didn't think so. I wanted to go home. I wanted a familiar pair of arms to wrap themselves around me and tell me that it was going ot be okay. That's when Meghan* first entered my life.
Meghan was nineteen at the time. Rumors of her intoxicated nights and promiscuous lifestyle clouded my view of her. She always had a pouch of cocaine in her bra or a joint in her purse and she would sleep with almost anyone. her boyfriend, a thirty-six-year-old drug dealer had three children with two of his previous girlfriends. This is the Meghan I had always heard about and she disgusted me, though I'd never even met her.
A girl with the kindest blue eyes and the warmest smile I had ever seen came in to see if I was feeling all right. She held my hair as I threw-up into the early morning and, when I slumped to the floor, weary from my body's punishment of the substances I'd pumped into it, she brought me a soft blanket and pillow. She sat with me all night, cooling my burning forehead with a damp washcloth. As exhausted as I was, I couldn't sleep. My body felt as though it were being suspended in mid-air, enveloped by a thick, heavy blackness, my skin almost breaking from the massive pair of invisible hands mercilessly stretching it, ripping it.
A gently hand delicately shook me awake at three in the afternoon the next day. golden sunlight streamed through the windows of the now empty hotel room. The smell and feel of the previous night still hung in the air and clung to every blank wall of the miserable void. Empty beer bottles covered every horizontal surface, most broken few still intact. I wondered who would clean them up. The girl from the previous night asked me if I needed a ride home. She told me her name was Meghan.
Since then, Meghan and I have become very close friends, and I've had the privilege of watching her time and time again help those in need. She gives of herself selflessly, and the amount of love and care she's shown total strangers could fill an empty sea. This experience has changed my life in more ways than I could possibly write. It has forever been seared into the core of who I am and who I am becoming. For the first time in my life, I saw a world beyond myself. I saw people for much more than the drugs they'd used of the parties they'd been to. Each person has a story to tell and an experience that has made them who they are. It's a slow process, but I'm learning to genuinely care for others, to be a friend to the friendless, a comfort to the hurting, and a listening ear to the lonely. I've been given new eyes, clear eyes that sea faces worth observing and minds worth knowing.
The TSA and the Constitution: An Exercise in Violation
On November 7, 2010, Thomas Sawyer went through the security checkpoints at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport where he was severely humiliated and abused by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. “I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn’t even speak,” said Sawyer, a 61-year-old bladder cancer survivor (Baskas). After battling cancer, Sawyer has to wear a urostomy bag which collects his urine. “One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants” (Baskas). This is a clear example of the TSA’s gross perversion of power, and this kind of harmful treatment is now happening on a daily basis in major airports throughout the United States. Youtube, internet blogs, and other online articles are replete with the recounting of painful and sometimes scary experiences passengers have endured at the hands of arrogant or aggressive TSA-sanctioned agents.
The examination of the Fourth Amendment sheds Constitutional light into the abuses aforementioned as violations of every air traveler’s basic civil rights. The Fourth Amendment, as stated in the Constitution, declares: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (“Fourth…”). In essence, the government cannot invade your privacy, check your mail, search your house, your body, or your belongings without a probable cause and a warrant signed by a judge that specifies what government agents are looking for and what they’re going to seize. The writers of the Constitution did not consider any caveat. There is no exception to this rule.
The Fourth Amendment is important to all of us. It holds the government accountable for its actions and limits the power it exerts over the inhabitants of the land. The creators of the Constitution understood that unlimited governmental invasion breaches our civil rights; thus the Fourth Amendment acts to protect our liberties and rights conferred by the Constitution. The alternative to the government supporting civil rights is the government becoming oppressive and tyrannical.
The TSA was developed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to provide security at our nation’s airports along with other transportation channels ("TSA…"). Several of the tools used to ensure safe traveling are pat downs, bodyscans, and luggage searches. In 2003, the TSA came under the authority of Homeland Security, which is a government body “responsible for assessing the nation’s vulnerabilities… to ensure the most effective response” (“DHS…”).
