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Ok, because I am the coolest person ever I have spent the past 3 hours of my life infront of the television watching PBS. Ironically, I was at my dad's house where i do have cable, and perhaps this is just the result of my half-asleep haze, but i must admit that is some quality television...

the first thing that really caught my interest was a show called Roadtrip Nation. PBS sponsors 3 groups of friends from different countries on a roadtrip across north america to talk to people and find out more about what they want to do with their lives. This reminded me of something I've been wanting to do for ages, even before the whole roadtrip thing started the past summer. Seriously, I don't even really care who comes so long as i get to drive from connecticut to california, and really learn about what it means to be an American along the way. Our country is vastly diverse, and im sure that one cannot even begin to imagine how many billions of individual life stories from billions of different perspectives are waiting to be told. I have lived my entire life in a tiny little state in a tiny little portion of one of the largest and most influential countries in the world, and i want to see what the rest of it is all about.

the second show offered caught my interest because of its relativity to an upcoming paper i have due in my comparitive government class. (you laugh now, but just wait...) It informed me of the Clean Elections Campaign movement. This movement advocates that, because of the mass pecunial-based corruption in politics, canidates should have the option to run for election on public money if they can gain enough signatures and small 5 dollar contributions. They would have to agree however, to accept no donations from lobbyists and allow their time in office/while campaigning to be open to total scrutiny by the public. Though there are flaws to this plan (possible waste of taxpayer's money, and perhaps a little too much descriptive representation as just about anyone popular enough can run) I think that over all it is a good idea. Regardless of the specifics of the plan, I am glad to see that so many people are also aggrivated with how corrupt our political system is, and the desperate need for some sort of reform that will make politics more productive in actually meeting the needs of the people. One of my favorite fetures of the plan is that because canidates need to win over massive public support inorder to qualify, they will spend more time campaging from door to door and personally getting those five dollar contributions (that almost anyone can give) and signatures than talking to only a wealthy few.

But this also made me ask another question: once you're donating money into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, is it really going to make that much of a difference in your campaign's sucess? obviously money is needed to make pamphlets and T shirts, but does the flashy, pretty looking pamphlet really convince you more than the plain one regardless of the ideas inside it? I know that that's probably true, but doesnt that just make you feel a little bit ashamed, that your opinion is so easily swayed by something so superficial? we've known for a long time that money is power, but should it be?

(on the same note, i must admit that the PBS commercial to give them more money was very convincing, Is PBS really not owned by the govt? I always thought it was....Because if it seriously isn't owened by the govt or a major corporation and just doing this for the people like they said i am def considering a donation... not to mention their needy begging usually annoys the heck out of me and it's a few dollars closer to them shutting up if they ever will)

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What else is going on in my life? pretty much the usual nothing. I realized that my optometric prescrition has doubled in the past two years with me barely realizing it (yes, i may have been driving next to you) so now i'm gonna wear my glasses more often. Plus, i just got a really cute pair of purple ones that (hopefully) dont look as dorky as my old ones. My dad might finally let me drive with my friend (yayyy!) and my awesome-sexy-red-shoes came but theyre a size too big, so we'll all have to wait another month to see juicy's feet at their finest. I almost had and ED/EA related epiphany, but I still think Im'm gonna wait it out to regular decision, though I am a little frightened that I wont get in to either Brown or Harvard and will be wanting to shoot my current self. Any Advice? I'll give the full pros and cons another time.