Flappers and all that jazz

I wish I was born in another time period...don't get me wrong, I actually like the 2000s with all the great music (i mean we have more than just pretty boy bands, we DO have some real music out there), the great technology (as much as I hate hashtags, I think twitter's pretty cool) and

some cool things going on (the church is starting to accept gay people, and I'm expecting our current pope to actually let women be priests)- 

yes that about sums up the 2000s for me- 

                                                        music, social justice (almost there), technology (only partially). 

Hell.. that about sums up everything I care about in my life- 

    (you can now see why this site is titled 'Yeah I'm A Teenage Blogger' now haha)

Well IF I was born in any other time period, I'd probably choose (because this is my world, and here we have a free choice of which era to be born in) the 1920's, the roaring 20's yeah.

Everyone  knows about how the 20's was a time when there was much illegal drinking because alcohol was prohibited (I know most people's reaction to this law was something like "wait...wah..bu..wat?!" but I think I understand why they did it).

                       But the 20's was so much more than speak-easies (illegal bars with actual passwords :)

and dancing women and jazz music. It was something else, it was the AGE of progress (even more so than the progressive era!). 

                       Women TOTALLY rose up. These 1920's ladies laid the foundation for what we are today. They started going to college and getting a job (or at least going to high school and getting a job), they started fashion, they started make-up, they started flirting- in other words, they started the woman race as it is today. 

                         Without the 1920s women would have been like: 

From this 

To this

that girl at whose birth everyone flinched because she was a girl. That girl who stayed at home all day and did house work for her mother.
That girl who compliantly married the man of her parents' choice.
That girl who now stayed at home all day and did house work for her husband.

That girl who enjoyed her sad little life because it was all she knew.

Now that the 20s came around, the women had more to do. I admit that it wasn't like all the women just suddenly woke up one day and went, "Oh my God! my life is going to ruins! I must totally leave the house and get out there! I need to see the world!". And that's partially because we don't usually say stuff the moment when we wake up (it's more like uhuuuhh.....hucbdsb which is sleep code for "I want to be asleep right now!!") and also because nobody actually says things like that.
                      It was just the circumstances, women had just gotten the right to vote. They thought they were on top of things. They'd been working through the war to keep up the economy and were feeling pretty accomplished. So they got out of the house, they got jobs, they got themselves some money.
              That's when it started, the nations first generation of shoppers! These ladies were great! Skirts became littler, co-eds became commoner (more common?) - you were finally allowed to spend the rest of your life with someone you actually knew and liked!! and make-up started to exist :)

I may not be the biggest fan of slutty dresses and make up, but...I guess these guys are an exception. I mean, the life of a woman in the 1900's was probably torture- I'd take slutty dresses and make up over forced child birth and spousal rape any day.

                 But as usual, the "elders" had a problem with the girls. Don't they always? They called these women "flappers"- I suppose that this was their idea of a 'bad word' haha. Obviously it didn't work. We all love 'em now...I mean I think I saw 6-7 "flapper" costumes this halloween and what it did was make me smile.

The flappers were the best thing that happened to the women of the world- they finally made the girls "one of the boys".

How this connects to the world today is the Miley Cyrus talk and all the twerking and *other things* going on there...
                  Is Miley Cyrus the flapper of our generation? Is what we call too much going to be not that much in the future? Are people in the 2100's going to be smiling at all the controvery around the 2013 VMAs?

When are we going to stop? How much progress is too much progress?

I think that the "progress" we are seeing here with Miley Cyrus and all her little follower twerkers is not progress at all...
I mean I don't really have a problem with Miley Cyrus or her amazing nerve (honestly, I admire her for everything) It's just that we're going back to the same old days, the woman entertains the man.

It's okay, women can do whatever they want. That's the idea. I hope this thought doesn't get woozy, I hope no one runs away with the idea that women's progress is twerking heaven--because it isn't.
Women can entertain men, I'm not saying it's wrong or anything...But it's just as long as there're men to entertain women too...That's real gender balance.

I actually think Miley Cyrus has got the right idea, she did seem a bit offended-  talking about how nobody gossips about the guy behind the booty who seems to be enjoying himself, but about the booty itself. (Hey I think that's a quote!! I see a future here :)

So lets just hope all the other trend-setters have they're sights set for the right kind of progress.

(Note: this is NOT a Miley Cyrus post, it's a progress post, it's 1920's salute post---I'm still trying to convince ,myself haha)

Lets give Nuclear Power a chance...can we please?

