The fight

                SO I watch “The Fight of the Century” last night. I now see why no one likes boxing anymore. This isnt really much of news/current events or related to any of my past posts but I had a personal experience with this that I have to share.

                Watching old videos of Mike Tyson, Ali, and many others that were worth watching, I noticed how much better and different boxing was back then. Usually when someone says “Oh, It used to be cool but now its not as awesome” I ignore it, I hear it all the time. This is the case though for boxing. Before you had monsters of men going at each other, almost killing each other before the first round is over. Now you have two tiny men trying not to get hit.

                The part that made it so unenjoyable for me was of course the hype. You have a the two men that have been anticipated to fight for the last 5 years, it’s probably the only public fight anyone has actually cared about in the last 10 years.  After years of negotiations and talks of it never happening, it finally did and everyone was so ready for it, but then the fight started.

                Before the fight even started I hated it. All the commentators or anyone could talk about was the money. I mean, although they made 128,000 dollars a second, which is mind-blowing, I don’t need to hear it every ten seconds. I don’t need to hear how much the seats cost or which celebrities attended. I just became annoying, the fight was more about the money than they actually match and it shows in the fight as well. It was so ridiculous, Burger King and Justin Bieber followed Mayweather onto the ring, Jimmy Kimmel took a selfie with Pacquiao walking out, and it was a total circus, not a boxing match.

                The match was even worse. At first you think that these boxing matches are action packed and full of violence like you want, but this is not the case with Floyd Mayweather. Now I could bash Mayweather for hours (illiterate, worst human being on earth, thinks he’s the best, blah blah) but ill sapre all that and just say he fights like a scared cat, he wins but he fights so defensively. IT makes it so boring were one guy is just hugging and avoiding contact the whole match. Everyone feels the same way and it just killed the sport even more. IT was already dying but this was the finishing blow. The one fight that has been anticipated for 5 years and had hundreds of millions at stake just had to be absolutely awful.  The millions of people that tuned in could have brought a new spark to boxing, instead it got a KO.

                 

The silent ones

                SO I’m not going to talk about Baltimore that much, it’s not really my place to give my input and you never know who you might offend by talking about this stuff. For those unaware or living under a rock for the last week because the media is on this 24/7, Freddie Grey, a man was killed by a spinal injury due to the police. 6 of them have been charged with at least involuntary manslaughter and now the people have taken to the streets.

                So the other day, my friend showed me an article that changed my view a lot on the situation (http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/03/us/freddie-gray-balitmore-protests/). This article shows the amount of non-violent protest going on in the city, a lot more. This gave me a ultimate respect for the city but also a hate for the media.

                I’ve talked about before how the media are just out to make a story and how much they influence use, this is just an example. They focus so much on the bit of violence and protest going on in the city, they just amplify everything bad. They take Baltimore and make it into a city of turmoil and chaos. While in some areas this is probably the case, it isn’t just taking over the city of Baltimore. The peaceful protestors are the heroes here and yet I haven’t heard about them and I probably wouldn’t have until a few days ago. The media is so desperate just to make a good story they praise and follow the people who are looting and destroying their town while they leave the people who protest right, silent. The people who aren’t criminals, who have a argument and want change, they are left silent.  

Risks not worth taking

                DNA is who we are. I talked about it in another blog post on how DNA is us, our bodies and minds function around it. This blog I want to talk about the science advancements of ourselves and how it will be hindered.

                Modification of our DNA can cause some serious changes. We might be able to cure diseases, change our appearance, and give us many different qualities. Just moving a few molecules around in our cells can change us forever. Changing our DNA could cause a lot of breakthroughs for curing diseases. Along with this, DNA modification can make us better humans.

                This week, the Chinese have decided to preform research and modify embryo DNA. This is the first time such research has occurred and it’s caused global outcry. The US has responded that they will not be preforming DNA modification for clinical purposes. This whole issue has caused major controversy and it’s extremely important to talk about.

                I feel changing humans isn’t right. Making us something we aren’t doesn’t seem moral or humane. IT seems unbelievable dangerous and risky. Even if immense amounts of testing is done, 1 little unknown or mistake can totally destroy another human being. Should we really mess with something that can kill us so easily? Should we be tampering the things that make us live in the first place? Sure there are mistakes in the human body but do we have to strive to fix every single problem, probably for the cost of lives?? WE have already taken over the world, no other species comes close to us, why change something that has done so much? We have made the internet, metal flying machines, things to let us live absolutely anywhere in the world, and we haven’t been stopped. Why change humans? We have evolved to become the most powerful species in the world.

                Although humans are perfect though, we can always get better. That’s what made us such a dominate species. I see the point in just saying denying science just because its inhumane might hurt us in the future, we are losing value able information because of the ethics. Its worth it though, we have stopped research on a lot of other projects too. If we let human research just happen without any sort of restriction, we would know a lot more about the body. WE don’t do that though, we don’t sacrifice the lives of others just to know more. Lives should be more important to us than knowledge. Going into DNA might broaden our knowledge of ourselves greatly but it won’t be worth it if we risk losing ourselves.  Knowledge and research has boundaries to make that not happen.

Patriot Act

                So what can, we the people do to stop the government from snooping through everything about us? How can we control the government that hides everything from us?

                John Oliver on HBO did a video recently on Surveillance, he interview Edward Snowden and I highly suggest watching it.  In the program he talks about the Patriot Act and how it allows the government to perform all this domestic spying on everyday citizens. In June, the act will be up to vote for review.

