Civics - Something All People Should Have, Right?

With the given, political and ethical traditions developed in the east and west, they did develop differently. Therefore, with bringing in the past different concept of citizens rights, justice and ethics in public life, come into play as well. Without getting into government and such, lets get into public civics. In class we made a journal that asked about 5 things that annoy us, and I as, like the rest of the class, put down what really annoys me. Everyone started saying what annoys them, and we got into big discussions and such, but I didn't really listen and looked over what I chose as my five things. These five attributes are what really just gets under my skin and annoys me to no end. What did they all have in common? Pushing ideas. When church, or  any kind of movement, pushes their ideas on me, without giving me breathing room, I hate it, with a passion. If people could their ideas to themselves and just keep living their lives with their beliefs, and let people have their own without trying to convert people or push their ideas. Just live and let live. Its a simple belief that can go a long way.

The Choice of Poverty

In many countries around the world I would be arguing the opposite. However in this country, I believe and have experienced poverty as a choice. There are different types of poverty, as someone already pointed out, a single death in a family, or serious illness can force a family who was very functional into poverty that is desperately hard to recover from. This usually results in bankruptcy. In these situations the members of the family have choices, over the course of seven years their credit is re-built, and if they make smart choices regarding their spending and lifestyle, stability can be reached. If there are kids in the family and college is approaching, providing that child wants to go to school there are numerous ways to do so- even without help from parents/guardians. If correct FAFSA forms are filled, the process is now streamlined online and scholarships are applied for, just about anyone can find a way to make higher education possible. In situational poverty you are often looking at people who are highly motivated to turn their lives around and regain what they once had. 
Generational poverty is a little different. Generational poverty exists when multiple generations of one family have been born into poverty. This can also be called a culture of poverty. In these circumstances you will often see parents who do not value education for their children, are dependent on the government/state for aid and have an attitude of "being owed" a living. Children coming from this background are at a much higher risk of not graduating from high school and therefore not going on to post secondary education. However even in this situation, it is still a choice. True getting "out of poverty" can be very difficult, but it is doable if an individual is willing to put the time, effort and energy into bettering themselves. 

If you live in India and were born in the slums, the chance of you changing your luck are slim to none, but in this country if you want to change, if you want to succeed, you can. The problem is people's attitudes, it can be very addicting to consider your self a victim of circumstance and poverty. My question to those of you who say poverty is not a choice: when was the last time you asked someone in poverty what they had tried to do to fix the situation? Often you will hear many short term answers that are really excuses- it is always someone's fault- never theirs. Getting out of poverty is difficult and takes years- but it is doable for those who refuse to be victims and who decide to take control of their own lives instead of demanding everyone else take care of them.

Integration

Integration. Do we want it? I think first there should be a clear distinguishing of integration and desegregation. It seems that desegregation is largely a legal matter, almost forced integration. Where integration is largely a social one, people have to choose to let people in, and that brings back up the question, do we really want integration? Desegregation is pretty much breaking down the Jim Crow ideas of the American society, whereas integration is providing an equal opportunity, but in another sense integration calls for the random distribution of a minority throughout society. Trying to balance the racial balance in areas such as occupation, education, residency, and the like. From the times of WWII the military establishment rightly understood that the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. It was constantly used to describe the racial goals of society. Rarely, in the files, does it ever include much correspondence with the forced desegregation. I believe in integration to the fullest but, in this case, if people let it be a majority rules, and see if the 2 sides really do want the integration or desegregation if you will.

Malcolm X

Malcolm’s changing views of America’s problems reflect the development of his character, especially through chapters 1-12.  As a child, he sees both of his parents destroyed by white society, he feels despair about the plight of blacks. His attitude changes, however, after his experiences in the black ghettos of Boston and New York develop in him the philosophy that black people should not accept help from white people. The teachings of the Nation of Islam that he receives in prison effect a further change in both Malcolm’s character and his view of white people. He simultaneously abandons his wild past and embraces a systematic hatred of whites.
Malcolm has this desire to correct this perception as he drives his fight for racial equality. He experiences subtle racism in his youth from his family and school, who treat him differently from others because he is black. Though his foster parents and some of the people he encounters in school are nice to him, Malcolm thinks these people treat him nicely in order to show how unprejudiced they are. He feels that they are using him because he is different, as though he were a “pink poodle.” In Boston, he displays his white girlfriend Sophia as a kind of status symbol, viewing her less as a person than as an enviable object that he owns.

Frankl-y Speaking

This lesson of the holocaust and man's search for meaning was really hard. I mean you can see the devastation from the war and the 2 men's outlook on it. I really want to talk about Life is Beautiful. This may just be me but it could be others too, but Life is Beautiful had a bigger impact on me than Man's search for meaning. I guess it would be that I saw Guido develop and in a way I sort of got to know him. 

At the beginning of the movie, or at least towards the beginning, I saw it more as a three stooges kind of comedy where it would be like physical and Guido would get himself into sticky situations and use his wit to get himself out. I saw that his antics would be very clever and very quick thinking and he would use this even later inside of the camp. 

He picks up his princess and he starts a family, very sweet loving. They actually could have ended the move at the scene where his son, who's name escapes me, is running out of the garden, and it would have been a great comedy and I would have accepted the happy ending, but as it goes on I start to see all the hate and discrimination he gets for being a Jew and all the precautions he takes to keep his son's eyes blind from this. Let's move on past the trains and they are already inside the camp. What keeps him motivated throughout the camp, like man's search for meaning, the thought of his wife. At every chance he gets, he tries to call out for her or play the music from the opera they went to. Throughout his stay he continues to keep his son's eyes innocent. This would be the best way to keep his boy from being depressed or scared, he answers all his questions with 'the game' he comes up with. He had it, he would have made it too. I guess for us to see the real horrible side of the holocaust our protagonist had to die. It was a great story overall and very well told.

Mucus? No, Music.

Once again took me a while to sift through my old CD collection and really find something that actually meant something to me. I couldn't talk about my music that i'm into today such as Coldplay, Wiz Khalifa, I Set My Friends on Fire, and of course the Mighty Boosh (which I was considering doing but ehhh their songs really aren't long enough to really get a decent blog going). What I stumbled upon was my old Carpenters singles album, dated 1969-1981. I remember in middle school when I'd come home from practice and I'd really need to relax and do homework or something, I would always pop this disc in and just relax, I know what you're thinking, "Man, there's no way that Trevor likes the Carpenters!" but I do. My mom got me the album when I was younger and I don't think I even opened the packaging until 8th grade. Really my favorite 2 songs on the album are definitely "Close to You" and "Top of the World." Top of the world is a really upbeat song of theirs that is really happy and very catchy. Close to You is one of their most famous songs You've all probably heard it whether you realized it or not. I'll put both song on here and let you decide

Alone

I know this blog took particularly long for me to publish but I've been thinking a couple of them over. Alone, a big concept to contemplate. Some see serenity, peace, others may see exclusion or punishment. You could really look at it either way. I love to be alone really to an extent, if I'm trying to concentrate or relax or just think then yeah being alone is the goal, but being a social creature humans crave interaction. Sometimes when one is left alone, he can create some characters in his head to be his interaction even though he's just talking to himself.. Anyway! Siddhartha and Chris both set off alone to really find themselves and in both cases reach (in their own way) a state of enlightenment, and really they needed to set off alone, without any teachers, distractions, or guidance to really get to that state. It is something that I could try for sometime, but I honestly don't think I could finish or go through with it..sadly.