The Westboro Baptist Church Counter Demonstration: Rally to Reaffirm Sanity

Date: Friday, January 14
Time: 3:30 – 4:45pm
Place: The grassy hill behind the Kay Spiritual Life Center and in front of Massachusetts Ave.
What: A peaceful and uniting rally consisting of a capella performances, remarks by Student Government President Nate Bronstein and tabling by campus groups and clubs such as the Methodist Student Association and God Loves Poetry.
Who: All members of the American University community
How: Bring your commitment to tolerance, acceptance and respect. May also bring posters for the rally along with monetary donations to be contributed to causes the Westboro Baptist Church targets.

Message

“The American University community is holding the WBC Counter Demonstration: A Rally to Reaffirm Sanity not because of the Westboro Baptist Church. The American University community is holding the WBC Counter Demonstration: A Rally to Reaffirm Sanity to show our commitment to tolerance, acceptance and respect.”

Mission Statement of the Westboro Baptist Church Counter Demonstration: Rally to Reaffirm Sanity

The WBC Counter Demonstration: A Rally to Reaffirm Sanity is an ad-hoc organization advised by Student Activities at American University. The WBC Counter Demonstration: A Rally to Reaffirm Sanity is a unified student effort to demonstrate our community’s respect, tolerance and acceptance of every member of our community. The WBC Counter Demonstration was created in response to a press release issued by the Westboro Baptist Church stating that they plan to hold a demonstration/religious service adjacent to the American University campus. As a university that prides itself on its diverse community, its strong political involvement and ongoing effort to engage in an open dialogue, we join together to demonstrate our love of every member of our community.

The WBC Counter Demonstration: A Rally to Reaffirm Sanity is devoted to demonstrating our student body’s continued affirmation of tolerance, respect and love for one another. While we acknowledge the right to freedom of speech, and by extension, the rights of the Westboro Baptist Church, we affirm our community’s ongoing desire to remain unified in the presence of hate, rebuke hate with a message of acceptance and stand together, as one student body, as one campus and as one community to speak out against hate and reaffirm our commitment to tolerance.

Why is Westboro Baptist Church coming to American University?

Keep on reading for more…

The Westboro Baptist Church announced their plan to “picket the fag-infested, pervert-run American University” and has characterized the demonstration as “religious opinion & bible commentary on current events.” The Westboro Baptist Church hopes to “give [American University students] an opportunity to see what truth looks like.”

Who is the Westboro Baptist Church?

The Westboro Baptist Church is an independent church not affiliated with any Baptist conventions or associations and is consisted mostly of its founder’s large family. The Westboro Baptist Church is known for its extreme views against homosexuality, for picketing military funerals and for desecrating the American flag.

What does the Westboro Baptist Church believe?

Homosexuality: The group condemns homosexuality and maintains that God hates gays above all other kinds of “sinners” and that homosexuality should be a capital crime.

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy: The group refers to Catholic priests as “vampires” and “Draculas” and says Catholic priests suck semen out of male children’s genitals like vampires suck blood from their victims, describes the Roman Catholic Church as being “the largest, most well-funded and organized pedophile group in the history of man” and accuses both Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy of committing idolatry.

Protestantism: The group criticizes several mainline Protestant churches including Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Baptists.

Islam: The group believes Mohammed was a demon-possessed whoremonger and pedophile who contrived a 300-page work of satanic fiction: The Quran!

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: The group believes Mormons are “America’s own whoremonger and pedophile that wangled their own hokey Book of Mormon.”

Hinduism: The group believes Hinduism is a religion “full of idolatry that inevitably results in fags and fag-enablers.”

Judaism: The group believes “Jews killed Christ” and that “the only true Jews are Christians. The rest of the people who claim to be Jews aren’t, and they are nothing more than typical, impenitent sinners.”

President Barack Obama: The groups believes Barack Obama is the Antichrist, and that he forms an Unholy Trinity with Satan and Pope Benedict XVI who is believed by the group to be the False Prophet.

It’s about losing control. And letting go. And figuring what the difference between those two things.

Losing Control

Nobody likes the idea of losing control. I myself am a total control freak, and if you ask anyone around me they’ll probably agree with that assessment. It’s just my nature. I like knowing what’s going on, staying on top of things, being in total control of as much as I can of the things that influence me. But there’s plenty of times when I can’t be as in control as I’d like.

The past four years have forced me to learn to accept some of those things I can’t control. In fact, they’ve taught me to do my best to enjoy losing control a little. To not let the stress get to me, to recognize that–no matter how business and crazy my life might get–it’ll all get done, and I’ll do it well (if it’s the last thing I do!).

