After reading this letter my perception of people in jail and the whole court system itself has changed tremendously. I realize now more than I could attain myself that prisoners are just like every other person and have the same feelings and emotions as everyone else, except they just made major mistakes that they are paying for now. I am definitely not agreeing to that fact that every prisoner is a good person because there are some people in the world who are just plain evil and don't have these common emotions, but I'm sure a majority of the prisoners are like every other person.One of the things that stood out the most was that I thought was remarkable from this letter is how the man was showing compassion and comfort to the other man, even though they hated each other. I know that people hating each other in jail is a lot more severe than someone hating someone outside of jail because the jail life is a lot tougher and survival based. So for a man to put his hatred aside in jail is exceptional to me because it makes me realize that these people aren't evil animals, but instead are just like every other person that feels sorrow and compassion. Another key aspect that stood out to me was that I thought was remarkable from this letter is how well the man was able to write and be know enough to write. I know Sam stated in the post that he didn't graduate from high school, so for him to be able to write this well is very impressive to me. This again shows that these prisoners are animals but instead are very sophisticated people who can think and write well.You look back at your life and realize how you should have acted and regret the decisions you made. You become more compassionate and more appreciative of what little you can control in your life. You may learn to take advantage of your surroundings to try to make the best of it. If you don't, you might go mad. You resent your situation but you learn to develop a family of sorts. A very crazyl family but, none the less, a family unit that has allowed you to learn a lot about the people in your circle.They have all the time in the world without having to worry about having the bare necessities of life, so what are they going to do with their time there.

I think in general no matter what you do, at the end of the day you are helping someone wether it be in this country or in a developing country. The reason why you would view someone else as a racist would be on their own judgement. I am sure in many of these developing country that we go in thinking that we are helping them ensures ours and their better quality of life. I feel like people here feel the need and reason and benefit to help more in developing countries because it gives them satisfaction, versus helping someone here.

I think that this girl who asks this question has a very strong point. Why do we not care about these big tragedies when they directly dont affect us? I think that people in this world should make more of an effort to feel for others when they are going through hard and sad times. People are so caught up in their everyday life that they dont even realize how others are affected and are feeling. And if the roles were reversed, we would want to take off time to grieve and morn, but others handle their situations accordingly. I just believe that we as people living should feel for others more who are going through a much harder time, and not wait until it directly affects us.

I agree with this girl's comment on her view of women. I think more and more women should embrace each other more because we are all the same. Even though it was said in class that the point to dress was for guys, not really; i think the point to dress is for yourself and for other women who are in the same boat as you. I think that we are set at such a high physical standard to look, dress a certain way to other girls which i will never understand. We are all one, we should go together on this issue than fight it.

First off, I don’t agree with the manner of trying to kill yourself by blowing yourself up. This lady blew herself up and killed 34 people while doing it. I don’t agree with this fact, if she just wanted to kill herself why did she have to take all of those unnecessary people that didn’t play a factor in her life. It just doesn’t seem like it is worthwhile for give up your life for someone else because they are your loved one. Giving up your life doesn’t mean anything but to cause more misery and pain to someone else that cares about you.

I honestly think that learning a language when there’s no desperate need to learn one is purposeless. I had to choose between taking either German or Spanish, and I choose Spanish. I learned Spanish for five years thinking that I might use it in my real life day to day activities or one day in a job type of environment talking to others. Having Spanish taught to us everyday made memory of using the language easier to learn and remember. After I graduated high school, I never heard a single person come to me speaking in Spanish, so more than likely I have forgotten more than half of what I was taught. Ironically, I live with a girl who is from Chile, who speaks Spanish fluently. She asked me the other day if remembered to speak and if we could converse in Spanish knowing my past knowledge. I was out of words to reply back. Because of the time period of not using my Spanish skills, I have forgotten so much. She was amazed at me, and kept repeating how I learned a certain language for so many years and yet I don’t remember much of what is said. She even asked me why I even chose to learn Spanish, if I wasn’t even going to use it ever.
I feel like learning a language comes in handy when you really need to utilize it. Whether it be going to a new country with new culture, or developing interpersonal relationships at work. The frequency of the use of language helps to be able to jog back to memory and remember is being conversed. I also agree to the fact that since we live in a primarily based language spoken English world, that we should base more attention on to learning the common language that people use at work, or at school. English is be more justified in classes and taught in a way that people should embrace learning about this common language
I agree with Sam though that learning a new language like Mandarin or Spanish is probably more helpful than learning Korean or Hindi. The use of Spanish is definitely a lot more on this side of the world to even learn for. Even though more than half the time, people forget what they learn, some take away from learning a language. I think it is funny to see the increase number of this language, however there is a decrease in foreign language classes in high schools.
Even outside of class, people are learning languages completely through technology based software, and different types of methods. I think its remarkable to see people watching youtube and learning from someone who has videotaped themselves to teach others their language.

