Hero Or Zero

Gary Webb, was he a journalist hero, or a journalist zero? I believe that he was a journalist hero, but I also believe that he did a few things in his personal life that he could have done better. I believe that Gary Webb uncovered a lot of things that our government was hiding. Yes, not a lot of people believed Gary Webb because he was just a small journalist from a small newspaper company. Why would people from across the country believe him? Is he very reliable, does he have the credibility like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times for a story of this magnitude? Maybe not, but all those people at these big named newspaper companies were too worried about ruining their reputation or losing their job, but not Gary Webb. Like I said before, he worked for the little company called the San Jose Mercury News. He did not have much of a reputation than right there in San Jose. When he decided to start writing this story and researching the story, he was going all over the world, just so he could find out the truth on what happened with this whole ordeal. He traveled to South Central, California, to New York, Washington D.C., Nicaragua, and I am sure there were countless of other places he went. He talked to just about anyone and everyone he could that was involved and got his story. Granted that yes his sources were not very credible because who is going to believe a bunch of convicted drug dealers about what is going on in our nation’s government. The government realized that Gary Webb was about to figure out the truth, so they decided to start saying things weren’t true, that his work is invalid, and that he is making it all up with no proof. Typical is it not of our government to lie to its own people. They started messing with his head and things started happening to him, things like his bike getting stolen, they started telling people about what happened between him, his wife and another woman in Cleveland. But, did Gary Webb ever give up? No, and that’s why I think he is a journalist hero. He took it upon himself to go out there in the dangerous world to fight against the government and to finally get the truth. I think that there needs to be more people like him in this world.

Game Theory Reflection

Nash equilibrium- creating a strategy to better the situation that one may be in
Game theory- you try and figure out an opponent’s strategy, it only benefits yourself
Prisoner dilemma- two people work together, it would benefit both

When I played the game a time or two, I found a sort of pattern. I found that if I just continuously cooperated, the game would cooperate with me, but the second that I started competing, it would compete with me until I chose to start cooperating again. The game is based off of my move, and it’s just very interesting to see how my reactions or move can influence the whole game.

In history: The Cuban Missile Crisis, whether sending missiles to a hostile country or not sending the missiles
In Government: When the government negotiating trades with other countries, whether trading with allied countries or just any country we please
In economics: Stores setting prices on merchandise, whether to charge a little more or to charge less than competing stores in the area
related to sociology: When making a decision that can affect the others around you, like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend
related to psychology: When making any emotional decision, whether or not to make a risky or safe decision
In your everyday life: Deciding what I should eat for supper, whether or not eating something healthy like a salad, or just throwing a pizza on the stove

~~~ The Government Is Corrupted ~~~

Did the United States recall lose its innocence after the John Kennedy assassination? I believe that we did. America was known as a place for people to come from every corner of the earth to start a new life, full of peace and new beginnings. Once Kennedy was shot and killed, and people found out that it could have been a conspiracy, I think people realized that America was not as great and amazing as we thought it was. Do I think that the killing of the president left a psychological and sociological effect on the American peoples’ mind? Yes I do, people today that can remember back to that day, have just about every detail from the day engraved in their mind down to them time and places they were. I feel like this not only had effect on the American people but on everyone across the world. Like I said above, when the assassination took place, people realized that America wasn’t the place that everyone made it out for, now the United States was a dangerous place, full of murder and violence. People from other countries felt bad for us, but they started forming ideas about how the U.S is run, and if our government really is the type of government everyone should have. The future of the U.S as we know it includes more death, and more war. JFK could have ended all of that for us. His views on how we as a country should run, would have led us to a time of peace and tranquility.

Do I think that 9/11 had an effect on America and its people? Of course I do! 9/11 may have been one of the most tragic events in the United States’ history. From these attacks, nearly three thousand people died. This event was the attacks of four strategically planned attacks by Al-Qaeda on some of the United States’ most known symbolic places in America. People lost their children, their kids, their wife or husband, and any other loved ones. These attacks left people devastated. They thought the world was ending. People were losing their trust and faith in our government. They thought, “If our government is so powerful and amazing as they tell us, then why did they allow this to happen? How could they let this country to be vulnerable enough to get attacked?” They have every right to think that, because I am right there with them. I also would like to know how this could have happened. But I do think that people were blaming themselves for this.

