There are millions of people and innocent animals out there dying at the hands of us Americans- because we sit here with our electronics and televisions and spitefully laugh at the world. If anything, the world seems to be getting crueler. Just today I heard some people talking about how they hate cats and how they shoot them with cap guns. They were laughing and talking about kicking cats and thinking it was one big joke. So you think that inflicting suffering on an innocent animal is funny? You think that pain is something to be laughed at? Do you people not feel any sympathy towards animals? Do you people not have a conscious, even after you injure and kill animals that have never done anything to you?

Normally I’m a pretty levelheaded person, looking at debates, analyzing them, finding information, and presenting it without losing my temper, but this article is the one exception. To hear people so carelessly talk about cats like they aren’t worth anything, and are just here to be killed and hurt so mercilessly, that just pushed me to the edge.

If you are one of these cold hearted people who take their problems out on animals, I’d like you to put yourself in their shoes. What if someone kicked you? I don’t think you’d find that a laughing matter at all.

Thankfully, there’s an organization out there here to help stop the kinds of people who hurt animals because they think it’s ‘cool’ or ‘funny’. www.aspca.com doesn’t give mental help to those people who like to hear animals’ cries of pain, but instead it helps the victims of cruel acts towards animals.

This is an issue that should be addressed. This should be something drawn to people’s attention. The spiteful acts of inflicting pain to creatures that have almost always been abused should be ended. NOW.

-Rika

This is no laughing matter

Many people aren’t aware of the traumatic things occurring in Northern Uganda, even after 22 years. Now it’s far past time when the situation should be discovered discovered.

How the terror began:

It all started with a very corrupted woman names Alice Lakwena who claimed that the holy spirit told her to overthrow the Ugandan government for being cruel to the Acholis in the 1980’s. After awhile, Lakwena was exiled and her ‘Holy Spirit Movement’ was left with no leader. So, the person who decided to take her place was her supposed cousin, Joseph Kony. He took over and transformed the group into the LRA. Due to the fact that government defenses increased, and support for the group decreased (because of violent tactics Kony and his group resorted to) 90% of Army is now abducted children.

In 1996 government took action and relocated millions to camps to try and keep them safe.  However, so many people were relocated that many are now struggle in these camps to live. Poverty, disease, and starvation are major problems most people face in these relocation camps.

What LRA Has Done:

The LRA has done so many things it’s almost unbearable to even think about. LRA captures children and makes them into soldiers. Not only that but most often they have the kids return home and shoot their own families. Young girls are kidnapped.Thousands are forced to become night commuters where they must walk for miles on end to find a place to sleep for the night. LRA is also notorious for cutting off the lips of their victims. That’s only some of the things their are also indirect causes. Such as children becoming orphans and young children forced to reach a mature level of thinking very early in life.

Our Actions Toward Help:

In 2001 the U.S Patriot Act officially declared the LRA terrorists. Then, in 2004, the United States issued the Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act. Shortly after this followed the International Crime Courts warrants put out for the arrests of Kony and his top four men. Recently, in both July of 2006 and 2007, meetings have been made to make peace and resolve conflict in Uganda. They haven’t yet reached this goal yet, but it is in sight.

Today in Uganda:

Right now, a declaration for long lasting peace is being sought. Steps for justice for victims and perpetrators for crimes during war are currently being discussed in Gulu. Uganda is in the aftermath of the war but they still need education, water, food, and so much more. A lot is still needed to help bring this war to a close, and to help those finally released from IDP camps.

They time to act is now! Don’t wait any longer spread the word- this has been said to be the most neglected humanitarian emergency ever. It’s time to change! To find more information or discover ways to help visit invisiblechildren.com! The future of Uganda relies on you.

One of my very best friends wrote this awhile back and actually won an award for it. Let me know what you think.

Are we all just dreaming?
Is anything as it seems?
Maybe we are play things,
in some child’s twisted dreams.
Maybe we are the nightmare,
making that child scream.
If that child wakes up what will we be?
Are we even here now?
Are we even real?
Somehow I highly doubt that.
We’re a figment of imagination.
A dark fog in a child’s mind.
Slipping away forever.
Never becoming true.
A child’s nightmare is all we are.
AUTUMN T. SALARI

Now that you’ve read it, what do you think? What is America’s dream for the future? Share your thoughts, dreams, and plans for the future.

