Me Project (Pt1)

I believe that heredity has a big part in the development of a young child. It’s the one thing that we are actually born with and it’s completely out of our control. Some of these heredity traits include; skin color, eye color, hair color, and in some cases, even height, weight, and body build. All of these traits develop when a child grows up. Yes, some things like aptitudes develop with parental help, but mainly it is from the traits a child inherits from its mother or father. For me, when people see me alongside my family, there are very similar traits that you pick out. These include; blue eyes, brown hair, musically inclined, consistency of above average singers. But there are some traits that I believe I have that others in my family don’t that I have inherited from my grandparents or even more distant ancestors. I, myself happen to be a lot taller than most in my family, I happen to have a lot bigger body build than that of my family. So yeah, heredity is for sure something that goes from generation to generation, but I also think that some traits may skip a generation.

I believe that birth order is a very important factor, the book talks about how the oldest child is the most responsible whereas the last born isn’t as careful, more risky. I believe that this is true in most cases, but not my family. In my family, my oldest sister was the risk taker, she was the one who wasn’t very responsible, and she was the rebel of the family. When my middle sister was growing up, she was the responsible one, the one who was most likely to achieve, she was the smartest in the family. Then I was born. I believe that I am the more active in social relationships, and I do believe that I am much more affectionate and friendly than that of both my sisters at times. I also believe that I am more susceptible to take risks on things more than my middle sister, but not to my oldest sister. I believe the studies the book talk about are true in most cases but not all.

The next factor is parental characteristics. The book talks about how possibly ideas, thoughts or even age can affect a child when he is being raised.  Some of those ideas or thoughts include; belief in religion, level of education, cultural background, occupational background, and economic status. I believe that all of these influence me on how my parents decided how to raise me. I am very active with my religion, I strive to have a higher education, my parents want me to try for a good job, my parents want me to be economically stable, and they want me to keep my culture on how I raise my children.

The last factor would be cultural environment. This means that where you were raised, and the culture you were raised in affect you. I grew up in South Dakota, in the greatest country ever, the United States of America. I believe that with how the U.S is very competitiveness, and individualism in this fine country helped shaped me to be a strong and valiant young man.

I can’t just pick one factor. I would have to pick two of these and those two would have to be, parental characteristics, and cultural characteristics. I believe that these two things have the greatest impact on me because, your parents are what shape your ideas, and thoughts, while as the culture you live in also affects how you think. They influence you to follow the steps of those around you and mold you into one of their society.

veterans day blog

I know that it isn’t Veterans day, but I would still like to thank all those who lost their lives for freedom, and to all those who have served and or currently serving! I know many people who have served in wars, and I can’t thank them enough for what they have done or are currently doing.

A man, correction, a soldier by the name Lt. Clint Lorance who was sentenced twenty years for his unorderly conduct. He was given this because the judge said her violated the rule of releasing fire upon the public without convincing evidence and or hostile action with intent. Lt. Lorance ordered his men to fire at 3 men riding motorcycle as they were heading directly at them, with no intent to stop. Lt. Lorance was jailed, gave up all his pay, and the military had him released of his duties. All this for trying to protect not only himself, but his men also, protect them from danger, or even death. Dying happens, and it will no matter what. People are going to kill people, and soldiers are going to kill terrorists, and vice versa. Should it be murder if a soldier protects himself against someone who may try to kill, no. I believe that a soldier must do anything to protect himself, or his men, or his country. If I was in his position, I feel as though I would have done the same thing. Those soldiers are under so much pressure and have so many people telling them what they can or can’t do, or what’s right or what’s wrong.

“Citizen is a duty, not a privilege.” I agree, but yet I disagree. I believe that we shouldn’t take our rights as American citizens for granted, but we should also feel honored that we have them also. It is also my right, and everyone else’s right to fulfill those rights to the best of our ability. The troops that fight for us are the ones that help us keep those rights. Thank you to every soldier for helping me keep my rights.

Racsim. Can't We All Just Get Along?

