You'll Pay For This Someday.. (Literally)

            We live in a culture that relies heavily on our technology and the internet. I can think of multiple times where I’ve talked to my parents about researching something to where they have replied with, “When I was a kid there was no such thing as google, we did all of our research out of a book!” While I’m sure a lot of the kids in my generation have heard stories similar to this, it would be impossible for us to change how we were taught to do school work. We were raised around technology that has continued to grow over the years and become the most important factor in our social lives, business, and education. There is a current proposition stating that the government would like to take away the freedom of technically-free internet. While we currently have to pay the fees to Mediacom or whatever provider serves you, this gives you service that unleashes the entire internet at your will. This Net Neutrality act would take away that freedom and you would likely end up having to pay for the websites that you use as well, sort of like cable.

Personally, I don’t see how anyone could find this a good idea being that there are many benefits to net neutrality in America. The first being that anyone with access to a laptop can use the internet, and there are many places where people without computers can use them as well, such as public libraries. This makes it easy for people without jobs or the finances necessary to afford internet to fill out applications being that a lot of businesses have gone paperless. In my own endeavors of finding a job, more than ¾ of the employers I applied for had online-only applications. We can’t expect the unemployed to find jobs when they have to pay for the websites simply to access the application. Another reason behind this would be in the realm of education, in relation to college tuition. Americans spend unreasonable amounts of money on college tuition in comparison to other countries, and to tack on the bill of having to pay to use the websites necessary to research as well as to do homework and turn in assignments would make paying for our educations even more of a burden. While this is important so is openness of the internet, the right to have free knowledge at our fingertips. My generation especially is constantly being told to educate ourselves, stay tuned in to current issues, and see the effect that we are having on the world and our culture. These things are sometimes impossible to do without use of the internet. While not everything you find on here is true, it is essential that we still have access to it because under certain circumstances when one cannot afford television, there is no other way to hear except through the grapevine, which is probably more unreliable than the sketchy websites you can run across on the internet.

On a website called gizmodo.com there is an article I found called How to Explain Net Neutrality to Your Relatives: A Thanksgiving Guide. This article, written by Eric Limer, puts this whole situation in lame terms and makes it easier to understand just what is going on so that you can simply explain it to your older relatives that are not as technology savvy. They use the metaphor that when you buy cable through a provider you pay for certain channels as a package and if you would like extra channels, you have to pay for them separately; This is essentially what the blocking of net neutrality would be doing. An internet service provider would benefit from this largely because they would be able to charge each us for each individual website, or make a good amount of money with packages that grouped websites into categories. Not only would they be able to charge us for the service of having the signal to pick up the internet, but they would also be able to charge as much as they want for the packages because we need to use the internet. I have a theory that if the FCC decides to block net neutrality a lot of people are going to lose it, start riots, ruin a lot of things. Recently, when something with the government doesn’t go right, people riot and I honestly expect nothing less from this. We have to wait quite a while before we get the decision on this issue, but I think this could ruin a lot of business and money towards the economy that run solely off of the internet. There is a lot at stake here and I’m glad I informed myself on the situation for it is definitely something that could affect our society as a whole. 

Saving something bigger than ourselves

“The worst thing I have ever done” was a phrase used by a whale hunter that was featured in the movie Blackfish, a documentary about captured Orca whales. Long before the movie Blackfish had ever come out I hadn't exactly considered the detrimental factors of keeping orca whales captive. I always thought there was a twisted kind of underlying beauty to seeing a performance of an orca whale at SeaWorld. While it is interesting to see such a HUGE animal right before your eyes, but seeing him in such a small confined area in comparison to the vast freedom of the ocean is slightly unsettling. I have always heard about the slaying of dolphins and other ocean creatures and while they seem to be relatively harmless I believe that humans push these kind creatures into violence.

