Colbert US Speed Skating

In late November the Dutch bank that sponsored the U.S. speed skating team went bankrupt. With the Olympics just a few months away, the team was in desperate need of a new sponsor. Within days Stephen Colbert invited the president of U.S. speed skating on his show and signed on as the head sponsor of the team in front of his entire audience. The teams new sponsorship has invoked alot of mixed reactions. The majority of the team say they are happy about the money and attention the Colbert Nation is bringing to U.S. speed skating. Others however, are not pleased at all. Many sports news reports fear foreign viewers will make negative assumptions about U.S. speed skating because of Colbert's outrageous behavior. Short track American speed skater Shawni Davis says about Colbert, "He's a jerk. Put that in the paper". I personally think it's great that Colbert is sponsoring U.S. speed skating. They wins more medals than any other U.S. team at the winter Olympics, and still they are only minimally covered. Colbert's ecstatic enthusiasm and support for the team will undoubtedly attract viewers at come race time in Vancouver. What do you think? Good? Bad? or anything else. POST!

domestic violence

Every day in Business class we start off with a topic of the day. Last Tuesday the topic was a radio talk show that discussed whether or not it was ok for Tiger's wife to beat on him. The male host said that it was not ok for Elin Woods to scratch Tiger's face and chase him down with a golf club. Arguing that, had the roles been reversed, Tiger would get a prison sentence. Shortly after proposing this argument a female caller rang in saying that a woman has every right to hit her husband/boyfriend if he cheats on her. Our class started to debate whether or not it was ok for a woman to hit a man in that situation and vice versa. The typical supports were brought up: it is never ok to hit a woman, but a man could cause more damage, women can't inflict serious injury, ect. I wasn't really swayed by anyone. Like most I have always believed that a man hitting a woman is never justifiable (unless she's crazy and trying to kill you or something) and a woman hitting a man isn't that big a deal. Then I remembered a story my gym teacher told my class last year during our domestic violence unit. Her male friend was dating a woman who appeared quite pleasant to public eye. However, in the confines of her home she beat her boyfriend. My teacher would see bruises on him but never expected that a woman was hitting him.
Later that day we watched Minority Report in class. I recognize that the scenario in the movie could not occur in real life, but it still reminded me of the domestic violence discussion we had in Business. I was really bummed for the guy in the movie. He was clearly trying his best to make his wife happy but she still proceeded to cheat on him in his own home. I get that it's not ok to stab people with scissors, but I think it really sucks that a woman's betrayal will always go unpunished while a husband will be sent to jail if he merely hits his wife with and open hand (Once again, I am 100% against domestic violence) What do you think? Is the current system fair? Is it ok for women to hit men? ->What if they cheat? Were Elin Woods' actions acceptable? -> Does the public embarrassment she is suffering count for anything? Or any other comments

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Dan Esty on Colbert 11/30 (East Anglia Emails)

Last Monday I was watching The Colbert Report. The first guest to come on was Dan Esty, the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He discussed the emails from East Anglia University's (britsh college) climate center that were obtained by computer hackers and posted online about two weeks ago. These emails contained evidence of a decline in global temperatures. Dan Esty states on The Colbert Report (<--worth watching!) that although it was wrong for the climate experts to withhold/alter data showing a decline in global temperatures, their intention was good. He explains that the scientists recognized that the data could have been over simplified by the media and used to support the theory that global warming is a myth.
I don't think that altering data showing a decline in global temperatures was the right thing to do, but I definitely understand the logic of the East Anglia scientists. What do you think? Was it ok for these scientists to alter data showing a drop in global temperatures? Was their fear that the media would over simplify the data understandable? Does it justify their lie? What should these scientists have done?

