Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.
Life keeps moving on. It seems like just yesterday I started college. It seems like just yesterday I was in high school. Now I'm a senior, trying to decide what to do once I graduate. I'm living at UPA with Seth and Char. It feels like old times again, in a sense. I'm one week into school, and already I have enough work to last me the semester. It doesn't bother me as much as it has before, as I enjoy what I'm doing this semester.
This summer was weird. I spent most of it either here in Lafayette, regularly seeing somewhere between five and ten people, and Baton Rouge, where I mainly saw only my family. It feels like forever since I've seen Michelle, Mandy, Sean, and everyone else (yes, you too). I know all of you are busy, but this has gone on long enough. We're all (hopefully) graduating soon, we may never be as close to one another (geographically) as we are now. We can't waste that opportunity.
I spend a lot of time online, reading everything from webcomics to serious essays. I've noticed that there seems to be a bit of fear for the United States running around (I think it's at least as reasonable to have fear OF the United States, but that's another story). This article is one example. One of the main points (for the lazy or short on time) is that China poses a threat to us not military, but economic and technological (yes, this is an over-simplification of his actual point). Hubbard worries that China (although it is certainly not the only candidate here) is threatening to overtake the United States as the primary world superpower. Why is this assumed to be such a bad thing?
In a lot of ways it could be an advantage. Our foreign policy of acting as the world police could end. We would avoid situations like Iraq and Vietnam. Perhaps, with another nation bearing the burden of "superpower", we could stop spending 64% of our discretionary budget ($632 billion) on the military. Perhaps we would be less visible, a less likely target of attacks. After all, how many terrorist threats have been made to Switzerland recently? Incidentally, Switzerland's unemployment rate is around 2.5%. Our hovers around 4.6% at the moment. While I acknowledge that a smaller, more homogeneous country has an easier time keeping its population happy and employed, so does a country not embroiled in war(s).
That is all.
This summer was weird. I spent most of it either here in Lafayette, regularly seeing somewhere between five and ten people, and Baton Rouge, where I mainly saw only my family. It feels like forever since I've seen Michelle, Mandy, Sean, and everyone else (yes, you too). I know all of you are busy, but this has gone on long enough. We're all (hopefully) graduating soon, we may never be as close to one another (geographically) as we are now. We can't waste that opportunity.
I spend a lot of time online, reading everything from webcomics to serious essays. I've noticed that there seems to be a bit of fear for the United States running around (I think it's at least as reasonable to have fear OF the United States, but that's another story). This article is one example. One of the main points (for the lazy or short on time) is that China poses a threat to us not military, but economic and technological (yes, this is an over-simplification of his actual point). Hubbard worries that China (although it is certainly not the only candidate here) is threatening to overtake the United States as the primary world superpower. Why is this assumed to be such a bad thing?
In a lot of ways it could be an advantage. Our foreign policy of acting as the world police could end. We would avoid situations like Iraq and Vietnam. Perhaps, with another nation bearing the burden of "superpower", we could stop spending 64% of our discretionary budget ($632 billion) on the military. Perhaps we would be less visible, a less likely target of attacks. After all, how many terrorist threats have been made to Switzerland recently? Incidentally, Switzerland's unemployment rate is around 2.5%. Our hovers around 4.6% at the moment. While I acknowledge that a smaller, more homogeneous country has an easier time keeping its population happy and employed, so does a country not embroiled in war(s).
That is all.