I have not seen this episode that the person in the video talks about, but I have seen a south park episode that portrayed the image of Muhammad, and he just looked like a person of Middle Eastern descent. I do not know why this caused such an uproar, there are depictions of Jesus all over. I think it’s funny that the terrorist group threatened the creators of South Park, because in reality nothing is going to happen to them, and I would encourage them to keep pissing off the terrorist groups because I think its funny to see them annoyed.

I do not think that success in America is all about money. Being a hard worker goes a long way in this country, and even if you start at an entry level position you can rise through the ranks and be successful. Also, everyone has their own definition of success so one person may think it is to have a million dollars, others may think that it is just having a healthy family. If illegal immigrants can’t afford to get here legally, maybe they should work a little harder in their country, save, and then do it legally. We cannot just give handouts to these people.

I thought both of these videos were really awesome. In the first one where the social worker at the school gives the kidney to cashier, I thought it was really neat. We need more compassion like this in the word. We live too much of a sheltered life, especially since September 11th. We all seem to put up a defense system when we meet new people; we just need to trust people more. I think the world wouldn’t be as cruel of a place if we all just tried to be nicer to each other. I know its impossible to get along with every person in the world, but you have to start somewhere. So if you nice to your neighbors then you can meet other people who will know that you are nice and then you just build the amount of people you are friends with. It does not have to be a long-term commitment, maybe just help you neighbor out with some yard work, or even just say hello to them once and a while. It only takes one small thing to brighten up someone’s day. I thought it was really cool how the cashier called the social worker man an angel.
I thought that the second video was really cute. I remember having a crush on a girl like that when I was really young. I wonder what both of the children’s parents thought about this video. Were they accepting, or did they tell their children to stay away from each other? I know that the video says that these children are colorblind, but I do not believe that it will last. As they get older they will start to get into the awakening stage and notice it more. Although I do not think that a Chinese person and Malaysian person are such a radical couple; maybe in their home country they are. I think it would be much more taboo if this video was shot in America with a white boy and black girl, or some other type of black and white combination. I think it would be really neat if they kept tabs on both of these children, and interview them again and see what their views are when they are maybe out of high school. I would hope that their views would not change; maybe they have parents that are more lenient about race. I guess as the years go by this is becoming more of the norm, and when I have children race will not be so much of an issue as it still is today. I think Barak Obama is helping our nation become less resilient to letting people of color in power, which is a good thing, because maybe we all can gradually stop hating each other.
It is great to see that there is still some compassion left in the world, the news today is too much about murderers, thief’s, and other horrible crimes.

I do not know if we can co exist with Muslims. I believe that we do not need their oil if we would keep implementing better energy policies. The more energy efficient we become, the less oil we need and the less oil they sell. They need our money as much as we need our oil. Although it is hard to imagine if we just pulled out all of our troops from the Middle East, and get rid of the embassies and military bases, would the Middle East still hate Americans? I still feel like they would, even if we like put up a wall between us and didn’t try to wrong the Middle East in any way.

I have to agree that a lot of our education is to learn how to be obedient. I think more so in high school, but I do not agree with it in college. In high school you are mostly given busy work, and are taught never to ask WHY. You are largely taught to just memorize something or learn it how the teacher tells you. I think that as you move through college and into higher learning there may be a little less conformity, because in college you are not forced to do anything. I do not have to conform and do my homework, study or do anything I do not want to do.

One thing that really struck me about the Christian invaders lecture was the fact that the United States army is allowed I think it was 29 civilian casualties for every soldier killed, or for every terrorist they kill. That is appalling, and I am not one of those anti-war people. I agree with Sam that war is pretty much necessary when there are limited resources for many people. I believe that we elected a democrat to get us out of the war, and so far Barak Obama has not done that. Why are we still fighting this war?
One thing that struck me during this whole article was how did we start this? Weren’t we provoked to go over to Iraq or somewhere in the Middle East after 9/11? I thought that 9/11 was always the justification for the Iraq war, but apparently it was for oil. Now since I am only 19 years old, I forgot that there was a gulf war in the early 90’s. So I thought that could be the justification for the suicide bombers, and for the two WTC bombings. But what happened before the gulf war to provoke the bombings? It would be nice to see where this all started, maybe it has something to do with Israel? That is my hypothesis but I do not know for sure.
In the blog post and in the lecture we were asked if we would take action and become a suicide bomber or terrorist if one of our family members were killed by a foreign military force. I would say absolutely that I would want to seek revenge if a member of my family was hurt by a foreign military force. I would find the weapon to do the most damage that I could afford, and attack. It is sad to think that way, because it is just what the suicide bombers are doing to our troops. I think almost everyone would fight back if their family was hurt. I think this kind of lecture needs to be spread across college campuses, then to our parents, then to government to let them see this. I think it would definitely help us get out of the war faster, and have people open up their eyes more. It has definitely impacted the way I am thinking. This kind of lecture kind of annoys me, just because how right Sam is. I would always support our troops, but we are doing the wrong thing in the Middle East. Although you have to remember that it is not our soldier’s fault that this war is happening, they just are following orders. So maybe the government should see this video, and start thinking from a more sociological perspective, rather than jumping to the first action that pops into their heads.

