I made a great new friend. He is wonderful. He is also gay and as far as I can tell, christian. I also just figured out something completely obvious, that another one of my old friends is in a lesbian relationship. She is also quite religious, or spiritual may be a better phrase. (This is not the first time my mind has failed to grasp the obvious. Three friends all share a room and the same bed. "I guess they are just really close friends, huh?" ) I point this out because I think that it's great that there is that seeming contradiction going on out there. Kill the conservatives with it. Love God until their pants fall off. Just whatever you do, please don't have any regrets.

There was a really interesting story on National Public Radio today about the persecution of Gypsy or Roma peoples in Europe. In places they attend segregated schools and have trouble finding any kind of employment. They mostly live in poverty, so some receive government help or housing. (One man applied for government housing, but they turned him down because ironically they claimed that Gypsies were all nomadic people who didn't want to settle.) The Romas they interviewed all talked of how they wanted the opportunity to live equally. However, one non-Roma lady complained that "they all live in the Ghetto where they just remain lazy and commit crime all the time". It was funny (not funny like haha) how much this sounded like the situation and stereotype that people put on the black community. They are lazy. They are natural criminals. It's their nature to live in poverty the way they do. It shows that if you oppress a group, you get the same result, no matter what race it is. No money, no opportunities: you get crime. Blacks aren't the "inferior" race. Gypsies aren't the "inferior" race. They were placed in inferior (but similar) situations, with the same result in two completely different parts of the world. That's so messed up. Well, we could always just ___________ (insert solution that ends all ingrained racism and repairs society set up to hierarchally favor whites).

The financial aid office of our college finally decided to give me some money. sort of. See, as they put it, they can't give me the money because they have already written the check. Oh good, I can have the check then. "Well, no, sorry, we have to hold it until Friday." Right, that makes perfect sense. So I'm thinking sometime soon I'll get to buy a book for class and eat. Someday, when the Financial Aid office gets done having brownie parties every hour.

Chattanooga is a beautiful town, and Sara's Death Metal Christian band is a hoot. See title of entry.