As horrible as this is, I guess it’s sort of inevitable. And I’m sure there are more occurrences like this that we just don’t know about. I could look at this from two perspectives. The first sort of rationalizes it. Imagine being in Afghanistan for six hard months and all you feel like you’ve been doing is killing people. I think maybe I’d go a little crazy too- I definitely wouldn’t feel the need to kill civilians, but I sort of get it. Maybe they got some sort of rush out of it, knowing they’ve been fighting armed soldiers this entire time, wouldn’t it be nice to kill just one civilian. I kind of see it as going to the shooting range to fire a few shots, except in this case, you’re shooting a live person. Completely immoral, but I can put myself in their shoes and see maybe why they did it. Then I could look at it from another perspective. This perspective does not rationalize it alt all, it actually does the opposite. What I can’t understand is why you would want to kill innocent civilians if all you’ve been doing is killing people for the past six months. We hear all these stories back in the US that soldiers are suffering from PTSD because they were forced to kill a young child for instance because he was holding a machine gun. If the idea of killing someone is so traumatic, why would you want to go out and kill civilians just for the fun of it? After exploring some different perspectives that I may not fully understand, I’ve come to a conclusion myself. I see these people as murderers, people who should be locked away in jail for life. Some may argue that they did not kill a US citizen and they’re soldiers so it’s what they’re trained to do. I would argue back that US citizen or not, they’re a human being and no innocent human should be killed. Secondly, yes they are soldiers, but they were not trained to kill innocent civilians- they were trained to kill opposing soldiers to protect us. That poor boy was doing absolutely nothing wrong and he was killed for it. How could anyone trust US soldiers if this is what they’re capable of? It almost makes me sick to my stomach to say that I am proud of our military. Of course of proud, and I respect every US soldier, however it’s the corrupt ones like these who give us a bad name. As Americans we see all the good things our military does, but from the outside, others may only see the bad, like killing innocent civilians. You think since we have such a great military, there would be a way to weed out these bad seeds.

I think when the issue of transgender people come up, a lot of people base their arguments around their opinions rather than actual facts. And I think a lot of the issues arise because people are just not well informed in the matter and don’t try to understand. Even for myself, my argument is based on opinion and beliefs. Although I do feel like I’m a little more informed than others because I took a class on LGBT issues and I myself am bisexual so I sort of understand the community.
In my opinion, people who are transgender really are the gender which they adopt, regardless of what they were born. I don’t think it’s something you can fully understand unless you are actually in it and are the person who is transgender. I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would be like if I was born the wrong gender. Just imagine living everyday not completely feeling yourself, knowing you’re in the wrong body. And the discrimination that transgender people encounter makes matters worse.
In this particular example with El’Jai Devoureau, there’s a lot that goes into it. First, Dr. Devoureau obviously knows himself best and therefore if he says he’s been male for as long as he can remember, then he is male. Gender reassignment surgery is a big deal and no one would undergo that surgery unless they were one-hundred percent sure they were born as the wrong gender. Also, in order to get gender reassignment surgery, one must feel really uncomfortable in the body they were born in. I don’t think its any outsiders place to say whether or not El’Jai Devoureau is a man or woman. I’m not a strong believer in God, but my argument is that God makes mistakes. He takes children when they are too young, he allows the good people to go through hard times, and he even makes people born in the wrong body. Who knows, maybe I’m completely wrong, but who am I to judge? Who am I to say whether or not someone is male or female? They know themselves best so I’ll let them decide.

Let me start by saying that I do not believe the distribution of wealth is how it should be- that people who are wealthy have earned their wealth and that a certain amount of inequality is necessary. I understand to a point that some people have earned their wealth. But when we talk about this, I feel like we have to take into account the king of the mountain. Once you obtain power and wealth, you do your best to stay on the top of the mountain and keep others down. And by doing so, you increase your wealth. I don’t think this is right at all. I think that once you’re on top of the mountain, you should help those around you. There are a few though however, who have rightfully earned their wealth and have done so in a respectable way. I would also like to comment on the second point, that a certain amount of inequality is necessary. While I understand how we need inequality for the world to work, I still believe there has to be some way to erase all inequality. Maybe I’m a little naïve to believe that our world should have no inequality. It’s just hard to look at the world and see that we live in one of the richest countries and our poorest people don’t even compare to the richest people in other countries. Ernso made a really good point the other day in class. Haiti is in our backyard and we haven’t even helped them out. It makes me a little sick to think that so many people are selfish and don’t help others. I’d like to think that all people are good and willing to help one another. I plan on dedicating my life to helping those less fortunate than me, and I just wish that others had the same mentality as me. I think the world is so corrupt. Just the other day in one of my classes we discussed our world view. Most people said they have a positive world view but I expressed how my world view is negative. I mainly think the world is negative because of this inequality. You’d think people would realize that we’re all humans and we should all look out for one another.

