The American Progression

This photo perfectly represents what I think the United States is going through right now. We are the man in yellow, wearing blue jeans to represent the heart of America. The umbrella is there to protect him from his challenge. We have the American flag to protect us from everything that might harm us. The quote at the bottom says exactly what we need to do in a time of peril like this: "Hold your head up, don't look back, forward march." We have to start anew like we have done before, and we need to fulfill our full potential.

Ready for War

Over the next five days, the country of Israel will be holding the biggest war drill in the country's 60 year history. The need for such a drill is due to the rising tension between Israel and their adversary to the east, Iran. Most experts believe that Iran is currently trying to develop nuclear weapon capability, and Israel must be on their heels. The drill will include: "simulated rockets, air raids and other attacks on infrastructure and essential facilities, and use of weapons on civilians" (CNN). I believe that Iran will have nuclear weapon capabilities in the next two years, and if the US and Israel don't somehow make peace with Iran soon, or destroy their nuclear plants, anything is possible.

Suicidal Military

An U.S army base located in Kentucky is shutting its doors for the next three days in order to hold an anti-suicide event. Over the next three days, the base will hold an "suicide stand-down training event," in which the intent is to show each on of the soldiers that their life matters. And this is not the first on, they had something just like this earlier this year. The events are due to a extreme rise in suicides on the base, and in the military as whole. There have been 64 suicides in the army this year, and 11 of those occurred at the base in Kentucky. According to CNN, "more soldiers killed themselves in January of this year than died in battle." That is crazy to me. What are the commanders and generals and whoever else leads the military doing to cause this uprise of suicides. You cannot blame 64 suicides in 5 months solely on the soldiers themselves, the leaders must be pushing them to do this. We need military commanders who are compassionate to their own soldiers, even during a war. This is very upsetting to me, and Obama should definitely make some changes aat the top of the military.

Playing with Patriotism

The use of the flag here shows how it can be used as a sales tool. It is likely that a child is not more likely to buy a toy car if there is an American flag on it, however, it could impact the parents decision to buy the toy. If there is one truck with a flag, and the exact same one without, and the child does not care which one he or she gets, I would say that most of the parents would choose the one with the flag. Even though its does not prove anything, in terms of patriotism, the feel more patriotic inside, and they believe that their kids are more patriotic.

9/11 Conspiracies

Ever since the day after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, conspiracy theorists have been creating myths about what happened on the terrible morning. From the planes being government planes, to explosives being planted in the towers to help them fall, people have created these myths most likely for a couple of reasons. First, our government has not been the most truthful government in the past, from Nixon to Clinton, so maybe people thought this was another lie, except on a much greater scale. Maybe some people could not believe that something like this could happen in our country, so it had to be an inside job. But whatever the reasons are, I think it is horrible that people could think up these things. The amount of disrespect that it shows for the victims and the victims families is incredible. Yes, the Bush administration did not make the best choices after 9/11, but there is no real evidence to prove the theories. Now that 8 years have past, and all the theories have been debunked, the theorists should show some respect to the victims and stop these myths.

Read an article debunking the theories here.

Obama Press Conference-Staying Cool

President Barack Obama held a news conference on Tuesday night in which he addressed questions from reports about topics ranging from the economy to stem cell research, and in his usual cool and calm way, he answered the questions with ease. When you compare how Bush and Obama answer questions, they both seem to think about what they are going to say before they say it, but Obama just sounds smarter when the words come out, and I think that is a big reason he got elected.
He continued to say that this economic struggle will not end quickly, that we have to work at it for awhile. I know that politicians always lie, but this is exactly the opposite of what he said while he was campaigning. He said that he will put in new financial regulations that will help this crisis end, but he has put in no such regulations. He said that in this speech in Dayton.
So, so far the Obama administration has been rather boring. Even though he has only been in office for 2 months, they really haven't done anything that big, except giving taxpayers money to companies that use it for bonuses. If Obama wants all those promises to come true, he should start working on it.

Why So Serious?

At the 81st Annual Academy Awards last night, something happened there that will be remembered as one of the great moments in Oscar history.It happened when the winner was announced for the Best Supporting Actor category. When Alan Arkin opened up the envelope, and the name Heath Ledger came out of his mouth, the crowd erupted with joy and sadness. Heath Ledger was an Australian actor who starred in Movies like The Dark Knight and Brokeback Mountain. But the best part wasn't the fact that he won, it was the acceptance speech that his parents and sister gave. They didn't want people to think about his unfortunate death, but rather his incredible career and all the great work he did. I thought those moments were marvelous.

See the speech here.