Friday, January 25, 2008
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.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
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.
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.
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