I Cannot Remember Learning About This American History in School...

When I think about many of the atrocities that have occurred throughout history - the Holocaust, for example - I think the ones that have happened in the U.S. for some reason tend to be overlooked.

Case in point: the Japanese internment during WWII. I hardly remember a mention of this fact during U.S. History. Ed Wakayama, one of the people born in these internment camps, has been a very close friend of my family since I was a kid; here is his story.

And something I really do not remember ever being mentioned during history class, is how minority, low income, and other people declared "unfit to breed" were forcefully sterilized in our own country, not all that long ago. As in, some of these people are my parents' age. BBC News has a very interesting article on this topic of eugenics in the U.S. currently.

Take a look at this list from the BBC article of people that the North Carolina Eugenics Board was petitioned to sterilize in 1950 - only a few years before my parents were born!

• An 18-year-old girl, separated from her husband who had "manifested anti-social behaviour"
• A black 25-year-old rape victim who showed "abnormal sexual tendencies"
• A 16-year-old girl who had earlier been committed to a state institution for "sexual delinquency" and whose aunt "signed consent"
• A white married mother of three, whose family had been "finally dependent for many years" and has "a history of inter-marriage with Indian and Negro"
• A 15-year girl deemed "feebleminded"; parents reportedly consented

These facts just make me very sad to think about the history of injustice in my own country.  It makes me really upset to think about what the Chinese government has done to the Tibetan culture and people, or what the Nazis did to the Jews, Gypsies, and others, but we also have our own history to remember. We have a lot of work to do in our own country to try and make up for these injustices.

Musical Weekend

Although it involved very different types of music, two events of my weekend made it a very musical one.

Friday evening started out with a trip to the Library of Congress to see a performance by Antares -- a quartet with piano, cello, violin, and clarinet. The amazing part about concerts like the one Michael and I attended on Friday is that they are all free! All you have to pay is the Ticketmaster charge of $7.50 for two tickets. I really enjoyed the pieces that they chose for the concert -- all very different -- some ultra modern, and some more traditional pieces. The guest soprano who sang during one of the songs was also very talented. I definitely plan on attending more of these free concerts as interesting ones come available on the Library of Congress schedule.


The second musical event of the weekend was Shamrock Fest, a festival with everything Irish and a bunch of non-Irish stuff, too. They had a bunch of stages with Irish-esque bands and Irish dancing, a bunch of food/drink stands, carnival rides, a lady on a unicycle, and vendor pavilions.

Michael got a VIP ticket -- with unlimited "good" beer (Guinness, etc) -- and I got a regular ticket since I don't like beer. I had a really fun time listening to the music, laughing at all the debauchery and drunk people, and eating a tasty crab cake sandwich. Yes, I bought seafood from a food stand, and I did not get sick. That is a very good thing. It was also nice because I got to hang out with some friends I had not seen in quite a long time. One of my friends from high school, Josh, was also there for the concert with a friend, so I hung out with them for a while. Then my friend from college, Caitlin, came with her boyfriend, and we had a great time catching up. Events like Shamrock Fest are always much more fun when you get to share them with old friends.

Beginning the Lenten Season

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. That means the beginning of a 40-day period (Lent) in which Christians traditionally refrain from eating meat (not including fish) on Fridays and some people decide to deny themselves of something as a form of penance to God. Many of us can remember the difficult time I went through when I gave up chocolate for Lent in high school. Although that did serve as an act of reverence to God (it is extremely difficult to do when you normally eat chocolate multiple times a day), I wanted to give up something this year that would be an even more surefire way for me to grow as a person and develop my faith.

So, I decided to give up watching T.V.

Yes, I know. 40 whole days without television. 46 including Sundays. Although I won't be watching any shows or movies at home, I will allow myself the opportunity to go see a movie at the theater if it so happens. Thinking back on my lifetime at all of the time I have spent watching T.V., it is really appalling to think about all the ways I could have used that time instead. I saw a commercial a while ago that mentioned the amount of time that Americans spend commuting to and from work in their lifetimes, and I was horrified. But really, I can do a lot more about my lifestyle choices at home than I can about my commute (in the short term). We'll just have to see how successful (or unsuccessful) I am!

These are some of the exciting things I hope to do instead of watching T.V. over the next two months:

• Spend time with my dog, family, and friends
• Clean the house
• Read my current book: Ethics for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama
• Exercise more
• Brush up on Spanish and Japanese

• Read the New Testament of the Bible
• Pick up a new hobby
• Bake new kinds of desserts
• Do a better job of keeping in touch with old friends
•  Make lunches at night for work

And here is some interesting information from Wikipedia about Lent:

• Ash Wednesday gets it name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of adherents as a sign of mourning and repentance to God. Ashes were used in ancient times to express mourning.
• In the Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance—a day of contemplating one's transgressions.
• The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus (Easter).
• "Lent" initially simply meant spring (as in the German Lenz and Dutch lente) and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.

Photo of Pope Benedict: roblisameehan

The Blog Phenomenon

So I've been thinking about starting back up a blog for a while now. Every few years, I go back to my blog from high school -- and it really makes me glad to have a glimpse back into my life at that time. I tend to quite easily forget details of events, and I've laughed really hard at some of those crazy high school antics that I had somehow forgotten.

Original Blurty Blog  (2003)

Livejournal (Early 2004)
Livejournal (Late 2004) 

In all honesty, the other main point of this blog is to better document things than I could be doing on facebook or twitter. I want to be able to go back and look at my thoughts or websites I like without having to dig through my previous facebook posts. I also want the freedom to fully express my thoughts (as must as possible for something posted on the internet), which you surely can't do with the character limits on twitter feeds. Now that I'm also decently active on Yelp.com, those posts will make it on here as well. You can basically just expect a hodgepodge of things... expect the unexpected!