The recently revised TSA regulations are extremely invasive and are a complete violation of privacy. The new pat downs are now executed using the front of the hand rather than the back, and the screening machines that passengers are required to go through produce high-resolution photos of your most intimate body parts that are subsequently saved into a database for review (“Airport…”). The emended pat downs include strip searches and repeatedly touching, groping, and feeling highly sensitive areas of the body in open view of the public; privacy is nonexistent. The TSA officials are calling these “enhanced” security measures, but from the perspective of those subject to these searches, it’s a raw exercise of power--purposefully creating humiliating and depraved situations. Those newly enforced procedures also create an ever increasing state of fear.
On the surface, these procedures were implemented to make air travel safer for passengers, as terrorists use more insidious means to threaten air travelers. The increased security measures were put into place to deter terrorists from even trying to go through the scanning system with any potentially explosive devices. However, you can never be completely safe. As current technology is evolving into nanotechnology, meaning that smaller and smaller objects can be used as explosive devices, terrorists can have access to this advanced equipment. It is very possible that this technology can be undetectable even through the intensified scanning process used by the TSA. The refusal of the TSA to profile terrorists has resulted in every potential passenger becoming a suspect. Is it possible that the TSA (as in, the government) is trying to implement a frame of mind where every inhabitant is guilty before being proven innocent, a total reversal of the commonly understood justice system?
Every person wanting to fly is not a terrorist. The terrorists are a minority, yet the TSA is treating the majority like a culpable minority. For the sake of a few terrorists who have created havoc in this country, we are all viewed as potential criminals on our own soil. Marketing manager for Roanoke Regional Airport, Sherri Wallace states, "They are going to be searching you as if you were a criminal" (Donnelly). The Fourth Amendment states that there must be a warrant provided by a judge and a probable cause in order to search and seize. Where are the individual warrants for the people who want to fly? If you have no probable cause, you may not do this and the government has no probable cause that every person going through the gates of an airport and boarding a plane is dangerous. Without probable cause and warrants, searches and seizures have become unreasonable, thus violating the expressed wording and purpose of this amendment.
We should be concerned because the Fourth Amendment is a basic right for which many sacrificed their lives. A government that starts down that slippery slope of violating the Constitution in one area will increase the probability of violating it in other areas, stopping at nothing. If we don’t have that protection of the Fourth Amendment, we have nothing. Traveling, deemed a privilege by the president of the TSA, is only the beginning, and if this floodgate is opened, you are not secure from any government intervention. It should create fear in the heart of people because if the constitution is violated, it is no longer of any use concerning protection of rights. The sudden new measures that have rightfully outraged passengers and inflamed newspaper writers have changed nothing, a clear indication that the government is being very purposeful about this. Any passenger who is on the no-fly list cannot obtain information as to the reasons why he is on that black list nor can that person challenge the TSA’s decision to ban that would be passenger from boarding an airplane. The TSA’s decision is final and the possibility of appeal almost vain.
Let us remember the potent warning of Benjamin Franklin, a major influence in the writing of the Constitution, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” As the government is violating the Constitution, thereby sacrificing your Fourth Amendment rights for the sake of safety and security, have your constitutional rights become an endangered species?
Works Cited
"Airport Security: Hands off Our Junk | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics,
Economics, Business & Finance. The Economist, 25 Nov. 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
<http:>.</http:>
Baskas, Harriet. "TSA Pat-down Leaves Traveler Covered in Urine - Travel - News - Msnbc.com."
Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science,
Technology, Local, US & World News - Msnbc.com. MSNBC, 21 Dec. 2010. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
<http:></http:>.
"DHS | Protecting, Analyzing & Sharing Information." Department of Homeland Security | Preserving
Our Freedoms, Protecting America. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
<http:>.</http:>
Donnelly, Morgan. "New Pat-downs Part of Increased TSA Security at Airports Starting Friday | WSLS
10." Weather and News for Roanoke, Lynchburg, Blacksburg, Danville, Virginia along with Sports and Entertainment | WSLS 10. WSLS10, 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
<http:> airports-ar-613022/>.
