[RE] Kids These Days

This is a response post to Brenda's free post.

Ever take a look at the younger generation now and think to yourself, “I never had that when I was younger”?

Seriously, these kids are so spoiled. There are elementary school kids that have their own cell phones and iPods. Who would those kids call? The only person I would call at their age would be my parents. At their age, I could barely even remember my own address! The music industry is filled with profanity and inappropriate material. Do parents even care about ratings or what their children listen to? Mainstream music has involved sex, alcohol, and partying. What do kids know about these subjects? They shouldn’t even be aware of these things yet.

I also hear kids swearing here and there without a care in the world. When I was their age, swearing was taboo. Those words meant trouble - no, it defined trouble’s very meaning. However, I highly doubt these kids are even aware of what the words even mean, and how slang has completely changed the meanings of these words. Like the F word means to sexually assault, but these kids do not even understand the meaning of rape. How ignorant the next generation is becoming.
What happened to playing outside? What about playing with Legos, or stuffed animals? What happened to imagination? In the past decade, too many things have changed. We grew up with Legos, Barbie, and board games. They grew up with computer games, television, and Eminem. smh

[CE] Activists hack into Syrian government sites

Although hackers are often prone to the negative response of the public, this anonymous group of tech savvy individuals openly expose their government’s actions. They let the public know what the government is capable of and of their recent activities. They even pulled out a map of how many deaths at protests were recorded on. They also give other viewers warnings and has hacked many government websites. One of the hackers say that hacking the government websites was actually really easy, and they have also planned another hack very soon. Videos that were revealed a famous activist singer with his throat slashed and a cartoonist who had his hands broken. The anonymous group also stated that the government monitors their online activity and have put up warnings about it. A Revolusec member stated that they want to educate the public and help the people of Syria.

It’s amazing that hackers typically receive negative feedback and yet they are capable of such justice. Without any profit or personal gain, they come as a group to attack the Syrian government online. Despite knowing they are monitored, they deliberately edit websites to educate the people of Syria about their online privacy. However, the group does not know who their own allies are, but they are still united as a whole. For a group of individuals who do not know each others’ faces or names to team up against a government must possess a large amount of motivation and determination. This is a true unification and justice.

[BC] UC essay prompt#2

    For a huge majority of my prepubescent years, I was an immature, obnoxious brat that did not understand what “respect” meant. I had the entire playground under my thumb and I believed everything I did was correct. I freely pushed my weight around. However, all of this soon changed when my parents enrolled into a local Chinese school. I enrolled into taekwondo, a popular Korean martial art, as an elective after my classes. I originally thought it would be beneficial to know self-defense, but martial arts are not that simple. Martial arts do not only teach self-defense; the discipline, strength and respect are all valuable life lessons.

All taekwondo students begin with the beginner white belt, my first lesson of discipline. Thrown into competition, students who had more advanced belts could exercise their dominance freely. However, bullying was not a problem; the Master regulated behavior among the advanced students. We were taught how to punch, kick, and simple techniques, and we were punished for minuscule details. This taught me perfection and to put full effort into everything I did. It refined my views of half-hearted work. I completely agree that all tasks should be completed with full effort.

As we did our daily drills of our punches and kicks, we were taught to yell after every completed rep. The first week of class was extremely embarrassing. I imagined us as a group of little kids just moving in unison and yelling nonsense. We were told that yelling is a sign of strength, release and power. This has been scientifically proven that yelling can produce more force, but the iron will and strength that has been forged within me has proven more significant than any amount of force I could produce. It improved my confidence; I punched hard, and fast with a smile on my face.

I eventually progressed to my green belt examination, and sparring with another person was the requirement I was not familiar with. As an orange belt, my legs shook as they announced my opponent was a green belt who was also having his blue belt exam. The chubby boy had weight, height, speed and experience on me. To impress the exam supervisors, points are scored by successfully landing kicks to your opponents sides and chest. My fellow classmate who has the red belt before the black gave me some advice: let him punch me and to parry his kicks. Anyone who would take this advice is a fool; who would let someone punch them? However, as I advanced through the hierarchy of taekwondo, she has earned an extreme amount of respect from me. I did as she said, punches penetrated my defensive stance, but his kicks proved unsuccessful. I felt defeated: my morale destroyed, landed only about three good kicks on him. After the round, we shook hands.

I never heard of my round, pudgy opponent again, but I did receive my green belt a week later. Despite the joy and life lessons that were included in the class, I soon quit due to school work. However, the life lessons learned will stay with me forever.

[RE] Student Reactions to French Prayer-Ban

After last week’s weekly blog posts, we had an in-class discussion about a potentially controversial topic concerning France’s ban of public Muslim practices. Mr. Sutherland presented to the class his response to many posts about the same event.

