America's Uninformed Voters

Many American voters don't know where the candidate they vote for stands on certain issues. Even more surprising, many American voters don't even know what party controls Congress, and THEY elected them. Media Malpractice created a video of twelve voters and asked them questions after they voted. Here is the link (you do not need to watch the whole thing, it's ten minutes long):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8

While the company that made this video is extremely right-wing biased, some good points are brought up here. Our country's voters are very uninformed! This may be because of a lack of caring on the part of the voter, but it's mostly because of the media now days. Most political advertisements are not talking one candidate up over the other, they're talking the other one down! How are voters supposed to know who to vote for if all the candidates do is sling mud? The media is not the only problem.

Here at MHS, Political Science is a required class to graduate. This is not true at many high schools. Some schools don't even offer a civics class at all. No wonder we have uninformed voters. How are voters supposed to vote properly if they don't understand why and how the system works as it does?

In conclusion, my questions for you are this: what are your reactions to the video? Does it's bias make it seem less reliable? Should the government control what goes into political ads and TV and otherwise? Lastly, should civics be a federally-required class to graduate from high school, to make people more informed voters?

The United States of Aristocracy

Since the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789, one thing has remained clear about American politics: it is run and manned by the wealthy. 4 out of the 5 of the first U.S. Presidents were part of the First Families of Virginia, or FFV's, and were rich plantation owners. The other one was a rich, well-educated man from Massachusetts.

As history progresses, we find that policiticians stay the same: wealthy people that believe they have the answer to the problems in our country. Granted, some of them like Lincoln and FDR did fix America's problems, but most found a mediocre solution, if any solution at all. So why doesn't a common person run for office and break the streak?

The answer is simply that it's too expensive. Getting the word out to over 300 million people is just too expensive for just anyone to do it. Only those with money can afford the cost of TV, radio and paper ads. It's always been expensive. Only those who owned property could vote in early America, and owning property was expensive in the 1780's. It's still expensive now.

The streak of the rich "elite" running American politics will not soon be broken--if it's ever broken at all. The higher campaign costs go and the more we grow, the more elitist we will become. That's what we'll be. The United States of Aristocracy.

Blog Activity Week 1: The Impact of TTTC

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is a very changing novel in the way it's written. The stories really make you think, really make you war through different eyes. After reading The Things They Carried, my opinion about the war in Vietnam was changed. I had some previous knowledge of Vietnam before I began reading the novel, but my previous knowledge still acclaimed that the war had justification and purpose. Once I finished the book, I realized something: the war had no justification at all.

Soldiers didn't know why they were there. People back home didn't realize our purpose for so many deaths. We were just there, bombing villages, shooting bystanders and burning homes. Even the Vietnamese didn't know why we were there. They thought we were there for money; this is present in the documentary Two Days in October.

As I was watching this film, my thoughts began to change about the war in Vietnam and what I had learned in history class about it. After watching the film and reading Tim O'Brien's novel, my opinion had totally changed. I am a fairly patriotic person, but after watching these media on the ten-year tragedy that was the Vietnam "war", I feel that I would have stood up and done what was right and justified.

Fear of Spiders

Growing up, I didn't really fear much. Swimming in a pool or lake was fun for me. The thought of death never phased me. I had slept in a sleeping bag many times. I had never seen an armadillo besides in pictures, and thought they were cute in their own way. I was fine with most insects, but there was one particular arachnid that just irked me in a certain indescribable way: spiders. Eight creepy, crawly legs. Eight giant eyes creepily watching me like a stalker watches its victim from behind a bush where it cannot see. The thought of those eyes upon me or the feeling of those legs upon my skin gave me the chills for years.

As I have grown up, my fear of spiders has developed into a shear hatred. I kill every spider I see, ridding the world of the thing I feared my entire life, one by one, until they are no longer there to glare at me. I guess I face my fears in the wrong way.

The Vietnam War and Genre's Impact on Our Opinion of It

The Vietnam War era was one of the most controversial time periods in the history of the United States. Protests, bombings in colleges, Woodstock, and broadcasting real footage of our boys in Vietnam were all part of the experience that was the Vietnam War. Genre can make a big impact on the way we look at different things in our lives, and the Vietnam War is no different.