                As Americans, we seem to complain a lot while doing little to nothing about the problems faced in our government. We sometimes make the effort to vote but that’s about it.  We think C-SPAN is the most boring channel and most of us don’t care about being involved. What Americans don’t realize though is how much influence we have with our government. We think we are so meaningless in our government system when we really can have a major impact. Even just a few people contacting a senator or representative can make a congressperson rethink their decisions. We have the power to control, this is the country were everyone rules but if we just sit back and complain that nothing will be done. If you don’t want to work, and just want to be lazy, then you will keep having the government everyone complains about. If everyone makes an effort to change the government we have, then we the people, have all the power.

                Its quite easy. All you need to do is contact youre state legislators. Simply email or call or anything, say what you don’t like, what you want them to vote for. Get more people to do this and bam, you’ve changed your congressmen’s mind. America has been known for being lazy, we talk but we don’t have the motivation to get things done. Our government has stuck passing absolutely nothing the past few years. Take initative and be involved in our country. As John F. Kennedy always said, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”.

Trust

                Trust is needed in a successful relationship; both sides must respect and have trust in one another. They must believe what they tell each other is the true and not hide things from one another unless absolutely necessary. This case is also true for government. Trust must be held between the people and the government to make a country successful.

                Patriotism is something American doesn’t lack. Flags are everywhere, people love their country, and we trust our government most of the time. Vietnam would be the first case where we seem to lose trust in our government.  We look down on our government leaders and call them liars. This led to protest and eventually exiting of the Vietnam war. When we lose trust in our government, we become weaker.

                The NSA and all the privacy being lost in this country for the average citizen have caused me to distrust our government. Sure I knew they were hiding things from us, but I didn’t think it would be giant spy programs that eliminate all privacy. Trust can’t happen if they are hiding major actions that destroy the right of being alone in this country. They can monitor everything, all without us knowing. The knowledge they can obtain without us knowing must be gigantic. Some things like strategic warfare or technology might be best suited to be kept hidden but this is too far.

                I used to always trust my government and the people that have the power. I believed they were looking out for the best interest of our country.  Now I am not so sure. A lot of things lately have popped up to make me question my government. There is lobbying, big businesses and money running politics. There is this fact that our government is keeping secrets from us about how much information they have on each of us. There are leaders that are just looking out for their jobs instead of what they actually believe in. Our government doesn’t seem to be for the people.  Instead it seems to be just about what the government officials want. 

                This distrust makes me doubt everything the government tells us. It makes me think about weather what they are telling us is really true or are we just being kept in the dark about everything? Are we just as oblivious as many other countries in the world? We need to change our policies in this country to try and regain this trust that a lot of us have lost.  Find the patriotism again that sits inside all Americans. We are all just bashing the government and doing nothing about it, we need to change to gain trust.

Surveillance

                We are the most powerful country in the world. We can handle any attack and take on the whole world. We have become the country we are by brute force and knowledge. We have the strongest military in the world but we also have the most information. Information is power.

                Our country has been known for its surveillance. We have the CIA, FBI, and NSA all working to get information about everyone. It’s been a topic of controversy lately though with leaks through Edward Snowden and new information on drones and other surveillance techniques. This blog I’m going to talk about my feelings on this subject to decide if its justified or not to spy.

                Now there are two types of spying, domestic and of course, the 007-like international intelligence. Getting information on our enemies is needed. It gives this country an edge, an edge that has won us a lot of battles and saved a lot of lives. Knowing the enemy through surveillance saves lives and must continue to happen.

                Then there is domestic surveillance that puts our country in a tough spot. The most dangerous threats to our country are attacks that could happen inside our nation. Terrorism, hacking, and other domestic attacks occur in our country all the time.  It’s these attacks that have forced our country to spy on our own people. Now in the past, spying on your own citizens doesn’t turn out to well. We have the Soviets who looked at everyone with paranoid eyes, the Nazis looking for more Jews, and all dictatorships have probably been accused of spying on their own people. We do not like that idea here in the US.  We call these governments who spy on their own people evil and in control of too much power. Yet, this is happening in our own country and people either don’t know it’s going on or don’t care.  We don’t care that our government monitors everything we do, everything we search and everything we see.  But if we want our personal business to be our personal business, we can’t just sit around and do nothing.

                I don’t really want our government knowing everything about me; they don’t have the right to just snoop in everyone’s business, when we have done nothing wrong. Snowden may have released some things that shouldn’t have been released, but he also showed the American people that our government is hiding really big secrets about us and they are hiding them from us. 

After School

                One category American excels at is post-high school opportunities. We have so many possibilities for students after graduation.

                College is big here, everyone wants to go to college and for most people college is the only way to have success in life (it is not). Our country is known for having some of the best colleges in the world. Colleges like Princeton, Harvard, Yale, or even less prestigious schools such as U of I or other schools in the area are extremely good schools and offer amazing opportunities. People travel from all across the world just to get an American education at one of these colleges. You see so many foreign students from China, India, Europe, and everywhere all wanting to join in.

                I feel our colleges don’t get enough credit for the great educations they are providing.  Things like the reasonable cost, research and internships also make future after high school extremely bright for Americans. We have amazing people working on research and things like that to better our world and to make everyone smarter. Joining research teams in this country is so much easier and better than everywhere else in the world.  Also, getting internships to learn about jobs and get better credentials is relatively easy. Opportunities arise often and it makes the future of all students in the country extremely bright.

                WE have such a negative outlook on our American education system but the amount of opportunities and options for students after graduation is amazing. It allows people to pursue what they really enjoy and have a happy life.

Education

                The United States education system has been hated on for the past few decades for not posting very good numbers and not keeping up with other countries around the world.

                I’m going to do three blogs this week, the bad about our education system, the good, and I feel the main problem with education – the teachers.