Who do I think killed John F. Kennedy? I believe that the government killed John Kennedy. I believe that he was doing so many things that were good for the American public, but the government was not about that life. John Kennedy wanted to take our troops out of Vietnam and avoid any type of war. The government had other plans. They wanted war, they wanted to go into any country possible and kill everyone in sight. So when Kennedy made plans to end it all, the government decided to end him. I do not understand how they executed everything so perfectly, but I know for a fact that they covered it up. With all of the facts about all of the shootings, the bullets, and just the cold hard facts, there is no way that Lee Harvey Oswald could have “single-handedly” killed John Kennedy. I am not saying that he didn’t help in taking part of the conspiracy, but I don’t think that there is any way possible that one man could execute this assassination by himself. So the next question is “Was it a coincidence that Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior were killed in a few years after John Kennedy was killed?” I believe that it was not a coincidence. Robert Kennedy decided that he wanted to run for president and he was going to have the same views as his brother. He had just won the California primary and was giving a speech, and I believe that the government knew the American public would elect him, so they decided to end him then instead of when he became president. I believe that this might have opened the eyes of millions of people across America. The government had almost successfully covered up the John Kennedy assassination, but then they went and screwed up by killing his brother. How could this be a coincidence? When two brothers are assassinated just years apart, because of the things they were going to do while they were president or were president. I just can’t find or figure out how the government could think that this wasn’t their doing. But what about Martin Luther King; was he killed due to a man just murdering him, or did the government set it all up and just put the blame on a man they brain washed? Me, I personally think that the government is doing all of these assassinations because they can’t comprehend the fact that someone can rally millions of people to do what is right for America, but not for the governments views of war and conquer.

Conspiracy is a funny word that seems to be widely associated with our government. Why? All the people that would lead us into a time of peace and war free, why does the government kill them off, what on earth could these people do to have led to their assassination? Would you like to know what I really think? I think that all of the governments in the world are actually run by a small group of people. They have created all of these different forms of government to create conflict between all of the people in the world. When someone like JFK and MLK have people behind them to create peace, they kill them off, because what fun would it be if they couldn’t have people dying over race, religion, or government. Do you want to know what the name of this small group of people is? This small group of people that control all of the world’s governments is called………..The Illuminati

                                                                     Much Love,

                                                                    2Pac Shakur 

                                                                         XoXo

Taxes.....Flat Rates VS. Progressive Rates

Is a flat tax better than a progressive tax is a big question when it comes to talking about taxes and what each person should have to pay? Some people think that a flat tax for all people would be the fairest way for the government to get money and keep people happy. Others believe that a progressive tax is the correct way to go because then they feel it is more fair because they get to see the rich people who make a lot more money than them, having to pay more than those of the lower class who don’t make near as much money.

An example from this article that I got was that if a person who makes $100,000 pays a twenty percent flat tax rate, and then they would end up paying $20,000, compared to someone who makes $50,000 would then have to pay that same flat rate of twenty percent, and then they would end up only having to pay $10,000. A lot of people think this is the fairest way to do it. Some people feel that everyone should have to pay the exact same rate. I see their point and I do agree that a flat rate would be the fairest way for all of the people when it comes to paying taxes. But yet at the same time, others still think this is “not fair” because they feel it affects the lower class more than it does the upper class. A flat tax rate would also make things so much easier when it comes to tax season because it would take away things like the deductions, and exemptions that we have right now with our taxing system. With this straight up flat tax idea, things would be a lot easier, and would help people to figure how much they would have to pay for their taxes because now they know that it is just a simple, fixed flat rate without having to worry about all those penalties, deductions, exemptions and etc.

Straight Outta Compton

NWA

Our art is a reflection of our reality

                The movie “Straight Outta Compton” was just straight up a great movie. The movie is about five young men from Compton, California. Using their rap music and their lyrics, they put their frustration and anger about their life in one of the most dangerous places in America into the most powerful thing they could think of; their music. This movie tells the story of how these “music rebels” stood up to the cops that were trying to keep them down and trying to force their authority upon these boys. NWA (Ni**az Wit Attitude) spoke the truth that no one in America knew, that life in the hood was awful, and that they were going to start a revolution to change life for everyone for the better.