Letting Go

Letting go is a little different. It’s disconnecting, pushing away the things that bug me, shoving aside the stressors and annoyances of the everyday. It’s saying I’ve had ENOUGH and just letting the small things slide, focusing on the big picture.

Letting go is probably equally hard for me as losing control is, if not harder. I do tend to sweat the small stuff. I do sometimes get caught up in details. I do sometimes freak out of things that, quite honestly, I shouldn’t be freaking out about.

Sometimes this is a good thing–an attention for detail is important in a lot of cases, and I have that. Sometimes it’s not such a good thing, like when a project honestly isn’t that big a deal and I end up wasting way too much time on something, sacrificing quality on something that might be much more important. But in those situations, I’ve learned to prioritize, and (thankfully), that’s a rare problem anymore.

Losing control and letting go are a lot alike. I know I struggle every day to do a little of both, to focus on the important things in life and work and school and not let the small things get to me, allowing myself to occasionally lose control, and letting go of those things that I shouldn’t let intrude into my life. It’s not easy, but it’s a constant process of improvement.

What about you? How would you explain the difference between the two? Is it as hard for you as it is for me? Any tips?

• My first USA Today blog post is online! In it, I write about how George Friedman’s book The Next One Hundred Years has changed my perception of leadership as I enter my senior year of college. Go read it, and go “like” USA Today’s Facebook page while you’re at it–they’re doing some awesome work.
• The American University chapter of SMCEDU (Social Media Club for Education) is getting up and running, founded by yours truly. We’ve been recognized as an official student organization, signed on our faculty advisor, begun building up our faculty advisory board, and are submitting our first budget and rolling out our first advertisements in less than two weeks. Soon I’ll begin blogging on AU Professor Matt Nisbet’s blog, Age of Engagement, on the subject as well, and I couldn’t be more excited! Lots more on this topic coming soon.
• Class is moving along smoothly. My six classes this semester are keeping me busy, but haven’t become overwhelming yet (and hopefully they won’t!). It’s a refreshing change of pace from the past, since all of my courses this semester are major or minor related, with no general education courses. I feel like I’m enjoying them more, learning more and actually able to get my work done more efficiently. It’s nice.
• My computer is still dead. But being resuscitated as I type this (I hope). Finally got an Apple “genius” who seemed to know what he was talking about and it sounds like my hard drive is dying on me. It’s odd I can still access files, but he talked like there was basically something fatally corrupt about it that won’t let me boot the OS normally. He promised if replacing the hard drive didn’t fix it they wouldn’t charge me for it, so I let them go for it. Plus, they’re upgrading me to a 250 GB from a 160 GB, and I could use the extra space anyway.
• Work is still crazy, and squeezing in CEA work with TechChange work, and now my assistant editor duties at Technorati, is keeping me busy, busy, busy. I love them all though, and I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything.

Anyway, there’s your quick update. Hoping to get some good content written up in the next day or two and keep you guys thinking over the next week.

It’s a great feeling. And it’s a great milestone to recognize how important my bike has become to me and maintaining my sanity over the past few months.

Throughout the spring and this past summer, I’ve gotten busier and busier. My life has been turned upside-down thanks to social media, networking, and entering my final year of undergraduate study at American University, and this upcoming year isn’t getting any calmer. With three jobs, six classes, a new organization on campus and two executive board positions–not to mention maintaining posts on more than five blogs and numerous social media accounts–things are understandably a little crazy. I like it that way (I wouldn’t have it any other way, in fact) but having a little down time every day is kind of nice.

And that’s where my bike comes in. With the 15-20 miles I ride every day, it gives me just enough time to relax. No news. No social media. No talking. No distractions at all. No stress.

On my bike, it’s just me and the wind and the city I love around me. It’s navigating the winding, bumpy streets of Georgetown, or riding through the quiet little neighborhoods between Logan Circle and Dupont, or riding along the Crescent or Mt. Vernon trails, enjoying the nature around me. It’s the small amount of time every day that I can push everything else out of my mind and just focus on the wind, the smell of the world, and the beautiful, refreshing pain in my legs as I pump those pedals up Wisconsin Avenue.

In Copenhagen my bicycle became my life. It was a form of transportation, and a conversation piece. It was a form of protest for climate change during the COP15 climate change conference. It was a souvenir in my photos, videos, and my memory. It was a crap bike, but to be honest, I kind of miss it.

In DC I brought that back with me, and it changed the way I look at my city and the world around me. I learned this city like I’d never seen it before. In my first two years of college I viewed DC as a series of metro stations, small, separate communities connected by tunnels and nothing more. But the city is so much more than that–not to mention more than the politics and the nonsense headlines (“Is Washington BROKEN?” ::GASP::). My bicycle let me explore the city in new and unexpected ways.

