Before reading this, I want you to think of what defines being an American. Hold onto that and we’ll come back to it later.
We all know from history class that the original settlers of America came over on the Mayflower in 1620, seeking religious freedom. From the moment those 102 settlers landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the American dream was born. This dream drove people to reach new heights and cross a boundary of 3,125 miles. The basis for America is rooted in these 102 Puritans pursuing religious freedom. But even now, 395 years and a Supreme Court ruling later, students are expected to stand--regardless of their personal beliefs--face the American Flag, place their hands on their hearts, and recite the words “under God.” These words within the Pledge of Allegiance discriminate against those who are not religious by establishing the connotation that to have patriotism, one must worship or believe in God. People are often confused as to why I don’t say the pledge, but the answer is simple. I don’t feel the need to stand every morning, face my country’s flag, and recite words that I don’t personally believe in. After hearing this, these same people tend to think that that means I’m not a true American or that I don’t love or appreciate my country, just because I don’t want to say these 31 words. But since when was it the American way to dictate someone else’s actions? Just because I choose to sit and stay silent does not mean I don’t respect America or the sacrifices countless people have made to get us to this point. If anything, I’m honoring these sacrifices by exercising the freedom that they have allowed me. But I understand if you think it’s perfectly okay to have a Florida teacher grab one of her students hands and place it over his heart telling him, “You are an american, and you are supposed to salute the flag...and if you don’t want to do that you should move out of the country.” I totally get that. So why should I be considered disrespectful for demonstrating the very freedom that America is founded upon? It is not my responsibility to make sure every single one of my actions does not offend anyone because in reality, any action that I could possibly take is going to offend someone somewhere. No matter the topic there will always be someone that is going to disagree, and I refuse to give up the freedom that I am legally entitled to at risk of offending that person. I attempt to respect my homeroom teachers opinion by not commenting and not actively promoting mine, yet if she is unable to reciprocate that acceptance and calls me downright disrespectful, then I have nothing left to say to her. The right to express my own opinion should not be a debate. I simply choose not to stand for words that I don’t believe should be a part of our nation’s Pledge because if these words are meant to embody everything that America stands for, why does it have to reference God? The first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” meaning the government cannot enforce nor promote a religion. By having these two words in the Pledge, America is violating its own constitutional basis, yet no matter how many times a court case comes forward requesting that the words be removed, it is always struck down. On March 11, 2010, a challenge in California was turned down by the federal appeals court for the 9th Circuit, which held that “the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Establishment Clause because Congress’ ostensible and predominant purpose was to inspire patriotism.” On May 9, 2014, Massachusetts’ highest court rejected the American Humanist Association’s case finding that the pledge, including its reference to God, is a “fundamentally patriotic exercise, not a religious one.” Now let me ask you this. Since when did believing in God become a characteristic of being an American? At the beginning my of this, I had you think of what it means to be American. Was one of your thoughts “must believe in God”? A majority of people would say no. That is because fundamentally one does not have to believe in God to be an American. And this is where those courts, along with many others, have gone wrong and created the connotation that to have patriotism one must worship or believe in God. Now an argument people often make is that because God is not specific to one definitive religion, then the reference is fine to keep. But this is not the case. Just because it does not point fingers to one religion does not mean it isn’t still telling people what to believe. Mentioning God still promotes a certain set of beliefs, one: that God exists and two: that America and everything else is “under God's” domain. Sure, the word God doesn’t point fingers to a definite religion but it still promotes these beliefs, and the whole reason this section of the first amendment was created was to make sure no religious beliefs were enforced by the government. These words weren’t even an original part of the Pledge of Allegiance. In its primary form the Pledge read “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The author, Francis Bellamy, had hoped it would be used by citizens in any country. But in 1923, "the Flag of the United States of America" was added. A minor change to simply specify which country. Perfectly understandable. But then, in 1954, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God”. And do you know why these words were added? Not for their “timeless American value” as many courts claim, but to differentiate the United States from communist ideologies. When America added these words they made the assertion that god was on their side in the war against communism. The words were added because they were and still are a political benefit to gain favor with the American voters as many Americans have a strong faith. It reminded the population that America was better than those “Godless” communists. It was not added for any timeless american value and should not be considered as such by any court. America was founded on the freedom of religion. And there’s a reason why the writers of our constitution stood behind this freedom. They understood that no one should be forced into a belief. I should not be criticized or be considered un American for exercising the freedom that is the basis of America.
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The tree has stood in the same place for as long as anyone in town could remember. The residents, their parents, their parents’ parents, and long before that - everyone knows about the tree. Its bark, cracked and aging, bears the scars of teenage whimsy long over, initials of couples long broken up. The tree used to be the tallest part of town, and children would hide from their parents in those firm, supportive branches high above the little village. Now, buildings have inched higher and higher around the tree, their shiny windows reflecting the oranges and greens of the leaves throughout the year. Its branches weave their way through telephone wires, twirling intricate dances with the sky as the stage, the leaves as the costumes. The village is a village no longer, its population sprawling into a city over the years. The tree has watched the city grow and prosper, through wind and rain and snow and sun. It’s a marvel the tree hasn’t fallen yet, it’s a marvel it still stands tall. The tree is by no means the tallest or mightiest structure in town, but it most certainly is the most interesting.
