Heavyweight Bout

This year there has been through the news the heavyweight bout between the presidential candidates mainly Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It seems to me that this is ridiculous each opponent just keeps battering the other in the news and in public. Every time there is something new about one of them Obama and his election committees and minister friends (I am a avid Christian and they are not like the Preachers in my pulpit). Hillary and her money (I wish that I could have over 100 million I wouldn’t care what you say). This isn’t happening on the republic side with McCain I bet he turns on the TV and laugh at his opponents. Now he’s not squeaky clean but he sure knows how to stay out of the news this does help my Psychology teachers prediction that McCain will be president because Hillary will mess up Obama’s votes. What happened to the normal elections it’s like a MTV reality show (which by the way are not that good). If this goes the way it does it will mean the white man will win again.

Changing Times

Today what is with our generation (yes even mine is included) the main story in the news (besides the candidates sniping each other) is the fights amongst teens first the one where the girl student is beating her teacher on camera. This girl is on the floor beating her teacher who is trying her hardest to defend herself, what really is shocking is that the students in the class are just watching and not lending a hand (if someone helped they might have avoided charges being brought against them, and might have gotten an A in the class) that is just sick the poor teacher is not the same after the accident. Then another act of cruelty is the girls who beat up the girl in the house now it’s just evil that you gang up on one person (if that were me I would throw lamps, chairs, TV’s, whatever I’m taking someone to the hospital with me). It seems like a different attitude is taken towards people today back in the day (I sound old) they had much more respect for each other, now you get in a fight that person comes after you until your dead.

The Olympic Flame

Again I looked over the Olympics in China because I had a lot of free time at the school before class and I found an interesting article where in Paris the protesters of the games in China forced the police there to extinguish the torch three times because people got close or there were too many for the police to handle. Most of (if not all) the protest are in relation to China’s human rights violations in Tibet. I mean people are getting tackled by the police and people are breaking through trying to throw water on the torch (One guy tried it didn’t go out he went to jail) but it is a big deal I really don’t know what China has done in Tibet but Paris doesn’t approve of it. People were on bridges protesting the police had to take it on a secret bus (still didn’t help). It just makes me wonder what did they do that is so bad people don’t want the torch to make it to the country. I don’t know if the torch came here yet but the police is going to have their hands full.

The Wheelchair Bandit

One for the record books in Palo Alto, California a man robs a bank in a wheelchair (notice only the strangest things happen in California, those people are crazy) the man is about 60 and he held up a bank and speed off in a motorized wheel chair right leg sticking straight out going down the sidewalk and he was hoisted in to a white van. I heard of equal opportunity for the disabled but that’s going too far. The police don’t know if he is truly disabled or is it a MO of his but I just looked for a subject for a blog and had to share this strange story. The man shouldn’t be that hard to find it’s not like he can escape very quickly.

MLK

Again today is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination and it made me think or the impact his life had on the world as I watched the kids on the news before the commercial break explain how he affected them and the world. They were kids of all different colors and races. As a black person I would like to think that he only did this for us but he didn’t he did it for everyone. Then I think what would he think today if he saw the world and the progress we have made as African-Americans. I don’t think he would be proud he would probably say we have gone backwards and we really didn’t understand his message. Or maybe some people have corrupted his message we brought this up in English class but we couldn’t finish discussing the question. Somewhere we as a nation have forgotten his words even though we honor him and made his birthday and national holiday it’s not the same like we discussed in class we should be more open in racism without taking offense, now I’m saying be intelligent about it don’t just spurt out racial slurs but understand how people feel about it without masking the issue.

McCain's Courage

Today our city received a lot of attention in the news besides our beloved Memphis Tigers getting ready for the Final Four today is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. being assassinated and the presidential candidates came to our city and visited the Hotel where he was shot. From what I saw on the news only Hillary Clinton and John McCain came Clinton for a brief moment and McCain came and seemed like he preached to the crowd. It’s kind of ironic because McCain is not known to get the majority of the Black vote (two reasons he’s a republican, and he’s running against a black man, good luck) and I heard that he didn’t vote for Martin Luther King day in the first place 25 years ago and he admitted it to a crowd (of majority black) and apologized for it. I have to respect that it took extreme courage and honor to admit that especially since no one knew about it and his opponents didn’t use it against him. (even I might have stayed quiet) but he isn’t who I would vote for but he gained some respect for speaking and admitting a mistake like that.

Image

Well again we are deep in the NCAA Tournament and in the public eye but this is a different team that this country has never seen we won over Texas after every sports analyst said we wouldn’t escape the South region and we walk through it with relative ease now we get to the biggest game and our back up point guard wants to do drugs and is suspended for the game and maybe never be a tiger again (you would think he would stay off it at least till after the Championship game, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity). Our coach is trying to clean up the image (according to the news) What really troubled me was what I heard in Psych class (wow, really good blog material)
According to him the Commercial Appeal took a look at where the former Tigers are who made the first Final Four run in 1985 today he said two of them have bad jobs, one is dead, one in jail, and the other is doing ok. He believed why you would come up with this evidence now like they want our tigers to lose in the tournament and it effects our image because if someone were to look at our local papers it seems like we have little confidence in our own team. To look at it objectively it is bad timing, just root for the tigers, but it does address the problem that if you don’t go pro in sports you are basically used by the school and have little to show for it.

