#12 Jon Stewart

In Jon Stewart's sketch "Let's Leave it There", Stewart addresses the phoniness apparent in the media, especially CNN. Stewart's first point is on CNN's stupidity of fact checking a SNL skit. First, its an SNL skit...it was meant to not be taken seriously and meant to be laughed about. Second, CNN goes and wastes their time fact checking a humurous skit when they could be spending the news time and fact checking power to fact check other more important news. CNN is obviously not allocating their time correctly because they "leave it there" so many times during important news times. CNN has the time to thoroughly analyze and fact check a SNL skit but does not have time to complete or conclude debates on important issues such as health care. They show news that have incorrect numbers and do not spend the time to fact check whatever they are showing the public. By using the power of numbers, CNN is able to deceive and convince the public. Stewart also makes a solid point on one debate where a CNN reporter is unsure if she could fact check a piece of information. OF COURSE, you can fact check it. CNN is a 24 hour news channel, it has 24 hours to check facts on important issues like these. The last point that Stewart points out is how they cut off important debates, to watch youtube videos. Once again, a waste of time. News channels should use the time they have wisely and stop wasting time on irrelevant news and focus on important issues.

#11 Sacred Languages and Spoken Languages

In Nerith Aviv's documentary Sacred Languages, Spoken Languages, Aviv explores the importance of sacred Hebrew in Israel. Aviv documents his journey across Israel on a train ride. At every stop, Aviv interviews and obtains a person's view on sacred Hebrew. As the train ride scenery changes from the rural to urban areas, the views on sacred Hebrew also changes. In general, the Israelis from the rural areas had more respect for sacred Hebrew, probably because of sustained and strong traditions and culture. So on the flip side, Israelis from urban settings viewed sacred Hebrew as an outdated and ancient language. They did not view it as sacred as the rural speakers did. A main contribution to this factor was probably the movement from rituals and traditions to modernization and technology as people moved from rural to urban. The main reason why sacred Hebrew was even preserved was because of the deep and strong roots of history tied down with it. Sacred Hebrew is viewed as a holy language, the language of God. But as time goes on, the respect for it has diminished. If sacred Hebrew can find a way of tying itself to the modern world, it would find more respect within the new generations. But just because sacred Hebrew's respect is diminishing does not at all mean that the language will die out. Israel and Israelis' roots are found in religion. It is their foundation of life and history and culture, nobody would try to eliminate sacred Hebrew. There just has to be a revitalization of it within this modern world.

#10 Dialects

There are always various dialects in every language. Dialects are mainly tied with which area of the country one is from. In America, everybody speaks the same language, but every region has their own dialect. People in the south speak with a southern dialect, people in Texas have a "cowboy" dialect, people in New York have a New York dialect. All these dialects have special traits about them. Dialects bring color into language. If language had one dialect, there would be less culture and diversity among the speakers. Diversity allows us to see and experience the different cultures around us and not be closed off to them. Because we speak the same language, we cannot be closed off to different dialects. Although some speakers of certain dialects hold their dialects as the standard dialect and view themselves as higher than others, this is not the case. There may be a standard dialect so as to standardize the language in the world, but all the different dialects are merely just different ways of representing a language. One dialect is not higher than another. Although some dialects may be tied down to negative stereotypes, it is a proven fact that each dialect, no matter how funky it may sound to another person, has its own special and dedicated rules. People should not be closed off to different dialects but be open to all dialects as to absorb the different cultures around them.

#8 Second Presentation

Compared to Simran Sethi, these speakers from the second presentation were a huge breath of fresh air and knowledge. Unlike Simran Sethi, these speakers really knew how to connect with the audience. Because they themselves are/were college students recently, they knew how to connect with the audience. The mere fact that Rachel Barge used UCLA's anti-USC video, showed that she knew the audience to some extent to conjure up an emotion she wanted conjured up. Everybody knows USC and UCLA have a rivalry, Barge just used this information and used it effectively to get the audience stimulated. With the audience stimulated, Barge challenged us to be better than the Bruins. She had just given the audience an incentive to be green. Not just to save energy, but to beat the Bruins. The mere fact that she had done this, shows that she was able to connect with the audience. In a broader view, because these students had won awards during their enrollment in their schools, they were revealing their ideas of how they had impacted their schools with being green. Because these ideas were not hard to grasp or far from grasp, these college students really knew how to sell their ideas to the audience. They not only educated us on being green, but in a sense also passed on their torch from campus to campus to strive to be more green and impact the world.