The main gripe that I have had with America’s policy of teaching foreign languages is when we actually start learning them. If we had started out learning them in elementary school, I feel like I would be able to speak it fluently by them time I was in college. America’s policy is to start in high school where children are growing up, and are a lot less motivated to learn another language. Also, in high school the class usually tried to teach way too fast, and a way to broad amount of material. I had more success in college with the foreign language programs, because they had a better curriculum, and gave more homework structured to help us, not just keep us busy. If you look at a child who grows up in America, but their parents grew up in a Spanish speaking country, they are very fluent in both because they are around both languages so much. That’s why I feel that no matter what language we are teaching, we must start teaching them early, and not at the time when children do not care. I feel like the only way we can effectively teach any language is if we start early as possible.
I am not so sure we should be teaching Chinese more than any other language. I think we should continue to teach Spanish and French first and foremost, because we will be able to speak to more people than if we only knew how to speak Chinese. I am not bashing the language, but the amount of Spanish speaking immigrants is rising in the United States and maybe we should be focusing more on teaching Spanish. China could have an economic downturn, just like Japan in the 80’s, so I think if we try to stick to Spanish and French, we will have the best chance of not wasting a child’s education on knowledge they cannot apply. I think students should learn either Spanish or French if they are not majoring in something where they are not required to know the language. Now if you are going to major in a subject that is geared toward Asia or somewhere else that does not speak English, Spanish, or French, then focus on that language. Don’t teach children Chinese when they have a greater chance of using Spanish in their future. The world will always have translators, and also technology is becoming more advanced so will we even need to learn this language if I could pull up an application on my iphone or ipad that translates what the other person is saying? If we already have the speech to text application, how hard could it possibly be for the computer to translate if?

I think this would be pretty hard to do, to have everyone stop buying clothes. I think a better solution would be to put an emblem or something on the tag of the garment that says that it was made without slave labor. Just like they have the RUG MARK program, which puts an emblem on the rug to make sure it is not made by slave labor. That would certainly deter more people from buying clothes made by slaves. If we just stopped buying clothes, there would just be a surplus of cheap clothes and people would buy them because they were so cheap, not because they need them.

I was actually wondering this same question, because I did not eat the second piece or chocolate. I do not like chocolate to begin with, and never eat it unless it is given to me on a special occasion like Halloween or Easter. I do not think it would be hard for me to refrain from eating chocolate, especially if I was allowed to eat the chocolate not produced by slaves. But I was definitely amazed at how many people ate the second piece of chocolate after seeing the video; I thought more of us would have refrained from eating the second piece.

I was not very surprised that there is a game made about this. I do not think this is about the videogame industry, as much as it is about the porn industry. Obviously people are not buying this game because it’s a great videogame; they buy it because the “rape” fantasy is something they enjoy. That is not to say that these people want to go out and rape as many women as they can, it is just a fantasy that turns them on. The rape fantasy is just another porn genre and I guess there is a big enough market for it for someone to create a videogame depicting it. I think many people would be amazed at the amount of porn genres out there, some of them can get pretty grotesque, and in my opinion, the rape fantasy genre is one of those grotesque ones. I don’t think that the people that sell this should be reprimanded. They are just selling a product and trying to make a profit. Making a game like this could be considered free speech in America, I do not know about japans laws. As long as these games are not being sold to children or shoved in people’s faces to buy, I don’t have a problem with stores selling them. If you want to look up anything on Google, you can. So if you want to play a videogame that depicts rape or something grotesque, go ahead. I will not be playing it.
Now for the topic of overly violent videogames. I do not mind them, I believe that violent videogames can actually help people take their anger or stress out of their day if they go shoot and kill a bunch of people in a videogame. Casual violent video gamers are normal people; it is people that become too infatuated with living the game, that give the violent genre a bad name. I think it is just a few bad apples that go off the deep end and happen to play violent videogames, who give a bad name to everyone who plays them.
I guess I could see where this could help a rapist cope with their urge to committee a rape, but I’m pretty sure that it does more harm than good. If people get too used to raping women in this game, what’s to say that they won’t try to do it in public? I think a game like this is harmful because it sort of desensitizes people to the idea or crime of rape.
I also do not think that this is just a Japanese problem; I would rather live in a country that sells these video games, rather than live in a country that has a rampant prostitution problem, such as Thailand.