I believe that in many instances, our country does have the right to “invade” other nations. We are one of the major world powers and it is our job to help to police the world and ensure that other governments function properly and allow all of their citizens to enjoy the basic human rights that every person is entitled to. Often times we enter other countries to over throw dictators or corrupt governments so that other people may enjoy the same freedoms and liberties that many of us Americans take for granted. With this being said however, I do feel that a lot of people are confused as to why we spend so much time and resources abroad when we do have so many domestic problems. We have people living homeless on our streets and starving from a lack of food. Yet, we still continue to send billions of dollars in aid to other countries to provide food and shelter for people that we will never come in contact with us. It seems like a great act of humanitarianism, but is it really just ignoring the problems that are right in front of us? It’s often difficult to discern how much aid is too much and I think a lot of people have issues with the amount of money that is spent policing other nations. The military aspect is especially irksome to some people. Our military takes up the vast majority of our federal budget and it is no secret that we are involved in many problems around the world that really have nothing to do with us. I think that it is just however for us to be invading these foreign nations and to be the world’s police. We are helping to ensure stability worldwide so that no major wars break out that could potentially involve us and end up costing us much more money than we are currently spending to maintain the police. It might seem as though all the money we dump into other nations isn’t worth it, but if another world war were to break out, then we would be spending much more money than we already are. Additionally our nation could be in jeopardy of being attacked and our civilians could have their lives placed in danger. Controlling and policing the world is our duty as a world power and is definitely warranted in my opinion. Many people have issues with our ulterior motives for entering countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and think that the wars are all about oil. While this may play a small part in it and as with everything else, there is always politics involved, I believe that the good we are doing abroad far outweighs any kind of ulterior motives that we may have.

The media played such a huge role in this whole ordeal, and very poorly portrayed our student body and beloved coach to the entire nation. I was embarrassed for my university every time I turned on ESPN or any major news outlet because of the angle that they took in reporting this story to the nation. It became the “Penn State Scandal” and the “Joe Paterno Scandal” and the focus was lost on the true issue at hand. This was above all else, the Jerry Sandusky Scandal. The focus on this and on the victims was lost however, when the iconic coach of Penn State, the face of our University was put on the chopping block and absolutely shredded by the national media. This 84 year old man had cameras shoved in his face, news media camped out on his front lawn, and accusations thrown at him that he very well may not have deserved at all.

The student reaction was a whole other issue and something that greatly disturbed me as well. There was no reason to “riot”, no reason to turn over media vans, or march down Beaver Ave. I sat inside and watched the coverage on ESPN and wondered why my fellow students were out wrecking havoc on our community. It was disgraceful and terribly troubling to see a few thousand knuckleheads so poorly misrepresent how the majority of Penn Staters were feeling and acting. We were inside still trying to figure out how we felt about the entire ordeal, while a few thousand rash individuals were downtown “rioting” about something they really didn’t even understand. I was embarrassed that night to be associated with those people, these fellow Penn Staters who had obviously lost perspective on what was really going on.

I feel as though it will be a while until the entire truth in this matter is uncovered. I believe there will be much more pain and embarrassment for us to endure as a University before this is all said and done. I am fearful of what will be uncovered in the coming days and weeks, but after this past Saturday and seeing my fellow students and alumni come together as one, I believe that we will eventually weather this storm and come out of it just as strong and Penn State proud as ever. We all know what it means to be a Penn Stater and I am certain that that sentiment will not be lost throughout this entire ordeal.

I definitely enjoyed the lecture on Thursday last week and especially this Tuesday. It was informative to hear from a sociological perspective on the occurrences at Penn State. I definitely gained a lot of respect for Sam hearing how passionate he was on making sure that the focus of this was kept on the victims. I have been constantly surrounded by this issue for the past two weeks and as a Paternoville Officer had news cameras pushed in my face all last week asking for interviews, so it is definitely something that I have had to talk about and discuss a lot. From dealing with all of that and hearing Sam's lecture, I was able to put into writing how I felt about several aspects of the situation...
This past week has been an extremely hard time to be a Penn State student. The atmosphere on campus here has been incomparable to anything I have ever experienced. The tragic abuse of several children that was reported to have occurred at the hands of Jerry Sandusky as described by a 23 page Grand Jury report both shocked and shamed the entire Penn State nation. The alleged cover up of these heinous crimes by our football staff and administration provided even more shame for our extremely prideful university, so rich in history and tradition. “Success with honor” has been our mantra here, and these atrocities placed a black eye upon us that will forever tarnish the Penn State name.