Probably the genre with the most influence on this time period is music. There are almost countless songs about the war, both protesting and approving it. "Goodnight Saigon" by the great Billy Joel paints a true picture of what life was like for a soldier in Vietnam. Men went into Vietnam "spastic, like tameless horses" and left "in plastic, as numbered corpses." This song really changes the way civilians think about the war. It tells about brotherhood and bravery, saying "we'd all go down together" in the chorus. The lyrics to "Goodnight Saigon" can be found here: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/billy_joel/goodnight_saigon.html

Movies can also change the way we think about things. Inception modifies how we percieve dreams. Titanic shows us how financial class makes no difference to cupid, and how that love can be strong enough to last after someone dies. The Star Wars series of movies tells us the story of how one man let his emotions kill everyone near and dear to him, but he made the right decision before his only son was killed. Movies do the same thing for our opinion on Vietnam. Jacob's Ladder is the story of a soldier's return home after serving in Vietnam. He suffers through psychological trauma from a drug he was given, and he becomes almost deranged. The Wikipedia page for the movie is located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob's_Ladder_(film. This movie makes us think if other soldiers were part of weird experiments to make them suffer from the trauma they suffer, and makes us feel resentment for the government if they did. This is a U.S. fovernment protest movie at its finest.

Novels can also change us. Uncle Tom's Cabin changed the way people thought about slavery throughout the world. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers is the story of a black teenager and his tour of duty in an all-black squad in Vietnam. The story deals with the main character's emotions while fighting. He feels sorrow for the enemy he's fighting, because they are someone's father, brother, son, husband, or friend. It changed the way I thought about our enemies in Vietnam. They weren't evil, just the government that controlled them was. They were just poor, regular farmers forced to fight in order to survive. Here's the Barnes & Noble page for Fallen Angels: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fallen-Angels/Walter-Dean-Myers/e/9780590409438/

Writing as a Metaphor

There are many metaphors, similes, comparisons, and contrasts that people have used to describe what writing is to them. For me, writing is like sports, like the big game that everyone will be tuning in to watch. If you don't enter the game with a game plan, you aren't going to be very successful. The same goes with writing. If you come to the blank page with nothing to write about, then your writing isn't going to be very good.

Sports are all about preparation and practice. Those who practice and prepare hard will play hard on game day, and those who don't, won't. Those who play hard win, and those who don't--well, there's only one option left! Writing is the same way. You have to prepare for your writing by doing prewriting and research to back up your opinions, which gives more life to your writing. You also have to practice writing by keeping a journal or a blog, among other things.

Improving the mistakes you make is another part of sports. Learning from your mistakes is an important part of becoming a better athlete. Just the same goes for authors. Writers will make mistakes. There's no denying that. No writers' first edition of a novel or work is perfect. It goes through hours of editing and revision to make the final copy.

Writing is like many different things to many different people, but for me it's like a sport. Coming out with a plan, preparation and practice, and correcting mistakes are all important parts of writing, as they are in sports as well.

Everything One Needs to Know About Being an NFL Superstar

Michael Strahan, former super-bowl defensive end for the New York Giants and seven-time Pro Bowl selection, is the author for my summer reading. His book, Inside the Helmet: My Life as a Sunday Afternoon Warrior, is a collection of memoirs, stories, strategies, and "inside tips" on everything about being an NFL superstar such as himself.

Strahan begins by explaining the environment right before a game, the moment when both teams stare each other down while the national anthem is played. Sure, it seems like they are focused on their patriotic duty of the anthem, but the only thing on their minds is the faces of the opponents on the other side of the sideline.

He then breaks down everything that leads up to that particular moment on game day. From the meetings, to the player-coach relationship, the player-player relationship, fights, pranks, strategy and communication, among other things. Each chapter discusses a different topic, so boredom doesn't occur will reading this piece.

One part of the game that Strahan discusses is the "business" side of pro football. Players and the franchises they work for often don't cooperate, and they say "money talks". Well, in this case, it does. If a player doesn't like the contract they're offered, they'll just request a trade or go find another franchise that's willing to pay top dollar for a player that's capable of bringing a Lombardi trophy back with them from the Super Bowl. So, teams do the best they possibly can to ensure that all the players on their roster, especially those who have acquired "superstar" status, such as Brett Favre or Ray Lewis (why do you think the Vikings are paying Favre $20M to play this year?!).