                So let’s first address some issues that have been discussed about how are our country is lagging in education. We are far behind some of the leaders in reading, math and science proficiency. With countries like South Korea, Japan, Canada, and Germany at the top, we can see the United States, the greatest country in the world, falling far behind other countries. Education should be a major priority in our country but to a lot of people, it’s just a bore.

                First everyone’s, including students’; attitude towards school needs to be changed. Education is the future to successful and world-leading country. Students need to realize they are the future and education is what they need to get a brighter future. Learning needs to be cool, nerds need to be the cool ones, and working hard in school should be a normal thing, not just for the smart people.

                I feel like although some programs offered by schools are amazing, they can always do more. Adding funding to schools will always increase student performance and their ability to learn. New opportunities can lead to a better education system, letting our generation of students become the brightest of the bright.

Teachers

                Teachers get so undercut in the school education system. NO one wants to be a teacher, they don’t pay well at all and you need tons of experience to be called a good teacher. Our education system has put all the blame on how teachers don’t care, how students don’t care, and how everyone just hates school. I’ll agree that there are teachers who don’t care about teaching and just do it and there are students who don’t care either. There are good teachers and there are bad teachers.

                Now I have a lot of experience with teachers.   I’m coming to the end of my high school career and I’ve been around different types of teachers for 12 years now. From personal experience, the teacher is the most important part in what I get out of a class. The teacher is the most important part in how much I learn. If a teacher is always there when I need help, bombastic about what they are actually teaching, excited to teach, and love what they do, they are going to be a great teacher. I get so much out of a class when the teacher is enthusiastic, then I become enthusiastic. If they find cool ways to teach and have fun with their students it makes the classroom a fun and amazing place. Good teachers make me want to pursue the topic they are teaching, I could absolutely hate a subject but if I have a good teacher, I could learn so much and do so much and love the subject. Good teachers allow us, the students, to learn so much more.

                But of course, not all teachers are good teachers, there are the bad ones. The ones that don’t care about you, they just want the least work for themselves, the ones who show videos the whole time and read lessons from a script make learning boring. The ones who do the littlest work possible and just give their students busy work are the ones that hurt our education. From personal experience, I learn absolutely nothing with bad teachers. If a teacher doesn’t know what they’re doing, what they’re teaching, or how to even teach, then I don’t learn anything from their class. With some teachers I don’t even bother, I just look up video and use other tools to learn as much as I can in a subject. These bad teachers are the ones that make school boring and I feel like there are sometimes a lot more bad teachers out there than good ones.

                Good teachers influence what we learn. Good teachers make our schools better places to learn and teach us how to become a better person. Some bad apples can just ruin the whole experience. I feel like the main reason our education system is stuttering is because of teachers. I see so many teachers, who just don’t care about their jobs, but there are those few amazing teachers that make school a total blast and I learn so much. If we want education to compete with the rest of the world, we need to find good teachers. We look at countries like South Korea and Finland who are top in all categories, they pay their teachers, and they make teaching a lucrative job, like an engineer or a doctor. These countries will even go so far that they will recruit top teachers from other countries to come teach at their schools. We need to make teachers more valuable here, being a teacher isn’t really the best job, their pay is mediocre with few benefits. When teaching is more appealing, more and smarter people will want to go into teaching, leading to more of those good teachers.  

                We also need to make good teaching the standard and make the teaching scene competitive. Not just standardized tests, ask the students how they feel, have administration watch a few classes, really look into how teachers are teaching to get the best ones. Find those bad apples and get them out of teaching, teaching isn’t for everyone. Getting rid of the bad apples and finding the good apples will make the American education system soar. Students will love coming to school and teachers will love to teach and make their students fulfill their potential. 

Flying

                This month, a Germanwings flight crashed into the Alps. The CO-pilot of the plane locked the pilot out of the cockpit and slowly descended into the French Alps.  This killed all 144 passengers. Read more here (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32063587)

                This is so unbelievable sad, creepy, and bizarre. The Co-pilot made no contact with anyone and as far as we know, is not a part of any terrorist groups.  The creepiest thing of all, he just sat in a cockpit absolutely calm and silent with hundreds of people screaming as he was killing them all. It is scary that there are people in this world who can kill hundreds of innocent people without any guilt, regret, or thought.

                Flying is a touchy subject; it’s been in the news a lot lately with these missing flights and crashes. People have and are starting to acquire a larger fear to flying. Passengers were afraid there would be a terrorist on their flight.  The national government is afraid of an attack by flying so they have increased security (TSA).  Passengers now are scared that their pilots might turn against them and get them killed. This is a major hit, I felt like the pilot is the one person on the plane I could trust, the one that would look out for everyone on the plane. I won’t be doubting any pilots anytime soon but everyone will probably be a little more careful around their pilots. They shouldn’t have to feel that way, there are thousands of flights daily with thousands of trustable pilots but it just took one for everyone to lose trust in the person who has your life in their hands.  It really makes you want to appreciate and thank the pilots that do their jobs so well.  Pilots have hundreds of lives in their hands and they try their best to make sure we are safe, they shouldn’t be judged, bashed, or hated on just because of one incident. 

NASA

                Now this is a topic where I might begin to rant on so fair warning.   I like this subject and tend to get emotional.

                Science is extremely interesting to me. I love science, its fun interesting, and there is nothing better than learning about our world. Most of all, I love physics. The laws and the world that we discover through math and observations blow my mind sometimes. Science is awesome and our country and world is very determined to learn more science, tons upon tons of resources and a millennium of time have been used to try to unlock the unknown. I want our knowledge as humans to expand so far beyond this world, I want to know all about our universe. In this blog I’m going to discuss how science has been held back and what we can do to not let that happen.