Frederick Douglass

Well for a change my history class brought me a subject for my blog I had to read a book about Frederick Douglass, called The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. It was an interesting book, because it describes first hand the life of a slave. It shed some light on how it was Douglass told us in the book that he was sold apart from his mother and that on some nights she would walk 12 miles to lay beside him. She died when he was 7 and to him it didn’t phase him he said it felt like the death of a stranger (that’s unimaginable considering today’s time) the slaves were treated poorly and had to work long and hard on little food rations. Women slaves were constantly harassed and raped Douglass said his father was a white man maybe even his master. In the book he was moved to the city where life for a slave was a little better his new owners wife came from the North and she began to teach him how to read then her husband stopped that because he said that an education would make the slave unmanageable and unhappy (I wanted to go back in time and choke him, but he was right an uneducated person is easier to control). You would have to read the book to understand more it is worth reading for anybody.

River City 2

I wanted to turn this into two blogs it means less work for me so here is part 2 of the River City writers. When the speaking started the host got up and was going to introduce the speakers (She was kind of attractive, but that’s a different subject). The first speaker was a lady from Australia with a degree in Linguistics (She was attractive too, still a different subject). When she spoke you can clearly tell she was not from this country and if she didn’t tell me she was from Australia I would have thought she was British. She more than lived up to her degree half the words she said I didn’t know the meaning of I just tried to laugh with the crowd whenever she made a joke. Her topic was the evolution of language which in class earlier that week we debated ( Mainly Ryan, Taylor, Jackson, Ms. Sumner, and I, and Ryan’s team put up good points). At the end I wanted to debate her too but we went right off into the next speaker who was a writer for the New York Times. He was a middle aged man with a cane (never told us why) and his topic was the “Shot heard around the world” in baseball because he discovered that the New York Giants were stealing the signals of the opposing team. His book was like a story with him as the narrator and main character. To end the series was another lady and her topic was the events surrounding George Soros (well actually it was the war in his country but, right now I forgot the country.) Well her story was about a group of guerilla fighters supported largely by a man from the country working in New York as the head of a construction company. He was funding a private army. After she ended her speech it was question time. After Jackson got to ask his question I asked the author of the book about the war how did this man build a private army she told me that our government turned a blind eye on what he was doing as a means to kind of help that country (very interesting). That’s the only question I got out someone sort of hogged question time (If you went you know). At the end there was the opportunity to by their books and surprising I wanted to by some of the books (but, I had little money) and I had to finally leave my small sample of the good life.

River City 1

This Thursday I had to go to the river city writers series event. (You might as well made it a official class assignment because almost everyone went). First I had trouble getting out there because the link from the blog didn’t work so I had to mapquest it and I didn’t’ have ink so I had to memorize the best I can the directions and I was on my way. Even though I had all the trouble getting the directions it was relatively easy to get out there. I never knew the neighborhood existed and when I came down the street I guessed that the big mansion that stood out from the rest of the other houses was where I was suppose to be. So I approached feeling a little uncomfortable because I felt out of place in the extravagant neighborhood and I walked up and met Jonathan he was talking to two girls and I asked what we were suppose to do and we went in. It was like walking into MTV cribs I forgot for a moment we were there to listen to the authors of the books. I then met Jackson (last name for a first name always cool) and we had the same idea to get food. Even though there were only appetizers I made the best of it by being greedy but it was good Jackson told me that our dear teacher either cooked or brought the pork tenderloins but if so please cook or refer me to the place where they make those. As everyone showed we were about to start the speaking (by the way I thought rich people were on time, not saying there was anything wrong with being late, but it fit’s a different stereotype).

Abuse

Part 2 of the Psychology class (this class really helps with blogs) in today’s class we talked about more than criminal insanity but I guess this relates this part of the class was about spousal abuse between heterosexual relationships. Where we went over cases where the women in the relationships were pushed to far and they ended up killing the husband (one lady poured gasoline on her husband and torched him). Ironically he felt that these women shouldn’t get off with their crimes (strange justice). Towards the end of the class he called all the girls stupid for even dealing with men (thanks for that) he said if they were smart they would stay away from us because he feels that we will all abuse women and only want sex (I definitely disagree). Then he went to answer questions from the crowd and the lady behind us gave him a situation of abuse (which I think she was referring to her own life by the way she acts and her demeanor) where he thought the woman should fight back but the lady behind me said that the woman would feel scared if she were to confront the man (not the girls I know). Then he asked if any of the other girls knew situations where the boyfriend beats the girl and there were plenty some said the girl blamed herself for him beating her others blamed drugs and alcohol and the girls they knew still wouldn’t leave the boyfriend (strange). But that’s how class went and mostly how it goes everytime.

The Law

Once again the subject will be psychology (it’s really competing for the position of the most interesting class.) Today’s subject was still around criminal behavior defining criminally insane (by the way my teacher thought was stupid.) He told us how the law defines a crime and who is criminally insane it is mostly based on the concept of free will where we choose to do good or bad under the law and you can only be convicted if they can prove that you had an evil will. It was a normal class where I usually agreed until we came across the concept of who is the victim of crime in criminal court the victim is not you or the dead person’s family (surprise) it is actually the government. This is based on the idea of Old English law where every crime is against the King. He stated examples of cases where the criminal would get off on a light sentence and the family would be upset and it would be on the news (of course) and he said it made him upset because he felt the family was stupid because they weren’t the victim’s (very cold and emotionless). He pointed his solution would be that you could take the offender to civil court and sue them I just felt that there was no justice being served yeah you could sue them and get money but it’s the principle of the fact that you can’t kill someone and be able to serve little to no punishment (O.J. Simpson). I guess he feels this way because he is a very logical person and I can see that he wouldn’t let emotion effect his judgement.

