This case really isn’t surprising, there is discrimination everywhere. But it does relate very closely, as everyone else stated, to the book that we were forced to read. There are not only two genders in the world. There have been countless cases where an employer fired an employee due to his or her, or he-she, or she-he’s sexual orientation. My mother had a close friend that was fired for being a lesbo, soon after she was fired Wachovia hired her as an investment banker, now she makes many many dollars. So in the end she was actually better off being fired. Discrimination is not only against homosexuals. For example an Asian woman owns a convenience store, and a young man asks her, “how much does this cost?” She replies, “Five dollars,” then the young man goes, “FIVE DOLLARS? THAT BETTER COME WITH SOME SUCKY SUCKY FOR FIVE DOLLARS.” The young man would not have said that if the woman were not a woman. Or if it were a woman who looked like a man. So as you can see, it can be very beneficial to be discriminated against. Just look at Chic-Fil-A, the bible-beater that owns the franchise clearly does not appreciate the business of homosexuals, and since the owner is from the south and is Baptist, for arguments sake, say he also hates every non-white non-Christian. He now has people all over the United States protesting their practices of white supremacy. I can actually picture him wielding a sign that reads, “GOD HATES FAGS,” in Westboro. That besides the point, the point is that does hurt business, his fat pockets will be slightly less fat because of the silly press conferences he holds. As for the gentleman in the article, he should be grateful he was fired, because now he is going to be RICH. If all the information we were given was all the information in the case, then it is likely that the employer will have to settle. So if you’re discriminated against for any reason, and there is a record of it. Be grateful, because you can easily sue the discriminating party and get rich, perhaps. cy@

I believe that the difference in wealth is how it should be. Even if the people that did not obtain their wealth fairly, such as drug dealing or other criminal activity, they took on all the risk, therefore they should be rewarded for it. As for the special interest of politicians, that’s how politics have always been, and always will be. If people are really unhappy in their social status or quality of living, then they could find ways to make more money. Even with the political agenda, are those special interests really going to kill you? If a corporation gets a tax break, is that really going to make you lose your house? If there were never a distribution of wealth, then there would be no reason for doctors, lawyers, or any other specialized profession. If every job paid the same, why would someone want to go to school for at least 10 years to become a doctor if they’re going to make the same amount of money as someone who work at a fast food restaurant. The world needs people in poverty; there needs to be a distribution of wealth. As for what Sam said about kids who are entering college expect to end up in upper class. That’s funny considering how many Art majors and Film majors there are. Why should someone in Art expect to make as much as someone in something like Engineering, or someone on his or her way to medical school? That makes no sense to me. But it’s w/e. Cy@.

This article was somewhat interesting, however, it was not in the least bit surprising. There could be many reasons for this, but one I think is a big factor is society. People tend to do what other people around them are doing. And a lot of people like to idolize celebrities. The lifestyles celebrities you see on TV could never be lived religiously, and if some people start living life styles like that, then other people are sure to follow. These days religion clearly doesn’t mean too much to anyone. If you go downtown on a weekend you see Muslims drinking, Jews eating pork, and Christians engaging in premarital fornication. If you want to live religiously the best place for you would probably be by yourself in the middle of the woods where no one can find you. I personally, am not too concerned with religion, most of the people I know are also not too concerned with religion either. In my opinion, the younger generations have much better things to do than worry about going to a service once a week. It seems like younger generations have bigger hopes and dreams and would rather spend their time fulfilling those dreams. It could also be because as time gets on religion gets more and more exposed as big business. The churches and synagogues are always asking for money and everything thinks muslims are terrorists that are trying to destroy the world. A lot of people probably don’t want to be associated with any of that. And if some people start denouncing the religion they were raised as, then everyone will start doing it because it’s the cool thing to do.