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Only the best for an athlete

Last week both of my sisters came home for Thanksgiving. Naturally, we spent alot of time talking. Somewhere in the mix the Swine Flu vaccination was brought up and my sister, a soccer player a Lafayette, giggled while informing me that everyone at her school got it. She noticed I looked rather confused and explained the reasoning behind her laughter. She told me that the athletes at Lafayette were given vaccinations first, then the students with a registered illness, and then the general population. To me that seems a little ridiculous. The college actually prioritizes their mediocre athletes above the students that have low white blood cell counts? WTF mate. College athletes seem to get all kinds of perks: their laundry is done for them, they can get free tutors for any subject, they are often allowed to postpone exams, ect. I can't help but wonder why these athletes are treated like royalty. When did it happen? How does the special treatment influence the athletes? Would our universities be more efficient and fair if, like every other country, we did not have serious collegiate athletics?

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Stumbling Upon Creativity

This morning I took a practice ACT reading test that contained an interesting passage relevant to Mr. O'Connor's most recent (anamericanstudies.com) blogpost. The passage concerned John Maeda, an MIT graduate and current president of the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a prize-winning graphic designer and kinetic artist. His revolutionary works consist of moving images, some of which move in response to vocal command. Anyways, I think John Maeda's story in relevant to Mr. O'Connor's post because he revolutionized an art form despite being educated in the formerly artistically lacking world of technology.
Initially I didn't think twice about this passage. However, after my practice test I began stumbling <-- don't need to click to understand post) and came across a beautiful shape shifting piece of art (which can't be linked for some reason). I really started to appreciate John Maeda's story. He started in a field of education foreign to creative thinking and built an entirely new form of art that can now be found all over and is appreciated to the same degree as a photograph or portrait.
Like the students of New Trier, John came from a, "creativity is super, but the academics are what actually matter" culture. Do you think that growing up in such a culture challenges students to develop new kinds of creativity? Does suppressed creativity always manage to emerge in new, revolutionary ways? How do you think the next innovative creativity will take form?

POST!

Fad Diets

This weekend I was running some errands with my mom and we stopped at the Vitamin Shoppe to pick up a bottle of your basic One A Day vitamins. I rarely find myself at the Vitamin Shoppe so whenever I go I like to peruse around a bit. There are all sorts of obscure remedies and supplements for almost any need. However, the thing I remember most was a pamphlet in the weight management section. It was promoting a newly developed diet that has some very shocking guidelines. You are only allowed to have white fish, a few steamed vegetables, steel cut oatmeal, and a small quantity of low-fat cheese. To make things even worse, every morning you have to stick a half-inch needle into your stomach and inject yourself with a hormone designed to quicken the metabolism of pregnant women. That contends as one of the most creepy, unnatural things I've heard in my life. However, the thing that I found most troubling was the warning to participants to stop the diet after forty-five days. That's blatantly saying that the diet will hurt you after a certain amount of time. Plus, after the forty-five days, people on this diet will probably revert to their old bad habits and gain back any weight they lost. A change in lifestyle is the real key to losing weight and keeping it off, but alot of people just don't want to recognize that. I'm really quite curious about how these deranged "fad diets" originated. When and why do you think they came to be? Is their existence evidence of a change in American lifestyle over the past few decades? What does the future hold for "fad diets"? Why are they so appealing to people? Or anything else you want to say.

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Not Current Event Related

I thought up this blog topic when Mr. O'Connor was promoting the annual literary festival. After giving us a brief description of the event and running through the lineup, he expressed his appreciation for our hectic schedules but reminded us that some experiences are worth making time for. It might seem a bit ridiculous, but Mr. O'Connor's last words actually left me thinking, "OOOO right right, sometimes it's ok to do interesting things even if you're busy". Then I tried to recall past instances where I ignored an exciting opportunity under the assumption that I had too much work to do. I can think of two examples in the past month alone: Dana Boyd and Lagniappe. My regret led me to realize what I'm actually missing when I mindlessly reject these opportunities: cultural and artistic enrichment. I began to wonder why, when confronted with an enthralling event, it had become my initial reaction to assume I'd be too busy to go.

I think alot of New Trier students react the same way. Is the academically rigorous environment surrounding us to blame? Have we been broken to ignore anything that can't be put on a college application? Have we exchanged our instinctual lust for knowledge with a cut-throat ambition to achieve academic success?

