Blog HW #3

On the matter of Trayvon Martin, I know about as much as a regular person may know about the story.  I know that he was walking down the street, late at night, with his hood up.  He also may have been carrying skittles and some iced tea.  Then a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain shot with what now appears to be no cause, but some may claim he did it out of racism.  Outside of those facts, I am not very familiar with the case and investigation.

In my opinion, it sounds like the "neighborhood watch captain" did not have just cause in shooting a seventeen year old kid.  Also, I believe that the police so far, have done a poor job in investigating the matter and not looking into this reaction of "self defense".  In my opinion, if there are no witnesses to say you were defending yourself, or you have wounds to prove that you were indeed defending yourself, then you should be arrested for murdering someone.  In addition, if you do not have any wounds yet Trayvon appeared to be coming in for an attack, than he could have fired a warning shot to show that he had a gun.  I think that this event ties into the essential question of "How are we, as individuals, tied to our own past?" because maybe the "neighborhood watch captain" is racist and was once a member of a racist gang, and still hold animosity towards all groups he considers to be inferior to himself.  Overall, it is a tragic story.

Blog HW #2

Honestly, the book How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents did not teach me anything that I can take away and benefit from in my own life.  The main reason I say this is because that the Garcia girls and I come from different backgrounds and have experienced different events in our lives.  Though, on the other, one thing I did learn is to not be strict with my kids, for fear of rebellion, and also do not do anything that the girls did in the book at any point in my life.  There are not a lot of life lessons evident in this book.  I felt that the book was more meant as a chronicle of their lives, and not to teach any life lessons to the people reading the book.  Not to sound sarcastic, but one thing it did teach me was not to write a book in reverse-chronological order, because to me, it seems pointless to write that way because it would be harder to pinpoint at exactly what point in time that they became "americanized" because at that point there would be no story.  Overall, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents did not teach me anything because I could not relate to anything that occured in the book.  It is difficult to take away anything from this book because I found it unrelatable.  Though, if it did teach me anything at all, it was that I should not be strict with my kids in the future, because they will rebel, and that is something that I really do not want to deal with.

Blog HW #1

To be honest, I do not have to strong of an opinion on most things.  There is one subject I do have an strong opinion on. It is the candidates for the Republican nominee for president for the election coming in late November.  I have not really paid attention to elections before, but this year I figure I mine as well because I will be able to vote in the election.  As I listened more and more to what these guys had to say, I figured out that this is probably the most inept crop of candidates running for the Republican nomination we have ever had run for not only the nomination, but for the president of the United States.  In my eyes, Obama might not be the favorite for some people, but he is probably the only choice against guys like Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum.  All the candidates clearly have a lack of understanding when it comes to other cultures especially the Hispanic community.  Link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristian-ramos/in-puerto-rico-romney and_b_1352836.html?ref=elections-2012.   Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/puerto-rico-votes-gop-candidates-battle-elsewhere-093639777.html.  This is not the only big mistake these candidates have made, these candidates have made many mistakes, and their image has significantly hurt by it.  Here is a list of their top 5.  Link :  http://tonyfischer.hubpages.com/hub/Top-5-Mistakes-Made-Republican-Party-Candidates-for-2012-Campaign.  Overall, these are the worst I have seen in my short lifetime.

Blog Post #7

One piece of art that I have seen recently was the movie, "Shutter Island".  The plot of this movie is that it follows the investigation of a missing person in a mental asylum, on Shutter Island.  This island is off the coast of Boston.  Teddy Daniels is the main detective, and he is with his newly assigned partner, Chuck Aule. Both of these characters are federal marshals.  Once they arrive, Teddy notices something suspicious about the way the guards have looked at him, and treated both him and his partner.  It culminates with he and Aule having to give up their guns, but Daniels shakes it off as nothing.  As he continues to search the island, Teddy fines clues that may be leading to a cover up regarding the patient, and becomes suspicious of the head doctor on the island, and starts to consider him as the prime suspect.  During the movie though, through all of the investigating, Teddy continually suffers through migraines, and night terrors that relates to the death of his first wife, Dolores.  In one of the rooms, he finds a note that says "67" on it.  He comes to realize that there is one less patient then the head doctor originally had told him.  Then one night as he is searching through the woods, his partner Chuck Aule, goes missing.  This leads him to a light house where the patients have continually told him that they are killing other patients up there.  Once up there, an entire mystery unravels that changes the course of the story and changes the viewers perception of the film.  Overall, I enjoyed this movie, mainly because it keeps you guessing the entire time, and the ending does a complete 180 of the plot.  I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys mystery and suspense because that is what this movie is about.  People who enjoy this type of genre will enjoy "Shutter Island".  Here is a link to the trailer:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/

Blog Post #6

1. A famous person whom I cannot stand is anyone who stars on the MTV reality show "Jersey Shore", because they are famous for doing anything that a single person in their mid to late 20's would do.  All they ever do on that show is drink until they throw up, and then complain about it, and then drink again, and the cycle repeats.  There is nothing more to the show, except for the fact that they fight constantly over things that do not really matter to their everyday life, and also they constantly complain about working in a boardwalk shop making t-shirts, even though three out of the six housemates only go at a time, and none of them work on consecutive days.  Even though I cannot stand them, I cannot entirely blame them for doing what they do on a daily basis.  If I were getting paid six to seven figures for doing what they do, plus endorsements, it would not be a problem for me.