The other part of the Olympics

What is the deal with the Olympics has there been this much controversy with it It’s in China and every country has some opinion about it even the Chinese they have rules and regulations and they are being stubborn and not listening to other countries. Like here in the United States of America they told our Athletes not to speak during press release so they won’t accidentally offend the Chinese nation because they are a little sensitive about what we think about their communist nation. How did the Olympics get so political even terrorist want to have a say so China has already caught terrorist before the games even begin. Who we should feel sorry for is the athletes they have trained so hard to get to this point in their career and for so political garbage can break your concentration or get in the way of your performance. I hope the events would be entertaining and exciting and that the struggles of our world don’t interfere with a historic tradition.

Not so safe feeling

At our school I couldn’t believe that one of our students has been kidnapped and I don’t know all the details but that makes me feel uneasy. ( wonder who it was and if they caught him or her). Isn’t this one of the many incidents that has happened this semester to the students it seems like the police is slacking a bit. The school image will not look good to the other students and future students if they can’t go to classes and not feel safe. Most people who have been kidnapped usually don’t turn up unless they are dead. ( Yeah good luck person.) Just don’t hope it happens to you or me. Well all I can hope for is the best and that person’s safe return to their families because I can’t imagine what they are going through.

Mayor Resigns

This week the mayor of Memphis put in his resignation and is going to leave the mayor’s office on July 31 and he said the reason was he felt another calling. Kind of strange but whatever works for him. Now in most situations abandoning one’s position is something that I would hold against someone and call them a quitter, but he said his calling was somewhere else and he’s going to run for a position on the school board. He has experience in that field because before he was mayor he held the position. So I don’t know if is responding to our current school situation or he is just board. He might just help the situation and improve our school system. Maybe he is what we need but he will come with controversy as his whole career. So I just wish the best of luck for him and us because I was born with him as mayor and he’s been that way my whole life and I can’t imagine someone else as mayor.

Lady on the Toilet

I had to speak on this because it was one of those stories that just leave you speechless and thinking “what in the world”. This is about the woman stuck on the toilet for two years by her own free will. At first when I heard the story I thought the boyfriend had locked her in the restroom and was some form of sick torture but it wasn’t. She one day went to the toilet and just never left it for two years her legs began to form around the toilet. It’s not like he didn’t care about her he tried to get her off the toilet but she kept saying maybe tomorrow, so he kept bringing her food and water (how nice). One thing I want to know is what she went in there for in the first place. In the end the boyfriend was charged for mistreatment of a dependent adult (never heard of the charge and WHAT???). It’s just something that never happens in 2 lifetimes and goes with one of the strangest things to happen in a long time. They don’t have pictures of the people but I assume they aren’t the smartest people you would ever meet.

Aneorexia

Again the class I most like to talk about psychology class provided me with a little more to discuss about. I’ll just start with today, It was torture we had to go over mental disorders and the ones chosen today were anorexia and bulimia. He had some lovely pictures of anorexic girls, one thing you might not know about me is I hate the sight of gore, anorexic girls, and nasty skin problems, and he had very skinny girls on a projector and he had them up there for the majority of the class and I was uncomfortable in my seat, I wasn’t alone though the guy beside me felt the same way. Well he of course stated the reasons behind anorexia and bulimia blaming most of it on societies demands for people to look skinny and lose weight. Supermodels, advertising, and just the benefit of looking good puts pressure on these girls. He definitely didn’t like how in the gymnastic and cheerleading world to be the best some girls will turn to these solutions to win. Even more amazing is that an anorexic person will be on the verge of dying and still decline to eat. Just as a society don’t by in to the image that ads want you to see and eating healthy and exercising is the only way to go.

Meeting

One Tuesday around dinner time I tuned in to a meeting on news channel 3 ( I woke up and it was on). The meeting was in response to the Lester St. murders. City leaders got together to discuss the problems in out city. The most important person there was A.C Wharton (Memphis city mayor wasn’t there). When I tuned in they were talking about the Memphis City Schools and the crime that follows it. They had good points saying that the crime rate in the city would go down if we start people when they are young, but as stated before the way that they approach it is ineffective. One lady had probably the best idea of raising a teachers salary. When she said that she got a strong applause. Teachers have to go to college get masters degrees and then have to deal with bad children for a little salary, They really should be the highest paid profession but that’s not going to happen. Also not surprising the place was half empty so most of the city doesn’t care. If we continue to not care nothing will change and look forward to many more headline news stories.

NCAA Tournament

Right now is one of the best times of the year where a whole lot of teams are now playing for their way in to the NCAA tournament. All day games are played to decide who gets in the field of 65 ( it’s really 64 but there is the for no reason play in game that doesn’t matter between teams who almost didn’t make it and the winner will most likely be eliminated in the first round ). Now we don’t have to worry about our team and not even the other teams in the state (Vanderbilt and Tennessee) but many schools are playing for post season future. What makes it so exciting is every year some team gets into the tournament and plays the role of the proverbial “Cinderella” and thus the name March Madness because everything ends up going wrong. With both the men’s tournaments and the women’s going on at the same time there is plenty basketball to go around. In the Women’s tournament it looks like the Lady Vols might repeat as champs and our Tigers have a rough road ahead of them but they could be cutting down the nets in San Antonio.

