It was recently my friend, Marian's birthday. When someone I love has a birthday, I always have high hopes. Its not necessarily about how much they receive or how many people remember to say "happy birthday" to them. But my greatest hopes lie in LOVE. I just hope my friend was reminded of how much she is loved by those who are closest to her. And so I do try to do a lot--send her a card, email her, buy her a gift that I think will be meaningful. And in doing all of this, I hope she will realize that I care about her a lot. And I was glad because a lot of her friends at college took her out for dinner and celebrated with her there. When she told me that her birthday was great, it made me feel good to know that she felt the love. If it were something you could purchase, that's what I would get everyone I love for their birthdays--that they would feel the love.

Birthdays are for celebrating the day that a person was born, and that is a big deal. If Marian was never born, I would be missing out on her friendship...and so her birthday, and everyone's birthdays are really something to be celebrated. Let us not take people for granted, and remind each other of love at least every once and a while...
I hope that God gives me the strength to do at least this one task.

I love Wal-Mart. Don't you? But I hate Wal-Mart too. You can get just about anything there. I mean, you don't have to stop by the pet store or automotive store after you get your grocery shopping done because Wal-Mart has it all in one stop! Not only that, but their clothing line isn't what it used to be--they are actually selling quality clothes that kids won't be embarrassed to wear to school nowadays. And to top it all off, you can't beat the prices! You can even get a bite to eat at the in-store-McDonald's or Blimpies, AND order from the check-out line! So the possibilities are endless with Wal-Mart, and they've proved it by coming up with even more ideas of things they can offer to the public. In recent years they have started selling gas, and now there is even talk of them starting a bank! What??? What does Wal-Mart need a bank for? Could they possibly make any more money? Isn't there some sort of threshold for that--for the owners I mean? Think about it: how much money could one person actually spend? Once they make more than it is actually possible for them to spend, should they care anything about expanding? Of course, they would claim that they are doing it to serve the people. But isn't it a bit ridiculous? Do they really have to corner the market in every area? And is Wal-Mart really working for the people? People who work for Wal-Mart don't seem to think so. My mom used to work there for a while--a difficult and strenuous job for little pay. It is also true that Wal-Mart takes business from small business owners because they can offer better prices, and so small business owners often end up out of business (even though their product is usually of better quality). I used to live in a small town in Georgia called Conyers. I guess I should say that it used to be small, because once they built the Super Wal-Mart the town exploded! I hate going to Conyers now. But these are not the really the reasons I hate Wal-Mart...

So I should explain why I hate Wal-Mart: when I go there, it is usually because I need something. But I almost always see something else (or lots of something elses) that I like at a reasonable price. And so I walk out with a lot more than I went in with, and less money in the bank. But what I hate the most is this--I have all this STUFF, "mountains of things" as Tracy Chapman once said. I buy things I don't need at Wal-Mart. It is a battle of good verses evil. When I am inside the Wal-Mart trying to decide whether to buy something or not, it is easy to say "yes" to it because it "doesn't cost very much". But I realize later that it really was not a deal at all because I didn't need that item anyway.

Will I stop going to Wal-Mart? Probably not. But how can I save myself from being manipulated by this multimillion dollar department store? I guess I need to learn a little self-control. Wal-Mart will probably always be a thorn in my side...

So it seems that global warming could be a bigger problem than we think. The glaciers in Antarctica are melting and sea levels are rising. They are expecting that sea levels will eventually rise up to 20 feet! That means that a significant amount of the coasts will be, in the words of Coldplay, "swallowed in the sea". They say that if it happens slowly (over the course of about 1,000 years) we could adapt fairly easily. However, if it happens quickly (within the next 100 years) it could quite possibly be devastating. Not only is global warming causing the glaciers in Antarctica to melt and water levels to rise, but it has also caused the weather to go haywire in a sense. In the 1970's there were less than ten hurricanes that were catagorized as 4 or 5. Now we expect close to twenty each year because of global warming. Pretty soon we are going to run out of names for them all. So what are we going to do to stop global warming?

I should correct myself about one thing. We are not staying in Iraq merely to create a democracy for them. Bush stated that one reason we are there is because he believes that if we leave, terrorists will use the country as a catapult for attacks against us. Furthermore, Bush expressed that we will be in Iraq until his presidency is over, which is dissapointing.

So I am a nerd and I watch and listen to public broadcasting stations like NPR and GPB. I have been hearing a lot about the war in Iraq lately, and I have heard some interesting things.

Did anyone know that 87% of the citizens in Iraq want the U.S. troops to leave? Also, I learned that the death toll for U.S. soldiers is on the decline, while the death toll for the native people of Iraq is increasing. This is largely due to the fact that civil unrest has broken out.

So basically we are still there to try to make sure that a democratic government is put into place. I am glad that Sadam is gone from there and under trial for crimes against humanity. That's a really good thing. The people have been freed from him, and that should not be forgotten or taken for granted. But maybe we are trying too hard to force the democratic government into place there. It's too fast I think. That is something that has to come into place slowly. I've heard it said that democracy is something that is inside of every person naturally, and so it will eventually come out . So should we really force it in so quickly. I think maybe we should just get out, and lead by example. Haven't enough soldiers been killed yet? The Iraqi people have expressed in interviews that they were glad when we first invaded and they were liberated, but now they wish we would leave. They do not trust their politicians and they are scared. When will we stop? When should we stop? I'm no expert, and still trying to learn...

I don't know, what do you think?