This prompt particularly reminds me of a video I watched in one of my Psychology classes. Basically, the video was of a man who needed help and everyone who walked passed him just stared at him. Another example is of the woman who was stabbed in an alley, and it was reported that a bunch of people heard her screaming for help, but no one did anything to help her. The reason for this is because when there is a large group of people, everyone always assumes that someone else will take care of the situation. If everyone has that mindset, then no one will step up, and nothing will get done.
We’re facing a similar situation now here at Penn State with the rising tuition. A bus went to Harrisburg to fight the tuition rise, and only 13 students went. Now, that could have been for multiple reasons, such as people didn’t know about it, they were too busy, or everyone just assumed that other people were going to go so there was no need for them to go. I’ve felt this way in times of my life, and I actually feel that way about this tuition rise. I’ve been invited to the Facebook groups for the meetings to fight against the rising tuition, but I assume that there will be other people there, so there’s no need for me to go.
When I initially read the question, “How do we motivate large numbers of people to act in ways that are in the best interests of every one of them as individuals?”, I immediately thought that the best way to motivate people in large numbers would be to show that they will reap the benefits some collective action that other undertake. Then the next question sort of threw my idea out the window. Honestly, I don’t know if there is a way to convince people to act in large groups without acting like they will reap the benefits.
I think people have to just have their own motivation to do something. If someone has beliefs such as, I don’t have to do this because so many other people are fighting for it, then they won’t do anything and I don’t know if there is a way to convince them to do something.

When I think of someone who was sentenced to life in jail, I immediately think the worst- a murderer. To hear that B. is not a murderer is rather surprising. In a way, it makes me question our legal system. I don’t understand how someone could get life for just being part of the felony. In class, Sam gave an example in which person A drove person B to person C’s house. While person A waits in the car, person B kills person C. Person A would be sentenced to life. Obviously murderer is a horrific crime, and I believe all murderers should be in jail, I don’t think that the person driving the car should get life as well. It just doesn’t seem fair to me. As B. said, when we students first commented on his letter, we referred to him as “this murderer”. Why did we do this? My assumption would be because the other students, like me, assumed that if you are sentenced to life in prison, than you must have killed someone.
Like B. said, it’s scary to think that some of the people in jail without a life sentence will be back in society even though they don’t deserve it. In the meantime, there are lifers that will be in jail forever, however they’ve transformed so much that they might even make model citizens. That might be a little of an exaggeration, but you get my point.
When B. said that he made the choice to be part of what put him in this situation I question whether he really made that choice out of free will or was it already predetermined for him. He states that he grew up in South Philly, came from an abusive family where his step father both mentally and physically abused him, turned to drugs, and never really got to be the person he wanted to be. It seems in a way that he was already predetermined for something negative to happen. Like Sam mentioned in class, most of the lifers in prison do not come from rich families. So in a way, ending up in prison was sort of already an option for B..

I was very moved by Zach Wahls’ speech. He presented himself in a very powerful manner and presented a good and informative case. I am bisexual and currently dating someone of the same sex so the idea of LGBT families really interests me. I think it is often a topic people over look or do not fully understand.
I think that Zach Wahls does a very good job illustrating that it is possible for a child to be raised by two gay parents, and still grow up to be what society considers normal. He seems very proud, as he stated he was raised by two women within the first fifteen seconds. He states that his family is not any different from any other Iowan family. He presents facts about himself, such as he scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT, is an eagle scout, and owns and operates his own small business.
Family comes from the commitment we make to each other, to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good times. Every person should have the right to marry the person they love. I like when he says that the sexual orientation of his parents has had no affect on the content of his character. This is something that I try to show people when they argue that a child growing up in a gay family will turn out gay. I believe that a child needs as much love as he/she can possibly get, and sometimes, the most amount of love comes from two people of the same sex. I believe that sometimes a gay couple could even parent better than a straight couple. There are many straight couples who have children, just for the sake of having children. This is not a luxury gay couples have, so when they do have a child, I believe it is truly a gift.
After looking at the functions of a family in class, I think it was proven that a gay family fulfills all the same functions that a straight family fulfills. It does not matter the sexual orientation of parents, but rather if they can fulfill the requirements of parenting.

I have been trying to figure out what it means to be white for a few months now. Quite honestly, I still don’t know what it means to be white. And I don’t ever think I’ll truly know that it means to be white. It’s sort of like not realizing what you are, until you’re not that anymore. Like, you need to take the fish out of the water for it to realize what water is. In this video it is clearly a white guy who acts white, I don’t know if I can fully say what it is that he doesn’t that makes him act white; might be the way he talks, or what he’s wearing. I’d say the best way to define being white is to compare it to being black, or brown, or any other race. When you think of black people, or at least when I think of the stereotypical black man, I think of someone wearing his pants down to his ankles, an oversized tee, and someone who doesn’t speak very proper English. Then if you reverse that to think of a white man, I think of a man wearing pants where they’re supposed to be- around his waist, a shirt that fits- preferably one with a collar, similar to the one the guy in this video is wearing, and speaks proper English. I think there’s so much more to being white than that though. When I think of what it means to be white, I think of that website, http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/. There are not many things about appearance, but rather thins that white people like, such as the TED conference, the World Cup, and picking their own fruit. I think overall, you can’t put a specific list on things that make you white. It’s a lot more complex than that.
Now I’m kind of left wondering what it means to be a white female. There’s so much concentration on the white male, and not enough on the white female. I think it’d be interesting to look more into that. I mean, I have my stereotypes about the black female. She’s always loud and has a bit of an attitude. But I don’t know how I’d identify a white female. Would she be quiet and passive? I guess I’ll find out with some more exploration and wondering.

