Speech code on campus

It is currently 2011... There haven't been slaves in this country in over 100 years, yet we still have problems with race and togetherness. The immature minds of young adults have made terrible decisions that they thought would be humorous, but in reality are horrific and hard to look at. I thought as a nation we were better than this. Over and done with these problems. At Auburn there was not a whole lot that the university could do to change these students minds. The university also did not take part in influencing the students to take part in these activities, so why should they be blamed. The university can't be blamed for such acts unless they were done in a school organized event. "'In the wake of what we experienced September 11th, this is the last thing we would have expected to see,' said Evelyn Crayton, president of the Auburn Black Caucus, an organization of African American faculty, staff and administrators."

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=dc3mpv73_0f92nqdhg

Flag Burning

I am not going to write on my opinions of whether or not it should be illegal to burn the United States Flag, but during this week in class i have gathered up many questions that i can put into one question for those whom chose to burn the flag in protest:

If you decide to protest against America by burning its flag, then why do you live here?

I live in America because, besides that i live with my parents and they raised me here, i love this country and i would stand by it against other nations. I many have my disagreements with our government just like everyone else, but i do not get angry enough to burn and protest what our nation stands by. I live by the red, white, and blue. To me it represents freedom and liberty but also good and bad. Everything in our nations past makes our nation what it is today, good and bad. I doubt that there is one person that is happy with every decision that our nation has made, but what makes our nation so unique is that we made our decision together has a whole. I would say that the protesters who burn the flag are lucky enough to be able to even stand trial because in other nations u could be shot for doing such acts. Before you think about how unhappy you are with what you don't have, think about how lucky you are to have what you already have.

9-11

Even though I have seen the film before, it is still very touching and compelling. When we watch a WWII video it seems almost fake, but when we watch a 9-11 video there is a much different feeling because I lived through it and remember what happened and everything you see is identical to today. One of the most compelling and touching parts of the film is when one of the bothers in walking around in the streets and is just filming the people. People of all races and ethnicities and ages have the same expressions as each other, fear. The amount of fear that was able to be capture on film is shocking because never before have I watched ‘America fear.’ American have always seen themselves as fearless, but this is the first film that shows fear in Americans.

The article I read was about how Presidents Busch and Obama gathered at the 9-11 memorial. This is a very important gathering between presidents because they have very different views and beliefs, but they shared a crisis and had to lead the nation through one of its toughest times in its history. Something I learned from the article is that, “He is a president who banned torture in the interrogation of suspected terrorists and pledged — unsuccessfully, so far — to close the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but carried out more drone strikes in Pakistan in his first year in office than Mr. Bush did in his eight years.” I never knew what orders President Obama gave to the military. Both Presidents made sure our fear was protected by doing what was right and attacking the men who though America was weak. The Presidents took the duty of making Al Qaeda fear the United States.

9-11 has given me hope in my country. It makes me feel actually safe when most people would shrivel in fear. We have men and woman who are willing to put their lives behind others. We have men and woman who will stand for freedom. And we have men and woman who aren’t afraid to say “F*** YOU!”  when rebels think they can take us down. 9-11 brought everyone together in America of all ethnicities and I believe that’s what America’s image should be.

Should I talk in class?

From various court trials that our class has read these past four days, its scary to think of how little rights students have in school. In U.S history we learned about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and all the rights that are given to citizens. But from these court cases it almost seems as if we don't have freedom of speech. In school, we simply can NOT speak our mind. As students we are vulnerable to unfair abuse(non physical) At Deerfield High School we are lucky to have nice teachers who encourage opinions and encourage us to speak our minds. But at any moment, what we say and our privacy at school can be taken away.
From these court cases we have learned that we can use our freedom of speech in any way outside of school. But, inside of school we must stay in the "boundaries". These boundaries  consist of not promoting, or what seems to be, talking about illegal actions at all. If a student disagrees with a teacher on a topic of keeping marijuana illegal, he could get in serious trouble. If a student doesn't believe that our nation should be at war and he wants people to know that he/she strongly believes that, he/she could get into a lot of trouble based on passed events and court trials. I personally think this is ridiculous! this is a free nation, is it not? Don't we have rights in our nation that we should practice, especially in school? Its not that we are just in school but also that we are teenagers, it is easy to take advantage of us. If an adult were to speak out about the war, he would not go to jail or get fined because he has rights that he is practicing. But don't and shouldn't teenagers have the same rights too? what makes us so different? because the last time i checked we are all people growing up in the same world with all of the same problems...

Examples: In the case of Tinker v. Des Moines, two kids went to school with black wrist bands on to represent that they were against the Vietnam War. Their principle heard of this and banned kids from wearing wrist bands. The Supreme Court ruled the case in favor of Tinker because it was a pieceful protest that had no threat of an outbreak of fighting or riot. the principle in this case was trying to take away these kids right to peacefully protest and freedom of speech. No matter what age, a citizen of The United States of America has all rights given to by our founding fathers.

Intro blog to Issues In Modern America

Last school year i used my blog for my U.S History class. Now, i will be using it for my Issues in Modern America class. My blogs will go from talking about past issues, to the "now" issues. One issues that i think people don't think about its rivalries. The fights between raiders and 49ers fans is a perfect example of this. for the past few days ESPN has been exploiting the atrocity during one of the most popular shows, Sports Center. I think something that makes an American is a thirst for winning, and good competition. But, along with competition comes rivalry. I am a die-hard Chicago White Sox fan, and like most Sox fans i absolutely despise the Cubs. In the Raiders 49ers preseason game, there was a large fight in the stands during the game, and a shooting after the game. Sports, rivalries, and competition come hand-in-hand with GAMES! so shouldn't we treat it like a game? Many of us are passionate to a sport, but passion should only go so far. Killing a man because of his liking of a team is taking passion... a little too far. With rights of free speech, we as Americans also have rights of our own opinion and beliefs. In my opinion, I think the White Sox are better than the Cubs and i stand by that(mostly because its a fact), but is it wrong for me to think that? I certainly don't think so
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSoFECqjS40

Grade posts

I would like my very first and last posted to be graded because i believe that in these posts i used good text to show how i felt about the stories and interviews, and i think raised good thought from these stories. I also enjoyed reading these stories along with many others.

Larry Heinemann & Jacob Lawrence

I decided to read Larry Heinemann's story because i was interested in the fact that he was a Vietnam Veteran. I was so interested by this because, from my past experience, most if not all war veterans especially Vietnam veterans have a number of story's. Even though Larry's story's were not so much about the Vietnam War itself, i was still impacted by what he had to say. I quickly learned about Larry when he said, "In my household, there was never any political discussion. We were raised to just submit to the draft, stiffly and strict." Larry continues through his story's talking about how he took a lot of "shit" from people and how differently he had to deal with people from being at home to being in the army. Two interesting story's that he had were him talking about how he drove a convoy in the army and would have guns around him and had to watch out for suspicious activity, and when he got home he drove a bus where he was surrounded by people who pissed him off and there was not a whole lot he could do about it. The second story that really grabbed my attention was when he said, "I heard there was tear gas and cops beating up kids. When i was in Vietnam, we used tear gas to flush people out of tunnels."
I chose to read Jacob Lawrence's story not because i love art, but simple because i just wanted to see what an artist artist had to say. Something that shocked me that Lawrence said was, "It is ironic that people like myself benefited from the Great Depression." "It lasted about five years, a wonderful, wonderful period." This surprised me so much because it was the first time i heard someone say that they benefited from the Great Depression, and i feel like it will certainly be the last time.