| sXe_Straight_Edge_Tribe Online community with discussion boards. Anti: drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, meat, dairy, casual . Pro: punk/ hardcore, animal rights, keeping your body free of poison. |
| sXe_com Message board and website dedicated to the straight edge lifestyle. |
| To_Be_Straight-Edge Promotes veganism/animal liberation, SxE beliefs, and hardcore music. |
| Vegan-Straightedge_Mailing_List Run by a Toronto writer. Postings remain entirely uncensored. |
| X_Sisterhood_X_com Group promoting girls in hardcore and straightedge through message boards, artwork, articles, reviews, definitions, photography, contests, and community. |
| Xstraight_edge_over_25X Straight edge group for those 25 years of age and up. |
| Yahoo_Groups__sXe To get together and discuss living the sXe lifestyle. |
| Yahoo_Groups__sXe_freaks For anyone to talk, post poems or stories. Straight edgers mainly but anyone is welcome. |
| BBC_h2g2__Straight_Edge_Philosophy An article on the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy explaining what the straight edge lifestyle is and how it came about. (May 30, 2001) |
| Straight_Edge_on_20/20 Transcript of a 20/20 segment on the movement. (March 26, 1999) |
| Kids_With_an_Edge Article and interview by Simon Fraser University's newspaper. (September 22, 1997) |
| Ancestry_Connections Lists of surnames with links plus world and USA sections. |
| AncientFaces Collection of old family and military photographs, stories, and family recipes, submitted by site users. |
| Black_Sheep_Ancestors Directory of convict, court, prison and execution records. |
| Census_Links A directory of links to census, marriage, birth, and death record transcriptions, mainly in the United States. |
| Cinnamon_Toast_Genealogy An index of links to genealogy web sites and databases, classified by surname and by region. |
| CyberPursuits__Genealogy Collection of links categorized by region, topic, surname, organizations and associations. |
| Dig_Up_Your_Roots Children or s interested in family history research can find suggestions and links for genealogy research. |
| Firstmom\'s_Genealogy_Resources_and_Records Offers links to genealogy records online. |
| Gen_Source Online genealogy resources. Search tools using multiple surname databases. |
| GeneaLinks A categorized directory of well-known and not-so-well-known genealogy and history sites and a database of marriage records. |
| Genealogy_and_Family_History_Internet_Web_Directory Select resources worldwide with an emphasis on scholarly sites. Organised by region and topic. |
| Genealogy_at_About_com Features links for researching family history, including genealogical societies, ethnic sites, and access genealogical software. |
| Genealogy_for_WebTV Directory of genealogy resources designed for WebTV viewers. |
| Genealogy_Home_Page Links to genealogy tutorials, resources, newsgroups, online resources, maps and software. |
| Genealogy_Infocenter Links to genealogy related mail lists and FAQs. |
| Genealogy_Links_and_Surname_Search_Engines Collection of links to resources and search pages. |
| Genealogy_Mine Large collection of links. Includes state, ethnic, military, church, archives, and adoption. |
| Genealogy_on_the_Web Links to genealogy related sites. |
| Genealogy_Register Directory of genealogy web sites. Free homepages and message boards for discussion. |
| Genealogy_Tools_of_the_Trade Collection of links to resources. |
| GenealogyLinks_net Features genealogy links to ship passenger lists, cemetery transcriptions, censuses for United Kingdom and Ireland, United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. |
| GenealogyPortal_com Series of search boxes including names and personal sites, archives, location specific, primary records and research supplies. |
| GenealogyPro_com Links to genealogy researchers serving more than 20 countries. |
| GenealogySpot_com Offers free online genealogy resources for beginners and experts. |
| Hispanic_Genealogy Resources for beginning, intermediate and advanced researchers. |
| Internet_Genealogical_Directory Online index of thousands of genealogy-related web pages. |
| Looking_4_Kin_Genealogy_Links_and_Chat Links and resources plus a genealogy chat room. |
| Mary\'s_Genealogy_Treasures An organised directory maintained by Mary Tollestrup. |
| Maven_-_The_Portal_Directory_to_the_Jewish_World Jewish and Israeli directory with thousands of directories and links. |
Instead of giving you the history and
definition of straight-edge like you see on most straight-edge
pages, I thought I'd give an explanation of why I chose to be
drug-free as well as why I chose to label myself straight-edge.
In middle school and high
school, when my friends were experimenting with drugs and
alcohol, I always had a feeling inside that it was something I was
never meant to take part in. As I put more and more thought
into it, I realized that getting high or drunk would be
disrespectful to myself. First, such behavior
would be obviously destructive to the body, and I had no reason
to engage in self-destructive behavior...I was a pretty happy kid!
Second, I figured people got high or drunk to fill a void in
their lives. They did those things as a way to have fun or as a
way to escape reality. I thought drinking, or smoking up, or
whatever, would've been like telling myself that my life was somehow
not good enough and incomplete. We all have voids in our lives, but I
knew drugs/alcohol were only artificial fillers. I respected
myself too much to embrace such a lifestyle.
That was sometime during
my freshman year of high school when I made that realization, and
I still believe now what I believed then. However, I didn't always call
myself "straight-edge." In fact, I didn't claim
straight-edge until my sophomore year of college - the reason being I used to
be reserved about labelling myself. Also, I
didn't really see any purpose in labelling myself "straight-edge," but
as I became more conscious of the forces at work in the society that
surrounded me, I saw so much injustice and inequality. I
wanted to make a change and I understood the importance of educating
others to bring about change. I knew there was no
better way to teach others than by example, so I decided to take a stand
against those things that contribute so much to the sickness of
our society. My first action was claiming straight-edge. In straight-edge, I found
a solid ideal to cling to that would let people know that I
didn't approve of putting my mind to sleep, because there was too
much to live for and too much to be done to spend one minute in a
chemical haze. I think straight-edge allowed me to be a positive example for others and
showed my peers what it meant to have a sense of self-worth.
In retrospect, I think claiming myself straight-edge was a good decision, but after a while, I started to see a problem within the straight-edge movement. Sure, it's good to be sober and drug-free, but what use is sobriety without a goal, something higher to acheive with that sobriety? For many people, straight-edge becomes a reason to become puffed up and proud, as if being straight-edge is the highest goal to be reached in life. Well guess what? It's not! Anyway, I decided that because of this problem with the straight-edge movement, I would disassociate myself with it and give more time to living my Catholic faith, which, unlike straight-edge, has a clear goal: to love and serve God and neighbor.
As a sidenote, I don't think it's a good
idea to do drugs or drink/smoke in excess, but it is not my place to
look down upon someone if they choose to do these things. Obviously,
there are forces at work in the lives of such people that have drawn
them to partake in chemical pleasures, and it's wrong for me to assume
that they make the decisions they make because they are
immoral/weak/unintelligent/etc.
Back to Ideologies /
Back to Index / About Me
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