en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2456407 Comments by gregleon9 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145268254 When people hear about illegal immigration they think that everything about it is involved only with the government. I mean, it seems like that would make sense. And to be honest, I thought the government was the main thing that regulated immigration laws until Tuesday. The problem is all about citizenship and not paying taxes and whatnot, so that just made sense to me. However, after hearing that a lot of it really has to do with businesses and whatnot, I now realize that that actually does make a lot of sense to me. After all, illegal immigrants come to the United States and get jobs there, which has a lot to do with businesses, so it only makes sense that they would do a lot to regulate what happens with illegal immigrants. Also, it doesn’t really seem like the actions taken against illegal immigration were ones done by the government. The laws don’t seem to be that strict or well developed, so obviously the government is worrying about other things going on in our country rather than illegal immigration. I am actually happy that our government is worrying about other things. There is a huge war going on in the middle east that we are involved in, there are problems we are trying to fix with oil and “going green,” and of course our economy is in a terrible state right now. There are tons of problems that could eventually put us in a lot of danger that we need to worry about way more than the illegal immigration issue. I am very interested in this subject now that Sam told our whole class that a lot of the immigration policies are shaped by businesses. I would really like to learn more about how exactly these immigration policies are formed. Most people would that the government would have most of the control over immigration policies, so I want to see why exactly so many people are actually seeing it the wrong way. I’m not saying I don’t understand how it can be up to the businesses, because that does make sense. But I just want to fully understand it. it really catches my interest because it just seems right that laws and policies are formed by the government, so this is a very strange and potentially controversial piece of information if more people were to learn about it. I now know a lot more about illegal immigration, but I still want to learn. Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:58:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/19/were-you-surprised-to-find-that-business-is-the-factor-that-shapes-immigration-policies-119-blog/#IDComment145268254 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142919630 What if you worked really hard all through high school and practiced a lot for the SATs just hoping to get into that dream college of yours, for example Penn State, and after working your butt off you find out that your 3.6 GPA and 1880 SAT score did not get you into the main campus. How would you feel? Now you find out that your friend with very similar scores, even lower actually (3.56 GPA and 1850 SAT to be exact), was accepted into the main campus at Penn State. Turns out his father is a Penn State alum, which gives him a very big head start on you. Now how do you feel? Cheated? Lied to? You probably should. From the bitter way that I am explaining this situation, you may have already guessed that I had an experience like this. Well, this is true, but the bitterness itself may have led you in the wrong direction to think that I was the smarter student who did not get into a school. Nope, that’s not true at all. I was the other student. The more average one. The one with the not-as-good grades. The one with the father. That’s me. So, you’re probably wondering why I am so bitter. Well, the answer is, frankly, that does not seem right to me at all. I feel slight guilt from this situation. My friend was a very good student and had wanted to go to Penn State all her life, but only got into a branch campus. She’s at Delaware now and is very happy there, but still it doesn’t feel right to me that it worked out this way. I know that this feels wrong, and I know why it feels wrong, but at the same time, I don’t want to say that I wish I didn’t get into Penn State. Sure, it doesn’t feel right that she should have gotten into Penn State, but I also am very happy here and feel that this is the right place for me. Nepotism is a very hard thing to discuss and make decisions about, because it really is a test of morals. I would like to think that I will try to not benefit from nepotism in the future, but nepotism is everywhere. You can’t avoid it or put and end to it. In a perfect world, I would say that I would not do anything that involves me benefitting from nepotism, but that’s not the way it is. So, unfortunately, I have to say that I will roll with the way this cruel works and make connections with people. If that’s the way it is, then it won’t change anytime soon. Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:20:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/12/do-you-think-you-would-actively-try-to-not-benefit-from-nepotism-if-the-situation-presented-itself-119-blog/#IDComment142919630 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/do-you-think-sam-was-right-in-saying-this-will-be-the-best-lecture-of-the-year-119-blog/#IDComment141070807 Sam always says, “This will be the best class of the year,” to get us excited for class and make sure that we come. In fact, after not too long, we started catching on to this plan of making us interested, and we would laugh whenever he would say that sentence. And he started catching on to the fact that we understood what he was doing. I come to class every Tuesday and Thursday anyway, so him saying that a certain class would be the best wouldn’t change anything for me. I did find it funny when he said