en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/3548986 Comments by chrisdmaier http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/12/02/voices-from-the-classroom-89/#IDComment233442428 This is a really tough question to go about. The issue at hand is how we could come up with a solution to “come together” during State Pattys Day? Are you serious? This is The Pennsylvania State University. We were not only rated one of the biggest party schools in the country, but we also dealt with a child abuse scandal and a fallen and fellow Greek student. Right now I want to focus on the whole being rated at partying bit. The fact that not only Playboy, but also The Princeton Review has “targeted” us as partiers is probably not a good thing for this University. Don’t get me wrong, it lets people see how “good” of a time we are having out here, but it isn’t good academically for obvious reasons. The Princeton Review is a very credible and reliable source for colleges, high schools, and businesses as well. Fact of the matter is that when someone of that magnitude realizes our behavior, it may not be the best thing ever. Now, why is this a problem you may ask? Good people of Penn State University; WE HAVE AN ENTIRE HOLIDAY DEDICATED TO GETTING DRUNK AND WEARING GREEN. Who does that?! Only Penn State and this is a significant problem. I am always going to be one of those people celebrating the holiday, but in lieu of recent events, there is no way we are going to “come together” for State Pattys Day. I really don’t think that we’re going to be drunk and in our drunken state be like, “Hey, what about those kids and everything that happened?” Sadly, it’s just not going to happen. I truly believe that we are going to have quite a lot of fighting actually. When the scandal first came out, there were many non-Penn Staters who were giving us a lot of crap. When State Pattys Day comes around, there are almost just as many non-Penn Staters as there are students. Many of them aren’t going to come back, that’s fine. However, many are going to return and what happens when that subject is brought up and everyone has been drinking? It’s going to turn down a very dark road that, personally, I’m not all that excited to witness. Back to what I said about being a huge party school; we’re going to do what we “do best” and party. I don’t think there is going to be a huge movement going at the recent events. I think by the time this holiday rolls around, it really will be like smoke in wind. This is what we at least hope for. As bad as recent events were and are, many times, some people would rather put it in the past and move forward. It will be utterly interesting to see what happens in a few months. Tue, 6 Dec 2011 03:57:12 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/12/02/voices-from-the-classroom-89/#IDComment233442428 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/15/voices-from-the-classroom-79/#IDComment223169028 What if Sandusky was Latino or Black? Damn, I think it might almost be a lot worse than the present situation. You have to understand the dynamics of the case I suppose. Sandusky has been a predominant member of the Penn State community for over 50 years and in that time he has done a numerous amount of “decent” acts for not only the community, but also for the school itself. He reached out to many people over his time at Penn State and well after as well. But are you serious people? In all the interviews that he did with anyone there isn’t but a handful that he’s in the shot without some child. If that isn’t weird I clearly don’t know what is. What kind of man is constantly around children 24/7 and no one has the balls to say anything about it. He even looked creepy as Fester on the Addams Family. But less about what his actions condemned and back to the present predicament as to if he was of a different race. I don’t want to constrict the question to solely Latino and Black race categories. I think those are good predictions but there would be so many more situations where a different race than the two presented could lead to very controversial beliefs. Okay, first, lets say that Sandusky was actually of dark skin. I think that it would most likely be looked less upon honestly. Throughout history, people of dark skin have committed a large number of sexual acts such as this that have been documented. So I think if he was of dark skin then it would go over much more swiftly. If he was of Latino decent, almost the same as dark skin in my opinion. In crimes like this, it is of statistical comparison that Latino’s and Blacks commit more of these sorts of crimes. But what if Sandusky was Asian? What would the general population think of this so called “hero and savior”. NOTHING like that has ever happened in the world of US college sports. An Asian man raping the likes of 15 plus children? It would be much more unthinkable then the current situation of Sandusky being a white man. People wouldn’t even know what to do, and the Asian population at Penn State would be extremely angry. However, on that regard do we believe that the majority of the skull, i.e. Caucasian, would not care as much seeing as we do not have a close racial tie with him? I know that is a long shot to believe such a thing, but anything is possible, as this case has proven true. I believe Sandusky being a male of white skin made the situation bad enough. Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:56:24 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/15/voices-from-the-classroom-79/#IDComment223169028 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/03/voices-from-the-classroom-66/#IDComment219003928 Why don’t we do the hard labor that the Mexicans do? WE’RE THE LAZIEST PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH! We mope around this country like we’re the only ones that occupy this planet. Hellooooo! We’re not the only one’s here and until people start realizing that we are going to keep following on this circular orbit that we are stuck in. It’s a little thing I’d like to call um slavery?!?! We as American’s feel that it is all right to enslave people that not only are impartial to our language, but also inferior to our “culture”. I don’t know who gave American’s the right to completely shit on everyone else, but we are very good at it and excel at it as well. We loveeeeee making money in this country and that is a cold-blooded fact! We live in consumerist America and that isn’t going anywhere for a long while. Hell, within twenty miles of my hometown in New Jersey is New York City and at least 75% of the people that live in my town commute on a daily basis to the city. What are they doing there? MAKING MONEY! They all either work on Wall Street or are the owners or CEO’s of major corporations. You think you’re going to see those guys mowing lawns and trimming hedges if we kick out all the illegal Mexicans? Oh no. That isn’t going to happen in a long while. Well, at least until there are more of them then there are actual American citizens. Is it wrong to have illegal immigrants here and even know one or two, let alone have them work for you? Yes, it is wrong because it puts citizens in that position where we could potentially get in trouble. What would we do if we were to kick them all out? Like I said, we’re not going to the jobs that we’re going to do. There is not such thing as manual labor in this country anymore. How many white people do you see building houses; fixing roads; or cutting down trees? My guess is not a whole lot. So we’re not going to do the work the Mexican immigrants do because we don’t want too. We want to make money and be lazy at doing it. We have them now, don’t we? We can argue that we need to kick them out as much as we want, but are we really going too? I don’t think so. Hell, if we have them to do all the work, why should we have to do it? The answer is that we won’t. Wed, 9 Nov 2011 01:27:28 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/03/voices-from-the-classroom-66/#IDComment219003928 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-60/#IDComment216387452 I see that a lot of people that have responded to this question have answered it in terms of being the owner of a BIG business. I mean, I understand why people would be so against hiring illegal immigrants into a big company. Within a large corporation there are more “eyes” watching the activities that occur within that company. Government organizations such as the IRS, National Border Patrol, CIA, FBI and many others would be very suspicious if certain large corporations were making a huge amount of profit and not spending the correct and legal amount of money towards employees. This would be immediately looked into and most likely shut down. What I want to look into is the hiring of illegal immigrants in small businesses. My father owns a small construction company and he has hired illegal immigrants. You see, in my town, there are many more illegal immigrants that work for day labor and don’t want those jobs that are long-term. If you come into this country illegally then you don’t have citizen papers and if you are caught in the country working for someone then you will immediately be deported back to your home country. And this is not only a problem for the person being sent back, but also for the owner of the company. The hiring of illegal immigrants is exactly that: illegal. The person or people could lose their job, their company, and even go to jail if the offense is serious enough. So in terms of myself, I would certainly hire day laborers. You may be confused as to why I say this after everything I just stated, but I have my reasons. You have to think that this country is a consumerist society. Without the economy our country will likely shut down and we will all be jobless, poor, and for the most part, unhappy. What most people don’t know is that the majority of the people that run our country are the people that work at the bottom of the work force. A.k.a. the immigrants. Without them, Americans would not do the jobs that we really don’t want to do. We always say that we will do the landscaping and painting and construction but in reality, we really wont. We don’t want to do those jobs because simply, we have the illegal immigrants to do it for us. Without those jobs being fulfilled the foundation of our country wouldn’t be standing as it is and we wont be able too make the money we really want too as Americans. We need illegal immigrants to do the jobs we don’t want to do. Is it right? No. Will we continue to do it? Yes. Thu, 3 Nov 2011 17:49:57 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-60/#IDComment216387452 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-51/#IDComment212252683 We live in a world that isn’t exactly accepting of all types of race, color, religion, orientation, etc. We say that we are tolerant, but in reality, we are really just as scared of slipping up with saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person. I have an exuberant amount of friends that are “easy” targets to be picked on for their gender, race, or nationality even. But there will ALWAYS be that “awkward” feeling of having to worry about that slip-up. Hell, I have many black friends and for the longest time I was always worried about saying something that would make them hate me even after being friends with them for so long. Guys, they just became free a little less than 400 years ago, give them a break! They can be mad still! See that isn’t what I think, but that is what many other white people think of other blacks. As much as we are trying to get away form this “problem” it isn’t going away for a very long time and the sooner we come to that realization the better off we are going to be. I bet no one will guess what one of my favorite days was for me in my late teen years. One of my favorite memories was when my black friend, George, accepted me calling him “my nigga”. For some, that seems like a silly thing to be happy about, but it gave me that reassuring feeling that he was really my friend because he didn’t care what I said. No matter what, he was my friend and a word didn’t have to define that friendship. From that moment forward, it was much easier to feel completely and utterly comfortable in my own skin and not have to worry so much about what I was going to say to potentially offend someone. That comfort level almost got to an uncontrollable high when I came to college. I thought that because a few of my friends from home would allow me to say that, that it was alright for me to do it with everyone. I was terribly wrong. I got some bad looks, some people yelled at me and it just wasn’t a good thing for me to be doing. Obviously, I quit that “habit” right away. I realized that I do say a good amount of racist things and only if you are my friend will you find it humorous. My friends understand that I don’t have a filter on my tongue and what I say is just what comes to my headfirst and that is an understandable concept. If you didn’t know me, however, it is extremely easy to get it confused with pure racism. Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:22:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-51/#IDComment212252683 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/13/voices-from-the-classroom-44/#IDComment208998930 Have I ever experienced white guilt? Of course I have! I’m white and not only am I white, but I’m also not even a natural born citizen of this country so it was a completely different experience for me. Not being a born citizen of the United States it took a lot of time to get used to the social norms of America. Not only was I not born here, but there was no one person of color in my town and not close for miles. So yeah, when I came to the United States I was confused with their culture and everything about having people of color around. But as weird as that was for me to come to grip with and begin too understand, some of my best friends today are people of color. The fact of the matter is, white guilt will never go away. For some reason and I have no idea why, but I think that a lot of white people will always feel the guilt of being white forever. I really, really don’t get it, but we think that all of the troubles people of color have been through in the past such as slavery are somehow still our fault. I’m sorry, but that happened over 400 years ago and in today’s society we need too get away from the fact that the past is the past and we need to make it stay that way. Every single race and culture has been prosecuted in sometime throughout time. So why do we feel a necessity to feel the already present “white guilt”. I want to pose the question of why we can’t have guilt towards any other culture or race that we think about the proposed problem as much as white people do towards people of color? I know the Jews got hurt an immense amount, but we don’t really discriminate towards them at all anymore. Well, other than the occasional joke from time to time. But people of color get the “privilege” to almost get mad at white people for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they know they have power over us because of “white guilt”. And take away white guilt from the table for a minute and switch over too how white people are completely afraid of black people in urban settings. Now, no white person will tell me that they are completely and utterly comfortable walking down the street at any time of day or night in the middle of Harlem in NYC. Would any white person say that they would be okay with that? No. I guarantee that as well. We’re going to need to progress through time as a society if we are ever going to get rid of the simplistic nature of our “guilt” if we want to actually evolve as a species. Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:40:00 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/13/voices-from-the-classroom-44/#IDComment208998930 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment207521956 If we do not begin to conform to the ideas that used to work in the past, we are only going to progress in a negative direction and the opportunity cost of what we are doing right now is way to detrimental to even consider the acts of what we are doing. Could you imagine what it would look like if men and women both spent the same amount of time on getting dressed when going out? Men would actually look professional and women would, well, look the same, but still. I think that in time we will begin to go back to a manner in which we can be somewhat more proud of when we look back on our pasts and having something to be proud of. But for now, we will continue our juvenile habits and eventually evolve back to a manner of self-esteem. Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:37:23 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment207521956 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment207519368 I think that women go out and spend so much time getting ready for any given night of the week because they simply hold the ability to do so. They care. Men don’t. Men have this “god” complex that makes us all think that we can do whatever we want, say whatever we want, and for some odd reason we get the exact results that we request. Why the hell is that? I’m a guy and I still don’t understand it nor abide by it. I think it’s utterly ridiculous for people to ascribe to such selfishness. For some reason, women extremely care but we can’t even think about caring? It shows that our generation is not going to be very successful because we don’t know how to conform to the nature of “not giving a shit” society. If we don’t, and most likely not, then we are going to grow up and corrupt the already corrupt nation that we live in today. Moreover, not only the nation that is in jeopardy but also the entire world and global rather than nation-wide will join in on the mess that we are making. I think I may be taking this a little far, but it makes sense to see where I’m coming from I believe. We need to go back to the way things used to be. Back when people actually had something to say and it was based on a society based understanding of what “professional” really looks like. If you didn’t conform to the standard, than you were going to be a social outcast. In our society today, if you look “professional” then you are considered a social outcast. That is not the way things should be run. We need to fix the mistakes we are making now. From the smallest idea as to what we as people wear out on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night. Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:30:24 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment207519368 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-25/#IDComment203216919 The best type of aid is simply the aid that produces the most productive benefit. I’m not exactly sure how this question wants to be answered, but by looking at a lot of other people’s answers, they went about the route of government help and welfare. I don’t want to go in that direction. I classify this question to be in terms of actual people, individuals needing aid. I want to go about this question as such because I want to add in my own personal take on the matter. I used to be an enormous drug addict. Cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, PCP, LSD, mushrooms, pain pills, etc. I did pretty much everything that didn’t have to do with a needle. I went to rehab when I was 16 years old. My parents sent me away with my permission of course; I knew that I had an astronomically huge problem and I asked them for my help. But up until I realized that I had a problem, no one was there to help me. I had no emotion, no one to help me get through what I was doing with my life…nothing. I was in such a state of depression that no one could even try to get me out of the “funk” that I was in. I thought I had “friends” that “cared” about me. All they wanted to do was use my money to buy more and more drugs. And I did it; within one year I stole 10,000 dollars from my parents bank account to pay for drugs. Most of that money went towards my cocaine addiction. I was happy because I knew that no one could touch me when I was drugs, no pain, no emotion, nothing. I have amazing parents, I really do; they were amazing my entire life, but why didn’t they help me when they saw I was killing myself slowly? I needed help and it took me almost killing myself for them to come to my aid. Suicide is a funny business. Its something you can’t control, it is something society controls. I remember when I was on a trip once where my “friend” thought it would be funny if we went driving on the highway at 4 in the morning. My friend died that night. If someone needs help, give it to him or her right away, don’t wait, don’t hesitate. People need help, everyone needs help all the time and the ones who don’t admit to it are the ones who need it the most. Relapse is something I think about each and every day of my life and if I got help; if someone stood up and told me what I was doing was wrong maybe my “friend” would still be here. Wed, 5 Oct 2011 01:35:10 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-25/#IDComment203216919 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment199539400 The first person that I looked at on the list of entrepreneurs was Clorene Blaise. I thought her story was one of the more interesting ones. Everyone in this world needs clothes. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with me all of you nudists out there, but people need clothes! To be nude is not something must human beings would care to witness. The thing is, clothes are not cheap. Even if you go to the thrift store or something that does cost close to nothing, it is still money. Believe me, this is a hard concept to talk about being an economy major. Back on the topic of Clorene, it is absolutely amazing that her and her team can create upwards of 300 shirts in the span of only four days. I didn’t think this was originally a large number, but then I got to thinking that this isn’t being made in America, China, Japan, or Korea, (not to be racist, but that is where over 90% of our imported/exported goods come from). The fact that this quick rate of production can be done in a country that doesn’t have the best technology is absolutely insane. Another thing that is crazy is that this woman and her team are not only producing apparel for different businesses meaning adult clothes really, she’s also producing a large amount of infant clothes and baby bundles. This isn’t really something we see in the States. For the most part, companies specialize in something like baby and infant clothing. Aside from all these amazing aspects, she’s actually hiring and teaching the Haitian people how to make clothes through sewing skills. We should want to partner up with Clorene Blaise and help her create more and more clothes per day for these people. Not only is she producing jobs, but also a product. I think that if we took the stance to try and help give some more money out it would be a much better market for everyone. That’s simple economics. The other entrepreneur that I looked into was Yvrose. She makes sandles, women’s dresses and eveningwear. The best part about it is that she makes all of these items by scratch. The most important aspect to reflect on is the fact that this woman in Haiti wants to expand her business; however, she does not have the power or materials or means of income to take it any further. This is a woman that does not have a lot, but what she does have is a huge amount of concentration and dedication to her work, which ultimately, helps others and so much herself. If we were to help her as in raise money to help her purchase a new machine, she could do some serious damage in helping the people of Haiti. Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:23:00 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment199539400 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/06/voices-from-the-classroom/#IDComment191619839 Why can’t we just be American? This question made me almost angry when I saw it posted on the site. I’m not American. I was born in Switzerland and I was raised there. I have all of my family in that country and everything I love is there. People need to realize that we are all apart of a country that excels based on economy. Without the economy that America possesses, no one would be here. That is why America is called the “Melting Pot” of the world because everyone that comes here comes for a better future. Something that everyone needs to understand is that without the United States of America, we would have no root of economy. The Chinese stock market is entirely based on our own and if our economy and stock market fail, (like it is