"Fourth Amendment Defined & Explained." The 'Lectric Law Library's Entrance & Welcome. The Lectic
Law Library. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http:>.</http:>
"TSA: What Is TSA?" TSA | Transportation Security Administration | U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. TSA. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http:>.</http:>
</http:>
The examination of the Fourth Amendment sheds Constitutional light into the abuses aforementioned as violations of every air traveler’s basic civil rights. The Fourth Amendment, as stated in the Constitution, declares: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (“Fourth…”). In essence, the government cannot invade your privacy, check your mail, search your house, your body, or your belongings without a probable cause and a warrant signed by a judge that specifies what government agents are looking for and what they’re going to seize. The writers of the Constitution did not consider any caveat. There is no exception to this rule.
The Fourth Amendment is important to all of us. It holds the government accountable for its actions and limits the power it exerts over the inhabitants of the land. The creators of the Constitution understood that unlimited governmental invasion breaches our civil rights; thus the Fourth Amendment acts to protect our liberties and rights conferred by the Constitution. The alternative to the government supporting civil rights is the government becoming oppressive and tyrannical.
The TSA was developed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to provide security at our nation’s airports along with other transportation channels ("TSA…"). Several of the tools used to ensure safe traveling are pat downs, bodyscans, and luggage searches. In 2003, the TSA came under the authority of Homeland Security, which is a government body “responsible for assessing the nation’s vulnerabilities… to ensure the most effective response” (“DHS…”).
The recently revised TSA regulations are extremely invasive and are a complete violation of privacy. The new pat downs are now executed using the front of the hand rather than the back, and the screening machines that passengers are required to go through produce high-resolution photos of your most intimate body parts that are subsequently saved into a database for review (“Airport…”). The emended pat downs include strip searches and repeatedly touching, groping, and feeling highly sensitive areas of the body in open view of the public; privacy is nonexistent. The TSA officials are calling these “enhanced” security measures, but from the perspective of those subject to these searches, it’s a raw exercise of power--purposefully creating humiliating and depraved situations. Those newly enforced procedures also create an ever increasing state of fear.
On the surface, these procedures were implemented to make air travel safer for passengers, as terrorists use more insidious means to threaten air travelers. The increased security measures were put into place to deter terrorists from even trying to go through the scanning system with any potentially explosive devices. However, you can never be completely safe. As current technology is evolving into nanotechnology, meaning that smaller and smaller objects can be used as explosive devices, terrorists can have access to this advanced equipment. It is very possible that this technology can be undetectable even through the intensified scanning process used by the TSA. The refusal of the TSA to profile terrorists has resulted in every potential passenger becoming a suspect. Is it possible that the TSA (as in, the government) is trying to implement a frame of mind where every inhabitant is guilty before being proven innocent, a total reversal of the commonly understood justice system?
Every person wanting to fly is not a terrorist. The terrorists are a minority, yet the TSA is treating the majority like a culpable minority. For the sake of a few terrorists who have created havoc in this country, we are all viewed as potential criminals on our own soil. Marketing manager for Roanoke Regional Airport, Sherri Wallace states, "They are going to be searching you as if you were a criminal" (Donnelly). The Fourth Amendment states that there must be a warrant provided by a judge and a probable cause in order to search and seize. Where are the individual warrants for the people who want to fly? If you have no probable cause, you may not do this and the government has no probable cause that every person going through the gates of an airport and boarding a plane is dangerous. Without probable cause and warrants, searches and seizures have become unreasonable, thus violating the expressed wording and purpose of this amendment.
We should be concerned because the Fourth Amendment is a basic right for which many sacrificed their lives. A government that starts down that slippery slope of violating the Constitution in one area will increase the probability of violating it in other areas, stopping at nothing. If we don’t have that protection of the Fourth Amendment, we have nothing. Traveling, deemed a privilege by the president of the TSA, is only the beginning, and if this floodgate is opened, you are not secure from any government intervention. It should create fear in the heart of people because if the constitution is violated, it is no longer of any use concerning protection of rights. The sudden new measures that have rightfully outraged passengers and inflamed newspaper writers have changed nothing, a clear indication that the government is being very purposeful about this. Any passenger who is on the no-fly list cannot obtain information as to the reasons why he is on that black list nor can that person challenge the TSA’s decision to ban that would be passenger from boarding an airplane. The TSA’s decision is final and the possibility of appeal almost vain.
