Land of the Free?

       

      Recently, there have been plenty of headlines about young children in Islamic waging war for their religion. In extreme cases, we hear about children as suicide bombers or foot soldiers. Palestinian children, especially, are taught from a young age that it is honorable to die in the war against the Israel. We hear these stories, most of them occuring halfway around the world, but we never consider that some people might be teaching their children these values in the United States.

        Click here to watch a documentary about an extreme southern religious camp, in which children are taught that it is "their time" to wage a war against the "new" America, and turn it back into a nation ruled through the teachings of the Bible. While this camp may not be as extreme as the ones in the Middle East, it still carries a one-sided message that only one religion is truly right. Is this against American values? Furthermore, is it wrong for a parent to teach the righteousness of only one religion, even though in America we are supposed to be able to chose whatever religion we want?

       This got me thinking even more about Doc 'Oc's blog post. He asks if it is the role of schools to teach "democratic values". Of course, it is against the constitution for a school to teach children one specific political spectrum, but isn't it also against the constitution to teach children to advocate for communism or fascism, two political doctrines that would contradict the constitution? Where do we draw the line between a child's right to learn impartial information and our duty as a country to continue our government as we know it?

Desperate Housewives in Saudi Arabia

Wikileaks has done it again! Wikileaks has released many damaging documents pertaining to war and foreign policy, but this time the document that I am most interested is about American television. An article you can read by clicking here says that Wikileaks recently leaked a document stating that America is using its television to persuade Saudi teenagers against waging Jihad against secular countries. Read this excerpt below:

"Reruns of shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Friends" run uncensored on television in Saudi Arabia, giving the average Saudi a glimpse into American life and culture. And like many an American couch potato, these Saudi tube enthusiasts are fascinated by what they're seeing."

When I read this I began thinking about our civil liberties discussions in class. It is obviously not against the constitution to subliminally message teenagers from another country into sympathizing with America, but is it ethical or a violation of civil liberties? When reading this I was reminded of anti-communist TV and propaganda during the Cold War. I thought about how these situations were different, and came to the conclusion that the main difference was that one situation involves American citizens and one does not. Does our nationality as Americans influence us in our discussions of civil liberties?

Honorable or not?

Click here to read the article.

Recently, ETHS has made a move to tackle diversity issues at their school. Evanston is an extremely diverse community with mixed races and income levels, but at ETHS certain classes have an unequal representation of black or white kids. ETHS reported that in honors classes, a class of 28 students will have 3 students who are not white. This leaves black and hispanic students, who are more likely at a lower socio-economic status, in lower-level classes without the guidance of many of the more experienced teachers. Evanston has responded by proposing to eliminate Honors classes all together, but continue offering AP levels.

ETHS hopes that by doing this, white students and black students will end up in the same intermediate-level classes and they will end up with more racially diverse and overall smarter classes because the former honor students will continue to excel. Unfortunately, I believe that if this plan is in fact followed through, it will be counter-productive for both white and black students. The students in the all white honors classes will have to deal with less focused and slower-paced classes which will in turn hurt their test scores and learning. The students in the lower level classes will no longer have an attainable goal to work their way up to AP classes. Instead they will either have to stay in a class too easy for them or make the huge and sometimes unattainable jump to an AP class.

Furthermore, if Honors classes are eliminated, many parents of honor students will put their children into private school. If ETHS loses many of their high-level students, their test scores and credibility as a school will fall dramatically. I think that the racial divide between Honors and intermediate courses is a huge problem, but the way ETHS is going about solving it is all wrong.

Black Friday

The name "Black Friday" originated because, before the age of computerized profit records, red ink symbolized a drop in profits for a store while black ink symbolized increased revenue. The day after Thanksgiving has traditionally been one of the most profitable for retailers, seeing as it marks the beginning of holiday season spending. It seems logical for retailers to have a day of extreme sales to jump start people's Christmas shopping, but a question that has always perplexed me is: Why does it have to be so close to Thanksgiving?


Thanksgiving is one of the only widely celebrated American holidays that is not based on giving gifts. Thanksgiving is the day to appreciate what you have and to distance yourself from materialism, in fact it would seem inappropriate to give a gift for Thanksgiving. So I wonder, who came up with the idea to cut this important holiday short so people can wake up at 3am and trample each other to buy shiny new electronics? It seems that people are using it justify their overwhelming spending by saying "Well, I gave thanks yesterday, now that I got that over with I can go shopping!"