I love Strahan's style in this book. It's laid-back to the point where you don't struggle to grasp what he's trying to say from reading one sentence, yet still sophisticated enough to the point where there are words in this book that are on my vocab list. Strahan uses a lot of expressions and sayings while recollecting his stories and memoirs, that, if you have ever heard Michael Strahan talk, you can hear him saying inside your head. The expressions are just him. Only he could say these words like him. He also gives a very vivid picture of the event he's attempting to explain, yet he doesn't rant off onto a tangent on the descriptions that lead you away from the point of the whole thing.

I would recommend this book to any NFL fan, or anyone who wants a look "inside the helmet" (pun intended) of the life of a pro athlete. Through the stories, explanations, strategies, and sayings, Michael Strahan really captures the essence of what it's like to be an NFL superstar in my summer reading, his book Inside the Helmet: My Life as a Sunday Afternoon Warrior.

The Ongoing Battle of Women's Rights

As I picked up this excerpt from A Vindication on the Rights of Women, I had heard the name of the author, Mary Wollstonecraft, before, but I had never really known about her or about what she stood for. Upon reading the biography provided and the title of her novel, I figured it out pretty quickly. She was one of many women's rights activists that existed from the late 1700's until women finally achieved suffrage in 1920. I also noticed that she was different from the others: she was self-educated, fighting against the movement for women to have little schooling and remain uninformed, uninvolved members of early American and 18-century European societies, or, as Wollstonecraft puts it in her novel, "innocent" and "children".

These words appear quite frequently throughout the essay, as, in my opinion, a teasing, sarcastic way to make fun of the way men thought of women of the time. Women in the time of Wollstonecraft were treated the same as children. No voting rights, no property owning rights, and they could be (and often would be) punished by almost any means necessary to get them to follow rules. Women were also expected to act similar to children in terms of doing what they were told, with no exceptions and no excuses. The word "slave" appears quite often as well, as another piece of satire criticizing the "titles" given to them by men of the period

Besides criticizing the "titles" given to women of the 18th-century Western world, she criticizes the thought process of many of the famous authors of the time period, such as John Milton. Although she says Milton does account for women being appealing to the senses and thus higher than children, she still says that "into similar consistencies great men are often led by their senses". Basically, she is saying that men let their brain overcome their senses, and that women aren't as "innocent" as men think. They have the capabilities to become a smart, productive member of society just as well as a man does. She also insults the works of French thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau, but not as extensively as she does Milton and his works.

The writing style of Wollstonecraft is that of 1790's England, thus making it harder to read and understand 220 years later. If you slow down and clearly try to develop and digest what is in front of you, however, you find pure literary gold and a piece of history in the ongoing battle of women's rights.

The Internet (not Google) is Making Us Stupid!

Is it just me, or are these readings getting longer?! Upon beginning to read this article by Nicholas Carr, I thought this was going to be an article all about Google and how they're almost controlling the Internet and  must be stopped. But as I read on, I began to agree with the points the author was making. The Internet is making us dumber! Instead of us reading an entire book on a topic we want to know more about, we run to our computers and type it in on Google, Yahoo!, or Ask. And the information we get from links on this website may not even be from a referable source. Anyone can post anything on the Internet. Even Wikipedia, even though it looks like the articles are written by professionals, can be updated by anyone with an account.

Newspapers and channels like CNN, BBC, and FOX News have their own websites, but even the articles on those sites are super-short tidbits on the latest stories. For example, I wanted to research the recent standoff that happened on Broadhead Street in McFarland the night I heard about it on the news. So I logged on to my computer and went to all three local news channel websites: WKOW 27, NBC 15 and Channel 3000, but they all three had the same amount of information about the standoff. But I then read about it in the State Journal the next day, and I found out a ton more information about what happened in the newspaper than I did online. Things like this is what proves Carr's point. The articles online just don't give enough information about a topic, even on legitimate sources of information.

