The Perspective of Situation

In class, we are doing a simulation on the current Iranian nuclear issue. Each group will be assigned a country. The countries are China, Russia, Israel, The United States, or Iran themselves. What we are trying to do is act upon the best interests of the country as well as the popular beliefs of its people. Any action that we make will have a consequence. This is why we have to choose our moves wisely.

The simulation that we are doing is being played out in reality as we speak. I went online to look at the opinions of the countries on the situation. I found Israel's stance to be particularly interesting. Shimon Peres said that, "Iran is not threatened by anybody. Why do they need it? (nuclear weapons)". Also, he seemed to be fed up with all the fighting, and said that his country has had enough of all the violence, " To those having a clenched fist, I have just one word to say: Enough. Enough war. Enough destruction. Enough hatred." These statements seemed to be genuine, but then I got to thinking. In one of Peres' speaches, two protestors expressed their opinions on the fighting going on in the Gaza strip. Also, doesn't it seem hypocritical for Israel to say that Iran isn't being threatened and doesn't need nuclear weapons when Israel is in fact a nuclear power? Also, if Peres says that he has had enough fighting, maybe they should be the ones to start. I am not trying to harp on Israel, I am just examining the opinions of a country from an internal and external viewpoint. I also do belive that Iran may be acting on the best interests of their people, but their goal of "wiping Israel off the map" is completely over the top. To get a better understanding of the situation, It helped me a lot to look at the goals of the country, and then look at those goals from the point of view of other countries. Every action, statement, and goal will get the attention of the other countries envolved in the Iranian situation. Taking a look at the intentions of other countries will help make more informed decisions.

The New Homeless

I was looking over CNN for current events and I came across a video. This video made me think back to our unit on privilege and poverty. In the video, we see a single mother and her two kids who live in Washington D.C. She worked for the government and was fired in 2007. Ever since, it has been nearly impossible for her to keep her job. Currently, her kids go to public school and they all live in a shelter. The image of homeless families has increased dramatically because of the economic recession. It was reported that there has been a 15 percent increase of homeless families in the D.C. area alone. This particular families shelter will be shutting down soon and they are worried about what to do next.

This video made me think to the artifact about what it means to be poor. I can only imagine how much more embarrassing and challenging it must be for this family to both be poor and homeless. It is stories like this that make a person wonder why we are giving these corporate giants such huge breaks and dumping more and more money into Iraq when we could cut off a sliver of that money and help the people who were basically betrayed by their hard work. This also made me think to the term we discussed in class. America is often referred to as the world police in its attempts to protect against violence and preserve liberty for all. Maybe we should focus a bit more on our own problems because finding a job is becoming more difficult by the day.

Collateral Damage

In class, we started talking about the strategies used in world war II. Bombing, and in many cases of civilians, was one of the most prominent and deadly strategies used by both the axis and allies. We had to ask ourselves the question though; Is the bombing of civilians ever an acceptable action during war? Everyone has their own opinion, but I noticed an interesting parallel.

On April 24th, one of the most deadly acts of suicide bombing occurred in Iraq. A total of 60 people died. The bombers were two women who walked into a crowd on Friday, the Muslim holy day, with grenades and other explosives. This type of civilian bombing may be a little different, but I think the same questions can be asked. Is the best way to express a feeling to a group of power attacking civilians? The civilians are targeted because they are relatively easy to do so. Extremists such as these women do this because they may believe that they can use fear to get the results that they want. I then thought, Is this true of every type of bombing, military or otherwise? When a military attacks civilians with bombs, the immediate effect of that is fear. With a population of fearful people, the general consensus might be to give into the other countries demands. So then is military bombing of civilians also considered terrorism?

Another question I thought of was about defense. It is impossible to check every person when they go into high population areas, and what could two women possibly do right? We have seen this as a trend; women and children have often taken their own lives in this fashion. However, the majority of women and children are not suicide bombers. So how do we defend ourselves? What draws the line between total governmental control over public behavior and safety? The bombing of civilians may or may not be an appropriate action, but it is for sure that it is becoming harder to combat.

So What Have We Accomplished?

Every day we are reminded about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Obama was elected, he said that we will be out of Iraq in the near future. The administration has made plans regarding the withdrawal of American troops. However, another 83 billion dollars has been requested to supply our troops with new equipment and other aid through September. Also, Obama has sent another 17,000 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, along with another 4000 to train Afghani troops. We are spending more money in this war and sending in more troops. I am not saying that this is wrong, but have we really accomplished anything, and was it worth it?

In class we talked about some of the main reasons for going to war. Some of these reasons are to defend the existence of democracy, and to protect every man's human rights. It is clear that America was provoked and shocked by the events of September 11th, but is there any reason to continue for another two years? We have set up a government led by local officials, and have trained troops to combat the taliban, but have the American interests been realised. What more are we looking for in our continued presence for another two years?

The Youtube Opportunity

Our class recently did a video conference with a historical museum in Cleveland. We all found it to be new and interesting, and most of us had never participated in one yet. I saw a video on CNN that made me think of our conference. There was a sort of competition where 3000 people from around the world submitted youtube video's displaying their skills in playing classical music. Professionals chose the top 200 musicians, and then youtube viewers voted on the 96 people that would join the orchestra to play at Carnegie Hall. On top of this, Google, the owner of youtube, will pay for the travel costs of all the musicians.

The finalists were beside themselves. The common belief was that they would never have made it to Carnegie, "the pinnacle of achivement for classical musicians", without the use of youtube to publicize their skills because they are not at the professional level. Programs like this will both broaden the talent in the classical music world, and provide much more opportunity for musicians. This shows that technology really can make a huge difference in the success of many people. Investing in communications such as video conferencing could really do a lot of good for our country, especially in the shape we are in right now.

Even the CEO's are feeling it

Over the past year, we have heard many story's of people getting their salaries slashed, losing hours, or even losing their jobs. The unemployment rate in America is about 8 percent, as compared to the ideal 3 percent. People from all areas are furious about the current situation. Big corporations that received aid from the bailout plan, such as AIG, have been subject to ridicule for some time because of the controversial nature of their bonus system, and how they used the money from the bailout. I was looking over CNN, and I saw an article that showed me something that I thought many people would like.

The average earnings of chief executives of American corporations fell about 5 percent from last year. This is the first year in five that the average annual income of these executives has fallen. These statistics may help to settle some of the anger that looms everywhere in this current situation. I find it noble that CEO's, while their companies may be having trouble, are cutting into their own earnings. Perhaps they have realized that a few million dollars less each year would not harm anyone. It is also a good thing to see that the execs are not running their companies into the ground so that they can still receive an enormous payment. Maybe this decrease will produce positive effects later on...

If You Buy It, Then...

After spending some time in class about the subtle details of advertisements that many of us do not notice, I went to youtube and found some interesting new adds. I came across a commercial for vitamin water that was actually banned. In the commercial, it shows two Bears playing football, and then Brian Urlacher comes up and tackles one of the bears. Then it pans to him drinking some vitamin water. Finally, a man says "power of nature" and then on the screen it says "It works, for Brian Urlacher".

The logic in this commercial is somewhat odd. Usually in sports drinks commercials, you see some explanation for why the drink is good and how it helps you perform at your peak. This, however, seems to get lazy. The only justification for the quality of their product is that it works for Urlacher, so it must be good. Although I find the commercial to be funny, when I take a deeper look I am not very drawn to drink vitamin water. Have advertisement agencies been getting lazy?