BP...A big mess

Lately the number one news story on every site is of course the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which occured on April 20th. For the last month this has been the top story on CNN's website and many other news sources as BP tries to save the environment and stop the oil from ruining all the wildlife in the surrounding area. Only recently was the oil spill upgraded to an "environmental disaster", as if before it was only a small mistake that they had made and that they would fix it. But now will the massive publicity and the fact that they have been unable to stop the leak from growing bigger. When the oil spill occured 11 men were killed, however in almost all the news reports almost no one is talking about the workers and how they were killed in unsafe working conditions. Recently in class we talked about how coal miners were in extremely unsafe conditions and were constantly at risk, but we didnt talk about how oil rig workers are also in very similar conditions. Although you would figure that the deaths of 11 men would be important to the nation, all anybody cares about is the environmental aspect of the catastrophe. Even though of course that is a very big deal, we should also be talking about how those 11 men gave their lives because a company had them in unsafe working conditions. What do you think about the oil spill? What do you the think BP should do?

Facebook, Over the Top?

Lately if you havent noticed, Facebook has become the new most popular site and best way for people to connect with eachother. But now a days everyone I know has a Facebook, and it is being used by older generations to "connect" with the younger generations. Such as Sarah Palin and other politicians having their own facebook pages in order to connect with young voters and get their ideas out to the public. But to my utter dismay today I learned that even my own Dad has a facebook, a fact which will forever change my view of facebook. This leads me to consider, what is the point of facebook? I could live my life without ever going on facebook and yet I still use my facebook. Facebook started out as a way for college students to connect with eachother, but now it is almost too big. Now instead of just being able to communicate with my friends, I am bombarded with hundreds of different events, or farmville invitations or many other topics. Things that to me atleast are completely useless. Many people view facebook as an ultimate website where so much is going on and its defining an entire generation, along with twitter, but is it really that important? I atleast do not think that how many people on facebook like a certain celebritys page or any of that stuff that TIME magazine recently deemed important in how "hip" the TIME 100 list was this year. In my opinion people are taking facebook too far and this will lead to more and more time spent on the site and more resources put in to a very flawed site. What do you think about facebook? What are your views on how facebook has spread?

Junior Theme Final

Recently I have finished my junior theme on gangs and police and will be turning it in tomorrow. After weeks of research and reading I have put together all of my research and finished my paper in time, although I never thought that I would be able to. Last week I had an interview with police Commander of the 13th District in Chicago. She gave me alot of usefull information and a new view on my topic, one that I had never even thought of resarching into. I am confident in the paper that I have written and hope that it is as good as I think it could be , however I am unsure of its quality. The hardest part of the paper was piecing together all the research and trying to put it all into an organized paper that made sense and didn't repeat all over the place. Since alot of my research said around the same thing it was hard not to repeat certain things and I looked for it throughout my paper in order to eliminate some of the repitition. Although it was alot of work and was very frustruating at times I am happy for it to be over but also happy that I worked hard to get it done in time and put it all together in a way that made sense and followed the thesis map throughout the paper (hopefully).

Junior Theme Update

Recently we have been writing our junior themes in class and spending alot of time researching. My junior theme topic is about gangs and how the police are trying to prevent the gangs. Also on why the police are often times unsuccessfull in dealing with and trying to solve the gang problems around the country. So far I have been doing tons of research and read two books on gangs and two authors experience with gangs both first hand experiences. One of the books is a story Always Running by Luis Rodriguez about his struggles with gangs in Los Angeles. The other book is Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh about Sudhir as a sociologist in the projects of Chicago and his experiences with a gang leader. Both the books were very usefull and put a good first hand and outside perspective of the gang problem in major cities in the United States. At first I had some trouble getting an interview however I got my interview with a Police Commander in Chicago. I am feeling good about my paper so far and it is a very interesting topic for me that I have enjoyed researching for the past month. In the upcoming days I will be getting all my topics organized and writing the rest of my paper so I can edit it and improve it in the upcoming weeks. The research I have done has been very interesting is hopefully going to be usefull in my paper.

Big People

In class we've talked about how corporations are now seen as people in the eyes of the government and last week I ran across an article about how a corporation, Murray Hill Inc, is now trying to run for office. This obviously is a political stance to mock the supreme court ruling that declared corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to funding political campaigns. This makes it so that corporations can give tons of money and backing to a political candidate and possibly sway the election because of the kind of money some of these corporations posses. As Murray Hill said about its campaign, ""But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves." They are making a joke out of how since the corporations are considered people when funding that the corporations should be able to run for office also. Many people including President Obama condemned the Supreme Court on the ruling and I also think that it is unfair to allow corporations to be considered individuals. This throws lots more money into the campaigns which are already bad enough with all the commercials and money being used. Nobody wants these campaigns to get bigger and more expensive as time goes on which it is on a track of right now. This gives an unfair advantage towards the people who spend all their time on fundraising money and makes the election more about money then actual politics. What do you think about this Supreme Court ruling? Do you think that it should be allowed?

