After reading this article, I can get a better understanding of how war has shaped our world sociologically. After watching the video “World Battleground, 1000 years of year in 5 minutes,” I can tell a lot more about war and its history around the world. Early on, the first thing I notice is that I notice is that the only wars take place in Europe. I feel that these wars in Europe prove that Europe started out as the first region to develop into high power empires. As the video progresses, this continues happening for a long period of time with a few scattered wars going on in different places. Although this happens for quite a while, none of these wars are too drastic and are not very big. Not until after the year 1500 do I notice that these wars are getting greater in size. I feel that this is because of the new advanced technologies in warfare, such as missiles, bombs, and planes. By the year 1700, I start to notice that there are more wars taking place in different places all over the world, such as North America and Asia. Although the United States has been involved in numerous wars throughout these past few hundred years, only a few have taken place in the United States. The United States has been fighting in many of the wars throughout Europe. By the year 1900, I start to notice that war starts to get huge in the Middle East. These are the wars that are still affecting our country and our world today. The United States has had a major role in the wars taking place in the Middle East. Although there are many big reasons for us to go to war with these countries, such as 9/11, other terrorist attacks, and nuclear weapons, as we have discussed in class, a pretty big reason for these wars has to be about oil. Since the United States has such a vast population that drive cars and use other fossil fuels, they are always in need of more oil supplies. The Middle East has the biggest amount of oil in the entire world. These other events occurring such as the terrorist attacks are just another reason for the United States to get into the Middle East and fight over the oil.

After reading this article and watching the video about war vets having post traumatic stress disorder. Some of these individuals who suffer from this problem do commit suicide, and after reading this article, I understand that it is a higher total of people than the amount killed in the actual war itself. I feel that the government does try to hide this from the public. I never hear anywhere about this problem and it is not nationally exposed. I feel this is wrong. There is no reason that these war heroes should not be able to receive any help for this problem and there is no reason for the suicide rate to be so high.
After watching the video shown in class, I was able to get a much greater understanding of this and how much of a problem PTSD actually is. From seeing all of these individuals in the video and what they went through, I can realize that most of them went to alcohol and drugs and had serious depression. I also realized that most of them became less social and kept to themselves most of the time. I did not know before this how much the war can mess up an individual mentally. The public should be more aware of this situation because it is a terrible thing that is happening and people should know what to do when they or someone they know have this disorder.
I feel that it is such a shame that the suicide numbers are higher than the amount who died in the war. If the people that were in their lives such as family, friends, and significant others were more aware of PTSD before it started, maybe it wouldn’t have led to suicide. I feel that it would decrease the chance of PTSD getting bad and also the chance of suicide ever happening. I also feel that instead of these war vets having the option of getting help, they should be forced to see a psychologist post-war. It is such a terrible thing that post traumatic stress disorder is leading to such a high suicide rate.

After reading this article, I feel that the oil industry is a big part of this country and government. Major oil companies are a huge part of government and are a huge source or the governments funding. The oil industry has a lot of power and can influence a lot of what the government does. I feel that this power by these major oil companies may not be such a good thing and may influence the government a little too much. Even though I feel that this can be a bad thing, it is very understandable to me because these oil companies are just doing what any other company would do to make big money. What this all does is help the downfall of the American economy. America’s economy has been in this recession for quite a while and has been at its worst over the past few years. These major oil companies helps the government with funding and helps out a lot to get us out of this recession.
I feel that many people are against these oil companies having so much power and control over the government. A lot of people want the government to look for alternate sources of energy that are not so harsh on the environment as oil is. The burning of fossil fuels such as oil can be leading to future global warming and nobody wants that to happen. Although we do not want this to happen, oil and other fossil fuels have been the most abundant of any source of energy and mot likely will not be replaced by alternate sources, such as corn oil. I agree with what we discussed in class about oil. We discussed how we go to war with these Middle Eastern countries just for the oil. The Middle East has one of the most abundant sources of oil and natural gas and America needs this to support the amount that we need in this country. Another place that there is a lot of oil that has yet to be taken is Alaska. Although there is such a huge amount of oil under Alaska, people do not want oil companies to drill there. Alaska is one of the true national parks of America and people do not want to ruin this ecosystem.

