Fashionable Marines

Based on the article “For Marines in Camouflage, No Errands”, written for the New York Times on Sunday, October 21, 2007.

Due to the new dress code set into play by the marines, personnel, while off base, are no longer allowed to wear their camouflage uniforms when off base. Previously, marines were allowed to make quick errands in their uniforms while on the way home, but now, they aren’t even allowed to pump gas. Obviously they are allowed to stop for things like medical emergencies, accidents, and breakdowns, but aside from those, if they are caught off base in uniform, they will be reprimanded.

Though many would look at this like another dumb military restriction, I can see why the military would want to do this. I would guess that they want to make a clear distinction between civilian time and military time, and would also assume that they don’t want it looking like their military roams around all the time, doing nothing, and running errands. Do I agree with the decision? Not really. I personally think that it’s better to have our military out and visible in our community, so as to not seem foreign to our citizens, but again, there are worse restrictions the military could put on the soldiers.

A concern raised in the article was the fact of the local businesses suffering because of the lack of the soldiers wanting to go to all the work just to go there. Smart companies have developed around the rule and have set up services that bring the food or other items right to the car, so the marines never have to leave the vehicles. I think that with fewer marines being allowed to roam around town in their camouflage uniforms, the general consensus of people will hold a slightly higher level of respect for them, thinking that they will seem a bit more professional.

Home Front Causalities

Based on the article “Old Enough Now to Ask How Dad Died at War”, written by Lisa W. Foderaro for the New York Times on Sunday, October 21, 2007.

With the Iraq war lasting as long as it has, children that were quite young at the beginning are growing up, including the ones who lost a parent. Losing a parent at two or three years old requires a very simple excuse that satisfies the conscious mind of the child. More times than not, telling them that daddy is with the angels or with grandma and grandpa is enough to comfort a young child, but what happens when they get older, and begin to form a concrete understanding of not having a dad like everyone else?

Many parents still try to vividly keep the memory of a lost spouse alive, constantly having the children look at pictures and watch movies of them. In doing this, they both help and hurt themselves. Yes, the children will have an easier time remembering their father or mother, but when they really start to understand what has happened, then the questions will once again begin to flow, at every age, every time they learn something new about death. This seems like it would be extremely hard for a parent to go through.

Though I thought this was a very thorough and well-written article, one has to wonder why it was written. The article was simply informative, and other than shedding some light onto yet another side of the war, did not have an obvious purpose. In my opinion, the article was written because of the very near elections. The Iraq war has, in many eyes, gone on far too long, and I believe that this article was intended to ignite a small fire in those who were, more or less, impartial to the subject before. Imagine someone reads this who didn’t mind us being in Iraq, and is extremely affected by it. Suddenly any candidate who supports the war is no longer an option in their eyes, and they seek to help end the war, simply for the benefit of those affected on the home front.

Along with that, how do you think this article will affect the candidates themselves? If I woke up and read this article, I would immediately address it at my next function I spoke at. The article gives the candidates a new set of topics to discuss entirely. How will they help parents who have lost a spouse? How can they prevent the children from becoming permanently affected? And most importantly, do they believe that the emotional casualties being suffered at home are enough of a sacrifice to make to keep funding the war?

The last concept about this article I would like to address is the layout. The continuation of the article on page 19 takes up the whole upper half of the page. By the time you are finished, you feel sort of emotionally drained, and then BOOM, a Cadillac add offering a sort of reprieve from what you are currently feeling. If Cadillac purposely placed the add there, I would lose a ton of respect for them. Suddenly, instead of feeling emotionally drained, you are being offered something like “the best feeling attainable”. Though the paper may have put it there so people wouldn’t put down the paper feeling crushed, it just seems to me that Cadillac was able to capitalize on the subject matter of the article in an extremely negative way.

The first step on the path towards global alliance…

Based on the article “Experts Urge Exchange of Scientific Talent”, written for the New York Times on October 19, 2007.

The article in Friday’s paper was based around a panel meeting that discussed the concept of teaming up with foreign scientists to further our progress in American research and development. As the article progressed, it contradicted itself in many different ways and opinions that it gave. The article initially made it sound like the anonymous “expert panel” thought it would be a great idea to work with foreign scientists, but then began to raise concerns, mentioning that certain safeguards would be needed.