Article on Political Campaign Story

Chris Browns Plea

This week Chris Brown issued a plea to his former fans to support him and revive his career after he plead guilty for domestic abuse after he beat his girlfriend Rihanna last year. An incident that was widely known and Chris Brown was denounced by many of his fans for his actions, some of the worst you can do as a celebrity in these days of no privacy. Chris Brown said to his fans, "Some radio stations aren't playing my records, They're not being that supportive and I wouldn't expect them to. But it's on the fans...It's in your power to bring me back." This plea to his fans is almost pathetic as he tries to save his career and make some money now that no one has respect for him what so ever. As a pop artist he depends completely on his fans coming to his concerts and buying his songs, unlike some of the other rappers who become more famous by staying as underground artists, he has to have lots of fans to be successful. Personally I never thought that he was a good artist and I never listened to his music, so I don't think that he deserves to come back after what he did. Regardless of whether we should know about his personal life, we do, so when I view him as a artist I take that into consideration. It used to be that artists were seperate from their personal lifes when dealing with fans but now they must be more careful and one mess up, such as beating your girlfriend, can cost you your career. What do you think about Chris Brown? Do you think we should forgive him and listen to his music now?

Heavyweights in Hollywood

Last week I posted a blog about how the U.S is becoming increasingly more obese by percentage in the total population and how it is bad for the country, so I was intrigued when I found a article on how the size of oscar nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe may affect her acting career. As many of us know she is a very big women who is clearly obese and many people are speaking out saying that her acting career is already over because she will not get another acting gig because of her weight. This brings up an interesting issue of Hollywood and the type of actresses that they always seem to put into their films, no matter who the director is. I don't think I've ever seen a movie in which a heavy set women was the main character, but I have seen many movies in which a heavy set male was, but the male is almost always a very funny character such as Chris Farley. But because of Gabourey's talent she has more opportunitys that any other women of her size has had before in the movie industry. If she succeeds she could pave the way for more women of her size to fill more major roles in upcoming Hollywood films, but will the public go to see her in the movies because of her talents? Many males around the country go to movies so see many of the women that fill up the majority of Hollywood roles, such as Jessica Alba or Angelina Jolie, and this is why many of their movies make money, because Hollywood plays off not how talented the women are but how beautiful they are. With the world becoming increasingly more fair for more people we see new boundarys being broken all the time and this may very well be the next one. What do you think about Gabourey Sidibe? Do you think she will be succesfull?

Milkaholic...Ridiculous

Earlier today I stumbled upon an article which was about how Lindsay Lohan is suing E*Trade for 100 million dollars. What? This is all about a commercial which featured the name Lindsay and then calling her a "milkaholic". Here is a link to the commercial. Of all the law suits that I have heard about this is one of the most ridiculous. Lindsay Lohans lawyers claim that the commercial is in direct reference to her and that her name is as big as Oprahs or Madonnas when coming to single names. Personally one of the last things I think of when I hear the name Lindsay is Lindsay Lohan, mostly because I know tons of people with the name Lindsay (considering it is a very popular name) and none with the names Madonna or Oprah. Also she is in fact an alchoholic or was one because she has checked into rehab multiple times, now it is questionable whether it was moral or not to put that in the commercial if it was even in reference to her. Where has Lindsay Lohan even been lately? I feel like I haven't heard her name or seen her in movies or tv shows for years, is this all a ploy so that she can get money because no body wants to hire her for any movies? Lastly how can she sue for 100 million dollars? That is an unbelievably large amount of money which she obviously knows she will not win, but most likely is for shock value for the case so more people know about it and E*Trade may give in instead of getting the bad publicity. What do you think about this lawsuit? Do you think that Lohan has a chance to win any money?

Evolution...Fake?

