How did the videos of the United States Soldiers treating the Iraqi civilians make you feel and why? I was personally shocked an appalled at what I saw on the video screen before me. As Americans, I think that we all have this golden image of a soldier. Brave, honorable, strong, protector, pristine, and good are all words that come to my roommates’ minds, all people who have never watched the videos, when I asked them to describe a U.S. soldier. And I too believe that those are all perfect descriptions of what I thought a solider was. They were supposed to be good people who do good things for not only the people of the United States, but also for people around the world. We were supposed to be the “good guys”, the Heroes. It is like we are all on one team. We are the good guys fighting the bad guys around the world. And the soldiers are like the super heroes that save the day. But, after watching the videos of American soldiers treating Iraqis in the horrific manner that they did, I don’t think that I will ever get the thought out of my head that, “hmm, maybe we are not always the good guys” and “ how do the Iraqis not completely despise us?” They, as powerful American soldiers, are bullying innocent civilians of Iraq and are destroying the lives of the people even further than they already are. The Iraqis are already so poor and have very little to make a live for themselves as well as their families. When the soldiers ran over the car multiple times and flattened it into an object similar to a pancake, I was hurt, angry, and mad to be affiliated with those people. At that moment, I was disappointed in my team, my supposed “good guys”. And then, a few seconds later when the video said that the car was actually a taxi. And that the Iraqis’ income was from being a taxi driver in that car. He then said, “I do not know what I am going to do, this was my livelihood and now it is gone”, I almost shed a tear. Knowing that I am a part of a team that does this bullying behavior to innocent civilians struck me at my core. Now, I know that not all soldiers do this type of activity, and the vast majority of them are brave, honorable, strong, protector, pristine, and good. Those are the real good guys. But, soldiers like the ones in the video should be punished and extracted from the armed services. Just like in the Penn State scandal, how only a few did wrong but made the whole school look bad, these soldiers are making not only the U.S. Military look bad, but also the entire country. So, in conclusion, I am horrified by the actions of these soldiers. Even though I know that it is a small minority of people who do activities like this, I think that they should be punished for the atrocities that they have committed against innocent people. This war is with the radicals and authorities, not innocent civilians who have done nothing but try to salvage what they can from their lives. The civilians whose property was wrongly damaged should be reimbursed.

Over the past few weeks now, this story has been in the media and a large part of my life personally as a Penn Stater, as well as a future educator. But, from about the second day that the story broke, I noticed something that the news media was not bringing attention to, that the whole scandal involved only men. I’m not sure if I just made the connection out of the blue, or if I has been made more aware of the “male-centered world” because of Sam and Laurie’s lecture in SOC 119. But, nevertheless, the fact that the victims, the assaulter, those who were supposed to tell their higher-ups, the police/ the authorities, to the majority of those reporting the story etc., were ALL of the male gender. Now, I brought up this fact to my mother, who is a very passionate person and has a tendency to delve into cases like this. For example, since 2008 up until this summer, we have been following the Casey Anthony trial intently. To the extreme where when we got up in the morning during the summer to when they were on recess in the afternoon, we were glued to the television set watching the case. Then after the trial was not in session we would talk for hours, analyzing the case. We were confident that there was no possible way that she could walk away from this as a free woman. But on a side note, we both cried when she was found not guilty. I am saying all of this just to give you a glimpse of how my mother invests herself into cases like this. But, when I mentioned the “all male” fact to her, we talked for about an hour of how different it would be if women were involved, even if only one woman was involved. If it was a little girl in the shower, I find it extremely hard to be a question that anyone would not immediately stop the “horse play” and then run to authorities who would then instantly take Sandusky out in handcuffs. If it was a woman who found Sandusky with the little boys in the shower, she would make sure of it that it was immediately stopped and then taken the incident to the police and made sure that this or anything like it would ever happen again. I believe that even if Sandusky was a woman, that a man who saw her “horse-playing” in the shower with a little boy, that he would report the incident. But, there is just something about men that makes them so uncomfortable with this kind of situation. Maybe it was the “gay” factor of Sandusky with little boys, as opposed to just being a pedophile with little girls. Maybe it is the fact that McQueary saw the act of his idol, who is male, “playing” with a little boy that made him so uncomfortable that he didn’t run right to the police and made sure that Sandusky was severely punished. So, if all these scenarios would be different if just one woman was involved, I believe that if everyone involved were a women, it would be so much different than it is now. So, in conclusion I think that if everyone involved with the scandal were all women, this would have came out right away, not tried to have been hidden, and would have been taken care of right away instead of many years later and blown up ten-fold to what it should have been.

