Polar bears or Gas?

Over the years, the number of polar bears, along with many other animal species, has decreased. While there are efforts to help these animals, there are many more incidents that add to the causes of the reduction of the number of these endangered species.
Today, the polar bears living in Chukchi Sea near Alaska are facing extinction due to people wanting to get oil from the frozen sea. John Kerry and other critics demand a 3-year period to delay to the Chukchi Sea being sold to different oil companies during which the situation of the polar bears could be understood more clearly.

Global Warming evidently is not the only reason for the extinction of these animals. I find it sad that we can’t even leave one sea alone for these animals to live in. Are we so desperate for gas that we need to go around destroying natural habitats of endangered species and kill these animals? I wonder what animals will be left in, say 50 years?

sources:

Littlegreenfootballs.com

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3359083.ece

Let's be Thankful, shall we?

Another quote caught my attention today.

“In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.”

— P. J. O’Rourke

To think about it, the history of the U.S. has been really short compared to other countries. Gaining independence from Great Britain of July 4, 1776, this nation is only 232 years old! For a country this young, it is quite amazing how far it has come—becoming one of the most affluent countries in the world, and becoming a world power that many people desire to live in. During this extremely short history of this nation, there have been many good things that have happened but also many bad things that the people have done to the presidents who have helped lead this nation to what exists today.

Yesterday, I noted the importance of the media and press, thanks to JFK; today, I just want to say, let’s appreciate the people that are willing to lead this nation. As presidential campaigns are going on, there is a lot of bashing of candidates happening. Presidents and candidates are people too. Let’s not be too hard on them.

Press is Good

There was a quote on Dailykos.com by JFK:

“There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press”

As I read this, I thought, many times people complain about the media and newspapers. But without the press, what would happen? We take so much time complaining about the media and how it portrays certain people. And this is true—the media, many times, does affect the public in a negative way. But without the media, what would happen to the public opinion? Would there be any public opinion at all? Without the press would our worldview would be very limited. Even with the press some people have a hard time trying to understand problems of other places and other people. Many times, we get caught up with the negative aspect of things that we forget to remember the positives and be thankful. Although the press may have some detrimental effects on society, it does help formulate a public opinion and broaden our perspectives on life, right? Let’s be thankful.

Pressure till Explosion

The Shiites celebrate a festival called Ashura in which they torture themselves (“beat and cut themselves with chains and knives in public rituals that leave the streets running with blood”)—it is coming up soon. The day before the festival started, there was a suicide bomber that fired a gun several times and then blew himself up and killing along with himself nine other people and wounding approximately 20 other people.

The film, Paradise Now, provided me a deeper understanding of why a person might possibly be willing to become a suicide bomber and causing things like this to happen. This movie gave me the impression that suicide bombers don’t really want to blow themselves up because of their own beliefs but more because of the pressure they feel from their authority. The movie portrays two ordinary people that are close friends. Life is pretty boring and could be better, but it’s not terrible—they have the basic food and shelter to live. They did feel trapped and hopeless, to a degree, about their current situation with Israel. They did agree that in order to do something about it, being suicide bombers was the best way to attack the Israelis. However, they didn’t seem to believe in this so much as to be enthusiastic about going to blow themselves up. They felt that they had to do it because it was their duty and the social pressure was quite overwhelming.

The portrayal of the Khaled and Said in the film totally shattered the image of the radical Muslim extremists that I often pictured in my head when reading articles such as this one on Littlegreenfootballs. On the other hand, the movie is a movie and it was a story about only two people out of the multitude of other previous suicide bombers. I can’t quite make up my mind on this matter, however, Paradise Now did indeed make me think and understand a little more why someone would be willing to bomb oneself up.

Change of Mind

As I was looking for something to write on, I came across an interesting blog post on hutchinsonleader.com. Norma McCorvey also known as “Roe” in Roe VS Wade who fought for the right of women to have abortions, changed her opinion. McCorvey actually never had an abortion because the court took a long time to make a ruling on this case, so she gave birth to the child and then gave the child up for adoption. She went as far as to ask the Supreme Court to change their ruling on the Roe VS Wade court case and joined “Operation Rescue” an anti-abortion organization. This information really intrigued me.

Someone who fought so hard for a purpose changing their mind on the issue? How could this be? These are rare cases, but through these stories, I was reminded that in the end, what is right will prevail, no matter how weak and small it seems to be in comparison to the many deceitful yet attractive things that we choose to believe in instead.

The Gray Line between Politics and Religion

Mike Huckabee claimed, “"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards”.

This is a strong statement to make. To some degree, I do admire Huckabee for having the guts to say this in public, especially during his campaign period. However, I wonder if this is a wise thing to do.

The United States is proud to present itself as a country with freedom of speech and religion and although it was founded on Christianity, today things are a little different. We say that we are religiously tolerant; however, when people pray in public or loudly proclaim their beliefs—some people would give respect to these people and admire them, but I don’t think that would be the majority of us.

In this kind of society, would it be wise to give such speeches and make strong statements about one’s religion during a political campaign? It is definitely courageous of Huckabee to say these words, but frankly, I do not think this is the best way to get votes from a large portion of the population.

It’s great that Huckabee is a Christian and he seems to take his faith seriously, however, it seems to me that he’s too vigorously imposing his religious beliefs on other people. Isn’t it a little strong of a statement to say things about amending the country’s Constitution (that was written decades ago, by the founders of this nation) to go along with his own religious beliefs?

Unquenchable Thirst

When Apple first released iPods, it was every teenager’s dream to get one. There are many variations of the iPod: the original, iPod mini, iPod nano, and even iPod video. They recently also came out with the iPhone complete with touch screen and internet access. The latest craze is a new laptop: MacBook Air. It is the “World’s Thinnest Notebook Computer.” It has a 13-inch screen, and it is 0.16 inches at its thinnest point and only 0.76 inches at its thickest point, weighing only 3 pounds!

When reading this (on Littlegreenfootballs), two things struck me.
First, this reminded me that technology has been improving at a shockingly (and impressively) rapid speed over the past years. This has been a beneficial thing to some extent, especially with many significant improvements in the medical realm. And other technologies have also made life more convenient for the majority of us. However, it’s quite scary, how fast this world is changing. And obviously with the new developments, there are negative aspects of this situation as well. These machines that we’ve invented may provide convenience but some have had harmful affects on mankind as well. The invention of the automobile, for example, has brought us convenience and conservation of time, however, our environment suffers from this and it has become a critical issue.

The other thing that I realized was how materialistic our culture is. Yes, we all want to follow the trend. Taking Apple as an example—if everyone else has an iPod, naturally, we all want an iPod as well. But, however, if one gets an iPod, new things will continue to be released by companies (ex: iPhone). Although, at first, our desire for an iPod will be satisfied by buying an iPod, but as other things come out, we will want those as well. Our thirst for more (to buy more) will never be fully quenched—we will never be fully satisfied through the things we buy on this earth. And, sadly, this is an inescapable situation because our economy works this way!