I can’t see why anybody would think what these people are doing is entirely “okay”, the only reason these massive animals are trapped in an enclosure is for profit, which is sickening to me. While I’m sure there are fictional aspects to the movie “We Bought A Zoo”, this certain aspect of Blackfish reminds me of a part in the movie where the main character realizes that there is a brown bear that is in such a small enclosure he becomes depressed. When this happens he makes the change and risks the money to build him a much larger enclosure, knowing that while the bear is here, he wants to make him more comfortable and happy. While I disagree with the entirety of keeping animals enclosed, I know that it is a leisure we have in this world nowadays and I think it’s beautiful that he even made the choice to make the bear more comfortable. While I don’t agree that the whales should be held captive, the conditions in which they are living in, and the way they are transported is volatile.

Something like the Orca Awareness Project is definitely a step in the right direction in dealing with an issue like this. It gets people thinking about what truly is going on with this situation, so they’re more informed on how these animals are truly getting treated. The whales that are in captivity at SeaWorld are not just peaceful animals that are being fed graciously, they’re over sized for the space they’re allotted and they only get bigger from the time they are taken there. As well as the many videos besides Blackfish that are usually glorifying these animals and how talented and well-trained they are, I don’t think a lot of people consider that wild animals were not meant to be trained and that is why these animals occasionally act out, as the behavior is portrayed in the movie. I think it’s very interesting and fundamental that the video on the Orca Awareness Project website capitalizes on exactly what it’s like to be trapped like these whales. It makes a comparison between a human being trapped in a fish bowl and how we would feel so helpless with no way out, just as the whales are when they should be free to roam as they please. People with passionate ideas like this need to more openly voice their opinions because it often leads to very amazing steps towards something better, and maybe even saving more of this entire species. 

Ignorance Is Bliss

            In this day and age artists are constantly trying to come up with something new and exciting, go against the grain, and challenge the mainstream ways. There was an article that I read in our textbook that discussed a book that was doing exactly that. According to this article called, “A Family of a Different Feather”, Sarah Pederson explains how a children’s book made it on the list of most challenged books. At the beginning she says that there are quite a few that you would expect to be on there that house explicit language and violence however, a book named And Tango Makes Three made its way up to the top of the list somehow.

            The children’s book Tango is about a penguin in the zoo that has two dads, in reference to the current debate on same sex marriage, it tries to teach a lesson. I think it’s considered a challenged book simply because it is a topic that is debated greatly and a lot of times people feel they can look down on you for your opinion on it. The author of the book decided that they would take on a story that implied that having two parents of the same sex was okay, and that was probably what alarmed people. Many people have the idea that if you raise a child in that kind of environment, they will turn out the same way, or be mentally unstable and I disagree. A child having two moms, would not make any different of an impact than them having a single mother take care of them, there’s just more support. There is far too much controversy over letting same sex couples live in peace together. In Pederson’s article, she tells a story about how her daughter wanted to know why one of her classmates had two moms, to which she responded that while Sam’s (her classmate) dad wasn’t in the picture anymore, his family found a way to make their situation work best. Next, her daughter just says “Oh, I get it.” And simply drops it. Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world that had minds as open to understanding, like children?

            Pederson ends the article by saying that you can either choose to acknowledge that people will live differently than you and respect that like Tango does or you can act like a bird of a different feather, an ostrich. With the slight background knowledge I had on ostrich’s I realized she was saying you can either be accepting or completely bury your head in the ground. I like that she bashes on people that are against Tango because being accepting and loving towards individuals is something that is truly so easy to understand and do, and somehow so difficult for many to process. This book is trying to teach the lesson that you can’t judge people for what they think or how they choose to live their lives and instead of praising that, we shut it down and make it near impossible to find in any bookstores, like the author also mentioned. In conclusion, I have to agree with the author that if you don’t have anything positive to say about the way people are living their lives, you ought to just stick your head in the ground, for I’m sure they’re not interested in hearing it. 

One Step Closer to Happiness

While same-sex marriage is becoming a more popular topic, I think more and more people are beginning to think in favor of it. Recently, there have been a lot of changed in the policies of same-sex marriage and the government is beginning to show their approval of it as well. Personally, I have never had a moment of doubt that this would be a good idea. While we are all humans trying to make it in this world in our own ways, I can’t find a reason why because of sexual preference, someone deserves to be less happy than the rest of us that were genetically designed to appreciate the opposite gender and prefer a “traditional marriage.”