Facebook, twitter, you tube, myspace, blogs, news websites, and many more social media sites penetrate our daily lives. One could go so far to say that some teens/early 20’s lives revolve around keeping in constant contact with their social news. On these types of social media sites news can travel around the world in the click of a mouse. Mostly these websites are used to show the latest fashion trends, catch up on the latest celebrity gossip, or just share personal photos. But when some big scandal happens in a campus like Pennsylvania State University, who has up to this point had a nearly spotless reputation, it is that news that EVERYONE is talking about. Statuses on Facebook include “Penn State coach rapes young boys”. Everyone assumes that this means JoePa, or at least I did the first time I saw this. But, that is what happens when people do not hear the whole story. When in fact, A famous Penn State football coach, Sandusky, is the man who raped young boys at football camp, in University facilities. This incident is seen by another and tells head coach Paterno. JoePa then tells the athletic director who tries to hide the incident. All this occurs in the early 2000’s. President of the University, Spanier, also finds out about this incident, eventually. But, this is all hidden and kept under wraps to maintain the clean name of the university until, the case finally gains enough evidence in the legal system to charge these men. This comes at a time three weeks before a 8-1 season is to end. So, needless to say, this is a terrible time for the football team for the head coach and president of the University to get fired over the pervert, Sandusky’s disgusting incidents. But, this story was spread like wild fire over facebook, twitter, texting, as well as the multiple other social media sites. The correct story, made up stories, rants, and people’s personal opinions plastered facebook’s news feed. The story has been twisted and turned so many ways that many people, especially those who do not look more into the case, do not even know the real story. No one even really knows the whole truth to the story as of now. But, I do believe that everyone was much more misinformed because of twitter and facebook posts. Because everyone was reading the opinions and not the facts of what was happening, it became a lot bigger of a deal. It is not to say that this whole case is not a big deal to me, because as a person, a future educator, and a Penn Stater, it is a huge deal! But, if more informed news broadcasters were the ones to be spreading the story first, the correct facts would have gotten to the people before they added their own inflections on the story. So, in conclusion, I believe that social media sites did add to the craziness of the whole situation. It even went so far to plan an event such as a riot on facebook. I think that a gathering of students was inevitable, but I think people would not have been captured in such a negative light by the media if it was not planned out. But also, to play the devil’s advocate, the candlelight vigil for child abuse victims was also a planned event on facebook. So, social media sites are definitely involved and ingrained in our lives living in this time, but they can contribute both negatively and positively to society in a time of a crisis.

When people around you speak a different language, no matter what it is always interesting whether you are bothered by it or not. Many people though, especially in the United States greatly dislike, or even hate, when foreigners speak their own language here on “our grounds” in public. But, why is that? Maybe as Americans we are so high on our “greatest country in the world” horse that we can not even begin to fathom how it would feel if the lens was flipped so that no one could understand us. But for us Americans who have traveled to other countries, did we not ever speak a word of English in public while the vast majority of other people spoke Italian, or Spanish, or Chinese, or Russian or a thousand other languages? Almost definitely, unless you were already completely fluent in that other language, you spoke in your native tongue of English. And while you were speaking English in say, Italy, for example, did they refuse you your delicious brick oven pizza, or hand made pasta because you could not fluently order in Italian? Most likely the owner/ worker of the restaurant worked with you until the communication was clear as to what you wanted. But why, here in the United States, are we so short tempered with those who speak a foreign language? Sure, it is frustrating and time consuming when you are unable to clearly understand what others want. But, are we honestly that frustrated to put signs on our store fronts that says “no English, no service”, as one man in Philadelphia posted on the front of his cheese stake shop? This man, the owner of “Geno’s” a famous cheese stake shop was nationally recognized as being discriminatory against his would-be customers who can not speak English. Sure, it is the Philly mentality to have super speedy service, down to having to shorten even English speaker’s words to get the order in as fast as possible. But, when you are refusing paying customers on account that they can not speak English is baffling to the business side of me. Maybe this man is so uncomfortable with himself or others that he simply has to refuse the business that people who speak different languages can bring to his store. But me personally, I think it is very interesting when others speak their own language around me. For one I am a very curious person, so it is not so much frustrating as it is wondering what others are saying in their own language when they talk around me. Sure it is frustrating if they are trying to ask you for something, but mostly I am intrigued by how they can be saying something that is identical to what I am saying, but neither of us can understand each other. In general I think that I am fascinated with the capability for humans to have developed to many different languages. And are we, as humans, the only “animal” that has this capability? And if so, why is this? It seems as though the language barrier between people often makes the people who speak different tongues distant from each other even if they live on the same block or work in the same office. So, to answer the main question, I do not feel uncomfortable that others speak their own language around me, because I am speaking my own language around them; why be hypocritical?

