To me, our president’s main job is as a symbol of the American populace. He has a bunch of advisors to tell him or her what to do regarding policy. So basically, I’d just like to have a president who represents the American people well. I’d like him or her to be charismatic and sound intelligent. And I’d like it if he or she didn’t piss a lot of people off when they said things.

We have a lot of work to do to repair our image in the eyes of the rest of the world. It seems like they regard us as lazy, fat, and stupid by comparison. Well never fear, because today I was squeezing into a pair of jeans, and I thought of the easiest, simplest way to fix this problem.

See, the problem isn’t me, and the fact that I’ve gotten fatter. The problem is the pants. I could totally still fit in the same size pants I wore in high school if those size pants were just a little bigger!

Let me be a little more specific. The problem lies at the Bureau of Standards, where we need to think about updating our units to the 21st century. The trouble isn’t that Americans are fat, it’s that our inch is too short. We take inflation into account when it comes to things like the economy, why shouldn’t this principle apply also to our measurements?

And here’s the beauty part: nobody has to know! We’ve been refusing to adopt the metric system for a reason, people. We can make our inch just a little bit longer, our pound a little heavier, but keep all the conversions the same. This way, by our English System units, we will slim down, while the rest of the world stays exactly the same. This means an immediate boost to our national reputation! And without any extra effort on the part of our people.

Well hopefully our next president and his or her advisors will take this idea into consideration. Because really there are very few drawbacks that I can think of. Just guys, when you’re measuring your “length” use the centimeter side.

In my World Civs class we had to choose a country that we’re following throughout the semester, learning about its history and current affairs and such. I chose Norway, because I’ve been feeling a little guilty that my Granny is of 100% Norwegian descent, and all I know about that part of my heritage is what I learned on that stupid ride at Disney World. We all know what a touchtone of cultural and historical accuracy Disney has been..

Now that I finally have internet in my apartment (YAY), it’s become much easier to follow the news. I found an English-language Norwegian newspaper online, and my first little read through it yielded some interesting tidbits of information.

On article I found particularly interesting was this one. I can’t help by be a little bit bothered by the fact that we Americans think we can just impose our will on other countries and expect them to cooperate. In this particular case, the motives and methods of our current administration are definitely questionable, and I’m inclined not to agree with them. I’m sure they have their reasons for doing what they are doing, but real reasons are just a subset of those things which are not divulged to the public. It’s pretty staggering once you suddenly realize how little you know about the inner workings of your own government, and how much is hidden from the average person.

In conclusion, ugh, I can’t stand politics. Which is kind of a shame, because they are so deeply entrenched in our society that we all are going to have to learn how to play that game in some capacity at some point in order to sustain ourselves.

A couple of other articles from the same paper revealed the following juicy morsels: Norway is both the least religious and the fattest country in Europe. I’m so proud *sniff*