But Google is not to blame for the transformation of our minds from a deep, rich piece of fruit into a thin, spread out "pancake", as Carr puts it. It is just one fish, although quite big, in a giant ocean that is the Internet. Google is just a company that has capitalized on the chance to compile all of the information on the Internet onto one site. It's what encyclopedias do with information in the written world. Both of them do the same thing: they take all of the known facts (or keywords, in the case of Google) on a topic and put them together into one piece of work, a book for an encyclopedia and a website for Google. Google is like an offspring of the Internet. If the Internet didn't exist, then Google wouldn't exist. Period. We created this monster that is Google Corp. You really cannot blame the creators of the website for capitalizing on such an opportunity. I mean, who wouldn't! Wouldn't you, if you could become a multi-billionaire because of it? Imagine how rich the creators of encyclopedia like World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica became after they were created?

Lastly, Carr's writing style. He used a lot of words unknown to me, which means his writing ability is definitely at a high level, as I read at an above-average level. I thought the introduction fit in perfectly with the entire point of the article, saying at the end how computers are going to become like the supercomputer HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, being directly linked to our thoughts and feelings and responding as such. The writing flows quite well, and Carr really uses a variety of sentence lengths to keep the reader from losing interest in his essay. He also doesn't keep emphasizing a certain point, but has many points to argue his side of the issue. Also, Carr uses examples and evidence from other works to back up the points in his arguments. I give this paper high regards in terms of its message and writing style, and, despite it's length, it has been my favorite reading out of the three summer essays I have read thus far.

Skunk Dreams

As I began to read the skunk story in the beginning, I noticed one thing about Erdrich's writing style: flow. She uses words and sentence structures that really make the story easy to read and to follow. Sentences of different lengths kept the story from being too mundane. As the writing continued, the flow remained, but my understanding of the meaning of it all did not, and although I made the connection of the dream of a fence in a rundown motel in North Dakota and the discovery of the game park in New Hampshire, I did not understand the little discussion on dreams in between the two stories.

To me, the anecdote on dreams in between the two stories was completely deep, even too deep for my comprehension. The Chinese proverb nearly knocked me out of my chair with its depth. Like stepping straight into a well. I could do nothing but smile, however, when the two stories came together as she walked in front of the fence and saw the same elk she saw in her dream!

Many metaphors appeared to me in this reading. The first metaphor was when she was talking about obstacles. The fence to her sacred place, that thin, x-shaped fence to the game reserve on the other side. I saw this as a connection to her explanation of life after death. Our body is the fragile hurricane fence to the place we want to be, no matter our religion.

I also see the last few phrases about wanting to be a skunk to be a metaphor to live your life as a skunk: it never runs from harm, just turns its back (lays a stink) in total confidence (don't run from your problems, confront them with your strongest areas with confidence), it lives fearlessly (or to the fullest, in human terms), eat anything (take in everything, but only digest certain things (what you need, i.e. what you think is important), gestate your young for only two months (your worst pain and problems will only last a short amount of time compared to your entire life), fall into a state of dreaming torpor when the cold hit hard (go to your happy place when things get bad or uncomfortable in your life), and, finally, leave your sloppy tracks (leave steps behind for someone else to follow along your path, so they can live their life how you lived yours).

The Talk of the Town

This post is my response to the two essays by Adam Gopnik and Susan Sontag in their "The Talk of the Town" section of The New Yorker. First up, Mr. Gopnik's essay.

