https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw1q9rBv7oU#t=223

December 9, 2014

C.I.A. lies about interrogation programs

The Central Intelligence Agency positioned a public relations proposal “that would stress information gathered form its disputed interrogation program had played a critical role in the hunt” for Osama bin Laden. Meaning the insights that the C.I.A. collected during their hunt for bin Laden were essential to the process. This past Tuesday the Senate Intelligence Committee announced that the C.I.A. would not have been able to locate and capture bin Laden if they did not use torture. 

One man named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was a main focus due to his close ties with Bin Laden. After an interrogation with Hassan Ghul, a Qaeda operative, the C.I.A. proposed that Ghul provided “the most accurate” information regarding Kuwaiti’s relationship with Bin Laden. However, Ghul was then subjected to “more enhanced interrogation.” He was hung in a room for over fifty hours and experienced sleep depravation, hallucinations, and paralysis from legs down. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-report-raises-doubts-about-cia-claims-on-hunt-for-osama-bin-laden.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Dec. 1, 2014

Ferguson is Illuminating Modern Day Racism, part ii 

Michael Erik Dyson, writer for the New York Times and author of “Where Do We Go After Ferguson?” claims that “our culture’s fearful dehumanizing of black men materialized once again when when Officer Wilson saw Michael Brown as a demonic force who had to be vanquished in a hail of bullets.” I am sure that statement put an unwashed image in the back of your head. Now there are a couple ways to look at this situation. The fact that young Brown was unarmed yet shot to death does raise a plethora of questions. Was Brown acting out and over reacting around the police officer? Was the Police Officer over reacting? Was this an act of racism? Many more questions surface I am sure however the question whether or not this was an act of racism or not is the most significant. 

Dyson also explains the dreadful fear a black individual experiences when seeing a police cruiser or officer because of the history of the history of racism all over the world. The evolution of racism can date thousands and thousands of years. We felt safe and content with the outcome of the Civil Rights Era, and stopped acknowledging the racism that still takes place all over the United States. 

Dyson used a real life experience he had when he was just 17 years old. Not even a legal adult yet he is assaulted by an officer after being pulled over with a buddy of his and his brother. Dyson said he was going to grab his registration out of his pocket and the next thing he knew he was bashed with the but of the officers piston in the back of the neck forcing him to fall to the ground. Then “promising, with a racial epithet, that he’d put a bullet through my head if I moved again” (Dyson). Long story short, as soon as the police officers ran the registration and found out the vehicle was not stolen they let them go “without a hint of an apology.” It sickens me to think there are still people out there with these disgusting mindsets. It could even the stranger in front of you at Starbucks while you wait for a coffee or someone you sit next to on an air plane. The moral of the story is that the reality of racism cannot be escaped, racism still surrounds our society as we know it and we must take a stand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/where-do-we-go-after-ferguson.html?_r=0

Nov. 29, 2014

Article: "Where Do We Go After Ferguson?" The New York Times

Ferguson is Illuminating Modern Day Racism, part i

After stumbling upon an article by The New York Times I was more than enlightened on societies ruinous issue regarding racism. The true reality surrounding racism opened my eyes. In our present day racism is looked at as past history that was abolished after the Civil Rights Era, however this is completely inaccurate. For this point at issue needs to be deemed on a global spectrum. 

As many may know, Darren Wilson a white police officer of Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed an unarmed black teen, Michael Brown. Wilson was not indicted for the killing of Brown. The two realities that “were illuminated” premised around the fact that whites and blacks will never agree on racial values, and will always react different in certain situations. The second being the fact that black individuals have infuriated “moral debates.” 