As a student here, I was obviously outraged when I heard of the charges and the alleged cover up. I was disgusted and repulsed as I read the Grand Jury’s findings. I was more embarrassed than anything else, when I heard that members of our football staff and administration may have known about these atrocious acts and stood by idly when they should have been following up on reporting them so that justice could be served for the wrongs done to these young boys.

From the very beginning of the news breaking, I felt that our former president, Graham Spanier and the administration completely mishandled everything, and failed in every aspect of responding to the news of the charges against Sandusky. I was appalled that Spanier issued his initial statement of “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz in the wake of them being charged with perjury. I feel that the appropriate response would have been to dismiss both of them immediately instead of offering to pay their legal fees and defend them.

While I, like many of my fellow Penn Staters, absolutely love and revere Joe Paterno, I cannot say that I expect him to get a free pass in all of this. While I do feel that he fulfilled his legal duty and should not have any charges filed against him, I do feel as though he could have done a lot more to prevent this abuse from continuing to occur. Paterno, may not have known the extent to which Sandusky was abusing children in the Penn State football facilities, but I do believe he knew that something wasn’t right, and I feel that he could have done more to get to the bottom of whatever was occurring at the time. I completely disagree with the way the Penn State Board of Trustees handled the firing of Joe Paterno, but cannot offer my unwavering support of him remaining the coach of our football team for the remainder of the year.

This is one of those interesting opinions that highlight the pitfalls of political correctness and the ignorance with which some perceive this highly debatable topic. This is also one of those interesting opinions of a professor who constantly tries to stir the pot and spark outrage, debate, and interest in his own agenda. Furthermore this is yet another example of Sam Richards placing opinion and perception above fact. It’s a shame he didn’t have a fake survey to improperly cite at the bottom of this post like he uses in his class power point slides. Political correctness refers to the belief that steps should be taken in ideology, speech, and actions to avoid excluding or offending persons of different races, origins, sexual orientations, etc. However, political correctness if often blown entirely out of proportion and used in sickeningly obvious ways. I’m not sure that its really any less offensive for companies to include their “token black person” in advertisements than it would be to simply omit including a person of color every once and a while. Obviously I am not arguing in favor of prejudicial selection for any form of media, but when it is so painstakingly obvious that one has gone out of their way to make sure that “token” minorities are included, I find that this is much more demeaning to those minorities. To tear apart a STUDENT MADE VIDEO done by a group of student VOLUNTEERS who do so much for this university is absolutely unacceptable and I am thoroughly infuriated that it was done so by a university lecturer. Lion Ambassadors are a group of student volunteers that give a tremendous amount of time to this school through a variety of different service projects and functions. These students give tours of our campus to prospective and accepted students, coordinate the “S Zone” every home football weekend, give lantern tours over Halloween, give tours of Old Main in the spring, and coordinate all of the activities for Guard the Lion Shrine. They receive no pay for their work and in this case are being insulted for something of which should not have even been an issue at all. This video was made by a committee of Ambassadors that is in charge of coordinating everything for Guard the Lion Shrine. This committee is not proportionally representational of the racial make-up of Penn State, nor in anyway at all should they be required to be! These are the students that chose to join Lion Ambassadors and chose to coordinate the activities for this function which is deeply rooted in the traditions of our great university and has been held every year for several decades now. How would it have more “politically correct” for them to go find some random minority students to place in their video so that they didn’t offend anyone by exclusion?? Maybe everyone that isn’t in Lion Ambassadors should be offended because they excluded us!! Sam Richards was so very perceptive to realize that all of the students in the video were wearing Lion Ambassador apparel. Maybe that’s because they’re ALL LION AMBASSADORS! Had they gone out and asked a random minority student to be the token minority in their video, I cannot help but think that that student would be highly offended. I’m not sure any person can really say that this would have been a viable option. This is what is wrong with people in our society today. We are too afraid that every single thing we do is going to offend someone that we go out of our way to make sure everything is “politically correct” and un-offensive. Political correctness is often taken way too far. Also, why was Sam Richards not upset by the fact that the ROTC program did not send any minority students to be featured in this video? These students work collaboratively with the Lion Ambassadors to carry out this event. Is this depicting our military of being entirely white? No, these are just the students that happened to volunteer to take time out of their day to be featured in the video. There is absolutely no way that they should have been required to seek out a minority for the video so as not to “offend” anyone. Another attack on Sam Richard’s ignorance of this entire situation is the fact that there is a minority tour-giving group on campus. S.M.A.R.T is a group of all minorities that volunteer, just like the Ambassadors, to give tours of Penn State. These students are not however, involved in the planning of Guard the Lion Shrine. This doesn’t mean they don’t attend the event or come out to hear Sue Paterno’s story of its beginnings. Having minority groups on campus raises an entirely different subject for debate. Were I to start a club or organization that only accepted white people, I would be attacked for being racist, exclusive, and politically incorrect. However, it remains perfectly accepted for minorities to have exclusive clubs and to deny white people access to them. But I mean that’s just them using reverse racism to get back at us for the years that we held them in bondage as slaves right? That definitely makes it okay. Sam Richards, get your facts straight next time and do a bit more research before putting out such a controversial opinion on a matter that you know very little about, which again comes as no surprise to me or many other students.