Since the discovery of evolution by Charles Darwin it has been an extremely heated debate between the Church and creationism and science. The church firmly believe in it's 7 day theory of how God created the earth around 6000 or so years ago as the bible says, but of course science completely disproves this theory. However there are many people out there who don't believe in science and evolution and all the evidence that carbon dating and research has shone, but decide to believe what somebody wrote down 3000 years ago as complete truth. Not only do they believe in this almost completely proposterous story that has been disproved but have for years fought to keep real science out of school and instead teach kids creationism. I and many other people believe that religion has no place in public schools in our country other than to educate people about the general ideas of it. But now these anti evolutionists have put their bill together with a logical bill which states you should have to teach both sides of global warming, because with this there is actually somewhat logical arguments on both sides of the issue. A bill introduced in Kentucky which states that teachers should be encouraged to discuss, "the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories". This almost shocked me when I read it, that these people want to completely eliminate the fact that religion is kept out of government, in this case education, and teach both sides of issue when one side is science and one side is not only not proven but has been disproven. People cannot handle the fact that now science can fill the void that for thousands of years people tried to fill with religion, one of those things being how the earth was created, a common story found in almost every religion. These people are angry because they believe science is "overstepping their bounds" and researching in areas they should not be such as religion. Their fine with medicine and other areas of science but just not an area that disproves a belief that has been held for thousands of years but now is not relevant. Although I believe the creation story is a good lesson I think that it has no relevance today as fact and should not be in our schools for any reason espeically as a dissenter to evolution. What do you think about the bills that are being proposed? Do you think creationism should be taught? Here is a link to an article on the matter

Where in the world is Osama?

Nine years ago a deadly attack happened on September 11 where 3000 people died, the man who everyone pointed out as the "mastermind" behind the entire plot is still to this day at large, who we all know is Osama Bin Laden. Just two days after the 9/11 attacks George Bush issued this statement, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." So why don't we have him in custody now? Wouldn't you think that if we spent eight years with all the intelligence people we had looking for him that we would have found him? Many people say that the best chance we had to catching Osama Bin Laden was just months after we started the war in early October 2001. Regardless of whether or not he is dead, how can we not still be out there looking for him? How did our main goal for the past eight years to catch him and to "not rest until we find him" change? Some people argue that it would be messy if we catched him and would not be worth it, however I believe that that is completely false. Everyone in the country was led to believe that Osama Bin Laden was the worst man who had ever lived and were convinced to go to war because of his actions, a war that has been a complete failure, so we as citizens should atleast get the satisfaction and trying him in court and condeming him for his actions. Nobody is saying that they know where he is, but somebody out in the world does and one day he will be brought to justice for those who died on 9/11, unless of course the U.S no longer considers him a priority. What do you think about Osama and the way the U.S. has handled his search?

Obesity, A Major Problem

In America today we like to consider ourselves the best athletes in the world and in lots of sports we are, however the reality is that in America now a days almost 1 in 3 people is overweight or obese according to Medical News Today. To me at least that is a staggering number to have, how could it possibly be that high? While we glorify the athletes that are in amazing shape, we do nothing about our own physical activity in this country. The United States has the highest rate of obesity at 30% in the entire world, compared to South Korea and Japan who has a extremely low number at only 3% of the total population. We are not even talking about being overweight but obese which means that you have a Body Mass Index of over 30 percent. The number of obese people has been steadily rising in the last couple of decades and now it is completely out of control. We cannot have a third of our country being obese and be okay with it, it is a serious health concern that can be easily curbed with a few foundations that we have to put in place. This includes making physical activity mandatory and not just the easy physical activity we do in gym but rigorous activity on a weekly if not daily basis. People also must be more responsible about how they eat and what they choose to eat, because fast food itself will not make you fat, but if you eat fast food and then do not exercise or eat healthy later than you can become fat from the food. You cannot blame fast food restaurants for these obesity problems because plenty of people eat fast food all the time and do not get fat, but it is because they eat fast food and do nothing else. As a country we need to be more responsible about the well-being of our people and lately Michelle Obama has started the "Lets Move" campaign to try and curb child obesity. According to the San Francisco Chronicle,"The country spends $150 billion every year treating obesity-related diseases, most of which are preventable." I say that we need to start getting people into shape and eliminate the obesity craze that has struck our country. What do you think we should do about this problem? Who's fault do you think it is, if anyone's? Read more about Michelle Obamas "Lets Move" campaign here

Killer Whales

Earlier this week a trainer at Seaworld was attacked and killed by a killer whale after a show that she had put on. This clearly brings up the issue of animal captivity and which animals should be kept for multiple shows like the killer whales are. As many people know killer whales are not friendly animals in the wild and they are very dangerous, so why are we keeping them in captivity and putting them infront of hundreds of people for lots of shows everyday? I can understand dolphins as they are way less aggresive animals, however killer whales are known to killers, as their name suggests. Animals such as this should not be kept as they are with tons of opportunitys to attack their caretakers if they so choose. While many do not believe the killer whale was intending to hurt the trainer, that does not mean that later on it can happen. It is hard to take the instincts away from an animal no matter how long it is in captivity, these animals are meant to kill and are built for it and are very capable of it. These animals are subjected to daily shows for money for the owners of Seaworld and are there purely for entertainment and nothing else. Where as in a zoo it is a informative and sometimes free process, that is not meant to be a money making enterprise off of the wellbeing of animals. What do you think about the captivity of the killer whales? Do you think that they should be allowed to continue the shows?