POST

Emotional Intelligence and more

For the first time in my blogging career I was inspired to make a post about an issue that I didn't discover on yahoo.com. Infact, I wasn't even planning to make a blog post when I sat down in front of the computer. I was meandering about psychologytoday.com and came across an article titled, "What Emotional Intelligence Is and Is Not".

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-personality-analyst/200909/what-emotional-intelligence-is-and-is-not

I was fascinated by this article as a whole, but the segment titled, "Is EI a Better Predictor of Success than IQ?" interested me the most. The context didn't particularly enthrall me, it merely debunked the media's propagation that emotional intelligence is infact a better predictor of success than IQ. The title itself inspired me to research other kinds of intelligence and figure out what the best predictor of success actually is. I did some research on a Harvard professor named Dr. Howard Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences.

http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

He believed that the traditional idea of intelligence (IQ, book smarts, ect) is far too limiting and does not give a rounded assessment of an individuals intelligence. He proposed eight different intelligences

	Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
	Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
	Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
	Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
	Musical intelligence ("music smart")
	Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
	Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
	Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

I think that modern day schools primarily develop/evaluate linguistic and logical intelligence. Therefore, students who are particularly well endowed with these forms of intelligence are misled to believe that they are guaranteed success.

Wal-Mart

I was looking around for a blog topic on the internet and came across an article comparing the positives and negatives of Wal-Mart. Apparently there's alot of bad things about Wal-Mart, "Suppliers claim that its persistent pressure to lower prices has led to bankruptcies, closed plants and lost jobs. It imports so much product from China it's been blamed for the growing U.S. trade deficit there. It's been accused of sexual discrimination, gender discrimination, child-labor violations, anti-Semitism, employing undocumented immigrants, denying overtime wages, dodging taxes, excessive pollution and, of course, general thuggishness." Numerous books have been written to exploit the dark side of Wal-Mart rarely seen by the public. There was a popular documentary made called, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" that effectively alerted the public to the deceitfulness of Wal-Mart. I think a corporation as massive as Wal-mart, that employs over 2.4 million people, could not possibly avoid unethical conduct at all times in everyone of its locations. It is simply too big. Does that mean that Wal-Mart is a dysfunctional company? Is management the problem? What should be done to correct the problems? Would shutting Wal-Mart down solve anything, or would another company rise up and act the same way? People also complain about Wal-Mart shipping large amounts of product from sweatshops overseas, "It imports so much product from China it's been blamed for the growing U.S. trade deficit there" which is indeed a problem. It makes me seriously question our nation's code of ethics. Our we so dependent on the low price and convince of Wal-Mart that we will continue to ignore this issue? If more people were educated on the defects of Wal-Mart would fewer people shop there? In this time of economic recession can we afford to challenge a giant like Wal-Mart? BLOG Y'ALL


http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/why-you-should-hate-wal-mart.aspx


http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/809/ (relevant and hilarious)

Swine Flu Vaccination (Fear)

A few months back everyone was freaking out about the Swine Flu. You may remember. A few deaths were reported and mass panic ensued. Still, even though cases of swine flu were appearing in our own neighborhood, the fear diminished in a few weeks. Since last Spring's panic I hadn't much about Swine Flu until today when I read an article about country wide vaccinations for the virus. This immediately made me think of a book I started a few days ago called The Science of Fear. The book explains how developed nations are increasingly becoming more worrisome and panic-stricken due to irrational threats. In the first few chapters the author lists predictions made by several respected sociologists that society's irrational fear will doom man-kind within the next hundred years. I began to wonder if the production of a vaccination for Swine Flu had begun simply because of irrational fear. I think that if Swine Flue were a serious threat, media coverage wouldn't have ceased over the past few months. I have heard that Swine Flu is as much a threat as the common flu. Infact, more people die each year from the common flu than from Swine Flu. I can't help but wonder if this is a step on the irrational fear ladder to self-caused destruction. Could we be doing more harm by creating this vaccination than would be done if we did not? Are we merely supporting the fear epidemic that has slyly corrupted our society? POST!

