Sources

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article395529.ece

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA417332

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/summary.cfm?q=752

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/uscoin/counterinsurgency_redux.pdf

Florida State Seminoles

The issue  the writer of the article raised was that the Seminole tribe is being disgraced by the Florida State University's mascot which is an Indian and if the NCAA has a right to make them change mascots. The author argues it could be disrespectful that people recognize the Seminole as the mascot and that it embarrasses them. The Seminoles were some of the few Indians that never surrendered to the United States and have a lot of pride. The question that was raised was, "Is it a good or bad thing that Florida State's mascot is a Seminole?" It could be seen as disrespectful to turn their culture into a college mascot when they still live independently and were never asked about the name by the school. Yet at the same time it can be seen as an honor because they never did surrender and they were chosen as a mascot out of respect. The natives of the Seminoles can be honored that they have a team that represents them. The college can stand for the people that never gave in and proudly stand for the independence of one of the last remaining Indian tribes. The Seminoles get a lot of attention off of the whole situation and they don't seem to care that the mascot is a Seminole. Because of this the NCAA doesn't need to step in and change the name if no one is being hurt by it. 

Is the Internet Making us Stupid?

With the invention of the internet, the way people read and research has changed dramatically. Instead of reading long, famous books and researching in the library, people have turned to the internet. Instead of looking through the dewey decimal system or reading in their room people browse Google. They can watch videos and movies whenever, chat with their friends, or find information on any subject imaginable. With this wealth of information being so convenient and plentiful the use of books is becoming obsolete. Unfortunately, as the author feared, so has actual reading. With all the interesting links that each article has its very difficult to read an article all the way through before moving on to something else. People may read as much as they used to but they read in the form of skimming through many things. With all of the features that the internet gives few people are going to sit down and read a long book or article. People have become too easily distracted and will read many short convenient portions of whatever looks interesting. I don't think this makes us stupid, but it does hurt our intelligence a little bit. Because of the internet no one will go through the grueling library research when they can just look up a few articles on the internet. No one in school will read full books when they can spark note the assigned chapters. This could be potentially harmful down the road as people grow up with these lazy habits and short attention spans. The author is not right as of now, but in the future he can easily proven that Google and the Internet has made us dumb.

Joy Article

In Bill Joy's article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", Joy warns the human race about the potential dangers of technology in the 21st century. The thing that he appears to be most afraid of is the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He is afraid that with it technology will eventually become more intelligent than humans which could effectively end the human race. He thinks that machines will grow a mind of their own and make decisions independent of humans. And to better society to the best of their knowledge they will have no choice but to let the human population lose all purpose and eventually die out. Our downfall will happen when we either become completely reliant on machines or overtaken. Either way artificial intelligence will be our downfall if it's not carefully experimented with. To set up these problems he gives examples of other works and scenarios of machine takeovers or potential problems caused by technology. He tells stories of a tiny elite controlling all the machines either killing the people or having machines do all their tasks making human existence meaningless. He also is afraid of machines growing a mind of their own and banding together to take control of society leaving the human race at their mercy. His example that frightened me the most and seemed realistic was the potential scenario of the super-virus. With the ease that any scientist could acquire powerful technology it would not be surprising to see something go wrong. If a scientist was experimenting with diseases he or she could accidentally create a super-virus and spread it worldwide. One careless mistake by one person could hurt the entire world with the powerful technology that is being developed. Looking back on his article 11 years later I feel as though the same article could be written today. Every generation has new technologies that frighten people and make them worry about what it could lead to. So far it appears that we are fine and no one is more worried now than they were in 2000. Although Joy's predictions haven't formulated in a negative way yet it doesn't mean that he doesn't have a point. If technology continues to advance and AI becomes commonly used his prediction can come true. So far AI hasn't developed enough to truly think on its own but in the coming years it will be an interesting thing to watch.

