_Poland's Safe Passage Trip to Guatemala
http://sp2016prhs.tumblr.com/
(Posted April 5, 2016)
Call it WHAT IT IS and speak out.
By Julia Bernard
Rape.
The most common reaction to this word that I observe from my classmates is silence from most of the females and chuckling and joke-telling from most of the males. Some would say that it is perfectly normal for everyone (and especially teenagers) to have their own way of dealing with touchy subjects; they are correct. However, when a gut-wrenching subject gets turned into a punchline told at a lunch table, that by no means should be written off as a "normal" reaction.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) one out of every six women and one out of every 71 men are victims of either rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.
But c'mon, a joke or two about it won't hurt anyone, right?
Victims of some form of sexual assault are three times more likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and four times more likely to contemplate suicide-- according to RAINN.
You have no idea who around your lunch table has been raped or sexually assaulted. You don't know whether someone close to them has been raped. Some may be deeply hurt by these "jokes."
This notion that rape/sexual assault is something to mock is part of a big problem in our society called "rape culture." Rape culture was a term defined by second wave feminists in the 1970s as the normalization of rape. Today, the definition has been broadened to when rape or any form of sexual assault is "ignored, trivialized, normalized, or made into jokes." While this definition is accurate it does not mean that every single human being in a society perpetuates the idea that rape/sexual assault is inevitable or normal. It means that there are enough people normalizing, trivializing, mocking, and/or ignoring sexual assault for the misguided notions listed below to be considered acceptable, if not mainstream:
– Rape prevention classes that focus on precautions women should take to avoid rape, rather than having classes teaching men not to rape. www.cnn.com/2013/02/20/justice/colorado-rape-prevention-guidelines.
– A 47-year-old teacher raped his 14 year old student (who later killed herself) and he later served only one month in prison. The district judge, in his ruling, said the student "seemed older than her chronological age." www.cnn.com/2013/11/30/justice/montana-rape-30-day-sentence.
– The notion that when men get raped they are weak or that it is emasculating.
– Arguments that large amounts of reported rapes are falsified (in reality, between two and eight percent of these reports are falsified). www.nsvrc.org/publications/articles/false-reports-moving-beyond-issue-successfully-investigate-and-prosecute
– The notion that "provocatively dressed" girls are "asking to be raped"
– Out of every 100 rape cases, 32 get reported to the police and TWO rapists will actually spend time in jail. rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
– The blind spot we have about "good people," or people thought to be morally upstanding, turning into rapists. Examples: Legendary comedian Bill Cosby, for decades considered a model family man, and former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
<http://nypost.com/2015/07/16/is-bill-cosby-really-a-rapist-or-has-the-definition-just-changed.
In Sandusky's criminal trial, his victims testified that when they tried to speak out against him there were claims such as, "Jerry Sandusky has a heart of gold. He'd never do anything like that" … "He's an important guy. Everybody knows him. He was a football coach. Who would believe kids?"
"Jerry Sandusky was a saint," another coach testified.
– Popular songs such as “What Do You Mean?” by Justin Bieber blur the lines of consent and help perpetuate rape culture. With lyrics like "When you nod your head yes but you wanna say no, what do you mean?"
The line cannot be blurred. If your significant other is indecisive about consenting to having sex-- or even hesitating a little --you should not be having it. It is considered rape if one of the two parties does not fully consent to it.
These "jokes" told at lunch room tables may not seem scary now, but in just a few short years (or months), when college appears around the corner, rape is all too real. One in five women get sexually assaulted in college, and one in sixteen men become victims (www.nsvrc.org). It can start with the normalization of a joke that escalates. Rape is not a lighthearted end of an anecdote.
Don't be a bystander. Speak out when someone makes a joke about rape. Break the cycle.
(posted April 10, 2016)
Live to play, and play to live
By Katelyn Dufour
All my life I’ve played three sports. From “little rec” days with skills and drills all the way up to competitive AAU teams, where it feels like life-or-death situations when all you want to do is win.
I like to think I am a lot different than other kids I play with. Most of them do it because their parents want them to play, or they want to fit in, or they think sports look good on their college applications. Then there are some kids who play because they truly, unquestionably, love it. I am one of those kids. I love sports. I love competition. I love what it does for me as a person.