In Arizona, Senators are voting to allow college clubs to refuse members. But, does that not already go on here at Pennsylvania State University? I know for a fact that not all clubs allow just any person off of the street to join. For example, sports teams/dance teams have try outs before their seasons begin. They do this to weed out the ones who are not up to the standard of the squad. Then the teams only choose those who are the best at the particular sport/type of dance to be on their prestigious teams. This is exclusion of members right there, and the news is not having media reports on us for not accepting everyone onto the teams. And this exclusion is logically for a reason. You can not realistically have a 50 person team for say, club lacrosse, club baseball, club soccer, or many other club sports like it. The team would for one be too chaotic to have a productive practice. And, not everyone one on the team would get a chance to even have any playing time to show off what they can do. On the other hand, in the article from the “Arizona Daily Star” it mentions how this new law would allow an Arizona college Catholic club to exclude Jews from being members. But, again realistically, why would a Jewish person want to be in a religious club that is not of their own religion? If they did want to be a part of a Catholic club, most likely they would not really know what was going on or what is being talked about. Certainly though in this instance, it could be a learning opportunity of other religions for this Jewish person that wanted to be in the Catholic club. So, there should not be an exclusion of anyone based off of their religious background. Another point in the article that is made is that this Arizona law would permit college clubs, so lets say this same Catholic club, to exclude lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender people too. On these grounds it is not ok. Your sexual orientation does not have any affect in what you believe in, religion wise. The Catholic church has strong opinions about lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender people, but if they can still have faith in God and in their religion after all of the scrutiny and pressure from the church, I personally believe that they should be welcomed in God’s house. So, basically what I am saying about the inclusion verses exclusion of people into these clubs is that your skills and your knowledge should determine if you are permitted into it. But, things like race, gender, religion, sexuality, socioeconomic status etc. should not play into the factors of allowing or turning away a person from gaining access to a college club. Especially in college, people are trying to “find themselves”, as well as explore new things and interests. College is a time in ones life where you don’t have all the pressures and responsibilities of the world and is one’s opportunity to try and experience everything that they are possibly able. So, in conclusion, these Arizona Senators should not approve of the vote to allow exclusion into college clubs on any other factor besides skill and knowledge.

If someone of one race hangs out primarily with people of a different race, does this make them a poser? Let me first define poser from urban dictionary: 1.one who pretends to be someone whose not. 2. One who tries to fit in but with exaggeration. So, in stating that, I believe that if someone who hangs out with people who are not of the same race all depends on the person. This also depends on the situation in which the person is dealing with. For example, a white person was born and raised in an inner city where the population around them is primarily black or brown. That white person would obviously have mostly black or brown friends, because that is the skin color in which their community is populated with. That white person would not be posing as anything. This is the culture and the dominant society that this white person was born into. That white person grew up with the black or brown people and if they are friends, they have similarities. The clothes that they wear, the music that they listen to, and who they relate to is the same for both the black or brown friends as it is for the one white friend. The white person is not pretending to be black or brown, but their likes are definitely defined and influenced by factors in a certain way because of the people around them. But, if they were born on the farm down south and were raised to wear jeans and a flannel, and listen to only country music, and then suddenly wear apple bottoms and listen to rap, they are posing. The posing aspect is more about trying to fit in. As the southern white person grew up, they enjoyed all of the aspects of where they lived and grew up, but changed all of their liked to fit in with a certain group of people, they are posing as someone or something that they are not. You can not help how you are as a person and what you like or dislike. You should always be true to yourself no matter the situation. While that would be an ideal situation, there are many times where it is extremely hard to be true to yourself when the majority of the population is making fun of you, bullying you, or even physically harassing you because you are different. In cases like those, fitting in for survival may be paid at the cost of loosing who you are as a person. But, the truth is, when it boils down to everything, you associate with people who are like you, because that is who you get along with the best. So, if you are really into rap and hip hop culture, you naturally gravitate to people who share that interest as well. If this means that as a white person liking these things, that they have mostly black and brown friends, it should not matter. Things like that should not matter because the interests that are shared between the people should be stronger of a bond than the fact that one person is white and the other is black or brown. In the same breath, you could say if a black or brown person grew up in a dominantly white community, that they would most likely share many interests with white people. This would not make them a poser in this scenario. So, basically it depends on the situation and the person in which could or could not be called a poser.

