I would definitely help someone illegally immigrate into the country. Especially, if I knew they tried to immigrate legally but were unable to because of laws or other circumstances. This is America. We forget sometimes that this country is founded by the idea of freedom of speech and religion which has drawn people here from around the world for centuries. One of my favorite quotes comes from a White Stripes song titled Icky Thump, where Jack White sings, “White Americans, what, nothing better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out you’re an immigrant too.” There is no one in the United States, save the few Native Peoples, who would be here if it were not for immigration. My ancestors came to America to have a more prosperous life and to pursue happiness as people do now (and hopefully will in the future because if this country is prosperous people will want to continue to come). Some are so concerned for the well being of their family here that they are willing to risk anything to provide for them. How many of us would leave our family and friends, forget about our own lives, work long hours for low wages just to put food on our families plates. I don’t think anyone can argue that this doesn’t show selfless and courage, qualities that Americans traditionally admire. If I could help an alien into America illegally, there would be a whole family grateful for my service, which to me is worth the inherent risk. Immigrants are important to this country, even the illegal ones; their benefit to the economy is extraordinary. As we learned in class, many businesses in the United States rely upon undocumented immigrants to survive in a market where any cost you can save (in this case labor costs) allows you to sell your product cheaper and compete in a global economy. Plus, I think it is sobering for Americans to realize that jobs are not a god given right. If you aren’t willing to work as hard as an illegal immigrant then a firm shouldn’t hire you; period. Why should you get an unfair advantage? Because you were born here? Come on, you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your hard working ancestors coming, just like immigrants today, to this land to better their lives. I personally wouldn’t want to be given a job if I didn’t think I were the best person for it, if I didn’t think I earned it, if I didn’t think I would work hard and do a good job. Sometimes I look at my peers and see an attitude like I should get what I want without sacrificing too much, especially time and effort. I think our culture has taught us that we can be lazy because we have it good. We can’t take our blessings for granted because if we do other nations are going to continue to surpass us in economy, standard of living, and technology. I think we can all learn from immigrants. We should welcome them and help them.

Basically my sister began where my uncle left off which he spent his whole career working up to. Nepotism isn’t fair, but will continue no matter how much effort you put into battling it. You shouldn’t ignore it and reap the rewards thinking I’m the best because I succeeded but at the same time you shouldn’t deny it because it is unfortunate you were able to achieve what someone else who might be more qualified didn’t. The best way to hinder nepotism is to understand it and the way it has affected you. Then when you are in a position later in life where you have the opportunity to give something you can be aware that there is a person whom you have a connection with and a person who is more qualified. Hopefully then you can do the right thing.

. I don’t think nepotism is fair but not taking advantage of it isn’t reasonable. After all we are taking advantage of so many other resources every day which are few and far between in most countries. It’s not fair. I shouldn’t live a better life because I was born in the U.S., any more than I should live a better life because I am going to be a white male with a family whom are well liked among the community. I have connections to employers and educators that I don’t even know because my parents are friends with them and they’re friends with some other people in some other town. My sister got her first internship with Voice of America in Washington D.C. Why, Because of nepotism. My uncle worked for the firm before he retired so it was essentially a guarantee.

Nepotism is around every corner and behind every door. Thus, I have inevitably been affected by nepotism since I was a child and will continue to be especially in the years ahead when I leave school and enter the workforce. Along the way I have despised it like I did when playing baseball and the coach’s son got more at bats and fielding time than I did. Yet I know that I have also enjoyed the benefits of it too, as I did the other day when I received notice I had job if I wanted it for the upcoming summer. As a white male though, I think I sometimes take for granted how much nepotism works in my favor, just the same as I expect the water I use every day to be nearly unlimited and overly purified to insure my safety. I think it is merely human tendency to want to say I achieved a goal, and did it entirely by myself, but with the current communication and interaction between people across the globe this is not true.

Our water supply and sewage treatment were two of the most extraordinary infrastructure systems on the earth at one time in the United States history and are still by and large impressive today. The two systems have greatly influenced the increasing life expectancy among people in this country for generations. Yet I know not every country, not even most countries, have as good or expansive of water and sewage systems as we enjoy and often take for granted.