Wrong Field

Something else that’s been on my mind lately is that what if I pick the wrong major. Right now I am a Computer Engineer major and I have enjoyed it so far and I see myself doing very well in the field, but I think what if there is a major or a job I don’t know about that would feel like a calling and I never know till later in life. Like if I am a good actor, singer, artist but just don’t know it or haven’t had the proper opportunity. Then you find out when you have a job and is financially settled. Just don’t want to miss the opportunity. For the most part I feel I would be well suited for the field of Computers and they interest me. I don’t know maybe it hasn’t came yet or I wouldn’t find those jobs enjoyable or I’m not good at them. I just was always told you’ll never work a day in your life if you find a job you love. I believe this and couldn’t stand the thought of being bored on a job for about 30-40 years ( It would drive me crazy).

Spring Break

A break finally we need this Spring Break. First thing it does is signify that we are halfway done with this semester and for some closer to Summer break. For me it means that I can relax without having to think about work. I have plans to go to Miami with friends for a little and enjoy myself (my friends will most likely enjoy themselves to much, I’ll have to be the designated driver). No blogs, papers, and lectures for a week just enough to prepare myself for the last Month and 2 weeks. Then when I come back I have a chance to win prizes in a tournament ( I hope I win, lot of money). So I am looking forward to these few days if not only for the reason of not having to do any work and a chance to make money that I need.

Paradigm

In class we went over the articles that we were suppose to read and we came across the word paradigm. Now I’ve heard the word before but, was not clear on how it was used (that’s why I kept quiet, I was told if you don’t know a word don’t say anything and find out later). So I found that paradigm means a pattern of some sort it has relations mainly in science, and I guess it would relate to the articles in that they all follow a pattern in how they were written. They are all intelligent, and stray away from opinions (they use big words to confuse you). The best example was “The Truth about Jena 6” the author didn’t clearly show their opinion. In class we tried to guess the race of the author, we thought she was a white lady then as it went on she could have been black (a black person named Amy, when I thought about it I never met one). For all we know she was a little Asian lady trying to confuse us. In the end all the articles do follow a kind of pattern as I said and would be a paradigm.

Every Child Left Behind

Our government during the Bush administration has come up with an act to try an improve education in America. This act is known as the No Child Left Behind Act. This act supposedly raises standards of accountability for all states. Most of its focus is on teaching the core subjects (Reading, Math, Science etc.) with more attention to the Reading. It has been criticized constantly by the media and the other news outlets (just about every person in the country). Some of the problems with it is that it could hinder effective instruction, and hinder student learning. Some states have had to lower their achievement goals and some teachers might just teach students just enough to make a decent grade on the test. One interesting thing I found in the act is that every school must submit a name and telephone number of every student to local military recruiters ( I wonder why?). Another problem could be how they qualify a good teacher. As of last year Congress is deciding on major revisions. Maybe they can come up with a better way to do this but as it stands it’s not going to work.

National Standards

Another idea that has been derived from class (mainly the article “ First, Kill all the School Boards”) was the idea of putting all states on a national standard of education rather a state standard that varies by state. In the article the author states that each state has a different idea on where there students should be like South Carolina accepts a reading passing level in the 71st percentile while Wisconsin accepts in the 14th. Now that doesn’t make sense it seems that South Carolina doesn’t care their students aren’t proficient in reading. Now I agree that the circumstances might be different state to state and other states don’t know affairs in other states, but a national standard would fix all of this. The national standard has to be high or it won’t be effective (No child left behind). The only thing I can see so far standing in the way of this is the jobs presented by each state. Example, some of the more “smarter” jobs would be plentiful in a state such as Washington where as Tennessee (mainly Memphis) would not need as many of these kinds of workers so the standards would be low so there would be a plentiful supply of workers for more manual labor ( we have FedEx headquarters, most jobs here are warehouse jobs, our school system is horrible, you do the math).

A movie to think about

A while ago we had to do movie reviews and I chose to do the Manchurian Candidate a movie that if it wasn’t an assignment I probably would not have seen the movie. I am so glad that I watched the movie. It was about a presidential candidate that has been brainwashed by a company that just wanted to use him as a figurehead while they accomplish their goals. The movie had a lot of underlining themes like big business and politics, special interest groups, and about brainwashing. In the movie our hero remembers an incident in the war but he feels that it did not happen like he thinks it does. While Shaw the presidential candidate is the hero but his mother is behind the brainwashing for power. (and she is sexually attracted to her son, gross) it is a good movie for those who want to think a little deeper and I am very glad that I watched it.

Humanistic vs. Behaviorist part 3

The next( the one I favor ) approach is the Behaviorist approach. They believe that behavior is dictated by consequences whatever they may be. You can kind of see where this is going it’s like the old eye for an eye but a little nicer. One way it was used was on me when I was little. I did something very bad my mom found a belt and I became the world’s fastest man. This also happened once in elementary school when they still gave spankings (I feel old). Anyways you get the point. In the school systems instead of metal detectors and searching lockers you get caught with a gun send them to jail because that’s where they are going to end up, no suspension just jail. Student wants to hit a teacher I think teacher has the right to knock him out. That’s what happened to my gym teacher student hit him he made him into a pretzel (he got fired the same day, what a shame). It would make every delinquent think twice about trying something and they might concentrate on their studies. Probably the only drawback is some authorities my take it a bit too far and it would border on abuse, but there is consequences for them too.

