Fast Food Nation...A Super Sized Read!

I started reading Fast Food Nation by: Eric Schlosser (Looming Tower was too hard to get through) and I must say...I love it! It's hard to imagine that Americans have had such a large craving for fatty food. I'll admit that I have eaten fast food, but not in a while. I stay away from it for the fact that it really affects the way I dance and run. When I eat fast food I don't feel like doing anything, but sleeping which is a bad thing. I'm joining dace team in college and if I hadn't stopped eating fast food I wouldn't have the energy needed to dance. The book starts off in Anaheim, California with a young man named Carl N. Karcher who's life, as Schlosser describes, "...seems at once to be a tale by Horatio Alger,..." (for those who don't know, Horatio Alger was a famous dime novelist in the late 1800's early 1900's. His books have been the basis for movies like Newseis and musicals like Bowery Boys which played at the Marriott Theater in 2009). Carl, worked hard all of his life, dropping out of school after eight grade and moving to Anaheim, somehow made a name for himself by selling hot dogs out of carts on the street. It's strange to think that Americans wanted to eat food out of carts, but as the cities started to grow and people were on the move they wanted their food to be on the go too. Faster life style meant faster food, thus fast food was born. Carl was at the head of the speedy new food distribution.
That's pretty much what chapter one is about, I'll blog again after I'm done with chapter three. I've gotta say so far I'm giving this book a super sized thumbs up!

Class Colors Distracting From Homecomming Spirit?

There has been lots of controversy over class colors and Homecoming. DHS has had class colors for over 40 years, and now the school is thinking of getting rid of it. Freshmen color is white, Sophomore color is grey, Junior color is red, and the Seniors color is black. The big argument has been brought on by the Seniors hazing the Freshmen. Some people say that the colors single out one class (the Freshmen) and it makes them and easy target. The Seniors have waited four years to get to wear their class color, for us it's a symbol of power and leadership. I do believe that the colors don't unify the school, but it unifies the class. As a Freshman I didn't know a lot of people in my grade so having a class color day it was easy to pick out who people were in my class. At the pep rally we all came together and cheered as a class and it made me feel part of something bigger. As a Senior I know I'm not really friends with all of the people in my class, but at pep rally I fell like everyone is friends with everyone, because of something as simple as what grade you are in.
That's why I feel that class colors are a good thing in our school. The pep rally is for the classes, and the game is for the school as a whole.

College Speech Codes...Tell Us What You Really Think!

University of Oregon has quite a few speech codes they include, "Office of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity: Definitions Related to Discrimination, Student Conduct Code: Definitions, Student Conduct Code: Violations of Community Standards by Individual Students, and University of Oregon Bias Response Team." The speech codes really had to do with Student Conduct, I know when my dad was there the students were tear gassed because of a protest about the Vietnam War. U of O students wanted to speak their minds and become a part of society, so they decided to protest which was their rights as a US citizen. The police thought otherwise and stopped it. My dad told me that U of O students had a little bit of a problem accepting the African American students onto their campus. Some of the students, like my dad, had grown up out west and some in small towns were their weren't many African Americans. They were a bit surprised to see African Americans in college, but they didn't harm them in any way, it was more about learning to accept them.

The restrictions of Free Speech don't really impact me too much. I believe it's a good thing to have on a campus where you aren't being watched all the time by teachers like in High School. I think it's more protective of the student body to have a bit of a restriction on Free Speech. I wouldn't want to be harassed at a place where I should feel safe.

This doesn't change my mind at all. I still want to go to U of O even though I probably will stay closer to home. (Thanks Mom!!) I personally like the restrictions, but that's just a personal opinion.

I fully believe that the restrictions are legal. If they didn't need to be in place than they wouldn't be, and I don't believe that the University would want the restrictions to be illegal. That's not the kind of school they are, they don't just make restrictions to make them.

U of O would not tolerate the actions that I read about in the other articles. They were implying harm onto other people and the University would have punished those responsible. I would have been behind the Universtiy 100% because thoes types of actions are rude and could be dangerous to others. U of O wants their students to feel safe on the campus because it's their home for 4+ years and it's their job to make the students want to be their.

Become a DUCK!!

The Looming Tower: Good Book...We'll Find Out ;)

I started reading The Looming Tower by: Lawrence Wright. The first chapter was good, but I'm waiting for it to be fantastic. It's about Al-Qaeda and 9/11 (fitting because it's been 10 years). I just wasn't expecting all of the history. It starts off in the 50's. I didn't realize that Al-Qaeda members were in America in the 50's. Strange to think that they didn't try anything before 2001. I really hope this book gets more into what they were thinking when they planed 9/11 because I want to know what they were thinking because it makes no sense to me. I got the recommendation about this book from my dad and he hasn't lead me to a bad book...yet. I'm excited to keep everyone updated about what is going on in this book and how I am liking it as I get farther along.

