It's 2010. The end of my senior year. That means no more public school. No more high school. Boosted!!! Well, at least was before Tuesday evening. So on Tuesday, I went to go get a haircut at a different place than I usually go, (look at my previous story about my dastardly haircut experience to understand why) but I was still unable to escape the extra "barbershop drama". My problem wasn't even with the haircut, which I must say, turned out pretty legit, but more with the barbers in there. Well, maybe just one of them. So I was in the chair, and my barber was doin his thing, and the three barbers in the shop started talking to each other about, basically anything. I'll be honest, I was kind of zoning out because they were talking about things I couldn't really relate to, people I didn't know, and I was just trying to think about what I should wear tomorrow to show off this new haircut. So they continued to talk and my barber in particular was pretty funny because he always had a little side comment to everything and it always made one of them laugh. This was all good and stuff, but then it got to a point where one of the guys got offended by one of my barber's side comments. Then he started getting mad at my barber and was gradually raising his voice as he talked. My barber was trying to explain that he wasn't saying anything in order to hurt his feelings or anything and that he was taking his comments too seriously. The other barber continued to get louder and started using profanity, not at the other barber specifically, but in the form of adjectives. My barber tried to tell him to calm down because they were in public, and his suggestion was ineffective. Now, mind you, this whole debauchery of words was happening WHILE my hair was getting cut, and the other barber had another customer in his chair that he was working on. But the other guy's client was balding and getting rid of all his hair, so what's the worse thing he can do to his hair. But I was actually getting a mohawk, which actually takes a lot of concentration and focus to make even and fade correctly, so you could imagine my concern that my barber had to battle this other guy and the awkwardly shaped back of my skull. At some point, I actually felt his hand shaking as he was trying to trim my hair and keep himself calm. A couple times, my barber actually had to stop and talk to this other, much louder barber in the corner of the store, but still in plain view and earshot. But every attempt was ill fated and this other guy always had to have the last word. I mean, he was constantly saying things along the lines of "we can take this outside and handle this like men" and other petty comments trying to imply that he was less of a "man." Seriously, he looked mad enough to fight him in the store. But my barber for the most part remained cool and after like 15 of back and forth arguing, the other guy had to leave because the store was about to close, and the disagreement never really sounded like it was officially "settled." But in the end, I got an awesome haircut, so I'm at least happy about that!

I got the chance to go to Arundel Mills over the weekend and one of the places I usually make sure I stop in is FYE. I mean, I hate the fact that most of the stuff is just overpriced compared to places like Gamestop and Best Buy, but, it has a much larger library of CD's, and I've recently committed myself to buying more music legally in efforts to help the artists more in the effed-up music industry, so I had no other option. I continued to walk through the aisles of the store going through my regular cycle: looking for CD's by my favorite artist, finding a good one, raise an eyebrow in disgust of the price, contemplate how much my paycheck will be when it comes in next week, try to convince myself that I can afford it and save for the future, lose my own argument, put the CD down, and move on to the next artist, but this time it went a little differently. I looked around and found the Amerie section of the CD shelf and struck GOLD! Well, more gold then usual because all of her albums are amazing. But I was extra excited that I found her album "Because I Love It" on that shelf. The thing that makes that album special is that it wasn't even released in the US! It was only shipped out and officially released in Europe, which was a real shame because it wasn't as successful there as it deserved to be. But then again, Europeans have a terrible taste in music anyways (;p). But yeah, I was incredibly ecstatic to find it and though it was $18, I HAD TO HAVE IT. haha.

The reason why any of this is relevant to religion or ethics, is because I found a really good spiritual song in this album. Actually, it was in the intro. Even that's pretty interesting because everyone usually skips those and move on to track 2, but I actually had to stop and pay attention to this 1 minute, 13 second track, which I previously never payed attention to. And hey, the past two days were full of rain, so it was completely appropriate. The song is called "Forecast" and though it's short and has very few lyrics to it, the song still had a spirit. It's called "Forecast" and talks about how our poor heroine Amerie is sitting in the house, hoping for the weather to be nice and sunny, but sadly, the forecast for the day was for rain. :(  But instead of letting this unfortunate information get her down, she finds a way to "turn that frown upside down" by being optimistic and just hoping that tomorrow will not be a rainy day. And even if it rains tommorow, she still has hope and know that the sun will come out again :)

It's just a very positive and optimistic song full of symbolism, and, I like it.

*******BONUS*******

I noticed that I didn't put a download link on some of the other spiritual songs that I posted like months ago. So.....here they are!
The new song is in fact an intro, so it's a lot harder to find an download link for that song alone opposed to the whole album, so I'll upload "Forecast" myself when I get the chance.