Recruiting

Recently while surfing the web I came across a article on a 13 year old boy who committed to the University of Southern California to play football. Now almost everyone knows USC for football, but not for how young they recruit, but because they are one of the nations top football teams and have been for years. Just this year they hired a new coach, Lane Kiffin, who offered the scholarship to the 13 year old boy. This brings up a very important question of, how young is too young to be recruiting kids? This boy would not be attending USC until 2015! Thats 5 years away, which to me is ridiculous. No kid who is in 7th grade should be being recruited by college coaches let alone being offered scholarships. No one can know whats going to happen to this kid in the 5 years before he gets to college, he could become a superstar or be one of the biggest busts ever, but either way he's going to USC for free because he can throw the ball well when hes 13. Now you may say that it's the coaches choice if he wants to take the risk on the kids at that age, but it puts a huge burden on the kids to succeed when they are recruited at such a young age. The recruiting can also cause the kids to have a big head and become extremely cocky and stop working. You must also consider the lack of morale code the coaches who recruit at this age have, as they manipulate a young mind into committing to them early by tempting them with a scholarship. This creates an unfair advantage for coaches who stoop low enough to recruit this young and others who choose to wait. What do you think about this recruiting style? Do you think it should be allowed?

Sarah Palin...A joke

Lately their has been one conservative figure in the news regurarly other than Dick Cheney, and that is of course Sarah Palin. A women who as we all know ran for on the ticket for John McCain as the Vice President. It is almost ridiculous that now many people are considering her not only a quality politician but maybe even for Presidential elections in 2012! As a good looking women she represents almost everything that Hilary Clinton is not to the conservatives. She is not a "braniac" who studied at an Ivy League, but a soccer mom who didnt even know what the role of the Vice President was when she was running for it. Conservatives are using Palin as their tool as she flip flops on every issue to please who ever she is speaking to at that moment, never forgetting however to insult our current political party in power, the Democrats. Recently a new book has come out by two aides of John McCain during the election which bashes on Palin and how her new book, Going Rogue. As a citizen who is 1 year away from voting, I find it absurd that a women who has almost no definite outright views on issues and who has been found to repeatedly lie and just completely ignorant comments. Although I do not think that she is extremely dumb, I think that Sarah Palin is a uneducated and ignorant person who should not hold any politcal office let alone the presidency. What do you think about Sarah Palin? Do you think shes as bad as she seems? All I know is that if she wins the presidency, I'm moving to Canada....

Tim Tebow Ad...Ethical?

This weekend as most people know is the Super Bowl, where the the biggest event is of course the commercials throughout the game, it is the reason that many people watch the Super Bowl. But this year instead of the usual funny commercials that we always expect, CBS has approved and even worked with a commercial featuring Tim Tebow and his mother talking about how abortion is wrong. This is a very controversial ad that has no place in the tradition of the super bowl ads. On top of this CBS denied a bid by ManCrunch.com, a gay dating website. Now although I have not seen the ad, it is known that in the ad Tebows mother talks about how if she had gotten an abortion like the doctor told her she should, Tebow would not have been around to play football and become the star that he is. Now although I do not disagree with the right to free speech but there is a time and place for everything, and using an star athlete to manipulate the public in the biggest American sporting event of the year does not seem ethical. The Super Bowl is meant to be a fun sporting event that the entire family can watch and many around the country do watch, this event should not be taken advantage of and used as a political booster, and then also for CBS to censor other views is wrong. What do you think about the ad? Do you think its fine to air the ad during the Super Bowl?

Garret Gilbert: Hero... nearly

Last night during the first drive for Texas during their championship game, Colt McCoy was knocked out of the game, during the most important of his college career. In comes a true freshman, Garret Gilbert, and almost everyone who was watching the game thought the game was over, that Alabama was now really going to run over Texas. During the first half Gilbert was exactly what everyone was expecting, awful and he even managed to throw an interception with 15 seconds left of what was an awful play calling situation putting Alabama up 18 points. Then all of a sudden Gilbert grew up and brought back Texas to within 3 points. I had gone from feeling awful for him, to predicting that he would be the hero of Texas fans everywhere, and drive Texas 90 yards to the win with 3:12 to go. As I was predicting this and feeling as if I was really smart, Gilbert was blindsided and lost the ball and along with it Texas' chances of winning the game. I sat dissapointed as I thought how great of a story it would have been if he hadn't fumbled the ball at that point. Gilbert however through the game grew noticeably more confident as he fought to keep his nerves down infront of the millions fans that he had never played before. In the end I am excited for what will come from Gilbert as in the next years he matures, even though he's a championship short of where he should be.