Racism. What exactly is racism? Well, racism is “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” says dictionary.com. Now I don’t know about you, but that’s just not ok. Like it says in our United States Constitution, “ALL men are created EQUAL!” Yes, you did read that correctly, all men (and women) are created equally. Now I don’t want to get all religious, at least not for now, but I want to talk about the 3 articles that my teacher had us read about racism. We had recently watched a movie that was about racism, and how you don’t necessarily realize that racism is happening unless that you or another party step into another person’s shoes and take the criticism from the group or individual that is trying to force superiority upon your ethnic race.

The first article talks about how racism was a man made thought or an idea. It also says about how that in early western civilization, people then started to try and make themselves feel better and more superior than anyone else, first in the case of the pilgrims, then in slavery. In the beginning with the pilgrims, they had used their technological advancement of warfare to force the Native Americans out. They thought that since the Native Americans were a different skin color and did things differently than they did, that they were less of people. Same goes to when they started importing slaves. They were different colored, and had different customs than what the “Americans” had. So, what did they do? They enslaved them. Made them lesser than the white race. And when they started slavery, that’s when racism exploded. Racism then started to spread to all the corners of the world. The author of the article also stated that he believed that religion has a big part in racism too. And I also think it does. Everyone is religious, whether you are an atheist or Lutheran, catholic, Methodist, whatever you may be, you are religious. Because being religious means that you believe in a set of values/ beliefs or a god or gods. This is kind of weird, but today in church, my minister talked about racism in the world. She also related it back to biblical times to when Jesus’s followers were get persecuted for believing in him. They were treated horribly and some cases even killed. Why, you may ask? It was because they believed in something different. There’s that word again, different.  They didn’t do what society as a whole told them to do.

The second talks about racism in America. He talks about how the American society is kind of made up people who are racist. We as a society aren’t just racist towards African Americans, but to all minority groups. As an example, we stereotype African Americans to be bad people because of what a small percent of them do. Yes I understand that you have your bad people, but every racial group is going to have bad people. We stereotype people with Middle Eastern background. Ever since all the problems in the world with terrorists from that part of the world, everyone just associates everyone with the same ethnic background to be those bad terrorists. I was watching television today, and a show called “The George Lopez Show” talked about racism. He had a man working for his company (they build plane parts) who was from the Egypt, but, here’s the catch; he had taken flight lessons and knew how to fly a plane. Everyone that worked at that plant, freaked out because they stereotyped him to be racist, when in reality he was just a great guy. His bosses told him to fire this man, but he said that he wasn’t going to do it because this is America, and if he has to fire someone for stereotypical ideas of other people, he said he didn’t want to live in this country anymore because he was raised that no matter the color of your skin, the religion you were a part of, it doesn’t make you any less of a person. That hit me hard, because, I know that happens in the U.S. Good people get treated badly because they have the same color skin as a group of people who have done bad.

The third article talked about how the media affects the negative stereotypes in the world against different ethnic groups. He talks about how the progression of technology in media has had a major impact in the rising of racism in America and the world. It all started out in the papers, and then it went to the big screen. From there, it was movies, then it was TV, then it was cartoons, and now it’s on almost any channel there is, whether you realize it or not, it’s out there, right in front of your face. A few shows that I would like to use as an example of this; The Jetsons, have you ever realized that there are no minorities up in the clouds with all the white people? Go take a closer look next time! The next one id like to talk about is one of my child hood favorites, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”.  Now, the Yellow Ranger, she was Asian, the brains of the group, the Blue and Red Power Rangers were your average everyday white males. The Black Ranger, who was the lone ranger who always happened to be involved in trouble, or was getting in trouble. Then you have the Pink Ranger, she was the cute little perfect, white girl. Finally, the White Ranger, he was the one with all the skills, and he was the best of the best. Coincidence? I think not.

Now, I think the one word that works perfectly with racism, is “Different”. People are afraid of change, and when things change or aren’t what you are used to, those things, (people) are different being different from someone is not a bad thing! In fact, I encourage being different, being unique. People are saying that they want to put an end to racism. But do they really? On the inside we are all the same, so why judge someone by how they look? Like the saying goes, “Never judge a book by its cover”. I believe that racism will never end. Too many people are bull headed and stubborn to accept the fact that the one guy who is black, and the other guy who is Middle Eastern, may end up being your lifelong friends. It’s all about giving people a chance, a fair and equal chance. Finally, to wrap things up, I would like to quote one of my favorite movies. The quote comes from the movie "The Longest Yard" and the man who stated the quote was Mr. Caretaker (Chris Rock), "Stop it! Stop the violence! Can't we all just get along?!"

