Although I'm obviously not a woman, I still have a lot of respect for women in all societies. Body image for women in today's society is very important, especially for the women on a college campus like here at Penn State. Young women feel as though they must leave the house always looking their best in order to fit into society. But if the breasts and cruves and luscious hair are taken away from a woman, does it make her any less of a person? Woman play a vital role in continuing the human race, but at the same time, so do men. Neither role is more or less important than the other.

As for women in media, I think society is making strides to bridge the gap between beautiful petite women and women who are, well, not so much. Sure, actresses like Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock are quite popular in the media. Both are very pretty women. But lately, movies like Prescious and Hairspray portray women who are quite on the plus side. Both movies did very well while in cinema, which shows that women who aren't model-worthy are more and more excepting in society.

Being an employee at a WalMart back home, I’ve encountered many people who use the welfare system to get assistance for their families. While there are some people who use systems like WIC and ACCESS to benefit their low income families, I know there’s also a large portion of people who abuse these monies in hopes of a free ride through life. I think shutting down the welfare system entirely would be very detrimental. It may be a good way to save some of the government’s money, but it’s also putting people who really can’t afford their family’s health insurance or their month’s groceries into an even worse situation than they’re already in. I don’t agree, however, how the welfare system is currently being run. Mothers continuously have kids, without a care of who the father is, simply to keep getting free government money. These children aren’t being put on an equal pedestal with their “richer peers,” they’re simply learning to abuse the system and to not respect the usefulness of money.

I can’t say that I’m much of a video game player. Super Mario 64, Animal Crossing, and The Sims are more or less the extent of my past video game mini-addictions. Every year, billions of dollars are spent on video game consoles, games, online access cards, user manuals, and extra equipment. Understandably, the porn industry grosses billions a year as well. But does that really mean that the two of these things have to be combined into harmful and offensive video games?

The way I look at it, some people thrive to live vicariously through their video games. Not to say that everyone who plays games like “RapeLay” are closeted rapists, I think many of the people who play these games do so to get some type of self-gratification. It disgusts me to think of middle-aged men living in their parents’ basement playing such games for some type of God complex or sexual gratification.

I think Sam Richards is a very intelligent man. He’s stated many times throughout this course that his goal isn’t to change anyone’s mind. He isn’t trying to change our beliefs; he’s simply trying to get us to think about things we wouldn’t normally think about. I believe I actually have taken a lot from this class and thought it over. His teachings haven’t necessarily changed my mind, but in fact simply made me start thinking about topics so taboo, I never thought to think of them.

For instance, a few weeks back we discussed a study done on the hiring rates of people and its relationship between black and white people. White people with a history of criminal charges linked to drugs were more likely to get a job call back than black people with the exact same credentials but without the criminal charges. Before this class, I was aware that some employers are simply racist. This situation, however, is a load of crap. To offer employment to someone with a criminal history in something that can be somewhat hidden over someone without a criminal history whatsoever, is bizarre. I understand that employers aren’t supposed to discriminate against job applicants based on their criminal history, but the numbers that were linked to this particular statistic seemed that the employers were simply picking the white people over the black people, regardless of their criminal past.

I understand the opinion that some of the stuff discussed in class isn’t life changing or “mind changing.” But for stuff like this to not make someone think twice about what’s really going on on the racial battlefield, seems absurd to me.

Proms at my high school sucked. Every dance my high school hosted within the last 6 to 7 years was more or less the exact same. All the same tunes and all the same games were always played. Although the students at my high school were a bunch of narrow-minded, ignorant juveniles, I'm pretty sure the variance of the normalcy of our "proms" would have been widely appreciated.

I think the school was really wrong in this situation. Throughout our nation, the government is getting close to almost legalizing the marriage of same sex couples. It's sad that a high school community would restrict prom dates to only opposite sex couples. I thought high school was a stage of ones life where one can develop their own personal identity and grow into the person they want to be. Maybe I'm wrong? At my high school, there were never any same sex "couples" to attend prom. However, it wasn't uncommon for two girls or two guys to go to prom together. It was a fun way to get their friends from other schools to go to our prom. If that were the case at this school, would it still be questioned? I would think that would get young people kind of aggravated; you know how bad of an idea it is to aggravate young people.

I’ve experienced this exact issue in my life. When ever someone comes out of the closet, they normally walk right out and get into the front seat of an emotional rollercoaster. Whether someone comes out as gay, bisexual, or transgendered, an immediate reaction to that is the thought of that person being confused. Trust me; the process of coming out the closet is not a quick decision. It’s very rare that someone immediately comes to the self realization that they’re gay/bi/trans. It’s even rarer that someone would immediately come to that decision and then immediately tell someone. When one questions their sexuality, it’s normally a long, difficult, and drawn out thought process; it’s a life changing thing and it’s silly to think that such a life changing event would just be “confusion.” If someone was really “confused,” I think they would have overcome that confusion within their own thoughts before coming out.

