My first reaction to this video was that it I could not get over just how annoying it really was. The data and information was not annoying but it was the music and the whole way that it was all presented in the video that just made me think it was stupid. Now don’t get me wrong I think that it was a real eye opener to see all of those places where terrorist attacks happened and a lot of people were harmed and injured. However where are all of the statistics for the countless suicide bombings going on in the Middle East and around the world? Because let us be honest here, we all know that there are way more jihad attacks than what they just showed.
Now with how the video moved me or made me felt. It really kind of made me think a little bit and take a look at how blessed we really are in America where it is so rare for a jihad or terrorist attack. But for when stuff like that really does happen it is a bit scary to think about. Like what if I was visiting London during the bus attacks or was in Madrid, Spain during the subway bombing. That scary to think about, especially because I could have been in that subway or heck I could have even been on that subway car that was bombed, I could have not been here now for all we know which is scary to think about. But on thing that I really want to know is why is it that all of these people want to do all of these attacks. I mean they can’t really be the levelheaded moderates thinking ones. They have to be the radicals and extremist. Why else would someone in their right mind want to inflict harm on people? So I mean it is not like I am going to hate all of the Muslims and people that worship Islam, because I know that a majority of them are good people, the religion just get a bad reputation because of the radicals and extremists. But this video was an eye-opener and did make me think, and put a little bit of fear in me cause that could have been me hurt, or even worse one of my loved ones or someone I knew.

After reading this article it makes me not want to use natural gas. I am so tired of these big natural resource companies coming in and throwing their money around in order to get their way and to also become even richer. It gets very annoying when things don’t actually go their way and they start complaining about this that and everything else. They need to learn to suck it up like the rest of us. I’m tired of hearing how good of a resource natural gas is. When you look at the facts it has its pluses and minuses like everything else. To me the negatives out weigh the positives in the big way. Anytime something you do can contaminate drinking water and destroy the earth you know it’s probably not the best thing you should be doing. I feel so bad for the many people that have had their drinking water in their wells contaminated with natural gas. What would happen if a company decided to drill right by the Delaware River watershed, and natural gas contaminated it. Now I know from Gasland that, that watershed is the largest unfiltered drinking watershed in the world. It supplies water to the Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York City areas. What would happen if that watershed became contaminated? There would be millions upon millions of people that would become sick and affected by this. There would be countless lawsuits, and on top of that there would be numerous sicknesses and possible deaths. Now that is my big concern and fear. Is it really worth it to mine natural gas for a quick buck, but still have the possibility of hurting a ton of people? I think the government needs to be more proactive in this and they need to take a stand against it. They have the power to change the laws, and they need to do something. There are so many outraged people about this and they need to recognize that and do something about it, that is their is job. I really hope they take the imitative to do something about this because this could end up being very bad for this country.

I agree with what the inmate is saying. A man who truly loves a woman, would do absolutely anything for her, no matter what. It does not matter what is going on but the man should be willing to do anything for his for love. I know that with my girlfriend, I try to be the very best boyfriend I can be. I try to keep her happy and do sweet things for her and care about her. I do not do these things just because they look nice in the public eye and make people say “O wow what thoughtful man.” I do these things for my girlfriend because I truly care about her. I would do anything to make her feel good and happy because that makes me happy. I like to make people happy in general, but when it comes to her, it is even more special. I do not get why television and movies, and videos games, portray women as not being able to want nice things. I do not get why it says that all they want is sex and money either. Maybe that is what they want, but not everyone wants that. Not even all guys. We need to show people how to be compassionate to others, and show people how to care for one another again because if we don’t, then we are just going to go down a long bad spiral.
Now I do not quite get how it took the inmate so long to realize this. I feel that he probably knew this before but he never really thought to much in depth about it until he was prison. I feel like that we all need to take time out of our lives to really analyze the world think what do we all really want. Television can’t be that right in that everyone is a power hungry crazed up hornball. There is more to life than just that and we all need to realize that. We need to treat our loved ones with respect, and make them happy because it makes us happy too. We need to be better people in general.

