Is it the holiday season?

Answer: Variable

For many in our community it is most certainly the holiday season; either Hanukah has just ended or Christmas is fast approaching. But for some, this is not a holiday season at all. I was reading an article about how people have come to face the 'December Dilemma' due to the fact that they don't celebrate a holiday during this "holiday" season. For example, Glen Fullmer's 7-year-old son came home with an assignment to make a poster about his family's holiday traditions. There was, however, one problem: the family is Baha'i and do not celebrate a holiday during this time of year. Therefore, he made his poster on the Baha'is gift-giving season in February. I appeared that many people chose to embrace the spirit of season, but not to celebrate the holiday. Hannah Vahaba said, "It's a beautiful season. It brings out a joy but I'm not going to celebrate it." referring to Christmas. This seemed to be the view of many. However, it seems difficult to deal with the holiday/Christmas season for many who do not celebrate any holiday or perhaps not the holiday people would expect.  The other day, for example, I was in the grocery store and the lady at the register wished me a Merry Christmas on the way out. While I do celebrate Christmas I was thinking to myself, 'What if I didn't celebrate Christmas? What do I say then?' I can see how that could be a touchy situation for many people.

So why do people assume? Is it just something that has become so ingrained in society that they don't even stop to think? What do you think?

What's in a name?

Today in class we talked about names and what they mean. We discussed things such as how a name sounds or if a name has an association with a certain social class. Another thing we discussed is how many family names were changed when immigrants came to the United States through Ellis Island. I know, for one, that my great-grandfather's name was Wolfgang when he came to the states, but that was immediately changed to William. A few people also gave examples of names being shortened. I think names hold the potential to shape who you are or, at least, how you see yourself, and this is why I find them so intriguing. Our teachers also showed us a really cool link that showed the trends of popularity for names in the past. We plugged in several different names to see what type of trends there were, and got quite a few different reactions from kids among the class. For one, there were a few names that did not make it into the database. It was also interesting to see the various trends and current popularity of the names of kids in the class. Another surprise was the gender usually associated with certain names. For example, my name, Quincy, is usually considered a boys' name, however, my parents chose to use it for me. Most people in the class did not realize that my name was, in fact, traditionally a boys' name. Perhaps it is because they don't know other Quincys and therefore they associate the name with the gender of the person they know. But I wonder what this tells us.

Does this mean that certain names have certain connotations because of the way the have been used in the past? Or do names just "sound" a certain way to people? Can a name define who someone is? Why do you think some names are so much more popular than others?

Gitmo detainees in Illinois?

The people of Thomson, Illinois (a town of about 600 that lies about 150 miles west of Chicago) are happy that the prisoners may be moving to the Thomson Correctional Facility. Mostly, people are motivated by the fact that it could provide jobs or, at least, stimulate the economy of this small town where the unemployment rate is close to 11%. All of the citizens of the town interviewed in an article by CNN were up for the move and did not seem the least bit concerned by the fact that the detainees could soon be living practically right next door. Nor, did it seem to bother them that these men were people the government considers terrorists. However, people like Republican Mark Kirk are worried that the new location will make Illinois a prime target for terrorists. He claims that if the US government spent so much money to keep terrorists off US soil then it should stay that way, especially if it puts American citizens at risk.

What do you think? Should the detainees be moved to Illinois or should they stay in Guantanamo Bay? Are the citizens' opinions influenced by the economic recession?

Super Science

Today in class we watched a clip from the movie Minority Report, and one of the things we touched on briefly was the technology that was used in the film. Some of it, as far-fetched as it may have seemed, is actually close to becoming a reality and may be available in the next few years. This amazed me, but what shocked me even more was an article that I found tonight about another advancement in technology and science: the possibility that parents could chose the gender of their children. The technology, called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PDG) was originally developed to determine whether an embryo had a genetic disease and allow parents to prevent their children from having genetic diseases. The parents, however, we required to use vitro fertilization, where the eggs are fertilized outside of the womb. The technology now allows parents to chose the gender of their child through vitro fertilization. To me, it seems like it's taking away from nature and how things are supposed to work, and I'm not sure I agree with the idea of being able to chose what gender a child is. I also feel that this could pose potential gender domination threats in countries such as China or India, where customs favor the male child.

What do you think? Should people be allowed to chose the gender of their child? Why or why not? Does it bring up any ethical or moral questions?

How much is race an issue?

As American's I believe people like to think of us as a "racism-free" nation, especially with President Obama in office. However, I wonder how true this claim is due to a recent article I read about how a college education from a good school isn't enough to overcome the racial barrier that people experience. Some people of color have gone to great lengths to hide anything that might give away their skin color on their résumé. Johnny R. Williams said, "If they're going to X me, I'd like to at least get in the door first." This, to me, was a little bit of a slap in the face. I mean, I understand that racism is still a problem, but I guess I underestimated the severity of people's feelings, especially when it comes to employment. In fact, the unemployment rates of college-educated blacks during the recession have been twice as high as that of college-educated white men: 8.4% compared to 4.4%. Also, a study published in the American Economic Review showed that people with black-sounding names got 50% fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.

I find it hard to understand why people don't want to hire someone simply because of their name or because they went to a "historically black college". How much of an issue do you think racism is in America? Do you think it's fair that people use preconceived notions about potential employees to determine if they are willing to hire them?

Will Afghanistan become Obama's Vietnam?

The question caught my attention on CNN's home page, not only because of Obama's speech later this evening, but because we connected the two wars today in class. However, after the opening question, the article went on to say that "experts" were claiming that while there are similarities between the two wars, there are even more differences. A few similarities are the troop increases (soon to be, in Afghanistan's case), the government the US supports is the minority and faced with corruption charges, and the fact that we are fighting "mostly poor, rural insurgents". This, however, proves one of the most difficult problems we face because insurgents can stay forever; they are at home. The only difference that was explicitly stated was the larger presence of a national identity in Afghanistan than there was in South Vietnam. To me, it seemed like the article had more to say on the similarities than they did on the differences. Maybe they wanted it to sound like Obama's fight in Afghanistan is similar to Vietnam, but I am still unsure as to how much the two wars actually mirror one another.

What do you think? Is the war in Afghanistan very similar to the war in Vietnam? What about president Obama's influence on the war?