Let us remember the potent warning of Benjamin Franklin, a major influence in the writing of the Constitution, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” As the government is violating the Constitution, thereby sacrificing your Fourth Amendment rights for the sake of safety and security, have your constitutional rights become an endangered species?
Works Cited
"Airport Security: Hands off Our Junk | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics,
Economics, Business & Finance. The Economist, 25 Nov. 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
<http:>.</http:>
Baskas, Harriet. "TSA Pat-down Leaves Traveler Covered in Urine - Travel - News - Msnbc.com."
Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science,
Technology, Local, US & World News - Msnbc.com. MSNBC, 21 Dec. 2010. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
<http:></http:>.
"DHS | Protecting, Analyzing & Sharing Information." Department of Homeland Security | Preserving
Our Freedoms, Protecting America. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
<http:>.</http:>
Donnelly, Morgan. "New Pat-downs Part of Increased TSA Security at Airports Starting Friday | WSLS
10." Weather and News for Roanoke, Lynchburg, Blacksburg, Danville, Virginia along with Sports and Entertainment | WSLS 10. WSLS10, 28 Oct. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
<http:> airports-ar-613022/>.
"Fourth Amendment Defined & Explained." The 'Lectric Law Library's Entrance & Welcome. The Lectic
Law Library. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http:>.</http:>
"TSA: What Is TSA?" TSA | Transportation Security Administration | U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. TSA. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http:>.</http:>
</http:>
Redefining Communication
Communication is the most powerful took known to mankind. From a look in the eye, to an almost unnoticeable shift in our posture, to the slightest change in the voice, we can comprehend the things left unsaid-- unravel the trapped meaning beneath the guarded words spoken. However, in an age where the speedy exchange of ideas and thoughts is at its peak, we have become more shallow, distant, and self-centered than ever. The degradation of human relationiships is embodied by the instant access to social networking sites and meaningless confabulation.
Facebook is the primary instigator of empty camraderie. Through Facebook, one can keep in touch with new acquaintances, recconect with old friends, and stalk attractive individuals met mere moments before. Though this may sound appealing, this easy access to the private information of other's lives through their status updates, information section, and personal photos has made verbal communication almost obsolete.
Facebook is a legal drug that will forever nag at the back of our minds and tear at our hungry veins. It keeps us inside on the weekends, distracts us from accomplishing essential tasks (like writing this paper), and causes us to live inside our own heads. We spend so much time living vicariously through others' photos and wall discussions that we nearly forget about our own existence. The lines between our own reality and the lives of others become blurred as our veins are injected with the fugacious satisfaction of Facebook. Sadly, like with any other addictive substance, this satisfaction is only temporary. Ever so quickly we acclimate to the effects of this self-induced potion and soon, before we realize what is happening, an hour on Facebook isn't enough and all we are left with is desperate desires wanting more, more, more of this barren indulgence. The sparkle from our eyes has fleeted without our knowing, our hearts have grown limbs and crawled out from our chests without our notice, and all that is left of us has been reduced to vacant shells encompassed by the rubble of our futile yearnings that will never be fulfilled.
A shelter for cowards, a fortress for insecurity, and an enabler of phony intimacy, Facebook has warped and contorted the true definition of bravery, confidence, and friendship. A written take-down of someone over Facebook is not bravery. It is hiding behind a computer screen, using a keyboard to hurl insults at someone you need not look in the eye. Asking someone out on a date through a personal message is not valiant. It is an unwilligness to be trepid in the cruel face of potential rejection. How many things you you say over Facebook would you have the courage to tell someone to their face while looking in their eyes?
A two hour instant messenger conversation is not friendship, a lengthy banter on a wallpost is meaningless, and a flirty comment on a photo is vapid. There is no definition for friendship, but something so deep, endless, and meaningful cannot be built solely over an artificial social networking site.
Cellphones have also negatively affected us, but in a different way. As we step into the world our cellphones offer, our power of observation is weakened. The more time we spend staring at the screen of our phones, the less time we spend examining the life around us. We wander about with our heads down, focused on the tool in our hand, oblivious to the throngs of bustling and stirring humanity that pass us by. With our attention relentlessly focused on our handsets, we have instantly disinvited people into our lives. How many times have we wandered down a street or hall and pulled out our phones simply to avoid eye contact with a passerby?