A very large question that should be raised is why the United States wanted to begin teaming up with foreign scientists immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The American government doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. I realize that we have allies, but what do you think the world is going to think if we are going to all of our allies and asking them to give us their scientists so we can further our research. Though this wouldn’t be so bad, what are they going to think when we ask to solely head the operation and ask their scientists to withhold a majority of what they learn from their native governments?

The United States already has an inflated head in the eyes of the world, and this isn’t going to make it any better. But what could we do to fix this? The first step on the path that will lead to a more united world will be the United States stepping up and offering open knowledge in the findings of the project. I am not naïve, and do understand that the U.S. is afraid of the research falling into the wrong hands, but I think that now more than ever we need to be researching things that will benefit the world, not just ourselves. Plus, what country is going to allow us to borrow their scientists just to better ourselves?

If we grouped our top scientists with those of our allies, think of the good we could do for the world. Things like fixing the ozone, and finding cost-effective alternatives to our depleting fossil fuels. And if our scientists began working together, then maybe violence between nations would begin to cease, since those who are not our allies would see the benefit to joining our cause. If our scientists began working together, it’s possible that individual countries would stray from the need for dominance, and drift toward the need for global unity and equality.

Which is more effective, being passive or aggressive?

Based on the article “Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place”, written by Martin Fackler for the New York Times on October 20, 2007.

Ms. Tsukioka is a 29-year-old fashion designer who has some pretty interesting ideas to bring to the table. Recently, she has invented a small line of crime-avoidance devices to help the people of Japan feel a bit safer on their streets. Some of these devices include a skirt that folds up into a vending machine “look-alike”, a back pack for children that opens up to portray a Japanese style fire hydrant and a purse that unfolds into a manhole. But why are people in Japan looking to use things like this when, even as this is being written, their crime numbers are dropping?

People in Japan have never experienced the kind of street crime that we deal with here in America. But, even when encountered with situations that arise, the ever-proud Japan would prefer avoid a confrontation verse engaging in a very “embarrassing” scene. In America, when a purse is stolen, the common hope is for the “heroic type” to appear and apprehend the thug, forcefully bringing him to justice; where as in Japan, it is quite the opposite. The Japanese have historically been a very non-aggressive culture, with even martial arts that stem from self-defense.

So what will these potentially “silly” items do to the market, both inter-nationally and nationally? On a global scale, I don’t see these portable hiding places doing very well but Japan’s market is, compared to that of other countries, very accepting of new things and ideas. When something in the United States is considered useless, it will normally be condemned to an infomercial at two a.m. for three easy payments of 19.95. Japan, however, is quite different. In Japan, the general consensus of useless items is that they will always have a purpose; either to one day be improved or to inspire someone to invent a better item.

I personally applaud Japan for never giving into the world’s criticisms and critiques. If it weren’t for Japan’s silly inventions, we would never have had some of today’s popular cartoons, play station, or the classic “made in Japan” stickers. No matter how far Japan takes an idea, the world will always import from them because they take risks, and end up generally making a profit because of it. Hopefully the United States can learn to be less judgmental of its inventors and one day consider buying something because it’s fun, not just because it’s the latest and greatest.

More Anonymous Experts

In response to the article “Global Warming Starts To Divide G.O.P. Contenders”, written by Marc Santora for the New York Times on October 17, 2007

I have begun to notice that each and every day I open up my copy of the New York Times, the articles and see countless quotations from anonymous ”experts” and “specialists” from fields that I haven’t even heard of. the first line of the article I am responding to is “While many conservative commentators and editorialists have mocked concern about climate change…”. Well I’d personally like to know who these people are?

How am I supposed to agree or disagree what is presented to me if I have absolutely no idea if the knowledge being presented to me is true, false, or even pertinent to the topic being discussed? And even if I was swayed by the material presented by an anonymous source, then how do I begin to know who to credit? Something else I have been seeing a lot of, and is presented in the same article, is the assumption that beliefs held by the majority. The following sentence in the article reads “It is a near-unanimous recognition among the leaders by global warming.”