Someone may ask, “Well, then what about those who come in and out of the closet?” Sure, some of them may very well be confused, but it’s what feels right to that person at that particular moment that really matters. Events such as bad sexual partners or awkward sexual experiences may throw someone back over to the other side of the fence. It may also be a kind, loving, caring best friend that shows emotional and physical support that may bring someone to Team Homo in the first place. Everyone experiences different events in their lives and there’s really no room for anyone to judge the effects of those events.

I think Sam made a really good point in Tuesday’s class concerning this. Many people are cool with the idea of allowing gay couples to unify. However, a lot of people have a problem with calling it marriage. Marriage, as Sam said, is where church and state slightly overlap. Although the sacrament of marriage is deemed as a religious-like ceremony, the state must sign off on it as well. Personally, if I could get “unioned” with my significant other with all the benefits of an actual marriage, then that would be fine with me. Some diehard gays out there may demand equality in the form of actual marriage, but as long as I’m legally with the person I want to be with, I can care less what you call it.

I’d also like to introduce another topic concerning this: what about the economic benefit of legalizing gay marriage? I can’t remember the exact number, but I believe Sam gave the class a 6 figure number of how many gay couples there are in the United States. If even a fraction of them were able to get married, all the money used to prepare the wedding services could potentially boost our economy. Any other thoughts on this?

Although I agree with the statement that lesbians are apparently more socially accepted than gay men, I don’t agree that it’s “more natural.” My guess is that a majority of this class considers themselves “straight.” I think it’s a straight male’s perspective to think that lesbians are “more natural” because they think it’s arousing. I think homosexuality is perfectly natural as a whole, however I may be biased because of my own sexual orientation. As a gay man, I think lesbians are perceived to be more natural because women are more mature than men, in a sense. Let me explain:

Two chicks are walking through the mall. One is a brunette with medium sized perky breasts, luscious lips, very petite, wearing tight jeans with her thong strap sticking out. The other is slightly taller with long blonde hair and a Southern California tan, wearing a tight halter top and showing off tons of cleavage. As they hold hands through the mall and stop to have a short passionate kiss, almost every straight man would just stop and stare. Two gay men, however, I believe wouldn’t be perceived that way by females. Females, as far as I’m aware, don’t often “get off” to just two dudes making out. In that respect, girls are more “sexually mature” than guys.

So I think what I’m trying to say is, lesbians are deemed to be “more natural” because a large population of society are straight males. If females perceived gay men in the same way that straight men viewed lesbians, I think the degree of “unnaturalness” would eventually even out.

Once again, the United States does something dumb. In recent years, federal agencies have tried making voting ballots, social security forms, and Medicare forms easier for people to fill out. Why should the U.S. Census be any different? In my opinion, I think the government should simply throw a line on the form that says “How do you ethnically describe the people living in your household?” Even if the government stated this question only once every say, five or ten years, they’d be able to determine both a more accurate number of people living in a household and they’d be able to determine which words to use to ethnically describe people. Obviously, if a large percent of black people prefer to be called “Negros,” then the government can call them that without issue.

After reading Dr. Richards’ blog post and the article, my initial response to the situation was nothing more than, “he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why make a big deal?” Then I took a second to really think about what I would have done if I were on the plane and saw the same thing. I’d probably have a panic attack. While growing up, I was always taught to mind my own business and not pay attention to what others around me are doing. Because that’s the way I was raised, I probably would have sat in my seat and freaked out until someone else witnessed the same thing and reported it. Basically, I wouldn’t have had the balls to do anything about the situation.
In this particular case, a plead of ignorance is basically an acceptable reason for what happened. Since religion isn’t necessarily a big conversation topic and since only a small fraction of people are practicing Jews, the religious custom of praying with a Tefillin is not known by many of those outside the Jewish religion. An excuse like the contraption being an accessory to prayer may sound like a lame excuse to those ignorant of the custom. There’s a pretty good chance that no one of reliable expertise was aware that the device was used for something religious. Anyone that may have confirmed the use of it probably would have also been targeted as a threat of conspiring with the alleged bombers.
One of the previous comments on this entry talks about the use of the word “normal.” For the seventeen year old boy and his sister, the customs of their religion are normal to them. If they were raised wearing clown suits and performing magic tricks, they’d probably think that to be normal too. Normalcy is relative based on how people are born and raised. What I think is normal may certainly not be something you would consider normal.
Although I’m aware of the fact that the US is pretty sketchy about terrorism and the fact that terrorists don’t have to fit any type of stereotype, I think the US should either relax about the whole thing, or make it more strict. With today’s technology, why can’t we detect bombs using radar or computers or something like that? For being as technologically advanced as we are I guess the US likes to just do some things the good old fashioned way.