I have a handful of friends that label themselves as gay or bisexual and because of this I am tuned into a lot of things that I was ultimately blind to before. Around the state and at many public schools and universities, there are clubs, pride walks, and protests trying to get people, not necessarily to believe in what they do, but to simply respect them for their beliefs and preferences. In 2014, which is supposed to be a more advanced, and an age of equality, these people still have to fight for the right to do something that will make them happy, meanwhile being hated by people who do not even know them because of something they naturally feel. “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, comes to mind when thinking about why gay marriage has ever been illegal. Why something as irrelevant as somebody’s sexual preference should affect the way they’re treated as a human beings or their personal pursuit for happiness is something that I just cannot fathom.

I think we are in a day and age where more people are trying to educate themselves and be open-minded and optimistic, and it is truly so important to do so. There is no difference between what is considered a “traditional marriage” and what would happen between gay couples, it is simply just two people with love in their hearts that want to share it forever. In the article titled “Anti-Gay Preachers Message of Hate Drowned out by Students Hymns about Love” found in the Huffington Post, the author Dominique Mosbergen tells a story about a Preacher showing up on a college campus to spread hate towards various sinful acts. In the article, you learn about a college campus that had to put up with the narrow-mindedness of an individual that let his religion take over and bashed individuals simply for their life choices. He goes as far as to say that the individuals that commit these “sins” are going to hell! I find confusion where religion begins for this reason, because I do not believe that someone on this earth has the right to tell anyone that they will be “damned to hell” for something they have read in a book and believe to be true. Overall, I have a belief that we are all equals on this earth, our genetic makeup should not be responsible for our treatment and we all should be able to live in peace if that is what we strive for.

Emotion Equality

In a relatively recent episode of “The Daily Show with John Stewart” he begins a discussion about women in politics. Now, when I first heard about the video I figured it was going to be degrading and when I read the title, “The Broads Are Crazy”, I was almost sure of it. When we began to get further into the video though, my reaction was different than what I had expected. At the beginning of the video he shows clips of news anchors putting Hillary Clinton down for getting emotional during a recent election while talking to the public. One news anchor even says, “We can’t have people that break down and start crying at the most difficult moments”, like what she did would be detrimental to her being a part of the government. For the rest of the video he makes sarcastic remarks about how women are not strong enough and have crazy mood swings, while showing clips of men struggling to keep it together in news conferences and in front of the public. He makes a lot of jokes about how females should not be able to run our country because of all of the emotions that we can’t hold back and then turns it around on men in a very comedic way. I think by doing this, he is trying to get a little bit of gender equality out there by showing both sides of the story from a male perspective. If a woman were doing what he did in this skit it would be looked over as her being a crazy, radical, feminist. I think he is trying to make us feel like we are unfair to women in the political system, that they are judged more harshly and that they should not be. He is portraying that when women get emotional about their country or their work they are labeled as weak but when men get emotional they are considered passionate, a strong leader, and a “mans-man”. With the video section on the mood swings I think he is trying to show us also that men are easily excitable and can get just as “girl-ish” with their angry or crazy outbursts. I personally think that he believes in this because he looks at the human race logically, he sees us as equals and that one person should not be looked down upon for their emotions any differently from another. We are all wired to have emotions and strong passionate feelings for certain things, and with work at something, this passion can come on even stronger, I think he is showcasing in this skit that women shouldn’t be judged for it, just because we are known to be more fragile. I strongly believe that sexism is still a problem today and that a lot of men think women are unsuitable for high government positions because they close-mindedly think that we are genuinely the weaker sex. John Stewart seems to put up a fight for women, and with his vulgar line at the end stating, “In politics, its okay to be a pussy as long as you have a dick.” it’s clear where he stands on the gender equality issue.

Think too much. Don't think enough.