After reading this article, I do not agree with it. I do not agree that religion could one day be obsolete and that the major religions people follow today will one day be no more. Personally, I do not consider myself to be a religious person. I come from a Jewish family and was born and raised as a Jewish person. Growing up, I always went to synagogue with my family fro the major Jewish holidays. I attended Hebrew school from the age of six till I was thirteen. I also had a Bar Mitzvah when I was thirteen years old. Although I have done these religious things as a Jewish person, I do not consider myself to be a religious person. Since I have been in college and have had my own individual freedom, I have not done anything to religious. I have not followed any of the major Jewish holidays or gone to synagogue. Although some people in my family might feel this is not good, I do not feel that religion should control my life. Even though I do not feel I am a religious person, I do feel it should still be around in the future because I feel it is a personal preference. Even though I do not consider myself religious or follow my religion anymore, I still consider myself a Jewish person because it is part of my family’s history and it is important to my family members.
Religion around the world has been a crucial part to all civilization. Judaism, Christianity, and many other major religions have been spread throughout the world and are all a major part of the people’s lives. Even though there are some people like me who are not very religious, there will always be more who are followers. Because of this, I feel that religion will not fall and will always be a major part of society. Even if everyone is not religious, everyone still has a “God” and this “God” will always be part of life. Also, in certain situations, everyone will pray for this “God” even if they do not believe in religion, such as for terrorist attacks or global catastrophes.

After reading this article, I agree that a large group of people can be influenced by the same thing at once and could be controlled by these invisible strings. There can be a large gathering of people that can be controlled by certain factors to do certain things. These people can be motivated to do things that are in the best interest of them as individuals.
A great example of this happening is at large music concerts or festivals. I personally can use this example because I attend these types of gathering as many times as I can throughout the year. In fact I already have a lineup of concerts and music festivals for this upcoming summer. While attending these shows, I can admit that these invisible strings can influence me. These shows are always packed with people and everyone is always dancing to the music playing. This is a great example of these strings. Everyone is influenced by the music and the groove, which leads to everyone dancing. Theses people are not acting, they are just doing what they choose to do and that everyone else is usually dancing also. These individuals are still benefiting from the collective actions of the others surrounding. This is my favorite part of attending these events. Even though we might be persuaded to do the things surrounding us, I still decide to take part in this because the music is influencing me to do so.
I feel that by bringing a large number of people together to do something will still help them benefit from one another. For instance, when people are brought together for a concert or something, everyone benefits because they are all enjoying the same thing. Everyone is benefiting from the music that is performed by the band. This band is the leader that controls all of the people that have gathered to form this large group.
In conclusion to all of this, I can agree that crowds of people can be controlled or influenced to do certain things without acting. I have been in many situations where I have been influenced and have first hand knowledge of these scenarios.

After reading this article, I can say that I agree that this issue is a never talked about in public conversation. I agree that the word retard is a bad word to use and is very disrespectful to people who do suffer from mental disabilities. Personally, I can admit that I have used this word, but never towards someone that has a problem. The only times I have said it in the past I was either talking about myself after doing something incorrectly or to a one of my brothers or a close friend who did something stupid. I would never say it to someone anyone else, especially to someone who is mentally disabled.
A few years ago for an entire year, I volunteered and worked with a program called CLASSP. This stands for Consortia for Learning and Service to Special Populations. With CLASSP, I was a counselor and teacher for both young children ages four and five with learning disabilities and teenagers ages thirteen to eighteen. Some of their learning disabilities were autism, turret’s syndrome, and downs syndrome. I feel that working with the teens was a great experience because some were my age at the time. Although they all had different learning disabilities, they were still normal people with normal lives they just had a little trouble learning, which some did better than others. After working this job, I never used the word retard anymore, not even towards any of my friends. I realized that this was a terrible word and that it is very offensive towards these individuals.
After watching this video, I realize that a lot of people use this word and do not understand it. Even some of the people who are public figures use it. This is especially true when they start going around to random people and they all said that they have used it at some time. This shows that this has never been an issue before and that nobody realizes how bad it actually is. I feel that this should be a bigger issue. If it were more publically brought on, people would think before they speak and might not say it next time.

After reading this article, I do understand and can relate to thinking of certain people as being really white. Saying that an individual is really white is not necessarily racist. I am a white person, but I would not consider myself to act white too often. After watching this video, I can agree that this person is a great example of someone who is white and has a white personality. There are just so many aspects of this video that show how white he actually is. The first and probably biggest example of this is that whenever he unbuckles his belt to put the holster back on he gets really nervous and reiterates that he is wearing an extra pair of gym shorts underneath. Also, whenever he speaks he sounds very proper and says every word exactly and does not use any conjunctions. His voice is definitely white because he sounds very monotone and tended to stutter at times. His clothing is another great example of how white he is. He is wearing a polo shirt that is tucked into jeans. This is a typical white style of dressing. His posture is another example because he is standing awkwardly the entire time. He also looks like he does not know what to do with his hands. His awkward pause at the 1:56 mark was pretty funny because he was talking about looking at someone’s front private parts and he said, “When was the last time you stared at someone’s zipper.” I feel that since he said zipper that he speaks very white also.
In my everyday life, it is very easy to pick out random people that I feel is considered very white. There are a lot of people like the man in this video and they are all around us. I am sure that there are other people in this class that are very white even if they are not actually white. In fact, there are some black people that I consider to be white. This is very common because anyone can have a white personality, act white, speak white, or even dress white.