right now), then their economy is going to fail and then eventually, everything is going to shut down and the world will be in complete chaos. Why can’t we just be American? Well, what is so good about being American? That is my second point. I feel as though this question is almost putting in the minds of everyone else that if you’re not American then you’re not “good”. I hate that and think that it is complete and utter bullshit. There is nothing wrong with not being American. Anything that was accomplished in this world was mostly started in other continents and people need to realize that and no one does. There is something “good” about being American, yes. You don’t have to get questioned every single time you walk into an airport and you don’t get profiled for blowing something up. This is true. But what does it mean to really be American? For me, before I came to the United States, through television, I viewed American’s as “hicks” that drank only beer, cried about their dead dogs, and were depressed when their pick-up trucks broke down. Then I came here and realized that there is many more people here than have more to do with that than I thought. However, I do believe that American’s need to change the way they are looked at. I say “they” because as long as I’ve been living in America, I don’t consider myself an American. Ah I actually don’t know how to really answer what is left of this question because it would end up in an excessive amounts of swear words because it makes me really angry that we have to chose to be one thing or the other and that we just can’t be people living with other people, rather it has to be American, European, Asian, etc. Fri, 9 Sep 2011 20:32:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/06/voices-from-the-classroom/#IDComment191619839 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment188468749 What do I want to know before the semester ends about racism or anything else we've discussed? I want to know why in the simple sense. The human race would get so incredibly bored if there was no conflict. We cause so much unnecessary conflict in the world, (some is necessary); however, we actually don't need it to survive. If it were a better society in some ways, then we wouldn't have to deal with all the war and all the bullshit pretty much that goes along with imperfection in the world. Why can't we just all worry about our own countries and continents? But alas, we can't because we need something to do. In the end, that's all racism, war, smoking, addiction, etc., really is. And even pass the topic of addiction, that’s exactly what we do each and every day. Our society is based off of addiction. If someone wasn't addicted to a given item or cause, we really wouldn't do anything successful. So in the end, the question I really want answered is what we're doing wasting our time with racism that in the end, isn't going to help anyone. Why can't we accept everyone for who they are, what color their skin is, and what they do? Obviously, this question is one that will be asked for the next millennia and beyond. I would love to know what your answers would be though. We have been seeing episodes of racism for the entirety of our lives. It is something that will not change and it will not go away. In class the other day, someone raised the idea that we are slowly getting out of a worldwide racism with the appointment of a black president. That topic in itself is something that would need a dissertation to answer. However, I don’t think that we are getting out of any type of worldwide racism; rather we are getting ourselves deeper into something we can’t crawl out of. And on top of that, why does the entire world think that when the word racism comes up, we immediately assume the topic of black people. Does anyone not remember what happened to the Jews some fifty years ago? WHITE PEOPLE KILLED WHITE PEOPLE. But no one really remembers that their skin color was the exact same. Referring to what I said before, people need something to do and if they aren’t aiding themselves in a better pursuit of life then they’re going to end up trying to poke at someone’s weak spots and see what happens. That is really all that occurs in this world: people helping themselves, which in a way can help others perhaps; and people having nothing to do so they believe that we need to fight others for their beliefs. I want to know why this occurs and if there is any chance it will ever change. And no, I don’t mean aliens coming to Earth and taking over and then we will attempt to come together. (sorry I had to post twice. didn't know about the 450 word limit) Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:00:27 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment188468749 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment187857662 What do I want to know before the semester ends about racism or anything else we've discussed? I want to know why in the simple sense. The human race would get so incredibly bored if there was no conflict. We cause so much unnecessary conflict in the world, (some is necessary); however, we actually don't need it to survive. If it were a better society in some ways, then we wouldn't have to deal with all the war and all the bullshit pretty much that goes along with imperfection in the world. Why can't we just all worry about our own countries and continents? But alas, we can't because we need something to do. In the end, that's all racism, war, smoking, addiction really is. And even pass the topic of addiction, thats exactly what we do each and every day. Our society is based off of addiction. If someone wasn't addicted to a given item or cause, we really wouldn't do anything successful. So in the end, the question I really want answered is what we're doing wasting our time with racism that in the end isn't going to help anyone. Why can't we accept everyone for who they are, what color their skin is, and what they do? Obviously, this question is one that will be asked for the next millennia and beyond. I would love to know what your answers would be though. Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:14:06 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment187857662