Cons                                Good vs Bad                              Pros
Reduces work	Increases Work opportunities
It encourages bad behavior	Encourages people to get their act together
Poor people us it to buy drugs & alcohol	Poor people use it to buy the essentials
Teaches that they can expect to be handed money	Teaches them that they need to work for their own money
It can be very easily taken advantage of	It is hardly taken advantage of
It’s not effective	It is very effective
People who have welfare are lazy	People who have welfare

 

I am a little mixed with my opinion on this matter. Reagan was against welfare from the start. He believed that people who had little to no money were using it for the wrong reasons, one reason being them trying to use the money to escape poverty. He also believed that they cheated the system by feeding their drug and alcohol addictions with the money they received each week. He also stated that he thought these people were too lazy to get up off their butts, and actually go and try to get a job so they can support themselves and or their family.

Next, Bill Clinton proposed an act in 1996 called the (PRWORA) or Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. He proposed this act because he also felt that people need to get up off their butts and go get a job. Clinton thought that this would put an end to welfare. Both of these guys have similar ideas and yet they are somewhat different.

I agree with these two men. I do believe that there are certain people out there in this world that have been using welfare for other reasons.  I also believe that people who receive welfare must take drug and alcohol tests to make sure that they aren’t using the money they get on those things like drugs and alcohol.

Lord of the Flies questions

“Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death” Andre Gide. “What does this quote mean?” you may ask. I believe that this means that we a s people of American and other societies, know how easy it is to kill a certain person. All it takes is either one pull of a trigger, or one swing of a knife or sword, the list just goes on and on. But I feel that most people know that murdering another human being is just about the most cruel and unforgiveable thing you could ever do. Just the way some people are, they think that it is ok to kill people for their own gain, or sometimes in a more cruel and disgusting way like for their own personal pleasure. And because of these people, there are more and more ways being thought of and tried out on innocent people on how they can die due to certain physical, or even something as specific as like torturing someone by pulling their hair out and having them die due to the pain.

“If we can’t separate our civilized self from our savage self, which will take over and why” I believe that it would vary from person to person. Some people are actually quite smarter than others, and I feel that the smarter you are, the more likely you will be able to survive in a more civilized manner. People who might not be as mentally equipped as others, might tend to become more barbaric, ways such as war paints, rituals, ritualistic dancing, or other things of that manner to survive. Like in the book, the boys who were smarter and more “grown up”, tended to be the ones who acted more civilized, the younger boys and the ones that may not have been so smart, drifted towards more of a savage type of lifestyle.

28th amendment

I am about to propose to you my idea for the 28^th amendment. I believe that the 28^th amendment should state that “the legal age to be able to use tobacco shall be 21 years old. I feel that this needs to be approved because I’m sick and tired of seeing kids in our school “go to the bathroom” when in reality they are in there dipping, or putting a dip in or something else. I believe there is an immediate need for it because I for one don’t like tobacco use at all. Its gross, disgusting, and I don’t care for it. I just think that we need kids to realize that tobacco is bad. This amendment would just be straight up, and state “the use of tobacco shall not be used by any person under the age of 21 years old”. In my life, I have been around people using tobacco all the time, and to me I think it might help if we prevent kids from using tobacco in their younger years, they might be able to live their life longer and healthier.

If you could describe the game in one word, what would it be? Difficult

What did you expect at the beginning of the game? I expected it to be confusing

When did you realize that something was wrong? right away when you gave us the game

How did you deal with it? I dealt with it with rage

How did not being able to speak contribute to what you were feeling? it was harder to communicate, which made me angrier

 Is my title above appropriate for the game of "culture."  Why or why not? life is just one big confusing game

 Is a universal language and set of customs necessary for world peace and harmony? yes

 What can a simple card game teach us about our culture? that even though we have one main culture, there are many different sub cultures underneath the one big main one