Addicts Who Show Up At MA Police Station Will Be Helped, NOT Arrested

In Gloucester, Massachusetts, Heroin addicts who show up at their local police station and turn in their drugs will not be arrested or held accountable, but instead will be given the proper rehabilitation needed for recovery.

Chief Leonard Camponello made the announcement last weekend that any addict who walks into their precinct looking for help will not be charged, even if they're carrying drugs or paraphernalia on them at the time of arrival.

“We will assign them an ‘angel’ who will be their guide through the process. Not in hours or days, but on the spot. I’ve never arrested a tobacco addict, nor have I ever seen one turned down for help when they develop lung cancer, whether or not they have insurance. The reasons for the difference in care between a tobacco addict and an opiate addict is stigma and money. Petty reasons to lose a life.”

 As of now, he has gotten support from Lahey Hospital and Medical Center as well as Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester. He is now planning a trip to Washington D.C. to meet with his state's senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey.

Personally, I applaud Cheif Camponello and his department's progressive attitude toward fixing the drug issue, and helping those in need not arresting them and throwing them away for years. It has become increasingly obvious that America's traditional method of dealing with drug addicts is simply not working, and there is one simple fact we must accept: no one enjoys being addicted to any substance.

There is no doubt that this is a step in the right direction for the assistance of drug addicts in America, and I have high hopes that programs like this will be recognized for what they are; an attempt to help those in pain, not get rid of them.

That's all I have to say, but I'll be back Monday.

"Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air... but only for one second without hope." -Hai Lindsey

North Korea: "We don't have political prison camps because we don't have political divison."

CNN's recent interview with Park Yong Chol, a high ranking North Korean official, revealed a lot to the world about the mindset and condition of the mysterious dystopia. Every occasion in which a North Korean addresses the public, there is an undeniable eeriness to their thoughts and actions.

Park Yong Chol started off the interview by saying, rather frankly, that he did not like speaking with foreign media because he believed they spread "rumor and fabrication" about his country.

A sensitive matter was immediately danced upon when the topic of Kim Jong Un's personal orders of the execution of 15 officials earlier this year. Park said;

"Malicious slander! Especially as they try to link the allegations against to the august name of our Supreme Leader Marshall Kim Jong Un."

Despite the United Nation's reports about large scale human-rights abuse from North Korea, Park acknowledged that reform camps for regular criminals existed, however denied the existence of any political prison camps.

"Our society is a society without political strife or factions or political divisions -- as a result we don't have the term 'political prisoner.'"

Park went on to write off North Korean defectors as fleeing criminals and, overarchingly, slanderers. He explained that "so-called defectors" were plain criminals who had fled their country to avoid punishment. Now they stayed in South Korea and slandered the Northern government and fabricated nightmarish stories in order to avoid punishment furthermore.

Much of Park Yong Chol's words were, for lack of a better word, rather hollow and exactly what you would expect a high-class North Korean subject to say. However, Park did deliver a line which was undeniably interesting.

"If you talk about human rights in my country, I will talk about human rights in the United States," he said. "You have racial riots taking place in the wake of the killing of so many black people by the police. You have prisons full of inmates and new techniques of torture being used. The U.S. President and other high-ranking administration officials have acknowledged really severe forms of punishment on inmates in detention. If you talk about human rights in the DPRK, we will talk about human rights in the U.S."

As brainwashed as many of these officials may seem, and despite how easy it is to wipe this comment off as babbling from a devoted subject, there is a spine-chilling truth to this. The United States, and the Western world in general, are very quick to pass judgement about the treatment of people in other countries. However, we make little societal uproar in the midst of our own moral dilemmas.

That's all I have to say today, but I'll be back tomorrow. I added a large batch of new photos onto my Photography page, so please give it a look and feel free to comment and tell me your thoughts.

"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." -Mary Wollstonecraft

Gunmen Dead After Muhammad-Cartoon-Contest Shooting

Following a shooting at a Dallas suburb event which ended in an fury of violence, the two gunmen were shot, and killed, by police in the area. One suspect was shot and killed immediately, while the other was injured, reached for his backpack, and was shot again. 

