Modification. There are so many facets of life it applies to. From the pimped-out ride down your street to the neon-pink house your neighbor just HAD to paint, we just have to have everything tailored to our own specific style. Of course, our bodies are no exception. With this note, I'll be delving into the somewhat taboo world of bodily modification.

First of all, there are several different forms of it. Tattoos and piercings are the main ones; some even go as far as to purchase intentional scarring and forked tongues. It's all about who you are, what you're trying to convey, and what your personal beliefs are. Obviously, some of these are pretty out there, so this begs the question - why are people interested in bod modding?

On the first level, there's that girl at the party with a Chinese symbol/tramp stamp/nose stud. Some people bod mod on an impulse, or just because it "looks cool." How many times have you heard stories of people with foreign tattoos who later came to discover that the tattoo artist pranked them by writing something along the lines of "I love dick" instead of "I love you" ? These individuals are the main funding behind the tattoo removal market; many often complain that they wish they hadn't done this because they were young and foolish. An extreme example of an individual who bod modded for visual purposes is Erik Sprague, widely known as the Lizardman.



On another level, there are those who bod mod as part of some sort of ritual or religious practice. Dennis Avner went so far as to completely transform himself into a tiger (his totem).



Speaking of body modification and religion, there are some religions that actually look down on bod modding altogether. Being raised Catholic, I was often told that my body is a temple of God and should not be marred by piercings or tattoos.

However, being the free-thinking individual that I am, I developed an affinity towards bod modding. Currently I have 5 commonplace piercings - my navel and 2 on each earlobe. For my 18th birthday, I'm celebrating by getting my septum pierced. Honestly, I've always wanted a sort of facial piercing; it just took me awhile to figure out what I actually wanted.

My views on bod modding? Well, I'm an artist. Therefore, I see the body as a blank canvas - each person has an equal right to paint on his or her own canvas to show the world. I see bod modding as an expression of self, just as a singer would write a song or a poet would write a poem. In this world, it's all about expressing yourself however you feel necessary. Furthermore, I personally prefer my bod mods to have some sort of meaning; I'm not the type to go out and get something just because it "looks cool." Although the body is a canvas, there's limited space. Plus, you're stuck with it forever, so you might as well make sure you REALLY want it before you alter yourself permanently.

Any personal thoughts on bod modding you'd like to share with me? I'm always open to different perspectives.

Found this post on my old Xanga, and I figured it had merit so I moved it here.

When I was younger, I had absolutely zero interest in politics. That may be because I'm only a teenager, but nonetheless; I found no value in them. About a year or two ago, I defined politics as a bunch of crooked men/women in expensive suits extorting money from the general public. My main thought at this point in time was "anarchy forever!" Granted, I've been through a lot of phases in the past few years, that's just part of growing up. Well, in less than a year I'll be a legal adult - able to partake in many activities that I couldn't before, such as clubbing and voting. Along with increased privileges, I also noticed an increased open-mindedness in myself over the past few months. This brings me to the point of this blog - personal political growth throughout the years.

Let's go back a few years. At this point, I was too young to really care too much about politics. However, I was never blind to them - my grandfather was a city councilman and my late uncle was a mayor. Despite the family tendency, I showed no interest.

A little later, I was introduced to the whole anarchy concept. No rules, do whatever you want, party, fun. Sounds pretty good, right? I thought so.

However, after some time passed, I realized that without rules, there is chaos. It wouldn't make much sense to have an anarchist country if it caused a real life dystopia, now would it?

Once again, we fast forward. Enter my eighth grade year - the end of my political ignorance. I could no longer be ignorant to politics and current events thanks to my eighth grade teacher. Every Friday, we had one news article due. The cycle was as follows: legislative-based, executive-based, judicial-based, editorial cartoon-based, and lastly - our own hand-drawn editorial cartoon. This was during George W. Bush's term, around the beginning of the war on terror. I remember selecting an editorial cartoon that depicted a rich man loosening his belt (tax cuts for the wealthy) and a poor man on the street tightening his belt. At the time, I found this outrageous. Why would the President give the rich a break while making the poor work harder? His views appeared skewed to me. Also, I was irritated whenever I read about celebrities spending obscene amounts of money on items such as earrings, purses, and other designer goods. You could say that I was pretty democratic.

However, I recently had a complete change in perspective. This year, in American History, I was educated in the matters of supply-side economics. This piece of the overall lesson probably had the greatest impact on my perspective. According to my history book, tax cuts for the rich allowed them to create more businesses with their extensive money supplies, thus creating more jobs and overall pumping more money into the economy. The icing on the cake is that IT ACTUALLY WORKED when Reagan did it.

I've heard several contrasting opinions regarding President Obama. Some believe he's the greatest yet, by taxing the rich. Well, what people fail to realize is that the rich are the ones with the greatest potential to take off in their private jets and stay somewhere less taxing. From what I've heard, Obama's tax on the rich backfired for this exact reason, and we're still stuck in this recession. During a recent discussion with my uncle, we both concurred that Obama's high-income tax was a mistake and would not solve anything.

Also, my perspective on big celebrity spending has changed based on this theory. Why get upset about big money being spent if it's coming right back into our economy? That's actually a good thing. This took me quite a long time to realize.

However, there is ONE EXCEPTION to this. You may or may not have heard about government officials extorting money from taxpayers and spending it on frivolous things. This includes the bailout money that was wasted by some companies. Sure, it's great to pump funds back into the economy, but if you've got the funds to do it, don't use our hard-earned cash that we need to survive!

In conclusion, turns out Bush didn't have the wrong idea after all. Sure, he didn't do it in the right manner (adding to our recession woes) but if the President knows what he's doing, supply-side economics are the way to go. Need proof? Crack open a history book and read about the success of the Reagan era.