Moment of Silence Gone?

Last week in the newspaper, there was an article about how the new "Moment of Silence" law was on hold for the time being. When I heard that the first time, I could not help myself but to laugh. I found myself laughing not because it was on hold, but because after all of the trouble this new law has caused us for the past month or two, they have decided that they need to re-word it. A man found that the original title of the act, which was called the "Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act" was unlawful and unconstitutional. Going back to the discussion we had in class right after the Act was established, I definately agree with him. Especially for public schools where the students are very diverse, having an act mandated which states that we should take time for "Silent Prayer" is unlawful, and in some cases either mocking or going against some religions.

Witchcraft in Africa?

Today, I got the chance to sit in a college lecture called "Africa Peoples and Cultures." The topic that they focused on was the theory that witchcraft is actually going on in Africa today. The Professor talked a lot about how parents in Angola accuse their children of being witches for the sole reason that they want to get rid of them, so they do not have to go more out of their way to get them more food. I related this to The Crucible in that so many people were accusing the children for dancing in the forest. More children were blamed than were in the forest that night but, like in Angola, we are left with the idea that one kid represents the entire children population in Salem, or today, in Africa.
A question that the Professor asked was, "Is there actually witchcraft in Angola?" There is an article that was published, as Mr. O'Connor already posted on the AIS blog, that was published in the New York Times this morning about this subject. In reality, the answer is of course, NO. A word that the Professor used, which I am not remembering at this moment, meant that the cause of accusing, and the professor said that is "taking something very abstract, like witchcraft, and making it seem like it is a tangible thing." You could walk away from the New York Times this morning thinking that there is a lot of witchcraft going on in Africa. This also happened in Salem during The Crucible. Witchcraft was basically a rumor that spread too quickly. It started out really abstract, then with time began to form into something more concrete and tangible.
This is the article from the paper. What do you think?

The Election on 1800

Today in class, we did the recreation of the election between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1800. I thought this was an excellent activity to participate in. From the view as one of the undecided people, it looked like the speeches that were spoken by the people who played Adams and Jefferson were written for an actual Presidential Election. The partisans did a terrific job of putting all of the posters and questions together, too. Also, the whole class ran so smoothly. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing and when to do it, on basically no class time to prepare.
During the speeches, I was thinking about what it was actually like to take part in that election in 1800. We know that Jefferson won that election, but in our class vote, Adams won. What made Adams more appealing? Of course, the cupcakes were a big part of the bais because all of the undecideds want one. However, with the actual issues, I think what made Adams more appealing was his ability to state the facts how they were. The only fault with the question and answer section was that Adams was kind of dodging questions when they were not expected to be questioned.
That is what made the class so entertaining. Everyone had terrific questions to ask, and if the candidates or their managers didnt know how to answer them, they would get around it. This activity was really well done and very interesting to be a part of.

Wiki-What?

While doing this project in class, I have noticed a lot of things about how different people do research. I saw that some people were using Wikipedia as one of their primary locations for information. Growing up, I have learned that you should never use wikipedia as a source for information, because the information may not always be correct. I think that this is very true because anyone can access and edit anything they want to on that site. Maybe someone had a really bad day, and they decided, "maybe I'll just go on Wikipedia and change all the information, so maybe the history of the world be altered." This is not the way to do research. If you really are desperate for information, go on google and get information from a place that only the makers can edit. I remember when I was little that I used a program called "Encarta" that was basically an encyclopedia in software. What happened to those days?

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.