Thoughts And Points For April 21, 2013: Events Current And Semi-Current

Due to my filled schedule that is filled with the elements of everyday life, I have not been able to blog as much as I wished to during the month of April. Once the semester comes to a close, however, I should be able to find the time to contribute to working on my horror fiction writing (my goal is to get published in an upcoming anthology, which will require polishing up a work of mine, and then edit my short novel) and then work on some blogging. I have a lot in store.

I created "Thoughts And Points" to briefly discuss random events in one post and for this segment, I have a wild bunch of things I will be covering. This is going to be one of those occasions where television and politics are in the same room with one another and both of them can get heated in their own special way.

Here we go...

Janelle Arthur Has Been Eliminated From Idol, But Kree Has Started To Grow On Me

My predictions for this season of Idol have been all but destroyed. I thought Curtis would be the runner-up and he turned out being the first one eliminated. My pick to win was Janelle, but she was eliminated during the past show. I knew that a female would win this season of Idol, but I wasn't going to make the official assumption that the males were a poor bunch this season. They were. Curtis was the only one that had some form of staying power and he dropped out of the competition like a fly, Devin had a good voice, but not the popularity, Lazaro struggled when he made the Top 10, and Paul and Burnell should have never made the Top 10 to start with.

Janelle unfortunately picked the wrong songs during this part of the competition, going with "Gone" by Montgomery Gentry and "Dumb Blondie" by Dolly Parton instead of songs that could have defined her throughout the competition. Throughout these weeks, what I did learn was that Kree Harrison began to grow on me and she quickly became a favorite of mine. Her cover of "Crying" by Roy Orbison immediately caught my attention, being a fan of Roy Orbison's music and "Crying" is one of my favorites, and she did an excellent job capturing the emotion (what Nicki Minaj had to say about waffles was highly immature). Kree went on to have stellar performances with "Don't Play That Song" (by Aretha Franklin), "Piece Of My Heart" (by Janis Joplin during her days with Big Brother and the Holding Company), and especially "Help Me Make It Through The Night" (written by Kris Kristofferson and sung by several, but most notably by Sammi Smith). Her own idol is Patsy Cline, who is one of my favorite singers, so on several occasions, Kree has won me over. I hope she wins it all!

Speaking Of Idol, I Can't Stand Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj seems to be the judge that speaks her mind this season, but she's also the most aggravating on the table. She spends the most time speaking and 80% of what she has to say is fluff. The whole analogy with the waffles was ridiculous and the names she has for people seem more appropriate for her pets, leaving me to wonder what kind of pets she has. The one thing that disturbs me is that if somebody came onto American Idol and sung like her, the judges would look at them and dismiss them from the competition immediately. They might as well allow Stephanie Sanson, who goes on competitions like Idol, The X-Factor, and America's Got Talent to scream sing, to advance in the competition. As a judge, she has had fights with Mariah and got into a Twitter argument with Devin after he was eliminated (though the blame could be put on both for this one). Not very professional. I, for one, am hoping that Nicki Minaj is one and done for American Idol.

On A Different Subject, It's Difficult To Declare How To Handle Gun Control

After the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, this current administration has discussed the need for stricter gun laws. I am a strong advocate for the entire constitution, let alone the second amendment, but the reason I don't agree with these laws are because I feel that they are not going to work against the people they should work against. The people that we don't want possessing weapons of this kind are criminals or psychopaths like Adam Lanza. As we know from experience, criminals don't follow rules and regulations. They are bound to find a loophole that we allow them to pick up a gun anyway. This includes robbing the gun, purchasing the gun in a sneaky format that may include false identification, or purchasing from someone who doesn't follow the laws either. Before we worry about people who are purchasing for protection and self-defense, we need to worry about shutting down opportunities for criminals and psychopaths to arise. Unfortunately, we cannot make assumptions and we have no idea whether or not somebody's going to engage in such an activity. What we need to do is study further into mental issues and do our best to seek signs and whether or not we can prevent such events from happening.

A pattern of common sense is that people who are looking to engage in a violent episode look to a defenseless environment. Someone who is looking to engage in a rampage isn't going to go where people are going to shoot right back. That's a part of common sense. Plus, it has been recorded that more crimes happen to areas that have tight gun control laws. I'm not saying that people need to start arming themselves in public, but I feel that we need to think before we tighten gun control laws.

While We Need To Stop Bashing Same-Sex Marriage, It's NOT Issue #1

I am a supporter of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage to the point that it doesn't interfere with a church's practices. This means that it should be legalized within the eyes of the government and couples should have the right to get married in ceremonies or through religions that are okay with the practice. My only belief is that if a church does not agree with it, then the government should not force them to hold such a ceremony, whether this be through direct threat or threat through making them pay taxes. I feel that someone should be with the person they love, their marriage should be recognized as such the same as if it were a heterosexual couple, and if they want to adopt a child, they should have every right. The only arguments that can be made are religious and scientific (the latter based on reproduction), but the scientific issues should be resolved through artificial insemination, surrogates, or adoption.

What I don't agree with is that we need to worry about this issue first. My belief is that the economy, jobs, and security come first. We need to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to work and make a consistent income. We also need to make sure we are balancing the budget and not throwing money away (which has been difficult in recent years). On top of that, we need to do our best to be prepared for anything and everything. While it is my belief that the government has no right to define marriage, it is not our first worry.

In March, while we were worried about such an issue, Obama approved the Monsanto Protection Act, which allows genetic modification of the food we eat. The genetic modification in food is the method of vastly producing food and then destroying the crop after one go-around. In a way, we are eating chemically enriched products and we have no idea what's going in to what we're eating. We should be extremely concerned about this, because it doesn't matter who you are, everybody has to eat.

A lot has been floating around during this period of time as 2013 has become an eventful year. My thoughts and prayers go out to anybody who was affected in the explosions that occurred on Monday during the Boston Marathon and I am very thankful that the two monsters that were behind these activities were brought down, one of which was killed while the other is detained and is currently in critical condition. It's just incredibly unfortunate how events like these are going on.

I will do my best to have some more posts up within the coming weeks.