Not to be disrespectful toward this guy's opinions but I would be extremely interested in conversing and enlightening him on how huge his misconceptions are. First, let me say having a family member who previously held a position in the local government of my home county, few know how much funding is truly required to run a campaign let alone a successful one. I feel like this guy is bashing on Obama cause he doesn't like him for some other reason, because let's be honest few people would hesitate spending any amount of money to secure the presidency of the United States. Republicans and Democrats alike raise astonishing amounts of money for their campaign and I will agree this is unfortunate to have come to this, where the candidate who can raise the most funding generally wins in sectors where there is fairly balanced diversity of voters. However this being said, the candidate who has the greater support from the people generally receives the most funding, and its not like this money is going to waste. Does he understand how many people are going to be employed this november by President Obama's campaign. Secondly, I would like to point out, the incumbent officer almost never has to raise as much money (even when his approval rating is below 50% in his district) to be reelected as their opponent. So saying Obama is the problem shows an extraordinary amount of ignorance. Does he know how much his opponents will be raising to try and overtake the office. The problem of campaign spending is mostly due to lobbyists. I'm not entirely sure of their significance, yet it is my understanding during campaigns it is their job to (employed by a company) to throw as much money into a candidates campaign as necessary. With the promise that in return the official will help the company prosper once elected. Not only is this bribery and unethical, it has a direct influence on who is elected which seems belittling to me as a voter because I play a less important role in deciding my governments position holders. Lastly I would like to say that this isn't 'just a job' as the guy in the video mentioned (I hope he was saying this just to back his argument). The person that gets elected isn't interested in getting payed 400 grand a year because if they do get the presidency they could not make a single dollar for the rest of their life and live a much better life than the average American. Everything is handed to them, and their is always a person paying for their expenses so money is definitely not the reason. The true reason is more obvious, the President of the United States is one if not the most powerful men on the face of the earth. So to answer this guy's question fully, yes I am glad President Obama is spending this money to get reelected because he is an honest, well intentioned President, and I don't want to have another screw-up wielding that much power in my like and the lives of individual all across the world.

I hadn't really thought about this topic much until Sam and Lori brought male centered sex to my attention, and at the beginning of the lecture they hadn't convinced me. Yet, as they went deeper (no pun intended) into exactly what they meant, it made me think about the 'needy penis' and what message they were trying to emphasize through language. Sometimes we arbitrarily accept slang terms, and correct terms for that matter, which may not have the best connotations and we repeat them not out of agreement but merely to be understood. If you are using a different word for the same object or action then the person next to you communication about that particular thing becomes as defying as speaking in different tongues. However often times we should step back and analyze our usage of certain terms because it can be damaging to some people if we use terms which most people associate as negative or condescending. This is very much the case with sex and can have an much more extensive impact on girls and women then I think we often realize. Violent words like slam and bang sound masculine and cool to a guy but sound frightening and painful his counterpart. Like Sam and Lori explained there is a pressure from a male centered society to always be thinking about sex and for girls to want to have sex as frequently and limitlessly as guys but this absurd if you think about it. Sam said men 'won' but if we truly won and girls would just go around having sex with every and any guy, most everyone would have a sexually transmitted disease right now. I didn't realize how prevalent these words were until last night after the lecture I flipped on the television and a girl described another girl who hadn't had sex in a month as frigid a term that I didn't even know existed until this lecture. Can you blame girls for not wanting to have sex as much as a guy. Guys and girls alike use works like pussy, cunt, and vagina to refer to someone you dislike. And the use of slut and whore is so extensive that I think that alone would stop me from having sex if I were a woman. All of these terms are demeaning and have tremendous subconscious denotations. Sure you could call someone a dick but its not quite as offensive and usually implies only that they were being rude not that they have a character flaw. In a female dominated sex society, these words would have completely different meanings or may not exist at all and girls could be more open about how they are feeling sexually. It might actually be a good thing for men if they tried. Sure, it would be less focused on the male and pleasing him but many females would no longer have some negative stigmas about sex and therefore they would be inclined to have sex more frequently if it were pleasurable for them. This would inadvertently benefit guys because they would get laid more. Now who's not on board with that plan? So guys should work on eliminating these words, meeting their partners needs, and just being more open about it because it would be in everyones best interest if sex was a genderless thing.

Interracial and interfaith couple face some enormous challenges but I am glad to hear, as Sam said, they are the fastest growing relationships in the United States. I believe it is important people get diminish the negative feelings between other races and religious groups, and what better way to do so then blurring the lines further between who is "us" and who is "them". First, I think everyone who doesn't support interracial and/or interfaith marriages needs to remove themselves from their emotions and look at the hypocrisy of what they believe to be a truth, their own relationship. Almost no one has a true mono-racial relationship or marriage because not all white, brown, and black people are alike. Much like Sam professed earlier in the year, you may have more in common genetically with a black or brown man than do you with a white man (if you are black or brown flip it). The majority of my ancestors were of German origin as far back as we have been able to trace my lineage, however, my parents, nor most white people find fault with me marrying a woman of Greek ancestry. In fact, most of them would not ever learn enough about the two of us to realize we had a completely different genetic pool. However, my parents though they have raised me to be considerate to all races would I'm sure fear for my life if I were to marry a Mexican, Asian, or an African. Not because they would have trouble accepting my spouse as a member of the family but because they are aware of the prejudice I would face in our the current society. Which brings me to my next hypothesis as to why people an interracial or interfaith relationship is forbidding. Most of us, whether we are willing to admit it or not, care about how society views us and we are daunted by the idea of social dislike to the choices we have made in our life. We often have preconceived ideas of exactly how we will be viewed before we embrace a situation. This is stupid. After all, Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers once said, "You never know just how you look through other people's eyes". Although I believe this it would be hard to convince others to share my outlook and to some extend I'm being hypocritical because I have never been on a date with a woman of another color or religion. Lastly I would like to propose the factor which might pose the greatest difficulty to interracial or interfaith couples. I believe this is what is stopping me from marrying a woman who is not Christian, even though I do not attend services frequently and am unsure of my faith. I was raised by Christian parents and have a comfortable understanding of the faith but if I were to date a Muslim or Hindu girl I would need to learn a whole new religion, whether she wanted me to adopt it or not, and likewise she would have to learn Christianity to truly know me. The idea of comfort translates to race because in a parallel frame of mind you would need to learn a new culture. Comfort is the key, without comfort the relationship couldn't truly succeed. I feel as a nation we are realizing our fears and thus trying to conquer them. This is the only explanation I have for an increase in mixed relationships in the United States. I truly hope this trend continues and I hope I have the opportunity to expand my comfort zone someday by dating a black or brown girl. I think it should be common place for everyone to date outside of their arbitrary "race" because there would be no stigma associated with and interracial or interfaith marriages. A white and a black couple would be just another family.