Don't tase me bro!

Stumbling through the internet today I found a video that I found very interesting and which some of you may already know. It's of a Florida student who was tased by the police at a forum for Senator John Kerry. The student who had waited in line to ask a question for 2 hours started yelling at Kerry to answer his question. In the video the police started escorting the student out as he protested, and then attempted to arrest the student. The student was resisiting arrest and this is when the police tasered him, while he was yelling, "Why am I being arrested?" and "I will escort myself out". After watching the video I was torn between whether the polices actions were justified or not. I think that arresting him was wrong and tasering him was also wrong, but that the student should have been made to leave the building. This is an interesting situation of whether free speech should be allowed in a forum like this when it against the interest of the forums directors. He had a right to his free speech and also to the police telling him why they were arresting him, which during the whole incident they did not once. It's a clear mistake on both parties involved in the incident, but do you the think the police had the right to taser the student? Were they restricting his right to free speech in this incident? Here is a link to the video

Targeting Kids

Today in class we talked all about advertisements and whether it is right to target them at kids. This reminded me of some videos that I had seen a couple of months ago by the Mormons in California. These commercials were about Proposition 8 in California back in 2008 and these commercials were not only targeted at kids but used them as an excuse to pass the Proposition. For those of you who don't know, Proposition 8 was initiated to ban same sex marriages in the state of California which had previously legalized the marriages. At the head of the support for the bill were the Mormons, all of which the bill didnt affect what so ever and many of the support coming from people who did not live in California. This is the video paid for by supporters of the proposition 8 legislator. I find this video and many others almost exactly like this disturbing. They are using kids to not only influence you but saying that the bill most directly affects them more then anyone else. Instead of stating their actual opinions they use a child to manipulate others into voting for what they want. What do you think about this advertisement? Do you think they should be allowed to show this?

Blackwater

Recently in the news a hot topic has been the dismissing of the Blackwater (a private military organization) murders in Iraq by a U.S judge. As stated in this article by CNN the five guards who were accused of the murders have been released after the prosecutors case was dismissed. Of course all around the world people are upset over the verdict from the trial. Especially the Iraq government who has issued a statement that they will be searching for any former employees of Blackwater in their country and if they find them they will be charged by the Iraq government. The five guards were released after mistakes made by the US Government and the federal prosecutors. I personally find it ridiculous that they can get away with murder because the prosecutors messed up. They get away with no legal punishment because they had ammunity in the country that they worked in which was Iraq. I agree with Iraq that these men deserve to be punished for their actions which cost almost two dozens lives after they killed them unprovoked. What I personally don't understand is how these men are granted ammunity from legal persecutions in the country that they are in, how can Iraq not charge them themselves for the crimes committed in their country. I would understand if Blackwater was part of the military but they are a seperate organization and thus should be liable for their actions in another country. Do you think that these men should get off with no punishment?

College Athletes

Nowadays our college athletes are becoming more of an athlete than ever before. Those who receive full scholarships are practically being paid to attend the universities (mainly basketball and football players) and it is becoming less and less about the academics. In basketball many top players choose their school based on the basketball or whether they can get into the school or not, such as the case with Derrick Rose and Memphis. The stars nowadays are being treated as the future NBA or NFL stars they will become, but they are not their yet. The NBA and NFL put in the age restrictions for players so they would not be hurt in the pros, but they are instead being paid for by colleges to attend for one year before they go to the pros. I love watching these athletes however you have to consider that they got into that school at the expense of another applicant. They also take lots of money out of the school and are treated as the schools number one priority students at many colleges. I realize that these athletes have worked very hard to get where they are and play at the Division I level but is it fair for others who worked just as hard if not harder in school to lose money and tons of perks in college because the athletes are being treated as if they are a higher social class. I'm not sure if the pros of treating these athletes as stars outweigh the cons, but as a society we are allowing it to happen and supporting it. What do you think? Do you think the treatment the college athletes get is fair?