I think that this argument is a little ridiculous, and quite frankly, I’m surprised that it was even posed by a student. I am fairly certain that there are very few people who believe that we should just “give back” all of the land that we took from the indigenous peoples who once occupied present day America. Before the first settlers came to the Americas, indigenous people populated the entire landmass. They were not nearly as densely occupied as we are today, but that was because they were hunter gatherers and roamed around over a vast area of land. If we were to “give back” all of their land to them, then we, as a prospering nation, would be left with very little to support our booming population. I think that it is very farfetched to believe that we should give back the land that we took from the indigenous people. For the entire history of any civilization, societies have survived by a lifestyle of conquest. There were even battles between the indigenous tribes for land and resources. When the settlers came to the Americas, they were better equipped and more knowledgeable to be able to easily conquer the natives. Just as the Romans were a formidable civilization at one time in Europe and conquered many other civilization, so to did the Europeans come to the American and claim land that had once belonged to the natives. The argument that this was not “fair” really holds no merit in my opinion. It is the way of the world. Not everything in life is fair, and it seems extremely naïve to me for someone to think that we should give this land back. Should we also submit ourselves back to the rule of England since we broke away from the monarch by force? These arguments hold no basis in my opinion. The option of helping the indigenous people reestablish themselves holds a bit more merit in my opinion, but is still something that I do not fully agree upon. Our country is the great melting pot and multitudes of different nationalities and races live together in harmony. All of these people have assimilated into the American way of life and are becoming more and more Americanized. Yes, many still hold on their original cultures and customs and to me valuing and embracing this heritage is great. I’m at a loss however, for why the indigenous people cannot be expected to follow suit. Why do we need to provide special reservations and resources for these people to live as if they are still in the 1800s? We live in one of the most developed countries in the world and have vast resources available to us. I’m not asking these people to cast aside all of their ancient customs and cultures, but it does seem a little bit unreasonable to me that they cannot be expected to assimilate into our culture in the way that many other ethnic groups have done so already.

