• Mood: bored
• Music: 'With Or Without You (4 August 1987)' by U2

A few topics.

So George Bush is Time's Person Of The Year, or POTY (feel free to be immaturely amused). I know a lot of people who share my political thoughts will be horrified at this decision, but I actually agree with it somewhat. Those who express dissatisfaction with the decision seem to be solely those who are anti-Bush and who assume that the award of POTY goes to a good person. It doesn't. It goes to the person who was the most newsworthy, for good or bad. Hitler, after all, was POTY ... twice. This year was very much a year in which George Bush dominated the news, online discussion, and public debate. If people had fierce opinions, they had them about Bush and the party he represents. I have a seriously hard time thinking of other people who made such an impact throughout 2004. All I can come up with is the Iraqi insurgents. They created a lot of news and received widespread coverage ... but I would say Bush's actions were more significant, especially because they inspired the behaviour of the insurgents.

I was very interested to see that the Janjaweed militia from Sudan made the People Who Mattered section. Indeed, I was very pleased to see that, as more media coverage of this crisis is necessary. Although they definitely were not as newsworthy or make as much of an impact on the world as a whole, I definitely would not have objected to the Janjaweed being awarded the POTY title. That mainly stems from my interest to generate much greater awareness in the general public. I ask all of you yet again, if you have not joined darfur_crisis, do so.

I really don't have much to say today, so ... tell me what you think is the best song ever made. My vote goes to Where The Streets Have No Name closely followed by Bad, both by U2 of course. Respectively, they are the song where everything came together to create perfection and the zenith of the minimalistic style of guitar.

Oh! Recommend books to me. It's a bit too late for Christmas now, I think, but my birthday's in January so hopefully some relatives will be feeling generous. I am particularly seeking classic works, and non-fiction on current political events, theology, and European and Middle Eastern history. I am seriously starting to think about concentrating my history major on that of the Middle East. At least I have a year to think about it.

I bet a lot of people are going to seriously question why I am going to do a Bachelor of Arts majoring in history (and also most likely Latin) when I have an OP2 and could get into absolutely anything. Indeed, my father already has. He wants me to go into law and he knows that I will definitely be accepted with an OP2. He'll be horrified when I tell him I'm not even going to do journalism. A lot of people, I am sure, will think I'm wasting my brain and should go into one of the 'money' fields. I won't even pretend to comprehend that. A lot of people in today's society seem to be obsessed with money, but earning a six-digit figure isn't going to change the fact that a job is dead boring. If I were in a profession such as law, I would most likely go completely insane with boredom. I want to do something that I love, and that happens to involve the historical, linguistic, political, and theological sides of academia. I'm sure that in twenty years, the detractors will see my point when I am actually an academic, but right now, they think I'm daft and throwing away my brain on a fruitless career that won't pay as well as many I could potentially get into.

I'm not even going to try to understand the 'money over love' mentality.

That was an unforeseen tangent.