School Lunches

Over the course of my school career I have heard many complaints, and one of the most consistent ones, was about the school cafeteria food. I never started thinking about the complaints until recently when I saw an article about school lunches and how the nations school lunches remain below standards and that some kids are even getting sick from the lunches bought at their school. We are blessed to go to a very wealthy and prestigious public school, but even are school lunches would be called mediocre at best, apart from the spicy chicken of course. The article says that from 1998-2007 over 7,500 kids became sick from their school cafeteria food. Along with this over 8,500 schools failed to have their school kitchens inspected even once in 2008. How can institutions which are supposed to be providing a place of haven for these kids and prepare them for the future, do so poorly on one of the simplest of all things, food. Here at New Trier we have alright food that at least gets us through the day, but what would it be like to go to a school that didnt have as much money? What would their food be like in comparison to ours? As a principle we should at least feed the kids who will be the future mediocre food that is not below national standards and will not make them sick. What do you think? Do you think that school food is alright as it is or that their should be a change?

Iraq war Opposition

In class we have been discussing civil liberties and how the government should include the public opinion when limiting the rights of their citizens. This should also be the same with war, but interestingly enough I recently came across an article in which our former Vice President Dick Cheney shared his view that it does not matter what the public thinks, that the public are in fact irrelevant and he does not care what they think. When told two-thirds of America does not support the war in Iraq his only response and a blunt one at that was, "So?". This leads to me to question our country and how our "democracy" actually works. President Bush was elected....sort of... in 2000 by an extremely slim margin. Even though over 50% of the U.S did not want him as their President, for the next 4 years he made almost every major decision for the United States. This included going into, what many now consider a bogus war in Iraq. In our system shouldn't the government take into consideration what the public views and even base their decisions off of how the public views a certain topic? Why does a man that almost half the country disagrees with get to decide that we will wage war on a country that half of America doesn't agree with? What is wrong with this picture, when a man who is supposed to be in charge of a country is only thinking about his opinion and not paying attention to all of those around him who also have very good ideas that at the very least he should consider. I find it ridiculous that in our supposedly great nation we can have leaders who don't even consider the public opinion, as Cheney says, "No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls." However when the public polls were in favor of him and the Iraq war he used the polls to support his war. Only when the polls are against him are they irrelevant. What do you think about this issue? Do you think the president should be able to do whatever he wants?

BCS Bowls:A rip off?

Since the beginning of the BCS or Bowl Championship Series system in 1998 there have been calls for a change of the system in college football. But not until recently have the protests become serious for a change to a playoff system. This year 5 teams ended up undefeated but only 2 will be playing for the National Championship on January 7, which of course are Alabama and Texas. Although I am confident this will be an unbelievable matchup, it is not the championship game I want to see at all. I would much rather see one of the other 3 undefeated teams get there shot at the title, even though only one of them is in a BCS conference they are all very good teams which deserve to get a shot at the title. This is why I agree with those who say that there not only needs to be a change in the system, but also that there needs to be a 8 team playoff system to determine the actual national champion. If this means 1 less game during the regular season so what, it will be so much better for college football and their fan base. This will also create much more excitement and more games for the best college players to be showcased against each other. Of course, BCS refuses to change the system, and the main reason, although they never state it, is of course money. The system rakes in millions of dollars for those in charge and next to none for those who participate, but are not a BCS conference, as stated in this article. As so many other systems in the U.S., the "lowly" are being screwed by the rich executives, even though they are as good as if not better than many of the big "BCS" teams. Even in college football which is supposed to be fun and a great experience for amateur athletes who are still young adults. This system is clearly flawed and although I will still watch the championship game, I will be thinking about what could have been if Texas Christian University had been in the game instead of Texas.

Darwin Awards

In recent years many of us have become aware of a new award that is giving out to a select few people, or the Darwin awards. This award is given out only to people who have either died in very stupid way, or lost the ability to reproduce, thus taking them out of the gene pool. The awards have gained tons of popularity and have multiple books as well as this website. Of course I enjoy these stories and laughing at the stupidity of others, but this presents a problem, morally is it right to have a entire idea based upon the unfortunate situations of others? I know it is all in good humor, but is it disrespectful to those who have been hurt is the real question. It may be insensitive to the family members or friends of those lost, without the consent of them. My personal opinion is that I do not think the awards are that bad and really like the books and website. But i also have no personal connection to anyone who has been in the stories or really who has died in an unfortunate way. What do you think about the awards? Do you think that they should be allowed to share these stories without the consent of the family?