I believe you are given the opportunity to make yourself a better person every day. Through sports, I learn life lessons the hands-on way in a different context than most. I’m going to tell you three things I’ve learned. Obviously the list goes on but we’ll start here.
The first thing I learned is that if you really, truly want something, you won’t make excuses, you’ll get it done. Too many people give up when things get challenging. I’ve learned this from watching others feel sorry for themselves and make excuses. When the pressure is on and it’s easier to go through the motions just to barely make ends meet, that’s when you pass up opportunities to make something of yourself. So stop thinking you can’t do something, stop giving up the first moment that doubt sets in, and stop making excuses. Take responsibility and do something. You want something, go get it, it’s yours to take. When you think you can’t go any further, dig a little deeper and work for what you want. At the end of the day, you should be able to say “I gave everything I had” and take pride in saying that because no one can take that from you.
Secondly I learned that life is not fair, at all. In sports there is always going to be someone better than you. Someone who can run faster than you, someone who can dribble better than you, someone who’s stronger than you. It’s inevitable! I believe that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, yet I also know that no matter how many times you push yourself to be better than you were yesterday, sometimes you think you fall short and what you think you deserve is given to someone else. I learned the hard way that high school sports can be all about politics. Your coach might say “All I care about is effort” and so you work your tail off at practice, and strive to be better each time, and you become a greater player – but at the end of the day the person who got the starting position over you is the one on the team with the most talent and who doesn’t seem to ever work as hard as you. Well, it all goes back to life isn’t fair. So I understand it’s more about the process than the outcome sometimes. Which leads me back to taking pride in giving everything you have because although life isn’t fair sometimes. At least you can say, “I wasn’t beat. I’m just not there yet.”
One last thing I have learned is that if you aren’t happy doing something then don’t do it. No one promises you tomorrow and so don’t waste your time doing something you can’t take pride in. The gruesome six a.m. preseason runs on the track for soccer season, the late night practices where I know I have about three hours of homework to do when I get home, the times I’ve done countless ladders which resulted in me throwing up, all the times I’ve woken up before the sun in the summertime to go do workouts, all of that, you see, somehow I love it. I love the opportunity to become a better me, I love being able to say “after being faced with all those obstacles look where I am now,” I love being able to continue to grow and change. I love rising to the challenge. I love playing sports because I’ve learned countless things. You are blessed with the opportunity to impact others and yourself for the greater good. So that’s why it’s important to be happy doing whatever it is that you love. I hope you can find something that makes you feel that way. I hope you continue to push yourself, and not become complacent. I hope you understand life isn’t fair but taking pride in how hard you work is key and I hope you understand you have the power to make a difference in yourself and others.
The Time Has Arrived for Police Body Cameras
By Bailee Kinney
POSTED DECEMBER 8, 2015
In the American court system witnesses swear to tell the truth. Some of them tell lies. Others have fuzzy memories. Some are intimidated to say what a court officer wants to hear.
Local and state police protect our communities. And sometimes they make mistakes.
Body cameras worn by police officers can help us solve some of these problems. Body cameras won't stop lying, and they won't stop mistakes. But the information caught on these cameras at crime scenes can get us closer to the truth, which will make the work of our court system that much easier.
Upfront Magazine recently published an article headlined "Should Police Wear Body Cameras?" My class read a story about Michael Brown, a black teenager from Ferguson, Missouri, who was shot to death by a police officer, Darren Wilson. The teen was unarmed. Some stated that Wilson had no choice, that he did it out of self defense. Many others say that Brown was doing absolutely nothing wrong, and the officer had most definitely committed an act of murder. A grand jury let Wilson go without a single charge against him. This story turned heads, raised eyebrows, and re-stared a national debate on racial justice that continues today.
Was Wilson truly innocent? If he had been wearing a body camera, we would be closer to knowing the truth. The evidence would have been at hand, and we would have received the truth with this evidence, without question or debate. Just simply by having a wearable camera on Wilsons body, this episode could have shed some light on the actions of one police officer during a time when Americans are doubting their police officers.
It's never a bad thing to make sure good people can continue doing good things. "Researchers found that officers who wore cameras used force less often …. incidents dropped by more than fifty percent." This study pulled from a npr.org article supports the idea that by adding one piece of equipment to a police officer's uniform, we can help local police officers maintain credibility while enforcing the law in the least violence way possible. The NPR story also noted that the presence of body cameras can help officers reconsider violent reactions.