I feel like I can relate to what the inmate is saying. I know that we can not all know what it is like to be in prison since we are in this class and not in prison. But I think we need to take what he said to heart. It can be very easy to get out of the loop and not know what is going on in the world and that we need to remain great friends with the ones that we already have. We need to keep on continuing to build our relationships with out friends and mentors. Also I can totally relate to him when he said that when you get to a new place like prison for example you tend to adopt new family like members into your life. It is understandable and a part of human nature in my opinion. I know that when I came to college I had some of my friends from back home, but I also made friends up at school. I adopted my RA as my new authority figure because I knew that he would be there to help me if I needed it, and also he was very easy to talk to if I needed help or anything and I became very good friends with him. In the first couple days I met my one of my new best friends up at school. We started out just trying to get to know each other, and now I think it is safe to say that I could consider him like a brother to me.
Also when he said that he sees some of the younger inmates as little brothers to him I can relate to that too. I know that there are some guys from high school on my old team that I consider a little brother to me because I felt like a mentor to them and that I kind of had to take them under my wing. I gladly did it and like the inmate I am obly a year or two older than they are but they felt like they could come to me with any problem they had and looked to me as an older brother figure. So I think we need to take a page out the inmates book and realize that the two worlds are kind of similar regardless of where we are in them.

I found this article very interesting to read, but I do not think that religion will die out. It is like what Richard Greene said toward the end of the video that people have been saying that religion would die out for years now and as far as I am concerned its still kickin’ and going strong. Now I think that it might say that people have their affiliation as “No Religion” but that could mean that because they don’t go to church and are not actively practicing their religion, does not mean that they do not believe in God. I know that I grew up raised being a Catholic and I hated going to church and I found it so boring and dreaded going every week. I will say now that I do not actively go to church like how I used to when I was little, but I still believe in God, which I consider to be a form of religion. It might not be a formal religion but I still believe in him. I have a feeling that I am not alone with this though belief and that many others share mu opinion as well.
Plus I do not think that people will ever abandon religion. It has been present in culture ever since the very beginning of man. The very first people in the cavemen worshiped the animals, because they knew that they needed the animals to survive. As long as we as a people in general continue to worship something there will be religion. It does not matter whether we still continue to worship God and Jesus, or Allah, or Buddha, as long as we worship something it will be considered a religion. We could technically worship Mac & Cheese or Ice Cream, and we could consider that a religion because we are worshiping something as collective whole, believing in it. Now doesn’t that sound a lot like religion? So to answer the question I do not thing that religion will ever die. The number might be declining but somewhere out there, at least one person will continue to worship, and that is all you need for religion.

I am so glad that the topic of mentally handicapped people and the derogatory overuse of the R-word is finally coming in national prominence with this video. I am so tired of hearing people throw the R-word around like it is nothing. A bunch of my friends call each other it, and sometime they’ll even call me it. I know that they are joking around with each other and joking around with me, but even though I am not mentally handicapped I find the use of the offensive to those who are. While it doesn’t hurt my feelings when my friends jokingly call me it, it still offends me because I know how much it offends those who are mentally handicapped. I am not going to lie, I have said the R-word before, and I have said it a lot, and I feel completely terrible about it now looking back on it. However within the last two to three years I have been trying to not to say it. I went through about an eight-month span of not even saying the word and then one day it slipped out. I think we, as a people need to be more aware of how derogatory the R-word actually is.
I know that when I tried phasing it out of my vocabulary I did it because I knew it was offensive and wrong to say. The about a year ago, I found out that one of my really good friends has an autistic brother. It blew my mind, it wasn’t until we went to a blue rocks game with a couple other friends, and on the way back the R-word accidentally slipped. I managed to catch myself right as I was beginning to say it, but I knew my friend who has the autistic brother heard me. I felt so terrible after that. From that point on I think the R-word has only slipped maybe a handful of times. And now when my friends up at school say it jokingly I just tell them not to say it because it is an offensive word. So I think we need to do what the video said and spread the word to stop the word.

I knew the sun had a great effect on people but I had no idea that it had such an effect like that. I think it is so fascinating how sunlight can determine how happy people are. I think it is quite amazing how the sun is a factor outside of our control, that affects us so much as a person and as human beings in general. It is so interesting to take a look and see how sunlight can really affect our mood. I think it is something that Americans take for granted because we are so used to having a decent amount sunlight all throughout the year so we don’t really know how much it can actually affect us. One thing that we need to do is take a look at Helsinki, Finland like how the CNN video does. In the winter they barely get any sunlight and it has a huge dramatic effect on half the citizens that live there. Half of them become depressed. The sun isn’t out as long so they don’t get as much of the sun nutrients that they used to get. Plus on top of that it becomes darker quicker, and the darkness always has a way to affect to people. I guess after dealing with most of the day in darkness it begins to take a toll on your body and you cannot really handle it after awhile.
One thing that the video didn’t talk about was in the summer how much does the sun affect them? Because it is lighter longer and for most of the day, does that mean that the people there are happier than other people around the world? Or are they just as happy as every one else? That is something I would like to see. Also because they have so much more light does that mean the seasonally depressed people because happy again when it starts getting lighter longer and longer? That would be a very interesting study if they could see if the more amount of sun has the opposite affect on the citizens of Helsinki as compared to the light in the winter.

