I think this video really goes back to what I was saying in my other blog response that life moves on despite what sort of devastation happens. It is even better to see that the people who were affected by the devastation and found a way to move on from what happened and to try to rebuild their lives.

You cannot help but feel bad for the fact that their economy is worse than ours, but they seem to be making do with what they can. Of course, as we learned in class, that is fine up until foreign aid puts them out of business in other areas. I think when Haiti finally gets back on their two feet that they will be able to get back into the business they once flourished in.

What I find the most interesting is that people in prison that hate each other have more compassion for one another when someone is having a major issue that two kids in high school would of a similar problem. This letter was interesting to read and it really shows that not every criminal is just cold forever. It is a shame that they did not figure out the wonders of life until it was taken away from them, but I guess for some people that is how they learn.

I feel that is this individual was placed back into society he would be able to do great things. He would probably be an activist of some kind helping individuals that need help. At this point in his life, I think he wants to make up for what happened in his situation, and if given the chance he would do wonders.

To answer this question I first must ask everyone to think back to September 11th. When that event happened, thousands died and thousands more were injured. But did life stop? Well maybe for a day or so, but life moves on because that is how it works. I know I got to get out early that day it happened from school, and then went back the next day. With anything that happens you have to move on, or be left behind in a mess. It might sound cruel, but it is what we have all been taught throughout our lives.

If we fall, we are supposed to pick ourselves up and keep going. If a loved one dies, we mourn and continue on with her memory embedded in our heart and mind. If our boyfriend/girlfriend turns out to be the biggest jerk in the world we break up with them and go out and find another one. Life keeps moving constantly and never stops for anything whether it is one person or 300,000 people. That is not saying, however, that those who are devastated by something do not deserve worldwide attention and our aid, but the point is life does not stop.

My favorite quote ever comes from Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. He says: “All that you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.” How we spend that time is up to us. We are allowed to feel sorry and bad for the people down in Haiti, or of any natural disaster that affects thousands, and if our family is involved in the tragedy we too can mourn for that loss. Are we going to do it forever though? I think probably not, but it will put a hold on our plans for the time being, but life still goes on.

If any of my family members died in a horrible tragedy I know I would be devastated. It will screw me up mentally for many days to come. I know when Mr. Dado died I was having a hard time dealing with it mentally. I never even knew he existed in this world, but his death affected me just as much as it would have his friends. I mourned his death and thought about it for many days, but I kept doing my thing. And I am sure Dado’s friends are doing the same right now.

So the answer to your question is yes we can feel bad about people who were affected in another country by a disaster, and yes not everyone will feel bad because that are not attached in some way, but that does not mean a person should not stop to mourn for what happened. But we should mourn and move forward because that is how life works.

What is comes down to is the media has portrayed women in some many different ways that nobody knows what the idea type of women should be. Women do not seem to know what is acceptable to society. Some say big breasts are good, others the ass, and some say it just does not matter.

And that is the thing, it should not matter. We are born into this world with the body we have. It is our job to take care of it and use it properly. Adding anything is not us making up for what we believe God forgot to give us. It’s wrong and only degrades the body. How would breast implants help women when they are using a walker to get around? Plastic surgery should only be meant to restore our body back to it’s original self, not distort the body.

Many of us, which includes those in our opponents in the war, view the other as a threat. We each think we are right in the situation and that the other is trying to do us harm. We view the Arabs as terrorists and who is to say the Arab’s do not view us as a terrorist. Why does terrorist have to be associate with Arab or anyone in the Middle East?

Each army is creating soldiers to fight for a cause they perceive. One says we are fighting for the honor of the country and the freedom of it’s the people; the other fights to defend their country and their natural resources. So who is the real terrorists? Maybe we all are.

Going into this class I did not know what to think. Once the topic was mentioned I was thinking to myself: “How is this going to be a really cool class?” By the time class was over, I understood why the class was going to be cool. As I walked out the door, I could not help myself but think, “Now I know why he’s labeled as a dangerous professor.”

Sam can literally say he has been there and has done that because he truly has. He has been all over this world many times and comes before us today with this knowledge. He can be labeled dangerous because he is thinking and he knows what is going on. He truly understands.

Half way through the class, which is after he showed many videos, it clicked into my head what he was saying. Now I knew what he was gearing towards with his lecture, but what clicked was that truly not many consider what the other side is thinking. Here in America, we think the Muslims are evil and violent and their sole purpose is to eradicate us from the earth. To us we believe that somebody should just push the button and turn their country into one big parking lot. What many of us do not consider is, well what are they thinking. Well, for the students who decided to stay in class today, as I saw people leave very early in it, we know what the other side is thinking.

Most American’s probably do not consider that the people we are bombing are not all bad. We definitely do not consider that perhaps what they see in us is something different. We see them as evil people trying to cause us harm. They see us as trying to do them harm. As a result, everyone wants to fight.

Sam made the Christian correlation because coincidentally every major general in the army or politician is Christian, and like Bush said, is on a crusade. I believe that Sam is right that nobody thought of crusade as a holy war so much as just us retaliating based on what happened nine years ago. Crusade was probably perceived as campaign, which most would agree is what everyone wanted America to embark on.