This article, within the first paragraph, has both quoted people whom potentially don’t exist (since they didn’t name who they were) and then given an overwhelming statistic that was so vague, it could have had no real world impact if presented in person. (ex: the near-unanimous decision among leaders could have been a 2 to 1 [out of a given 3] survey given to the 3 opening managers at McDonald’s. The managers are both leaders and may hold opinions on global warming, thus would fit the description of this claim.) -Appeal To Anonymous Authority, Appeal To Widespread Belief , and Misunderstanding The Nature Of Statistics and shown here-

Another concept the world seems to both be playing and being played on is fear, or, emotions in general. In the article “Putin Says Caspian Is Off Limits to Attacks”, Russia and Iran are shown as pairing up in pursuit of a single goal. Though the goal is to stop attacks in a certain area, the concept of those two countries pairing up at all is a concept that should send a shiver through most of the United States. Another article which plays heavily on emotions is “Lifers as Teenagers, Now Seeking Second Chance”.

In this article, it discusses the fact that the United States is the only country in the United Nations which still sentences children and young teenagers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The grandmother quoted in this article talked about how even though her 14 year-old granddaughter, along with her boyfriend, killed her grandfather and aunt, put her herself in a coma for 30 days, and attempted to kill her own 1- year-old sister, does not mean that now, at the age of 22, she doesn’t deserve a second chance. -Argument By Emotive Language-

Though I do not feel qualified to answer the obvious question, “Does she, and others like her, deserve a second chance?”, I do feel obligated to point out that this article does a very impressive job of playing on the emotions of the people. Regardless of what will be done about this situation, the country will have a very strong opinion about it one way or another simply from reading this article.

The articles I have mentioned, along with articles in general nowadays, do a very good job of arguing their points just the way they want to to get the response they desire. Articles now argue all the way from neutrally, to let the audience make up their own minds about the topic discussed, to extremely slanted, attempting to convince the audience to believe what they do and think like they do about a certain topic. 

Based on the article “An Internet Jihad Aims as U.S. Viewers”, written by Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet for the New York Times on Monday, October 15, 2007. This article is extremely hard to respond for me because I have extremely strong views on this subject. All of my life, there has been a part of me that wanted to enlist and defend what I believe in. I have very strong beliefs that you should protect what you love and fight for what you believe in. Obviously then, when someone or something threatens that concept, I am one-hundred percent in support of the idea of “fixing” or “removing” of that said threat.The article was written about a 21 year-old male named Samir Khan who lives with his parents in North Carolina. Samir would be a seemingly normal Muslim American except for the fact that he runs a video relay station for the “…multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups.” He runs a blog site at which he translates messages into English which are being communicated to the American people. The site helps the Al Qaeda communicate messages to recruit blacks (saying that bin Laden and Malcolm X are very similar in what they want) and Muslim Americans (saying that the Al Qaeda is just trying lift worldwide oppression).  Though Samir has been discouraged by many people, including the man who inspired him to become an active Muslim originally, he claims that he isn’t doing anything wrong. But what should happen when he admits blatantly that he might himself pick up a gun one day in the fight against America?EITHER KILL HIM OR THROW HIS ASS IN JAIL. I realize that this is an extremely bold statement, and I am one to believe that killing should be something that is saved for the last resort, but this guy is boldly stating that he will one day kill our fellow Americans and until then will help support the Al Qaeda in their fight against the U.S. Based on that fact alone, if we as a country would feel to morally corrupt to end his life before he end those of our own sons and/or daughters, then at least put him in iso-lockdown until he goes insane and does the job for us.Think about this. If, before Osama bin Laden had done anything against the U.S., you had asked him if he was one day going to blow up the World Trade Centers, do you really think he would have said yes? And if we did, the fact that we are letting this future terrorist run around in OUR country, untouched, just says that we would have simply said “Ok Osama, we won’t do anything about it now, but when you do it, we’re going to get you; even if it takes 9 years to do it!”…..more to come later….

The U.S. wants Canada to do what?!?

Based on the article “U.S. Plan for Airline Security Meets Resistance in Canada”, written by Ian Austen, taken from the New York Times, Sunday, October 14, 2007. 

