If i was in his place I feel I would be outraged that any country would consider killing civilians acceptable, especially, such a large number for one person they want to kill, who is still just a person. I find war to be horrible and even killing other soldiers is not good, because they are people with families too.Killing a civilian is so much worse though because these people do not expect to die and are not prepared to die. They are not trying to kill our soldiers and they are not causing them harm. I understand that accidents happen and civilians will die. However, justifying their deaths with an arbitrary number, making them an expenses of an already brutal war, is disgusting. The policy should be to kill less people, not more, and accidental shooting of civilians should only be occurring if it is a complete accident or if the soldiers or his teams lives are in danger. I don’t mean a danger that they put themselves in and can retreat from at anytime either. I am pissed at my own country for this policy. If a great army were on my soil fighting a war and said they could kill 29 civilians for every soldier, I would be pissed. I sure as hell wouldn’t be a civilian anymore. Lives are not something to be bargained with. War may be necessary, which is debatable, but the death of an innocent can never, and should never, be justified.

I, too, was surprised with how calmly he received the knowledge that our military deems it acceptable to kill 29 people for every 1 “bad guy.” When I first heard that statistic I feel like I was more outraged than he was. This is surprising considering am not even apart of a country where innocent people are dying based on this statistic like he is. I am not sure how well he understood what we told him though considering that later he did not know what we meant by the ratio when we asked a second question related to it. However, assuming he fully understood, I can’t fathom how he was so calm. I try to rationalize it by believing he was just putting up a front, because he was speaking to a room full of Americans. Or, that he just expects bad things of Americans, so a ratio of so many innocents for one bad guy does not surprise him at this point, like it does myself. If the later is true, I feel very sad for him and sad that our country can develop such low expectations in others, even those who do not deny American as being a good place. If none of these are true though, I am simply shocked at how peaceful a man he is.

. Actually, career fairs feel pretty fake too. I feel like there is a lot of things not based on a person’s quality, aside from nepotism, that are included into hiring decision. Things like how one dresses or how friendly you come off. People shouldn’t have to am to be something they aren’t for a job. Not everyone is nice to people they are meeting for the first time, and why should they be. But everyone is nice when they go into an interview for the first time. They aren’t themselves, yet these are some of the reasons they are hired. Life isn’t fair, Take what you can get.

The world will never be equal when your parents or school or whoever you know is the reason your hired rather than your skill. I am particularly not fond of the idea of nepotism because my parents are middle class so they don’t know many people, and I am horrible at networking. You read correctly, I dislike nepotism because I recognize it as unfair, but also because I cannot really benefit from it like many others can. I recognize it as unfair, but it’s even more unfair to me because I do not have much access to it. If I was presented with the opportunity to use nepotism in my favor would I? Probably. In fact, I have. I was hired at my job because my Dad knew the manager. I actually have more animosity against the idea of nepotism through networking than by knowing people who are respected by others enough to hire a client for them. I think this is because of my most likely distorted perception of networking. I see networking as sucking up to others to receive a benefit. The atmosphere just feels so fake when I go to the alumni networking events.

Nepotism is something that I believe is a strong part of our American culture. “It’s about who you know,” “Network, network, network.” These are the main things I have heard since the beginning of college. “Talk to your alumni, get to know your teachers, Penn State takes care of Penn State and you will find us all over the world.” The main selling point of Penn State was networking. Yes, networking is not just for nepotism; however, that is a huge part of it. We network to meet people so when they have opportunities they might present them to us rather than someone else, not necessarily because we are most qualified, but because we know them. I think nepotism is horrible, but extremely prevalent. It is unfair already that children of wealthy and respected individuals gain many advantages over everyone else based on their parent’s resources alone. Add in that these people know many people who are also very powerful and will do them favors like give their kids jobs and we have an unbalance of power that is in complete disagreement with our American ideal of competition and the most qualified succeeding.

I could commiserate with the people in the video because if I was put into their situation and my children and family were being threatened along with my way of life, I would also take up arms and fight back. I was also able to commiserate with them when I saw their natural resources being plundered, as oil, while they were dirt poor. This is really unfair. After being abused in this manner, I can understand the need to fight back against an oppressor. However attacking civilians at the Twin Towers is morally wrong and not conducive to their cause. However the shock value of the attack exposes the situation of their people so even though they had good intentions, civilians should not have been compromised. After being forced to the extremes, I can understand the need for extreme measures after feeling voiceless and helpless about life in my own country. The war our country is engaged in is also extreme and further adds to their hate.

Personally, I have had a class before about deviance that already explained the perspective of terrorism. However, I never really had anger towards terrorism. I think killing people is awful and I thought they were horrible people for attacking the Twin Towers. I don’t think that has changed. I understand them better now though. If I was in their shoes I would not be happy. What the United States is doing is not right. Oil or not, they are using their power to oppress the people. They are controlling what they do, and converting them to their ways. Even if they have good intentions I do not believe their method is through anything but fear.

However, at the same time, we have so much technology that can translate for us; do we need a neutral language? Also, having a neutral language, as we already seem to be progressing towards, I think, will and do diminish many different cultures. Languages are beautiful. Even within English individual accents are beautiful. This is something I don’t want to see our world lose for the sake of convenience and a global economy. However, it is strange that when someone is speaking, like for a presentation, accents are often looked down upon in we can’t understand every word or have to struggle to do so. I know when I grade presentation, my understanding based on how clearly they speak always comes in as a negative on their grading, yet can that really be helped? Also, when I have teachers who speak poor English I also think negatively. Maybe that is not about the fact that they speak another language, but that they are in a situation where they choose to be, and that requires them to speak English, so doing so poorly is a negative. I think we need to find a way to continue and easy globalization through better understanding, but without losing different languages.

Every time I have encountered someone who spoke another language, be it girlfriend or friend, I usually ask them to teach me some of the language, occasionally I have even asked them to teach me all of the language, although this never actually happened. So, if someone came up to me speaking another language, I would work with them and try to communicate, just like I would try to help anyone who was asking for my help. However, I do think everyone knowing the same language would make things much easier. Which language is used the most? I would like to think English, but I feel that is a false conclusion of socialization. Maybe Chinese is the most used language? However, it seems like English is becoming the language of globalization. Maybe, that is socialization again. Either way, I think that one of these would make great neutral languages to make communication easier.

When two or more people around me are speaking another language, one that I cannot understand, I feel uncomfortable. This is hard to admit. I am a pretty open guy. It is not like I am crazy uncomfortable and I have to walk away or try and force them to speak English or that I even want them to not speak their language. It is the fact that I don’t know what they are saying that bothers me. I am paranoid about what people are saying as it is. I am not sure why. So when I am around people speaking and I do not understand what is being said, especially when it is close enough for me to hear, I feel uncomfortable. I wonder what they are talking about and if they are talking about me. When they laugh I think might be laughing at my expense. However, if someone was trying to speak to me in another language I don’t think I would feel uncomfortable. I might feel confused, but it doesn’t bother me that someone is not speaking English. In fact, I like many languages.