As this video highlighted, the feminist movement is one that is perceived very differently by all different types of people. Many people automatically assume either a positive or negative connotation when they hear the word feminism. Just as there are different perceptions of what a feminist is, I believe that there are many different types of feminists. Today, there are a lot less of the old time stereotypical “bra-burning” feminists and more members of the movement are instead focused on achieving equal rights and equality, instead of male bashing and pushing for a more centralized role for women in society. The responses on the video were very representational of what I would expect to observe on a college campus. Some people automatically assumed that all feminists hate men and just want to gain more rights for women. Others recognized that the movement actually seeks equality for all and is not about male bashing at all. I think one thing that a lot of people struggle with is whether or not they would actually label themselves as a feminist, especially when a lot of people in our society view this term in a negative light. It’s not really all that socially acceptable or “manly” for a male to walk around claiming that he is a feminist. However, I believe that many guys have very feminist beliefs and really do support equality for all different kinds of people. I myself, wouldn’t outright claim to be a feminist, but when I break in down, I really do agree with many of the fundamental believes of the movement. I think that the label is really what turns so many people away and makes it hard for people to really identify with all of the motivations behind the movement. The fact that it is indeed termed “feminism” is a little bit of a put off for men to identify with. Also, the history of the movement has a little bit to do with this block as well in my opinion. The beginnings of the movement were strongly centralized around women’s rights and achieving equality in a male centered society. Back in the day there were a few very radical feminists who helped shape a little bit of the negative perception that is still associated with this term. It is impossible to deny that we still live a male centered world and that many things in our society are done to please the dominating sex. As the post mentioned, magazines like Cosmo give women advice on how to please their man and how to be accommodating to their needs. However you would be hard-pressed to find any publications geared towards men and helping them to recognize the needs and wants of their sexual opposites. It is because of this, that I feel the movement doesn’t have full support from our society as a whole.

This video of the two conjoined twins, Abby and Brittany is a perfect example of how you cannot possibly believe that there is only one side to the freedom versus determinism debate. There is no way that one could argue that it was deterministic for those two to end up conjoined as they are. However, you could also not possibly argue that the conscious decisions they make each and every day in how to handle their unique situation are not exemplary of the freedom side of the argument that the choices we make really do matter. These are girls obviously have a lot more issues to deal with than the average person does and a lot of their life has been determined for them, just in the way that they are forced to adapt and deal with things. The fact that there are two people inside of their split body presents many issues for them. However, these two girls have chosen to make the most of their situation and try to be as normal as possible. They are not appearing on talk shows or running around the country trying make a name for themselves. Instead they have chosen to live as normal of a life as is possible. It is amazing how they have been able to work together and make conscious choices everyday that affect both of them. They have this freedom to do so and are taking advantage of it. They are not defined by their outward appearance as many on the deterministic side of the argument would assume that they would be. Instead they have formed completely separate identities and personalities and are able to be their own individual person. Their interactions with others are not hindered because of the other one being there. They are both free to converse with who they want. However this freedom becomes limited to a certain extent because of their peculiar situation. Since each only controls half of their body, they must be in agreement as to what they what to do. Some make view this a deterministic approach because they are stuck to only being allowed to do what their environment (each other) allows. However, I would view as just a double check on their freedom. Each is still free to make their own decisions and to do what they want, however they need the approval and cooperation of the other do this efficiently. I think that these two girls are going to face their biggest issues with freedom and determinism down the road. Will each have the free choice to be a mother, will they be able to have their own career? Will they be able to marry their own husband. All of these issues may not come out the way they may particularly hope or wish that they would and in this sense, determinism will be playing a huge role in their lives.

I think that this question raises a very interesting debate and that there are several sides which can be taken to answering this particular quandary. Girls often wear clothes that would appear to not be the most comfortable or convenient for the sake of looking good. The question raised is why they sacrifice their comfort to dress like this. Another question that belongs in the conversation is who they are dressing up for? Many people quickly assume that girls dress like this just to attract guys and to show off “what they’ve got”. However, you see girls in a relationship dressing just the same as those who are single and going out looking to attract a male partner. Therefore, one cannot so quickly make the assumption that girls dress like this only to attract males. They are dressing like this because society has dictated to them that this is the current standard and that they should wear short skimpy clothes, revealing tops, and high heels. Girls dress like this because it’s what they’re seeing in the magazines, movies, on TV and it is also how all of their friends and peers are dressing. The fact that they sacrifice so much comfort, wear heels that give them blisters, dress in short skirts in the dead of winter, and wear clothes revealing half of their breasts is actually baffling to me. As a college aged male, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t notice girls that dress like this when they go out. However, a girl does not have to dress like this at all to get my attention and I would actually automatically have a lot of added respect for those that don’t. While it is hott and sexy to dress so skimpily clad, it is not the ultimate turn-on for guys. Show us that you’re witty and smart and have a great personality before you show us every curve in your body. I believe that guys dress comfortably because for one that is how most men dress in our society. There are few uncomfortable forms of attire that guys would wear out to attract women. However, just because we don’t sacrifice comfort for looks, doesn’t mean that we still don’t make conscience decisions on how we dress based upon how others will view us. Guys wear polos, button downs, and classy shirts often paying outrageous prices for a designer tee shirt in order to look good. We impress girls with the brands of clothes we have and how well we pull it off rather than how much skin we show. There is a huge double standard in this game, but the fact that guys do dress a certain way cannot be over looked just because we are not sacrificing our comfort in the process.

