News and Human Rights 8: Now Illegal to be Mexican in Ariz.

In a shocking and unconstitutional abuse of authority exercised earlier this week, it is now officially illegal to be a Mexican-American in the state of Arizona. This turn of events came as a surprise to many, due to the grossly racist nature of the law in the supposedly progressive 21st century, but others claim the decision was only a matter of time. These more pessimistic views are espoused by citizens who cite other racially-based legal decisions that have come to pass in the state within the last year.

Some claim that the law of early 2010, which required Mexican-Americans to carry proof of citizenship at all times, and then the banning of a Mexican-American Studies class at a high school earlier this month, began the slippery slope that led to the outlawing of these citizens all together.

In the controversial decision to end the Mexican-American Studies course, Ariz. school's chief John Huppenthal cited (among more flagrantly racist and laughably inadequate reasons) a need to focus on "the basics" in order to improve Tucson test scores. It can be assumed that "the basics" include being white, and that white people are usually right and do good things. Especially in our nation's history.

Sources report that, in conjunction with a Republican initiative to reopen the 14th constitutional amendment defining citizenship, that the Ariz. government may currently be in the works to outlaw citizens with African, Asian, Latino, Native American and all other non-Anglo Saxon, Christian heritage.

A government insider claims homosexuals may also be on their way out of Ariz. if proper legal precedents are created through the marginalization of other, more easily recognizable minority groups.

"Jews too. Don't forget Jews. I just sort of hate everybody," said an Ariz. government official.

Ninja Stole My Bike

Somebody stole my bike a few nights ago.
Maybe while I was in the house.
Bitch move, bike thief.
I use that bike to get to work, and I need to work because I want to have money without being a total asshole who steals bikes off of porches even though they're chained up, and stealing the bike requires busting out not one but TWO wood panels from the railing.
Two huge bummers about this, besides losing my primary mode of work-related transportation:
1. I've had this bike since I was like 11. And it was a good bike, too. It had all ten speeds (even though I only used 3 and 4) and it looked pretty cool. It was white and blue and just sort of a good looking bike, not stupid and small like a BMX or dumb and curvy like a hipster bike.
2. I don't know the brand name of my bike! Shame on me as a bike owner, I guess. I just never took the time to learn it's name, so when I called the cops to file my one-in-a-million-chance-this-is-going-to-work-anyways police report, they were like "What kind of bike was it," and I was like "I don't know," and they were like, "Well this conversation is pretty much finished then, isn't it?"

What really irks me is, in this day and age, I feel like a bike is probably one of the worst things you could ever steal from someone. Like, really, a totally uncalled for bullshit move.
Not only is my bike good for me and good for the environment, I NEED THAT BIKE TO GET PLACES. Two and a half miles is a big difference on foot as opposed to on a bike. Like a half hour difference. So what we have here is a person poor enough to steal a bike hurting the livelihood of a person who's poor enough to actually rely on a bike to get somewhere. This kind of poor-eat-poor attitude is responsible for so much demoralizing in the lower-class of our society, and I would venture a guess that similar circumstances result in the creation of criminals. I mean, why would I bother to go buy another bike? So it can get stolen again? Why not just steal one, if that's the rules my neighbors are choosing to play by?

Oh man, you are just the worst kind of person.

Anyways, I'm putting out a hit on this douche bag, and I'm offering a reward of one incredibly enthusiastic high five to anyone who returns my bike and/or punches the thief in the mouth.
I have reason to believe he looks something like this:

Perspective

I get embarrassed when I get frustrated about little stuff.
And it's all little stuff.
Because I could die at any second, so really, being alive is pretty damn cool. Don't you think?

An Open Letter to Incoming Western Michigan University Freshman

Dear New Comers,

You can take Kalamazoo, I'm done with it. You can take the student ghetto and the East Hall view and the Westnedge Hill. You can take pit bull puppies for sale on every corner and the north side, which is two miles away from a country club. You can take The Den and the Little Theater and the Dorms. You can take all three blocks of downtown.

It's your turn to go to the WMU theater productions. It's your turn to work at Mongolian BBQ or Old Burdick's or some other shitty college job and hate it. It's your turn to get outrageously drunk on the weekends. And outrageously drunk on the weekdays. It's your turn to get rejected by the Laureate. It's your turn to try and write a book, since you're so smart.

You can take the Welcome Week frat parties and the games of flip cup and beer pong. It's your turn to do your first beer bong. It's your turn to read books and take classes and meet professors that will change the way you see the world forever. You can take playing bass in a bar band. You can take Harvey's and Up and Under's and Shakespeare's. You can take the crackheads on the street that ask for change and you can take the crackheads that live in my building and ask stupid questions.

You can take it all. Just know that I was here first and I did it better.

Love,
Jordan White

Comedians and the Truth

My natural instinct, when I am thoroughly impressed by something or someone, is to emulate. I think this accounts for a large part of my personality. I interact with or watch or read about people that I respect and admire, and so I emulate them by consciously pushing myself to take on their admirable character traits.

This exists outside of my own personal development as well. It explains my chosen profession (by which I am referring to my attempt to become a professional novelist) because books were the first things that really spoke to be and made sense to me, and their impact on my life was so great that my natural instinct was to create my own.

I think it's fair to say that the only other thing in my life that garners this sort of reaction from me is stand-up comedy. Other forms of art, such as music or poetry or painting or dancing, those are to be admired from a distance because I think that, on a fundamental level, my brain is not geared to understand them. Something about stand-up comedy, though, has always captivated me. I remember the first special I ever saw was Sinbad's "Afros and Bell Bottoms," and whenever it came on Comedy Central I would watch it until it ended. Before that it was Bill Cosby tapes with childhood friends, and later it would be Lewis Black, Mitch Hedberg, Dennis Leary, Daniel Tosh, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Louis C.K. and, of course, Bill Hicks.

When I listen to Bill Hicks, I want to put everything else in my life on hold and run out to a comedy club and become him. I want to carry on that torch, the essence of what he was trying to do, and continue to do it for him. That's the gut reaction I have when I hear him.

What I find so interesting about stand-up comedians is that we live in a culture that is so delusional and misguided and indirect that these men can go up on stages in front of crowds and do nothing other than deliver the truth, and make living off of it. Comedians like Hicks (though I guess there never really was another one like him) have the intelligence and the wit to look at political situations, or common experiences we all share as a species, and strip away the pseudonyms and euphemisms and the pleasantries and expose the absolute, flat-out absurdity of everyday life on this planet, as this species, living within all the strange rules we've set up for ourselves. And I am so astounded by that, that it takes a man with a microphone to remind you that things are not always as they seem.

It seems that this is where we have come to as a race: the truth is so rare that it has become a commodity.