Wind whipping harshly,
Snow carving bitter patterns, Winter bids its end. When people say, "You're really (funny, honest, tough, strong, brave, ect.)" they always seem to end that statement with, "for a girl." Why can I not be really funny, for a person? Or why can I not be just be really tough? Period; no "for a..." no categorizing, just tough, or funny? It seems that the human race has put in standards. Like if you are a white heterosexual upper middle class male, you are gonna be okay in America. Now if you are not, wether it be you are homosexual, female, African American, or anything like that you will face some type of oppression. Now I am not saying that white upper middle class males don't face oppression (because I don't know what goes on in your life, and you don't know what goes on in mine) you just probably don't face as much. This unjust categorization also happens to people with mental illnesses, people will say things like, "You're really focused, for someone with ADHD." People come in all types and forms, and the human race has had trouble realizing it for hundreds of years. It doesn't matter who you are on the outside; it's the inside that matters.
I will not forgive you.
You blew it. I blew up. I still will not forgive you. You don't know everything That happens to me. I don't know everything That happens to you. You blew it. I blew up. I will not forgive you. So don't act like it is all Okay. Because it's really not. I will not talk to you. So tomorrow don't say, "Hi," and expect me to say, "Hi," back Because I won't. I will not forgive. I will not forget. Don't try to make it up It won't work. It will just get worse. The Mars Curiosity Rover has discovered an unusual amount of methane in the Mars atmosphere, as well as other organic chemicals in rock samples. Scientists say that this amount of methane does not necessarily mean that there are biological sources on Mars because organic molecules that contain carbon and hydrogen, such as methane, can exist without the presence of life. However, scientists do say that the findings support the theory of life on Mars thousands of years ago.
Additionally, the gases Curiosity collected from the rock samples inform scientists about the presence of water on Mars a long time ago, and also inform them about the rapid loss of water Mars experienced. These finding are very important because they aid in the preparation of a human mission to Mars (currently scheduled to be completed in the 2030s) and with every discovery such as this one, the mission to Mars becomes more and more possible. It also aids the theory that there is life outside of Earth. However, more discoveries need to be made before a definite conclusion is drawn about ancient, past life on Mars. A puddle of nothing sits at the front entrance of my door,
full of swirling colors that choose not to be named. Closer I fall, soon I will be leaking into this tainted water that came neither the sky nor the ground. This puddle has the smells of tears, yet I do not dare taste it for salt. A puddle of nothing sits at the front entrance of my door, everyone stays away. The frigid, murky waters dare me to do something about it, However I just step back into my house and wish for rain boots. I never really mean it. A puddle of nothing sits at the front entrance of my doorway, if I don't do anything it might go away. Evaporation is a tricky process for an unseen liquid to undertake. go for it, feel free. not a care in the world. wrench my heart out while i remain innocent and in your eyes. tear it out with your bare, filthy hands and act as though my heart is not the single organism which continues to bring life throughout my lifeless body. act as though it is nothing at all; a mere speck of dust on the face of the earth as a whole. rip it out and drag it across the ground negligently, leaving behind a trail of not only deep red blood, but every hope and dream i bring about as well. do not for one moment worry about my emotions toward the matter, for i am simply a puppet in your distasteful show. take advantage of my isolophobia and remove me from society. i will not be bothered, not for one moment will i be saddened in the least. why would i? because you took time out of your pathetic life in order to scrutinize mine? you are the cause of the scars then ensconce themselves upon my arms and legs, haunting me with every move i make. i cannot blind my eyes, somehow enabling myself to suspend my ability to look down and see all of my hurts, pains, and failures; nor can i undo the cuts which bled from my open wounds for hours and hours, causing me to pass out multiple times and finally leading up to my ultimate diagnosis.
Once in a field many of years before there were ever towns or people, there were two spirits. One of the spirits was a beautiful lady with the eyes of the tiger and the hands of a wolf. She was called Mother Nature. She was graceful and lovely, but she could be vicious. The other spirit was a studious man who could control the power of time. He went by the name of Father Time. One day, while Mother Nature was strolling along the empty earth of grass, remote from anyone or anything living, she stumbled upon a bed of dirt. She was shocked.