9/11- Ten Years Later

In class we watched 9/11 a documentary about the Fire fighters who were the first responders at the World Trade Center tower 1. It showed the pure confusion and fear everyone had. No one understood what was going on. A plane flew into a building?! Most of the people had a look of terror on their faces and many were crying. How could this happen in America?! The thing that had the biggest impact on me from watching the movie was the thud of the bodies that dropped from the building. Knowing that people had a choice to jump and they picked it over staying in the building was just heart wrenching.

I read the article The Real Meaning of 9/11. The paragraph that stood out to me was,
    "Imagine, for a moment, you are Marwan al-Shehhi, the lead hijacker of Flight 175. You see Christine Hanson among the passengers on the plane you had just hijacked -- a two-year-old child, seated on her father's lap -- and you fly the plane carrying this child into the South Tower of the World Trade Center anyway. Peter Hanson, Christine's father, was on the telephone with his own father, Lee, as the plane approached lower Manhattan. "I think they're going to try to crash this plane into a building," Peter told his father. "Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it will be quick." Then, Peter said, "Oh, my God," and Lee Hanson watched on television as the plane flew into the tower."
In my mind I just didn't want to believe that people could be that evil, but knowing what I know about the Holocaust, I know that people can be evil. These people didn't take into account that there were people in the buildings or on the plane, all they thought about was pleasing their God. Tell me what kind of a God thinks killing other people is a good thing? If that's God than I don't want to believe in him, I can't believe in him.

9/11 to me is a sad moment in history. All of those people had families and lives a head of them. None of them thought that they would die. One story I heard was about a women who went to the World Trade for one day for a business meeting. She was killed as the tower collapsed. If she hadn't gone to the meeting she would be alive today. I remember on 9/11 getting ready for school. My neighbor called and I remember watching one of the towers get hit. My dad wasn't home because he was on a business meeting in South Carolina. My mom was scared and I didn't fully understand what was happening. All I understood was that bad people attacked our country because they hated America. I didn't understand why anyone could hate America, because I thought we were the best and strongest country in the world. Watching the towers today on the History Channel, I see that even the strongest countries can crumble. We didn't. 9/11 stalled us, but made us stronger. We had patriotism and we stood together. Everyone helped each other and we became a family nation. Every one cared for every one after the attacks. Our flag stood for the freedom of our country, no amount of bad people could take our freedom away from us.

9/11- We Will Never Forget

It's September 11th, so many thoughts are running through my head. I had to get up at 5am to go run the Chicago Half Marathon with my family. Rescue Engine 4 was at the race. 8 of it's crew members were first responders on Ground Zero, 0 came home. It was eerie to know that all of the members of this engine died, but the truck remained unharmed. To honor 9/11 everyone was asked to wear red white and blue at the race. Some people wore red white and blue, but others went all out.

We met a women before the race who was from New York. She told us that she didn't know anyone personally who was killed, but a women in her prayer group had a son who was a fire fighter who she hadn't talked to in years because he had married someone she didn't approve of. He died and the women felt bad that she couldn't forgive her son before he died.

My family ran the race and went to see the firetruck up close. We read the names of people that died from the truck. There was a different door on the truck from Rescue Engine 3. They found it alone at ground zero, the names of the men from that truck were on the door.



Door from Rescue 3



There is a picture of my family and I standing in front of the turck holding a flag. A man had a flag with him and I asked if I could borrow his flag for a picture and he said something that really stuck with me, "It's not my flag...it's the countries." 9/11 really brought Americans together to fight people who wanted to tear us appart.

God Bless the USA

Please go to TheRRP.org and check out their site it means alot to the men of Rescue 4 and if anyone could donate money that would also mean alot to them. (I'm not just talking to our Issues class I'm talking to anyone who reads this blog!!)

Issues in Modern America: What I Really Think of This Class...

I think this is a great class. I really enjoy talking about things like court decisions and whether we agree with them or not. It's interesting how many things go on in America that we may not know about, but we would have opinions on. I personally believe that students should have the right to free speech if they consider what they say when they say it. We shouldn't (even though many would) walk around shouting F-bombs in school. At the Lake House my family goes to every year we are aloud to speak freely, but I don't go around swearing at my family or around them. I mean my Grandma would not be happy if I swore while she was in the room, and my parents wouldn't like it too much. There are just right and wrong times to speak freely. When I am with my friends I can really say anything I want, but around some people I don't feel like saying whatever I want.
This class is all about reading the material. If you don't read the court cases and packets about freedom of speech we are working on you become lost. It reminds me of my favorite quote, "Get the books read and study them..." -Abraham Lincoln.  No other quote is more true to the things we need to do today. If we don't study and read we will never know anything. Lincoln was self taught, but we have teachers and others who devote their lives to making sure that we learn and become great learned people.
I have a feeling that this class is going to be interesting and bring up topics that I would normally have no opinion on. I hope that it will be one of my favorite classes this year and that we will touch on important things.
Post again soon!!