UC Tuition hike

Recently in the news there have been many articles, such as this one, about the University of California and the 32% tuition increase that they passed recently. After the annoucement there were protests around California as the students were understandably mad at the Universitites for the tuition hike. Many of the students cannot afford the new tuition which is raising over 10,000 annually starting next year. This is a drastic change for many students, and may result in a dropout of many students, who could formerly pay the tuition and were enrolled but now cannot afford the tuition. With almost no financial aid given out to kids outside of California this leads to the UC system elite schools to have either only California kids or very wealthy kids from out of state. This is an absurd amount to raise the tuition suddenly as kids are scrambling to afford the education that was once available to them. As one student said, "Before it was a question of how smart you were. Now, it's do you have enough money to pay for school". What do you think about the education crisis? What do you think the UC schools should do?

El Clasico

This weekend one of the biggest sports rivalries in the world happened, and almost no one in our school knew about it. Im talking about the long rivalry between F.C Barcelona and Real Madrid C.F, an always exciting game which this year was one by defending Spain champions, Barcelona 1-0. This game brings up the old argument of whether it is fair to buy all your players for millions of dollars, such as the case with Real Madrid. As many of you may know they spent a record amount of money this summer to buy the majority of their starting line up. Whereas Barcelona has developed many of their players since they were young in their youth systems. Players such as their captain Carles Puyol and others have been through their entire careers with Barcelona and have not costed them millions of dollars, but rather were completely developed by the Barcelona coaching staff. The idea of "buying" championships has been a controversy throughout sports with teams such as the New York Yankees spending obscene amounts of money to bring back a world series title to New York. But is this fair to everyone else who cannot pay that much money? Does that not ruin the fun of the game where developing your own players is better then going out and buying them for lots of money?

Black Friday, True chaos

This Friday for the first time in many years I was not a participant in the histeria of Black Friday. This is because for the first time in a while I did not visit my family who lives in southern Illinois. Every year they wake up at 4 in the morning already having plotted out which stores they will go to and what they are going to buy, to join the ranks of thousands of people out to save money on the appliances they need for Christmas. I always thought it was nuts the way that people fight and push over the savings they will perhaps receive but truly found out how horrifying it is last year when the man was killed in New York trying to contain the crowd. If this wasnt bad enough this year hundreds of articles like this have come out talking about the scams that places such as Walmart have come up with to attract customers to their stores on this day. This day perfectly reflects our society and how our consumer market works. We are gullible enough to buy into these companies pitches about savings and literally go crazy over them the day that they happen. This paints a sad picture for our country and how we are perceived by other nations. What do you think about black friday?

Right to bear arms

As many of us know, today is the day that the DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad faces the death penalty. With his death brings up a very interesting topic of the gun laws in the U.S.. Muhammed and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo terrorized the Washington DC area for almost a month with guns that they obtained illegally. With his sniper he effectively terrorized and shut down the DC area for almost the entire month of October. People were afraid to leave their houses and they did it all with only 2 people. This shows the power that an effective plot and a couple of guns can do to the nation. With our extremely relaxed gun laws making it easy to obtain not just one but multiple firemans we endanger ourselves greater than we do protect ourselves. We make it extremely easy for homicides to occur and they do extremly often. As opposed to the UK which has extremly strict gun laws. This shows in the stats where the UK had .1 illegal gun deaths per 100,000 people, whereas the U.S has 2.97 per 100,000 people. I understand the second amendement and the right to bear arms, but at what point are we also endangering ourselves? At what point do we need to make our laws to possess and use firearms stricter? What do you think?

All men created equal?

Last night I watched a very interesting clip from the Colbert Report about gay marriage. This led me to think about our in class discussions about civil rights. As we have discussed in our modern times everyone has equal rights now, but do they really? Clearly gays in our country do not have the same right as others, they are not allowed to marry and people are openly hostile to them as an existence. Regardless of whether it is a choice or not, (which is a whole other issue), gays should have the same right as all other types of people. It was not until last week that hate crimes legislation covered hate crimes against gays. To me that is ridiculous, how can a clear minority such as gays, not be covered under the hate crimes? Where so often in the news we hear about these attacks on gays throughout our country. In the show, Colbert talks about how in the state of Washington where gay civil unions has been passed, a group of people have started a petition to change the law. However these people refuse to produce the list because they do not want the people who signed the petition to be outed. As Colbert says about these people, "I don't believe it is a choice, I believe you're born thinking gays don't have the right to get married or even be joined in union. And folks, the gays have no right to out those people". In his sarcastic tone, Colbert describes these people perfectly. These people are making decisions for others which have absolutely no direct effect on there lives what so ever based on either a religious preference or the fact that "they just don't like gays". Who gives these people the right to take away civil liberties from others that they are granted? This also leads me to the point that, should religious preference have a say over our judicial system? Should these people be able to pass laws taking away civil liberties based solely on their religious preference?

