baseball magic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDhs-hypmqk&feature=related

In class we talked about baseball magic and how it is only magic if you are pitching or hitting. This video shows the magic of pitching and it is really funny.

I was really surprised by this article; it talks about Jesus in Buddha eyes. When I see different religion talking about each other it is mostly about what is wrong with the belief of other religions. This article is it did both, It started on the good aspects that Jesus proves his followers. It really made me think of what type of person Jesus was. It talks a lot about him giving food to the people and doing everything to help them out. Then it switched to talking about Jesus not being spiritual as Buddha. I think this article is interesting and gives you different perspective s.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/beliefs/jesusandbuddhism_1.shtml

Politics in my familyt

Last class we talked about politics and power... in my family there are some very heated arguments about politics. My mother, being a democrat, and her brother, also quite liberal, consistently get in arguments with their parents, since my grandparents are very republican. They were huge supporters of the McCain/Palin campaign two years ago when Obama was elected president. Well, shortly after Obama won the election, me and my family went to grandma and grandpa's house for Christmas. I love to mess with my family and play jokes on people, so I did something that would get my grandparents worked up. Every Christmas I get a new Santa Clause figure for our Santa collection and this particular year I bought a very special Santa. One of the reasons my grandparents basically hate Obama is the fact that he's black... yes, my grandparents are racist but that's just the way it is. So, they weren't too pleased to see the black Santa I had bought and set up in their house. I happen to like Obama so I was just representing, but my grandparents weren't impressed by the joke. That's what politics does to my family!

Social Conflict

In our class last week, we talked a lot about social conflict and if they can ever be resolved. This article focuses on how our government needs to make a change to resolve the conflicts that we see today. Also it gave pointer on how we as individual can make a change to end social conflict. I’m not sure if social conflict can end but I did like that this article for giving us a good start on how to changes because its not just about our leader but about ourselves also.

http://www.helium.com/items/974439-how-to-resolve-social-conflicts?page=3

Amazing Journalism

I have to recommend that students try to watch or follow a program called Vanguard on Current TV.  This program has been one of my favorites for about two years and is an amazing source of investigative reporting and global news.  Vanguard is an investigative journalism show featuring highly controversial topics with first-hand reporting.  These topics range from "Soccer's lost Boys" and "American Jihad" to "Narco War Next Door" and "Lost Vegas". These shows were some of my favorites so far but there is a great diversity in the type of stories covered by this group.
We are touching on the topics of warfare and political conflicts in class I thought that one interesting show that related to our class was the episode "Narco War Next Door".  This episode focuses on the drug violence that has changed the towns of Juarez and Tijuana Mexico, both close to the US border. There is a great section in this episode surrounding a drug lord and the influence his cartel has over public relations and communities loyalty.
If this sort of show seems interesting to you, free episodes can be watched at hulu, http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/vanguard
or you can visit http://current.com/shows/vanguard/ for complete details.
Vanguard has earned Peabody Awards (excellence in electronic media) and also the 2010 Television Academy Honor Award for its excellent reporting and journalism.  This show is the new era of powerful investigative journalism.  Also, a three part series looking deeper into our "war on the border" should be featured some time soon so be sure to check it out!
breisig

Journal Articles

Hey everyone,
I was browsing through http://www.sciencedirect.com researching for another class and then realized that you can also find journal articles and books most of which you can read on-line over just about every topic we cover in class. Most of the stuff is research based and I thought it might help you out with your papers. You do have to create an account but its free and last forever so you can use it for other classes too.

Gangs and Families- Examples of Social Groups

After this week's discussion I started to think of examples of social groups in aspects not necessarily covered in class. What came to mind initially was Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and how certain families are major social groups. Romeo is born into the Montague clan and Juliet into the Capulet clan, obviously. In this story, the two households consistently have conflicts and disagree with ideas of the opposite household, much like two different races or countries may. This leads to fighting and bloodshed. We can see families in society everywhere who feel threatened by other family households, causing similiar conflicts. This can be a conflict as simple as fueding neighbors, a little more intense such as famous political families, or to extremes such as families of opposite races or countries literally battling in war. Referencing Romeo and Juliet also got me thinking of another film- West Side Story. This has supreme examples of a class of kinship group that is quite common; gangs. The gangs are formed due to the differences in their cultures and beliefs; the street punk Americans and the Puerto Ricans. People die and are hurt in this movie also due to the fact that the other gang can not accept the differences in race and thus they fight each other for street turf. A film with basically the exact same story (apart from the time period, setting, and cheesy love story) is Gangs of New York. The individuals in this movie belong to gangs according to race or beliefs also. Although the gangs fight over a specific piece of the city of New York, they more so battle because of their cultural differences. An ironic element of Gangs of New York is that the gang entitled "The Natives" are white people who were only just born in America. They hate the immigrants coming to New York, such as the Irish, but in fact, "The Natives" are no more native than the Irish. Actually, "The Natives" are descendants of Irish immigrants and people from other European countries. Often times social groups may hate each other because of differences in beliefs even though they are actually descendants of the same people.