So many lines we’ve never heard, but when have we truly opened our ears?

Calister’s Random Afternote

It’s not enough to just to open our ears, but we also have to act. For example, if a country is thinking of attacking another country (for some random, usually unfathomable reason) then everyone needs to listen to everyone’s ideas on how to inflict as much damage as possible on an innocent country that was minding their own buisness. But even if they come up with this great combat plan, it’s useless if they just stand around not doing anything. (Well, they’d save a lot of lives)

Not much, apparently, otherwise we’d be doing a heck of a lot more right now than that. It often excites my curiosity that an entire world of people who wear 99.8% of their genetic material can be so wrong on some things. Take, for example, each other!

So, sure, we’ve had our disagreements in the past, but hey, nobody’s perfect (Except me), right? Not even 6 billion people who’ve had millions of generations to work out their petty differences out between one another with violence, but NO, let’s all save up our national rivalries and unleash them in the 21st century, right?

This, to be brutally honest, sickens me and makes me wish that nothing would ever go wrong with the world. Which, unfortunately for mankind, I am accepting communism as the only way out. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate(d) communism, but hate to admit that I’m wrong even more. I honestly can’t describe how many times Democracy and Dictatorship have clashed in pointless bouts that gets millions murdered, and sure, Democracy’s always the good guy, But what happens when it’s not? What happens then?

“Communism is the opiate of the intellectuals with no cure except as a guillotine might be called a cure for dandruff.” - Clare Boothe Luce

Rika’s Thoughts:

So you chose that one person should make all the important decisions for a nation? Although that one person may be wrong? Wouldn’t power be corrupted if one person had too much of it? Wouldn’t decisions be harder to make with only one person at the top? Wouldn’t life be harder with no freedom of choice? Without free roaming? I think that democracy, although it has many flaws, is a better choice. A communist/dictatorship government could go into war and the people would have to follow no matter what. In a democracy, there could be choices, there could be riots, there could be so many different voices out there to lead the government in the right place. Wouldn’t the power to be free- no matter how destructive it might turn out- be the best way to go?

Most people in this world are always very willing to tear other people down to get to the top, and yes, sometimes it is necessary, but the whole world doesn’t need to be so vicious.

So starting with this article I am going to attempt a kind of domino theory to spread a little bit of peace to others. Well, who better to uplift then the people of The Nearby Future Staff?

Here we go! First off is Rika, all of you probably know she is the hardest worker on this entire website! Heck, she even created it but what else is she extremely good at? Well one of here many talents is she’s an awesome director she both wrote and directed the Kingdom Hearts Play while also starring in it! Now if that isn’t talented then I don’t know what is. Also Rika is a dedicated environmentalist every time I see her she is pushing someone off a defenseless tree or picking up someone else’s litter. Rika should win a Noble Peace Prize… possibly instead of Al Gore- I mean seriously, who likes him? But anyway, Rika has a lot of dedication and is good at absolutely everything she does.

Secondly, is Ashley Lampost the every time you see her she is reading or writing a fantastic story! Lampost loves to read in fact she’s the one who introduced Maximum Ride to us, the merry band of writers. When I very first met her she was reading Eragon and she finished it really fast. If there was ever someone who would be able to compete with Jala for biggest book fanatic, it would be Ashley Lampost.  

Next is Jala, probably the site’s favorite, but why is she the favorite? Well I’ll tell you: because she’s an amazing person. As you all know she is a extremely fast reader and if you ever get the chance to witness it, it only blows your mind that much more. Also, she is very good at forgiving- keeping her cool when I accidentally ripped one of her precious books, page 22 to be exact. But that’s not the point- Jala is an amazing person and if she used her domination, she probably could rule the world, but none of us have to worry; she’s to involved in her books to take action.

Another fantastic staff member is Jennith. Although she doesn’t write much when she does the articles are outstanding. Such as the Chocolate Cars- I mean come on people it’s a masterpiece! Jennith also has mad skills at Guitar Hero, she’s so good I bet she could beat that kid from China that was on Ellen DeGeneres. But Jennith is also a very dedicated animal lover she currently is an officer for ASPCA helping to make the world an animal abuse free world.