Fox News, is it really news?

I recently came across an article about Fox News and its bias. As most Americans do I follow my countries news, I realize that all news has a bias behind it, but believe that as a free journalism country I am still being told the truth. That is until I started reading Fox News. The bias behind this news corporation is absolutely absurd, as White House communications director Anita Dunn says it is "the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party". Everything they broadcast is a Republican based theory and some of which is completely false. Such as take the health care debate the statements that Obama is trying to initiate "death panels" to decide whether the elderly will live or not. A statement which could not be falser, but is still broadcasted by Fox News as a fact and crime that the Obama administration is commiting. They are brainwashing Americans with the frequency of false facts that they put out into the free journalism market and are openly against our current President and his administration. As an American I have to ask, as a country where do we draw the line in allowing our journalist's to state knowingly false facts? Here is the article which I found

131 million dollars, really?

Although this might be a bit late, I feel the need to blog about the absurd transfer fee that the superpower soccer team Real Madrid bought Christiano Ronaldo for. For 131 million dollars they bought the rights to the player and his contract from Manchester United. 131 million dollars, which equals out to close too 211,000 euros a week. The 131 million dollars was just the rights to the player, not his contract as well, which leads me to ask, is any person worth that much money? Espeically in our struggling economic times, how can a club who is already in debt shell out that much money for not just one player, but 5 others who turned out to cost the club 360 million dollars this summer alone. Flooding this much money into the market will obviously cause inflation and Real Madrid now have a debt of 296 million euros. What are your thoughts, is winning worth that much money? Are those players worth that much money? \

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=678183&cc=5901

Brazil still has slavery?

After our discussions about slavery, it reminded me of a article I had previously seen, that Brazil is still releasing some of its citizens from slavery. Including releasing around 4700 slaves last year alone. Almost 400 years after slavery was first started in Brazil, they are still struggling to rid the country completely of slaves. My first thoughts are, how could this possibly still be going on in a country such as Brazil? As the 10th largest economy in the world, how can they still allow slaves in their country? Atleast since 2004 they have admitted that they have a problem and have sent out task forces to track down and release these slaves, I find it ridiculous that since banning slavery in 1888 they have not cracked down to completely eliminate it. As a country that is developing nation they should figure out and eliminate slavery before they are considered a world power, as they are on the way to becoming as one of the worlds largest economies. Here is a link to the article about the slavery.

A big deal?

To follow up on class discussion on whether or not it is right for President Obama to make his speech to the school children tomorrow. Today I found an interesting article with Laura Bush(click link for article) backing the President and his choice to make the speech to the countries school children. She states that he has the right to talk to the children and that it is important for everyone to respect the President of the United States. I agree with her and her views that we are divided between the left and right and are blind of the viewpoints of the other side, no matter what they are. In our democratic process we have elected our leader of the nation, and we as a nation should have respect for our leader. If our President wants to talk to our school children he has the right too and as a country we should be open minded. Of course you have the right to not send your kid, however it seems to be ridiculous. President Obama is talking to kids about staying in school and there responsibilities as students, is that not something you would like your kids to hear? Even if you do not have respect for our President, is it not a good thing to teach your children to respect and look up to our leader, even if his viewpoints are different than yours? In a democratic country we have elected a man, who as our leader has decided to talk to the next generation of our country, and it is shocking that people are getting so upset about this speech. Obama is not trying to control the country and if he was it wouldnt be a bad thing, is it awful that hes telling kids to stay in school and be the best student and most succesful person they can be? If not then why is our country so upset about this speech?

Do todays athletes have class?

Watching ESPN today I saw somehing that struck me as immature and classless, a perfect description of todays atheletes. Of course I'm reffering to the punch throw by Oregons LeGaratte Blount following their 19-8 defeat to Boise St in football. As the Boise St. player turned to leave after an argument at the end of the game, Blount sucker punched the player in the jaw, in front of the entire country. This leads me to discuss the class in sports nowadays, or lack of class. With such players as Michael Vick and Pacman Jones dominating the headlines as they disrespect their organizations and teammates they give an awful example to kids. The majority of athletes nowadays have forgotten about what makes athletes different and how they can utilize there talents. Todays athletes are disrespectful and rowdy people who are constantly getting in trouble with the law, instead of the old time athlete who was a good teammate and a respectable person who knew there talents and showed up everyday to do there job without complaints. Nowadays athletes think of it as their destiny to play the sports and that they are better than everyone else, so they dont have to work as hard, instead of using there positions of power to help the world and be a positive role model to others. Where has the class from sports gone? Why do todays athletes have such different attitudes than before?