that though. So, I came to class for “Christian Invaders” expecting the usual Sam ranting and raving about things that are somewhat eye opening. The class did involve him going on long rants about meaningful things, but I began to realize that these rants were way more meaningful than most of his other ones. In fact, they were providing extremely interesting information that I had never heard before. The Christian Invaders class opened my eyes to something I was not aware of, helped me look at something from a point of view I had never even thought of before, and took a place in my heart as one of the greatest classes I have ever been fortunate enough to attend. Now, I have never really agreed with a decent amount of the things George W. Bush stood for. As a matter of fact, I had a strong dislike for him. However, I had never been so aware of how terrible the things he did actually were, or how terrible the people working behind him were. I am happy that I now understand so much more that was happening in the government when this war started. I am also extremely upset, because our government makes us look like terrible people to the people living in the Middle East. Of course there is a good amount of people who already do not like us, but we do not need to give off the impression that we are as terrible as they think we are when we are really not. Also, there are tons of Middle Eastern people who do not dislike us, and the impression our government has been giving off could potentially change some of those people’s minds for the worse. Seeing what the war is like from the Middle Easterns’ point of view really changed how I think about things. It helped me realize things that I had never realized before. This class was informative, intense, eye opening, and just all around the best class we have had this year. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 19:36:44 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/05/do-you-think-sam-was-right-in-saying-this-will-be-the-best-lecture-of-the-year-119-blog/#IDComment141070807 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/31/what-was-more-enlightening-the-information-on-your-own-sex-or-the-opposite-sex-and-why-119-blog/#IDComment139257789 When I first heard Sam telling us about his wife’s Needy Penis presentation, I wondered what on earth it could even be about. Then he informed us that his wife would eventually be coming into class to give us her presentation. I still had no idea what to expect, but with the ridiculous name it was given, I have to admit I was drawn in. I made sure not to miss this class. I learned a whole lot of very interesting information from “The Needy Penis,” but what really surprised me was how male-centered the sex world is. Now, I already knew that sex was thrown around like candy towards men in today’s commercial society. But I did not realize particularly how much it was focused on males, or how untruthful a lot of it was. For example, Sam’s fun little example of the typical porno was absolutely hilarious and ridiculous, kind of like most pornos to be honest. But, I never understood why they were so ridiculous; pornos show the typicals male’s perfect dream. They show exactly what a man (always wanting sex and being ready for it whenever and wherever) would want to happen; a woman randomly deciding to have sex with him. A woman would never in a million years have a fantasy like this, but most men would. Also, I never even stopped to think about how much pornos are set from a man’s point of view. These movies send out the ideas of “women like that” and “they like when you do this” and “do this and she’ll love it.” But usually, those idea are being sent out to the public by male directors, male writers, male filmers, male male male!! They don’t actually show what women want or how to please a woman. They show what men think women want and what men think the right way is to please a woman. Finally, the thing about females that I never knew was how much more “in depth” the vagina is. The penis can indeed be looked at as “needy” because it always wants sex and “needs” something else to help satisfy those urges. But a vagina is actually quite different. It needs a certain feeling that says it is the right time and it is what the woman wants. And to be honest, I respect that. I wish more men (and people in general) treated sex in this way. It really is something special, and this days people see it as simply something fun to do. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 01:47:03 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/31/what-was-more-enlightening-the-information-on-your-own-sex-or-the-opposite-sex-and-why-119-blog/#IDComment139257789 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/18/what-do-you-think-of-the-diversity-at-penn-state-119-blog/#IDComment135951039 I think Penn State is a very diverse place, especially considering it is located in a not-so-diverse area. I come from a fairly diverse high school. There were a decent amount of African Americans, a few Asian Americans, and the school district was predominately white. So, I am used to being around many different kinds of people given where I grew up my whole life. I didn’t realize how much more diverse certain places could be until I came to Penn State. Sure, there were tons of different people with different backgrounds and ethnicities at my school, and a lot of the different people tended to interact: it wasn’t incredibly “cliquey.” But I never understood how many people from India and the middle east and places like that lived in America until attending Penn State University. This was an entirely new thing to me. My high school may have had somewhere around ten students from that area, if that many! Now I am around these people so much more, and I love it because it allows me to learn about a whole new group of people who I never experienced living with in such