                NASA is a government agency that everyone knows. It works on the deep and dark world outside of ours that is space. The agency has put a lot of people on the moon , taken some of the most beautiful and interesting pictures, help create a giant space station that orbits our planet, sent a robot  to mars to observe the giant red rock, and even sent a manmade object past our solar system. It’s amazing what the agency has done since the beginning of the space race in 1957. NASA has brought humanity a long way but there is still a lot to be discovered.

                Lately though, NASA and humanity has come to a halt on space exploration. After the golden age of space in the 60s, NASA’s budget has been cut severely, extremely severely. From when nearly 4.5% of our government spending was on space exploration in mid-60s, to today when it is at about .5% of our budget. That money is really important to the space industry. Science has been severely cut as well. We could have humans on mars by now and even possibly other planets. That just infuriates me for some reason. This is something I can get really emotion about. To think that we could have been discovering so much more and even gaining more power as a country, but we put space to the backburner and here we are, possibly decades away from setting foot on mars. Exploring our world is natural as humans and just forgetting about it isn’t the right option.

                The budget cuts began occurring in the 70s and lately have begun to increase more and more for many reasons. One is of course the reason we started our space exploration in the first place, competition. That’s right, we can all thank those wonderful Soviets for allowing us explore space. Mountains and mountains of money went into NASA just to beat the USSR, now that they are less competition, we spend less. Although that is the main reason, along with spending being moved to other areas such as our military, there are others. I think another reason is that the next obstacle, Mars, seemed impossible back in that time. Billions and Billions of dollars were spending just trying to get people to the moon and back. Mars is a much heavier task and I think a lot of the moral of our country dropped once we realized, the next step won’t be any easier. Reaching the Moon seemed impossible, it was so far away. Mars is about 150 times farther from Earth than the Moon, which is a lot farther away.

                I want the budget for NASA to increase greatly. I want to see us hit Mars and use our intellect to our full potential. There are a lot smart people in this world who want to see humans go beyond home and conquer the great unknown, we just need the resources to do it. I’m fine with taking out a few billion in national defense, which by the way is 57% of our federal budget. Take a few giant unneeded tanks and put them into the NASA budget, we could see a major increase of breakthroughs in the space world. We could unlock the unknowns of our universe, whatever it is. 

Rooftops

                                This is a quick post.  France has created a new law this month. This law requires that all new buildings must be built with to have either solar panels or plants on their roof.  Read more here (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/france-decrees-new-rooftops-must-be-covered-in-plants-or-solar-panels).

                This is an incredible idea and is just what you dream about. It’s what you see in all those cool futuristic utopia books.  With this law being passed in France that story is now coming true. France is taking steps, such as this, to make sure our world is clean and efficient. Other motions such as making public transit free which helps to cut the amount of cars on the road and making use of nuclear energy could make pollution in France non-existent. Here in the US, I feel we need to start implementing these types of steps.  Pass a few laws, even a few small ones, to help make our society cleaner. It may cost money, which seems to always be in short supply but I feel making our world a clean and wonderful place is important and I’m glad France has started making these steps to become a clean utopia.  

Iran

                The Persian Empire ruled and it dominated for a long time. It has probably been one of the most stable regions in the Middle East. When Muslim reform took over, diplomatic issues arouse, specifically conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran. If you’ve seen Argo, which I would highly recommend as it is one of my favorite movies, you would know about the American hostages jailed in Iran. These, along with other incidents, have led to the United States and Iran to not really like each other that much.

                This week, the Obama administration has made deals with Iran to become better friends and prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. This is a tricky situation to me like everything else going on in the Middle East. Iran is a loose cannon, they have leaders that could very much be going against everyone. Trying to make friends with them could lead to some serious problems. I feel like Obama kind of just settled with the deal made (more here http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/03/politics/white-house-congress-iran-nuclear-deal/). This is a very sticky situation and settling is a bad idea.  Nuclear weapons in unstable countries like Iran are not good. Look at Israel who is being extremely war-mongering because they have nuclear weapons and aren’t afraid to use them.  Countries like this shouldn’t have a nuclear arsenal and we should do everything in our power to not let that happen. We can’t settle. 

Israel

                Israel is the hot spot of all the fighting in the Middle East. It’s the source of religious hate and aggression. For thousands of years, like the rest of the Middle East, Israel has been fought over and fought over and fought over. Two religions, Jews and Muslims now want to call this place home due to their history. The Jews claimed the land after coming back to their homeland at the end of World War 2. Ever sense, the Jews and Muslims who previously resided their and called it home have been basically at all-out war for the past 60 years.  If you haven’t look at any news for the past few years, you can look at more recent events and history here. I’m going to give my point of view and of course maybe a way to solve all of our problems, which is probably impossible.

                So first of all, I know that these two sides have been duking it out for a very long time.  They’ve had their history and over time they’ve grown to hate each other so much. Along with the extreme hate towards each other, they’re also angry with everyone else in this world.  Each group being oppressed has led to a toxic and dangerous hate all across the world. All these terrible emotions being bottled into this little piece of land about the size of New Jersey is a bad thing. The hate won’t ever go away, the way the Israeli government is treating Palestine and the attacks on the Israeli government is making things worse. I feel like nothing is going to change, emotions are too high and the only way for and end through war is a full scale invasion of Palestine. Millions of lives would be lost and along with just that country, other nations around the world would join in the fighting and maybe just causing all-out war around the world. We don’t want that, nuclear weapons have somewhat helped prevent that but having an invasion in Israel could have serious consequences. The scary part is this could very much happen. The leaders of Israel seem very aggressive and not afraid to send the whole world into chaos.  

                I feel like the only solution that sounds okay is the impossible one. The world needs to band together, find a way to work out the problems without causing mass destruction. Making Israel a neutral international state sounds like the perfect idea but that won’t happen, there is too much hate on that land fueled by thousands of years of oppression and war.

