This was a very important article that I do not think should be taken lightly. There are many implications towards the United States becoming a country that is run off alternate energy, instead of oil. Ths first reason I believe this is happening is because of the massive amount of debt our country is in. We can not continue to purchase our fuel from foreign countries. Since we have successfully found an alternate source of energy internal to the United States, the Marcellus Shale, we are going to discontinue our practices of trading with foreign countries for oil. Another reason there is a push for this is because this type of energy is cleaner for the environment. This being another huge topic in recent years, especially the 21st century. Going “green” was first started in response to the scare on the United States by Al Gore on global warming. Ever since then, companies have been making strives to use cleaner materials, recycle more often, and advertise themselves as being an environmentally friendly company. Obama is in concurrence on this situation, so that may be a reason why he is so strongly for this. The real reason I think Obama is such an avid supporter is because of him being the president. Obama made some pretty bold statements during his presidential campaign. One of these on the War in Iraq. Obama promised that the troops would be withdrawn from the Middle East. I think one of the reasons America is still in the Middle East is to sustain security for the country. Most of our oil, which is essential to the American economy at the moment, is located in the Middle East. Obama cannot relieve our presence in this area because of the chance the United States will not receive goods from the Middle East in the future. This leads into why Obama is in such strong support of fracking on the Marcellus Shale. He wants to live up to the hype he created during his campaign, and understands that he will be more inclined to let the troops leave if we can sustain security in our energy.

This was a very good article and short video. Religion is a unique yet ambiguous part of life. I am not at all surprised by people making predictions that religion is going to die out, or by any of the statistics given in the article. This is probably because I would consider myself in the category of without a religion. It’s just the way I was raised, my parents didn’t want to make this kind of decision for me, so they never forced me to go to church, or get baptized. I never found it different either. When I was young I felt like I was the only one who didn’t go to church. But as I grew older and broadened my social horizons, I realized there were actually quite a few people who were in the same boat as me. I think people, maybe like me, believe that there is a god, per say, but do not buy into the whole religion part of it. In the article, they named a few countries in specific that were trending towards no religion. When they mentioned that the Netherlands already had 40% of the popular on the no religion boat, I was pretty surprised, only because that is such a large percentage at the present time. I also believe that there are sociological reasons behind what is happening. The article calls it majority effect, where people tend to go on the more popular option they have to chose from. I think we discussed this as group think and social control on large groups, but it is pretty interesting to see it working in a real life situation. It definitely has an effect on the current trends in some of the western democratic countries. It might also be like a snowball effect, once it starts going and increasing, the rate at which people will opt out of religion will also increase. The idea that religion will die out is not too far-fetched in my mind, probably just because of my background. This would be something that would take a very long time to complete and there would be a lot of controversy, but I think that if it does happen it will be for the better.

This was a very concerning article. After reading it, my eyes were open to the possible tragedy and the tragedies that have already occurred when it comes to these disasters. The amount of chaos during something like this would be ridiculous. People would literally be “running for their lives.” It is such a hard task to evacuate everyone in an orderly manner, especially when there is nothing orderly about the situation. In major cities or heavy populated areas are under duress, image the crowdedness and clutter. In situations such as Hurricane Rita, there was very poor planning. People with mandatory evacuation in high risk areas were not able to evacuate because of how crowded the interstate was. The people in the low risk areas felt like they were in just as much danger as those in the high risk areas. Everyone is out for themselves in this kind of situation, which is one of the main causes of all the commotion and pandemonium. It is very difficult to control these types of crowds, but one important thing to keep in mind is trying to ensure a feeling of security and calmness in the people, making them believe everything is going to be okay. It is proven that people work together way more efficiently when they are calm or focused, rather than scared or panicked. Every decision that is made isn’t going to help every single person but is in the best interest of the majority, or it is supposed to at least. It is nearly impossible to plan for an emergency. I feel that if individuals made their own decisions during a state of emergency, things would flow so much smoother. This is probably because they wouldn’t all be doing the exact same thing. Although this could be a bad thing, I think it would work in a positive way for evacuations. Or maybe even the people could be given a few different options by the government. All of the options would be viable for the populous in their concerns of evacuating safely and quickly. I hope one day we will have a perfect method of evacuating people during disasters.

This article and video was to me exactly like it was described. I really never thought about how much that word could potentially hurt someone. The truth is, I use the word “retard” every day of my life, and never think twice about it. I apply the word to almost every situation, like if I forgot to bring my key card out of the dorm and had to wait to get back in, I would call myself a retard. That is not even close to what the word actually entails. This isn’t right. The way I’ve grown up and how the word was always thrown around like it was nothing definitely has a huge impact on the way I use the word today. That was how my “own version of English” was socialized and shaped. People from different parts of the United States have different forms of our English language. Pittsburgh people say words like “yin’s” or “gumband”. This just comes back to the way people use the r-word. This could be an example that shows how our language is constantly evolving. If we were given a paper or something to read that was written in old English, it would look like a completely other language, and we would have no idea what any of the word meant. Our language is constantly changing and having minute amendments done to it. I hope that the use of the word will change, because it is super offensive and the people who use it, including myself, are truly ignorant of what the word means. With the word “retarded”, it can be a sensitive situation. People who are mentally challenged many times look and act different from what is considered “normal”. They have physical differences that make them stand out from the crowd. I definitely support the movement towards the elimination of the r-word. And I think that it is awesome how people with this disorder are standing up for themselves and speaking out. It shows the true character of these people, although they may be mentally challenged, they are just like one of us.