#7 Apology

After issuing his apologies, Gibson followed through with the AA program, but never actually visited Jewish communities or synagogues like he said he would. Although I do not have any personal hatred towards Mel Gibson, I do believe that his words and actions during and after the incident revealed an anti-Semitic side of him and a hear that was not truly sorry for what he had done. His drunken statements of hate, his “blame it on the alcohol” apology, and post-incident actions, or lack of actions, reflected Gibson’s half-hearted apologies to the public and the Jewish community. Although Gibson’s apologies may have seemed sincere and whole-hearted, after analyzing the apologies, one can see just how genuine the apology really was. He was genuine about his shame and embarrassment for getting caught on tape with anti-Semitic remarks, but not genuine about his seemingly good intentions to repair his relationships with the Jewish people. Gibson tries to blame this incident on the alcohol and does not take full responsibility of his actions. In the end, Gibson’s uses his fame to try and reduce punishments and get away with minor infractions. His unwillingness to keep to his word and visit with Jewish leaders, nonetheless show up in his proceeding, reveals that Gibson’s apology was not genuine and was only made to save face. Though the whole population did not analyze Gibson’s every action and word like this paper, they felt some kind of ingenuity. Gibson’s apologies deemed to be unsuccessful, and now the public labels Gibson as an alcoholic and an anti-Semitic.

#6 Incident

Early morning on July 28, 2006, a police officer clocked a speeding car at more than 85 miles per hour on the Pacific Coast Highway. When the officer pulled over the driver, he was shocked to see a drunk Mel Gibson roll down the window. The famous movie star had been drinking and decided to drive that night. The drunk Mel Gibson begin arguing with the officer and gave the officer a hard time. Not only did Mel Gibson show belligerence to the officer in his drunken state, but also slipped out some anti-Semitic remarks: “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?” Through this incident, Mel Gibson broke the law by driving under the influence, and also ruined his career in Hollywood with his anti-Semitic remarks and became the laughing stock of late night shows. Gibson was charged with a D.U.I. resulting in fines of more than $1,600, three-year probation, and a 12-month requirement to join an AA program. The controversy behind this incident and the following apologies was if Gibson was truly sincere or not. Although Gibson apologized to the public, Gibson only apologized for getting caught. If he had not been caught, he would not have apologized. He was sincere about saying the anti-semitic remarks, but used alcohol as the scapegoat.

#5 Thoughts on Greenness

Although the speaker was highly respected in the world and a very honorable guest, I felt as if her speech was like any other "green" speech. She pointed out many problems, and even new ones that I have never really thought of, but didn't really give many examples to solve these problems. Sure, she talked about conserving energy, changing to energy-efficient light bulbs, walking, and biking, but haven't we all heard these before? She pointed out problems I didnt really think about such as the Los Angeles pollution and the concentration of toxic power plants around low-income and colored neighborhoods. Just because these low-income families are not politically active or politically influential does not mean they can be bombarded with factories that produce pollution, endangering their lives. I thought she did make one good point in a way of solving these problems. She answered a student, when asked what we should do to really try and help, that we should try to write to our congressmen to really get our opinions voiced and really get the congressmen aware of what is going on in communities across our cities. But overall, if I had to tell her where to really work on her speech would be to provide more solutions, because she is such a professoinal in this topic and also to cut down on talking about herself so much.

#3 To save or not to save?

There are over 6,000 languages in the world, yet 96% of the world’s population speak only 4% of these languages. What about the rest of the 96% of the 6,000 languages found in the world? Why are so little people speaking these languages? The truth is that every two weeks, one language completely dies out. That means a language, along with its culture, can never be heard or seen again in this earth’s history. But should all languages be saved, or only ones that meet or have certain qualities or traits? This topic of saving languages brings many controversies. Although every culture, with its language, is considered valuable in this world, there must be a distinct line as to where which languages are worth saving. If the world tried to save every language humanly possible, invaluable amount of resources and time would be thrown away when they could be used in more important matters. If a language with only 17 speakers and no distinct culture worth countless years and millions of dollars? Although a harsh statement, all languages are not worth saving. The languages worth saving should have a considerable amount of speakers, a knowledge, literature, or culture that is unique and important, and a generally positive and receptive attitude from non-speakers in the world.

#1 Nazi Pope?

This article suggests that Pope Benedict XVI still carries on his Nazi thoughts from youth to present. Just because of his strong belief in his own religion, Catholicism, Goldhagan compares him to the German Nazis of WWII. How can anybody even think about comparing the Pope to a Nazi? I myself am not a Catholic and could honestly really care less about the Pope, but to compare somebody to a Nazi is, I believe, very low. Yes he may show signs of anti-Semitism or even anti-other religions, but this does not mean he hates them. He may reject other religion's ideas and beliefs but this does not mean he hates them like the Nazis hated the Jews. The Pope is just a strong avid believer of his faith, just like the Popes before him. Just because of his background, Goldhagan is accusing him of being an anti-Semetic and hateful Pope, comparable to the Nazis. I believe a person can change, and I do believe that the Pope cannot for one second be compared to the Nazis, the single most destructive and hateful group in the history of mankind.