The Middle East

                Known as the powder keg of the world, the Middle East causes tensions everywhere. The fighting never stops and due to different relationships with countries, the whole world is involved. Throughout history, the Middle East has been fighting. There has always been fighting and I feel like there will always be fighting. We’ve had the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, and Turks rule these lands and the list goes on and on and on. All these nations fought and battle; the sand of the Middle East is red with blood of millions of people fighting. It won’t stop and sooner or later things could get worse.

                Religion seems to be the thing that causes all these wars. Along with religion, we see oil, differing cultures, interpretations of religion, and diplomacy with other countries playing a role in all the fighting in The Middle East. All these factors have led to not just war between two nations but an extremely complex and confusing war between different groups and terrorism and everyone. Different rebel groups and many governments make the Middle East an impossible place to create boundaries, especially boundaries everyone can agree on. It’s a giant mess, in the Middle East, and fixing it doesn’t seem possible.

                Now let’s talk about our country and US influence in the Middle East. We, like every other country in the world, have major influence and are the puppet masters of what goes on in the Middle East. Other powerful countries such as Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom also take part in this battle for power in the Middle East. We’ve been in many wars in the Middle East, spending billions of dollars to keep the country’s interests protected. 9/11 is of course what started our major influence in the Middle East.  We sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan leaving with almost nothing to show for it. The Middle East is a black hole for lives, money, and diplomacy; you can put in a lot but get almost nothing in return. The reason we stay in is oil. Oil runs our country and everywhere in the Middle East is full of it. Do we get out what we put in though? We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to be friends with countries like Saudi Arabia when all we get out of it is 13% of our oil supply. 13% isn’t that much and I’m not sure if it’s worth millions of lives just for some oil and not even that much.

                There is the question of course, that if we don’t intervene, what would be different? Would it be the same or would the Middle East be home for terrorists? I think we would be a lot safer if we just stayed out of affairs in the Middle East. Defend our own country will make our world better than trying to stop a force (terrorism) that will always be present. Terrorism can’t just lose too many battles then lose the war and disappear, they will always be present and antagonizing them will be bad for everyone. Terrorist groups wouldn’t hate us and a lot less people would die. America needs to realize that being a police force, although good at times, can be a very bad thing.  

The Lies

                The court is a place were supposedly people don’t lie. You place your hand on the book and you say the oath, promising you won’t do it. Yet so many people lie and become deceptive while on the stand. There is a term for it, Perjury. Telling a lie to the jury happens all the time and it can totally ruin someone’s life and change the outcome of a decision in court.

                Eye witness testimonies and others like it are huge factors when deciding a case. If someone says they say you kill someone, you will likely be tried for murder and possibly convicted just on the one piece of evidence. It is scary that someone has to the power to false convict you of a crime you have never done quite easily. Eye witness testimonies should really have little to zero influence on a case because someone can lie too easily. People cannot have the power to just ruin someone’s life by putting them in jail by just telling a single lie. Sure there is charges against those who do lie in the court room, but how many times have people actually been caught lying? I don’t feel like it happens very much.

                False testimonies also can have a large effect based on generalizations. We have heard it from the Ferguson case and many others, some people are treated unfair and as less in the courtroom than others. In our society, a nice white girl can just say a minority did a crime and a lot of people would believe her. Society has put generalizations on certain groups of people and it isn’t fair at all. Lying and cheating the court room is so much easier if you fit the right demographics. Juries should be totally colorblind, have no preference to gender, and not look at the wealth of a person but we all know that isn’t the case. I feel like setting up some sort of blind system where the jury does not know about the victim or the criminal’s background and demographics. IT seems like the only way right now to make court fair. Our country is devoted to everyone having equal rights but discrimination and generalizations occur, even without us knowing it. So I feel the best way to stop the bias in the courtroom is to make everyone blind to the things that do not matter.  

Punishment 

            

            The punishment of criminals in this country is very controversial, specifically the death penalty. It has been debated for years, there have been cases for it and against it. There are terrible people in this world who probably don’t deserve to be here. But what if they do deserve to be here? What if we kill an innocent which has happened many times before? IS it worth it? Why do we even do it in the first place?

            This is a very dark subject and it’s hard for me to just talk about the lives of people as if I control them so I will try to be very careful in what I say and how I say it in this post. The death penalty has so much controversy in it. You see stories like this or this or this or many other examples. Mistakes happens, false testimonies or bad evidence, it’s terrible and the death penalty can result in the death of people who are completely innocent. The death penalty is permanent, there is no going back on previous mistakes.

            But also consider that some people want that permanent solution, I wouldn’t suggest it but is it torturing criminals by locking them up for the rest of their life? Should the get the option on whether they want to keep living? It depends on who you ask but I think if someone wants to leave after therapy and help, they should be able too. I feel like just giving someone the death penalty if they don’t want to die seems barbaric and not American. Even though there are some awful people in this world, I feel like they can always come back and live a life. They may be in prison their whole lives but living is a blessing and we shouldn’t be taking that away from people, no matter how bad they are. We might lose a bit of money holding these people up for decades but I feel like it is worth it to let people enjoy the gifts given to them at birth.

The System

            I’m going to split this topic into a lot of topics because there is a lot for me to talk about and different areas. This blog I am going to talk about how broken our judicial system is in this country. There are hundreds of laws set to protect us. Our rights, our freedom, and everything is defined in the laws we’ve created over the past 300 years. Laws make our society, tell us what is right and what’s wrong, they are important and shape our country as we know it. It’s scary though that although we have so many rules, they can be so easily manipulated and people can sneak by doing wrong because of our system.

