Dear people who would accidentally stumble upon here. I am officially closing this blog, since I do not fully support some of the statements here anymore. Simply put, apparently I did not know everything at the age of 17. "Things", it turns out, aren't that simple.

Do read stuff, if you want to, though.

Literacy

New age, modern times, XXI century - today, man! We're cool, we're tolerant (more likely just politically correct), we take what we want when we want it and the sky is our limit... Well, the sky and spelling decently. (Before I go on, I apologise if I make any typing mistakes myself, but that should just prove my point.)

One of the best accomplishments during the late XIX and the early XX century is the increased literacy. People who could read and write became no longer wizards with dark knowledge about truth and God, but normal people. It became trivial, usual, something daily. There were cafés where people would read newspapers and talk about art, music, politics (and booze, women and cars/horses, of course).

Today, well... I want you to do an exercise for me. I want you to go to your e-mail or phone inbox, or facebook account and take a look. Take a good look at the comments, the SMSes, the replies.

I don't really need to show you what's the problem now, do I? Of course, it's an improvement compared to the Middle Age, when most of the people used axes instead of pens, but what bothers me is that today, nobody perceives bad spelling as a problem. Reading books is boring, saying that there is a difference between "your" and "you're" is nerdy. What happened to the awe people felt for those who read and write, the respect that the intelligent deserve (just like any other type of people who put effort into something)?

And this is a worldwide issue. No matter if you're English, American, French, Bulgarian, Italian, Spanish or Guatemalan, you are aware of this. Nobody's doing a thing about it - we complain about everything else, but we don't complain about bad spelling. Old people keep saying, "Back in our days...", parents complain about today's children, the children talk about the "uncool", but nobody even mentions the literacy issue. The government isn't, for sure - fuck, why would they want intelligent people who could objectively criticise their programs? I'm not saying that the government is deliberately making us illiterate, we are, but they sure as hell wouldn't bother helping either.

In French, instead of "ne t'inquiètes pas" (don't worry), people write "tkt". In English, "plx" is the new please. In Bulgarian, people just nod with their head instead of saying "come on".

This isn't unrelated with the literacy. A lot of people can say that they write like that and speak like that, but they know how to spell right. To those, I need to ask just one question. How many times do we need to repeat a lie in order for it to become truth?

And what about eloquence? You know, "complicated" words. If we don't bother writing in full the simple words, why wouldn't we simply stop using the eloquent ones?

I know that eloquence isn't always needed. I hate purple prose (that's prose riddled with failing attempts to use complicated language when simple words are enough). But I like how before, eloquence was a quality. I fear about that word's status at the moment.

In one of those "hip" magazines, a guy had said, "I've heard about people who read, but I've never met any." Now, I'm not quite sure if there's really such a guy. I pray to all kinds of deities that there isn't. The magazine published it, though. They wanted to publish it. They've searched for (or lied about) this individual.

This statement would please their audience.

To me, writing as well as you can is more than just showing that you can. It's more than just wasting a couple of precious seconds. It's also attention to your friends - it's giving them respect. Its like saying, "I would give you the attention needed to spell 'please' fully." Even more than that - it's self-respect. It's projecting your image of yourself. Are you a person that spells fully or not? It's one of the first impressions that you can make to a person. In a written format, your spelling becomes you.

I would understand if people don't spell correctly because of a lack of vanity, if they can't bother to give the attention to their replies and to the other party, I can understand that. What I can't understand is that we don't want to write properly any more.

It's reached such a point that we don't put even a few seconds of thought into it. We're not thinking about it, it's something we do automatically. That's what bothers me.

HA! My dad's more equal than your dad!

Something quite recent and moreover, quite specific, took my attention. And it was this event. No, it's not porn, though I'm sure you'd prefer it was. Luckily, you don't have to read all of it to know what it's about.

Basically, a child was thrown out of school because he/she had two mothers -- a lesbian (the cooler word for female gay) couple.

Not only is this madness, the fact that it has any supporters is even worse. There are actually people who stand behind this man and basically say, "Yes, a child shouldn't be allowed to study in a school because of its origins." Didn't we get past this in the last century?

Here we are, being told by very intelligent men that without God to judge what is moral and what is not /the top link to the left -- the issue is raised in the debate/, there is no morality -- and at the same time, God's representatives commit such discrimination. How can anybody consider this behavior moral, or even more -- example-worthy?

This is some special kind of bullshit -- all men are equal before God... except the homos. Not only will the homos burn in the eternal pit of fire, but also their children, because I quote the Archdiocese of Denver:

Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children

After all, if a child can't get into a Catholic school because of its parents, what's the chance for the child to be on equal footage with the rest of the world in other cases?

This is children we're talking about. Little children -- preschoolers. And they're being taught, not by someone random, but by Archdioceses, to discriminate. Because the school sets an example for the other children as well -- "Look down on those that are different, children -- they don't deserve to study not because of something else, but because of their origins."

Not only that, it's also hypocritical -- why don't they ban children who are parented by single moms or single dads?

What about children born by a couple who uses condoms at all? After all, the Pope said getting AIDS is better than using a condom.

Jesus.