Sadly, the shooting was sparked by a very avoidable cause to begin with, and, although no innocent people were hurt, the confrontational attitude which sparked the matter could have very well caused many civilians to be injured. While we often spend weeks and months trying to figure out the mindset of a shooter, this scenario was all too obvious.

The shooting took place at a contest for cartoons of the prophet Muhammad titled the "Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest". Just as the (security-heavy) event was coming to a close, the two shooters began firing.

One very simple and universal characteristic could have avoided this situation in its entirety however; understanding. While the exhibits officialls are undoubtedly attempting to construct a logical fallacy as to why they set this event up, the intentions are very clearly ones armed with hostility.

It is not a shocking revelation for most that Texas is an extremely traditional area in political, societial, and religous beliefs. The group responsible, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, is considered an anti-Muslim group by the Souther Poverty Law Center, who tracks hate groups.

What gives these men the idea that their religious ideologies or style of living is so far above any other that they are in the position to mock and purposefully offend another race or religion is beyond my comprehension. However, whatever philosophy it is that they mumble about to reassure each other they are correct is quite simply wrong.

The idea of putting your own beliefs over others is not more difficult (i.e. the "Faith takes strength" argument) but is instead the simple-minded route. We cannot progress and pave a better future using outdated idiotic philosophy.

In conclusion, is it ever right to walk into a public area and shoot off a gun at a crowd? No. However, there are two guilty parties here, not one. Of course, freedom of expression, speech, and religion are guaranteed rights, but if a people do not learn how to hold to their beliefs and simultaneously be respectful of others, then their rights will eventually become obsolete.

That's all I have to say today, but I'll be back tomorrow.

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." -Kurt Vonnegut

On Education

"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela

Introduction

Education is the foundation of our society. Education is a fire in the hearts of children. Education is what remains when all else has floundered. Education is the safeguard of liberty. Education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance. Education is movement.

All these are true, undoubtedly. Repetitively throughout history humanity's greatest figures have commented on the matter of education and its necessity in society. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Aristotle, Oscar Wilde, Mahatma Ghandi, Mark Twain, and their many colleagues, influences, and rivals all echo one important message throughout their livelihood: Education is power.

Modern society has given many, but still far fewer than what is just, the opportunity to a free education. However, it is irrefutable that we have, in fact, twisted what education is supposed to be. "We" have twisted it. The aforementioned, ominous "we" is especially inclusive, and it is necessary to understand who all it encompasses.

The answer is every person who has drawn breath in the past two hundred years. We have all, either through action, inaction, or disadvantageous behavior, directly led our collective society down a path of a agenda-driven and bureaucracy-infested misunderstanding of what education should be. And though it sounds disgustingly political, 

Yet, before we are able to truly admire what education must be, we first must define what it must never be.

On Education

From a purely scientific standpoint, with no inclusion of religious ideologies (Without saying those ideologies are to be regularly disregarded, in writing this paper I intend to.), once any human has passed away they are, quite simply, gone. They cannot continue to speak their mind, and thus all that remains of them are the words they have cast into people's minds. Individual life comes and passes at a whim as nature sees fit, however what we accomplish as a society or species remains far beyond the inscription of your or my tomb. This is the importance of education. Presuming that there is no life following the one live now, and presuming that a paranormal entity has not set out a so-called "meaning of life", we must create our own. So I call my brothers and sisters of the Baby Boomers, of Generation X, of the Millennials, and of the Connected Generation to heed my words; that it is our job as a people to provide the best possible world, the world closest to perfection we can come, before our passing which we can hand off to our successors in faith they will only improve on it further. And, I hope, that one day when we pass we can whisper to ourselves, "I've done all I could to improve this world".

However, while education has potential to become a spectacular and influential force in culture, one that Aristotle and Plato would nod in admiration at, we have regrettably distorted the philosophy and purpose behind education.

