Week 5: Gosh Darn Mannequins

I am disappointed in the human race. Why? Because people don't vote. Seriously over half of the country did not vote in the 1996 election; the highest voter turnout of this century was 63% in 1960. Even that is still over a third of Americans being mannequins. This upsets me because it seems like so many more people have opinions on politics. You don't have a right to complain if you don't participate. Anyways I learned that little statistic from Dr. John Lane--Periodontist (I also learned that there's a difference between dentists and periodontists). He was our speaker for this week.

  
Professor Toothy helps the average non-voting citizen keep teeth nice and clean; just like Dr. Lane helps keep the base that holds teeth (like Professor Toothy) clean. But he didn't really stop by to talk about his dental career, he stopped by to talk about Civic Responsibility: A very important aspect of our society; also a very important aspect of our society that people are not doing. Dr. Lane first asked us why we were in college. I didn't voice my answer in class, but the reason I am in college is because I have a passion that I want to see fulfilled; that passion would be film making. Our speaker then proceeded to discuss the history of civic responsibility, and it turns out that the idea dates back to ancient Rome. Citizens actually wanted to contribute to the betterment of their society back then. Nowadays it's all about "what can my country do for me?" JFK told us not to ask that.

Responsible citizens participate socially in a democratic society; not to say that a person's entire existence should be for others. There should be a healthy balance between the acquisition of individual wealth and the creation of public things.

Jury duty is another thing people don't do. Only 25-40% of people actually show up when they're called for jury duty. Infuriating (it was at this point in my blog that I envisioned myself 5 years from the future calling myself a hypocrite after having recently dodged jury duty to go to a Tool concert or work or something like that).

Volunteering is another form of civic responsibility. I liked the way Dr. Lane worded this, he said something along the lines of "it's a way to say yes when you want to say no." A lot of people are hesitant to volunteering, but in the long run it proves to be more fulfilling than any material possession one can have, according to Dr. Lane. I transposed this idea to my passion for film making; I figure that providing a mass audience with a means of escape from the real world for an hour and a half to two hours could be a form of giving back to society creatively; and overall I want that in my life over a paycheck (not to say I'm not going to work hard to make a good living for myself, that would be stupid of me not to do so).

Dr. Lane then poured his heart out to our class, discussing his contributions to The Healing Place and Camp McDowell here in Florence; he didn't start contributing until his son passed away of cerebral palsy; I won't go into anymore details since that's his personal matter; but he contributed money towards the construction of a new handicap-accessible building at Camp McoDowell. This lead him to conclude that giving is more than money, but it's never less than money. He also encouraged us to use our time and talent to realize our own civic responsibility. Sounds good to me

Am I doing enough? Right now, in terms of civic responsibility, kind of. I haven't volunteered anywhere, but I work at the Writing Center here on campus; It's my first semester on the job, and I feel like I'm doing a good service to my academic community by helping to make better writers out of the students here. I plan on getting my community service hours started soon.

Seriously, why don't people vote? Is it too much of an inconvenience or something? Because I refuse to believe that half of the country just doesn't care. Maybe I'm an optimist though.

Alright I'm done. Ron Paul 2016 \m/(x_x)\m/