“Who dug up my precious earth!?” Her long green dress turned to a hot lava red. Her eyes went pink, showing the sign of death in her expression. She beamed at the pile of dirt and raised her hands to the sun. Then, with a deafening boom and crash, the pile of dirt and mud exploded. When the smoke cleared, the bed of dirt was gone, and in its place was a perfect sheet of grass. “That is much better,” she sighed in relief, but then a puzzled look came upon her face as she realized that there was nothing on the earth that could have done this. She kept strolling, wondering how and why there was a bed of messy, untidy dirt in the middle of her perfect, plain, grassy earth. As she strolled along the earth, her beady eyes spotted another bed of dirt. Like before, her dress turned to a hot red and her face read anger and death. Again, she reached her hands up to the sun and- “WAIT!” The bed of dirt screeched in a high pitched voice, bursting an eardrum like a drummer who had went into your ear, banging really hard on your eardrum with a mallet. Mother Nature fell back as the heat in her hands disappeared. This time, her dress turned yellow as she stared at the muddy disorganized pile of dirt in front of her feet. Then, Mother Nature gave a yelp of terror and fell onto the plain grass with her dress as the color of purple as an old man arose from the bed of dirt. Mother Nature laid there confused and scared looking at an old man in an old polo shirt and trousers who stood over her. “Did I scare ya? I was taking a nap underground for a while. About, say, a few millennia.” Mother Nature stood and her dress turned to her normal green color again. She stared at the filthy old man. The old man did notice and said, “Oh. Let me introduce myself. I’m Father Time. I don’t actually look like this.” In the blink of an eye the old man in front of Mother Nature was now a young man with a crystal clear voice and nice tidy white robe. There was also a giant wrist chain watch hanging from his robe pocket. Father Time looked at her and winked. Mother Nature became frustrated and her dress turned hot red in anger. “I don’t care who you are, so get off my precious earth, or I will have to use the power of the sun against you.” “I’ve been here longer than you were. When I found this place, it was just a floating sphere of soft dirt. I was tired of searching for a perfect home, but then I found this floating sphere of soft dirt and buried myself inside to take a long nap. Then you arrived and turned my beautiful home into a boring field of grass. Nothing. You don’t have to be tightly wound all the time.” Mother Nature started to fume again, but thick brown and black dead leaves started blooming from her dress. She never felt this emotion before. The emotion of guilt- guilt for taking away someone’s home and changing it into nothing. Father Time blinked at Mother Nature with pity. Then Mother Nature spoke with sorrow. “You are right, but I need everything to be perfect.” Father Time listened and put his hand up to his chin and started rubbing it. Then he brewed up a brilliant idea. “Well, we can both create something that is perfect, yet it is not plain and useless.” Father Time paused to add a dramatic effect. “We can grow a garden!” “Okay, but I need it to be perfect,” Mother Nature blinked and yelled. Father Time picked a patch of ground to use and told Mother Nature to make beds of dirt in each section. Mother Nature argued but in the end, there were beds of dirt that were perfectly squared off and very tight. Next, Mother Nature’s dress turned blue, and she put her hands above the soil and rose. As she lifted her hands little stems came popping up in perfect tidy rows. Then, Father Time came over and put his humongous watch under the dirt. As the watch was in the dirt, the little stems grew bigger and bigger. Leaves grew on the stems and orange pedals blossomed from the top. Father Time took his watch out and chuckled to himself. “They grow up so fast.” Mother Nature chuckled and said, “I think I’ll name them Mari, Marigold.” Then the flowers waved at them as if they were happy. Then they went to the next bed doing the same thing and then the next bed. However, each bed had a different plant. Mother Nature’s dress turned to all colors of the rainbow like a color bomb blew up in front of her. Mother Nature was so happy, that she cried in a really melancholy tone. She was now understanding the beauty in anything even if it was messy. In the end, Mother Nature and Father Time were in the same time frame and understood each other. In the next following years, they grow more and more plants around the earth and created beauty. In those years they would also create the oceans to give water to the growing Earth and added rain, wind, heat and more to keep balance with the Earth when they would leave to find another poor, helpless floating sphere of soft dirt waiting for something to bring beauty upon it. that needed beauty and life. Through the process of evolution, animals arose and used the earth as there own home. Mother Nature and Father Time are now only a legend but it is clear that the start of life on our home was that small garden, in our home town. Dear Senator Steve Martin,
You probably won’t believe this, but I woke up today with the strangest though that I was a person. I know; that’s pretty ridiculous considering that I am a woman. Then I read your facebook post that called women “hosts” because we can have babies. I’m glad you wrote that because now I can be completely confident that I am nothing more than an incubator. I exist, plain and simple, to have babies. And if those babies turn out to be girls, they exist just to have babies. But if those babies turn out to be boys, then they can be senators just like you (unless, of course, they are not white and straight.) How could I have forgotten the natural order? Women have children; men, power. It really isn’t that hard to remember. I guess the thing that got me confused before your comment helped clear me up is that I have so many things in common with real people. I have friends and a favorite song and a loud laugh and people who have impacted me and people I have impacted. I have a voice, and I have opinions. This morning when I woke up, I thought that those things made me more than my uterus, but I guess not. I am not going to argue with you that every woman deserves to have ownership of her body, but I do want to tell you this. There are young girls who read the news and go on facebook. These girls read that mothers are “hosts” and whatever your intentions were, I can tell you exactly how it feels to read that. It feels like there is a coal in your stomach. It feels like when you’ve stood up too fast and everything is a little dizzy. It feels like, Mr. Senator, you can see yourself disappearing. That is why I am writing to you right now, not because I think you will listen to a 15 year old girl, but because I need to reappear. I need to prove to myself that I am more than what my body can carry. I am not a host. I am not an incubator. I am a woman who can call something disgusting when she sees something disgusting. I only hope that all the other young girls who read that post can understand this. I only hope that you have not made objects of more than half your state. Sincerely, Oonagh Kligman |