Max Rice Post

This is a Max Rice post. It is a Max Rice post because it has a very clever title and it doesn't entirely concern our wonderful class American Studies. I hope Max isn't mad at me. Any way, my post is about the Baltimore Ravens. The Baltimore Ravens are a great football team. There defense is always a top rated defense and this year we finally have a good offense, that's why we are going to the AFC championship. I have to say, the game against the Titans this Saturday was extremely nerve racking. I was so scared, it was tight the whole way through and the Ravens caught a number of breaks. Ray Lewis, my man, he had 11 tackles and one forced fumble. This is why the Raven's defense has been so good for so long, the one common denominator, Ray Lewis. Also, we do have The Ball Hawk, Mr. Ed Reed. He's really good, but where was he Saturday? I didn't really see him make any plays. Flacco also, he really keeps his cool. If you've ever seen him in an interview after the game you would be able to see how cool his demeanor is for such a young quarter back. He's also the only rookie quarter back to every win not only one playoff game, but two. Thank you Max Rice for setting the precedent that its ok to sometimes write a blog post that doesn't concern AS.

iPods, and why won't the stop changing?

IPods, everyone has them and everyone has had more than one. Most people at least, there are a few who are so careful that theirs haven't broken. However, I have broken my fair share of iPods. I have also tried to go without one for awhile, but its very hard. I think for a lot of people, an iPod is a safety blanket. When your in public just walking around or hanging out, it gives people the impression that your doing something. Also, how much cooler does a person with an iPod in their ear look than one without? The answer is a lot cooler, and that is why a lot of people cannot live without an iPod. When you finally convince your parents to buy you yet another iPod, you arrive at the apple store either disappointed or very enthused. The iPods have magically changed in the time you've been away. They've gotten smaller or changed shape from a wide rectangle to a very long one. Or they have grown on the inside, having more gigabytes or the capability for movies and photos. For some people, this is great news. There are no more of their old out of style iPod, their parents are forced to buy them a new and improved one. For people like me, this is devistating. I liked my old iPod, why do they have to force this new one upon me :(? Also, where did the old ones even go? Surely the did not sell all of their 2nd generation nanos. They must have disspeared, or evolved into new ones. Who knows? To me, its a mystery.

What Would You Do?

Before getting sidetracked by the fact that anamericanstudies.com is blocked, I was going to respond to the Choose Your Own Adventure blog post. Because I cannot read the whole post, only glimpse the first part from my homepage, I will create a situation and ponder about what I would do in it.We will set our scene in World War II Nazi Germany. If I was a non-Jewish person, witnessing people being loaded onto a train surely going to a Death Camp, I wonder what I would do. I'd like to think I'd do anything to help, but I honestly do not know. Would I endanger myself and my family to save another? However, if I was Jewish and in a Death Camp I know I would have done everything in my power to escape. I would have tried to rally everyone up and get them to rebel against the guards. I'm pretty sure that although the Nazis had guns, the Jews outnumbered them in the Death Camps. If I knew everyone was going to die anyway, I'd try to maybe jump some of the guards, get there weapons and do my best to escape. After that I'd lead my people to other Death Camps and free those Jews as well. I know looking back, all that sounds so easy, and it probably would not have been, but I'm sure I would have tried. This situation is truly a "do or die" situation.

AnAmericanStudies.com is BLOCKED??

It is 5th period and I decided that I'd get ahead on my blog posts so I logged on. I decided to first comment on one of the posts on anamericanstudies.com, but to my shock, the blog page was blocked! At first, I could not believe my eyes. I thought that I must have made a typo, but alas, I found that no typo was made. New Trier has truly blocked anamericanstudies.com by deeming it inappropriate. I do not understand why blog, made by our two fine AS teachers, could possibly be bocked. I feel like many websites that can be used as learning tools are blocked by our school. One pain in the butt is YouTube. I understand why YouTube can be distracting for students, but also is a key tool to use for many projects. Blocking YouTube deters us from learning. I think that the school should allow students working on a project to be able to use YouTube and other websites normally blocked. Also, they should really not block every website that has an inappropriate word on it. It blocks too many.

Do we Trust our own Government?

Through all our discussions in American History, I feel like a people have a general distrust for the Government. Whenever there is talk about the limitations of Civil Liberties, people act like the Government is out to get us. I wonder, why is that? Isn't the Government here to protect as, are we not a Democracy, for the people by the people? If we in fact are, then why do people have a fear of our Government and what it can do? I think that if they want to wiretap our phones, why should we oppose them? Shouldn't they be doing it to keep us safe? Shouldn't limiting free speech be something to protect us, rather than being a tool to suppress and control us?  My main question is, is there a reason people distrust our Government so much and are these reasons justifiable? We elect these people and they are Americans like us too, why should they be feared?  

Take from the Rich and give to the Poor?

We recently discussed whether or not the rich should be taxed more and the poor have more tax benefits in American Studies. We discussed whether or not a rich person should be punished for working hard or if that rich person is even working hard. There are many ways to become rich without working hard, and many ways to be poor even though one is working hard. For instance, maybe there should be an inheritance tax and tax benefits from working more than one job. I feel that it is not fair to tax a person who truly worked extremely hard to get to where they are in life. If one worked an 80 hour work weeks and made 1 million dollars a year and got taxed heavier than a person who doesn't work and lives off of welfare there is a problem. Also, if there is just one cut off deciding who is rich and poor, and that cut off is $250,000 and a person who makes less than that is 'poor' and a person who makes more than that is 'rich' that is a problem as well. If the people making over $250,000 are taxed at a 33% income tax and the person making below that is only taxed at 15% income tax a person making only $240,000 really makes $204,000 and a person making 260,000 really makes 174,200. I think that that is insane. How does a person making more money end up with less after taxes? I think the percentages for one should be closer together, however I do agree the rich should be taxed slightly less, and that there should be more categories instead of just two. People barely making enough money to live and are working should be barely taxed, so that they can make money and are not set up to fail. In an idealistic world there would be many solutions to this solution, however we live in the real world; there is no perfect solution to this problem.  

