On Petitions

A lot of people are angry with the recent verdict of the Casey Anthony trial.

Shortly after the verdict on Thursday, someone who was angered by the verdict began an online petition to instigate new laws that required the reporting of a missing child within 24 hours of occurance, and the report of death within one hour of occurance.  To do so otherwise would be considered a felony, punishable by a couple years of jail time.  The purpose of this movement is to hold would-be murderous parents accountable, rather than acquittal based on a technicalities.

Aside from the fact that lawmakers don’t heed every online petition that comes their way (laws would be passed willy nilly if they did), I have a couple problems with this proposal.

First, I don’t believe that laws like this would protect children.  The Casey Anthony case is indeed an exception to normalcy.  If she indeed killed her daughter (which the general consensus of the American people), it’s clear that Casey is suffering form some sort of mental instability, because it goes against every maternal instinct to kill her own child.  No law would protect Anthony’s daughter.

Second, if is deemed necessary these laws need to exist, much more thought needs to go into these proposals and an emotion-filled outburst.  There are a lot of conditions that need to be hammered out.

Nevertheless, I do understand the online community’s desire for retribution, and their will to instigate change.

For Thirty Days…

Often, when I have some downtime, or need something to listen to whilst I’m doing something else, I’ve taken to listening to talks published by TED (www.ted.com).  The Thinking, Entertainment and Design conference hosts nearly 1,000 talks ranging from poetry to string theory, from performance arts to the cutting edge in conservation sciences.  At this conference speakers (including the famous Al Gore, Billy Graham, or Bill Gates) talk about how their work will change the world.

Recently, I listened to a 4 minute talk by Matt Cutts (Google), who discusses the power of doing something, anything for thirty days.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

I’ve read before that it takes about 21-28 days to make a habit of something.   Here, Cutts corroborates this, emphasizing that by making small, sustainable changes in our lives, we are able to take control, and continue to learn and grow.

One of my life goals is to write a book.  I have always meant to sit down and write for the sake of writing, but have always made the same excuses:  I’m too busy.  I’ll do it later.  I’ll have plenty of time tomorrow/next week/next month.  However, the harsh reality of it is that if I don’t make time to write, I will never do it, and then I will never improve to the point where I believe I can write a book (and have it be a book that people actually want to read).

Therefore, my goal for the rest of July is to write in this blog every day.  EVERY DAY!  That’s 22 new posts.  You (the internet, and my pool of nonexistent readers) will keep me honest and accountable to this goal.  My goal is to improve in my writing.

And you.  If you stumble across this, I encourage you to come up with a goal for the rest of the month, or even next month.  Write it down and look at it every day!  Look at it and consider it something to work towards!

Inaugural Post!

I’m not exactly sure how many interesting things that I have to say, or even if you are interested in reading them.  Nonetheless, I enjoy writing, and I feel that physically composing my thoughts into tangible form help me to get a better sense of what I’m feeling, as well as processing new data.

The other day, I stumbled across an old journal I used to keep while I was in middle/high school.  It is an old Microsoft Word file that I would just write in on my old computer, and to took me 15 minutes before I was able to remember what my password was (*hint- it pertained to a couple body parts that, while in high school, I thought were particularly awesome.  I still do).  Upon cracking the code, I spent AT LEAST an hour exploring the utterly profound insights of 15 year old me:  Whether or not Sarah liked me, how to ask her out without seeming namby-pamby, and then crying into this digital file when I came up with a brilliant plan to actually ask out, but then didn’t because I was a pansy.  Couple that with brilliant rhetoric as to how my sister was the most awful thing in the world and how nobody understood me, I think it came to some brilliant reading!

Well, entertaining at least.  Ah, teen angst.

In the 8 years that have passed since, I’d like to think that both my writing skills and mental acuity have increased, and I am using this as an opportunity to write more often.  These are my thoughts and opinions.  If you find them interesting, I welcome you to them.