Davy Jones Locker

Pastor Wright’s teachings have had an affect on Obama’s campaign, despite their shortsightednes. With Pastor Wright and Black Evnagelists on one side and the rest of the Democratic Party on the other, Obama is in a difficult position. A Catch-22 persay, he can either completely drop Pastor Wright and with it many of his strongest supporters or lose the youthful and new voters that have shown him so much respect.  Obama has only one real option, compromise, this means that he would have to kick Pastor Wright off of his staff and appoint a new spiritual leader (simply because the rest of the nation has nor respect for Pastor Wright anymore) but still attend masses at his same church, however, only attending those without Pastor Wright’s sermons.  The truly disturboing aspect of this entire event is how serious the politicians and media are taking it. I mean, ya, the Pastor stated a few disrespectful stereotypes, bu nothing that we havn’t heard before or that was actually harmful, whereas what we should be focusing on, the issues is what will truly make a difference in the world, they are what will define whether the United States pulls out of Iraq, if we go to war with Iran and how our economy is run.  None of Pastor Wright’s comments are going to affect the country in the long run. People, lets face it, the media has taken this scandal way too far and forgfotten their true purpose, tell us (the voters) what our candidates are about and then leave the decision making to us, as a democracy was meant to do.

A good belief statement involves making the use of two components, clarity and focus.  One problem with many belief statements is that they’re cloudy, and vague, forcing you to look beyond the obvious in order to find the real meaning of a belief statement. Second, a belief statement must be focused, allowing branches of the belief to revolve around one central belief, which defines your world and how your part within it.

10,000 words vs. 10 words is a strange way to view things, 10 words despite being shorter and containing less information has its uses.  10 words involve a direct approach, that is easy to remember, simple and concise, getting to the point and being more powerful.  Think about it like this, if there are only 10 words, then these words are more rare, thus, more powerful. Compare this to 10,000 words, where each single word is almost meaningless and unthoughtful, simply because there are so many words and the words are common, therefore lacking the power of ten words.

It all depends on how you look at it.  In both sports and spelling bees, practice and skill is required.  However, the skills needed are quite separate, spelling requires a good memory and understanding of language, on the other hand, sports require fitness and concentration.  Thinking at it from a future perspective, sports aid you more than a spelling bee, although spelling is useful, knowing how to spell words that are rarely used is basically a useless skill.  Whereas being an athlete helps keeping you fit, spelling can help your mind concentrate but otherwise doesn’t really aid you.

Darfur has been a major area of conflict for the last few years, however, unlike many other humanitiarian disasters, such as tsunamis or other natural disasters.  The difference is the key to the conflict, Darfur wasn’t caused by freak storms or accidents, but by a deliberate and decisive human hand.  At the heart of the conflict lies two main groups, African Rebels and citizens, and the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed.  Responding to African rebellions, the Islamic based Sudanese government clumsily attacked and massacred entire villages.  These cases of genocide were looked down upon by the rest of the world, to counter this, Sudan enlisted the Janjaweed, a band of terrorists on horseback.  In order to for the Janjaweed to be effective, the Sudanese military began to recruit any horse owning Muslim man, arming them and sending them into villages. After a few more attacks, a strategy was perfected to massacre African villages, the Janjaweed would ride in, slaughtering villagers and pushing them outside of the village boundaries.  When citizens try to escape, the Sudanese military moves in, ambushing the survivors of the Janjaweed attack.  Once the majority of the inhabitants of a village are killed, the Janjaweed rides out, leaving the buildings they left behind burning and broken.  This conflict has killed thousands of people and destroyed hundreds of villages, all brought on by different aspects of rascism, nationalism and a violent ruler.  Leading to one of the worst humanitarian events in history, without involving a single natural disaster or accident.

 The problem is that the United Nations won’t do anything to stop the violence.  In the last few years, terrorism has risen to a new level, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, a coalition of international forces has been searching for Osama Bin Laden, a major leader of Al Qaeda and the one thought responsible for the 9/11 hijackings and for other attacks around the globe.  In years previously, Sudan protected Osama Bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda, providing the Sudanese government with information on much of Al Qaeda’s whearabouts and network.  In order to hold back UN forces from invading the country, Sudan has been releasing information concerning Al Qaeda’s whearabouts, their weapons and their plans one piece at a time.  The United States and other nations are afraid that if they invade Sudan, they will lose this source of information and terrorism will continue to get worse.  The fear of terrorism has let genocide in Darfur lead to a humanitarian tragedy. Â

From my point of view, you only have two options when it comes to CSAP and finding your “Happy Place” either answer the question /prompt correctly and not in your happy place or to tweak and write about something completely different.  Although answering the prompt is what gives you a good grade, your writing (unless it is a prompt that you like) will not be as good if you don’t write about something that you sort of like.  For example, if you have to write about something to improve the school day, don’t write a persuasive letter, make it into a story, some of your CSAP grades might go down, but, but who cares, it is just CSAP.

Some changes are good but at some point it becomes too much. At what point does technology become too overbearing and too much of a part of our lives? It becomes too much when humans do less than their computer counterparts. Humans need to keep control of what they are doing and know how to survive without technology. So at any point if all cell phones, computers, game systems, music players, lights, etc. were to disappear we should still be able to survive. Technology should be a luxury not a necessity. Constant luxuries only spoil society in a way that damages balance between humanity and technology causing humans to become more useless. The only aspect in which technology remains a human endeavor is military, and some others, because war, as an example, in itself is a human aspect. So any tech that helps humans accentuate the aspects that make humans humans is a positive change. A negative change would be one that takes away a right/skill/use of humans.

A paragraph or so later, the author mentions how teachers will be very influential and important people in your lives, this is yet another statement that I doubt.  Most students, including myself (I do realize that this is a stereotype) are not big fans of school.  We may have many different reasons, but we all have certain things about it that we dislike.  My personal bane is simply the way education is handled in itself.  How teachers act, how they treat students, how we are punished and what we are learning about.  I have some teachers that I like, but they are hardly influential, they teach I learn and that is the only relationship I have with them.  Some teachers want you to remember them, to help you, to become “friends,” this is not a possibility.  Teachers are too distant from us to become our friends, some may argue that you can close this distance and it might be possible for some, nut for the rest of us it is not.  This distance is caused by many different factors.  First and foremost is the fact that we joke about our teachers.  No matter who you are, or where you live, you’re going to joke about your teachers.  It is a fact of student life, it is our daily entertainment, how we relax in between periods.  Becoming friends with someone that you laugh at every second they’re not there is just short of impossible.  An even greater barrier to overcome is that of power.  Teachers may be our elders, but they are not our betters, and yet that is the position that our educational platform has put us in.  Teachers have more power over you than you have over them, if you do something wrong, if you fight back against something unfair you end up in the principal’s office.  With your friends there is no such balance of power, no one is really better than everyone else or can order them to do something, it is equality that is able to create friendship.  How could you be friends with anyone that has power over you?  It simply does not make sense.  Therefore if teachers can never become close or revered because of the power that they hold over you, as if an axe was constantly hanging over your head whenever you talk to them, how can they be of an influence?