Arry Pottah

The new Harry Potter movie gives an interesting, and very literal opposite perspective from The Crucible. In the movie, the roles are reversed and instead of a witch hunt, the Ministry of Magic is holding a worldwide "muggle hunt". By the middle of the movie, the world ends up desolate and ominous, a place where evil runs free and only the most sinister people hold power.

Is Harry Potter actually attempting to subliminally message the next generation into being more accepting of people who aren't like them? The target audience for Harry Potter has skewed older since the actors have grown along with their viewers, but younger children still love the drama and fantasy of the world of Harry Potter. By portraying the world where only one "race" is left as a terrifying and ugly place, JK Rowling is sending a good message to kids who watch and read her books.

Erasing the Past

Recently I have been reading a historical fiction book (besides the crucible) about a young Jewish girl in France in WWII. In the book, she describes a horrible 5 days in which she and her family are kept in the Velodrome in Paris without food or water, where thousands died and committed suicide, then shipped off to concentration camps. This struck a chord with me and I decided to investigate. I found out that this was, in fact true. More than 12,000 people were taken from their homes by the Parisian police and held in the heart of Paris. All of them eventually died either in concentration camps or in the building. 12,000 people being killed is a HUGE event, so it perplexed me. Why didn't I already know about this? I continued my research and found that there was a stunning lack of information about the roundup, and even less when I switched to Google France. When the event was mentioned, many websites cited the Nazi Regime as the main perpetrator, not the French Police.

What is it about some cultures or countries that makes them less likely to give out information about their past? France is choosing to ignore the situation instead of spreading the story in order to make sure nobody makes the same mistakes again. The book I was reading mentioned that very few french people were taught about this tragedy in schools, (although I have to question it's accuracy since it is fiction). Do you think that if this horrible event had happened in the United States it would have the same reaction?

Running and Puritans?

Almost every day when I get home from school, I drop off my school bag, grab my running shoes, and set out for my daily run. Lately, I have chosen to run from my house north on the Greenbay trail. Today, I unintentionally ventured further than normal and found myself on the trail looking at New Trier from above. Instead of during the day, when just the sight of school makes me think about tests, homework, and stressful projects, New Trier looked picturesque, calm, and it actually looked like a place I would want to be 5 days a week. Looking down at it, I felt as though I was looking at school from a newer and more powerful perspective.

Could this be similar to what the Puritans were looking for when coming from England to the New World?  Every day in England, they struggled with the anxiety of the religion they loved so much being corrupted by the Anglican church. They decided to make the long voyage into territory that they had never explored before, but in the end their difficult journey payed off. They were now allowed to look upon their religion with fresh eyes and re-evaluate it, making it something they could live with and enjoy.

Amontillado!

     Today in class, we read an interesting and completely creepy story by Edgar Allen Poe, in which a man kills a former friend for doing him a "thousand injuries". We speculated as to why the narrator wanted so badly to kill Fortunato. Is it possible that the narrator wanted to kill Fortunato for religious reasons?

The first clue I found as to why this might be true is the organization that Fortunato was a part of. Fortunato mentions a secret club of "masons" that the narrator does not understand. He is referring to a secret society of intellectuals, who, as was mentioned in class, were hated by the church. Maybe the narrator is a member of the church who dislikes the Freemason's beliefs about god and is so angered that the only revenge he sees fit is to kill Fortunato.

Another sign might be that in the ending paragraph when the narrator is leaving Fortunato, Fortunato screams, "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR," and the narrator screams back, "Yes, for the love of God!". In the first quote, Fortunato was probably just making an exclamation because he was so exasperated at being shut off behind a wall. By screaming back a confirmation, however, Montresor's words connote a different meaning. He is obviously not in a compromising position and has not need for frantic cries for help, so maybe Montresor's reference to god is a legitimate one, meaning that he was killing Fortunato "for the love of god".

Finally, the very last sentence of the story, Montresor says, "For half of [a] century no mortal has disturbed [the bones]." It seems in the story that Montresor HAS disturbed these same bones, saying that he had dealt with them earlier. The specific use of the word "mortal" also connotes that if not a mortal, a different being has touched them. Maybe Montresor thinks himself an immortal being, sent by god?

The Meta-Post

Hey Mr. Bolos and Doc OC, please review my most recent blog: "Unfair Fighting"

While rereading my first three blogs, all I can think about is how clunky, awkward, and uncomfortable in general they feel. I was striving to put out interesting and intruiging ideas, but I was trying to hard and my blogs fell flat. The real change came when we started our discussion on race. My blog "What Would You Do" is a good example of the turning point in my blog writing when I stopped being concerned about making my ideas more cutting edge and started concerning myself with what was important and interesting in my life. For the first time I did not fight for information, scouring my yahoo homepage and google news for something that related to our discussions. The blog came easily for me, because I had already seen the TV episode I referred to and connected it automatically in class when we were talking about race. After that I made a rule for myself. I am no longer allowing myself to consciously look for blog topics. If I am having trouble finding a topic, I am just going to have to be more observant in real life.


