Audacity of Hope post #3

As I read later into the book, it becomes more and more interesting to me, particularly the chapter on Faith in the United States. Obama starts off by talking about how religious the country is, but also how it's popularity is on the decline. He says, "Respectable folks might still attend church every Sunday; Bible-thumpers and faith healers might still work the Southern revival circuit; the fear of "godless communism" might help feed McCarthyism and the Red Scare. But for the most part, traditional religious practice -- and certainly religious fundamentalism-- was considered incompatable with modernity..." (199). This shows how he believes that religion must change at the same rate as everything else does, so it can sustain it's importance in many people's lives.

While still talking on the topic of religion, he says "The single biggest gap in party affiliation among white Americans is not between men and women, or between those who reside in so-called red states and those who reside in blue states, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't"(201). This shows how he believes that religion in society is being a sort of wall between people's ideas, and what I find usually is that the religious side is truthfully the most stubborn side. The fact that Obama, a now infamous politician, has the guts to tell it like it is without fear of losing any votes or anything shows that he believes the truth should always be open to the public.

On The Waterfront

In the movie On The Waterfront, there are many beliefs concerning the differences between being a traitor, and being a whistle blower. The priest in the movie believes that Terry should testify in court about the death of Joey, but Terry does not want to testify because he fears for his life. Obviously the mob will consider Terry a traitor if he testifies because they don't want to get themselves in trouble, so they would rather have him quiet. Obviously Edy and her father want Terry to testify against Johnny, in order to have justice truly served for the crime. What I found very interesting about the end of the movie was that most people other than the mob wanted Terry to testify, but then after that, everyone felt that he had done the wrong thing. His kid that was in his gang killed all of his pigeons, and the dock leader wouldn't let him work, while none of the workers would talk to him. Another thing I found odd about the movie was how Edy was begging for Terry to testify, but then before he did, she told him that they could just move out west, away from the mob.

I believe the question of whether someone is a "Tattle Tale", or a person who speaks out against improper behavior depends soley on the person who is being affected. If they are losing out on something or being affected by the leak of information, they will consider the person a tattle tale, and probably wish they never confided certain information with them. If one can gain or society will gain from it, the person will be known as a hero. I believe that it is true that people will cower in the face of danger, if information they have could potentially stop corruption of some sort, but they are in danger. People in general would rather save their own skin than leak helpful information, at a price.

All My Sons: Ethical Choices

In reading All My Sons, one may discover many ethical choices that are involved throughout the plot of the play. Joseph Keller talks throughout the entire play about how his whole life has been devoted to setting up his only living son, Chris, for his own successful life. Right after Joe tells his son Chris that it was his fault, not his business partners, that cost the twenty or so men their lives, Joe says, "You're a boy, what could I do! I'm in business, a man is in business; a hundred and twenty cracked, you're out of business..." (69). He then goes on to tell Chris, "Chris... Chris, I did it for you, it was a chance and I took it for you" (70). This shows the Joe Keller cared more about the wellbeing of his family and the pride of his company than the the twenty soldiers who were killed due to the faulty cylinders. If he believed the needs of society were more important than the needs of his family, one can assume that he would either have cut his losses and not have shipped the broken cylinders, or at least have realized how bad of a thing he had done and take at least some partial blame for it, because his business partner might not have been 100 percent innocent. Chris on the other hand believes the needs of society are more important than the needs of family. This can be proven in a dialogue between Joe and his wife, Kate, where they are talking about Chris, who has stormed off in a fit of rage and disbelief.

Kate:Joe, Joe... it don't excuse it that you did it for the family.
Joe: It's got to excuse it!
Kate:There's something bigger to the family to him.
Joe: Nothin' is bigger!
Kate: There is to him. (77).
This shows that Kate knows that Chris believes the needs of society are more important than the needs of his family, and that Joe is ignorant of his belief, and also that Joe continues to contradict Chris in believing that nothing is bigger than the needs of a family.

I believe that in most instances, the needs of society are more important than the needs of society, but there are still a few exceptions. The needs of society should be more important than the needs of your family when something you are doing is affecting society in a bad or hurtful way. Consider an event such as the Enron scandal. Basically the heads of the company were involved in accounting fraud, which caused many shareholders and employees to lose most of their life savings in mere days. If the leaders of this business weren't so focused on gaining as much money as possible for their families, they probably wouldn't have been involved in such acts, and would have probably helped out society, but what they were doing was actually extremely hampering society by having so many people lose so much money. In contrast, I also believe that family needs may trump society's needs in very small circumstances. If what you are doing has minute to no effect on any part of society whatsoever, which rarely happens, it is okay to choose your family, because when it comes down to it, life's tough.

Audacity of Hope post #2

The Audacity of Hope, written by Barack Obama continues to be an enjoyable read. He is very adiment on how he wants to erase bipartisanship. Concerning the battles between republicans and democrats, he says, "Do any of these fights matter? For many of us, arguments over Senate procedure, separation of powers , judicial nominations, and rules constitutional interpretation seem pretty esoteric, distant from our everyday concerns -- just one more example of partisan jousting"(84). This goes to show that he does not believe the people of America are at all interested in the politics that go on behind the curtain such as the afore mentioned items. Rather, they are only interested in matters that concern them, which is a very good observation to realize if you are or want to become an elected government offical, because they'd have a better chance of getting elected if they know what the citizens want to keep and want to change.

Later on in the book, Obama begins to talk about the constitution. After giving the beliefs of what other important people have said on what they consider the constitution to be, Obama says, "Ultimately, though, I have to side with Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution -- that it is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world"(90). I believe this is a very intelligent statement made by Obama because it's pretty true. Consider the second amendment, which is the right to bear arms and have an armed militia. In the current time period, does one really believe that we will need a militia anytime soon? It can be translated presently into the right to have a gun pretty much. He goes on to say, "In sum , the Constitution envisions a road map by which we marry passion to reason, the ideal of individual freedom to the demands of the community"(95). I think these are very wise words given by Obama. He seems to believe in the idea of the social contract, where citizens must give up certain freedoms for the greater good of their society.