Also another very important staff member is Calister F. Wells. Calister is probably best at contradicting exactly what Rika says and does a splendid job. He once said that he would volunteer to be Peter in Ender’s Game and I’m not sure if it would be much different of a life style for him. Just kidding, but he’s good at a lot of things and he would be a good consideration for future dictator of the world. The only thing he isn’t good at is acting, however he is very humble and manages to never watch anything that he stars in.

Finally there is Hope, if you’ve ever read Hope’s articles you know that she is very good at what she does. She supports her articles very well on both sides of the controversy, then at the end shows her opinion, so that you have time to decide what your opinion is. Hope loves to dance and believe me she’ll drag you on the dance floor if you refuse to on your own.

So that’s all the staff members that deserve a ‘Hip Hip Hooray’. Make sure to tell someone else you know how important they are in this world. One simple gesture of kindness can brighten someones whole day.

P.S. I am very aware that I forgot some of the people who participate on this site, and that is because they are contributors and need their own article because they aren’t staff but contributors. Three Cheers For Our Staff and Contributors didn’t sound all that cool. So in the far future I will uplift the contributors, but keep in mind this is the Nearby Future not the far away future (Alright, so I’m probably never going to write about contributors.)

P.S.S. Sorry to Rika who must once again fix and edit my articles, we all appreciate what you do for us!

What is wrong with our planet?

Being America, it’s easy to do what we do best: (no, not eating fast food, although we do that too) import stuff from other countries. We import everything from food to dinky little party favors to food. A good question to ask is what happens when there is a worldwide famine, and we can’t import food anymore? What happens if our agriculture industry goes down the drain? Then what?

This is something we may be facing soon, as global warming is drying up major rivers around the globe that help water crops. What then? What if climate change happens and rainfall doesn’t fall on farmland? What if instead it floods deserts? In the future, I don’t exactly want to see cacti floating by in a lake.

“Melting Glaciers Will Trigger Flood Shortage”, an article from newscientist.com states that the main problems we have to worry about is irrigation patterns being offset. When you think about it, farms have a very precarious system. One degree of change, or a slight shift in rivers will hike up prices and make the problems of our world worse.

So, in short, we have a lot of work to do on our unstable planet. We better get started!

Now what?

The world is changing, countries finally acting on the problems that global warming is creating. But what can you do, as a person, to stop this impeding disaster?

This is the basic, simple list on what you can do:

• Turn off the lights and save electricity wherever you can. (Helps your bills and the world!)
• Drive a more fuel-efficient car (Get rid of your Hummer!)
• Read the newspaper online, and print out only the articles you want to read, in lieu of receiving the newspaper every day.
• Stop smoking
• Get a fuel efficient car
• Don’t use the plastic bags in the grocery store, bring your own reusable grocery bags. (Can be bought at some stores, like Sprouts, or online.) Not only is this good for the environment, but these bags (most of them) stand upright in the trunk of your car instead of slumping over like plastic bags.
• Need a pool heater? Get a solar powered one
• Did I already mention getting a fuel efficient car?

Just by doing this, you are already helping the world. Some of the items on the basic list are common sense, such as not smoking, and getting a fuel efficient car. Remember, every little step helps!

Are you even more environment-savvy and are looking for more ways to make your home more ‘green’? Here’s a nice list of some of my favorite websites on making your life more green: [to be added]

-Rika

I was watching Oprah (yes, I know, people think she is overrated) but I like her a lot. Lisa Ling was doing a report on dogs and puppy mills and how you should buy a mixed breed dog and not to buy them from pet stores. Did you know that many pet stores get their dogs from puppy mills? Do you even know what puppy mills are? They abuse puppies by making them mate with other dogs. Then, once they get too old, they let people take them home. However, they are so abused that it takes many treatments to get them well again. On top of that, they are so afraid of everything that social training must be involved too. This is a very sad and should be stopped immediately.

Here is another very sad thing. Many shelters are not no-kill and therefore have to euthanize animals. Go to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-euthanizing-in-americas-animal-shelters to sign the petition. There are also many other sites like pollmonkey.com that also has many other petitions. This should be stopped now.

Okay, I hope you can know to buy a mixed breed! They are so fun-loving and sweet. They can actually be better in training classes and are known to be smarter than purebreds. So please consider these sweet animals for adoption.

-Hope