Humanistic vs. Behaviorist part 2

First I will talk about the approach that we use now, The humanistic approach. In the school systems someone decided to use this approach towards educating kids. It states that each and every person strives to be the best person they can be that we as humans by nature try to be good, (a bunch of crap). So that’s the thinking behind the school systems and I guess the main reason to the problems that we have. The first problem that I have with it is that everyone by nature is not good, (carjackers, sex offenders, terrorist, gang members etc…) and also the punishments don’t fit the crime or they don’t set an example to other kids who might want to try it. They way they encounter the problem is maybe putting brighter colors in school, more metal detectors, and increased police presence. I just think that it does very little to curb the problem. I know because when I went to school the officers or metal detectors would not stop then students at my school from fighting or shooting each other they would just do it after school or at a certain part of the campus. Besides they won’t even let the teachers try stop a student even if someone has a weapon. If a teacher even touches a student they will be fired and some ignorant mother( whose to blame, for their dumb kid anyway) will be on TV ready to sue the school board for hurting their baby when they were trying to kill half the kids at the school. We have been trying this approach for years and it has yet to work.

Humanistic vs. Behaviorist part 1

Again I the fruits of my research online about School Assessment combined with a spark from my always interesting class of Psychology. In class we began to talk about the approaches to studying psychology and the two we were comparing and contrasting were Behaviorism and Humanism. Psychology is the backbone in our education system it basically decides every decision involving the school system. It ranges from how to stop pregnancy among teenage girls to the colors they use to paint the school. These people get paid a lot of money to come up with new and better ways to solve our problems (we need to get a refund). So far of school systems have mostly adopted a Humanistic approach, not just here in Memphis but nationwide. It’s been this way for sometime but we use to rely on Behaviorism but that stopped. I think that our problems have grown from the humanistic approach and the behaviorist approach would be better, but like everything problems will come but I think the problems presented with a behaviorist approach would be more manageable than those using the humanistic approach. The next two blogs I going to compare each of them strengths and weaknesses.

1 vs. 2

This weekend our city is going to get the one of the biggest economic boosts by experiencing the #1 Memphis Tigers (Yay) vs. #2 Tennessee Volunteers (yay). This game has huge importance in the college basketball world and also to our city. I am a huge sports fan and this is a big day for me with my school having a shot for perfection. They also bring a lot of revenue to this city (and lord knows we need it) I hear people are already parking downtown so you know that going that way is probably not going to be easy and that’s the task I’ll have to face. I going to go to game and pray that there is a spot in a alley somewhere for my car (I’m in for a long walk). For the game my I think that Memphis is going to win Tennessee will put up a good fight due to differences in playing style we will pull it out. We just got to stop the three point shooting. I am excited and looking forward to Saturday for the Tennessee Tussle (good name).

Get the vote out

Brandon McMahan
English 1020
February 12, 2008


At first when I think of the slogan I don’t quite understand it. It is not a complete phrase or a sentence, but when I read the article I see that it is well thought out and the speaker is trying to explain the reasons that people should and should not vote. He first points to extreme examples that could have taken place for people who chose not to vote. He appeals to voting as a privilege and not a law. In the public eye back when the article was written he says that not voting would be viewed as unpatriotic and or unethical. Then he gives an example of an average voter who could be swayed by public opinion. The voter would chose to vote for the people who he was informed about and for those he doesn’t know he would choose at random or the most familiar name. He explains that this would be an example of how someone could vote the wrong people in office. Whereas he might vote intelligently on one or two candidates and the other ones would get a random vote or depending on their publicity campaign. According to the speaker this would result in a loss of the majority of the public’s vote.

The speaker throughout the article stresses the importance of voting intelligently and how by not voting it would do the nation a favor. They think that if you are not going to vote in an intelligent manner you’re better off not voting at all. He also shows that political parties that are not in power can prey on this and use it against the public. His evidence includes surveys done on public opinion that shows a certain proportion of the public have no opinion on many vital issues. He again tackles the idea that it is unpatriotic not to vote saying that an uninformed vote would be a useless one. He even adds a humorous tone in that uninformed people would just create more delay in voting, slowing down the results. These people would even skew the results of the balloting. The main point he is trying to get across is that instead of urging people to vote we should rather encourage people to study and form opinions. If they don’t care to do that then he thinks that they would be better off staying at home. He does not find any problem in the low voter turnout, perhaps prefers it if the majority of them vote wisely. Voting should not be seen as a patriotic thing to if people will not vote in a proper manner.

The article desperately tries to persuade the audience to vote intelligently or don’t vote at all. It starts out as a radical statement that would be heavily criticized if you skim through it or don’t read the whole thing. He seems to have no political affiliation or rather an affiliation with the most suitable candidate no matter what party he represents. It is a surprise that the article is written so long ago but still has clear meaning by today’s standards. In his time people voted with more pride in their country and that’s why they would vote in such a manner. Today people still vote with pride in their country, but there are less numbers and to his fears they would seem to be less intelligent than the people he criticized back then. There are some other issues behind voting besides being patriotic, for example why African Americans vote. African Americans vote for more than themselves they vote because of the struggle and oppression that their ancestors when through to achieve the right to vote. I still do not think that would be an excuse to not know the people for whom you are voting for. I think that we as African Americans owe those who fought for us at least this honor. Now I think that he is building upon the fact that we as a nation would better honor those who fought for this right and our country. He has the right idea in that voting without informing yourself or carelessly voting at random to fill out your ballot could be looked at as more unpatriotic than not voting, at least those who don’t vote will not affect the results of the election in a negative way.

