I've watched this video a few weeks ago when Sam mentioned it to me when we were talking about the past and the current state of Turkey. Coming from a country that is right in the middle of the area where most of the controversies happen, I found this video very interesting. After watching this video I felt like it was a simple representation of human history even though it was missing out a lot of the wars in the far east and the Americas. Also Another reason that I found this vide interesting is that I was familiar with most of the wars that took place in the middle east and the Balkans. Just like Americans here in the Us take American History in High school , back in Turkey we have to take history lessons. One thing that is different is that since our heritage goes back to The Turks that lived in the Middle Asia then goes on with Seljuk Turks that move in to Anatolia then the Ottoman Empire and then the modern day Turkish history. Since we got a lot of material we start taking history lessons in 6th grade and have history lessons till our senior year in High school. When you examine a history period that long you read about a lot of wars and when I look at this video and recognize most of the names of the wars I don't know what to feel. There is one thing that I'm sure of and I think that this video supports and it is that wars not only shape our history, they also shape our culture. For example, I can talk about my hometown Izmir which has seen its share of war and different cultures. It starts out under the influence of the Trojan civilization, than it is conquered by the Hittites, then Alexander the Great conquers the city and the Hellenistic period begins. After that comes the roman empire, then Seljuk Turks. Then comes the Christian crusades then it's in the hands of the Ottoman empire. After the World War I it is shortly occupied by the Greeks and in 1922 it becomes part of Modern Turkey. This is a very simplified history of the city and as you can see it was conquered by many civilizations and the most interesting thing about this is that it is still possible to see the affects of these civilizations in the current culture of the city whether it is the cuisine, accent or architecture.

As most people have posted, wealth is unevenly distributed and the division between the social classes is vast. One thing that I don't agree with most people is that they are saying this is especially like this in The United States. Being an international student and having traveled most of Europe and some other countries I can say that wealth is unevenly distributed all over the world and the division between social classes is vast everywhere and the situation is worse than America in many places. One thing about what I see here in the states that seems strange to me is that people have this idea that it doesn't matter where you come from or who you are, if you try hard enough you'll get to the top. This might be true in some very rare cases but in general it is not. I don't know if its pessimistic or not but where I come from people know that to get to somewhere in life you have to know the right people or come from a family that can get you there(which is almost the same thing as knowing the right people since your family names gets you in contact with the right people). I feel that this idea is closer to what we've been talking about in class. Where we end up in life depends on which social class we come from, like the example's Sam gave in class about the 2 guys who end up exactly where their fathers were at, not because they were smart/stupid ,but because of the social class that their family is part of. A personal example that I can give just happened recently, I was looking for an internship this summer but I was having hard time finding one here in the united States, so I contacted my cousins back in Turkey and in a matter of two weeks I had more than 4 options. Like I said in the end it all comes down to knowing the right people, do I think it's fair for me to get an internship when I'm sure there are other candidates that are way more qualified than I am ? Absolutely yes, but I guess just because I'm in the "winning" side I'm ignoring the problem that is out there.

Like most people I do not believe that the 5 year old kid is responsible for his actions. Like we have talked about in class most toy guns look really real and I think that kid just thought that the gun was just a cool toy. Since no one really got hurt in this situation we are able to easily say that the kid is not responsible for his actions But the question that I have in my mind is what could have happened if he accidentally shot someone and how we would look at the situation differently. After watching the video I found the superintended's words to be very true. For this situation I don't think the kid should be held responsible for what happened but the idiotic step father who left a loaded gun on the back seat of his car should be. As Sam said in his post the gun should have been taken away and the kid should have been sent back to class and they should have called in the step father and make him take gun safety classes and he should pay for them. The kid was probably as scared as everyone around him because of the way they reacted to the situation and being taken to the police station for something that he doesn't understand was probably very scary too. While thinking about this and saying that this kid is not responsible for his actions another question comes to my mind, if we are not responsible for our actions when we are 5 years old, what is the age that we become responsible for our actions? What about the 6 year old kid that shot his friend a year or so ago, is he responsible for his actions, is he aware of the consequences of his actions? To be honest I really don't have an answer to these question, I feel that it is different for most people. Legally we become responsible at the age of 18, but in my opinion we become aware of our responsibilities and consequences of our actions way before that.

Even though I had to learn what suicide is at a very early age, It is still a very big question mark for me. It seems to me that suicide is a very complex subject and there is almost never just one thing that leads to some to commit/attempt suicide, there is almost always a number of things that push people off the edge and instigate thoughts of suicide. After watching this video and learning about the great percentages of suicides in the U.S. military, I can't say that I was surprised. When you think about it, it is obvious that the atrocities of war are taking its tolls on the military personnel. Even though they go through serious training, and are disciplined to stay alert and under control in every situation, I feel like staying alert 24/7 and expecting danger around every corner must be exhausting. And of course there is also combat, I believe that overcoming the effects of combat on them is probably one of the hardest things for the soldiers, trying to forget what you have seen. In the video one of the soldiers that is interviewed says he prefers not to sleep and dream about it rather than sleep and see the pictures in his head, I think these words pretty much show how badly the combat has affected this soldier and many more like him. The only problem for these soldiers in not only what they go through during their active duty but I think another big problem for them is adjusting back to their life's outside of the military after their active duty. like we have talked in class military is a heavily structured and disciplined system which in some ways helps the military personnel cope with what is happening in their lives. For example, I had a friend who served in the military and during his active service he spent a few nights at a watch tower alone in the danger zone, he first explained to me what he went through in his mind in those nights when he was still in the military and even though he was shaken up he was still okay, but after his service ended and he was out of the military system where what he had to do every moment of the day was already scheduled, his mind started to go back to these nights on that watchtower and then he started to have these nightmares and his whole personality changed. The guy that I knew before his military service wasn't there anymore.