           

            There are so many rules though. It becomes so hard to keep track, sure there is murder, theft, the well known crimes, but there is so many other laws, enforcement and wacky rules that no one enforces or knows about. The judicial system of America is so complex and intricate, it is hard to understand and to me, boring to learn about.

            What ticks me off though is when people are off scot free when they shouldn’t be, or people who are in jail when they shouldn’t be. It happens a lot and in these blogs I want to talk about my opinions on our “broken” America system.

           

            Lets start with money. The American ideals are that every man has the same political and judicial power, no matter how much money they have. Money shouldn’t be a factor in court but it is huge. The rich rule the court room along with our government. We have all heard of lobbying and bribing congress but taking advantage of wealth happens in the judicial branch too. Large business and people with a lot of money can do a lot more than someone with no money. It isn’t American and it isn’t fair. People with money can hire dozens of lawyers and people to help them win. They can put heavy fees on people who can’t afford them. The way lawyers and court fees are run put heavy burden on the underprivileged, which shouldn’t be the case in our society.

            It is sad, I feel like court fees and lawyers should be set up so that they don’t put a financial burden on people who are being attacked or can’t afford it. But I also realize that fees and money make people not sue over everything. Lawyers and the court wants a lot of money and it is what keeps people out of the court room, which is good. But I just seems so unfair that people with all the money can rule the courtroom and avoid the law. Something has to change to where everyone has a fair trial, not just those who have the most money.

Adam Wall

The Few left

            Bengal tigers are amazing. They are majestic and dangerous, everything I like. Populated in eastern Asia, they are depleting quickly though. In India, tigers got as low as only 1400 due to being hunted so much. Poaching was a serious problem in South Eastern Asia with these tigers and they were hunted into extreme endangerment due to they’re amazing furs. There have been rescue programs, reservations and other conservation methods for the tigers to retain their population and species to their former glory. This week, the people of India have giving us great news in that the population of tigers has increased from the 1400 to over 2200 in seven years. This is great news! Tigers are finally repopulating after nearly becoming extinct. The Bengal tiger is finally back in the forest again and efforts to stop the extinction of the tiger are working.

            There are tons of commercials showing sad tigers making us just want to give them all we have to make them stop being sad. There are other non-profit organizations, zoos, and scientists that give a lot of effort to help these majestic and amazing animals. I’m glad to see all the work pay off. I’m glad that after all these commercials and promotions for these beasts, I can see the progress made and what the money actually did for one of these wildlife preserves. It just shows that people do care about the environment and the animals living in it, people want the world to be its former self and not be totally ruled and ruined by humans. Hopefully soon we will start to see endangered animals follow the same route that the Bengal tigers are going.  

Adam Wall

FIFA

            Football, (soccer), dominates our world. Everyone watches it, from villages in Africa to a German pub, everyone loves soccer. It brings the world together. There will be war, disagreements, and hatred but football makes people forget all of that and connect the world through some good old competition. It makes the two teams equal, no matter what country they represent, it’s the same rules and regulations, no one team has an advantage. During the world cup last year for example, the United States the most powerful country in the world faced off against Ghana, a small poor country in western Africa. Ghana almost beat the world power as well. Examples like this make me really enjoy the culture of the game and how it brings the world together.

            The world cup is where all of this comes together. Sure there is the premiere league, Lega Calcio, and the MLS but they are nothing compared to the main event, the world cup. Run by FIfA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the world cup takes place ever four years and has been a tradition for the past 80 years. Countries all over the world come to a host countries stadiums and duke it out for the championship, professional players represent there country and everyone in the world spectates and watches. I love the atmosphere of the world cup. The USA normal doesn’t follow soccer that much but when the world cup comes around, there is patriotism all over the country for supporting our team and this is going on all across the world as well, I love the world cup.

            AS much as I love the world cup, there are still some issues I have with FIFA. The host country has been a huge controversy over the past few years. Brazil and South Africa, the last two countries who held the cup have been under some extremely economic stress. This is especially the case with Brazil who has to host the Olympics as well next year. Brazil spent over fifteen billion dollars on the world cup whether it was new stadiums, roads, buildings, and many other things. All this money is something they didn’t have even before the world cup and now they are facing serious problems with there economy and debt. All this debt and all they got out of it was some fancy stadiums in the middle of the jungle and little bit of tourism. Most countries host the cup for building of new infrastructure such as transportation, government offices, and stadiums for large events such as football and tourism. Sometimes this can be a huge boost for a country but this turns out not to be the case.  These world cups can totally cripple a country for over debt and terrible spending. I don’t know why countries keep bidding for these games when they know that it can totally cripple their country.

            FIFA is also being totally scum. Bidding usually takes place years before where a country says what they can provide for the tournament. More developed countries are usually chosen because they can better hold the games with more infrastructure and stadiums. Lately we seem to see some less developed countries taking the role of being the host. Qatar is the latest country that is now struggling but still decided to take the challenge of being host. Speculated for being picked because they bribed FIFA with oil money, they are now stuck with the 2022 world cup and they aren’t even close to being ready. IT doesn’t make any sense, its 120 degrees there so it will be impossible to play, it’s a strict Muslim country and they have little to no infrastructure. So FIFA being the idiots they are gave these guys the right host and now they’re stuck and trying to figure out if the should move the cup somewhere else. FIFA is so money driven and John Oliver did a great and funny thing on them if you want to learn anymore about the diabolical and terrible company of FIFA. They are ruining the greatest sports event in the world. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I) 

Adam Wall

Exxon Mobile

            I have been talking about oil a lot on this blog. It runs our world though and it’s extremely important to the human race. It runs our lives. This week, oil is again in the news. Oil spills have happened a lot over the past few decades and they destroy environments, they are terrible and whole ecosystems can collapse just because of oil. The Yellowstone River this week had an oil pipeline burst, releasing over 50,000 gallons of oil into the surrounding area. There is more on the spill here. 