Anyway, here’s to 1500 miles, and here’s to 1500 more.

I sold for $45, to the always amazing @jillfoster. We’re planning a “morning date” for next week–despite the fact that she’s married! Of course it’s not a real date, but I offered to hang out and help her with her blog and any other personal technological projects that have been put on the back burner lately–I’m looking forward to it!

The event was a blast. When @andinarvaez contacted me earlier in the week to ask me to auction myself off, I wasn’t entirely sure what to think, but it couldn’t have been more fun. While obviously I wasn’t looking for a real date–this crowd isn’t exactly my target market, ya know–I’m thrilled to be able to hang out with such a brilliant professional like Jill!

In other news, I’m exhausted! The beginning of classes have hit hard. The classes themselves aren’t that difficult, but it’s just a lot to balance, and I’m sure I’ll adjust as the summer goes on. But more on that later… for now, I’m grabbing some shut-eye.

It’s that time of year again, when my life goes from being just abnormally busy and ridiculous to absolutely-mind-esplodingly busy and ridiculous. Yup, school starts back in just under one week.

I’ll admit, I’m already feeling the pressure a little–which is odd, given that I haven’t stepped foot back in a classroom yet. It’s mostly mental, and it’s not necessarily bad, but that extra responsibility for my six (6!) classes is going to be a kick in the butt for the next few months. Thankfully my work schedule will calm down soon (cutting my hours almost in half), and with a little luck the weather will get nicer, leaving me a little less exhausted at the end of the day than I have been in this heat.

In fact, I’m kind of excited for my classes this fall (and yes, I know I say this every semester, and by the end I’m about ready to bang my head against the wall). I’m done with general education requirements, and really, based on course descriptions and syllabi alone, I’m not expecting this to be that difficult of a semester. And well hey, I slogged through six semesters and a summer course already, surely I can manage two more, right?

The biggest thing hanging over my head is the amount of ongoing projects I still have on my plate. I’m designing not one, but two websites (both of which will likely extend throughout the semester) and I have a fair amount of blogging responsibilities. Bad thing? Not really–in fact, blogging and designing are kind of nice, relaxing escapes from the textbooks and assignments I’ll be facing over the coming months. But they’re still more to do, which means I’m going to have to put a little more hustle in my step to get it all done.

Probably my biggest ongoing project–and I’m really regretting not getting this all done and out of the way in June–is my spring capstone project. While the content is finished, the website is not. And I’m contemplating turning it into an e-book, at the prodding of @amandamogul and @riethja.

But it’ll all get done. A little positive thinking and perhaps a teensy bit less sleep, and I know I’ll make it through just fine. Will it be a little stressful? Sure. But then again, I seem to kind of thrive on this stuff. And if all else fails, I know I’ve got an amazing community of friends–online and off–to turn to for a little extra moral support.

In other words, bear with me. I’m going to need lots of motivation over the next month and a half or so!

In addition, I’m on the look out for social media professionals who might be interested in helping me out with a quick interview via phone, e-mail or in person. This semester I’m completing my first honors capstone, for communications, focusing on social media and its impact on politics, social movements and the traditional news media. Are you a thought leader in this industry? Are you a thought leader in any of those industries? Let me know! I’d love to talk to you and gain some more insight as I work to complete the project.

The “deliverable” for this product will actually be in the form of a Web site. Because I’m titling the project “The Social Media Revolution,” the site will be hosted at SocMediaRev.com–not the easiest to say, but it’s the best I could snag; after all, “social media”-related domains are quite the hot commodity nowadays. Feel free to check out the site as you like, but keep in mind that right now, it’s simply a shell, and over the coming weeks it will be very much a work in progress. Please don’t judge! And of course, rest assured I’ll be blabbing all over the place once it’s finally finished.

Anyway, as always, thanks so much to my friends–and those of you I don’t know–reading my content here on this blog. And thanks so much to all my Twitter friends as well, who keep me motivated to stay active there, even if I can’t quite commit the time to posting blog entries as often as I’d like! More to come soon.

Oh, and in about five minutes I’ll be getting another badge on Foursquare. Because by golly it’s after 3am on a school night and I want that school night badge. Yes, I am a hopeless social media addict.

One thing I noticed today was that, in the light of South by Southwest (#sxsw) I’ve found myself saying “I’m jealous” a lot of people attending the conference–and even people not attending. People who aren’t as busy as I am. People who had a chance to see Avatar. People who have more time to watch their favorite TV shows. People who have nice weather. People who have awesome jobs.