It is videos like this one that sway parents to tell their young children that they shouldn’t talk to strangers. They tell them that bad things will happen if they do talk to them and most parents fear that their pride and joy will taken off somewhere and they won’t ever be able to find them. However that would completely contradict what the little passage says. It encourages parents to tell their kids that if they are lost their kids should talk to strangers. It says to do that because the strangers will most likely help them out and find their parents. So why is it that parents have such a hard time in encouraging their children to do so? The reason is because when you are a parent one of your priorities is to look after your children and make sure that they are protected. And ever since parents were little their parents have ingrained in them that they should never talk to strangers because if they do bad things will happen to them. So it has been passed down through generation to generation to stay away from strangers.
Now what parents need to do is take the time and teach their kids on which strangers they could and shouldn’t talk to. Parents should tell their kids that if they ever get lost in a theme park or a place with a bunch of people that the first people they should look for should be family type people, and ask them for some sort of help. That is much better than if they were wandering around looking for security guard. If they did that there would be a much great possibility that someone would kidnap them. Now people that parents should tell their kids to avoid would be the people that roll up in cars, or come up to them dressed in a long trench coat asking them questions. Those are the people that are most likely going to do some sort of harm to your child. Now with younger children it would be much harder as compared to older children because the older kids have more common sense than the younger ones, but that is why you need to work with your kids and show them the difference between strangers, and which ones are alright to talk to and which ones they should stay away from.

I think this is an interesting article because I think it shows that government seems to be getting very involved in the lives of americans. In some ways this is good and bad. It shows that the government cares about their people, but it at the same time it seems like they are trying to meddle into the lives of Americans. The government should care about their people but to a certain extent. I think it is going a little bit far when the government is starting to want to give out rebates for mothers that breast feed. I mean understand all of the health benefits for a child that breast feeds, but when the government starts wanting to give out rebates I think that means they’re going to far. I think the government should support it and encourage it, but to give out a rebate for it is just straight up ridiculous. The government should be putting rebate money to different more reasonable causes. I feel like this is just another way for our government to get more involved in the lives of Americans. There is line that you should not cross as a government and I fell like our government has crossed it. I mean I think when it comes to an issue like breast feeding the people that should be encouraging mothers to breast feed should be doctors and scientists that recommend it not the government.
I feel like that Michelle Obama shouldn’t be getting involved in childhood nutrition, like how the article states. I can understand how she wants to help make a difference, but I feel like she is calling out parents on their parenting. She has no right to tell people what they should and shouldn’t be doing with their children. I believe she should be able to talk about it, but when she is giving parenting advice that is going to far. Her and the government needs to learn the boundaries of peoples rights and know what things should suggest and which ones they shouldn’t. They should leave the recommendations to the experts before they can get involved in our lives.

This article was very interesting to me because it surprises me a little bit. I can understand where people are coming from on not wanting to travel to Europe or to Asia and other continents because of the price, but to not own a passport at all? That is just straight up ridiculous. I find it very hard to believe that only 30 percent of all Americans have a passport. Wouldn’t you think that, that number would be a little bit higher? When you think about it, what are the cons to having a passport? You can travel to anywhere in the world, with a passport, it is like Visa when it comes to opening up the foreign worlds. Also from what I have heard, having an American passport is very prestigious to other countries. Now I don’t know how true that is but going to a foreign third world country and having an American passport can make the natives envious from what I have heard. Now the one downside about a passport is that you have to pay between a hundred to two hundred dollars for one, but an adult passport lasts for ten years! Doesn’t that sound like a pretty good investment? Plus imagine how much fun it is to look at what you looked like when you first got your picture taken on it.
Now what really surprises me is the lack of people traveling abroad. I know that a lot of people lack the money to do so, but yet they go and spend thousands of dollars on a family vacation for week or so down the shore. Why do that when you could put that money to going to the Caribbean for example. The Caribbean is very similar to the shore because you can still go to the ocean, and stay at a very nice family oriented resort for kids of all ages. There are many activities to do and the sights there are incredible. So when you think about it, for the same price maybe a little more you can get a great vacation and a great experience with many memories. So I think the U.S. should do a better job in advertising foreign travel.