evil

I looked at http://despair.com/  which makes fun of sites where you can order your customized products.  The jokes in the site say that sites where you can order customized products make people lazy in their creativity.  An example of a joke on the site is:  You can create your own calendar with a limited choice of pictures of non-specific items, such as a beautiful picture of a sunset over a random body of water.  If you are too lazy to wrap the calendar that you ordered you can order it in their wrapped-type envelope with the ugly company logo on it. I found this site quite satirical.

In New Book, Nigerian Priest Decries Racism He Finds In America is about how racism still exists in the Catholic Church.

‘”The Catholic Church teaches that racial injustice should be resisted, even the least bit of it.”‘

“Yet in some Catholic churches whites have refused to sit in the same pew with blacks or shake hands with them, he said.”

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=22545

I find these facts appalling, especially since the writer is talking about a Church where people should be on their best behavior and include everyone who is a part of the Church. I believe that it is good that the book being discussed was written and I hope that it leads to the stopping of racist behavior in Church.

The narrative, Life of Isaac Mason As a Slave, enhanced my vision of slavery in America by reading about how sometimes Isaac Mason was punished for no reason when he was a slave. The conditions he worked under were not that nice but I can imagine how much worse the conditions were for slaves in the deeper south, as Isaac was in Maryland. I realize that slaves’ escape attempts were not extemporaneously done but carefully planned out, at least Isaac Mason’s escape attempt was. I learned a lot about how hard life after slavery was for Isaac, without any resources or education and trying to find a job. It was also very difficult because many people took too much advantage of him, like when he paid money for first class ferry tickets and the man who Isaac paid for the tickets took some of the money for himself and gave Isaac and his wife second class tickets.

Isaac Mason’s life stoy relates to Huck Finn because, like some of the people helping Isaac escape, Huck took advantage of Jim sometimes by running off on his own and then Huck lied to Jim about where he was. For example, when the steamboat separated the raft that Huck and Jim were on when Jim found Huck, Huck lied to Jim that he was just dreaming that they were separated. One theme of Huck Finn was that a slave who ran away was constantly being hunted down by someone. Isaac Mason’s narrative shows that a slave who ran away was constantly hunted down even when the run away slave was up north. The narrative by Isaac relates to Mark Twain because Mark Twains life was full of risk taking, as was Isaac Mason’s life after he ran away. I now realize that if people were racist up north where there was no slavry, it is, unfortunately, no wonder that people were racist down south when slavery was abolished.

I have decided to read Isaac Mason’s slave narrative, titled Life of Isaac Mason As a Slave.  I expect to learn more horrifying details about slavery, methods of escaping and everyday life as a slave.  I know that the labor of a slave was gruesome.  Slaves atempted to run away a lot but only sometimes succeeded.  When a slave was caught doing something wrong, such as running away, a slave faced harsh corporal and sometimes capital punishment.  I am very interested to see what the slave narrative has to say.

The artice Commentary: Racism in Texas more than skin deep, says that racism may be more than based upon skin color.

“People who are struggling financially often feel threatened by those who they feel are competing for the same jobs.”

For more information see URL below:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/21/racism.guestcommentary/

I feel  that what  Helen Lasrsh  says is true in a way.  I feel that  people who have a better education in a mixed environment are more likely not to be racist. This education will expose someone to intelligent people of other races who will be sharing the same experiences.  I found this commentary by a high school teacher in Texas to be very interesting. I think that in the future CNN should give more time so that everyone in the Town Hall program who wants to say something can talk.

The character of Stephen Colbert promotes that the draft should be reinstated because it will create anti-war protests.  The anti-war protests will cause Americans to get more angry at the anti-war protests than at the Bush administration and guarantee victory for the Republicans in the years to come.  The real message behind what Stephen Colbert said is that we should not reinstate the draft because it would create chaos.  What makes this satirical is that Stephen Colbert’s idea  is so offensive that  people know that he dosen’t mean it.  What makes it funny is some of the jokes he makes, such as, “Run for your life, they’re blogging!” I really enjoyed this clip from the Colbert  report.

We are stuck between a rock and a hard place in Iraq. There is realy not much positive coming out of Iraq. We should set a time table of about a year to remove about two-thirds of U.S. Troops in Iraq. During that we should run a more rigorous program to train Iraq solders so that they could take over once we leave. Once Iraq is paliced by its own army vialance woul likely go down because Iraqis and other arabs would feel more consterable with their own people palicing them. Let us hope that the war ends soon.

CNN.com’s Poll: Most Americans see lingering racism — in others writes about how racism is still alive today and how many people in the U.S.A. are quick to accuse others of being racist but very few people in the U.S.A. will admit to being racist themselves.

“Asked if they know someone they consider racist, 43 percent of whites and 48 percent of blacks said yes.”

“But just 13 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks consider themselves racially biased.”

fore more information see URL below.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/racism.poll/

The reason why people accuse others of being racist but do not admit it themselves is that it is easier to put others down to make yourself look like a good person than put yourself down and admit to your wrongs. If we could gain the confidence to admit to wrongs like racism we would function much better as a society.

Satire is so popular because it helps people feel better about the worst of our society. Many people and groups are interested in using satire to criticize social problems because social problems can be criticized without too much controversy. Works like Borat and “A Modest Proposal” are considered satires but Scary Movie is not considered a satire. Scary Movie belongs in the genre of parody which is different from satire because parody makes fun of specific works but satire makes fun of social situations. I enjoy satire because I am into politics and I tend to know the background information behind the satire and what they are making fun of. I feel to enjoy satire one needs to understand the situation the satirist is making fun of. This separates good satire from bad satire because good satire makes it clear what is being made fun of. Some examples of my favorite satires are the Colbert Report the Daily Show.

I saw the school’s production of the Tempest for the assignment to watch a production of a Shakespere play.  I found the set design quite interesting with the sand drift on the edge of the stage.  One thing I liked about the acting was how Kalaban walked like an animal.   The acting was quite impressive and a lot of times during the play it was difficult to believe that the actors were high school students.  I felt the backstory that the director added in was subtle enough that it worked.  I thought that the play was quite well done.