Progression?

Is America progressing? I think America is. Our technology is

always improving and we are always expanding, but are we

always following the same trends and making the same mistakes? America first started when the English people were unhappy and set off to find a new world. They took risks, no one else would take. After that Americans started expanding through the West, bringing their technology with them. After they expanded as much as they could on land, they thought about the air, that's when they built airplanes and traveled to distant countries. Today the new idea is space. We have had space ships and rockets for a while now, sometimes they are successful with getting people up into space! But will America ever expand as much as to make a planet theirs? After space, what is next?

Old Glory in My House

In my home, we don't own a flag. When September 11, occur
red, we were living with my grandparents. My grandparents have a huge flag and they had it up after the tragedy and they kept it up for a while as well. It's not that my immediate family isn't patriotic, we just don't like flags, we have no where to even put one. I think that older people are more patriotic because they have seen our government do more for them. They have lived through wars that everyone supported and saw what could happen if the government wasn't there.
It's not that our generation doesn't care, I think that they are just ignorant.

The Great Depression!

Why has America's depression rate increased so much over the past few years? There is no better time to live than right now. Our generation has all the advantages that earlier generations didn’t such as television, cell phones, better medical care, education, and the ability to make our own choices. Earlier generations had to cope with The Great Depression, World War I, and World War II. Life is good, so why has depression increased so much? Causes for depression include: the amount of freedom we are given, the divorce rates increasing, and our reliance and dependence on technology. These times are changing and depression is the final product. Never in any other generation did we use the Internet to find our friends. And with divorce increasing as well, many children find themselves dealing with anxiety and depression, including those children who have never known their fathers. This generation has also been the most free generation. In this day of age, we can do anything we want to, gender and race doesn't matter. However, this puts a lot of stress on people to try to do everything, and committing to one thing for the rest of your life doesn't help the situation. What can we do to overcome this depression? Do you think that future generations will become more depressed?

Huckleberry Finn- BANNED!

New Trier banned the great American novel, "The Great Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" back in the 70s. Parents wrote a letter to the board making claims stating that the book is racially offensive and destructive to the self-image and self-esteem of black students who are required to participate in the classroom discussions. My American studies teacher asked us if we thought that it made more of a difference if the parents who wrote that letter were black. I think that it makes the argument much stronger. If the people that are being affected by that novel wrote it than its proof that people are actually being affected. If it were white families that wrote it, I don't think it would have been banned. This book uses the 'N' word a lot, which I find to be racially offensive, but that is how history is told. They made claims to many things in the letter that I didn't find to be that true. I wonder if the 'N' word wasn't used as much, if they would have still wanted to ban the book. They say that they portray "Jim" the black runaway slave as foolish and childlike. I believe that the book makes him look foolish, but also he is fatherly to Huck, they make him improve. I believe that is because the author doesn't look at race the same way that American did back when this book was written.

What Defines Race?

Racial differences you could argue are that people of African descend and Caucasians are fundamentally different and separated by their cultures. However, biologically there are no real differences between the two races; the most different thing about both is where they are brought up. Race isn't something used for biological purposes, it's almost always used for social purposes. Race is a man made thing, it exists in the mind. It is not biological, because the genes that give you certain traits are independent, if they controlled skin color, then it would be race as biological. We haven't had enough time to evolve and customize through evolution. Clearly that's all that race and skin color is though. Race is an evolution. People in Asia have slanted eyes because they live in the snowy regions or the bright sun, it helps them to see, this is a biological adaptation. Europeans could be shorter depending on where they come from because they lived in the mountains. People from Africa have darker skin, that's to protect themselves from the sun. Race shouldn't be judged as a bad thing, it should exists as it is a achievement that man changed itself to be able to live in all climates all over the world.

Take A Walk In Your Own Shoes!

When people see something unusual or different, they think it is weird and odd. I want to know if you think that it is okay for people to judge other people's culture. If an underdeveloped country does things out of the norm, are we really supposed to allow ourselves to think less of them? Even if what they do causes pain to their own people for amusement - they have probably been doing it for thousands of years and if we weren't so selfish, and we didn't push everyone to get what we wanted, we might have still been the tribe that acts what we call 'savage-like'. Relativism is the belief that all beliefs are relative and therefore equally valid. Can you really judge someone else without being in their shoes? Even if you spend time with someone else for a while, you are never going to feel how they feel because you were born and raised with a completely different perception of life and the world, you were born with different ethics.

Try Again.

In my AIS class, we have been taking pictures from the Internet and we have been taking them apart to try and see what the artist's view on it was. This picture I thought was interesting because the older man of African descendant is dressed very well. His hands and face are proportionate. I don't know what to think about the young boy that is talking to the older man, the older man is paying no attention to the young white boy. The old man seems to be looking dead on straight and it almost looks like the young white boy is lecturing him due to the way that his finger is pointed at him. The young black boy isn't as well dressed and has a funny hat on. Both the white girl and the white boy are pointing their finger at him, as if he had done something wrong as well. The little black boy's face looks a little exaggerated and animal like. The women in the picture has an apron on and is caring for the children. She is starring at the white children that are pointing at the other child. I don't know if this symbolizes that they are no good, unless they are doing what is told, or if they did something wrong.