A Brief Rant

Many different people have had many different responses to the attacks last week in Paris. Some people have offered compassion and assistance to those affected, like those who literally opened their doors to victims in the aftermath of the attacks. However, of course our government has taken the exact opposite route and have used the attacks as an excuse to spew hatred towards muslims and, especially, Syrian refugees. There was Donald Trump with the brilliant (and highly unconstitutional) ideas to close all of the mosques in America and REGISTER ALL MUSLIMS IN A DATABASE! Yes, that’s in all caps because that is literally how the Holocaust began and no one in America seems worried that the person who is winning the Republican primaries is seriously advocating for that.

Even forgetting all of Trump’s crazy, fascist ideas, there are many others in our government who are using the attacks as a reason to attack muslims. 31 governors, including our own (Massachusetts rocks! (not)), have said they are not going to allow Syrian refugees into their states. First of all, if any of them looked at the law, they would know that they simply cannot do that. Second of all, it is believed that NONE of the Paris attackers were Syrian. In fact, at least 7 of the 8 attackers were Belgian or French. If politicians actually did research, they would know that if we do not want to let terrorists into the country, we should ban all French and Belgian citizens from entering, not the Syrians. While the events in Paris were horrific, the vast majority of ISIS’s victims are the Syrians themselves. By stopping the flow of refugees, we are not preventing ISIS from entering America, we are stopping Syrians from escaping ISIS, which will ultimately lead to even more deaths. While America has taken this cruel and illogical response, the actual victims of the attacks, the French, have actually announced they will accept MORE refugees next year. So please, before you violate the Constitution and basic human rights, read Wikipedia for five minutes and have a heart.

I'm A Bacon Truther

Since we can write about anything we want in these blog posts, I am going to write this one about something that has upset me a lot over the past few weeks, learning that bacon allegedly gives you cancer. A few weeks ago the World Health Organization published its findings that eating processed meat, like bacon and hot dogs, leads to an increased risk of colon cancer. At first I was heartbroken; I wondered what good was left in the world if even bacon is harmful. This despair lasted for a full 30 seconds. Then, I realized that, first of all, I was going to ignore the study, regardless of what it said, and eat bacon anyways. I also realized, from what I learned in AP Statistics, that there are a lot of issues with the World Health Organization’s findings.

First of all, the World Health Organization did not, and cannot, conduct a study to see if bacon gives you cancer. Studies that involve causing intentional harm to the subjects are unethical and are not allowed to happen (except for when the US exposed their own soldiers to atomic blasts in the 1950’s). Instead of conducted their own study, the WHO looked at 800 other studies of unknown relevance and quality. I highly doubt that 800 studies have been carried out just to study the link between meat and cancer, and, so, they are likely to have many confounding factors unaccounted for. Even if the study’s findings are true, I still don’t care. I realized that pretty much everything nowadays “increases your risk of cancer.” If we focus on everything that may slightly increase our risk of cancer, we will not be able to enjoy life, so I decided to just not care about the findings and if I am 1% more likely to be at risk of possibly getting cancer at some point, so be it.

College is Done (For 25 More Days)

In English class this week, we are working on essays about Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. Since we are done with the book, we are able to write about anything we want this week. I did some thinking and I realized that Winesburg, Ohio is not the only thing I finished last week; I also finished my Early Action round of applications. It is a very weird feeling to have put so much effort over the past three months into my college applications and, then, just be done with them and have to wait for results.So I figured, what better way to deal with being done with applications, then to spend my time not working on college essays writing about college.

College has been the primary focus for me this fall, especially the last few weeks. I have spent countless hours writing countless drafts of countless essays and questions. In terms of writing skills, this process has been very unique because of how  much time and revisions have gone into a single essay. By the time I had submitted my common app essay, I had gone through about eight drafts, not even including the many I started at the beginning of the process, but threw out because the topic was terrible. This is literally more drafts than I have written for the rest of my high school career combined. This focus on perfection was a new and difficult challenge, but definitely payed off in my final application. I finally applied to college and now can just relax (aka wait in agony for decisions in December). But then I realize that I have 1400 words in supplements due on December 1 for BU, so this weekend it is back to college essay writing mode.