This article really got my brain moving. It was really appealing as well, it was kind of like a UPS commercial but a lot faster, ten times as long and had some importance behind it. After watching the video, you would agree that it had good argument, the students of today are programmed for one answer type thinking. The sociological structure of education has made it this way, back when it was introduced for the industrial era. Now that we are beyond that, it is time for a new technique when it comes to education our future citizens. The theory of divergent thinking was an extremely interesting and a very strong point. Divergent thinking applies through creativity, and gives us a different way of thinking about things compared to the current. If we could somehow reshape our current sociological structure on education to be not so narrow minded and one pathed, our nation would certainly prosper. A small statistic thrown into the video that I found interesting was about attention deficit disorder (ADHD). The prescription rate of medication for this disorder are completely easternized in the United States. States like California, Colorado and New Mexico has almost no prescriptions of Ridilin or Adderall, when states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland have their residents prescribed almost religiously. Although citizens in the United States think they are getting educated properly, they may be getting taught in a way that is out dated. We need thinkers today, not just people who do what is already done and just go with the norms. The video stated that every country in the world is going through public education reformation. This is because society today is realizing what needs to be done in order to have a successful future. Another point in the video that supports that our current education is outdated was that people in the industrial era used the current education system and were interested in what they were learning. People today have so many distractions like computer, computer games, iPhones, Xbox and television commercials are making going to school a negative activity. Students would rather be at home doing other things rather than learning numbers or history in the classroom. Hopefully our nation’s sociological structure on education will change.

The labels she wants are front of the package, easy to interpret with the important information citizens need to be informed about. Perhaps a green yellow red system, much like streetlights, green for go, yellow for slow down, and red for stop. Besides the point, the government involvement in this issue is acceptable and I think at this point, expected. I do not think this will blow up government power much more than what power it currently has. People should be responsible for their own actions, but they have been too irresponsible the past decade or two and have led to the obesity epidemic in America. America has bigger issues on its hands right now. It took Egypt 18 days and minimal violence to achieve democracy – Iraq still has not achieved democracy after a decade of time, hundreds of thousands killed and trillions of dollars, putting the United States in the greatest debt it has ever seen. Bachmann does not need to make commotion about something like breast feeding when we have much biggest issues to tackle.

Honestly, whether you’re reading this article as a democrat or republican, you would probably agree that Michele Bachmann is making a complete idiotic claim. She is upset about the government giving tax deductibles, which republicans are all about, and First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to improve the United States overall health. The statistics don’t lie either, breast feeding has a correlation leading to a lower rate of obesity. Why would we as Americans not want this? When we get made fun of by other countries about our weight, I definitely agree that it is time for the government to step in to try and cure this epidemic. Take a trip to the nearest Wal-Mart, and look at the weights of the first five people you see. It is clear Americans are not taking care if this issue themselves. TWO THIRDS of United States adults are overweight. This has not been the first attempt from Michelle Obama to address our country about the weight issue. She has gone to the Food and Drug Administration and challenged them to make better food labels.

. Another thing Europe has in comparison to America is its train system. This is a cheap yet quick method of traveling to other countries. The article says it well when it talks about the wide variety of places to go in America. We can get a little taste of just about everything here. This obviously makes us think, why pay money and go outside to country when you can stay within boarders and experience similar events. But what people do not take into account is the cultural experience that you get from traveling overseas. This is a huge reason in my mind why traveling is so important. Americans are very close minded about other countries and have this feeling of superiority almost when comparing their lives or country to others. Americans are unknowing and unwillingly restrained to stick to America. I think this is a very big part of life, and it can help to figure one’s self out, which is why I plan on studying abroad my sophomore or junior year.

I feel as though I subconsciously knew that the travel rate of Americans was low, but when the real numbers and percentages were unveiled to me, I was semi shocked. 70% of Americans do not even own a passport, let alone use it. Needless to say this percent counts for children who may not be able to travel at their own will, it is still a staggering amount of people. Another thing that the article touched on briefly was that the number of Americans with passports a few years ago was in the teens. Because they now made it mandatory to have a passport to travel between our neighboring countries Canada and Mexico. Another point they made was that of our current 30% of Americans with passports who traveled, that half of them went to these neighboring countries. This ties into another reason why Americans do not travel as much as other counties. Our country is very large, almost the size of a continent, and it only boarders two other countries. European countries have neighboring countries that are in the double digits, giving them easier access and more reason to travel.

There is another way to think about this that we touched on vaguely in class, groupthink. Groupthink is where someone acts one way because of the general response from people around them. This can be bad in today’s world for a few reasons. One is particular could be groups in universities or anywhere higher up. When they are working together and brainstorming on possible ideas, one idea is thrown out on the table, and one person agrees. The next person nods and says it’s a viable idea, and so does the next. These people may have other excellent ideas in mind that will never surface because of groupthink. When everyone conforms to one idea, there is less diversity in effective ways to take on problems. Although some of this could be due to a person’s personality, it is something that universities today are striving to thwart. The world could lose some of its ingenuity or innovativeness if this trend continues to grow. People get afraid to voice their own ideas because of the fear of being an “outcast.”