After watching this video, reading through some of the previous comments and taking into account what Sam mentioned in class in the past few weeks, it is clear that there is a problem with how people label themselves. Right now for the United States of America, it is more important to understand the racial and ethnic makeup of the population than to aggravate people based off of their word choice on the census form. As it was mentioned in the video clip, the United States of America is a cultural melting pot with many races and different ethnic backgrounds. So labeling people could cause a problem or two. It is wrong to leave people out in this census, even if other are offended that some couple thousand or more people still refer to themselves as Negro. The main point is to accurately measure the population, not to cause a stir over the labeling process or word choice. It becomes more difficult with people who have a mixed background, as well as those who are Hispanic but do not tie their roots back to Spain. I was also curious about the definition of African American. In class we learned it as those who can trace their roots back to slavery in the US. But from this clip, it seems that the general population interprets it as, being black and born in the United States (like the man who claimed he was African American even though his parents were both from Honduras. Another example would be a black person from Brazil who could trace their roots to Brazilian slavery. If they moved to the USA, how would they categorize themselves? Black Hispanic? Or if they were born in the USA but their parents moved from Brazil and could also tie their roots to slavery in Brazil, would they be considered African American Hispanics? As our country is becoming more and more diverse, it is important to educate people how to identify themselves. There's nothing wrong with not knowing how to label another because who knows where they can tie their ancestry to, some to Asia, some to Native Americans, some to slavery and some to Spain. It is important to understand this in order to gauge the information for future censuses. I'm unsure if there is a clear answer to this because one shouldn't feel obligated to check a box to describe themselves, but there should be an easier way to describe your race and your heritage. I would suggest something that would show where the individual was born/where they live now, and where their parents and grandparents were born/where they lived most recently.

Thats an interesting question. Although welfare benefits underprivileged population, the system is abused by many. Welfare is one of the tools of balancing social inequality that we are born with. If people decide they will take advantage of the system and stay in welfare for their life, the purpose of welfare wasn't met. The government should have better programs in monitoring welfare so that children that really need the support get it. It is unfair for tax payers to pay for citizens that are capable of working and earning a decent salary. If welfare was eliminated, more and more people would be tempted to commit crime, which would deteriorate the state of the country.

I think some of Sam’s viewpoints are completely ridiculous, especially some of the things he said in class on Thursday. The whole talking about a girls period issue was just flat out ridiculous. He kept bringing up the question “Why don’t we talk about it?” The reason is because it is just disgusting. Now he said that if they were bleeding from the fingers it wouldn’t be that big of an issue and I will admit he’s right about that, but that is not the case. So since that’s not what is going on and a period works for a girl, it makes sense that people don’t want to talk about it. What I’m trying to say is you can look at it in a different light, but in reality it doesn’t happen with your fingers, so his viewpoint is idiotic. Moving on, I do believe that we should question things that go on in the world, but only to some point. Sure it is good to question things and look at things with a different mindset. It makes you see things in a different light and understand certain things you may not have understood while looking at it the way it is. Having said that, in this class it is said that we have to question things to move forward in the world, which is right, but how long do we have to question these things and talk about it? Are we just supposed to keep questioning every big issue and then keep questioning every single little issue that stems from it. If we keep doing that then we will be stuck in the past and therefore never move forward. I believe we need to question things, but then just let them go and leave them where they are at, the past. Things need to be resolved and then we should move on, lets not keep questioning things for the sake of just questioning things. To sum up what I’m trying to say is that too move on we need to forget. If you think about when your in a fight with your parents over something, what do you do? After you both cool off, you talk about the issue and resolve it, then move on. You don’t just keep questioning because then you will never move forward from the disagreement you had in the first place. In closing, I completely agree with the 14% of people who said Sam was way off the mark in what he was talking about in class on Thursday. I find it even more absurd that Sam seemed kind of mad because people didn’t agree with him, because he thought he was completely right.

Its an interesting question but I don't think gender has anything to do with tampons being free or not. Men use condoms and they aren't free. Both tampons and condoms are necessary in life and we pay for things we need. Men are reluctant to talk about bleeding because it disgusts them when they imagine a sex organ they desire and fantasize about dripped in blood. Most men enjoy sexual intercourse and it's very hard to accept the fact that women go through a cycle every month. Its society's fault in teaching us that menstrual cycles are not matters to discuss in out everyday life.