I personally think that people, especially political figures, should use words like “retard” more cautiously. It does offend some people, but the only people it should really offend are people who are actually retarded. If you aren’t retarded and get offended by that word, then you are either too sensitive or insecure about something. If you aren’t retarded and someone says that word around you and you get offended by it, then you can GTFO cause that really means nothing to you, except “to make slow.” But that’s beside the point. According to a study done by University of Tennessee, it had 500 participants rank the offensiveness of words over broadcast, cable, and premium channels. The study found that sexually suggestive words to be the most offensive. Words like “cunt” were found to be the most offensive. So back to the word “retard”. If you’re offended by that word, I can’t even imagine how offended you would be by sexually suggestive words and you should probably listen to that one song by Blink 182, called “Family Reunion” or whatever. Another thing about offensive words is the intention of them. It’s like saying, “What’s up my nigga?” wouldn’t be very offensive to most people. But when someone says, “YOU [insert expletive here] N*****!” more people would be offended. But once again, if some dickhead is yelling expletives at you, you really shouldn’t be offended, you should just continue on your way and pay him/her no attention. Also, so many people use the word “retard” everyday, as they would use any other word. But they only think it’s offensive when someone makes a video about a famous person saying it. If I were to be like “that’s retarded,” is someone going to make a video about it, post it on youtube.com, and let everyone rage about how insensitive I am? No, probably not. If I were famous then maybe it would be a different story, but I’m not. Just people someone says “retard,” doesn’t mean that they hate retards. Sensitive people are sensitive, and always will be, stalker reporters will be stalker, and always will be. Get over it IMO. cy@

If they we poor before the lottery, there is a good chance their families are also poor, so they’re obviously going to be asking for money. They’re going to be like, “yo, I’m part of your family, GIMME YO MONEY.” And of course other poor people are going to want some of it, and if they are extremely poor, there’s a good chance that they are willing to rob someone, so logically, the first thing these lottery winners should have done is went and buy a brand new handgun with their millions of dollars, perhaps a Deagle just because that would pretty much scare anyone away. Another thing they should have done was immediately taken the money and deposited it in a Swiss bank account or built a bomb shelter that you can only get in by having a camera scan you eye, and in the bomb shelter have a mattress filled with your cash to make for a super comfortable bed. And if they are already happy before they won the lottery, they should just give me to the money. Like I said before, this subject can be very interesting if you are interested in this kind of stuff.

This can be a very interesting subject if your interested in this kind of thing. This reminded of when Sam Richards was going on about something that had to do with an apple falling from a tree and how it doesn’t make it that far from the tree it fell from, unless of course the tree is at the very top a hill and when the apple fell it rolled all the way down the hill. In that case the apple would have fallen very far from the tree in reference to the tree. But wait, you’re probably asking yourself, “wtf does this have to do with this article?” Be patient, I’m getting there. The apple doesn’t fall from the tree; most people that win the lottery are not already wealthy, in-fact they usually poor. If they never has a lot of money, how do you expect them to be able to manage their money?

Why do we give our children bad advice about talking to strangers? Why would we give them advice that makes them worse off because of some events that rarely happen? Because they still happen. If you know that there is a chance, no matter how small the chance is, that something bad would happen to your child, why would you put them in that position in the first place? It doesn’t make sense that parents would let their child be put in a position were something could happen to him. If you told your child that most people are generally good and will probably help you if you need it, but there’s only a .01% chance that someone would be of no help or potentially harmful, and something did happen to your child, your whole opinion on the matter would change. In my opinion, this subject is another attempt by people to spark “thought” in individual about a subject that has been taught to be the “norm” of society. It also seems like sociologists are always trying to get you to challenge “norms” and “think” for yourself. And who are these “people that study risk?” Where are all the sources? Why should I believe a statistic that is posted on a page with no sources cited? Also, bad advice is not bad, saying it is bad advice is an opinion. That’s like me saying sociology is kind of ridiculous, that’s not a fact, that’s my opinion on the matter. Another thing is, talking do strangers is pretty much completely irrelevant to this video. In the video, there was no talking involved, some guy just ran up and tried to snatch the kid. A more relative “statistic” would be, “Some people in some far off land claim that there is only a .01% chance that someone will try to snatch your child, and 99.99% of people will not snatch your child, therefore you do not need to HIDE YO KIDS.” But I mean, I can see why the “kidnapper” was laughing. What kind of person in his or her right mind would try to steal a kid in front of everyone in daylight? Having an opinion is great and all, but citing sources when one is making claims is even greater. That is all. cy@.