                The movie starts out when Eazy-E (Eric Wright) goes to a drug house to try and make a deal, when the police raids come into town, and he gets away. The movie then goes to show Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella all meeting up with Eazy-E at a club called “Dooto’s”, which was incredibly famous back in the day. Dr. Dre gets the whole crew into a recording studio and they find out that Eazy-E just can’t rap. So he makes everyone get out of the studio, and it is only him and Dre in the studio. They boys start the record company called “Ruthless Records” and the album “Boyz-n-the-Hood” raised up the charts. A manager named Jerry Heller, talks to Eric and they make a deal to manage the group.

                The boys preform for a bunch of bigger record labels and a man from “Priority Records” signs the group. The boys make a bunch more songs and during one of their recording sessions, they get beat up and abused by the cops. This led Ice Cube to write the song “F*k tha Police”. With their old and new songs, Jerry Heller decides it is time to take the boys on tour. When they get to Detroit, the cops give them a huge talk about all the things that they cannot do during the show. They tell them that they are prohibited to play the song about the police because the song encouraged the people to fight back against them. The boys weren’t going to have any of that. So they did the song, the police arrested them and the riots in America started. The boys then went into an interview and people asked them why they were rapping about the things they were, and that is when Ice Cube said the famous words, “Our art is a reflection of our reality”. What that means is that, they just say what they have seen and what they have gone through and what they are currently going through.

                Ice Cube wants to get his contract, when he realizes that Jerry Heller is screwing him out of his money so Ice Cube decides he is done with Jerry’s business and signs solo with “Priority Records”. The rest of the guys that are still with NWA make a song about how Ice Cube is a trader, and a back stabber. Then a diss track war comes up and everyone gets mad at each other. After a while, Dr. Dre starts to realize that he is getting screwed by Jerry. So Dr. Dre decides he is going to leave and sign with “Death Row Records” which he started with Suge Knight. Suge and his crew beat up Eric to get him to release Dre from his contract situation. Dre then releases his new album “The Chronic”. Dre then starts finding all these new talents, people like Snoop Dogg, and Tupac. But all the while the Los Angeles Riots were still going at full force, and even got worse when four police officers beat up the innocent man named Rodney King. So what do all these boys do? They all start writing songs about the riots, and the police, and just everything that is going on. Again, this is where that phrase comes into place; their art is a reflection of their reality. They wanted people to hear what was going on; they wanted people to realize that the people who were rioting weren’t bad people. They were just people who wanted to be treated fairly; they just wanted people to hear their cries for help. Yes I agree that maybe rioting is not the correct way to get help from others, but they had the right idea.

                Now that Dre and Cube are gone, NWA is no more. Eric starts getting the hint that something is actually going on with this Jerry guy, and he finds out that Jerry has been stealing his money for years. So, he fires him. Eric feels awful about what he did to his friends and decides that he wants to get the group back together again. He calls up Dre and Cube and mends together any broken or torn parts of their lives together. When they are working on music, Eric collapses and finds out he has HIV. This breaks the hearts of not only the boys in the group, but everyone who has ever heard Eazy-E. I believe that this sad time started to bring back peace in the country. When Eazy dies, everyone everywhere couldn’t help but feel sorrow for a man, with the help of his boys, “single-handedly” started a revolution.

                Our art is a reflection of our reality. Think about that. All these boys did was rap. They didn’t take part in the riots, they didn’t get into fights with the police, and they didn’t do anything but write songs and rapped them. Their reality was the things they grew up seeing. Watching people get shot, seeing people lose their lives to drugs and alcohol, watching or maybe even experiencing innocent people get beat up, harassed, and abused by cops for no reason, other than them just being black. So what did they do? They wanted people to know that this is how it is, that these are the things that they are going through. Music was there answer, music was their release from the grasp that their reality had them in. Did they succeed? I feel so that yes they did succeed. They got people to listen to their music, they got people to fight back against the abuse, and they got people to realize the corruption that was happening on the west coast. Most importantly though, these boys were straight outta Compton.

Big White Ghetto Questions

v  1. What does the average coal miner make (wages per hour)?

               a. $25/hr

v  2. Who are some types of people a person might find in the big, “White Ghetto.”

               a. Very poor families  Kids with hardly any schooling

v  3. Why do you think the author calls it the “Big White Ghetto?”

               a. The Population of white people is so great, but it mimics the ghettos that are more African American dominant

v  4. What does the author suggests “keeps the underclass in place?”

               a. The government and their welfare program have turned Appalachia into one big housing project.

v  5. The author suggests that “poverty is the natural condition ____  _______  ________ _______.”

               a. Of the Human Animal

v  6. How does Pepsi play into this?