            Exxon Mobile has gone through this routine multiple times.  They’ve gone through multiple spills before, such as in 2011 and of course a really devastating spill in 1989. You would think that they would learn there lesson by now but nope, they keep on not being careful with a substance that ruins ecosystems and bad things keep happening. They’ve paid millions of dollars in repairing damages to the environment and ecosystem but it doesn’t seem to harm the company and oil spills still keep happening. The government usually does nothing other than give a small fee to the oil company. No trade or consumer restrictions, no slowing production, just a small fine that is like pocket change to such a large oil company such as Exxon Mobile. The government needs to lay down the law; just these small fines won’t stop spills. By applying harsher penalties on oil companies, we can force them to better protect the environment through better built pipes and better procedures.

Adam Wall

The National Football league

            The NFL is the staple of American culture today. It’s what everyone talks about. It’s all about how their team is doing. It is about their fantasy league, and dreaming of their team finally winning the super bowl. The NFL is at another level when it comes to sports, in America; it dominates the sports world and is the center of attention. Instead of talking sports and football in this blog, I am going to talking about the NFL from a business point of view, the influence they have on our population and their soon to be decline.

           

            The NFL is worth billions and billions of dollars, only the richest of the rich have to chance to own one of these teams. The owners of these teams have a lot of power and money. Along with the teams, millions and billions of dollars are put into advertisement. Commercials, sponsors, merchandise and many other promotions have boosted so many products and businesses. They have such an influence and image created for sports watchers around the world, whether its having a party with friends, beer everywhere and girls dancing all over the place or simply sitting in a recliner, relaxing and watching the NFL. We never realize what a profound impact the NFL has had on a lot of peoples lives, some people don’t like sports but some people let it consume their lives and the NFL tries everything it can to make more and more money and to get peoples lives engrossed in football.

            The NFL, with all the power they have might be losing it though. Football and the American culture are slowly deteriorating and football might face the same fate that boxing had along time ago. The danger of the sport turns away children for their safety. Concussions and brain damage is a serious problem in football. People are running at each other at high speeds with the intention of knocking the lights out of each other, it isn’t safe.  The future of football is not good if kids around the country aren’t playing the game. I don’t think there is anything you can do to make football safer so I think we all just need to start converting to the most popular game in the world, soccer.

            Scandals and legal issues also surround the NFL. I get so mad at owners and the leaders of the NFL because of how they handle situations legally. Lately, Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson are just two examples. The NFL is just so arrogant and so rich, they don’t seem to care about the opinions of their business partners they just want more money. They don’t care that Adrian Peterson beat his kid. They just want him back in the league to make them more money. Money runs the world and it really runs the NFL. This blind disregard for their reputation and so much greed could end up crushing the NFL like kicker being blind-sided by a massive lineman. 

                       

            

Hate on people

            So after the Charlie Hebdo headline that has been all over the news, people are doing what they have done forever, generalizing. Whether people are black, white, green, if they like waffles or pancakes, star wars or star trek, people will find a way to generalize you and tell you you’re something you’re not. Charlie Hebdo is another case of blaming the whole group of people for what just a few extremist have done.

            9/11 and so many other terrible acts of terrorism have been committed many times across the world. Most acts of terror come from Muslim extremists. AL-Quieda, Jihad groups, and ISIS are just some names that we’ve all heard of and they continue to cause terror “in the name of Allah”. Yes, these people are evil and terrible people. They take a peace loving religion and turn it into chaos and oppression. People are taking it to far though, people are doing what they always do, generalize against those that don’t have the same beliefs as they do. All Muslims are now identified as these extremist, they shouldn’t be. Just because one group of people believe in terror, that doesn’t mean the rest of the Muslim population believes in it. It makes me sad that people are treated as demons, as if they are unsafe or demons just because they have separate beliefs than the rest of us. They don’t deserve the hate that they are getting just because they’re Muslim. They don’t deserve getting “randomly selected” for a background check every time they go on a flight. They don’t deserve being treated as unsafe, being treated as if they are going to kill you. They are human beings and I hate having to call them different than me because they aren’t.  I’m not Muslim shouldn’t mean I should be treated differently than them. We have already had this discussion 50 years ago people with African Americans, lets quit judging others just because of their beliefs or the way they look, I thought we were past that.

           

           

            

Adam Wall

Wealth

            There are rich people in the world today, very rich people. Bill Gates, Oprah, and Warren Buffet are just some of the famous rich people that have lucrative lives and can get whatever they want. There comes a point though where people own too much money that it hurts the rest of the world.

            This week a meeting will be held in Switzerland where all the richest people in the world meet to discuss the wealth of the world. Rise in inequality is the main point that will be discussed. By next year, the top 1% will own more wealth than the other 99% of the world combined. That is ridiculous when you think about it. There are billions of people in this world in poverty and not having enough money, those people don’t even come close to having a little bit of what the top 1% has wealth-wise. We are entering a new gilded age. The new Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan have risen in the top one percent. Monopolies and big corporations are running the worlds economy and have power over everyone. I feel like it is much worse than people think it is. People need to realize this isn’t middle class American anymore, a lot of workers today are getting lower and lower wages. Most of the wealth in the world is disturbed in just a select few; this is not a good think. Although it seems clique or extreme to say, but these people have the power and money to control the world if they really want too. Something has to be done because the gilded age we live in today only helps a few while the rest of us are struggling for good jobs and lives.