I have to admit, I watch a lot of the shows on the channel TLC. This station broadcasts many interesting stories of unique people, families, and situations. So needless today if I watch the channel all the time, I am obviously very interested in people’s stories of what their life is like with “weird” factors in their lives. From tree man, to I didn’t know I was pregnant, to half ton mom, little people big world, to Jon and Kate plus eight, TLC watchers get to peek into the lives of family situations that most of us would never think of. It makes you think, “ Why did this happen to them and not me?” One of these types of situations would include being conjoined to your twin. Brittany and Abby Hansel are identical twins that have a conjoined body but two hearts, sets of lungs, and heads. The two function separately from above the waist. The two each have control of one arm and can not feel sensation in the other girl’s half of the body. So, needless to say, the girls are forced to do everything together. They eat, sleep, go to school, hang out with friends, talk to boys all while their sister is centimeters from the other’s face. They even just recently (in the video) learned how to drive a car together. So, one might ask, how free are these girls if they cant even be separate of their sister? It is true that these girls have no privacy from each other, but they do not know any different. They were never even separated, literally, from conception. So Brittany and Abby grew up with dealing with the difficulties that come along with being attached to your sister. They have figured out how to help each other get ready, drive together, and even clap each other’s hands. So, I feel as though this aspect of their lives has been determined for them. They are and always will be together, since it is impossible to surgically separate them since they share so many organs and so much blood. For them, the choice is not theirs to be living with their sister or not, if one did not have the other, neither would be able to exist. But, Brittany and Abby do have to free will to choose how they are handling being attached. They could complain and be miserable about how bad their life is that they are not “normal”. But they don’t. I feel as though they understand how special that they are. No one, or at least the majority of people, are not like them. They have an unusually strong bond that only other conjoined twins could ever understand. They always have each other, literally, by the other’s side in times of stress or sadness. Also, there is always some one to talk to and experience everything with. The twins even have aspirations to go to college to start in a career in fields of photography, child development, interior design, architecture, or fashion design. So, even though there are definitely obvious limitations for these girls that has been predetermined for them since before birth, it is clear that they have looked at the glass half full and are making the best out of their difficult situation. So in conclusion, like all situations, the person’s life is determined to a point, but it is their person choices of free will that can over come, or succumb, to those predetermined settings.

Why do girls sacrifice their comfort when getting ready for a night out when guys can throw on a t-shirt and be comfortable yet still acceptable? I believe that this is for many reasons. First of all, women want to attract men so they feel like they should be dressed in a way to “lure” them in on weekends when everyone is going to parties and meeting new people. I said “lure” because girls that wear heels and short skirts and super tight clothes are basing their attractiveness solely on their physical appearance. If you ask a group of guys who they saw at a party last night, more times than not, they will say “ that hot girl with the little skirt on”. They will say that as opposed to saying that they saw “ that really intelligent girl that had baggy sweats and an old t-shirt on”. And as girls, we all know this. We know what if we present ourselves in one way, we will get more male attention than if we present ourselves in a different way. But, I would argue that it is not just male attention that we are attracting. We spend hours putting make-up on and doing our hair and wearing uncomfortable clothing to compete with other girls as well. Competition with girls is fierce. Like in the movie “Mean Girls”, Katy transforms her look with the help of her new ”friends”. She goes from wearing jeans and t-shirts to wearing heels and mini skirts to school to become one of the “plastics”, or the in crowd…of girls. Girls feel as though they are in constant competition to be the prettiest, the skinniest, the most fashionable and much more. In magazines, online, in the newspaper, on TV, girls’ beauty and fashion is forced down our throats. You can not go a whole day without seeing a Covergirl ad on TV, or an American Apparel ad online. The obsession with beauty is everywhere and impossible to escape. And as a young girl, who doesn’t want to look beautiful and glamorous and viewed as “hot”? So, we, as girls, are brought up to act and dress in a certain way that is viewed as “hot” and to be thought of as attractive. And the thought is that you have to be hot and attractive to get a guy to like you. But, why does being attractive have to be associated with high heels and tiny skirts for girls but a t-shirt and baseball hat for guys? Lastly, I think that guys just don’t care as much to get ready because they don’t have to. When guys go out to a party they just want to drink and have fun and if there is a hot girl that is willing to hook up with them then that’s just an extra bonus. But they don’t have the pressures of looking their best at all times like women do. Like Sam and Lori were talking about in their “needy penis” lecture, it is basically a man’s world and women have all the pressures of pleasing them at all times. So if that’s the case, it makes sense that women have to be tortured basically to look good for men while the guys can pretty much party in their comfiest sweats.