People are under the false illusion that they need to be in constant access with the internet or people. When we have time to kill we Youtube, Facebook, and obsessively text rather than actively exercising our brains. Whatever happened to reading a book, researching current world events, or just learning to the best of our abilities with every spare moment we have?
Interactions that force you to look another in the eyes fosters poise, fortitude, and social ease. These qualities build crucial skills that are used to battle life's challenges. Job interviews, group settings, and one-on-one dealings all require a certain amount of social fluency acquired through practice.
The ability to look someone in the eye and hold a conversation is rapidly dissolving into a lost art. Verbal interaction will soon become nothing more than a distant memory of a thing that once was. We must cling to the last bits of interpersonal relationships we have left before they disintegrate into the spirit of today and disappear into the cosmic ocean like a trivial trickle of water.
Facebook is the primary instigator of empty camraderie. Through Facebook, one can keep in touch with new acquaintances, recconect with old friends, and stalk attractive individuals met mere moments before. Though this may sound appealing, this easy access to the private information of other's lives through their status updates, information section, and personal photos has made verbal communication almost obsolete.
Facebook is a legal drug that will forever nag at the back of our minds and tear at our hungry veins. It keeps us inside on the weekends, distracts us from accomplishing essential tasks (like writing this paper), and causes us to live inside our own heads. We spend so much time living vicariously through others' photos and wall discussions that we nearly forget about our own existence. The lines between our own reality and the lives of others become blurred as our veins are injected with the fugacious satisfaction of Facebook. Sadly, like with any other addictive substance, this satisfaction is only temporary. Ever so quickly we acclimate to the effects of this self-induced potion and soon, before we realize what is happening, an hour on Facebook isn't enough and all we are left with is desperate desires wanting more, more, more of this barren indulgence. The sparkle from our eyes has fleeted without our knowing, our hearts have grown limbs and crawled out from our chests without our notice, and all that is left of us has been reduced to vacant shells encompassed by the rubble of our futile yearnings that will never be fulfilled.
A shelter for cowards, a fortress for insecurity, and an enabler of phony intimacy, Facebook has warped and contorted the true definition of bravery, confidence, and friendship. A written take-down of someone over Facebook is not bravery. It is hiding behind a computer screen, using a keyboard to hurl insults at someone you need not look in the eye. Asking someone out on a date through a personal message is not valiant. It is an unwilligness to be trepid in the cruel face of potential rejection. How many things you you say over Facebook would you have the courage to tell someone to their face while looking in their eyes?
A two hour instant messenger conversation is not friendship, a lengthy banter on a wallpost is meaningless, and a flirty comment on a photo is vapid. There is no definition for friendship, but something so deep, endless, and meaningful cannot be built solely over an artificial social networking site.
Cellphones have also negatively affected us, but in a different way. As we step into the world our cellphones offer, our power of observation is weakened. The more time we spend staring at the screen of our phones, the less time we spend examining the life around us. We wander about with our heads down, focused on the tool in our hand, oblivious to the throngs of bustling and stirring humanity that pass us by. With our attention relentlessly focused on our handsets, we have instantly disinvited people into our lives. How many times have we wandered down a street or hall and pulled out our phones simply to avoid eye contact with a passerby?
People are under the false illusion that they need to be in constant access with the internet or people. When we have time to kill we Youtube, Facebook, and obsessively text rather than actively exercising our brains. Whatever happened to reading a book, researching current world events, or just learning to the best of our abilities with every spare moment we have?
Interactions that force you to look another in the eyes fosters poise, fortitude, and social ease. These qualities build crucial skills that are used to battle life's challenges. Job interviews, group settings, and one-on-one dealings all require a certain amount of social fluency acquired through practice.
The ability to look someone in the eye and hold a conversation is rapidly dissolving into a lost art. Verbal interaction will soon become nothing more than a distant memory of a thing that once was. We must cling to the last bits of interpersonal relationships we have left before they disintegrate into the spirit of today and disappear into the cosmic ocean like a trivial trickle of water.
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