A huge theme in my blogging is equality. Equality is one of the most important concepts of all time, and it is the very base of the United States government. That is why, when talking about inequalities in my blogs, my writing becomes more passionate and even could be described as a little preachy. In my blog "A Discussion on Race," I wrote about how Americans interact with someone of another race differently than the would with someone of their own race. I wrote, "By doing this we are digging a deep hole for ourselves. We are creating an atmosphere where we can't even talk about race. If we don't feel comfortable talking about racial differences how are we ever going to get around to solving them?" I think the blog posts like this one, where I can identify a societal problem and offer a suggestion on a way to improve the situation, are the most meaningful blog posts. The reason why we are doing these blogs is not to simply comment on news stories, blogging is meant to foster ideas and questions and, like in this blog post, eventually come up with some suggestions. 

When discussing the issue of race, I am on what one might call the more well-off side. I am not black nor am I any kind of minority, therefore I can not offer any perspective on what it's like to be in a racial minority in America, and I am stuck listening and making educated guesses on the thoughts of African-Americans in our discussions. On the other hand, there are some topics I am more qualified to give more personal opinions on, for example the discussion on the differences between women and men in America. For this reason, I feel that the disussion on gender differences I started in my post "Unfair Fighting?" is worth revisiting, and I would like to continue it in future weeks. 

Unfair fighting?

I think many of you, whether you will admit it or not, remember an episode of Jersey Shore last season when a man at a bar punched a female character, Snooki, in the face. It was a huge controversy, so huge that MTV was not allowed to show footage of the actual punch on the show because it was far too obscene and violent for their viewers. (although viewers of Jersey shore already see heavy drinking, partial nudity, and extreme swearing on every episode of the show). It's interesting how showing that scene on TV was strictly forbidden seeing as my little sister was watching the episode of the Nickelodeon show iCarly in which a female character slapped a male character, and the audience laughed. So we are allowed to laugh when girls hit guys but we can't even see it when guys hit girls?

Today in class we talked a lot about our our own fight stories, and several people brought up that there are differences in the way people act in fights depending on what genders are involved. As seen in Jersey Shore, it is considered a huge disaster for any guy to hit a girl. Recently I was talking with a guy friend who said he would not hit a girl, no matter what. Even if the girl was the same size and strength as he is, he would think of the situation differently if he was in a fight with a girl. He said this was based on the fact that he didn't want to be seen as an "abuser," something that would undoubtedly happen if he hit her, even if she hit him first or he was acting in self defense. Not saying that I want to get hit, but if his statement was based soley on principle and not the fact that girls, in general, are smaller and can bench less weight than guys, then it seems to be a huge double standard. And even if they were based on the facts, it is not seen as morally wrong when a guy hits a smaller guy, or when a girl hits a smaller girl. What are your thoughts?

Peace Prize Stirring Up Conflict

This week in class we've been talking about a slave's nonexistant right to speak up against his or her master. It might be a stretch to connect these two topics, but in China speaking up against the government is also a reason for punishment. Liu Xiaobo was imprisoned on a ten year sentence in China for attempting to spread democratic ideals. It was also announced last week that he won the Nobel Peace prize for this year. 


To put it lightly, the Chinese government is furious. They have made public statements saying that this may ruin their relationship with Norway (the country where the Nobel Prizes are based). Was it right to reward a prisoner, even though he was imprisoned for something that is not against the law in Norway? Should Chinese laws have been honored in this situation?The country already has firm advocates of reform to their communist system, and the prize will undoubtedly give Xiaobo many more supporters, possibly posing a threat to the Chinese Communist government. Is Norway meddling in China's business, or was it their right to give the Nobel Prize Xiaobo?

Click here to read the full article. 

Less sleep...but better test scores?

Recently, I was reading an article about how some schools have decided to start later this year, because studies show that a teenager's internal clock runs later than an adult's, meaning teenagers fall asleep later and wake up later naturally. Click here to read the article. According to the article, early results show happier, more productive students and a lower dropout rate in schools that have begun to start later in the morning. One school even advised teachers to lighten up on the homework load to give its' students more time to sleep.