Police officers are just like us. We all need help to stay on the right track.
An article posted on cops.usdoj.gov discussed the advantages of the body cameras on cops. "Among police executives whose departments use body-worn cameras, there is an overall perception that the cameras are a useful tool. These reported benefits include the following:
“ – Strengthening police accountability by documenting incidents and encounters between officers and the public;
“ – Preventing confrontational situations by improving officer professionalism and the behavior of people being recorded;
“ – Resolving officer-involved incidents and complaints by providing a more accurate record of events;
“ – Improving agency transparency by allowing the public to see video evidence of police activities and encounters;
“ – Identifying and correcting internal agency problems by revealing officers who engage in misconduct and agency-wide problems;
“ – Strengthening officer performance by using footage for officer training and monitoring;
“ – Improving evidence documentation for investigations and prosecutions."
What about the privacy of the police officers, you may ask. My answer: When it comes to enforcing laws to protect your community, nothing should be hidden. Police officers shouldn't have to worry about what the public might see while they are doing their jobs.
The time has come for wearable body cameras in local police departments. They provide a sense of credibility while encouraging professional behavior. They may hold answers to some of our serious crime problems with the click of a button.
We Have Inherited a World of Intolerance
By Tyler Moulton
POSTED DECEMBER 7, 2015
What kind of world have I inherited? I have inherited a world dominated by religion, belief, and non-belief. The terrorist groups that infect our world are driven by religion or religious extremism. As Dan Ollen, former Army Intelligence Officer, shared with my Humanities III class, each well-known terrorist organization in the Middle East, such as Al Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS, are based on extreme versions of Islam. Closer to home, the Ku Klux Klan took Christianity to the lowest level, and even the Holocaust was based on religion and beliefs. Gay marriage wasn't legal in this country for a long time, and it still faces resistance because of religion. Nearly everything we learned in our first month of Humanities III – “history in our lifetime” – featured conflict and religion hand in hand.
I am biased. I choose not to practice a religion. I have never had religion pushed upon me, but still have a lot of family that studies Christianity. I do not look down on religion, but I do try to avoid talking about it as much as possible because it seems like many of our social and community standards have a religious foundation. We are confused by the Somalian community's social standards for women. We are confused by what the Bible actually says about gay marriage. Why are people still fighting for that fundamental right? Religious conflict would be a good place to start.
People die for religion day in and day out. Like it or not, the U.S. War On Terror was started not by us, but by religious fanatics. But we were drawn in. A Mother Jones magazine article entitled "History of The Taliban," points out that the Taliban "does not recognize nor tolerate forms of Islam divergent from their own." This, as we know, led to a long war with the U.S. and many unnecessary deaths.
Our beliefs and non-beliefs drive us to do crazy, inhuman things. Religion runs this world, it always has and always will. No matter what you believe, or what you don't believe, this is the world in which we live. Maybe we can change the world. Or maybe religion, in some way, will prevent us from doing that.
POSTED IN NOVEMBER 2015
We may have inherited a good world
By Brooke Martin
The question in Humanities class was this: What kind of world have I inherited?
As I ponder upon several recent and current wars, corruption, bankruptcy, and the power-hungry, money-craving people of this world, the more I begin to view the world as a pessimist. However, I remember learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and the massive impact he made on not only African-Americans, but the entire country. I recall a recent story from National Public Radio about a young woman named Malala who just opened a school for Syrian refugee girls.
I think of the efforts to improve the environment, and I think of the American Red Cross, homeless shelters, and food banks. There are plenty of good things happening in today's society, coexisting with the bad. We live in a world of good and evil.
One word: Smartphones. Technological advances made in today's world are becoming too advanced. Smartphones have become too smart. They can track your everyday locations, access almost anything you want or need … they can even turn off the lights in your house when you aren't home! I don't think people realize how much personal information their smartphones actually retain, essentially leaving them wide open for theft and other threats.