            Not all rich people are evil master minds trying to take over the world. Most of them try to distribute there wealth as much as they can. Bill Gates as an example uses his wealth to donate to charity and create a better world. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is one of the largest and most popular charities in the world and Bill Gates has helped a lot of people with his money. A lot of other follow suit as well, just because you are stacked with money doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

Adam Wall

 

It’s over boys

 

            So I try to avoid the situation in Afghanistan as much as possible, it was pointless and wasted so much money but something probably needed to be done. One thing that everyone seems to agree with is getting out of there as fast as possible because we are losing a lot of reputation and money at alarming rates. This month Obama finally announced the war is over in Afghanistan.  After 13 years of accomplishing nothing, the war is finally over. Well what America did accomplish is the fact that we spent about a trillion dollars and let solders go to Afghanistan to die for what might be nothing.

 

            At least it’s over now right? Obama finally got everyone out of that country and our solders are all home. Nope, I really do wish we were all out.  But United States influence, although on paper is technically over, is far from done in Afghanistan. Troops, recourses and other things will still take years to remove; we will still have a presence in Afghanistan for a long time. Afghanistan is such a difficult situation that seems impossible to solve. I recently read “The Kite Runner” an amazing book, it also gave a lot of insight on Afghanistan before the Taliban and how the Taliban took over. I feel sorry for a lot of Afghan people who are against the Taliban, I feel sorry for our government who is in a tough situation between finally getting out of that country and remaining as far away from the problem as possible. The people who cause these problems are terrible, to everyone, including their own. It’s sad, they might not have the best weapons or brains but yet they still find a way to control parts of a country while the world’s largest army is trying to stop them. A lot of people are suffering in Afghanistan and there is little the United States can do about it so getting as far away from the problem, although unlikely, is probably the best choice for now. So lets not totally hate on our leaders, sure they’ve made some terrible choices but they are in a extremely stressful and difficult situation. Afghanistan and the middle east is probably never going to get better, peace sounds and probably is impossible due to historical and religious hate towards groups of people.  

Adam Wall

Offend

 

 

            This week terror has struck Paris. Two terrorists invaded and killed 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters. Read more about it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting). Although it is only speculation, the motive seems quite clear; Charlie Hebdo is a satire newspaper that pokes fun at politics and a lot of problems around the world, specifically the Islam religion. These Islamic radicals probably attacked Charlie Hebdo due to the fact that the people in charge, specifically cartoonists were making fun of Muhammad by drawing pictures of him and making fun of the Islamic religion as a whole.

 

            Support for Charlie Hebdo is extremely strong and people around the world are standing up for the cause. “Je Suis Charlie” or I am Charlie is the slogan used worldwide to promote freedom of speech and freedom of expression, whether it is through cartoons or some other media form. Cartoonists around the world are creating strips such as these (http://www.thedrum.com/uploads/news/tmp/10557/banksy.jpg) to support Charlie Hebdo.

 

            Let’s talk about satire in the media and in general. Charile Hebdo uses satire through comics and other articles; it is very popular in France. If done right it can be extremely funny. IN American, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report are examples of satire media and are also extremely popular. Satire media is a double edged sword though, most of the time it is extremely funny and a lot of people like it but if you cross the line, which is undefined, there is no going back. You can offend a lot of people, specifically in this case, Muslims. But you can offend everyone, and I am in no way defending the people who did this horrible act of terror. It was a sad day and the criminals are monsters. Also, these people, the cartoonists, the writers, have the right to write what they want and express what they want.  I just can’t get over the fact that you are hurting a lot of other people that don’t deserve it. Sure it’s all a joke and people need to grow some tougher skin, but satire is something you have to be careful with especially if you’re getting extremely offensive.

 

            Cultures are also very different around the world. Different cultures find different things humorous. For the Germans, its nothing, for Americans, its immature jokes, it is different for every culture. What we might thing is offensive, another group thinks its hilarious, comedy is like food, different every where you go. In this case, I don’t think the French find this humor at all offensive while places like Saudi Arabia or anywhere in the middle east for that matter would find something like this such a terrible sin and that they should be punished. Cultures are different and that’s probably why these Muslims radicals attacked. But these people shouldn’t be punished. “I am Charlie”.

           

Adam Wall

Stewart Scott

 

Stewart Scott changed the sports world. He had such a lively expression and attitude towards life. He reflected that attitude on the TV screen when he joined ESPN in 1993. With his bombastic commentating, he made sports more interesting; he boosted and made ESPN what it is today. With his amazing and memorable side comments such as “Booyah” and “As cool as the other side of the pillow”, he brought smiles to his audience. This week, Steward after battling cancer, died at the age of 50, he had 2 daughters which he loved and support of sports fans around the country. If you want to here more about his story with cancer, I highly suggest watching his speech when receiving the Jimmy V award. He talks about his fight with cancer and it is very inspiring. ESPN also did a nice 15 minute tribute to him that I also suggest watching.

           Sports are a very close knit community, especially ESPN. Commentators and newscasters are popular, really popular. They can become common names in the household, if you watch sports enough, you can learn their styles, the way they speak and talk during a show. Stephan A. Smith is extremely passionate and a little bit too much sometimes, Chris Berman has an active voice that can get anyone’s attention, they’re all different. It’s odd, you can learn a lot about the person even when they’re just relaying highlights and facts from the game. As a big sports fan, I never realize how much I hear these people, see their faces, I feel connected to them. I feel like I really know the people talking behind the screen. It hit me that I’m going to miss Stewart, I’m going to miss hearing his enthusiastic voice as he talks about Lebron or golf or something even though I know little to nothing about the guy. I really do respect the guy though; his speech and his philosophy on life really motivate me and make me think of what a great guy he was.