This week in class we talked about how lack of sleep is becoming a badge of honor for New Trier students. With all their tests, projects, and quizzes students are often forced to stay up until unreasonably late hours to finish all their assignments. In class we also talked about how New Trier has some of the highest test scores in the state. How do these two statements relate? It seems like the constant pressure and lack of sleep that is typical at New Trier is actually raising our test scores. Do you think New Trier would benifit from a later start and less homework? Or do you think that our method is obviously working and New Trier should not change if it wants to stay on top?

Race In Running

When we talked about race and running in class today, it held a particular significance to me because I am on the track and cross country team.I had heard the "fast twitch theory" before, the idea that African-Americans are faster sprinters because their fast-twitch muscles are more proficient than white peoples'. It was interesting to me that there seems to be no actual biological evidence that African-Americans are faster runners. My question now is...so why are they?

At the state track meet in May I saw a definite distinction between the skin color of people in the short distance events to people in the longer distance events. In fact, 5/5 of the top finishers in the 200m were black, as opposed to the 5/5 top finishers in the 3200m who where white. Is it possible that the expectations on the athletes play a part in what event they choose to run? Is an African-American girl who shows talent in both elite distance running and elite sprinting more likely to chose sprinting that's where she feels she belongs based on previous sprinting feats by black women? If this is true than that could mean that African-Americans aren't neccessarily better at sprinting, there are just more of them that focus on sprinting instead of disntence because they expect to be better at it and it is "cooler" for that "race" (race is loosely defined after our in-class discussion).

The Discussion on Race

In class this week we've been having a discussion on whether or not slavery is the cause of differences between African-Americans and white Americans today. The discussion was introduced through a quote from Obama's speech on race, where he said that slavery was the original sin and the remnants are still with us today. I totally agree that slavery is the original reason why African-Americans and whites didn't start out in the same place economically. Slavery stunted their growth as a whole and prevented them from progressing. With that being said, I also think there are other factors contributing to the differences.


In our society today we have an obsession with not being racist. Especially in the younger generation, mentioning any difference between races is often taboo. Even though there are clear differences in statistics between African-Americans and whites (for example, African-Americans have a lower life expectancy), mentioning even factual evidence could lead to an accusation of stereotyping. During our discussion in AS, I realized that it was the first in-class discussion I'd had at school where we could openly talk about race. This preoccupation with not being racist actually leads to a heightened sense of race because a person has to focus so much on not noticing differences that they in turn notice them more. This leads to a kind of "us and them" mentality, and it changes the way people react with each other. Someone may be more cautious or say something differently when speaking to someone of a different race.
By doing this we are digging a deep hole for ourselves. We are creating an atmosphere where we can't even talk about race. If we don't feel comfortable talking about racial differences how are we ever going to get around to solving them? I thought our conversation in AS was a step in the right direction, people were sharing their ideas freely with out worrying about judgement, and it made for a very interesting discussion.

My mornings must be really busy...

Today in class we discussed sidewalks and how they are linear and angular as apposed to a garden's winding path. We discussed how the latter encourages pondering and discovering the world around us while sidewalks are only for getting someplace. I noticed something about my daily routine while having that discussion. My backyard has a path leading from my back door to my garage. The path is winding, not straight. It is meant to look pretty and one could argue that it is also meant to encourage a more relaxed pace when walking on it. Even so, every morning I take the most direct route possible, walking in a perfectly straight line and ignoring the path (see screenshot below). It might only take a few extra seconds to avoid getting my shoes dirty from mud and take the path but instead I make a beeline for the door. Since we we're talking about how angles in a society and the way they think about roads and city structure say something about them, what does my way of getting to the garage from my house say about me? 

9/11: A Bigger Perspective

As I write this blog I still have tears in my eyes. A half-hour ago I took Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor's advice and went on StoryCorps to hear some stories. I chose to hear the 9/11 stories first, seeing as it's so relevent with what we've been discussing in class. It took only one story to break me down, and by the end of the second I was sobbing an embarassing amount. I ended up listening to every single 9/11 account. The news coverage we watched in class of 9/11 was very moving, but I find the personal stories of the regular people who found themselves in a tragic situation a lot more compelling. It's one thing to watch the towers fall and think "this is horrible there must be so many people in there," but it is completely different to hear the stories of those effected. To hear about a 10-year-old boy's favorite things to do with his grandpa before he died in 9/11, to hear about what it was like to have your husband on the 100th floor and have a final conversation on the phone when you knew he was going to die, to hear real, normal, completely average people just like us sob. I can feel their pain. To me, hearing someone's story and feeling their pain along with them gives the event more gravity, makes it more devastating, and more important than watching it happen from the outside.