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/6221888/op-ed-killer-mike-on-the-problems-underlying-the-chaos-in-ferguson

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/where-do-we-go-after-ferguson.html?_r=0

Sunday, November 2, 2014

"A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D." - The New York Times

Today as I was exploring The New York Times' website catching up on my current events. I happened to stumble on an article relating to my personal life. The well known "disease", attention deficit hyperactive disorder is the lack of paid attention in every day life.  While the author of "A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.", Richard A. Friedman claims that "psychostimulants like Adderall and Ritalin help by blocking the transport of dopamine back into neurons, thus increasing its level in the brain", an individual with A.D.H.D. generally is not content with a rutined every day life. This is why these individuals find them selves off track and not paying attention to something they aren't interested in. For example I have an attention deficit hyperactive disorder and through out the process of me writing this blog post, I have found my self side tracked numerous times. Whether that may be taking a look at my phone, pondering out my fourth floor dorm window, or even contemplating starting my laundry.  What Friedman is trying to get across is that in modern days society humans have evolved into a more chaotic and stimulating surroundings and now individuals are "bored" due to having a "taste for novelty". He claims the metophorical cure for this disorder is to get out and change things up to reduce the boredum.

September 20, 2014

Article: Japan Needs Women in the Worth Force

Author: Jessica Cop

A recently developed generation of females are surfacing.  Women with the desires to enter the professional business world and acquire a career. Beginning in the early 70's women "helped propel its economy by 11 percent". Yearly, women double their working hours which results in the economic spikes in the United States. Motivated working women, however, are not as ordinary today in across the globe in Japan. Most women in Japan have not "branched out in the workforce" because of shortfall of equal pay aswell as childcare. The premise of this course is equality and freedom. The expectations of women must be reduced and altered for the benefit of the countries economy. Men and women must be looked at equally in order to obtain absolute economic success. Japan's lack of opportunities for women to work has resulted in the country spending close to "$3 bullion to improve discrimination."  Looking at the larger scale of this situation this could have a significant effect on other countries. To illustrate my point it can be evident that once Japan improves their economic luxury, hopefully, a domino effect will take place and other countries will follow Japan's footsteps. If Japan actually improves and other countries take note of it gender equality will with out a doubt start to slowly improve.

http://www.rightlywired.com/japan-needs-women-in-the-work-place/

Article: Years of Rape and ‘Utter Contempt’ in Britain

Author: Katrin Bennhold 

Lucy, who wanted to keep her last name exclusive, was raised into a middle-class family. She was about twelve years old talking to boys which is reasonably normative. As time went by she began talking to boys who were a bit older than her which is typical for girls her age, until she was then brought into a new world with grown men. With these men in her life Lucy has now been inaugurated into the drugs and alcohol. These men began to take advantage of Lucy and as one can guess at this point, raped her. Nine men were involved, one on top, two constricting her to the ground, one forcing her to keep her eyes open and observe what was happening to her body and the rest of the men influencing the situation by cheering and hollering. Lucy was thirteen years old when she was raped for the first time… 

In the late 1990’s the town of Rotherham, England had a huge political and social issue on their hands. When Lucy was just turning fourteen years old she finally informed her mother of the horror she’d had been going through. So of course Lucy’s mother did what any other mother or human being would do which was call the police. The police came and gather a mountain of evidence then a couple days later Lucy’s family was told all the evidence was lost. Rotherham had about one hundred known rape reports and there was only one incident where men were charged and put in jail. Police just rubberneck their heads in the other direction and just let it happen. Even the judges in courthouses look the other way and act as if these horribly frightening and scaring acts of basically terror were not against the law in any way. The lack in acknowledgement got so bad girls thought being raped by a group of men was some sort of initiation into womanhood. 

These girls are isolated to the point where they cannot speak unless told to or spoken to. Going completely against societies standards these men would basically view them selves to play the role of solipsizers unreservedly stealing young girls innocence at extremely young ages. These horrid men said the would “gang-rape my mother, to kill my brother and firebomb my house”. Creating unnecessary disorders such as “depression and anorexia” so horrible to the point where Lucy and her family had to abandon the country which was hands down the best move. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/europe/reckoning-starts-in-britain-on-abuse-of-girls.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article