Kerli - The Creationalist

http://www.mediafire.com/?az2nmnoywmm

Owl City - Meteor Shower

http://www.mediafire.com/?nemmkzyznmh

Soooooo, today I heard that a recent episode of South Park had a lot of muslim references in it where in just like South Park is infamous for, they made several crude, but still somewhat humerous jokes about the religion and it's practices. The controversy around it though is not the fact that it made fun of the Muslim religion, but the fact that when the episode aired on TV, all of the Muslim references, whether seen or heard, were censored and bleeped out. Normally, that would be considered a good thing in the people's eye's and they would give South Park a thumbs up for not offending even more people than they usually do. But the problem with all of this, is that South Park has made fun of several other religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism, without even bothering to find a way to censor or bleep out whatever is offensive to it's believers. In a sense, it's showing on some sort of preference towards Muslims, or more probable, a fear of Muslim backlash. I think it was totally wrong for Comedy Central to block all of Muslim jokes on TV. Not that I enjoy seeing Islam being made fun of, but just the fact that the network had let South Park air episodes offensive to other religions with out censorship, and when it comes to this religion, your not allowed to make fun of it, is just not fair. Religions should have the ability to be treated equally across the board, especially in the media.

So.......the other day I went to the barber shop in need of a haircut. I went in and saw that the one guy that I KNEW could cut a mohawk wasn't there at the moment, and I saw a new barber that I haven't met before in the chair right next to his. So, in the interest of time, I just asked her if she knew how to cut a mohawk and actually knew how to fade it, to which she replied "yes" to both of those questions. I didn't feel like waiting so see if the other guy was or wasn't coming in today, [and quite frankly, I didn't like him that much anyways because he was awfully slow, (the last haircut I got with him took like an hour and 15mins!!!!!) and would try to get an attitude with me whenever I asked him a question about what he was doing with MY hair.*rolling eyes*] and just hopped in the chair and give this new lady a chance.

So, it started off all right and she seemed like she knew what she was doing, but then again, how would I know? Then she tried to show me the "final product" of her work with my hair, and it wasn't even faded......like I asked for. It was a straight up and down, clean cut, Mr. T Mohawk, and that's not how I roll. That wouldn't have been a real issue and it should have been an easy fix to just fade it all in, until it got to the point where I had to explain what "faded" means and that took about 5 more minutes. So when I thought she actually knew what I meant, I let her get back to her work on my head. BUT, just about every 2 minutes I had to stop her and make sure she was doing the right thing. And every time she would think that she was "finished," I would have to tell her "no, you forgot to..." whatever. And this wasn't even me being picky or just obnoxious. This is my hair, and if I'm paying u to cut it off, I have to be comfortable with the way it looks when I walk out the barbershop. So then, I see the main guy that I KNEW could cut a good, FADED, Mohawk and my barber politely asked him to help her out or give her some advice on what to do next. To that he said no, then carried off doing.....whatever. When he came back, my barber asked him again for some assistance and the dude was like "hey, I don't know you do your Mohawks and I don't know how to fix that." Liar. I don't know how to cut hair, but I've gotten enough haircuts in my life to realize that with a pair or skilled hands, this issue was NOT HARD to fix. Then he continued to say some mess like "hey, that's your client," and "hey, he should have just waited for me to come in." I responded with a quick "So is that my fault? She told me she knew what she was doing. Should I have to suffer [a bad haircut] for this?" He brushed me off and went on to take the next client. After about 20 more minutes of basically instructing the woman how to cut a faded Mohawk, we ended up getting it to a point where it was somewhat presentable.........I guess......well, I was just sick of the whole thing and was like "forget it, I just need to get out of here!" So I handed the woman $10, (half the cost of a normal haircut), and left.

It turned out that no one actually noticed that my haircut was slightly lopsided and the shape-up was uneven, and actually received compliments my hair, so it turned out to be all good. I chose to blog about this whole confusing event because I was so surprised at some of the actions of these barbers! First of all, the one woman said that she knew how to cut a faded Mohawk, when she clearly did not, although, I think she was just vastly confused opposed to dastardly malicious. But the REAL thing that bothered me was the fact that my barber asked one of the more experienced barber for help, and he rejected her with an attitude that screamed "not my problem!" I mean, he was looking out for himself and his own clientele rather than desiring to help out the store as a whole. I just could not believe that in a barbershop, a place that is supposed to be a rather lighter and more enjoyable environment, this whole "stank" attitude polluted the air. Based on some of the conversations that we had on Business Ethics in class, I do understand some of the cut-throat mentality of the business world, maybe when you're higher up in the totem pole and you're a lawyer or business owner who is edging the get the latest promotion, but why would you be that publicly adversarial at this level? ESPECIALLY when you work in customer service? I mean, I know had I waited on him to get into the shop, he could have walked away from the shop with an extra 20 bucks in his pockets, but c'mon now! It ain't that serious! If he would have helped me out, i would have probably jumped to his chair next time I needed a haircut and he would have looked like the "good guy" or the "hero", but now, I don't plan to ever go to that barbershop ever again! If I wanted a whole lot of extra unnecessary drama, I would have stayed in school for another hour. But this is just all my thoughts....