The Storm

Tuesday Feb 5th was a normal day I went to classes and paid attention but when I got to my Chemistry lab which was suppose to last until 2:40 but I was told that classes were cancelled after 2:30 and my teacher rushed my out of the lab so he could go home. I headed home but I had some things to do before I was going to go home I got my hair cut and went to wal-mart for groceries. When I left wal-mart the sky was dark and I noticed lightning every 3 seconds which I didn’t think much of until later. Then it rained and I got home and looked at the news and saw the storm warning for the areas. I’ve seen it before so I thought it would rain really hard and pass on but I didn’t think that a tornado would hit. The tornados hit not to far from my house but we were spared the worst of the storm. Where Union University was completely destroyed and people lost their lives. So all we can do is pray for the ones who lost love ones in the tornados and those who lost their livelihood. To me it’s just a testament to what God can do and a blessing that nothing happened to me or anyone I know.

One and Done

While looking for information on my topic I ran across something interesting something that says that students today when they take the test they indicate that the student might do good on the test but when it comes to applying the knowledge to something they can’t do it. Example, a student might take a writing test and do alright but in essays they write for something like for a scholarship it would not be acceptable. It says that the teacher is only going over what is tested in this situation and the student is just doing good enough to get a decent grade on the test and what they learned isn’t really sticking to them. The person who wrote it suggest that in today’s schools we don’t just go over basic knowledge and that they focus on things that can be applied to something else. Also they say another problem is that the testing done by the state is a one shot thing where one test is not an accurate measurement of a students ability in that area. I would agree but I wouldn’t like taking multiple tests on the same thing. Maybe in the future this problem can be corrected.

From School to the Real World

Many of you have thought it, many of you have even said it to other people, I know I have said it. What I’m talking about is when you go to class like Calculus or algebra maybe even history and you think why am I learning this? I’ll never use this in everyday life. Well you might be right. In every educational institution there are prerequisites before you graduate or move on there is this course or that course you have to take and you move on and find out that what you learned was completely useless. It’s even worse if you struggled in whatever it was. That is how our school systems work you have to take the standardized test for this and that to get further but those won’t help you in real life situations. How everything was set up in grade school is you learn a balance of every subject before you get into what you do for the rest of your life. It’s not a bad thing but there is such a heavy emphasis on these tests when it only provides basic knowledge to something that needs more attention in one area than another. Like a English major learning advanced calculus, there’s no point in it their job requires more attention to English and what’s the point or learning something you will never use.

Meaning What you Say

Multiple times in my life I have written papers some good some bad. The majority of the papers I just wanted to get done because typing or writing papers are not something that I find enjoyable and they feel like a chore to do. Most the papers I found many ways just to fill them up to the appropriate amount of words without really talking about the subject. In class Mrs. Sumner explained to us that exact problem and showed us statements that were full of bulk. She showed us that the words in them carry meaning you might say, many people commit crimes, and she would point out, who is many people and what crimes do they commit. I never looked at sentences that way but I think I got it she is trying to say that we must be more specific, get off the fence and say what you really mean. When she dismantled the sentence it frustrated me and most of the class even to the point that she even began to outlaw some words. We sooner or later got it. In the end I found that it was a very important lesson, something that I will take outside the classroom which is rare.

Education Stays the Same

When I was in high school it felt like my education was dated, my books were from the 80’s ( Some didn’t need to be updated, because the subject didn’t change, Math ) and we really didn’t have the cool technology that went along with education. Now I know that in some classrooms there are laptops and some classes had computers in them, but the computers were older than me and most just had the internet. With education constantly changing as the workforce demands more out of students education might need to catch up. Now companies need workers who have analytical, problem solving and reasoning skills and education fails to live up to the expectations. Also as things move towards technology and automation students can’t just make it on basic skills anymore. Maybe a more computer savvy classroom would help things. It could open up a whole new world of possibilities in the classroom. Connection with other classrooms around the world could be possible. The only flaw, as with everything in this state or this country for that matter, is money. I don’t think I can figure out that problem but its worth a shot because our Memphis City schools need some help.

The Non-Football part of the Super Bowl

The parts of the Super Bowl the non-football fan tunes in to watch. Not to sound like a hater but I myself enjoy the ads and some of the festivities. This year was no exception the commercials were funny, like FedEx with the pigeons (priceless) and bud light with the added super powers to the beer. (I wish they could really have something that could make you fly, that would help Global Warming). What I ask is it too much maybe we are missing the point. It seems like most of the focus is on the party and celebrity appearances and not the football game. I watched the pre game show (something I never do) and the majority of the show it was this celebrity, this promotion for this movie. It was hosted by Ryan Seacrest (This guy has never touched a football) which he asked whoever he was nearby a prediction for the game and pump up the crowd. When the long wait was over the game started, my thoughts on the game in the other blog, and halftime came (Lord, why?) and the performer was (somebody and The Heartbreaks…) and I know the NFL is trying to be safe since the Justin and Janet incident (wow, didn’t expect that) but they could have done better.