The Audacity of Hope

The book The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama is very interesting. It is an autobiography of Obama recollecting how he got in to politics and his beliefs on certain issues. It starts off with a brief synopsis of how he first ran at the age of 35, fresh out of law school and married. He said that when he was beginning, "I'd get some version of two questions; 'Where'd you get that funny name?', and 'Why do you want to get into to something dirty and nasty like politics?'"(1). This shows that he has humility in answering that first question, and he says that he likes politics because he thinks people should stand up for themselves.

He talks of many interesting and fun facts like how "On most days, I enter the Capitol through the basement... through an underground tunnel lined with flags and seals of the fifty states"(3). I never knew that there was an underground tunnel under the capitol. An example of him traveling to the underworld could be him just going to Senate meetings because he describes it as "not the most beutiful space in the Capitol, but imposing nonetheless"(4) also it is sort of like going into the antagonist's lair with the antagonist being his opponents on bills and other matters concerning politics.

Iraq Border Blast

I recently read an article on the new york times website concerning the recent activity on the Iraq-Syria border. It says that U.S. military operations have gone into Syrian land, and both Syria and Iran condemn this. The Syrian news channel reported an attack of four US helicopters on a civillian building that was under construction, resulting in eight deaths. The US confirmed a special operations mission in the area, but would give no more details. Syrian officials are calling this "criminal and terrorist aggression" and call it "a war crime". I do agree that it could be a war crime because I'm pretty sure this whole debacle we are in right now with Iraq does not include going into Syria unannounced and killing innocent civillians. I wouldn't go insofar as calling it a terroristic threat, but they put up a pretty good point about how it doesn't seem like a mistake. I think the US really has to watch their boundaries in Iraq because we already have enough enemies, and one war is enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/world/middleeast/28syria.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The Path

Polaroid Abandons Instant Photography

The article I read was about how the company Polaroid is going out of the instant photo business. They were the original inventors of the polaroid camera, which was so popular due to it's instant photo feature where it spits out the photo moments after you take it, and is visible a while later. They filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and said that they will still be manufacturing film until the end of 2009. I think this is a pretty interesting story because it shows how old companies are having trouble keeping up with new technology, and it seems many like Polaroid are filing bankruptcy and are having to shut down.



http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/polaroid-abandons-instant-photography/?scp=4&sq=photography&st=cse

Buddhism in Japan Dying Out

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/world/asia/14japan.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=buddhism&st=cse&oref=slogin

When I think of major religions of the world, one that comes to my mind is Buddhism, but according to New York Times writer Norimitsu Onishi the religion is dying out. Many Japanese Buddhists are pretty relaxed in their studies of the religion, and Onishi states that the only really major Buddhist tradition still left around is the burial ceremony. It's mainly becoming less popular because people find that they focus more on the dead than the living. Also, Buddhist priests are becoming afraid that no one will be there to replace them when they stop preaching. Low birth rates in the heavily Buddhist rural areas are also contributing to the decreasing popularity of this religion. A question one could raise from this article is what religion would replace Buddhism in Japan? If Christianity were to take over, that would lead to a more centralized world, and would probably create an even better relation between the U.S. and Japan.

Would Odysseus be a modern day hero?

I do think that Odysseus would be considered a hero in the modern day world. Although he does lie, and has a problem with pride, so do our modern day heros. Many heroes the population at large look up to such as sports stars and politicians lie on a daily bases such as baseball players who take steroids and politicians being sneaky in general. Odysseus has to lie in The Odyssey when he is concealed in the fog that Athena creates for him to get into the palace of Alcinious. He also has to lie and hide his feelings/conceal his identitiy while the bard is singing of the sacking of Troy. Another point in time he lies is when he tells Polyphemus that his name is Nobody, but that lie in turn leads him safely out of the Cyclops' grasp. Some lies such as the last one do lead for the greater good but others not so much.
Odysseus does also have a very strong pride. One example of his pride is when he so dearly wants to hear the siren's song that he lets his crew tie him up on his ship, just to listen to it. This could have worked out very poorly for him if he got free because he would go crazy on his crew. He overcomes this still and does not go crazy on his crew. Also his pride gets him into trouble when he starts yelling back to Polyphemus when they are escaping. He scorns him, and Polyphemus starts throwing boulders at him. This is comparable to trash-talking in sports like football, and sometimes you can get a penalty for it. Chad Johnson has pride and is cocky like Odysseus, but he is also a hero to lots of people even though he has very colorful touchdown celebrations.

Ny times article

On Wednesday, the Senate passed the $700 billion bail-0ut plan 74-25. Both presidential canidates voted for the plan. This bill was passed after the recent slowing of the economy. The senate had to revise the bill after it had yet to pass early. Some revisions were $150 billion in tax breaks, increasing amount of bank deposits in FDIC by $150000, and also legislation to make insurers treat mental health maladies more like general health. These changes seemed enough to pull the majority vote to pass it. I feel that it was a good idea to pass this bill because our economy has really been hurting and this will definately help it, although it's hard to say how much.

Hulse, Carl. "Adding Sweeteners, Senate Passes Bailout Plan." 1 Oct. 2008 1 Oct 2008 .

#1 blog post

Hello, this is my first post. I'm blogging here to talk about all the literature I will read in the next year for Enriched English 10. It's going to be a great time, and I'm looking to power blog my way through 10th grade. I look forward to starting with discussions about short stories and articles, and progressing into books.