In modern education, or, at the very least, the education I and my classmates have been offered, there is a particular agenda that must be met. While politicians and bureaucrats enjoy throwing around the philosophy that an education is important, they disregard the qualities which reflect a healthy education as particularly inappropriate. The trace of rebellion which tends to form in the presence of a matured library of knowledge is severely from on. While the nature of rebellion may not, in itself, be an outstanding quality for teachers to impress in their young students, it is a vital characteristic that a child be ready and prepared to question every societal, personal, and academic understanding which we accept. Without this characteristic, we as a people fall into a dangerous pattern of traditionalism, where the population brings itself to fear change.

In this system of education, we do not only attempt to shame those with this rebellious quality, but go a step further, and aim to suppress it. The Common Core System (Naturally, this is not the ruling system in the majority of the world. However, it is the primary system I will be addressing when speaking in specifics.) establishes a system where, just as it intended, every child is guaranteed an equal education. Consequently, it establishes a system where any child not in advance placement classrooms is guaranteed an equally poor education.

To those not familiar with the methods of the implemented structure of education, at heart it involves a very strict curriculum written by twenty-four members of a work group. Within this group there are zero members with any familiarity with the process of children's education. They are all very qualified in their fields, but have little experience in the way of how proper learning experiences are to be executed. Once this curriculum is in place, there is a very typical one-size-fits-all series of testing which is (very inaccurately) used to gauge a child's understanding on the subject.

Alexandra Trenfor once said that the best teachers show us where to look, but never what to see. By this very sound educational philosophy, the Common Core system is overwhelmingly flawed in its methods. The idea that one technique and syllabus of education can accurately be applied to every child in the nation is an idea that, while its romantics excite us, is simply unreasonable. Education is not something which can be generalized and administered to every pupil equally. Every young mind is a masterpiece which simply needs the correct frame, and while giving each one an unornamented, wooden mount may be considered fair, it is the job of society and the job of those responsible for the teaching of a child to strive for better.

It is not difficult to observe what most would agree a proper education should not be. Speaking from a factual standpoint most individuals can agree that loading a child down with a flawed curriculum and overzealous amounts of standardized testing is not a proper way to prepare an eccentric mind. Simultaneously, from a romantic standpoint, most individuals would agree that education should be about the expansion of the mind to discover new ways of thinking and new paths, not tunneling a pupil's vision so that their only focus is their next big exam.

However, looking at what education should be is significantly more focused, but we must first accept one very basic educational philosophy; Education is not a process in which to make sure children can answer a series of questions correctly. Education is the process in which we give young minds the ability to meditate on an issue and find an answer using both their intellect and their emotion. Through this process, we give them the ability to grow and resolve the issues which we will leave behind.

Education, or at least robust education, would be a system which encouraged students to better themselves to their fullest extent in every field to create a genuinely well-rounded individual who could work through the most complicated mathematics, but simultaneously be fluent in the language of poetry, and so on.

While standardized testing seems to be an appropriate method of scaling students worth to an administrator in Washington, it is simply inappropriate to punish a fish for not climbing a tree as well as a chimpanzee.

In Conclusion

In addressing my fellow student, I ask that we all see it in ourselves to strive for perfection as individuals. We have fallen habit to dismissing our weaknesses as an unfortunate side effect of the disease we call humanity. Instead, I ask you to identify your failures and venture to better yourself in these areas. Do this every day until the day you finally pass on, and before you go, write all that you have learned in a book, bind it in leather, and release it to the world. Do this, and understand in your heart that you may never reach a point where you are without flaw, but that is not the aim. On this journey of self-betterment, all of its importance lies in the journey itself, and none in the end destination.

Life is a precious thing, and do not waste a moment of it on miniscule things and everyday dramatics. Instead, we should always learn with one hand, and build with another. Through this process, we will only further the reach of science, philosophy, art, mathematics, social sciences, and culture. And, in reflection, I hope that one day we are able to look at the world we have built and commend ourselves for our eccentricism and how far it has brought us. I do find it in my heart to believe that we, as a people, are only at the beginning of our long journey in which we will never quit learning.