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When I read news like these it really upsets me. Like haseeb whenever I hear about a violent act I also automatically hope that the perpetrators were not Muslim, because I believe that every violent act that can be linked to a Muslim takes the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims back to the start. Before 9/11 the only relationship that people were aware of was that certain countries in middle east were their allies but after 9/11 every friggin country in the middle east was portrayed as a possible threat in the media and people from those countries were always looked upon suspiciously. People around the world are already confused about their feelings about Islam and acts committed by idiots like this guy gives people the reasons that they need to be suspicious about what Islam really stands for. Like many others have said in their comments people like Mohamed Osman Mohamud does nothing more than to cause harm to Islam and give reasons to people to keep the "FEAR" alive. I've read a few other articles (even one that basically claimed that FBI did this to cause more fear of home grown terrorists) about his actions and even though the FBI's actions in this situation seems a bit sketchy ,but I really believe that he shouldn't be let off easily and pay for the consequences for what he tried and also see the consequences of his actions and how he is making his own community and his family suffer because of his actions.

I can understand the points being made by both sides in the video and I know that every heated conversation we have is based on this topic.Even though like almost anything else that I've talked about things are different and somehow still quite similar back in Turkey. I know that because of religion in the Middle east girls are not as free as the boys. But I feel like the situation is similar in other cultures too. Yes it is not as harsh as it is in Middle East, but when you think about it woman are always bound by some sort of rules because certain situations might effect their repuation. Like dating example in the video, when I think about what I have seen so far both here and back in Turkey. If a guy dates a lot of girls he is called a ' player but if a girl does the same exact thing she is called a 'whore'. I can give an example from my personal experience too. For example, I was allowed to go to pubs or bars when I was 13 or 14 but most of my female friends were'nt allowed to come with us.It was the same for my sister she was always pissed off at my parents because they allowed me to do whatever I want when I was her age and there were a lot of rules that she had to follow. I guess it is not just reputation that is the concern of the parents but also safety because of the way that most societies are built it is always assumed that boys can take care of themselves but girls can't. Do I believe that it is true,probably not thinking about how much trouble I got in to when I was in highschool. I guess what I'm trying to say is the double standards between sexes is not just there in Islam but in every culture. The problem comes from these double standards are way more visible in muslim societies.

I respect Cassidy Herrington for her efforts to have a better understanding of Islam and also the Muslim Community. I think what she did is not an easy task because I kind think that I wouldn't be able to do that if I was in her shoes. I feel like this because I think it requires a great deal of commitment to be able to do what she did. I think this article is a great reflection of her experience and I think I can understand her frustration about the lack of responses from her community. I know that some people feel that it is a topic that is too "touchy" to bring up, or feel like since they don't know much about it anything that they say will be wrong and will offend the person they are talking to, but I believe this article shows that just ignoring it makes things more complicated. We've talked about this before too, when it comes to talking about Islam or something related to a different culture, people start censoring themselves or try so hard to not to offend others that it even seems funny sometimes. For example, I was talking with a friend about Turkey and Middle East yesterday and her every question ended with the phrase 'if you don't mind me asking' or started with 'I don't want to offend you but I was wondering why...'. Our conversation lasted about 10 minutes and I'm pretty sure almost all her questions started or ended with these phrases.

In our conversations we've talked about the muslim community center that will be near groundzero we tried to explain that it is not just a mosque, it is not right on ground zero, we tried to explain that Moses and Jesus are also seen as holy people in Islam. We've talked about that the real message of Islam is peace even the meaning of the word Islam means peace. Many people in the conversations repeated over and over again that killing one people is equal to killing all humanity.After watching this clip I thought that this was probably the best clip that I've seen so far which explains basically what we've been trying to explain the whole semester. It is always good to see that there are more people out there that are sharing the same feelings and thoughts with you. Like Anas said the Abrahamic Religions are so much alike in faith and the only reason that people fear Islam is because they don't know much about it and humanity always has the fear of the unknown. I can 'understand' why people can be afraid of muslims because I also see how muslims are portrayed in the news, but as Rev. DEborah C. Lindsay says in this video and as Sam always says the best way to overcome difficulties is to try to 'understand' each other. One thing that is quite unfortunate is that like any relationship it takes a lot of effort to build it but it just takes one person or one action to destroy it and rebuilding always starts from scratch.

I was in SOC 119 last year so I listened to this presentation in class and it was interesting to just watch the faces of American students and see the emotions. Some just went mad and thought that same was off again in his lala land,some had a frown on their faces, and some were really mad, but everyone around me were kinda confused. Which was good in my opinion because for me it meant that their way of thinking was challenged and they at least got a glimpse of the other side. The presentation was really good last year to but as I watched the video I thought it got better, eventhough it was shorter I think Sam did a great job on showing 'the other side'. I think adding Pastor Terry Jones was a great idea to this presentation because like Sam said I am pretty sure there is very few people back in Middle East that knows that only 300 people attend his church and that number decreased after this event as he says in his interview that Sam posted in this website. People see him as a representative of Christianity and think that there are quite a lot of people that share his feelings. About the insurgents I can understand where Sam is getting and like many others eventhough I'm from the Middle East I'm not from Iraq so it is harder for me to understand too, but I think that not many people see the insurgents as freedom fighters because they have also proved to be a threat to the civilians in the area and I find it very hard to see the lost lives of innocent people as collateral damage.