I know its scary but I really think that's its time for the big Change (its big enough to be capitalized!)
(PS this is a nuclear power plant in the far islands of Germany)

So they're closing another Nuclear Power Plant. Another one. 
                         That's definitely the last straw (though technically for me, it would be the first one. I really haven't really been in the closing nuclear power plants and other groovy news items loop :p ). I seriously think that if things keep going this way, we won't have any (nuclear) power plants left. Imagine that!
                         Most people have an incredibly bad opinion about nuclear power plants, calling it "dangerous" and "unnecessary". It seems like a lot of drama over something that's a good thing :/ 
                            
                        First of all, nuclear power plants aren't dangerous! I don't know what put that notion into people's heads (actually I do, if you're remembering all those explosions. Take note that there has been only one actual dangerous nuclear disaster in history and that was at Chernobyl. Want to know how many people died of it? 56). I'm not saying that it's okay for 56 people to die, if it's just 56 people. 
            I'm saying that nuclear disasters, which people think would happen everyday, almost never happen! We've had only one dangerous one so far, and it was 27 years ago! Technology has improved, we're only getting better at making energy. It's a lot safer now, we haven't had an accident in a looong time (I choose to ignore Fukushima- no I haven't been living under a rock, I know that it happened- because the death toll isn't in. So far they have just one man who died within a 20-mile radius due to anything that remotely resembles over-exposure to high radiation levels). 
                         And also, its not like Nuclear Power Plants are the only ones that have accidents...(because I'm not here to cover up the mistakes made in the past, they're here and there's nothing we can do about it-except for learn from them, which we do- I'm here to point fingers!) Other sources of energy are equally dangerous, sometimes- and by that I mean most of the time- these other sources are a LOT more dangerous. My obvious example would be oil!

That would be uncomfortable on my roof too

Yes i have resorted to cute animal pictures
But hey! they work :)

• First they build they're huge drilling machines over the pretty (dangerous and slippery) Arctic landscape.
• They they take it out. But what good is oil if its all stuck in the Arctic right? So now they take their humongous oil tankers up there to get all the oil back. They aren't even CAREFUL with it. Oils spills are soo common nowadays...(seriously, you can go Google "oil spill in the news" right now and you would probably get news about an oil spill that occurred yesterday or maybe last week?)There have been more than 150 dangerous oil spills recorded in history. The Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills are some of the worst. Just because the ones affected aren't people (in this case, adorable sea otters and other amazing creatures of the sea) doesn't mean that we shouldn't care!

Oil refinery in the UAE

• Then this oil (if it survives an oil spill that is) is taken to a refinery to be well, refined. That's where the people dying part comes in. Do you know how much an oil refinery pollutes the environment in a year? I don't know and I don't want to. Polluted air sucks, it kills people...more than 56 people (I don't mean to offend the 56 who died but I really need them for my comparisons. I'm not evil! Don't judge me!!). THIS is what most environmentalists are always talking about. The ozone layer, polluted air...it all seems so repetitive...but hey! I guess that's the price you pay right?
• Then this refined oil is put into cars, airplanes and all the other ego-rising vessels for transportation and what do we get? More pollution!! yay! (plush interiors and all that jazz to death right?) 
• OR that refined oil is burned to give us "energy" (so what do we have now? A lot of pollution and maybe, just maybe a little titchy bit of energy which isn't enough. Who would've thought?)

                      Now why did I even go into oil and how much it sucks to be a part of a wrld that uses it? Oh yeah...Nuclear Power Plants :)

Thermal power plant in India

                           As I was saying, nuclear power plants are NOT "dangerous" or "expensive". They are, truth be told, a lot cheaper than natural gas/ oil power plants. Its really surprising, really really surprising considering that nuclear power plants make about 73 thousand times more energy than any old natural gas power plant. (73199.998536 to be exact). According to MIT's estimation, natural gas power plants cost about 5.1 ¢/kWhr (cents per kilo-watts hour) while a nuclear power plant costs about 3.5 ¢/kWhr. Lets not forget that natural gas also costs a lot to manufacture, and is also super polluting. Now we know that nuclear power plants are cheaper, we know that they're a lot less work (just one power plant and we're good for the next ten years...no messy refining or drilling). Why not give it a shot? Think of the baby otters!!

Nuclear power plants are green, they're cheap and they aren't what you think they are. Lets give them a chance, because if we do wanna keep riding our cars and flying our planes we should stop using oil to power our lights and computers too!

My source for ALL of this information is http://www.eia.gov/ which is actually a government website and is ALL credible- so this is more than just one delusional girl's thoughts, their real. (I can't believe that I just called myself delusional).