From my experience watching the news and reading newspapers, it seems as though Americans do in-fact need big government. From all the credit problems, to the obesity problem, Americans need someone to tell them what to do. As far as breastfeeding goes, I’m pretty sure no one else cares what you let your child suck on. It’s a personal choice and the government should provide you with information on benefits and supply you with proper materials if you can’t research it yourself. I personally don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with being informed of how to do something better and more efficient. For example, if you wanted a particular item and went to get it, while you are there, someone informs you that the next store down has the same item for half the price. Would you be mad that someone just saved you half the money? If not, then why would you be mad that someone said you could avoid your fat child being picked on and verbally abused as child? Not only would it save your child from humiliation, it could save YOU money on gym memberships and diet food and pills, maybe even liposuction or gastric bypass, when the child gets older. But all this is beside the point, the point is, people just need something to complain about. It’s just like Sarah Palin and her “blood libel” comment, Jews got mad and got over it after a couple days, I mean, at least she didn’t call them sub-human. If they are not complaining about something a politician said, they would be complaining about some silly riots or saving the environment. No matter which politician it is, people are going to take whatever he/she said completely out of context and rant about if for a couple days until some other politician has a press conference and some reporter gets mad jelly that politician did something with their life and didn’t become some silly journalist. That’s just how it is. In my opinion, none of us should care about this article or any other out of context excerpt because as Sam Richards said, we’re all going to die anyways. Sorry if I got off topic, women politicians make me rage.

I personally don’t find this article surprising in the least bit. Why should more than 30% of Americans have passports if they can’t leave the country? With as many people as there are in severe debt, it’s no wonder that the number of people traveling abroad is so low. The article stated “it’s more affordable than it seems” and that airfare to Ireland only costs around $1000 per person. However, $1000 is anything but affordable to a lot of America, especially families that would have to pay for multiple tickets and expenses like food and lodging for their whole family. Another thing that many other people pointed out is that people feel less secure now than ever. After September 11th, many people don’t feel safe about flying. Also, the safety issue causes increased security, which can be rather annoying, especially getting back into the United States. The article also makes a point that the United States of America also has several different climates, so there are several destinations that Americans could go to in the United States of America. Americans could go places in the United States and see several different regions for significantly less than going out of the country. Why should Americans feel like they HAVE to leave the country to experience something that they could experience in the United States of America for a fraction of the price. Another reason people could be reluctant to fly is because of the airlines themselves. Some people may boycott every airline due to the way the corporation treats their pilots and stewardesses. Pilots and stewardesses are forced to work up to 20 hours a day with little to no breaks and are paid close to nothing. Also, it’s dumb how you have to pay for your first checked bag on most airlines now. You should at least get 1 free checked bag when you pay that much for the ticket in the first place. I personally don’t like flying because with my luck I always get stuck somewhere due to weather or something, or my flight is delayed, so I’d rather not go anywhere than have to deal with all the hassles of flying.

I found this video very amusing, as I’m sure the rest of the class that watched it did as well. This is something all of us do, but sometimes we are unaware of it. I personally don’t find it embarrassing because everyone does it, and if you think you don’t you should pay more attention to what you do and your mannerisms. What I found the most amusing part about the video, is the young man at the end. I’ve never realized how much older people influence younger people. It is simply amazing that the young man will even wear his hat the same way that the older gentlemen are wearing their hats. However, as funny as it is to watch, it is inevitable to be the same as a larger group of people. All of the younger people on Earth that strive to be as individual and different from everyone else as they can ultimately fail. All of the people that refuse to wear brand-name clothes, listen to the same music, and eat the same things as the rest of society fail because there are a million other people with that same attitude and same life style. All of those people who strive to be different end up all being the same. So to all the people that are like, “LOL U SRS BRO?” Yes, yes I am. Very. VERY. Serious. Instead of people doing as much as they can to be different, they should just be themselves and people would like them so much more. You don’t have to be a Timberland wearing, Phillies hat bro, or an emo-screamo all black one-eye covered with spikey hair scenester to identify with a certain group of people. In my humble opinion, you should just do what you like and act how you really are, and you will find people who like you for you. In conclusion, don’t do something like look like an idiot in an elevator, but also don’t go out of your way to be someone you aren’t just to get noticed. That’s just my 2 cents on the subject. cy@.

-Hesman of Andorhal