Blogging Around

1. This is a comment I left on Sebas's blog post called  "An Inconvenient Truth: Longer School Days". His post discussed the extension of school days and an alternative solutions that he found to be better.

Sebas, I found this blog post very intriguing. I too believe there are plenty of faults in our school system that need to be corrected. I like how you suggested rather than extending the school day, we should improve the quality of our schools and even included some solutions to these problems.

Today I was discussing the education system with someone and we noticed how in our country we test almost all of our students which then counts towards our national average. In foreign countries such as China or India, they test mainly their best people.
Another thing I would suggest which I know is a very unfavorable option but it is to cut down the length of summer vacation. My reason behind this is the average student (including myself) forget lots of material over the summer. Additionally, the idea of more frequent one or two week breaks I would enjoy more than having such a long time off.
One thing I think was left out in this post was the idea that we are receiving way too much homework. It just make no sense. We end up spending hours every night doing homework that wastes so much time and energy. I would maybe like longer school days if it meant almost no homework but as long as we have homework and longer school days it would be unbearable. I heard that in other countries kids receive less homework and do better than us. This shows that maybe homework isn't quite working properly.
Another solution I would have is to have teens in high school maybe chose a subject they would want to focus for their careers. If I want to be a lawyer why do I need to know chemistry and if I want to be a Chemist why do I need to know the emperor of China during the Ming dynasties. I think it would be must more cost and time efficient to have us chose a focus subject before college so we don't waste time and money learning things we forget the next day.

2. This a comment I left on Stephanie's blog post. She discussed the negative portrayal of Islam and how we need to change our views.

Stephanie, I found his blog post fascinating. I completely agree that the media portrays Islam negatively and I understand the absurdity of the claim many sources make that sites Islam as the cause of terrorism.

I think these terrorist attacks have significantly damaged the image of Islam in the United States which will leave an impact spanning for multiple decades. It is hard for Americans to see Islam as a peaceful religion when consistently we see violence and acts of injustice in the Middle East. Additionally, the Israel and Palestine conflict has strengthened this view of Islam due to the United States being so connected to Israel.

We need to try to start to see Islam for the non-radical side. There are Muslims living peacefully all over the world. This new hatred of a religion can have disastrous impacts. An example of mass religious persecution in the modern age would be the Holocaust which left 6 million innocent Jewish victims dead. All hatred leads to is genocide and destruction.

iMedia: Presidential Debates

                In a Presidential debate the words and craft of their speeches are planned out to convey a message. They use succinct language to convey their message using a short and simple way to connect to the listener in a personal way. This is similar to the way poets use words like we are studying in class. The language can also potentially take away from the actual policy issues at hand and convince the voters simply on the language and presentations. This could cause the populous to vote the wrong way in a presidential election. Some people actually will vote against their own interest in elections.

                This problem impacts this country every day. Many of our government leaders are just well liked among their constituents. For instance, I watched an episode of Jon Stewart and he mentioned a congressman that wrote a book proclaiming that the slave trade actually was a positive for the African Americans. That being able to experience the greatness of the United States over Africa was his reasoning behind the claim. Someone with this kind of belief clearly is not qualified to make decisions in Congress that impact our entire country.

                Additionally, the way the candidates present the information has a tremendous impact on how the information is perceived. I watched a clip of a guest on a news network (I think it was Fox but not 100% sure) and he stated that watching the debate on mute clearly shows who won the debate. This completely throws away the entire point of the debate. You cannot just ignore all of the policy and the poetic words and use body language to explain everything. 

An Inconvenient Truth: World Poverty Cannot be Solved

                Every day I am constantly reminded of how privileged we are to live in the United States and to have grown up on the North Shore.  We have received more opportunity than the majority of the global population will ever have, even here in the United States, most of us are better off than the majority of the population. The idea that this problem will most likely never be completely solved (or at least in my lifetime) seems almost tragic.

                80% of people live on less than $10 a day. When I first heard this statistic, I was shocked. This problem of global poverty happens to be much greater than I imagined. When I think of how much that $10 is worth to the majority of the world and I usually could not even be able to buy me a meal at a restaurant for only $10. The national and international income disparity is enormous.

                I know this could be explained using economics saying that these people are less productive than us. That we are so much more educated that we deserve to make so much more. I read a book titled, 20 Things They don’t tell you About Capitalism. It mentioned how a bus driver in India makes 50 times less than a bus driver in Sweden. It questioned whether or not the Swedish bus driver was 50 times more productive. Obviously the answer is no. There is no way that is possible. The reason the book offered was that in Sweden (similar to the United States) there is much more opportunity available. There is access to education, infrastructure such as roads and bridges, a more stable economy and government, and other thing provided in Sweden but not in India. But the education and other things do not justify this extra pay for the bus driver because they do not use them in their daily job. The successful people that use this education and opportunities to earn this high productivity bring up the entire nation. These successful people do more productive things than their counterparts in foreign countries. An example would be Bill Gates who has been at least 50 times more productive than his foreign counterpart. Additionally, it is only because of these opportunities we succeed. Warren Buffet said that if were a poor child in India he would  have never amounted to anything near what he is today and that our countries has helped him earn his success; that it was not him as an individual but as a member of a society working towards a common goal.

                This economic theory above shows that no matter how much we try to help poor countries the only way to truly fix this problem would be equal opportunity globally. With much of the world poor with backward governments this equality will almost never come. The acceptance of this theory and facts makes me want to take advantage of the opportunities I have been given. To acknowledge that the life I am living is a dream to billions of people around the world. I believe that this makes me morally obligated to work; that if I don’t use the resources and opportunities our forefathers worked so hard to create I would become a drain society. Thinking of all the opportunity I have helps me stay motivated and strive for success; knowing that my success will have an impact on society; that my need for success is my debt to society. Think of the poor innocent children in Africa whose only dream would be to live in America and adult who want more than anything to work in America doing jobs I would never be able to get myself to do.  It is just mind blowing to me how we live in a world with so much injustice.