Do you think that the barber was right for looking out for himself, or should he have helped out my barber?

If Adolf Hitler were alive today, I would say that he does not deserve to have any rights at all. I'd actually give him less rights than a 2 year old tree or a wild chimpanzee. He purposely tried to wipe out a whole race of people and take control of the world throught violence and intimidation. There was something that was definitely wrong with him I guess mentally or psychologically, but there is a point where a human does not deserve a second chance or an opportunity to try to make up for what they did. Hitler has bypassed that point by more than a couple kilometers. I'm not saying that he should be tortured or anything, but he doesn't deserve to live, at all. Honestly I would make him suffer a little bit though, rather than just injecting him with a lethal shot. I would probably command that he get beat up some and get shot like 2-3 times in non-lethal parts of the body, let him bleed out some, than a final, lethal shot. Now I realize it's kind of weird to plan out how I'd kill a serial killer, but I don't know, he doesn't deserve the right to live, and he doesn't deserve to get off with an easy little shot in the arm either.

I just thought of a topic that we talked about in class a while ago. Remember when we discussed the controversy surrounding the guy from Seinfield urinating on the picture of Jesus on a tv show? Yeah, I remember being in the class, but I don't think I got to express my main point all the way because the bell rang. But I thought that was really wrong of him to do and shows an enormous amount of disrespect towards Christianity and it's leader. Would it be right if I were to publicly vandalize a picture of any of the Indian deities? probably not. And I remember another comment made during class saying something along the lines of "well if it doesn't mean anything to him, then it shouldn't mean anything to other people." Let's put it this way. What if I urinated on a portrait of your deceased mother? Now I probably haven't met your mother, so doing this would mean nothing to me, but I'm sure it would mean a lot more to you. You would probably beat the crap out of me and very few people would actually defend my actions because I messed with something that was very close and dear to you. Well, Christianity at it's best is that personal relationship similar to that of a child and parent. God is known as a Holy Father to Christians and a good relationship with him would require consistent communication with him, like a health relationship with a parent does. So although I am not at all promoting the use of violence towards the man, he still should be kind of shunned for offending so many people with something this stupid.

Well today in class, we discussed whether it was right for people who help out in relief situations to preach their religion to those who are in need of the relief. I personally don't see much of a problem with it because these are people who go way out of their way to some of the most deprived or devistated places on the earth to help save lives of those less fortunate than themselves. Why do you think that they do that? I'll admit, almost everyone as a human being cares or should care about the victims of catastophic natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, but very few will actually leave their homes for several weeks or months to provide aid for the dying people. But guess who usually goes far away to help those people. Religious groups. Most of the time, they are umong the first volunteer groups to go out and help both financially and physically, and that's usually because of their religion that they have a greater compulsion to do so. To try and silence these people would just be, well, stupid. They came to help out a country in need because of their religion, so why can't they talk about it? I mean it's one thing if these religious people are witholding aid from non-followers of their faith, or teaching the people something ridiculous and wrong, (you have the power to touch people and heal them, wtf is that?), but if they are speaking to the people soley about their beliefs or their diety, then they should be allowed to speak about it.

I might as well get to the point of this post and say that I don't believe in reincarnation at all. It's an interesting thought, but reincaration is just too farfatched for me to even comprehend, no less agree with it. One thing that probably affects my opinion is the fact that I wouldn't even want reincarnation to exist. I mean, I wouldn't want to live forever on Earth, it just has so many issues as it is and I'd honestly perfer some place new and more perfect after I die, like in my case, heaven. Plus, if I died as a human, that means I would turn into some other kind of animal, and I would hate that! Like I just left the Earth as a human being, why would I want to go through another life as anything else? Every other animal in the world is kind of subservient to the will of humans, so I would just end up being something with less freedom, and would probably have to work harder for anything I wanted to do. The only thing I would actually want to be reincarnated into is a tiger who lives in the rainforest, and how likely is that? Not very when you can be reincarnated into any kind of animal.....or plant. Oh my goodness I would hate to be a plant sooo much!

Um, I'd have to say that the golden rule doesn't apply to animals whatsoever. I mean, look into your refrigerator. Then think, "would I want to be killed and cut up into thin, decacent, slices and stacked next to the sliced chesse for the enjoyment of some one else's stomach?" Your answer shouldn't take long....So deos that mean you should swear off of meat, and throw buckets of blood at those who choose to eat it? No! Animals are very important to human life, but they do not have the same importance as another human being. If we had to apply the golden rule to every single thing that related to animals, no milk would be made because no one would like to have milk taken out of them, zoo's would be let loose because no one wants to be caged up and put up on display, and rodents and bugs would be free to roam around your house whenever they please because you would never want Raid or a mousetrap to kill you off. Animals have a place in this would and so do humans. Even in the Bible, God sent Adam to take charge and control all of the animals he and created. So obviously we should respect animals, but not consider them equals.