This was an extremely interesting class psychologically, and was probably the most fun I had in class so far this semester. Sam did a very good job with the precursor at the beginning of the lecture, and that helped put me in the right mindset in order to understand what Sam was trying to say completely. I've always felt like the kind of person who could, when I wanted to, objectively take the perspective of a person who lives under completely different circumstances. This Thursday's lecture really challenged my idea of that, for quite a number of reasons.

The first hard thing about class was putting yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi citizen during the Iraq war. I've never been one to fall for conspiracy theories and things of that nature, so I was hesitant to believe that the United States invaded Iraq because they wanted their resources and wanted to annihilate Islam in place of Christianity. Now, I understand that point of the class was that it was just propaganda, and how through certain filters it only seems like the United States did that, but I'll talk about that in a bit. Unfortunately, Sam did almost too good a job at putting us in an Iraqi citizens shoes, and by the end of the class I was one of the students who more than likely would have joined the insurgency. I decided that I would because of the situation Sam described in which China invades the United States for coal. I think under that circumstance, I would be one of the one's fighting for my country, which is why I said I would join the insurgency.

This is the kind of perspective I hoped to gain from the class, but there was no need for me to keep it afterwards. My goal for this kind of situation was to take their position objectively. I'm not sure if that is possible with such a convincing and emotional argument presented in class. It's really easy to believe that the United States wants to destroy Iraqi culture, or that Iraq wants to destroy American culture, but it is extremely difficult to believe that neither of them do, especially when all of the evidence presented is so extreme. For me it all has to do with the media. Of course newspapers and television news doesn't show success stories from Iraq; people want to here about the improvised explosive devices and raids. If every Iraqi met a handful of normal Americans, and every American met a group of normal Iraqis, there probably would not be a conflict there today. Too bad flights are so expensive; I blame airlines completely for making tickets expensive.

I remember reading this story about a week ago, and I was about as shocked as everyone else when I first heard it. It’s astounding that in the year two thousand and ten schools and other governmental organizations refuse to acknowledge the fact that some girls like girls, and some boys like boys. I could understand if say our entire government came out against gay and lesbian relationships, but that’s something that they will never, ever do for fear of political backlash. So, if we understand that, then the only reasoning this school can have for denying this girl her date is a complete obliviousness to the legitimacy of their relationship. This may be a strong moral argument, if one can prove that gay and lesbian couples are only together to spite god in some sadistic (or masochistic) way. Again, this is a ridiculous thing to stipulate, and also, straight couples have their problems too, especially when dealing with prom.

Prom is a time when the adolescent youth in this country congregate in order to say their goodbyes to their fellow classmates, before going on to bigger and better things. But really, all anybody wants to do at prom is get laid. So you wouldn’t expect the prom date proposals to be any more romantic. This was exactly the case at my high school, when two infamously promiscuous students began dating mid senior year. Early one evening when the girl, who shall remain nameless, was about to perform oral sex on her man, when noticed that her boy toy had shaved his loin parts for some unknown reason. After unzipping his pants and examining further, she discovered the words “Will you go to Prom with Me” written shoddily (probably because it was written upside down) just above his member. And that is why girls should be able to go to prom together.

I’m getting sick and tired of people refusing to legitimize gay and lesbian relationships. I understand if you don’t want them at your church. It’s a free country; you’re allowed to believe whatever you want to believe. But it’s fucking prom. It’s a two hour grinding marathon where everyone is supposed to get their dick paired up with a vagina. So why can’t we expand that time honored tradition to include vagina vagina pairing? If there is one thing that does not belong in the same room with prom, it’s morals. People show up drunk claiming to have just swigged a half gallon of mouth wash. Students bring their friends as dates in order to stay single for the swinging bachelor party to follow at the Jersey shore. Even the chaperones get an occasional bj in the back kitchen. But two girls want to hold hands and slow dance before they become full-fledged adults, and their denied because they have too many X chromosomes. Sad.

The rich school versus poor school example from class resembles my life very well. I grew up in a poorer neighborhood that had facilities similar to the one’s we saw in the first school from the video. I wasn’t learning very much, but I was smart, and was definitely one of if not the smartest kid in my grade. The definition of intelligence shifted dramatically for me when my family decided to move to a much nicer area, with one of the best school districts in the state. Although I was placed in advanced math, I immediately realized how much further along the other kids were. It felt like I had barely gotten to division but I was already doing calculus problems. Now here’s what I’m wondering: Would I have been better off staying in the poor neighborhood and being top of my class, or doing what I did and not doing very well in high school?

