Wars of Choice

In class, we were discussing if the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars were wars of choice.

Alone, I think that the Afghanistan war is a war of choice because the Bush Administration planned to invade there even before September 11 happened. It has also been evident that the US would have gone into Afghanistan even if September 11 never happened. What did they want to do once they were in there? I think one of the motives was how rich in oil that territory is. Also, they have, or still had, a very strong government called the Taliban. So I do think that the Afghanistan War is a war of choice.

I think that the Iraq War is also a War of Choice. In a speech given by US Senator Robert Byrd on March 19, 2003, he states that "We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice." It is inevitable in the world today to know that we are in the midst of a war. The war is a war of choice because the US government could have made the decision to not fight back after September 11, and we would have never invaded Iraq.

The First Amendment

There are certain kinds of topics that are protected or limited under the First Amendment. In the movie "Elf" with Will Farrell, there is a scene when he runs into some reandom diner that has a sign that reads "World's Best Coffee." When he gets into the diner, he screams, "Congratulations! World's Best Coffee! You did it!" We talked about this sign in class. Is it an opinion, or do companies really use that as their slogan? When I see a sign that says "World's Best ______" I tend not to pay any attention to them, because the company that product is coming from is just trying to promote and sell that product.
Another one of the questions that I could not pick a side on was if the First Amendment should limit or protect a government official if they campaign for one candidate. I know it is limited, and I understand, because whoever wins is ultimately running the whole country, but isn't it also right that they should have their own views and should be able to campaign for who they want? So, I have a little difficulty for this one, but I do understand that it has to be limited for equal opportunity accross the country.

Be Good, Smile Pretty

While watching the documentart Be Good, Smile Pretty, I was shocked at how much the mother and daughter had different views on how to grieve. The mother basically told the daughter, Tracy, that she should not feel pain for her father because she never knew him. I thought that was very out of line because if you lose someone close to you and did not know them at all, you still can mourn for them. Also, I did not like that the mother wanted to put away all of her old stuff from her husband after the documentary was made because that shows that she cares, just not enough to want to remember her late husband and keep his old stuff out.
I also had one other question: why did the author of the story of how Don died wait until thirty something years after the fact to publish it? Was it just that he didnt have the strength to write it before then, or that he just did not want the family to know how he passed? I think that he was very selfish in not writing the story earlier because he was keeping information that the family wanted, or even needed in order to actually know what went on.

What Kind of World Do We Live In?

Today in class we were discussing the different kinds of governments that we have in the United States. We discussed that democracy literally means rule by the people and repulic literally means to elect people to decide for us. Mr. Bolos then informed us that we live in a Democratic Republic, where we do rule by the people in that each person gets to vote. However, we vote to choose who will decide for us, so it is both. I was thinking in class as we learned this, what kind of world do we live in? We live in a world where most of the people who vote during elections know wrong from right. If they know wrong from right, then why would they re-elect a president who sent us to war for apparently no reason at all but because he wanted to?

Memories

Today in class we were talking about memories. I found this a very interesting subject. After listening to the Podcast and hearing about how to block out a memory, I wondered about if blocking out a memory is really the way to go, no matter how bad the memory is. I came to the conclusion that I think if someone has gone through a lot of trauma in their lives, I think it would be okay for them to get this treatment as a form of recovery. That way, they would still have the memory, but would not feel as much pain from thinking about it.
Another thing I found interesting is the thought of almost "conditioning" rats to dislike a sound or pitch by playing that tone and then shocking them. I related this to the novel Brave New World because in that book, they condition infants to dislike certain objects or emotions to make them become equal. For example, in one scene in the book, they bring out flowers in front of the babies, and the babies start crawling near them. As they get closer, a loud siren sounds and the babies start crying. They do this everyday for about a month, and after that month, every time they see flowers, they start crying.
I think that this part of conditioning the memory is not useful, but the getting rid of traumatizing memories is more useful, because it lets people feel less pain.

September 11, 2001

Throughout the class period, we discussed the happenings of 9/11. I can't believe that was already six years ago. One thing that we touched on in class that I found interesting was that the United States government knew that something was going to happen a month in advance, and decided not to do anything about it. Even, the night before the attacks, the National Security Agency (NSA) recieved two messeges that were not in English, and did not translate it until the 12th. If they had translated it before, the would understand that the messeges said "the match is about to begin" and "tomorrow is zero hour." As I researched this for a deeper understanding, I found that the government was provided with quite a few tips that something like this was going to happen, but never did anything about it.
So, why didn't they do anything, or take appropriate measures? I think they did not take appropriate measures because they didn't think any other nation would have the capabilities of doing anything like this, especially on American soil. Some government officials had known something big was going to happen since January of 2001, and they still didn't do anything about it. That either shows that there was a flaw in our government or they were just plain lazy.

Appearance vs. Substance

Is appearance better than substance on Network Stations?

Today in class we talked about how news reporters are becoming more attractive in appearance as years go on. I think that this is true because networks think that if people with good appearance report the news, then they will have more viewers. Networks are starting to care less and less about the substance of what they are telling viewers, and care more about if the anchors are looking good. This could create a bias against anything the reporters say, because the writers can pick and choose what information they are telling the world. This is how New Trier became known as the school with the "Cruise Ship" virus, because the writers or reporters decided to withhold the information of what the virus is actually called, or even that it is a virus that spreads through nursing homes too. So relating back to appearance, the Networks want to look good, so they make their reporters look attractive, and they put flashy headlines or report only interesting stories.