Canadian Airlines don’t seem to happy with the fact that the United States now wants them to send over information on all passengers that are scheduled to fly over the U.S. to screen them for possible terrorism intent. From the eyes of a U.S. citizen, this wouldn’t seem like an unreasonable request accept that the United States and Canada just finished developing a very extensive no-fly list together that Canada promised to uphold. The Canadians are now beginning to question whether the United States has any trust whatsoever in their competency.Realistically speaking, in a couple years the United States will probably be the most hated country in the world at the rate we’re going. We question our allies and when they agree to help up and make us feel safer; we try to step in and do what they offered to do ourselves. The U.S. is becoming paranoid and unless something changes soon, we just might be the cause of a World War 3. Though that sounds a bit drastic, what happens when Canada doesn’t comply, or any of our other allies for that matter, with our requests (which are oddly becoming more and more like demands)? Do we say, let us screen your passengers or we’ll shoot you? Or the nest time they need help, are we just going to turn away because they didn’t do what we wanted this time? Furthermore, once all of our allies have left us, what happens when someone else tries to attack us? Though we aren’t exactly in the days of conquering anymore, if there is another terrorist bombing, no one is going to support us in another campaign across the world to find them. In my opinion, the U.S. needs to just take a step back, pull our men back, and look at our situation very carefully. I’m not saying to do anything unwise like downsize our military, just keep it on alert and at home. Maybe even while we’re at it, check our ego and send some apology letters with a fruit cake or two to some friends that we’ve made unhappy. Would it really hurt to just go meet with the president of Canada for some coffee, a round of 18 holes, and a good cigar? No, at this point, the United States needs to pretend that it’s a candidate for some worldwide election and needs to start campaigning to win some of that good support back.

Well, it looks like the mom got to take the fall as well…

Based on the article “Mother of Boy Held in School Plot Is Arrested”, written by Jon Hurdle, taken from the New York Times on Saturday, October 13, 2007. 

Jon Hurdle wrote a follow-up story on the story he wrote about the 14-year old boy plotting a shooting spree at his prior school. The previous article had stated that the mother had purchased an automatic rifle for her son but in this article it was revealed that she actually purchased him three: a 9-millimeter rifle, a .22 caliber rifle, and a .22 caliber handgun. In addition to that, his father had tried to buy him a rifle sometime in 2005 and had been arrested and sentenced to house arrest for lying on the gun application that he was a felon.

Simple case, opened and closed, right? Wrong. Though it might just be wishful thinking, i hope that this case will somewhat make history, and here’s why. From what we’ve seen in the past, I think that it would be safe to predict that the psychotherapist will find something along the lines of video games or the harshness of today’s world to blame the kid’s actions on, but I really don’t think that’s what needs to happen. Along with the kid’s punishment,  I think that the parents need to be jailed for a very long period of time. Sure, the kid may have been bullied, but Bill Gates probably was too and  he decided to become a billionaire, not shoot people. The child grew up in a household in which when dad gets arrested for trying to buy the child (and keep in mind, when the father tried to buy the rifle, the kid was 12) so what does the kid do? The kid goes to mommy and says daddy can’t legally buy me a rifle mommy, can you?

If a child grows up in an environment like that, he’s bound to end up messed up. Children need love and nurture when they’re young, and in my opinion, should be taught that guns are very bad until they’re old enough to understand the gray areas between good and bad. Like I said before, I hope someone can develop some common sense here and see the real problem with this kid, not just excuses.

Who is to blame for the actions of a child?

Article: Boy, 14, Held in Plot to Open Fire at School, written by Joh Hurdle for the New York Times on October 12, 2007

     The title alone of this article should be enough to make anyone concerned, but the content was really what got me. Last wednessday night, a 14 year old boy was arrested for conspiring to go on a shooting spree at his former highschool in northern Philideplphia. In his possesion, the boy has “…a 9-millimeter assault rifle, dozens of authentic looking BB  and air guns, and seven hand grenades he was making, four of which were surrently operational.” Along with those, he also had “…notebooks detailing violent acts, an Army handbook on counterinsurgency operationd and a DVD titled ‘Game Over in Littleton’, a documentary on the 1999 rampage in which two students at Columbine High School in Colorado shot to death 12 schoolmates and a teacher before commiting suicide.” The boy is currently being charged as a minor and the distric attorney was quoted by Hurdle as saying “It could have simply been big talking by a kid who thought he was bullied previously…” The boy was turned into the police by a former peer whom he had contacted to participate in the shooting with him. 

     Firstly, how in the world could that just be “big talking”? And what did the district attorney mean by “a kid who thought he was bullied”? To recap for a second, the kid had all the guns already and was contacting another body to participate in the shooting with him. And what about the bulleying? Im pretty sure that the kid knew he was being bullied. In fact, thats exactly why his parents pulled him out of the school in the first place. But when somehting like this happens, I think the only way to try and prevent future occurences is to look at whose to blame.