The arguments provided by my peers are extremely relevant, but this ban was approved with the intention of improving the well-being of their country. Although, we Americans have always believed that all humans have unalienable rights, but that can only be enforced by the citizens’ government. we are ignorant about other countries’ problems because we unconsciously believe that our rights apply to everybody. However, this is not the case. France has their own constitution and they should have the right to protect their own culture and regulate their people’s actions. The ban of Muslim practices is not simply trying to remove Muslim influences from their people.

Due to the overwhelming number of Muslims, the mosques cannot contain the huge crowd of believers. They overflow the street and can possibly block pathways and streets. They could possibly block the path of cars, public transportation and pedestrians. The French government also included a building for religious practices, so the people should not be wary of their government attempting to completely remove Muslim practices or becoming anti-Muslim. The ban will clear the streets and allow people and vehicles to pass through the streets safely and it would not obscure emergency vehicles such as police cars, ambulances and fire trucks from reaching their destinations. The French have thought this through.

[CE] Philippine school made out of bottles

Filipino schools are adapting to an environmentally challenged world. They are reusing bottles to rebuild schools twice as big as their old ones, but only half the price. Statistics show that every town in the Philippines can build a new classroom using the bottles every two weeks. These bottles are filled with a brick-like mixture and then packed together to create the walls of the classroom. The huge amount of waste produced by each town in the Philippines can now be a clever solution to the small amount of classrooms.
Our world is currently rapidly changing into a community where industrialization dominates our societies. However, that does not mean industrialization has no consequences. Every country in the world has a waste problem and we should adapt like the Philippines for the mutual benefit for the cleanliness of the planet Earth. We can potentially remove the waste from our waters, junkyards, and streets. Community service programs and jobs can benefit from the waste and we could produce many new things.

Producing buildings and other things using bottles will allow a new form of art to bloom. Although critics may call it “unprofessional”, or “outrageous” or maybe even “jank”, these projects are often viewed as positively “ghetto” and amusingly creative. Teenagers, young adults and the current generation will soon lead our economy and the evolution of the creations and inventions can be influenced by the latest trends. Creative things is an explosively expanding trend among many teenagers and young adults, and may influence the upcoming generations of what people will soon call “art”.

[Free] Average Day with a Hint of Military Language

    As my mission was slowly came to a close, I holster my silver pen into it’s rightful place. My mission was rather simple: decipher the foreign language, break high scores on my calculator, and to analyze a video about football. My fellow soldiers and I accomplished our mission with ease and we were released from the facility for the day. The day was hot; we were melting with all the Kevlar of cotton strapped to our bodies. The temperatures reached extremes; it was a scorching eighty five degrees.

As my comrades and I proceed to adventure off into the familiar streets of Alameda, we discuss our future arrangements. We finalize our decisions to deploy a deposit of our weaponry at James’ military storage. We strip of our dead weight baggage and rendezvous with Commander Raymond at McDonald’s via beach route. Without our Kevlar, we were prone to surprise attacks and guerrilla warfare. However, we survived the stampede of the armored vehicles and possible confrontations with potential hostiles.

With Commander Raymond and I leading our platoon of five men, we proceeded to breach the glass doors of the successful fast food business. We take refuge from the devastating nuclear radiation; licking rich vanilla ice cream and sipping from our large sweet teas. After capturing this point, we cross the barren parking lot. We complete the same procedures with Ross and Kohl’s, but instead of looting the building, we pick out potential clothing necessary for the next battle: senior banquet.

[CE] France Bans All Public Prayer

France bans all public prayer today on Friday, September 16, 2011. This new law has affected many Muslim worshippers due to local mosques being too small to hold all the worshippers. Due to the small capacity size of the mosques, many worshippers are force to pray on the street, and the new law has kicked them off. However, there are people who have ignored the new law and continue to pray. This new law was intended to force the worshippers to find new mosques. Mohamed Hamza is a religious leader who believes that France authorities should provide the worshippers space for new mosques and they will leave the street. However, there are people who disagree with Hamza and believe that the new law is the beginning of a campaign against Muslims.
Due to the date that this law has been approved, many youtube users have suggested many ignorant comments. They all provide the same thought: removing Muslims from the country. They imply that the rest of the world should do the same as France and ban Muslim practices. The 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001 was committed by a group of Muslim worshippers and their attack has provoked many Americans to be prejudice against Muslim worshippers. It is almost insane how people could classify an entire religious group as terrorists, and raise suspicion just because of their beliefs. Most Muslims have no connection to the terrorist attack and Americans have become too paranoid of the their kind. People are so irrational.