In an article titled, “The 12 Cognitive Biases That Prevent You From Being Rational” by George Dvorsky, I examined several things that are prominent in our everyday life that we don’t think about nearly enough. In the introduction the author explains that these are things that help us make very quick rational decisions based on error in previous thought. We may be convinced of something, act on it, and only when it ends badly do we realize where our thought process was flawed. Throughout the several biases in this article, two really jumped out at me. The first one being, Post-Purchase Realization. In the description, this is described as how we will rationally purchases something because of heavy want in the moment, then suddenly feel guilt or potential remorse after buying something, usually expensive or worthless. We tend to convince ourselves over a lot of thought that we have actually made a good decision and eventually we truly believe that. I can’t count on all of my phalanges how many times this has happened to me, and not necessarily that they were worthless items, but just that I made myself broke by doing so. I personally know a lot of people like that also, who assume they can make the money situation work until they realize they've spent a lot more than they intended. I feel like this is a widely agreed on subject and that in public discourse it wouldn't create a debate, because I’m sure everyone has experienced this a few times. The other cognitive bias in this article that I found interesting was the “Ingroup Bias”. This explains how when we are close with one specific group of people we tend to put them on a pedestal above others. I think being part of a clique, or a group of friends, or even a fan of something will inevitably make you act like this. When you start to hang out with people a lot you all take little things from each other and begin to act and sound like one another and I think that helps support this. You all become so much alike that you feel you have to trust them and take their side on everything even if it might not be right. Going through high school easily made me realize that this is how a lot of groups of girls act. If you become best friends with someone and they dislike somebody else, then you just inherited an enemy as well. I have seen it a hundred times where somebody can go from an indifferent standpoint on someone, to pure hatred just because someone they’re friends with has that same outlook on them. The article suggests that this may be due to the oxytocin in our brain, which makes us love someone and want to be loved in return, thus resulting in agreeing to their interests and who they like and dislike. This affects public discourse in a lot of ways, it can create unnecessary tension in a lot of aspects of life just because you decide not to think for yourself, or give into your groups biased opinion of someone or something. From my personal experiences, this cognitive bias seems to be the most prevalent.

The Hitler Of Arizona Education

I was recently educated on an attempt to ban Mexican American Studies programs in Tucson, Arizona. Because of this idea, they have constructed a bill that will prevent Tucson Unified School District and many others from having any class that might “promote the overthrow of the American government”. Or in this case, a Mexican American Studies class. The superintendent of schools in our state, John Huppenthal is trying not only to make sure that these classes do not exist in the public school system, but he is taking it further now. In an article titled, “Arizona Official Considers Targeting Mexican American Studies in University”, author Roque Planas informs us that Huppenthal now intends to target universities. He believes that while cutting off children from learning about it, they need to target where the teachers learned it from and stop that before they all have the knowledge to teach it as well. In my opinion, he is sounding less like a superintendent that is supposed to be concerned with students learning, and more like a crazy dictator.

            I was asked if I think legislators should be able to dictate university curriculum and content, to which I responded, absolutely not. When we’re in high school we have a set curriculum to set us up for SAT’s and AIMS so that we may receive our diplomas. I was always told that after high school, you have a lot more academic freedom, that you can pick what you would like to study and major in, and so far I have been lucky enough to have experienced that in my college career. When I read this article I was actually in disbelief that someone would attempt to limit the knowledge that we, as “free American citizens” are allowed to obtain. I see college as the foundation for all of the knowledge that I will actually use in the real world. Never once have I heard a college professor say to me, “I don’t really want to teach this but I have to” like I very honestly have in high school. I believe that we get taught the more narrow understandings of the broad and partially useless knowledge we learned in high school. To demean college professors by telling them what they can and cannot teach after all of the years of schooling they went through themselves is absurd and un-American. For reasons like this I refuse to believe that our country is really free. I feel passionate about subjects like this in the sense that growing up I was told that I could be and do anything I wanted to and I’m feeling like as I get older I am finding that to be less true because of the restrictions put on us by our government. If Huppenthal successfully takes away these kinds of studies in Arizona Universities it could quickly become a trend Nation-wide, limiting a lot, if not all of our academic freedom. We need to learn about our history, and what made our culture and other cultures the way they are. I believe being cultured, and the freedom to be cultured is a blessing. At a very extremist standpoint with this bill in act, colleges could soon be educational factories, pumping us out one at a time with the things that only they want us to learn, so that we will never question our government or how we got to this point.