I really need to stop it. I have no reason to be jealous. Honestly, life is pretty great right now. Do I have a lot going on? Sure. Is it stressful? Yea, a little bit. Is it totally fun and worth it? Absolutely.

I’m learning more in school right now than I ever have. My internship has already taught me more about traditional and nontraditional communication strategy than I thought I’d learn all semester. I have some of the best friends around–in real life, on Twitter, and all over the world (thanks y’all, you rock). And I feel that sense of opportunity… always. There’s so much to learn, so much out there to experience, and so many doors just waiting to be opened. Or kicked down.

Anyway, enough for now, but that’s my message for the night: be productive, don’t be jealous, appreciate every opportunity.

To talk about college this way may sound élitist. It may even sound philistine, since the purpose of a liberal-arts education is to produce well-rounded citizens rather than productive workers. But perhaps it is more foolishly élitist to think that going to school until age 22 is necessary to being well-rounded, or to tell millions of kids that their future depends on performing a task that only a minority of them can actually accomplish.

Well, he’s right on that first point. It does sound élitist. It does sound philistine. But the sheer gumption of saying it’s élitist to encourage kids to get a college education? That’s absolute insanity.

The author seems to subscribe to the viewpoint that people are born with certain abilities. That some people are just destined for greatness, while others will be trapped in the lower-class culture of our society. He’s simply wrong.

I grew up in rural Kentucky. I come from an upper-middle class, pretty average family. I’ve been blessed–and a fair bit lucky–but one of the primary reasons I have been as successful as I’ve been is thanks to my education and my college experience so far, at American University.

And it’s not just me. I’ve seen friends from lower-class, lower-middle class, and even upper-class go from unsavory circumstances to college, and they’re achieving greatness as we speak. Will they be CEOs, Senators, Presidents or entrepreneurs? Not necessarily. But their advanced education is giving them the knowledge they need to keep pushing our country forward.

Let’s look at it from a macro-level. Look at the United States in comparison to Asian countries’ performance in math, statistics, engineering, and the sciences. We lag behind–sometimes by a significant margin. Sure we’ve got the economic advantage, the legacy of being the world’s largest superpower, and a fair bit of innovation under our belts, but who says that will last forever? And at the rate countries like China and India are growing, progressing, and, in many ways, catching up to us, shows that more advanced education is the only argument we should be making.

The bipartisanship on the need for education is one of the few bright spots of cooperation you can find in our government right now. Who in their right mind could argue against that?

Ponnuru is missing the point. Sure, there are some people in college right now who might not be able to handle it. But is the answer to just give up, an stop sending them to college altogether? Is the answer just to let them stop learning, to go work on the farm, to grab a job collecting garbage or clerking grocery stores? No, no, no, no and NO.

The solution to this problem is obvious. Ponnuru even says it flat out in his article: “We could probably increase the number of high school seniors who are ready to go to college — and likely to make it to graduation — if we made the K-12 system more academically rigorous.” But then he goes on to refute his own point, dismissively saying “college isn’t for everyone.”

College isn’t for everyone now because our high schools aren’t doing their job. College isn’t for everyone because our education system is up to par for the greatness of America. College isn’t for everyone because idiots like this are writing articles arguing against it, with absolutely zero rational, empirical, or substantiated points to base their argument on.

American University

So as you may have heard, D.C. has been absolutely trounced by snow this past week. And it doesn’t look like it’s over yet.

Now the National Weather Service is predicting 10-20″ tomorrow and Wednesday, to add to the two feet plus that we already have on the ground. Insanity.

The federal government was shut down today and likely will be tomorrow. D.C. public schools were closed yesterday (despite our Mayor at first declaring a two hour delays) and now are closed tomorrow, too. Almost every other school system around the Washington metropolitan area, in both Maryland and Virginia, is closed until at least Wednesday–although with this newest storm they’ll likely remain closed all week.

American University, my school, was closed today. Still wondering if we’ll have class tomorrow, but if the storm tomorrow night is as bad as expected, no class Wednesday (and possibly Thursday) is almost guaranteed. We shall see.

For now, I’m doing my best to stay productive. So far doing alright for staying on top of schoolwork (and got lucky, one exam was pushed back to next week) but there’s always more to do. Also, I’m trying to keep up with blog posts–be sure to check out my post from earlier recapping the Gibraltar Associates social media event from Thursday and discussing how to create a new “need-to-share” culture within governmental agencies.

Now on to more work. Got one more part of a paper to write, a few blog posts to draft, and then lots-o-reading to do. More updates soon and, as always, on my Twitter.