After reading this article and watching the video, I feel that people should feel afraid of things that are so uncommon, but only to an extent. I realized this is especially true after watching the video of this news story. I found this very interesting that things like kidnap attempts are happening so openly like this. Good thing this was a good nanny or that man would have easily gotten away with the child. I feel the man is going to get caught because the camera did get a pretty good image of him. After reading the article posted by Professor Richards and what we discussed in class, I understand that a child asking a stranger for help is a good idea because they will help most of the time. The thing I disagree with is that there is the really low chance that that stranger could be a kidnapper them self and trick the child. In the video, I like when a random parent said that after the incident she told her child to always hold her hand and not run away anymore because there are bad people out there. I agree with this and feel it is the parent’s responsibility to not have their child be running around in public when there are people like this man who do kidnap in the open. It is terrible that there are people like this out there who are kidnappers. Since there is, parents should be much more aware of this and teach their children the right things to do to not get kidnapped.
Recently, I saw a movie called, “Taken.” This is a movie with Liam Neeson where he is a CIA agent and his daughter goes to Europe with a friend. They end up sharing a cab with the wrong person and get kidnapped because he sees where they are staying. This shows that children are just not aware of these bad things going on. This shows that these children are just not smart enough to see what strangers could be good and what could be bad. This is why I feel that children should not just ask the first stranger they see for help and should be taught what to do in the situation.

I really feel that this article really shows how bad things can get if the government does start banning some of the things people use in their everyday lives. If the government does get a say in what can and cannot be sold or done, things will get this bad. I like the example being used in the original post by Professor Richards about Big Macs. Even if they are unhealthy and could lead to future health problems if consumed at a high rate, the government should not be allowed to ban them for that reason. The Big Mac is the most popular and best selling item on the menu of probably the biggest fast food chain in the nation, McDonalds. If the government were to ban this item, this would be a huge blow to McDonalds. Also, if the government were to put a tax on this for healthcare costs, people would be outraged. Although it is unhealthy to eat, it is still the individual’s decision to consume this product. This all leads me to say that the government should not step in now and that I should not have to pay for the decisions of others to eat unhealthy food.
Now comes the article. Although I am a male and this does not really affect me, my belief on most arguments is that it should be the individual’s choice whether or not they want to do something one way or the other. This also describes this situation. I agree that it should be a, “very personal choice for every woman.” The problem I have is that the first lady should not be making this a huge deal. This is not a matter that should be controlled by the government. Breast pumps should not be an added tax to healthcare costs. As said in the article about Michelle Obama, “For them, government is the answer to every problem.” I do not agree with this. I feel that the government should not have to solve every problem. Some problems are for the individuals to decide on their own terms, such as whether or not they want to breast feed their children or not.

I feel this article can lead to a more personal point of view of many people. Personally, I love to travel. Throughout my life, I have traveled to many places throughout the United States and Europe. My first travel experience that I can remember was going to Disney World with my grandparents and older brother when I was three years old. I live in New York, and I have traveled throughout the entire country since then. I have been to many places from Florida to Texas to California and many states in between. As I got into high school, my family and I started going to over seas to countries such as England, France, and Spain. Basically my life has been the complete opposite of this article.
Although I have experienced a life of travel, many other people and families do not travel. This is something that I do not understand. Although there are circumstances in which people cannot travel, such as lack of money or being scared of terrorists, there should be no reason for anyone else to not experience this. Travel is something that is great for learning, or even just being on vacation to get away from everyday life. Travel has gotten more expensive over the years and this does make it more difficult for people to travel. This is a huge problem for a lot of the working class. This is especially true for people that want to travel to an out of country destination. This makes it very difficult for these people to go where they want to go and is a huge reason why they do not travel.
The other reason people have for not traveling is that they might be scared to fly after the 9/11 attacks. I do not feel for these people. After this happened, security has made travel much more safe and there has not been any problems with flights ever since. Unless you were one of the people who tragically lost someone close during this, you have no reason to be scared anymore. Flying has never been safer and people should really start traveling again.