What would you do?

        A few days ago in class we talked about the Harvard English professor who got arrested for entering his own house because African-American racial stereotypes prompted a neighbor to call the police. Recently I began watching an episode of the ABC show "What would you do?" where producers set up staged scenarios to see how everyday people react to situations. In one episode, they set up an actor playing a bike thief attempting to steal a bike in the middle of a busy park. I was happy to see that people were for the most part reacting, although not every person that walked by called out the thief. The white actor playing a bike thief was then replaced by an African-American actor. The police was called several times and people were far less hesitant to call out the actor. Their reactions were immediate and powerful. When asked about their super-speedy reactions in the interview after they'd been told it was just a set-up, every single reactor said that their quick reaction to the thief had "nothing to do with race."
          My problem with this is that it is obvious that none of these people are telling the truth. Racial steryotypes still exist in America. If there were no racial biases, the white actor and the African-American actor would have elicited the same reactions from onlookers. Ignoring the fact that racial steryotypes exist does not help solve the problem. This experiment was meant to demonstrate that Americans subconciously have a different reaction with different races. If the reactors would have admitted afterwords that race could have played a part in their reaction, then we could move on to the next step of correcting America's misrepresentation of African-Americans.

If you have never seen the show, click here to see the episode mentioned, and I encourage you to look at the other episodes.

Honoring the constitution or saving lives?

In class we've been talking about the use of media to make assumptions and conclusions. Recently there has been a lot of controversy over a Florida church's plan to burn a copy of the Quran this September 11th. Officials have strongly warned against doing this, saying that Islamic extremists throughout the world will use images to provoke more anti-american anger than ever before, even though the greater majority of Americans would never agree with the burning of a religious text. A hatred of America could lead to more terrorist attacks against the US, as well as endager the lives of Americans overseas. My question is: Do you think the government should take some sort of action to protect American lives, or honor the church's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom to protest. What do you think the appropriate action is, if any? I am very conflicted over this issue. Even though I don't agree with the church's statement, in order to protect our constitution's validity we need to allow the burning of the Quran, but the statement is politically incorrect anyway, blaming an entire religion for the tragedy of September 11th.

Standardized tests: Are they truly unfair?

I'm the beginning of my junior year and this seems like a fitting time to start thinking about all the tests I'm going to have to take this year. The PSATS, SATs SAT2s, and ACTs are all on my schedule, and I've recently begun devoting 2.5 hours of my sunday mornings to a test prep course. In the past few years there has been a lot of controversy on whether or not standardized tests are an effective way to judge students. Click here for an article on the unfairness of standardized testing. My problem is that there are some high school students that would rather have a heavy emphasis placed on tests rather than grades or extracurricular activites. Don't get me wrong, I do plenty of things after school and my grades are alright, but my strongest area is my standardized test scores. Is arguing that standardized tests are unfairly catagorizing students based on a number punishing the kids who are great standardized test takers?

The idea of judging someone based on a single area of information also relates to what we've been talking about in class, the book "Into the Wild." I think a lot of my classmates got the impression that Chris McCandless was a really cool guy, and explorer, a brave adventurer. Is it possible that we are only making judgements on select information that Krakauer wanted us to see? We know from the book that John Krakauer saw a lot of himself in Chris McCandless. Maybe Krakauer was purposely giving us a good impression of McCandless to in a way protect his own reputation. Is it possible that with more research from unbiased sources we would have different opinions?

How important is privacy for the sake of research?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100831/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_malia_and_sasha

I came accross this article on my yahoo homepage and, since I'm always curious about the Sasha and Malia Obama and their seemingly charmed lives, I clicked on the link and read the article. It was interesting to find that the author of the article seemed to have a very strong opinion that too much information was being divulged about the Obama girls and their privacy should be firmly protected. I thought that most of the information given about the girls wasn't embarassing or unflattering at all. The girls have separate rooms, play the piano, and love tennis. Nothing too controversial. But the author used harsh words (ex. "The first lady is also guilty of breaching the privacy wall she and her husband put up around the girls") Do you think Sasha and Malia should be protected from all media coverage and have complete privacy even though they are so much in the limelight? 

This also got me thinking...are we breaching Mr. Bolos' privacy by continuing our extensive research on his life? I know one person in my group even went as far as contacting one of his family members. We are all guilty of facebook stalking, googling, and prying our way into Mr. Bolos' life. When is it time to stop looking for information? If you found something extremely interesting and important but also very embarassing or personal would you still use it in your paper about Mr. Bolos?