In Adam Gopnik's essay, the sleek, well-written format of the writing really keeps one's attention. The introduction talks about the ringing cell phones of the victims of the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 that claimed 32 students' lives. He really makes us grieve with the victim's parents by using words like "heartrending" and "unbearable" to make the feelings seem all too real. He then throws another element into the mix: irony. He goes on to say how right after a shooting is not the right time to question gun control, and how after terrorist attacks (assuming he meant 9/11) is not the right time to question national security. Shouldn't that be the time to question these things? If not, then when is? When another incident happens and more people suffer? It's this irony and sarcasm that really keeps the reader's attention as he moves on to make his point on how gun control would eliminate, or at least lessen, shootings such as the one at Virginia Tech.  He later goes on to say that gun vendors in the US sell guns to "madmen". Well, gun vendors aren't aware that they are "madmen." They just sell them a gun with no knowledge of what his or her plans are to do with it, and although it seems right to prosecute the gun vendor as well for selling the murderer the murder weapon, it really isn't, as, like previously stated, the store had no knowledge of his intent with the weapon. The store could make assumptions, but a courtroom doesn't want assumptions, it wants evidence. Gopnik lastly goes on to say that handguns should be outlawed. He states, "If having a loaded semi-automatic handgun kept you safe, cops would not be shot as often as they are." I have one question following that statement: What guns, then, should police officers use? Pursuit would be fairly difficult on foot if an officer was carrying a fully loaded shotgun or assault rifle, and the weapon could be knocked out of his hands more easily. Plus, the use of a handgun leaves one hand free for things like flashlights. He does however, say that guns should be used (with control) for hunting. I, being the hunter that I am, agree with Adam on this. Overall, this is a very well-written, well-worded persuasive essay with a unique intro and a clear main point, but I do not agree with all of the points given in this essay.

Now, onto Ms. Sontag's report:

Here we have another well-written report, this one related to the 2001 terrorist attacks on 9/11. It focuses  on what the media and government think of the attacks: it happened, but everything's O.K. and the United States is O.K. Over 3000 innocent Americans died that day, but everything's O.K.? Where's the sensitivity?
I completely agree with the point this essay is making: our government and media do nothing to solve these problems, but they say "everything's going to be O.K.". Early in the easy the topic of cowardice comes up. She states that the media or citizens believe that someone who did something like this is a coward who attacks "civilization", as Susan puts in her report. Although cowardice appears only once throughout the whole essay, I believe it is one of the main points Sontag was trying to make. The US media and government is showing cowardice by refusing to stand up and do something about the problems our country has by passing legislation. Instead they avoid them by saying "everything's going to be O.K.", and they just forget about it. Until another similar problem comes up. And Ms. Sontag writes about this in her essay: "A few shreds of history awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen." Basically, she's saying that history repeats itself, and, in this situation, another attack will occur again. And when something like the 9/11 attacks does happen again, maybe the government and media will confront the problem  instead of just saying "it's going to be O.K."

About Me

Hello fellow AP Comp classmates (and Mr. Kunkle)! I finally decided to get started on my summer AP Comp blog, so this first post is to describe a little about me, my family, and my hobbies. So let's get started!

First, about me. As most of you know, school is important to me. I do well in school, and for me, doing well in school means doing well for your future. But success comes with hard work, it's not given to you. I have hours of homework every night on top of my extracurricular activities, and what I gain in studying I lose in sleep! For some people, it's hard to do well in school. I feel truly gifted and blessed with the strive and ability to succeed.

When I'm not in school or studying, I do have many interests and hobbies. I play two sports for our school, one in fall and one in spring. Every new school year means a new football season for me, and a new opportunity to be part of a possible Rock Valley conference championship team. I have been part of the past two conference championship teams, and nothing would please me more than to win a three-peat my senior year! But, as with school, success comes with hard work. I begin preparing for the upcoming season in June with a weightlifting program that continues through July and ends a week before the season starts (the end of July) The season starts the second Monday of August, and ends either at the end of October or the beginning of November. So as you can see, almost of the half of my year is dedicated to the rough-and-tumble life of a football player. But once March rolls around, I put away my cleats and string up my racket: it's tennis season! I have always had a secret liking for tennis, but I didn't start playing for our school team until my sophomore year. I enjoy tennis because it is a nice break from the intensity of the football season. I am also in Student Council, Chess Club, NHS, and am the sports editor for the Spotlight. When I do have spare time, I enjoy
watching TV (especially sports), and both hunting and fishing with my dad and brother.

Lastly, I need to tell you about my family. My mom, Karen, works at WPS Health Insurance over in Monona. My dad, Ron, is currently unemployed and gaining Worker's Compensation for a back injury while working at the USPS building over on Milwaukee Street in Madison. I love my family very much, and enjoy spending time with them on weekends.

Well that's pretty much me in a nutshell. I look forward to having AP Comp with all of you and reading your blogs!