               a. They let people use their products that they are selling to the people

Facts

1. In Owsley County the unemployment rate is at 150%

2. People use Pepsi and other products as currency

3. Parents take their child or children out of school to get money for Social Security

4. Coal mining is heading west at a fast rate again

5. Your risk of dying could happen sooner than it normally should

Donald Trump? No......Bernie Sanders

In an article I read about Donald Trump on CNN, they talk about Donald Trump bashing our country and the people trying to run this country. He goes on about how this country is a weak country, and that it is going to take some toughness, strong, and very smart people to make America great again. Trump’s first example of this was that of Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders in a democrat who is running for presidency in 2016. Trump explains at a press conference in Michigan that in one of Sander’s campaign events how it was hijacked by a group of African American activists. He went on to say how it showed weakness, and that is one thing America can’t have. He then talks about Jeb Bush and how his idea that, illegal immigrants come here as an act of love for the United States to better their family, is once again, weakness, and that no act of love can ever make America great. This is a tough man’s country, and it is going to be taken care of. Trump calls himself a counterpuncher. He says that he doesn’t take the time to search and attack people for no reason, he only retaliates when someone “hits” him first. Later in the article, the leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, says that Donald Trump hates Obama, and that he doesn’t respect him as a person. The reason why I bring Putin into this is because I have heard things on television and on radio talk shows, where people compare Trump to Putin. But, basically in this article, it just proves Donald Trump’s radical ideas, and thoughts. Should he be president? No, I don’t think so. So who should be president? Bernie Sanders vote for Bernie Sanders, and by doing so, he will make America great again.

The Donald gets all fired up in this article

Freddy Gray

Who let Freddie Gray down? Did society let him down, or did the government? I believe it was both. He was born into a rough life, his mom did drugs throughout her pregnancy with him, and which may have caused him to be born early, and when he was born, the doctors found a crazy amount of lead in his blood. He was then diagnosed at a young age with Attention Deficit Disorder. He and his family lived in Baltimore, which historically hasn’t been the greatest place in the United States. In school, he didn’t have the greatest time in school. He had trouble paying attention to his teachers, and reading information out of his books, his writing skills were poor, and he had the hardest time just trying to stay focused on his school work. His whole life was just filled with hardships.

                People say that Freddie Gray was a well like man. If there was something you needed, Freddie would do anything he could to help, even though sometimes his ways weren’t always the most legal, or correct way to do it. He started his life of crime with a lot of small petty crimes. Things like drugs, alcohol, stealing, and vandalism were some things he was arrested for. Then came a day when Freddy decided to go out on the town, and he turned around the wrong corner and his life came tumbling down. The police saw him and started chasing him, and he ran. He wasn’t doing anything wrong at the time, but he knew that he wasn’t going to get away from the cops unless he ran. The cops caught him, and they said they put him in the vehicle, and he was struggling in the back, which caused him to have a spinal cord injury, which then lead to his death.

                The reason why I believe that both society and the government let him down was because as a society, he wasn’t ever given a chance to live a peaceful life. He was doomed to fail his whole life. The government let him down by the police force. Just because he was black, the cops brutally beat him, and assumed he was a trouble maker. He was an overall good man, but had a lot of things he had to overcome. I believe he was wronged, but, there’s nothing we as a society we can do to go back in time to change anything.