During an interview with Dan Ollen, a 27-year-old Mainer who completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer, a student in my class asked if technology made the United States vulnerable to the Taliban. Dan offered a definitive "yes." He elaborated on his answer, and afterwards stated that terrorists are just as vulnerable when it comes to technology. He informed us that knowledge about the Taliban and other terrorist groups could be discovered very easily, with just a quick search on Facebook, or Twitter. With this kind of information out in the open, there are bound to be more problems in our already broken society. At this point, I believe technology has begun to hurt us more than help us to a certain extent.
The way news is presented all over the world weighs everyone down, giving most people a negative image of our global society. On a normal day in America, you might hear one positive news story for every three to four bad stories, whether it be local, national, or international news. The reasoning behind this happening is simple: bad new sells. A 2007 Robert Redford film about the war on terror, Lions for Lambs, illustrates this point. In this fictitious story, U.S. Senator Jasper Irving pitches a story to reporter Janine Roth, whose job is to report news to the public. Yet Janine is hesitant to write the story in the way Senator Jasper requests it be presented to the nation. In the end, I don't think that Janine was able to write the story herself, due to her political views on Irving's military plan.
Sadly, as humans we seem to pay more attention to the threat of bad things than the prospect of good things. The possibility that we care about bad things more than good things poses a conflict for our wellbeing as a worldwide community; constantly hearing and seeing bad events has an effect on our moods and emotions. To be fair, I think it is safe to assume that the world has been this way for a long time.
Call me a contrarian, but I have taken notice of all the good happening in this day and age. Homeless shelters, animals shelters, food banks, the Salvation Army, and the American Red Cross organizations are all making efforts to improve the world little by little. Occasionally we get lucky with a few powerfully influential figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr., who change people's lives forever.
And then there's Malala Yousafzai, 18, who after being shot by a member of the Taliban three years ago, is not letting anything stop her and is making a difference for young girls overseas in Lebanon (check her out on npr.org). These organizations and people are just a few shining beacons of light in our darkened world. By getting involved and thinking of positive possibilities, we can help make the world a better place for people all over the globe.
We have inherited a world filled with good along with its counterpart, evil. These two elements coexisting together make the world both a beautiful and scary place all at once. Many have said, and still say, they want "world peace." This may not be possible, but if we can't have a perfect world, we can improve it. We can start by celebrating all that is good.
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: 1 Peter 3:8
Call it WHAT IT IS and speak out.
By Julia Bernard
Rape.
The most common reaction to this word that I observe from my classmates is silence from most of the females and chuckling and joke-telling from most of the males. Some would say that it is perfectly normal for everyone (and especially teenagers) to have their own way of dealing with touchy subjects; they are correct. However, when a gut-wrenching subject gets turned into a punchline told at a lunch table, that by no means should be written off as a "normal" reaction.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) one out of every six women and one out of every 71 men are victims of either rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.
But c'mon, a joke or two about it won't hurt anyone, right?
Victims of some form of sexual assault are three times more likely to suffer from depression, six times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and four times more likely to contemplate suicide-- according to RAINN.
You have no idea who around your lunch table has been raped or sexually assaulted. You don't know whether someone close to them has been raped. Some may be deeply hurt by these "jokes."
This notion that rape/sexual assault is something to mock is part of a big problem in our society called "rape culture." Rape culture was a term defined by second wave feminists in the 1970s as the normalization of rape. Today, the definition has been broadened to when rape or any form of sexual assault is "ignored, trivialized, normalized, or made into jokes." While this definition is accurate it does not mean that every single human being in a society perpetuates the idea that rape/sexual assault is inevitable or normal. It means that there are enough people normalizing, trivializing, mocking, and/or ignoring sexual assault for the misguided notions listed below to be considered acceptable, if not mainstream:
– Rape prevention classes that focus on precautions women should take to avoid rape, rather than having classes teaching men not to rape. www.cnn.com/2013/02/20/justice/colorado-rape-prevention-guidelines.
– A 47-year-old teacher raped his 14 year old student (who later killed herself) and he later served only one month in prison. The district judge, in his ruling, said the student "seemed older than her chronological age." www.cnn.com/2013/11/30/justice/montana-rape-30-day-sentence.
– The notion that when men get raped they are weak or that it is emasculating.