Unnecessary racial signifiers, by my observation, are understandably less frequently used in State College then in my hometown, which is predominately white, but nonetheless need to be examined. From a white male’s perspective it seems apparent to me this would be the case, not necessarily because everyone where I lived was a discriminatory prick, but because it is easy to describe someone among your friends. When there are only a few people of that particular racial group in your community, no one frowns upon saying, “The Asian girl is going to be valedictorian.” even when it is not appropriate to the conversation. I realize there is more bigotry in my hometown then here at school, yet racial signifiers and even discriminatory behavior are far from abolished at Penn State. Not surprising given, the University was founded on agriculture, a profession which in the north has been dominated by whites of a lower socio-economic class. Even I use unnecessary racial signifiers and have often caught myself saying “my black professor” (like this somehow changes his character), even though he is arguably the most knowledgeable and competent teachers I have had at Penn State. On a more quantifiable note, irrelevant racial signifiers seem to be employed most prominently in situations where the specific person being signified is not fulfilling his/her stereotypical role. For instance, in a professional basketball setting, one may refer to a Caucasian player as “that white guy,” whereas a black player would most likely receive no signifier in this case, and would thus be referred to as simply a “player.” Getting back to the original inquiry, about the effect of racial signifiers on stereotypes, I believe they can only reinforce them. Which in turn, probably with societies current view would be considered negative. Usually to some extent racial signifiers are used, whether consciously or not, to back up a stereotype. For instance, Sam used the example in class of him telling a story where someone cut in front of him while driving and almost hit him and he mentioned it was a woman. And whether he was conscious of it or not it helped in no way the widely used stereotype, women are worse drivers then men. Also, I often hear when talking about doctors, or others in the medical field, people unnecessarily say that they are Indian. I’m sure people are not doing this to be hurtful towards anyone race, ethnicity, sex, or culture but rather they do it to support what they have heard about a particular group in both their minds and the minds of others. I don’t always agree that racial signifiers are a terrible thing, but they people should use them sparingly and in a context that does not promote stereotypes.

I believe population increase is a huge problem and as the guy who posed the question stated needs to be addressed in the near or immediate future. Too often, I think we wait to solve a problem until the time we encounter it. In fact, our government is sort of structured that way, to only act when is absolutely necessary. If we can look twenty, fifty, or a hundred years in the future and say here are some challenges that might be emerging then we could potentially deal with these problems before they are ever encountered. Obvious drawbacks occur though in the process. First, you cannot solve future problems without neglecting some present ones. And second, it’s hard to justify the spending of resources if you cannot – which you cannot – be certain of the future. Estimates say, in the next 100 years the population could nearly double and this is definitely a crisis we should begin talking about now, keeping in mind though, this is an estimate, nothing more. No one can say the size of the population for sure in 2110 because there are a ridiculous number of factors that could change this in a matter of days (ex. disease, natural disasters, and nuclear threats). The guy who queried the question suggested controlling the population with very strong government intervention like the Chinese Republic has had in place for a number of years. Such as, limiting the number of children you can have and at what age you can have them. This is a plausible solution but would be widely disputed in this nation and may be unnecessary. The United States actually has one of lowest population percentage increases in the nation because our culture has increasingly favored having small families and having children only after gaining financial security and job stability. The population increase in our country is at record lows and continues do decline as it has done so since the baby boom. In other countries like China and India however, these are probably policies that are for the best to adopt if we want to continue to be able to feed, cloth, and shelter as high of a percentage of people around the world as we do today. Population control is a strange issue because it is lives you’re dealing with, yours, his, hers, and mine. Natural selection once solved it but with advancements in medical techniques and increased awareness of cleanliness this has become a much more complicated issue because of low child mortalities and long life expectancies. However, I believe a time will come when we have a new form of selection due to lack of space and resources. So maybe little or no restrictions should be placed on family size. In short, I think the message I would like to get across on the issue is that we need to be thinking about population control but not be over anxious to instate any policies which are too drastic because they could be more of a determent to humanity than a savior.