Teachers and Politics

In American Studies we had a discussion about teachers and whether they should or should not discuss politics. I believe that they should be able to discuss politics in the classroom, however, they should not solicit their views and opinions to the students. That doesn't mean they shouldn't tell the students their views though, because if the students aren't sure which party the teacher supports, they will be confused as to what the teacher truly means when they make a statement.  

Not the Best

The program we are using for our American Studies project, Voice Thread is not the best program to use. While there is the advantage of being able to do our project over the Internet, the set backs are too great. While experimenting with Voice Thread I have found that there are many things they don't allow you to do, like edit the timing on individual slides, that are really just a pain in the butt. If you want to edit the slides individually, you have to put them in power point first and then upload them to Voice Thread. When you do upload them you have to make sure that they are perfect, or you'll have to pretty much restart your project. Adding music and transitions is just as hard. However, all these things are not impossible, just really, really annoying. Mr. Bolos and Mr. O'Connor were talking about how these things set limitations artistically, however, I'd disagree. I can still edit the slides, add music, and sync the movie to my voice almost perfectly, but while using the Voice Thread, the process is absolutely tedious. Using Voice Thread opposed to another program like IMovie is like trying to do a very complex algebra problem, in which you need to employ the quadratic formula, in your head opposed to using a TI-89 Titanium calculator. In the future, I would definitely not recommend anyone using this program to complete a project.

September 11th: A National Tragedy

Just recently we remembered one of our nations biggest tragedies on September 11th. Though I was only in 4th grade, I can still remember hearing the horrifying news. A little after 9 o'clock on that day, I was sitting in math class and everything was normal. Right at the start of the lesson my best friend Sean was early dismissed and we all thought he was lucky. A few minutes after Sean left another kid was called for early dismissal. Throughout the rest of the day, peoples names were called and everyone hoped that they'd be next. By lunch, the vast majority of the school was gone and it was time for the teachers to explain what was going on. So our guidance counselor decided to enlighten us. She got on the microphone during lunch and told us that the dentist would be making a lot of money that day.  Nobody bought it, but that was as good as it was going to get. Right after lunch was finished our principal came on the PA and told us that some people had made some bad decisions and that we'd be going home early. Everyone celebrated, especially me, early dismissal! Who could ask for anything more? We all went to the busses and some people were curious about what happened, but most of us were just excited that we were going home early. Before I even got back to my house, I had set up a big kick ball game on my block. I ran inside to get a couple of oreos and my dad asked me if I knew what had happened. I said no, and attempted to continue out the door. He stopped me and then told me what had happened and showed me the news. He then waited for a response from me, but only got a shrug and then I continued out the door to play. Im sad to say, but when I was in 4th grade, things that didn't affect me or my family did not bother me that much. I even wonder that if I had been as old as I am now, if there would have been a similar reaction. Im not sure how I'd react, hopefully more appropriately than my 4th grade self. I actually think that this is a problem in America, sometimes people are not affected that much by someone else's tragedy. Im not saying everyone is like this, but do we not have a reputation for not responding fast enough or well enough to other nations tragedies? Such as genocides and natural disasters. 

Why now?

So I was sitting at my computer trying to figure out what my first blog post for American Studies would be. I started clicking randomly on others people's blogs as to help me find a topic. I even checked out CNN.com but still couldn't find anything. So then I thought: Why am I doing this? Obviously because I have to, because it was assigned to me. If I don't do it, I won't get into college. If I don't go to college, then I'll have a hard life ahead of me. I think that its crazy that everything I do now, directly effects the rest of my life. When ever I tell someone that I am a junior in high school, they say, "Wow, this is the most important year of your life." Why is my junior year the most important year of my life? I'm only sixteen, are people in the real world really going to care how did my junior year of high school when I'm 30? 40? 50? I think not, but the truth is that life is a vicious chain of events, each one leading to the next. When I'm 20, 25, and/or 30 and I am applying for a job, my employer is going to care where I went to college and how I did. When I apply for college, the college admissions is probably going to care where I went to high school and how I did. So in reality, my junior year in high school, the year I am sixteen, and young, and irresponsible does effect the rest of my life, no matter how harsh and cruel that is. The fact is that how I do this year will effect how successful I am career wise when I'm 40, responsible, and have a family. If I choose to blow off this assignment and failed American Studies my junior year, I probably would not get into a good college. By that time it would be too late, and by the time i was 20, not 40 I'd already be regretting it. So guess what, I am doing this assignment and working hard this year, because this is the year. All of us juniors need to really sit down and think about where we want to end up in life because this is the year that decides it. We have to study hard and prepare for our SATs, ACTs, and all those other Ts we're taking; Not to mention or finals and actual school work. I guess what I'm saying is why now? Why do I have to work hard now, only to work harder later? Why is life so unfair? Everyone will tell you it is, but now why.