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I admit, I can be a little narcissitic at times. This blog, in essence, is about me. I like writing about myself, and I often revisit my own site not only to boost up the hit count, but also because I like reading about myself, as if I were the main character in this weird Darren Aronofsky film mixed with a Jerry Bruckheimer production, where the mundane and freaky meet the explosions and hot girls. It never really makes sense, but who cares? Sometimes, as long as we like the main character, the story doesn't have to make sense. We can just stare into the eyes, or if you really want to be poetic, the soul for hours and hours on end.

When I say I write about myself, however, it is not in the "So today I went to history class and there was this girl, and oh my god, she was so stupid. I had to answer all the questions for her and I just don't get it. This life sucks. EMO RULES!!!" kind of way. I'm not talking about that. The kind of writing I do is vulnerable, real, offensive when I should be defensive, defensive when I should be offensive, and anything less should might as well be stuck with the 2 dollar romance novels in the back of the local convenient store. But I refuse to be stopped by a middle aged sexually frustrated woman on my way to buy a slurpee at the seven-eleven, and have her tell me that I changed her life.

At the same time, I find it too easy to talk about sports or politics, arguing our way into oblivion without a single measure in our heart wanting to change anything. It becomes ridiculous rhetoric to exhibit our own intelligence or our entertaining extremist thoughts. We are here to shock and to wow, so that at the end of the day, more people will like us or more people will hate us. Whatever. It's a cheap way to get others so distracted by an issue that everyone forgets the crap in the only speaker, the only person relevant to the conversation - you.

But I'm going to do it anyway. Granted, I never liked getting involved in politics. Despite the fact that I am a journalism major, I hate reading the newspaper or magazines and I'm not even that keen on Jon Stewart (I know, that's a sin in college terms). But something Nelson Mandela said before he ever entered politics got to me the other day. He said, "Whether you know it or not, whether you want it to be or not, your life is political." But the last thing I want is to give you some 4th grade Michael Moore bullcrap taken from what a friend of a friend said that was actually from a propaganda Hollywood movie, neither will I offer a "yessum" attitude as I wake up daily to research Bush's quotes, make a tribal dance around it as if it were infallible and live my life dodging questions from the so-called "liberal media" like, "who would win in a fight, BUSH or GOD?" and say "TRICK QUESTION, BUSH IS GOD." No, I refuse to offer any more to this crap world of Paris Hiltons and Freddie Prince Jrs., of Into the Blue (a movie devoted to Jessica Alba's ass) or Hostel (cut an arm and forget the script), of Dancing with the Stars and Gilmore Girls. Neither will I be afraid of what I write, hoping to find comments and eprops and nicer hellos on the shuttle, so that I will be more secure with myself in that there are other people out there who agree with me. My goal in life is not and will never be to find people who agree with me and befriend them. On a sidenote, it might be one of the saddest progressions in human interaction I have seen when we often look for friends that at the very base of that relationship, they have to agree with us on something, creating a sort of hub or bubble where we are our own king with dozens of jesters who say, "yes i know right!" to boost our own incapability to be sure of our own convictions.

In light of all this, I will comment on these cartoons that have created a conflagaration of violence and misunderstanding. Like a overlong "yo mama" joke contest between two kids who already hate each other, the Islamic world and the European world have clashed, leaving some confused and others fidgeting with their fingers, ready to point the finger at someone, anyone. Both Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter have been posting up beautifully-written pieces on the issue, where Malkin discusses the absurdity of the International Day of Anger just because of these cartoons. These silly representations done through pencil and paper have caused international violence, where Protestants have withstood Kanye West's words (apparently, he wants to be included in the Bible according to a headline today), and pictures involving Mary, Jesus, and dung without doing more than shaking our heads, she also says. They both defend the freedom of press and of speech in publishing material like this, and anything less would be a direct attack on our freedom. In one of my favorite points, Coulter finds it ironic that Muslims are using violence to combat cartoons that mock them as being overly violent. But beyond the beautiful prose, hilarious phrasing, and fabulous credentials, I see nothing but a lack of common sense, disrespectfulness, and exhibiting an attitude of pompousness that only spurs on the Western stereotype that uhh...well we're pompous.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will never hurt me. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Just because it rhymes doesn't mean it's true. Trust me, I'm a poet. I haven't heard so much crap and lies as in a poetry club. But this saying was probably around long before the days of W and JFK and FDR, when the power of the image was not fully understood or even known by many of the world's people, before television ruled the world. Together, words and images produce a hurt that cannot be explained but understood and sympathized by most. Should I stand in front of an African American and call him a "nigger"? Use "spick" or "gook" or "jap" to the minorities around me? Do I stand in front of a homosexual and call out "fag" or "dike"? Maybe I should give your mother or your father or anyone near to your heart a call and practice my freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not mean to be a complete dumbass, and most of the time, I agree that many people are complete idiots while practicing this freedom, but when we speak or defend or write, should we not realize the social implicationns of what we do?

You may see the self-control to publish the cartoons in the US papers outside the Philadephia Inquirer to be a sellout and a complete surrender to the intimdation of extremists, but I prefer to see it otherwise. I see it as empowerment for moderate Muslims, who often live in fear and in a double consciousness, as they try to grasp that we do respect their religion and its teachings of peace and love, even as we confront a dangerous minority's attempts to use it to spark a civilizational war. I believe that God has offered us a way to reach people who don't hate us, but trust us less and less each day, but I'm not so sure that way is to stereotype the majority of Muslims because of a minority group of terrorists, neither is it to ignorantly do away with what is in the mindset of the masses who are protesting and are moved so deeply to violence. I do not consider myself a killer, but I swear to God, if you so much as hurt my mother, I will kill you without a moment of regret.

I believe the biggest fault in the freedom of speech is that we have a knack for speaking so much that we begin to drown what we're saying to each other in a world of Adams and Eves in a deception battle, in a world where "we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms." -Ephesians 6:12 (NLT).

So I simply urge us not to place the American flag and the US Constitution on such a pedestol that we forget the teachings of patience, love, and understanding, if not from Sunday School or our parents, then from our own common sense.