JT the infamous infamous.....infamous

Time again for a Junior Theme post. This time there is actually good news to report. I finally got in touch with someone for an interview, a Dartmouth professor by the name of William Wohlforth. He also recommended an excellent book for my topic, The 9/11 Commission Report. It's basically a government report on everything I need to know that was later printed as a book for the public. my research has finally taken the form of a paper. My intro is fully completed and my body blocs are coming along quite well. Currently my body paragraphs are a list of bullet points of what I want to include. Shouldn't be too long before they all take the shape of a legitimate paragraph. On the fellow scholar front (quoting a classmate) nothing has really happened. I hope to talk to Tommy today in class and get a quote. Good luck with your JT's my AIS amigos. Stone out.

30 Rock.....you may be on to something

In the beginning of last weeks 30 Rock I saw something that was hilarious, bold, and truthful. Tracy Jordan, played by Tracy Morgan, the spontaneous and hard to please star of the fake show TGS, began to act out, saying that "old school racism is back". He said that because Obama is president no one feels bad for black people anymore. He supports his theory saying that he saw black robber on a home security system commercial and a white judge on Law and Order. Although at first sight these examples may appear to be no more than humorous jokes, I think that there is a serious point underlying them. It does seem that in about half of the commercials set in affluent areas the featured family is a racial minority. The truth is that 75% of Americans are white and the percentage of white people in the upper class (I'm talking top 10%) is not proportional to the racial percentages of the population (nearly the entire upper class is white). I think that the people making commercials know that upper class white people love seeing successful minorities in commercials so they can think, "Oh, that's just a typical upper class family like us". The joke about seeing a black robber in a home security system commercial really got me thinking. The last time I saw a commercial like that both the robber and robbeeees were white. But what if the robber had been black. Would America consider the commercial racist? The joke about the judge on Law and Order left me pondering a similar question. If the show only featured white judges would there be any protest? What do ya'll think?

POST!

Muhammad.... again... but different

Early in the school year I wrote a blog that discussed some controversy at Yale University over whether or not to keep a cartoon shown in a Danish newspaper of Muhammad in a book that was soon to be published. The some called it "intellectual cowardice" to keep the cartoon out of the book. However, in the end the cartoon was never re-added. This same controversy came up in the most recent episodes of South Park. To be honest, if you didn't see them then you aren't missing anything, they were basically clip shows from the last 200 episodes. I last weeks episode a band of celebrities lead by Tom Cruise demanded the town of South Park bring them the Muslim Prophet Muhammad so they could harvest his immunity to ridicule. Muhammad is only present in the second episode but he is covered by a large black censor block the entire time. Even the word "Muhammad" was censored in the second episode (but not the first peculiarly). Both of the episodes the town was in a huge frenzy to keep Muhammad cloaked so they wouldn't got bombed by Muslim extremists. I think that the point being made is that before an image of Muhammad was shown in a Danish newspaper, people didn't show images of Muhammad out of respect for the Muslim people. However, because extremists responded to that incident with violence, people now refrain from showing images of Muhammad for fear of a violent retaliation. I think there is a temptation by some (i.e the people at Yale considering publishing a cartoon of Muhammad because it gave historical context) to think that it is cowardly to not publish and image of Muhammad. These people think they are making a statement against terrorism. In reality, whenever an image of Muhammad is shown it is a slap in the face to every Muslim. For that reason I think that it is never ok to publish an image of Muhammad. What do you think?
Is it ever ok to show an image of Muhammad? Is there any bravery in publishing an image of Muhammad (for historical context)?

POST!

Junior Theme the Infamous,,,, again

Second update on junior theme, still little sign of life. I got all of my meat hooks in order and dropped a line to Lawrence Wright, author of my largest source, The Looming Tower. The first questions I plan to ask him is, "could you have possibly written this your book is 20 pages?" followed by a, "well, why don't you give it a shot and send me the finished copy". My research has not yet taken the form of a paper but I expect that to happen in the next few days. I plan to write a body paragraph on the formation of al-qaeda, The CIA's failure to recognize the threat, the lack of communication between the multiple U.S. intelligence agencies, and the airlines failure to detect they threat/ how they enabled the attack. These arrent concrete but I think they all have alot of potential to make successful body paragraphs. Progress is being made slowly but surely. Good luck with the junior theme my brothers......

Don't ask questions, complete the census!