2.  The best person at their profession of all time is Richard Branson, because he made hundreds of millions of dollars by essentially buying up the Virgin Companies and making them his own company.  Now, he owns Virgin Airlines, and is trying to take ordinary people past the Earth's atmosphere, so they can feel what it is like to be in space like the astronauts.  His airline is the one airline that is most well known for taking people into "space".  He also owns his own cell phone company in Virgin Mobile,  which is competing with many other high end cell phone companies for the top brand.  It is not as impressive as his airline company, but still impressive nonetheless.  To top it off, he owns his own island somewhere in the Virgin Islands, which is incredibly impressive considering that he owns his own island from the money he makes.  Overall, I think that Richard Branson is the best business man in the world because the constant success he has had with his companies.

3.  I think that the biggest problem in America today is the fact that the most important people in the country cannot seem to agree what to do on any single issue.  Politicians and government officials alike seemingly refuse to agree on any issue, mainly based on the fact that they come from either different backgrounds or different political parties.  It is also annoying to me that, many people argue different policies mainly because it would be beneficial for themselves, but would not be beneficial to the surrounding community at large.   Many politicians have become greedy, and corrupt with their power and are now doing things based on what makes them richer, and not what helps the people.  That, coupled with the ridiculous arguments mainly based on party, and not on true opinion is the real problem with America.   If the most important people in America can begin to make joint decisions with each other, than maybe we can make some progress.

Blog Post #5

1.  One character who has had their identity shaped by events in the story is Sofia.  It started when she met Otto in Colombia.  They could not be together because Otto lived in Germany, and Sofia lived in New York City.  Then Carlos, the father, found the love letters from Otto, and had a big fight with Sofia over them.  Sofia in a fit of rage, packed up her things and went to Germany, where she managed to get Otto to marry her.  After that, they had a daughter and moved to Michigan, where they had another kid, a boy, named Carlos.  The grandfather seemed happy with the son,  but after they played the kissing game, the father got and left after he figured out that Sofia was the one who gave him that open mouthed kiss in the ear.  These events shaped her identity because she was once the baby of the family, and now is considered by the father as the rebellious one, and now has a strained relationship with her father because her identity has changed so much.

2.  I think one thing that is positive in the story was when Yolanda returned to the Dominican Republic, in the beginning of the novel.  She was longing to return to the Dominican Republic because she felt disconnected from her roots, and wanted to revisit them after years in the United States away from her extended family.  It is positive because, even though it was not necessarily a good trip, she did revisit her roots and reconnect with her extended family again, and overall that was positive for Yolanda.  I would label this positivity as person to person, and person to self.  It is person to person because it was positive that she was able to see her family again and be with people she was once close with.  It is also person to self, because she was able to realize her old culture because she felt disconnected from the Dominican Republic, and for herself, she wanted to go back and be apart of her original culture and be with people that are like her.

3.  I feel that the Jeremy Lin is impressive for two reasons.  One is that he overcame many obstacles, and second is that he is the only asian-american player in the NBA right now.   I feel that the media attention he is getting is well-deserved, but, for me personally, it is getting to the point that every time that I turn on the television, there is a story about Jeremy Lin, and I am getting tired of the repeated stories that are continually being published about him.  I think that it is a great story, but I think the media has overblown it because he is an asian-american, and that nationality/ethnicity is very uncommon in the National Basketball Association.  Overall, it is not that I am not impressed with or the obstalces he has had to overcome on his way to, what is now, super-stardom, it is just that I feel that the attention he is getting overblown to ridiculous proportions because he is asian-american, which again, is very uncommon in the NBA.

M.I.A. and the Impossibility of selling out

I think that the term "selling out" is overused, because when it boils down to the bare facts, most celebrities, musicians, actors, etc., eventually sell out. Sure, a few people are passionate about a philanthropic cause, and that is alright, but most of the famous people sell out. They do not stay true to what they originally wanted to accomplish in life. M.I.A. is prime example because she was out of the spotlight for about three years, and then came back with Madonna and Nicki Minaj with a new song, and scandalously got her way back into the spotlight by "flipping the bird"on live television, during the most watched program of the year. I feel that that is selling out. The article is a mix of fact, and opinion because the author uses examples from past instances to present his case on why this could be considered a "sell out". Overall the author presented his case well, and was not bias in referring to anything outside the realm of the article.

Wiesel objects to Romney about posthumous proxy baptism

This article is mostly fact with possibly some opinion mixed in. The aspect about this article that interests me is that a former Nobel Peace Prize winner is objecting to who could be the next president of the United States. The issue of posthumous proxy baptism has been going on since 1995 and many have had problems with the ritualistic ceremony. I agree with the fact that mormons should not be performing ritualistic ceremonies on the dead. Especially those who are not even of there religion; to me, it is offensive, and inconsiderate to think that the family as a whole would want them to perform a ceremony, based on the grounds that someone in their family feels it is necessary to do the ceremony. One concept that this article makes me think about is the fact that people take religion extremely seriously. I understand if people need to believe that there is a higher power above them, and I am fine with that, and many other aspects of religion, the problem I have is that people feel that their own is superior to another, and to me, it causes many rifts and problems between not only families, but communities.

Person of Interest: Jeremy Lin

The final article is about a basketball star in the making.  An Asian-American named Jeremy Lin.  He has taken the not only the basketball world, but the entire world by storm, based on his statistics and his nationality.  I agree with the fact Jeremy Lin has made the Knicks not only the hottest ticket in town, but in teh basketball world.  This article is mostly fact related, but more based on the statistics of the situation.  Also, there is some opinion, mostly about how great he is, and how he will revolutize the hapless New York Knicks.  I think that this article is capturing the success of a "star in the making", and that is what most writers are doing at the moment because he is attracting that type of attention.  Overall, I would recommend this article to anyone who has an interest in sports, let alone basketball.  Jeremy Lin has captured the hearts and minds of many around the world, and maybe not just for the week, but for the season.