I wanted to comment on something Sam said in class the other day about the lifers. Immediately when he said it I realized he contradicted himself. Someone asked about if the lifers knew the consequences of their actions when they murdered someone, or did whatever it was they did to get life in prison. Sam said no, and that he often does things everyday without thinking about them. Honestly, I don’t know how much I believe that. I agree with Sam’s comment that we do things everyday without thinking about them. However, if you’re going to commit a crime as big as murder, I feel like you’ve took the time to think about what you’re doing and the consequences of your actions. I can understand sometimes things happen all of a sudden and you may not think about it, but if you did something to get life, it has to be premeditated and not just all of a sudden. Later in lecture he then contradicted himself and said something along the lines of, of course they knew what they were doing, killing someone is huge. This is blatantly obvious that he contradicted himself. Maybe I misunderstood him, and got what they did mixed up with their consequences. Regardless, my thoughts on this are that they knew what they were doing and they knew the consequences. We live in a society where people know the consequences for killing someone. I think sometimes they may think they’ll get away with it, and therefore may not think that the extreme consequences will happen to them. I guess just overall, I don’t understand why someone would kill someone else knowing that it is going to ruin their own life too. I feel like then the other person kind of wins because your own life is wasted now. I’d like to know what some of these guys did in order to be put away for life. It must have been some heinous crime, and knowing that, I don’t understand how they can change and grow so much like Sam said they do. It’s kind of a shame that they have to kill someone and spend time in jail to change.

As I was reading this blog entry, I immediately thought of the elevator video. I found it funny then that the video link was the same exact video I was thinking of. Just the other day I was in an elevator with someone else and I actually thought about this video. I often think, would I do the same thing or would I go against the norm? I would like to think I would not give in to conformity but it’s easier said than done. We all want to feel like part of a group and no one wants to be the one to stand out. Maybe it’s the invisible strings making us act this way, or maybe it’s just human nature to want to fit in.
It is like that example Sam gave in class the other day about hazing. We all try so hard to fit into a group, that we’d do anything, even the craziest most disgusting things to belong. Of course, this elevator example is not as disgusting as the hazing examples Sam used, but it still proves the point that people would do anything to fit in. I remember as a kid my mom would always ask, “If she jumped off a bridge, would you?” This shows that even at a young age we want to do things that other people do. I do not necessarily think this is because we’re all followers, because I would definitely not classify myself as a follower. What I mean is that no one wants to go fully out against the norm. If everyone’s doing something, we’re most likely going to want to do it.
There is another video that I watched in another one of my classes where the subject had to tell which line was the same length as the line given. Everyone else in the room was told to say the wrong answer. The second time around, the test subject gave the wrong answer just so he could conform to the group. This again illustrates that we generally conform most of the time in random social situations.

When I first saw this video, I immediately thought of the Pregnancy Pact, a show featured on Lifetime about a year ago. The storyline behind this true movie was that a group of girls made a pact to all get pregnant while in high school. This then leads me to think that it’s not their individual choice, and these girls are not truly free. The invisible strings of their school’s society are acting upon them and in a way, forcing them to get pregnant while still in school. Eleven percent seems like a pretty high number, especially if they are including boys in this too. That means that the percentage of girls in the school who are pregnant is even higher. I can’t even imagine going to a high school where ninety girls are pregnant. I’m left wondering what kind of area they come from. I know this is stereotypical, but when you hear about teen pregnancy, it’s rarely in nice areas. When it comes to pregnancy though, you have to keep in mind that teen pregnancy is not really a choice, but most often a mistake. This leads me to question why are so many girls in high school having unprotected sex? Maybe the school is not doing a good enough job to promote abstinence or safe sex. If that’s the case, the invisible strings are acting in a negative way to shape these young girls to get pregnant at a very young age. I just can’t get over the fact that so many young girls are pregnant. It honestly boggles my mind. I don’t see how their parents aren’t doing something to prevent it, or the school isn’t, or just the girls in general. You’d think they’d be smart enough to know how to get on birth control on use a condom. Who knows, maybe it’s the cool thing to do at Memphis High School. I just would have hoped that they could find something else to be the cool thing, rather than give into this fad. I don’t think they’re thinking about the rest of their lives and how this is going to affect them.