Wow, I just watched the first video;
that's really, really impressive.
I'm happy to know that there are still people in society today that can take moments out of their lives and sacrifice so much of themselves- bother figuaratively and, in this case, literally!--- for someone else.

Tan Hong Ming's reaction was SOOOOOO CUTE!! XD
That look of utter shooooock on his face when the girl he confessed to liking responded that Tan Hong Ming was her boyfriend, was aaaabsolutely priceless!
If it weren't for the title of the video, though, I never would've known that there was some sort of racial conflict between the two childrens' ethnicities, though. I didn't get any sort of racial inference in the video whatsoever, but, then again, I suppose that was the point.

Oh, and, even cuter, I loved how they ran off together in the end. <3<3<3<3

I can see where he's coming from. We, as students, are conditioned from early, early childhood to be quiet, obedient, and to listen.

...... I started writing this post as I was listening to the video, and, now that it's over, I've kind of lost my train of thought. Mostly, because at around four minutes, Noam Chomsky mentioned that there are some teachers out there that try to instill innovation and creative thought into their students, and that some of these teachers get away with it. And then, Sam popped into my head. I just wrote a comment on the Christian Invaders blog, thinking about how deeply shaken I was by it and how it really got me to think about what the world is thinking about our war in the middle east. He's instilling, or at least, trying to initiate this innovative thought process in his students---- and, you know what that got him?
He was labeled as one of the "100 MOST DANGEROUS ACADEMICS." He landed himself a section in a book listing "dangerous," (DANGEROUS!!!) academics. Obviously stimulating "deviant" ideas in students isn't regarded very highly in our country's educational system.
Maybe we really are conditioned for stupidity and conformity.

This lecture blew my mind.
I didn't know how to feel about it at some parts, though. A lot of it was reasonable, but, as someone with very close ties to people in the United States military, there were definitely bits and pieces that were rough to hear.
My best friend's father has been deployed with the US Army to Afghanistan and Iraq eleven times to this date. She supports her father in every way without questions, so there have been times where debates about the war have really upset her. I know that if she was in class for this lecture, she probably would've walked out in the first fifteen or twenty minutes.
I don't even know what to say here at this point--- this lecture has just really, really shaken things up for me, I guess.
On one hand, I want to support all of my friends and family who have gotten involved in this war, but, on the other hand, how am I supposed to do so with the apparent injustices behind it?
I have a boyfriend who is a submariner in the US Navy who wants to go on individual assignment to the middle east to participate in this war, and, as much as I'd like to support everything he wants to do, I don't know how possible that is after this lecture.
My mind is just blooooown.

America is a powerful country that carries a lot of weight in the global economy. Our standard of living is amongst the highest in the world, and, like Sam said, the POOREST of the poor people in America have it better than TWO-THIRDS of the world's peoples.
Obviously we're a fortunate country. And, logically, that also means that the people living in this country have more stake in the way the entire world is run than, say, a penniless slave in some third world country.
I don't think that this makes you, as a person, racist in any way to acknowledge that you live in a country with more power, and, therefore, can have a larger affect than someone else. You're not "greater" as a person, you just have a greater ability than others to do something and make a difference.

Anyway, Hi, Tom! I love you, Tom! :D

I am thoroughly impressed with the Haitians living in tent cities. For some reason, it never occurred to me that, even if you live in a tent city, you adapt to establish and incorporate some form of economy. I guess that because of what Ian said about the Hand-out mentality perpetuated by non-profit organizations in Haiti right now, I just didn't think that people were thinking about, none the less implementing, businesses. And, yet, here are Haitians, setting up small businesses, not only for essential things like food, water, and clothing, but for things like electronics and beauty salons! I'm very happy to see the resilient spirits of the Haitian people rising from the devastation- especially after seeing the pictures of Haiti that Ian took on his trip there. I'm glad to see them taking steps to rebound after such a tragedy.

I think, though, that I'm most impressed by the initiative that the Haitian people living in the tent communities have shown. For example, in America, after Hurricane Katrina hit, it seemed that most people expected the government to take the initiative toward healing the community, and, most of all, the area's economy. They were expected to set up or designate areas for people to live and somehow rejuvenate the local economy in the process. Maybe it's because the Haitian government is seemingly non-existent right now, but the people in Haiti don't seem to be waiting around for the government to come to their aid at all. They're setting up their own businesses to make money, and even implementing business practices to make themselves more competitive in the market.

Like many of the other posters, I was veeeerrrry surprised with the amount of business that the non-essential businesses are getting.
I guess that even a natural disaster can't stop people from desiring luxuries. For example, the woman who does the hair and nail treatments? Wow! Personally, I wouldn't have thought to open a salon simply because I'd assume that after such a devastating disaster like the Haitian earthquake, people wouldn't be willing to set aside money in order to pay for such services. Instead, people are desiring things such as pedicures more than ever. I was especially surprised that the 18 year old girls were getting pedicures every two weeks. I just can't see myself paying for non-essential things like that while I was living in a tent.

Second, I was impressed with the innovative ideas that people in Haiti are coming up with as concepts for small businesses. The man with the phone charging business is a genius! I guess it never occurred to me that people would still be fretting about their cell phones after a natural disaster, but they do! I thought it was very creative, and a very practical way to make money.

Bottom line? Very impressed. Very, very impressed.

I think it all boils down to emotional investment.
Most people care about what their family is up to on a day-to-day or, at the very least, a periodic basis. Your family, also, of course, is likely to have played some role in your life and been there for support when you needed them, etcettera etcettera.
But when it comes to 300,000 people that you don't know, it's easy to move on because, in a very immediate sense, it doesn't affect you. I mean, I don't care about what the person next to me in SOC 119 is doing after class or how their day was going. It's no different for someone in a totally different country.
More so, 300,000 is a really large number. I think it's too large for one person to really grasp--- even just sitting in 100 Thomas, I can't totally grasp that I'm in a room with several hundred people.

Hey! It's Tom! Hi, Tom!

Haha. This is an interesting point.
My mother used to work for the Japanese government under what we would refer to as a "senator" who was involved heavily in foreign relations.
She used to tell me about how, at one point, there was a push for a global language, or, in other words, a language that would be taught to all people everywhere.
The idea, of course, never came into fruition because there was no real authority to determine exactly what that global language should be.
Today, I suppose, relatively speaking, it's English, since it's used all over the medical community as well as the business community.
I kind of always assumed that it would always stay that way, but it seems Mandarin Chinese could very well change that.
Interesting notion.

Continued:

Shrouded in darkness. And white is nearly always associated with good--- I know I'm not alone when I say that I have NEVERRRRRRRR seen Jesus wearing anything that WASN'T white. And, you know, if you think about it, God's always depicted wearing white robes.
So when you put a brown doll and a white doll in front of a kid, what other cultural script are they supposed to refer to? I'm sure you could put a brown dog and a white dog in front of them and they'd still pick the white dog as the "good" dog. I don't know exactly how legitimate that question is.