– Arguments that large amounts of reported rapes are falsified (in reality, between two and eight percent of these reports are falsified). www.nsvrc.org/publications/articles/false-reports-moving-beyond-issue-successfully-investigate-and-prosecute
– The notion that "provocatively dressed" girls are "asking to be raped"
– Out of every 100 rape cases, 32 get reported to the police and TWO rapists will actually spend time in jail. rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
– The blind spot we have about "good people," or people thought to be morally upstanding, turning into rapists. Examples: Legendary comedian Bill Cosby, for decades considered a model family man, and former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
<http://nypost.com/2015/07/16/is-bill-cosby-really-a-rapist-or-has-the-definition-just-changed.
In Sandusky's criminal trial, his victims testified that when they tried to speak out against him there were claims such as, "Jerry Sandusky has a heart of gold. He'd never do anything like that" … "He's an important guy. Everybody knows him. He was a football coach. Who would believe kids?"
"Jerry Sandusky was a saint," another coach testified.
– Popular songs such as “What Do You Mean?” by Justin Bieber blur the lines of consent and help perpetuate rape culture. With lyrics like "When you nod your head yes but you wanna say no, what do you mean?"
The line cannot be blurred. If your significant other is indecisive about consenting to having sex-- or even hesitating a little --you should not be having it. It is considered rape if one of the two parties does not fully consent to it.
These "jokes" told at lunch room tables may not seem scary now, but in just a few short years (or months), when college appears around the corner, rape is all too real. One in five women get sexually assaulted in college, and one in sixteen men become victims (www.nsvrc.org). It can start with the normalization of a joke that escalates. Rape is not a lighthearted end of an anecdote.
Don't be a bystander. Speak out when someone makes a joke about rape. Break the cycle.
(posted April 10, 2016)
Live to play, and play to live
By Katelyn Dufour
All my life I’ve played three sports. From “little rec” days with skills and drills all the way up to competitive AAU teams, where it feels like life-or-death situations when all you want to do is win.
I like to think I am a lot different than other kids I play with. Most of them do it because their parents want them to play, or they want to fit in, or they think sports look good on their college applications. Then there are some kids who play because they truly, unquestionably, love it. I am one of those kids. I love sports. I love competition. I love what it does for me as a person.
I believe you are given the opportunity to make yourself a better person every day. Through sports, I learn life lessons the hands-on way in a different context than most. I’m going to tell you three things I’ve learned. Obviously the list goes on but we’ll start here.
The first thing I learned is that if you really, truly want something, you won’t make excuses, you’ll get it done. Too many people give up when things get challenging. I’ve learned this from watching others feel sorry for themselves and make excuses. When the pressure is on and it’s easier to go through the motions just to barely make ends meet, that’s when you pass up opportunities to make something of yourself. So stop thinking you can’t do something, stop giving up the first moment that doubt sets in, and stop making excuses. Take responsibility and do something. You want something, go get it, it’s yours to take. When you think you can’t go any further, dig a little deeper and work for what you want. At the end of the day, you should be able to say “I gave everything I had” and take pride in saying that because no one can take that from you.
Secondly I learned that life is not fair, at all. In sports there is always going to be someone better than you. Someone who can run faster than you, someone who can dribble better than you, someone who’s stronger than you. It’s inevitable! I believe that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, yet I also know that no matter how many times you push yourself to be better than you were yesterday, sometimes you think you fall short and what you think you deserve is given to someone else. I learned the hard way that high school sports can be all about politics. Your coach might say “All I care about is effort” and so you work your tail off at practice, and strive to be better each time, and you become a greater player – but at the end of the day the person who got the starting position over you is the one on the team with the most talent and who doesn’t seem to ever work as hard as you. Well, it all goes back to life isn’t fair. So I understand it’s more about the process than the outcome sometimes. Which leads me back to taking pride in giving everything you have because although life isn’t fair sometimes. At least you can say, “I wasn’t beat. I’m just not there yet.”
One last thing I have learned is that if you aren’t happy doing something then don’t do it. No one promises you tomorrow and so don’t waste your time doing something you can’t take pride in. The gruesome six a.m. preseason runs on the track for soccer season, the late night practices where I know I have about three hours of homework to do when I get home, the times I’ve done countless ladders which resulted in me throwing up, all the times I’ve woken up before the sun in the summertime to go do workouts, all of that, you see, somehow I love it. I love the opportunity to become a better me, I love being able to say “after being faced with all those obstacles look where I am now,” I love being able to continue to grow and change. I love rising to the challenge. I love playing sports because I’ve learned countless things. You are blessed with the opportunity to impact others and yourself for the greater good. So that’s why it’s important to be happy doing whatever it is that you love. I hope you can find something that makes you feel that way. I hope you continue to push yourself, and not become complacent. I hope you understand life isn’t fair but taking pride in how hard you work is key and I hope you understand you have the power to make a difference in yourself and others.