Proposal Ideas

Problem- Budget Cuts to education in Pennsylvania

Why-It will kill jobs, raises tuition, and most importantly lowers the quality of Pennsylvania state schools. Providing Pennsylvanians with a quality, affordable college education is an investment that is returned by successful, productive members to society. It's in the best interest of the state socially and fiscally to provide good state colleges for a reasonable price

Solution- To not raise tuition it may be necessary to raise state taxes by a little bit as a last resort. The goal would be to raise revenue elsewhere and to cut other programs to avoid cutting into the education budget. One thing would be to tax the extraction of oil shale because gas companies will make a profit and continue to drill regardless if they are taxed for it or not. Also, state owned liquor stores can be privatized which would also help out.
http://www.publicopiniononline.com/localnews/ci_17641112

Problem- NFL standoff between players and league

Why- Owners want another billion of the leagues annual 9 billion dollar revenue. This is because the league's revenue goes up 5.5% per year and the players salaries are going up 11% a year. Players are given many benefits after their careers and are beginning to get too much money. The costs for new stadiums are being shifted from cities to the owners and the NFL business is becoming less profitable for owners. Most importantly if a solution isn't found soon there will be no NFL season next year and the fans of all the NFL teams will not be able to watch any games and the players and owners won't make any money.

Solution- A lot of the money that is made by the NFL is through the TV deals it makes with certain networks. If the TV networks were to step in they could demand that the 2011 season will happen as scheduled. If not, then the league will lose out on the billions of dollars that the networks pay to play the games. Without these networks money the NFL could not survive and the networks are more than capable of surviving without the NFL. The networks could demand that a new deal is made between players and owners that gives the owners half of what they're asking for which the courts will probably rule. This will get the problem solved quickly and save the 2011 season and beyond. 


http://packersnews.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110313/PKR07/110313022/NFL-owners-players-equally-to-blame-for-standoff
http://packersnews.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110313/PKR07/110313022/NFL-owners-players-equally-to-blame-for-standoff

A Modest Proposal

In the author's society there are many different issues. The streets are filled with female beggars that have many kids. These kids need people's help to make it to adulthood which is pointless because they will become thieves or leave the country. As a result of this, there are many abortions and most of these kids were made by non-married couples.  He says his solution is to sell beggar children and plump teenagers as food for money. This is a sarcastic solution to solve his society's problem. The real problems with this society though, is the way these people are treated and how they got there. This society is plagued by abusive men, pride, vanity, idleness, gaming of women, and fighting. He slips in a paragraph towards the end that states his true solution to solve the problem of the poor. He said that prudence, temperance, honesty, national pride, and mercy are what's needed. If people gave the poor a chance to succeed and if poor parents didn't have children they couldn't support, the problem would go away which would be just as effective as if they were all eaten.

There are a lot of problems with the debate on illegal immigration that Mexicans are treated unfairly. People act as though Mexicans coming into America from the South are not allowed into the country. This is completely false. If they go through the proper steps that everyone else does they can get citizenship legally. If a Canadian just tried to stroll into the country and tried to settle down they would be sent back to their country just like a Mexican. You can argue that it's too hard to become a citizen but if everyone was allowed in without going through the proper steps that would only be cheating the citizens who came here legally.

Song review

The song I chose to research was my favorite song, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd.  Before looking up the review I honestly had no idea what the song was about. The man who reviewed it started by talking about what he thought of the band in general. He actually did not like Pink Floyd very much and was generally critical of them. He said that once the seventies came they were depressing and had no heart in their songs. I really like Pink Floyd so I obviously didn't agree with this part of the review. He then went on to comment on the song. He said that "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" was the most beautiful thing ever written. It explains how their former band member Syd Barrett went from being a young genius to a crazy embarrassment. Despite this, the band members all felt guilty because it was caused by the band's fame and the grief united them. Because of this unity and grief, every member was on the same page and able to create a beautiful song from the heart. It was so great because it was truly just music with no band politics or desire to sell more albums in mind. I learned a lot from this part of the review and enjoyed reading it. The song is very soothing while still managing to have a lot of emotional flow from the music. If I was reviewing this, I definitely would focus solely on the song as opposed to reviewing both the song and band. I think the song is so unique and has so many positive things to say about it, that there is no need to cram anything else into the review.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyqgjCKm9nQ -song
http://www.laurahird.com/bestrecords/wishyouwerehere.html  -review