Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

My mermaid friend is an admirable person. She has taken to drinking raw milk and butter because they're better for the land, animals, and humans. After she told me her reasoning, my desire for a cow and chickens and vegetable garden was reinforced. Then I remembered that I enjoy being released from toiling for my food – you know, having time for a mind life, social life, traveling, not squeezing udders, that type of stuff.

So I've decided to get rich and hire myself some servants to take care of my cow and chickens and farming ventures. Not only will my scheme help nature, humans and animals, but it will funnel money into the economy through my salaried servants.

**

Studying journalism is wonderfully formative. I am perpetually vacillating in my desire to be a journalist, but I am very glad I stumbled onto the major.

What is news? What is newsworthy? How can my work be objective when everything I do has a motive, including choosing to cover a story in the first place?

Being morally forced into reporting a situation as accurately and objectively as possible raises all sorts of questions. You tailor your questions to get particular information, but you don't want to lead the person into saying what they think you want them to say. Omitting certain questions and facts can be as misleading as printing false ones. Even choosing to give a story prominence on a page can also skew reality.

Then you have the government and other organizations calling and telling you not to print and giving some pretty reasonable objections, and you have to weigh what your duty is, what the public interest is, and how valid the objections are.

Good journalists take themselves and their duties very seriously.

**

The other week, my history professor was talking about how confession is good for the soul. I can't quite remember the context of this comment, but I think it might have been a nod at the Catholic church.

I had a friend in high school who didn't like telling anyone who she had a crush on. Not in a "I have a crush on someone and won't tell you" way, but a serious, not ever mention the subject way. She told me that once she told someone, it wasn't hers anymore and it somehow became trivialized.

I thought that was interesting.

Maybe that's a really important aspect of counseling. Telling someone your dark secrets removes some of their (the secrets) power over you. Or maybe it's just a cop out from telling someone who's actually close to you. Or from feeling guilty over something that you should be feeling guilty about.

**

I've always always always had terrific history teachers. I almost wonder why I didn't become a history major.

In high school I had a teacher, Mr. Fisher, who impersonated – with great theatrical flair – all of the arguments between nations. He did a great Clemenceau impression (his French accent was excellent, being married to a French lady.)

Another high school teacher, Mr. Watson, did excellent hypothetical conversations between Khrushchev and the U.S. where Khrushchev was dramatically threatening rockets.

I don't think history can be taught properly without someone who is
a) extremely passionate about the subject
b) big picture oriented
c) good with accents

I love the weird personal details in history. Like one of the Russian leaders' fascination with American hot dogs. And Andrew Jackson's 1400 lb block of cheese which he had an Open House at the White House for the public to come consume. And pretty much everything that Churchill did.

My 11th grade history teacher taught much more than history. He was big on expanding the minds that had been handed to him, and he facilitated conversations and encouraged me with comments that I can still recall almost verbatim. (Which is a big deal.)

We've had several discussions in the class I audited this semester about the importance of knowing history and whether studying history actually prevents it from repeating itself. It seems as though each generation is pretty talented at forgetting the knowledge from the two generations before it.

Does history itself because humans are incredibly adept at deluding themselves? "Surely this time will be different. The air was little warmer this year. In butterfly effect terms, that must have a huge influence."

Or because although guns are getting more sophisticated, humans aren't...

**

Since Thursday, I've been spending my entire existence avoiding LOST spoilers. I haven't watched any episodes from this season yet. It seems everyone is assuming that if didn't watch the finale, you don't care about LOST, and spoilers don't matter. Not true.