The Time Has Arrived for Police Body Cameras
By Bailee Kinney
POSTED DECEMBER 8, 2015
In the American court system witnesses swear to tell the truth. Some of them tell lies. Others have fuzzy memories. Some are intimidated to say what a court officer wants to hear.
Local and state police protect our communities. And sometimes they make mistakes.
Body cameras worn by police officers can help us solve some of these problems. Body cameras won't stop lying, and they won't stop mistakes. But the information caught on these cameras at crime scenes can get us closer to the truth, which will make the work of our court system that much easier.
Upfront Magazine recently published an article headlined "Should Police Wear Body Cameras?" My class read a story about Michael Brown, a black teenager from Ferguson, Missouri, who was shot to death by a police officer, Darren Wilson. The teen was unarmed. Some stated that Wilson had no choice, that he did it out of self defense. Many others say that Brown was doing absolutely nothing wrong, and the officer had most definitely committed an act of murder. A grand jury let Wilson go without a single charge against him. This story turned heads, raised eyebrows, and re-stared a national debate on racial justice that continues today.
Was Wilson truly innocent? If he had been wearing a body camera, we would be closer to knowing the truth. The evidence would have been at hand, and we would have received the truth with this evidence, without question or debate. Just simply by having a wearable camera on Wilsons body, this episode could have shed some light on the actions of one police officer during a time when Americans are doubting their police officers.
It's never a bad thing to make sure good people can continue doing good things. "Researchers found that officers who wore cameras used force less often …. incidents dropped by more than fifty percent." This study pulled from a npr.org article supports the idea that by adding one piece of equipment to a police officer's uniform, we can help local police officers maintain credibility while enforcing the law in the least violence way possible. The NPR story also noted that the presence of body cameras can help officers reconsider violent reactions.
Police officers are just like us. We all need help to stay on the right track.
An article posted on cops.usdoj.gov discussed the advantages of the body cameras on cops. "Among police executives whose departments use body-worn cameras, there is an overall perception that the cameras are a useful tool. These reported benefits include the following:
“ – Strengthening police accountability by documenting incidents and encounters between officers and the public;
“ – Preventing confrontational situations by improving officer professionalism and the behavior of people being recorded;
“ – Resolving officer-involved incidents and complaints by providing a more accurate record of events;
“ – Improving agency transparency by allowing the public to see video evidence of police activities and encounters;
“ – Identifying and correcting internal agency problems by revealing officers who engage in misconduct and agency-wide problems;
“ – Strengthening officer performance by using footage for officer training and monitoring;
“ – Improving evidence documentation for investigations and prosecutions."
What about the privacy of the police officers, you may ask. My answer: When it comes to enforcing laws to protect your community, nothing should be hidden. Police officers shouldn't have to worry about what the public might see while they are doing their jobs.
The time has come for wearable body cameras in local police departments. They provide a sense of credibility while encouraging professional behavior. They may hold answers to some of our serious crime problems with the click of a button.
We Have Inherited a World of Intolerance
By Tyler Moulton
POSTED DECEMBER 7, 2015
What kind of world have I inherited? I have inherited a world dominated by religion, belief, and non-belief. The terrorist groups that infect our world are driven by religion or religious extremism. As Dan Ollen, former Army Intelligence Officer, shared with my Humanities III class, each well-known terrorist organization in the Middle East, such as Al Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS, are based on extreme versions of Islam. Closer to home, the Ku Klux Klan took Christianity to the lowest level, and even the Holocaust was based on religion and beliefs. Gay marriage wasn't legal in this country for a long time, and it still faces resistance because of religion. Nearly everything we learned in our first month of Humanities III – “history in our lifetime” – featured conflict and religion hand in hand.
