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.