Unofficial Holiday

The Super Bowl ( yes I know it’s a predictable subject for a blog but what a game!) it’s the second best holiday of the year (Christmas and My Birthday are tied for first) it’s where the best of the NFC and the AFC come together to battle for the immortality. This year the storylines behind the bowl games were huge. For the Patriots they came in 18 and 0 looking to make history and extend this decades dynasty. They had the ultimate team Hall of Fame quarterback dating a supermodel ( I’m jealous), probably the greatest wide receiving core, and a very good defense. On the other hand we have the New York Giants, counted out at the beginning of the season, Coach and Quarterback were nearly chased out of town by angry mob with torches, and could not win at home. And in the end the Giants won in probably one of the top 5 best games ever. Eli Manning had all the trouble in the world town didn’t want him he had to live under his brothers shadow, who the year before won the Super Bowl and he seemed like the bastard red headed step child. Who would have guessed a year later he would be Super Bowl XLII MVP (Now the camera might finally incorporate him at the family table in the commercials.)

Parents make the Difference

The second installment about my paper that I wrote for a class assignment. Yes I expected bad results from the Tennessee state site regarding the Memphis City Schools, but I didn’t expect it to be such a gap between them and the state, let alone Shelby County. As I said one of the main problems I think is the parents. First not many of parents are involved in what their child is doing in school. Many parents do whatever they do and leave their kids to do whatever if they don’t skip classes they go to school and just go to classes and don’t care. The other case is when their children do something wrong the parents will take the side of their child. Even when some kid talks back to the teachers and some attack the teachers and they have no power to do anything. Some of the rules are ridiculous, for example if some student attacks another student with a knife the teacher can’t stop the student because the teacher can’t put hands on a student, so they have to call for help from security or the police to stop them. Poor teachers the system ties their hands yet they are suppose to discipline the kids and it’s only going to get worse.

Memphis City vs. Shelby County

Okay I had my Idea in my head when I was going to do my paper for English. My topic was school assessment. So I researched locally about the issue and I came across the Tennessee state site where I looked up the average grades for all schools in Tennessee. It wasn’t a surprise but the comparison between Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools was not close. The ACT scores, TCAP writing, average grades, attendance, suspensions, and expulsions all were not good for Memphis. Example, Shelby County’s graduation rate was something around 94% and Memphis well guess somewhere around 82% that means about 2 of every 10 kids don’t graduate. I know it seems small but in the case of education it’s a big difference. Average ACT was 17 compared to 21 for Shelby County meaning that on average the County school graduate would get the hope scholarship and Memphis City… well tough luck. The suspensions were the stats that jumped off the paper out of 120,000 students at least 20,000 were suspended at some time. I never attended a City School so I don’t know but what is the difference (on a group level) because the individuals I have met that came from a city school seem intelligent to me ( but I do attend a college and It’s a good chance the one’s who helped the bad part of the stats are not here to tell me.)

A Rough Week

This week was a rough one (I’m out of blog topics) had a lot of assignments due at the same time. First (Most important of course) was my school assessment paper which was due Thursday and My first hearing of it was Tuesday (Second according to the teacher, I know I forgot but I still did it.) and that was not good. It wasn’t finished there I still had to do my weekly blogs from that class (which are starting to grow on me). That same day I had Chemistry and a quiz on Thursday over the periodic chart memorizing 44 elements. (The quiz only asked for 3 and I memorized all of them, I wanted to choke him). So I was worried. Not only that my Psychology class had a online quiz due on Feb 1st and they are hard (I made an 82) and to top it all off a Paper due Friday on the Salem Witch trials 3 to 4 pages. I had no time to spare and a date with a keyboard. This being the last of my assignments and just to say I am glad to be done hoping there isn’t another week like this one. (yeah this might become common practice, my poor fingers).

Straitjacket

This by far is my 2nd most interesting class (of course #1 is English, hint, hint wink, wink) Psychology where my teacher doesn’t pull any punches during class (I bet his blog would be interesting) he is a former cop worked on the force for 17 years. I don’t see him being a street cop, not because he is fat or anything because he is actually slim, but because he seems like more of a education first kind of guy. (besides crack heads are fast) He loves Psychology lives and breathes it. During class he says that the people who skip classes are at home playing with themselves or having sex (the latter being better). Also when phones go off during class, which he doesn’t like, he has a skit he does every time he acts like a girl calling telling her boyfriend that she is 3 weeks late. He mostly thinks all college students do is have sex, drink alcohol, and party (you can blame TV and the movies for that). I would guess he talks like this because he has an auditorium of people (I hate big classes) whose names he does not know. He keeps me awake, but the part I didn’t like was when we were on the subject of evolution, and with religion a big part of my life you can see where we had problems. Now later in the year I might not see this class in such a favorable light, with the online quizzes and the evolution theory, (I’m a traditional type of person) but for now it helps the time go by.