Stereotypes. Defined as a simplified conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group. Stereotypes are associated with every group of people world wide. They are generalized tendencies for groups of people depending on what color your skin is, how your eyes are shaped, the accent in your voice, or even where you are from. Stereotypes are also ways to group people who look or act or seem the same. Typically we associate stereotypes with having a negative connotation. There are hundreds of stereotypes including: black people are lazy, and like fried chicken and kool-aid, all Muslims are terrorists, all Asians are good at math, and white people cant dance. But, I dont believe that any stereotypes are good or bad. They just are. And all of them lay in truth. They can even technically be called empirical generalizations. For statements such as men are taller than women, that is a empirical generalization, or stereotype. That statement is not good or bad, it is just true in the majority of cases and history has shown that on average, throughout time that men are taller than women in every human society. But, also, on the other hand, there are many exceptions to this generalization because not all men are taller than all women. Just like there are very productive black people who hate to eat chicken and kool-aid, only a fraction of Muslim extremists could even be considered terrorists, many Asians are horrible at math, and there are millions of white dancers. Also, stereotypes come from extreme cases of a negative image of a group of people in the media. For one example, Italian people are not Guidos, juiceheads or gorillas. The negative stereotype that shows like the Jersey Shore have expressed in the media personify all Italians as overly macho tool bags that go to the gym, tan excessively and only wear Ed hardy clothing. Another stereotype is that all Jewish people have big noses, curly Jew fros, and are stingy. When in fact, I know many Jewish people that have straight blonde hair, that work for non-profit organizations and have very petite noses. Additionally, it is commonly thought that Mexicans are all dirty, and have illegal jobs in the US. But, the rate of illegal Mexican immigrants is very low, and they are not anymore dirty than any other group of people. Another stereotype that is largely false is that French people are smelly and dont shave. This is another thought that is largely untrue. While all of these stereotypes are false for the majority, all of them are based off of the truth. So, while they are not true for everyone in the group, all of these conceptions are based on some sort of truth.

Before watching any of these videos, I can not say that I knew too much about Haiti to begin with. I knew that I had heard about the country in the news about two years ago. I knew that it had something to do with a terrible natural disaster that destroyed land, homes, and lives. And I knew that it was a poor country to begin with, and that this earthquake had pretty much completely destroyed the livelihoods of all that lived there. But beyond that, I was very ignorant to what had happened/ is happening there. What had happened was that a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook the earth about fifteen miles outside of Haiti’s capitol almost 2 weeks after Christmas in 2010. A week later, it was recorded that fifty-two aftershocks had occurred. All of these shakes combined affected over three million people, killing about 45,000 people. The destruction in Haiti left people homeless, jobless, and searching for an answer of what was to come next. While many people in Haiti are struggling to make ends meet, there are groups like the Haiti Group Project that are trying to help those who have started to help themselves. The Haitians have started to help themselves by starting their own businesses of self-produced goods. These products range from shoes and dresses, to tote bags, to designer clothes to hair products and candied peanuts to lunch boxes and more. The problem is, to make a profit from their goods, they have to raise prices up to extremes in terms of the Haitian market. This is obviously not very economical for Haitians to buy at this time since, because of the earthquake; so many have been left with so little. So the Haitian entrepreneurs are not selling as much as they would like. Our goal in the Haiti Group Project is to basically market their products to a US audience so that they can sell more of their goods for a higher profit. Many of the entrepreneurs are even willing to work with their products and adjust them according to what we, as Americans, would want and would buy. So, for our project we need to see what the majority of people want to buy and how to economically make it possible for the Haitians to produce it in an efficient way. From watching numerous videos, and tearing up at a few of them, I realized that with such little improvements to their working environments or tools, they could produce such better products with a lot less effort. Like for example, Yvrose Noncent makes evening dressed. But, she makes them without even having a mannequin to shape the dresses off of. I know for a fact, after working retail for two clothing stores, that there are mannequins in the back rooms of the stores that never ever get used because they are the wrong color, or scratched up, or they are just not the kind that the store uses anymore. With donations or even cheaply bought mannequins from stores that don’t even use them anymore, could make a world of difference for women like Yvrose in Haiti.