     Psychologically speaking, a person is both a product of their environment(not so much their parents, but their friends) and their genetics. Though no parent wants to believe that they have limited control over how their kid turns out, it;s true. Parents have a very hard time combatting behaviors that they don’t want in their child, but an easy time re-enforcing them. For instance, if the kid had wanted the assault rifle he saw at the gun show (that his mom actually bought him) and his mom had said no, he would still want the gun as much as before, but since she bought it for him, she simply re-enfored the fact that it’s ok to have guns. (At 14, what in the world was she thinking??) So, do we blame the parents for allowing the kid to own countless guns and attend gun shows? Possibly, but who else is there?

     From reading the article, one can infer that the boy had very few friends at school. The only one he trusted enough to call turned him in. So we cannot blame the direct influence of the kid’s friends, but can we blame the fact that he had none and had to go to highschool everyday to be bullied by other kids and the friends that they had? Maybe. But, if friends and family aren’t to blame entirely, then who makes up the missing part? I beleive that it’s the school system. I saw it everyday in highscool, the schools subtley enforcing the social rungs set in by the “popular kids”. Teachers at my school used to buddy up with the cool guys and the pretty girls, to try to gain some social status of their own among the students, this making kids who were already unpopular feel that much more down.

     And even if we think that we know who is at fault, how can we just blow off the fact that he did it in the first place. This kind of thing needs to be worked on by a professional psychotherapist and the kid can in no way be released beck into society until he can be determined as the “norm” kid again. Something along the way screwed this kid up and i think instead of deciding how to punish him, the attorney general needs to be deciding how to help him.

Are we really as bad as everyone is making us out to be?

     Response to the Article: Generation Q

     In reading the article in this morning’s paper, Generation Q, written by Thomas Friedman, I was extremely surprised at how accurately the article portrayed both sides of the college students of my generation. In the article, Friedman said, “Not only has terrorism not deterred them from traveling, they are rolling up their sleeves and digging in deeper than ever.” In saying this, he couldn’t be more correct. If you’ve ever visited a club day at a college campus, the immense sea of clubs is almost intimidating, but at the same time comforting.

     The other aspect in which Friedman hit us dead on was the fact that due to all the technology available at our fingertips, we end up being way too quiet in our methods. Blogging about changing the world or creating a myspace group for support of the reformation of the social security program just won’t cut it. Friedman said “Activism can only be uploaded, the old fashioned way – by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that – virtual.” In saying that, Friedman couldn’t have been more correct.

     Our nation has been lead to believe that we can do anything from a computer when that is far from true. Consider this: What do you think would receive more attention from the candidates, a myspace group composed of 300,000 people or an assembly of 300,000 people on their doorstep? As a generation, we need to bring the fight to them, and shake off this dust that is seen as fear and apprehensiveness off of our shoulders. As a generation, I believe that we need to just “sack up” and stop hiding behind our computer screens because we don’t want someone to yell back if they don’t like our opinions.

     Though the technology of our generation seems to be hindering us, I also think that we can turn it around and use it to our advantage. We have something that the great advocates of our century didn’t, instant communication. There is a wireless phone commercial in which a single person organizes around 50 of their friends to have a huge silly string fight which is orchestrated by text messaging. What if we did that, but instead of organizing silly string fights, if a candidate is spotted we instantly organized a group of advocates for a cause? In this sense, there is nothing wrong with blogging about what we see to be wrong, or creating a myspace group for it; there simply needs to be an action that follows the statements made within those individual types of communication.

     The article made it very clear that as a generation we are currently failing at seeing the long term problems that we will face, and are failing at doing something about them. But, the article leaves room for the hope that we as a generation will come to our senses sooner than later. Will we conform to the ways of the past that have worked for so many historical figure before us (i.e. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Rosa Parks) or do you think that we will find a new way to win over our candidates centrally using some form of cyberspace that our predecessors didn’t? More importantly, consider whether the large historical figures of the past would have primarily used the internet if they had grown up with it? As you think about those questions, just remember that those of the past used every resource available to them to get their point across, so even though I agree we need to become much more tangible with our thoughts and beliefs, maybe the fact that we spend so much time behind our computer screens will one day surface as a strength to our generation, not so much as our central handicap.