Old School Punishment

One thing that I was thinking of today stemmed from both my history and psychology classes (It happened in history when I wasn’t paying attention and continued until I got to the car). See it happened when my teacher was talking about the various torture methods used by the Native Americans and the Europeans (it was a brief conversation) but she asked if we knew any that the Native Americans used, the kid in the class who answers all the teachers questions said that some of the Native American tribes cut out a persons heart as punishment. Then she asked what did the Europeans do (the kid actually didn’t know this answer) someone answered the Guillotine the same thing I was thinking but she said that didn’t come in until the 1800’s. So no one knew then she said that a person was drawn and quartered. Which is a very gruesome punishment where they take out your insides and cut you into four pieces. I then relayed that to today’s lecture on positive and negative reinforcement in Psychology. I was thinking that if they did that today to people who committed heinous crimes it would discourage other people to do that crime. Like the guy who raped and killed the marine then fled to Mexico (where all criminals flee to how come nobody wants to go to Canada, probably to cold). Well I think be it a little cruel but it probably would have a dramatic effect on crime.

History

History class usually boring to mostly about dead people who did something great or contributed to the way we live today. Yeah the usual history class. Me on the other hand have always been good at history and shockingly found some of it interesting (I wonder if that makes me a boring person or something) Well this class I’m in fails most of the time to hold my attention because it goes over probably the most uninteresting part of American history, (The years before World War 1 and 2). The teacher is a nice lady and my class is big, which I don’t like, she has one of those soft spoken voices you would hear on a GPS navigator. Right now we are studying the times when the first Europeans came over to America and met the Native Americans. Speaking of the Native Americans from what I hear during the lectures I would guess that my teacher strongly sympathizes with the Native Americans and probably if I asked her would tell me she is some part Native American. You ask what would lead me to think this, well she emphasizes how it was the European’s fault that the Native American’s were basically wiped out. Also she knows about many Native American groups that I never heard of, Example: the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts (I have never seen these words before). It’s all good though because some of the information is interesting and she is a nice person but I was hoping for some recent history. Oh well

Writer's Block

When I heard we had to blog just about every day about a random subject in English class I was thinking that could be a problem because I might not have anything to say everyday. That was until the minimum amount of words it had to be,750 each blog. Red alert lights went off in my head like a ship was sinking. This was after the Manifesto post which trust me was harder to make than you would think. During the manifesto I think I ran out of things to say around 300 words and clawed and scratched for the other 450. So you could imagine the trouble I would have with one a day. She told us about the blogs the first day she came back. When I came back Thursday I was not looking forward to that class plus I think the shock would not allow me to start on the posts (maybe a little laziness), but I think the good lord saw mercy on this poor boys soul and the teacher told us it was only 200 a blog a much better ratio per blog. I still have trouble coming up with topics but at least it’s less words and with it I got a post out of it.

Manifesto

Brandon’s Manifesto of Beliefs
Brandon McMahan
Prof. Wendy Sumner
Manifesto

I started this assignment without the slightest idea of how to approach it. First, when I was told the assignment I never heard of the word manifesto let alone knew what it meant. So you can see the dilemma I had, I went on the internet and looked up the word and found it’s definition to be a public declaration of principles and intentions often political. I was surprised to see that many manifestos and some of them help shape the world as we see it today.

The manifesto that stood out the most was the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It is the key article in United States history, the words in it stood for a group of people at the time declaring themselves a new country away from Britain. It stood for what they believed in and their ideals and dreams, It was strong because afterwards they had to fight for that belief. Now today it is a part of history even though it was written on paper the real document existed in the people’s heart. That was probably the most famous manifesto but there were others like one for Communism which I guess would be along the lines of infamous. Others were about rights to one’s own culture, industry, and war. Some weren’t all political stances others were about technology and art. All shared the same commitment and passion no matter what the cause.
Everyone has a view on how things should be weather it concerns only themselves or reaches a much larger scale like a country or the world. Some for good others not so good.

I believe that our country has gotten away from the moral fiber that previous generations have shown. Today instead of people focusing an trying to right the problems around us I feel like we can’t change our country tomorrow but if we start by what we can do locally years later we can make a difference. Instead we mostly care about what Brittany Spears is going to do next. Everyday you can see segments of what different celebrities have done wrong and highlight the negative when those who judge are worse than they are. It has even affected politics where you have an election where the candidates are bashing each other and pointing fingers like children. Example Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Hillary said it took a president to help Martin Luther King achieve what he has done and Obama took offense to it. Now strangely enough I agree to an extent with Hillary.

I believe that our country is moving away from which it was founded on religion mainly the Christian religion. In government they are trying to separate church and state so much now today. I heard that in one state they had to remove the ten commandments from the city hall building, and in another they were trying to remove certain statues from political buildings. Even here in Memphis when World Overcomers put a huge Statue of Liberty in front of the Church carrying a bible and a cross people petitioned to get it removed. They were not successful but just the thought proves a change in the way people think for the worse. In the media people have to be cautious and try to be politically correct and try not to offend anyone or to spark controversy. Today we have to try and respect everyone’s beliefs and try to suppress our individuality or what we stand for. Looks like everything about how to make money seems like the idea is to try for happiness financially instead of just being happy.

Now it seems that being yourself is a lost concept many people. A lot of people are afraid to be different and sort of copy other people in a never ending chain. Maybe one day it will stop I don’t know. In the end I will try to be nice to people and be myself no matter what any one thinks try to uphold my beliefs which will come out because I am known to be honest no matter what. I am going to do my best in all my classes because I think that it is a good thing to have a college degree because you are more likely to be successful and have a good life rather than most who try and coast through life and put in no effort to achieve anything. With this it gives more clarity to the word manifesto which I had no knowledge of until recently.