Before this class I probably would have said I’d rather stay in the poorer school. Afterall, I was doing really well, learning a lot, and I would have graduated near the top of my class if not at the top. I thought this way mostly because I was thinking about college, and what people want to see on your application. As long as my SAT scores were good (which I expect they would have been), I’d probably be going to a better university. But now I feel more grateful for the opportunity I had, especially because of how much I’m learning here at Penn State.

Politics is not something we like to talk about between my extended family. My entire mother’s side of the family are all hardcore democrats, while my father’s side is chock full of staunch republicans. It’s the kind of thing where if it were brought up, my evangelical aunt would probably tell my jewish mother she is going to hell for voting for Obama. So, I’ve always kind of existed in the gray area of the political spectrum, although I do lean more to the left. What I’ve learned from this class is that I can apply my balanced political ideologies to things other than politics, like my own motivation in life. I wasn’t having a good week when we had this lecture. I slept through two classes the day before, and I was feeling pretty bummed out about it. I’m not exactly sure what it specifically was in the lecture that inspired me, but I felt rejuvenated, like I had control over my life and being successful was as simple as getting around a few obstacles. I usually overcomplicate things, but this is class is definitely making me take a step back and see the big, or in this case small, picture.

I saw Avatar when it first came out, and in IMAX 3D of course. I found it to be a very enjoyable movie going experience. It didn’t really drag, and the amazing effects made up for the sub par acting and writing. And this is the reason why I wasn’t offended by the so-called presence of this “messiah complex”. The film was entertaining enough for me not to notice that subtext, although I found the presence of an element called “unobtanium” a little too heavy handed when referencing the U.S. presence in the middle east.

Now, looking at it after I have watched the film, I completely see and agree with everything Brooks is saying. I’ve seen a lot of the films he has mentioned. Some of them I liked, some of them I did not, but after all of them there was an odd sense of confusion. I was confused about why this seemingly capable race is only able to succeed after adding one random guy to there side who only recently learned of their culture and heritage but seems to care more than anyone else, before he virtually single handedly destroys his own people saving the incapable savage race.

In my personal beliefs, this theme in movies is a little offputting, simply because the guy is always a white male in all of the movies I have seen at least. I found all of the stories interesting, except for Dances With Wolves, and all of them have what I would consider a good moral at the end of the film. The problem people have with it is that the guy always seems to be some random white dude, who is not particularly smart, and saves an entire race of people single handedly.

I’m not trying to say that all films like this are bad. Otherewise, only films like Remember the Titans would have acceptable morals. What I would like to see is some validity for the random white guy saving the race. Like a situation in which we see a capable hero, one that doesn’t need to be completely reeducated before saving the day. Or maybe the group of people being saved doesn’t necessarily need the heroes help, they are just happy to have it, In The Last Samurai, it’s a little more acceptable because it isn’t Tom Cruise that saves the Samurai, in fact all of them die. On that film, I happen to disagree with Brooks. It’s a film about Tom Cruise learning the value of the Samurai way right before their culture is annihilated. But, Brooks makes excellent points about Avatar and all of the other films he mentions, although it can be a slippery slope when judging stories like that.

Hmmm, I never really thought of tifillin as being "ominous", but it did bring back a very interesting memory of mine. When I was very young, and just being introduced to my jewish heritage, my grandfather who at one point was an orthodox jew, pulled out his tallis and tifillin to show me. Now, being of jewish culture, I knew what the tallis was, which for those who don't know is a prayer shawl draped over your shoulders. However, when my grandfather pulled out the tifillin, it was nothing I had ever seen before, and it did give me a sense of uncertainty. So, I do find it understandable that somebody could confuse what they were doing with something more devious. What I find very interesting is that none of the flight attendants or pilot knew what was going on. Number one, they probably could have asked ninety nine percent of the people flying out of new york, and most of them would have at least heard of what they were doing. The most ridiculous part is that they asked the kid what he was doing, to which he replied that he was praying, and the crew did not believe him. That is absurd, on many different levels. Number one, if he really wanted to blow up the plane with his tifillin bomb, he probably would have just detonated it. Number 2, it's really hard to make a bomb out of leather, which I'm assuming it was made out of.

This is where my real problem with the whole situation comes into play. Where do we decide to draw the line? On the one hand, everyone should be allowed to pray on the plane, no matter who it makes "uncomfortable", whatever that would mean. On the other hand, if we give free tifillin passes to everybody who flies on a plane, there's gonna be some whackjob who decides to fill there's full of plastic explosives.