Since Muslims are viewing this war as a “crusade” especially to take natural resources, yeah there is a problem, a big problem. America walks around with assault rifles and bibles; Arabs walk around with rocket launchers and the Qur’an. It’s beginning to shape up to be a holy war, and for the really religious who are counting down to the end of the world this is an indication time is drawing to it’s close.

If anyone walked away from this class not thinking differently of what is going on with the current war, regardless of religion because the lecture was not even about religion, then I will be shocked.

For those who could not eat the second piece of chocolate the reasoning for it was probably temporary guilt. At the time, people were thinking about how this piece of chocolate came to be in their possession and what others had to do to create the little morsel. As a result, some decided it was wrong to eat the chocolate. The aftermath of such an exercise, I believe, may yield one of two results.

The first is some people will never look at a chocolate bar the same way again and probably try and figure out where it actually came from. They may even stop eating it all together. The second is that some people who decided again eating it the first time will naturally do it the second time without much thought. We do things like that. We feel bad for something one day and then go out and not feel bad about it the next because we are not thinking about it. Makes you wonder if it applies to chocolate chip ice cream too?

I will not lie in saying that I have questioned God on several occasions, but I still believe he is a wonderful God that will provide. He has helped me get this far in life after family life was crumbling around me in high school. Let me put it this way, without God I probably would not be in college right now.

I think it is natural we question our faith because I feel believing is the hardest thing in religion, but then most people learn to walk essentially blindly. For others, not so much, but whatever works for them.

I know God has a purpose for people especially if they ask him to show them the way. I did about four years ago and I am less than a month away from earning my degree in journalism. Do I believe God shapes all aspect of our lives? No, why? He will help us when we call, but we have to get ourselves going on our own. He cannot always hold our hand for everything. He gave us laws to follow and the mindset to do good so it is our job to fulfill that. If we struggle along the way, then we can call on him for help because he will do so.

This man is really a combination of everything listed as the blog title, but that really depends on the person listening to the man. To me he is a man with an opinion and a knucklehead, but that would be because I do not agree with everything he says. Regardless, he has the right to voice his opinion on any matter that he wishes to discuss.

One thing I did not like about him was that his complaints did not seem genuine. He looked like he was just reading his cue cards and that was that. Most people who express their opinions do it with passion and with a lot of feeling. Nobody could sound more apathetic then this guy, not even Nicolas Cage. Even politicians who read off of cue cards sound more enthusiastic than this guy did.

But this guy, in my opinion, could use this Soc 119 class to help him with his thinking. As some blog writers here have said, the immigration problems seems to be hardly such. I know the argument is that they are taking jobs away from us, but as it was said, those jobs are the ones we would turn down without a second thought. I think though that the job issue comes in because they are competing with the poor, who needs just about any sort of job they can get their hands on. That is a little problem, but it does not deserve the description of big problem.

I always laugh at the jokes that ask “Who would be the ones to build the wall to keep the immigrants out?” and that the answer is simply “The people you are trying to keep out.” I laugh it because it is believable.

After reading through some of the comments, the one that caught my eye the most was something that slimshady62 said: “As an overall thought, I think it’s a little ironic that as Americans we came here through oppression and fought for our freedom and yet when other people are oppressed and are looking for a better life we try our best to keep them out.”

I never really thought about it like that. Of course, I think the issue is others who are looking for a better life are not following our rules very well, and since America is at the king of the hill they make the rules and those who do not follow them must pay. Maybe if we welcomed them with open arms there would not be an immigration problem. I know America hates illegal immigrants coming into our country illegally, but do you think Mexico feels the same way about all the American criminals that run there when trying to escape the police?

I never really understood the whole thing about winning or losing. That is not me saying I do not understand that whole topic of discussion, but it is just like one poster had said regarding about this idea of winning and losing. You know, even the board game “Life” does not take race into account. So why are we playing “Life” the real version. Why do people have issues where issues do not need to be? Well, it starts in a variety of ways. Take the “Tokenism” discussion we had in last class for example.

You have employers giving jobs out to people who are less deserving than others, which are wrong, but now make one of the job searchers white and the other black. Now suppose the black man is more qualified than the white guy, yet the white guy gets the job. I do not think the black man is going to say the better man won. You can be sure the words “racist” and “discrimination” will be tossed around. Then the black guy will start to believe that no matter what job he applies for the white guy will always win in the end. Therefore, his “team” is hardly ever going to win. But this does not apply to everyone of course.

In the case of the LLBean magazine, Sam says Blacks would be judged as trying to be white and people will question whether their true blacks. As a city person, one thing I have seen if blacks hate it when white people try to be like them. The same can be said for some whites who do not want black people to try and act white. This is where the conflict of “teams” comes in because neither “team” wants to be diverse. Yet all sorts of publications, posters, or wherever photos can be found have to be diverse and include people from various teams. So would that the game of “Life” can leave room for each of the “teams” to blend together?

Unfortunately for this game, neither team will ever win over the other. So how can this game ever end? My suggestion is to drop the stereotypes, racial issues, and discrimination then perhaps we can look at each other as one rather than many. If there is one thing we all have in common is our anatomy is the same. Just because one person is darker or lighter than the other does not make them a whole other person. We are one in the same.

At this campus, or any campus, everyone is the same regardless of color. Even if a person who had pink skin color was attending this campus he is still one in the same with us. This game we are supposedly playing needs to be called a draw so we can start playing another game, like “Sorry.”