Women are seen as more innocent than men because it has become internalized in our society that men are the more domineering and more aggressive sex. Women are generally thought to be more passive, softer spoken, and not as threatening. There are several factors that contribute to this general feeling that women are typically more innocent in men. The first is the most obvious. The physical stature of women is much less intimidating than men. Women are generally smaller and much less muscular than men are and are also a lot less likely to be physically aggressive. Men also look at women very differently than they do other men. Most men could not fathom a woman acting aggressively towards them. We have this perception in our society that women are innocent because we picture them as harmless and being above any type of violence. Even when women do get in fights with one another, these rarely lead to physically violence and are often just verbal and psychological. The video that we watched in class was a perfect example of how most people assume women to be more innocent. Even when the girl was trying to cut the lock off of the bike to steal it, people were coming over and helping her without even questioning whether or not the bike was hers. It was a very different scenario when the black and white males were trying to cut the lock off. Some people reported them, others left them be, but none of them tried to actually help them get the lock off. People in our society, males especially, always view women as innocent and look for opportunities to help them or to establish their superiority. Another great example of how women are viewed as innocent is the way our justice system handles woman offenders. There are much less women in jail than men and women are often let go with much less severe penalties. This is because even when women are committing crimes, we as a society, still view them as much more innocent than men. I believe part of the reason is that we view women as more innocent is that we do not necessarily think that women can stand up for themselves and protect themselves in the same way as men can. A woman in jail would certainly be faced with different hardships than a man would and in many peoples minds, they feel that women are not equipped to handle this because they lack the edge or grit that many men have. We view women as more passive individuals and have a generally feeling that this carries over to their actions as well. There is no denying that as a society we feel women are more innocent than men.

I will admit that before our class I had never heard of the Haiti Project. I really knew very little about this country except that it was extremely poor, is next to the Dominican Republic and suffered a catastrophic earthquake recently. It was amazing to me how poor some of the conditions really are in this country. I think that a lot of people get caught up in our everyday life and rarely take the time to think about how many hardships members of third world nations must endure every single day. It is astonishing how these people that have so little can still have such high spirits and it is very encouraging that there are many citizens who are actively trying to make something of their lives and to help improve their impoverished nation. The entrepreneurs in these videos were truly amazing. This project is one that is different from a lot of other aid providing initiatives and one that I think is a really great idea. Instead of just pumping money into a country or sending in donated items, the Haiti project seeks out ways to help supply these entrepreneurs with the materials they need in order to run their businesses more efficiently and capitalize on their work. It is so easy for us to just make a donation to the Red Cross or a world hunger campaign, but we cannot really see what our money is doing to help. With this project, people are being provided with things that are helping them run their businesses and give their local economies a huge boost. It is crazy for me to think about how hard it is for some of these people to keep their businesses up and running with the limited supplies and materials that they have. The women who ran the t-shirt and handbag shop makes most of her stuff completely by hand. This is such a tedious process and is made worse by the fact that she is using outdated equipment and has such a hard time getting the raw materials necessary to make her shirts. The family that runs the roasted peanut shop also has an extremely hard time producing their goods because of their lack of equipment. The woman who ran the pastry shop is in need of some very simple equipment such as an industrial mixer that would make her job so much easier. It’s crazy to think that with some simple micro financing, how much we could help to boost their productivity and in turn increase their profits. They would also be able to provide much more of their goods for their local population. This project seems like it has so many possibilities and that there are many more ways that we could help out this struggling population of people that are trying so hard to make a living for themselves.