Swine Flu Vaccination Article -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091005/ap_on_he_me/us_med_healthbeat_swine_flu_q_a;_ylt=AgRXxE_NkLdIg.19pIbmPPes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNoNjBzcDkyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMDA1L3VzX21lZF9oZWFsdGhiZ
WF0X3N3aW5lX2ZsdV9xX2EEY3BvcwM1BHBvcwMyBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWM
DeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDc3dpbmVmbHV2YWNj

UN Summit Stuff

On September 22, 2009 a United Nations conference was held in New York.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_re_us/un_un_general_assembly.

During this Summit UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked world leaders to address several issues imperative to the well being of the planet and it's people: the increasing threat of a drastic climate change, the world-wide cleansing of nuclear weapons, and the increase of poverty caused by the global financial crisis.

The next day 100 heads of state convened in the largest-ever summit on global warming and discussed how to combat our planet's climate change. This reminded me of something that occurred about a year ago. A gathering of world leaders was held in South Africa to address the issue of global warming. Each nation leader was asked to sign an agreement that they would reduce their countries emission of green-house gases by two percent. President Bush, along with a small number of others, did not agree to sign. He said it would be too harmful to our economy. The conference administrator, hiding his frustration, said that the issue would be brought up again in a few months (when the United States had a new president).

When I read that the largest-ever summit on global warming was held in the Obama run United States this week, afew thoughts came to my mind. Will the United State's change of president have a significant impact on the fight against global warming? Is it up to the U.S. to set the example of change? Is it naive to think it can be done without significantly affecting our economy? Does our portayal of fromer President Bush as a stubborn fool give us false certainty that we can commit to propositions like the kind Bush refused in South Africa? POST YOUR COMMENTS!

Muhammad Cartoons Revisited

In about a week Yale University will release a new book on the destruction caused by the Danish newspaper cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Yale University has removed the cartoons themselves from the book, sparking dismay and argument amongst Yale professors and alumni. The argument supporting removal of these cartoons from the book is that they could cause unnecessary violence. Although this seems sensible to most, many Yale alum find it unacceptable. Twenty-five Yale alum sent a signed petition to the University asking that the cartoons be re-added to the book. John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations calls it, "Intellectual cowardice", deeming it self-defeating for Yale. Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, wrote in a recent letter that Yale's decision effectively means: "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands." This got me wondering a few things; Can the Muslim population as a whole really be deemed "terrorists" because of their reaction to the cartoons to their Prophet? Is it really cowardly not to re-publish the cartoons that once caused so much destruction? Are those in favor of publication pushing their cause for unspoken reasons? Are we more concerned with respecting the Muslim community or smiting the "terrorists"? Your opinions are greatly appreciated :)

Marijuana, anyone?

I didn't really know where to start when I heard we had to make one post a week on our blogs. I thought I should just check out a news sight and see if inspiration strikes. On the home page of msn.com I immediately saw an article that caught my attention. It was about a pot garden located in the depths of a Nevada national park. This article in itself does not pose a very debatable subject. However, it made me think of the ongoing dispute concerning the legalization of marijuana. After last falls stock market fiasco many articles pertaining to the positive effects of legalizing marijuana in California were published and accepted with less hostility than ever before. Specialists predict that taxes on marijuana could produce over 1.2 billion dollars for the state of California, and in a time of economic devastation, 1.2 billion sounds pretty good (http://www.examiner.com/x-11447-LA-Science-and-Tech-News-Examiner~y2009m7d27-Legalization-of-Marijuana-could-add-Billions-to-Californias-empty-coffers--let-the-debate-begin). However, the idea of a currently illegal drug becoming the states number one cash crop overnight is troubling to many and therefore the battle for legalization rages on. I find it interesting that marijuana, a drug that has been illegal in the United States for decades, is being put under review for legalization. People have viewed this drug so negatively for so long, but is there reason behind this anxiety? Is this fear meaningless? Could legalization actually significantly aid our economy? If legalization occurs will we regret it? What do YOU think.