a large amount. For example, my past two math teachers have been Indian. Being taught by a person like this was very interesting for me. Also, one day a week one of my math classes was located on the 3rd floor of Boucke, which happened to be the international floor for students from the middle east and India. Every Tuesday during my first semester at college I saw tons of groups of people from those areas just hanging out and mingling. I was immersed in their Penn State world, so much that every Tuesday I even felt like a minority being there. I am very happy to have had this new experience. Also, my high school had a decent amount of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean students, but not a lot. Also, because there were so few of these people, they tended to talk and hang out amongst themselves. However, here there is a massive amount of people from these countries, and I interact with them a lot more now that I have left my hometown. I did not come to Penn State for its diversity, but I am very happy that this university has this quality. It has given me a chance to experience tons of different cultures. Sat, 19 Mar 2011 01:20:55 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/18/what-do-you-think-of-the-diversity-at-penn-state-119-blog/#IDComment135951039 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/02/how-can-we-save-our-scarce-resources-119-blog/#IDComment134336273 Nowadays most people, Americans especially, have jobs simply to allow them to have the money it needs to get the resources necessary to survive. But they don’t realize that in the older days not as many people had such jobs. There were many more farmers and such; people who didn’t only make money for the resources, but also made THE resources. Also, as the guy in the video said, the population has significantly grown since then and will continue to grow. If people don’t realize this we could be in big trouble. Obviously, most people want to get jobs that will get them a decent amount of money, and one that will allow them to live happily doing that job, and not many of these people at all aspire to grow up and be a farmer. I’m not sure how this can be changed other than simply spreading the awareness that the human race needs more people working to keep resources plentiful. If this doesn’t happen then we may be in serious danger. As for resources other than food, like gas, the main goal should be (and for the most part seems to be) finding other fuels and oils and such for energy. Scientists are hard at work, I assume, to find these other power sources, because we will not have these oils forever. Some other affordable and efficient source is necessary soon, because almost everything these days runs on things that are not very easy to get and the earth is running out of supply of these things. Not only is finding another source important, but also just not using the sources we have so much. Carpooling, walking, biking, skating, public transportation, and so many other alternatives to just driving somewhere must be taken advantage of to the fullest! This goes back to a post that occurred a while ago that I responded to having to do with us just being monkeys. It would have been so much easier if we all were just monkeys and didn’t learn to abuse the things that the world has given us only to make our race reliant on something that wont last forever. We could all just be happy finding our own food in the jungle and getting from place to place by walking around. The human race has definitely screwed itself over, but its not too late to dig ourselves out of this hole. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 01:47:13 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/02/how-can-we-save-our-scarce-resources-119-blog/#IDComment134336273 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/is-it-selfish-for-people-in-poverty-to-have-more-kids-because-of-their-lower-income-119-blog/#IDComment130688628 This in a very debatable question that can have very different answers for very different reasons; all influenced by different ways the situation can be perceived. For example, people could only pay attention to the fact that Tammy obviously cannot support a family very easily, so for her to have four children is selfish of her and she should have had better control over that situation. On the other hand, one could look at the fact that Tammy grew up with twenty-one siblings and compare that to her only having four children to raise, which makes her situation look incredibly different and less drastic. Those are just some simple examples of the many ways to view the question of selfishness of having too many children than one person can support. Personally, it’s very hard for me to answer this question. Right off the bat when I think about it, I think Tammy should be a responsible adult and realize she shouldn’t dig herself into a hole she can’t get herself out of too easily. She should have said “I am living in a trailer, don’t have a car, and work at Burger King, so I shouldn’t try to support too many people on top of myself.” I think that seems a little obvious, and I’m sure many people would agree with me on that. However, one must also take into account how hard it is to control a situation like that. If Tammy had any kind of significant other, they obviously would want to make love on a somewhat regular basis. Being that she is already as low as she is on the social-class ladder, I would assume she doesn’t have a lot of extra money to spend on any form of contraception, including birth control pills, condoms, and other means. Therefore, getting on Tammy’s case about not planning things better would not be fair to her because if she had enough money to spend on extra things like this, she probably would have thought of that. Also, she probably wouldn’t be able to afford an abortion once she realized she was pregnant. So, yes, I agree that if people do not have the money to support such a large family, then they should absolutely attempt to not have that many kids, and not worrying about that would be selfish. But also, I understand that it is a very hard thing to control, especially with such little funds. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:31:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/is-it-selfish-for-people-in-poverty-to-have-more-kids-because-of-their-lower-income-119-blog/#IDComment130688628 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/03/why-dont-we-live-like-the-monkeys-119-blog/#IDComment126053119 On Thursday I gave my Facebook one last check, made sure I had my iPod, and worried about not having my Sociology 119 notebook with me in case I would have to take notes. I walked to class, constantly checking the time on my phone and hoping it wouldn’t run out of battery anytime soon. Sitting through class I made a checklist in my head of the many tasks that I needed to take care of, like getting to work, doing my math homework, begin studying for my upcoming exams, the usual stressful list. Just as I had prepared myself to leave my last class of the day and finally relax in my dorm, my professor told us to stay and watch some video: just what I need to waste my time doing with so much work to be done. So I remained in my chair and bitterly glued my eyes to the screen ahead of me. As the purpose of this odd video about “monkeys” began to unfold, I suddenly relaxed and actually began paying attention. As the lights went back on and the 600-student class began to applaud the video, I had realized that all of my worries could easily vanish and I could live a happy, carefree life without even trying if I only acted like the monkey I truly am. The video said that although we act like we are the greatest beings on this earth and abuse the control that we have, in reality the human race is just another large group of beings on this planet along with the monkeys, the birds, the fish, and the dogs. One main thing that sets us apart from the other animals is that we are cursed with awareness (I liked how the video made something that we cherish so much, awareness, seem like a curse). I am aware of all these things I worry about. I am aware that someday I will die. I am aware that other people around me judge who I am, and I am unfortunately aware of the fact that I care what those people think. However, if only I were a monkey, none of this would be of my concern. Now after seeing this video, I only wish that it were as simple as living like monkeys for the human race, and we didn’t dig ourselves into this huge hole of intelligence. Rather than worrying about getting good grades for a future job and money for daily needs, I could just be hanging around in the jungle, looking for girl monkeys, finding food and playing with my other carefree, friendly monkeys. This video helped me wake up and realize that the saying “ignorance is bliss” is absolutely true. If I were a monkey and was unaware of any of the worries I have as a human, life would be wonderful, and I were still ignorant of the video we watched, I would be unaware of the life I am missing out on. Sat, 5 Feb 2011 02:13:05 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/03/why-dont-we-live-like-the-monkeys-119-blog/#IDComment126053119 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/21/body-image-issues-119-blog/#IDComment122912027 I don't think why people look the way they look is the real problem. I think people are self-conscious about their looks simply because of how they think others view them. Therefore, it may be true that people look the way they look because of their genes traced all the way back to the beginnings of their people, but that does not change the fact that people still have those looks. I am not saying that I think people SHOULD feel self-conscious about their looks no matter what, I am just saying that it is human nature and people will feel that way no matter what. I wish people saw looks as simple, hereditary, genetic evolutions of the human body based of different races' surroundings, but that is not how people view them. People see fat, skinny, large noses, small eyes, and weird skin as fat, skinny, large noses, small eyes, and weird skin. That’s it. Nothing else. So, someone might dislike the fact that his or her nose is a bit larger than “normal.” They could easily look at the mirror and say, “Hey, it’s totally fine that I look this way because all it means is that my ancestors lived in a dry, cold climate and needed to make the air they breathed warmer and more moist,” but that will not change the fact that they would rather have a smaller nose because that is what is “beautiful.” Many people understand why they look the way they look, but they dislike what they have regardless. It’s a shame that we live in a society where everyone is told what is beautiful and what isn’t, because it really does bad, unhealthy things to people. It makes people with lighter skin want to sit under a tanning light, essentially absorbing cancer into their body. It makes people with smaller breasts want to pay ridiculous amounts of money just to have a chest that looks like a supermodel’s. It makes overweight people want to stop eating. These people don’t want to think about the reasons behind their unwanted body types, they just want to change themselves to fit the image of “beauty.” Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:52:31 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/21/body-image-issues-119-blog/#IDComment122912027 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cl%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment122906350 soc 119 Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:07:56 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cl%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment122906350