By now the census may seem like old news to some. I first heard about it on the Colbert Report where Stephan Colbert mocked conservatives who deemed the census outrageous on national television. I saw afew commercials serving as a friendly reminder to the people that, "We can't move forward until you mail it back". However, it was only brought to my attention again after I saw last weeks SNL opener, which reminded me that there are people out there who seriously disagree with the census. I started on a quest to discover the who and why. The strongest voice against the census seems to be Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. Bachmann believes the upcoming census to be "very intricate" and "very personal" and expresses concerns about ACORN's (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now) involvement in the data collection. She says the she and her family will only fill out the question asking how many people live in the household because, "that's all the Constitution requires". I don't really think Bachmann has any real support to back her anti-census stance, but then again I haven't filled out a census. The one thing about the census that struck me as a problem was something Spokeswoman Shelly Lowe said to cbs, "anyone over the age of 18 must fill out all the questions and any such person who refuses to answer "any of the questions" faces a $5,000 fine". I think that a $5,000 fine is a little over the top. What do you guys think about the census? Does anyone have a problem with it? If so, please explain why, I would love to understand what the issue is.

POST!

Junior Theme the Infamous

Last Thursday I finally settled on a topic: Why did 9/11 happen? My largest source is the book The Looming Tower. I'm about 15 pages in but so far it's an interesting read that seems a promising mine of useful information. I've also picked up afew smaller sources by writers Mr. O'Connor told me to look into. After today's discussion about non-textual sources I decided to watch Charlie Wilson's War. I remember at the very end Tom Hanks pleaded to the U.S. government to fund and education system in Afghanistan but his request was denied. Because of this the middle east was left only with the rubble remaining from the Russian attacks and no means for the people to rebuild their lives. Progress is being made slowly but surely. Goodluck to all my AIS fellows suffering the notorious JT.

Confederate History Month

As I was meandering about npr's website I stumbled upon a juicy blog topic. It goes

Virginia Gov.: 'Confederate History Month' Is 'Something That Should Be Done'

Bob McDonnell, Virginia's current republican governor, recently made the month of April confederate history month, a motion denied by the two liberal governors preceding him. McDonnell says that his aim is to draw attention to a significant part of Virginia's history and consequentially attract visitors to Virginia's many historical Civil War sites. It's no shock that McDonnell's decision has offended people. King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the Virginia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that McDonnell is "extolling the Confederacy by naming this Confederate History Month". I'm split about 85-15 on the issue. For the most part I think that declaring April confederate history month was a bad decision. I've read some blogs on the issue and have seen alot advocates for the change argue that the confederacy fought for many things in the Civil War, slavery being only one them. But really, whenever the average joe hears "confederacy" the first thing that comes to mind is slavery. Therefore, when people hear that April is confederate history they will probably make the same connection. I do, however, think the desicion could have some positive outcomes. It's a stretch, but I think that declaring April confederate history month might instill some guilt in the people of Virginia for have such a strong tie to the confederacy. The guilt could motivate the state to improve any negative race relations it has seen recently. Also, like the Governor I think that this change could promote Virginia's many historic Civil War sites. While I think it was an unwise decision to declare April confederate history month, there is no denying that the Civil War is a key portion of our nation's history and it is important that the public learns about it. So my noble classmates, what do you think? Yes or no on making April confederate history month and perhaps a brief explanation of why.

POST!

HELP A BROTHA OUT

Hello dear classmates,

I have no idea what to do for my junior theme. If anyone has some good topics that had potential but they weren't interested in pursuing I'd love to hear them. Any comments will be greatly appreciated (unless they're stupid).

Much love,

Andy Stone

Obama on Nuclear Weapons

I read an interesting yahoo article that discussed Obama's new policy restricting U.S. use of nuclear weapons. The policy renounces U.S. development of new atomic weapons and forswears the use of atomic weapons against countries not bearing nuclear arms. However, it states that enemies who attack the U.S. who do not possess nuclear arms will only be spared nuclear retaliation if they are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (so we can still rain Nuc's on North Korea if they attack us). The policy provides momentum in the battle to ban nuclear arms before Obama signs an arms control treaty with Russia hosts a nuclear security summit in Washington. Despite this seemingly positive news the policy is already receiving criticism from liberal and conservatives alike. Many conservatives believe that the policy and the momentous events following it will leave the U.S. vulnerable while many liberals complain that Obama isn't taking the arms control movement far enough. I think it sounds like Obama has struck a pretty good middle ground. It would be unwise to promise to never use nuclear weapons, but it is also ridiculous that the U.S. has hundreds of nuclear bombs. What do you think of the policy? Is it appropriate? Has Obama gone to far? Not far enough? Do you think trusting other countries to follow the guidlines of the nuclear arms treaty is unwise?

POST!