NRA, White Privilege and Mass Shootings

America is a place for peace and tranquility, a place where anyone can go and start their whole lives over and start the American Dream, a place where everyone gets along. What a bunch of bologna. America is full of violence. You can’t just walk up in America and think it’s going to be all fun and games, and that it’ll be just a piece of cake. It’s going to be hard, and some people can’t handle that. Some people snap under the pressure, and some of those people just go off and shoot up a bunch of kids at a school or murder a bunch of people, all because they didn’t get what they want. Sadly enough, ninety seven percent of these mass shootings are males and seventy nine percent of those are white males. Also, within the last few years, the shootings that have taken place among the white, males, a huge portion of those were middle to upper class individuals. To me, this sounds like a bunch of spoiled, rich white kids who have gotten their way ever since they could talk, and the one time that somebody does something that they didn’t like, or somebody told them they couldn’t have something, or couldn’t do something, they go crazy, psychotic even. All they want is attention; they want people to remember them forever. The only problem with that is that, these kids go out and shoot mass numbers of kids and adults, and either they kill themselves, or else they get shot by the law. I don’t quite understand how they think that they will get away with something like that.  There are people who are scared of what is going on out there in the real world. These people are trying to point fingers, and they are pointing right at the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA is a very, very big organization that has so much political control that it will never go away. For instance, presidential candidates have dropped out of the election race because they didn’t have the support of the NRA. People are trying to say that it is too easy to get a gun these days in the United States, and that may be true, but you can’t blame the gun and make the gun responsible for killing all those innocent people. In order to put blame on anyone, you have to look at who pulled the trigger. Look at the man or woman who took the time to plan out the activity he or she intended on doing. They are the ones with the problem. I also believe that our great law and order lets these people, who do end up making it into custody, off way to easy. There is no reason in the world why these people are allowed to plead innocent due to insanity or some other brain illness. They did the crime they do the time. Going back to the whole NRA thing, I’ll say this again; that people shouldn’t be blaming them for what happens in this world. The NRA has nothing to do with the distributing of guns and who can buy or who can’t. Yes, they have a strong influence on the gun control policy in the United States Government, but the government is the one who sets things in stone. They are the ones who say it is just fine for anyone who is over 18, with no criminal record, or no “proof” of a brain defect or brain illness, can buy a gun. Don’t you think that this is a little too broad? I feel like the gun laws should be a little stricter, but don’t change anything too drastic. The only change I feel is necessary would be that people need to take a test to show they are mentally stable, can pass a hunter safety test, and can prove that they have had absolutely no felony convictions. I do understand that people, who can’t pass those things, can and probably will get a gun anyway. I mean, we made drugs illegal, but yet people still do them. If we make it so some people can’t have guns, they are just going to get them some other way.

Do I believe white privilege exists? Sadly, I do believe that it exists today in America. You see all the time if some white person does something wrong, or something bad, we as a society have grown over time to just look over our other shoulder. When it comes to a minority though, we Americans tend to blow everything we here about a minority out of proportion. As an example, we have had so many cases where a white person (cop) has shot a black individual (bystander). People in the media have tended to blow this up. Do we ever hear about a white man (bystander) being shot by a black individual (cop) or a black man shooting a black man? No? Why is that you may ask, I personally don’t know, but it is wrong. Another thing I would like to use as an example, comes from an episode from the show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Mistaken Identity’. In this episode, Phillip Banks and his wife plan to go with their friends to Palm Springs in their friend’s helicopter. In order to have transportation when they arrive, they have Will and Carlton drive their Mercedes to Palm Springs, but along the way, Will and Carlton get lost. So Carlton is driving about 2mph trying to figure out how to get back on track, when they get pulled over by a cop. The cop accuses them of stealing such a high priced car and takes them into custody. They end up getting out when they agree to take responsibility for all the local car thefts and do a public confession on TV, when Phillip sees them on TV and goes to their rescue and takes them from jail. What I am trying to get at, is that, just because they were black driving a very luxurious vehicle, the cop immediately assumed they stole the car. Let’s say Carlton and Will would have been white, the cop probably would have asked them what was wrong and helped them along with their day, but since they were black, they were wronged. So yes, I do believe that white people have it easier in this time in the world. Is it right? No, it is absolutely wrong; every man is created equal, no matter what the color of his skin is.

Deviance

The article that showed up on google first, when I searched for articles about deviance was ”Heavily Tattooed Students More Prone to Deviant Behavior”. This article talks about how students who have more piercings and tattoos are more prone to be involved with drugs, alcohol, and other things that can get them in trouble with the law. The study also states that kids who had four or more tattoos, seven or more body piercings, and or one intimate piercing are the most likely to have been arrested for drugs and alcohol, cheat on school work and have multiple sexual partners. It also talks about how people  with small tattoos such as a rose or dolphin or something innocent are people who are less rebellious and less likely to have problems with the law, whereas kids with full arm sleeves, or huge back tattoos have a higher percentage than those with none or a few. The study showed that over a third of the people interviewed were pierced, and about half of those people had tattoos, and about a fourth of those had multiple piercings and tattoos. He also states that tattoos and piercings were not as popular back in the day, but have now become a thing of the present. More and more kids are finding it socially acceptable to go and get a tattoo or a piercing these days, and they is nothing we can do to stop it. I myself, don’t think that getting a tattoo is a bad thing, but I do think it is a little over board when someone does, for example, get a full arm tattoo, or a giant back or chest tattoo.