Being a Jew, and somebody who knows what tifillin looks like, I'd have to agree with the boys rabbi. Praying with that stuff on a plane in front of a whole bunch of obviously uncultured flight crew members, is definitely a poor decision on his part. Although mostly they are made of leather, I could see how somebody would find it quite mysterious, especially if they had never seen it before. And praying doesn't actually make them any less hostile. I'm sure that a lot of people trained in public transportation are told that people praying is a sign that they may try and commit an attack, like they are praying before they die. It's too bad prayer has received such a bad rap in the last decade.

what's in a name?

Ok, so, I think most of us are in agreement that Pat Robertson reached senility early in his life, but the fact that we are still acknowledging him in the media as anything more than an evangelical jester is beyond me. It seems like every other week Pat Robertson designates God’s hatred on a different group of destitute people. God hates Haiti. God hates New Orleans. God hates Disneyworld, (Alright, I guess destitution isn’t a necessity.) My complaint isn’t the subject, but the fact that I even heard the pseudo religious political ramblings of a man whose media sway should be equal to that of a schizophrenic homeless man selling tin foil hats. Now, I do concede that it’s important that all facets of the news are important, and nobody’s opinions should be ignored simply because we find them offensive, but at least the great haters of the last century had the decency to cite their sources well. Pat Robertson’s great selling point on this Haitian Devil Pact conspiracy was, “…it’s true.” Touche. You know, I never really thought about it that way. “It’s true”, hmmm.

On the other hand, nothing pisses me off more than a hypocrite, and that’s why I respect John Stewart so much. Now, I’m sure if I wanted to, I could rummage through John Stewart’s audio clips and find some conflicting statements, because nobody is devoid of hypocrisy. However, for me John Stewart has embodied the political watchdog over the last decade. The fact that his segment on Pat Robertson ends with a jab at the other side leaves me with a very balanced feeling, one that’s very difficult to come by when watching any sort of news. In fact, I’d go as far to say it’s impossible.

Mainstream news was never designed to be politically balanced. The founding fathers built this country on the idea that opinions are not a bad thing, as long as someone is permitted to have the opposing one. That theory has held true with every part of our society, including television and print news. I’ve always considered myself a very liberal person, but by no means did I ever watch Msnbc or any of the liberal news outlets. I’ve been a Fox news supporter for as long as I’ve followed politics, because I disagree with a majority of what they say. The only reason someone ever wants to reinforce their own opinions, is because they think they may be wrong. By doing the opposite, I can weed out my political biases from what I truly believe. It was until the Obama election that held to this practice, when Fox news became more of a doomsday circus than a news program. I guess from Pat Robertson to Glenn Beck, history will always repeat itself.

Ok, so, I think most of us are in agreement that Pat Robertson reached senility early in his life, but the fact that we are still acknowledging him in the media as anything more than an evangelical jester is beyond me. It seems like every other week Pat Robertson designates God’s hatred on a different group of destitute people. God hates Haiti. God hates New Orleans. God hates Disneyworld, (Alright, I guess destitution isn’t a necessity.) My complaint isn’t the subject, but the fact that I even heard the pseudo religious political ramblings of a man whose media sway should be equal to that of a schizophrenic homeless man selling tin foil hats. Now, I do concede that it’s important that all facets of the news are important, and nobody’s opinions should be ignored simply because we find them offensive, but at least the great haters of the last century had the decency to cite their sources well. Pat Robertson’s great selling point on this Haitian Devil Pact conspiracy was, “…it’s true.” Touche. You know, I never really thought about it that way. “It’s true”, hmmm.

On the other hand, nothing pisses me off more than a hypocrite, and that’s why I respect John Stewart so much. Now, I’m sure if I wanted to, I could rummage through John Stewart’s audio clips and find some conflicting statements, because nobody is devoid of hypocrisy. However, for me John Stewart has embodied the political watchdog over the last decade. The fact that his segment on Pat Robertson ends with a jab at the other side leaves me with a very balanced feeling, one that’s very difficult to come by when watching any sort of news. In fact, I’d go as far to say it’s impossible.

Mainstream news was never designed to be politically balanced. The founding fathers built this country on the idea that opinions are not a bad thing, as long as someone is permitted to have the opposing one. That theory has held true with every part of our society, including television and print news. I’ve always considered myself a very liberal person, but by no means did I ever watch Msnbc or any of the liberal news outlets. I’ve been a Fox news supporter for as long as I’ve followed politics, because I disagree with a majority of what they say. The only reason someone ever wants to reinforce their own opinions, is because they think they may be wrong. By doing the opposite, I can weed out my political biases from what I truly believe. It was until the Obama election that held to this practice, when Fox news became more of a doomsday circus than a news program. I guess from Pat Robertson to Glenn Beck, history will always repeat itself.