I am biased. I choose not to practice a religion. I have never had religion pushed upon me, but still have a lot of family that studies Christianity. I do not look down on religion, but I do try to avoid talking about it as much as possible because it seems like many of our social and community standards have a religious foundation. We are confused by the Somalian community's social standards for women. We are confused by what the Bible actually says about gay marriage. Why are people still fighting for that fundamental right? Religious conflict would be a good place to start.
People die for religion day in and day out. Like it or not, the U.S. War On Terror was started not by us, but by religious fanatics. But we were drawn in. A Mother Jones magazine article entitled "History of The Taliban," points out that the Taliban "does not recognize nor tolerate forms of Islam divergent from their own." This, as we know, led to a long war with the U.S. and many unnecessary deaths.
Our beliefs and non-beliefs drive us to do crazy, inhuman things. Religion runs this world, it always has and always will. No matter what you believe, or what you don't believe, this is the world in which we live. Maybe we can change the world. Or maybe religion, in some way, will prevent us from doing that.
POSTED IN NOVEMBER 2015
We may have inherited a good world
By Brooke Martin
The question in Humanities class was this: What kind of world have I inherited?
As I ponder upon several recent and current wars, corruption, bankruptcy, and the power-hungry, money-craving people of this world, the more I begin to view the world as a pessimist. However, I remember learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and the massive impact he made on not only African-Americans, but the entire country. I recall a recent story from National Public Radio about a young woman named Malala who just opened a school for Syrian refugee girls.
I think of the efforts to improve the environment, and I think of the American Red Cross, homeless shelters, and food banks. There are plenty of good things happening in today's society, coexisting with the bad. We live in a world of good and evil.
One word: Smartphones. Technological advances made in today's world are becoming too advanced. Smartphones have become too smart. They can track your everyday locations, access almost anything you want or need … they can even turn off the lights in your house when you aren't home! I don't think people realize how much personal information their smartphones actually retain, essentially leaving them wide open for theft and other threats.
During an interview with Dan Ollen, a 27-year-old Mainer who completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer, a student in my class asked if technology made the United States vulnerable to the Taliban. Dan offered a definitive "yes." He elaborated on his answer, and afterwards stated that terrorists are just as vulnerable when it comes to technology. He informed us that knowledge about the Taliban and other terrorist groups could be discovered very easily, with just a quick search on Facebook, or Twitter. With this kind of information out in the open, there are bound to be more problems in our already broken society. At this point, I believe technology has begun to hurt us more than help us to a certain extent.
The way news is presented all over the world weighs everyone down, giving most people a negative image of our global society. On a normal day in America, you might hear one positive news story for every three to four bad stories, whether it be local, national, or international news. The reasoning behind this happening is simple: bad new sells. A 2007 Robert Redford film about the war on terror, Lions for Lambs, illustrates this point. In this fictitious story, U.S. Senator Jasper Irving pitches a story to reporter Janine Roth, whose job is to report news to the public. Yet Janine is hesitant to write the story in the way Senator Jasper requests it be presented to the nation. In the end, I don't think that Janine was able to write the story herself, due to her political views on Irving's military plan.
Sadly, as humans we seem to pay more attention to the threat of bad things than the prospect of good things. The possibility that we care about bad things more than good things poses a conflict for our wellbeing as a worldwide community; constantly hearing and seeing bad events has an effect on our moods and emotions. To be fair, I think it is safe to assume that the world has been this way for a long time.
Call me a contrarian, but I have taken notice of all the good happening in this day and age. Homeless shelters, animals shelters, food banks, the Salvation Army, and the American Red Cross organizations are all making efforts to improve the world little by little. Occasionally we get lucky with a few powerfully influential figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr., who change people's lives forever.
And then there's Malala Yousafzai, 18, who after being shot by a member of the Taliban three years ago, is not letting anything stop her and is making a difference for young girls overseas in Lebanon (check her out on npr.org). These organizations and people are just a few shining beacons of light in our darkened world. By getting involved and thinking of positive possibilities, we can help make the world a better place for people all over the globe.
We have inherited a world filled with good along with its counterpart, evil. These two elements coexisting together make the world both a beautiful and scary place all at once. Many have said, and still say, they want "world peace." This may not be possible, but if we can't have a perfect world, we can improve it. We can start by celebrating all that is good.
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: 1 Peter 3:8