Supreme Court Not Representing US of A

In class the other day, we talked about how Elena Kagan was in the running to be elected to the Supreme Court. And if this were to come to pass, every SC Justice would have gone to either Harvard or Yale. This is completely mind boggling to me. How can the people who will decide the future of our most important laws have only gone to just 2 upper crusty schools. I've nothing against Harvard or Yale, but to have all of our justices having attended one or the other just makes no sense. There is no way they can accurately understand the whole American people, when making laws and deciding on cases. You're telling me there was no one who went to state school, or even a private institution like Stanford or something who was deemed qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. In fact, there was a Coldbert report episode on this very subject. And while they dedicated most of their time to making fun of Elena Kagan, Steven said one thing that was quite interesting to me. This was the fact that Ms. Kagan would be the youngest member of the Supreme Court at 50 years of age! This is ridiculous! How could the youngest person be only 50? This goes back to my point of America being underrepresented by the Supreme Court. It sounds like hippy drivel, but how can they understand the youth and the changing technologic world... there needs to be some younger individuals on the SC. I don't mean college kids or teenagers, but someone in their 30's or 40's would be quite alright for this position... right? Do you have any ideas or views on this developing subject? Hit me

The Paranormal?

I had an interesting experience today, when I got home after practice. My brother was watching a movie called "Paranormal Activity", and I sat down with him for a few minutes, to see what this movie was all about. I've heard quite a lot about it, (I remember one friend of mine saying it was the honest to god scariest thing she'd ever seen)... but I digress. After about five minutes of watching the film (we were a little over a half hour in I believe) I stood up and declared "This is the stupidest, most fake piece of crap I've ever seen in my life." I mean, the couple is freaking out because the door is moving a little bit, and the plants are blowing around slightly. The part that tipped me over the edge was when their ouija board set on fire. I was like, "really, the board just set on fire on its own." It was the fakest thing I'd seen. There is no way you will convince me to take that movie or any paranormal or ghostly presence seriously. This reminds me of the time in 3rd grade (when I was still in Catholic school) that all of the kids in our grade thought the basement of our church was haunted by the ghost of Bloody Mary or something completely ridiculous like that. Granted, we were gullible 9 year old kids... but still it was an absolutely ridiculous craze. And lo and behold, I just watched a TED Talk on this very subject ...

This Ted Talk in question is by a man named James Randy, and he performs a "fiery takedown of psychic fraud." In it, he talks about how psyhics like Sylvia Browne and John Edward are complete frauds. I totally agree with this, as you might tell by the preceding paragraph. He basically mentions that so called psychics like them are ripping off people who want to try and communicate with their deceased loved ones, and obviously these people have no actual spiritual ability. In fact, Mr. Randi's organization (The James Randi Educational Foundation) is dedicated to uproot these people and educate the public about their fraudulant activity. The funny thing is that the JREF offers a 1 million dollar cash prize to anyone who can demonstrate psychic or paranormal activity. And no professional, except Sylvia Browne(who backed out of the challenge), has attempted this undertaking.

Do you guys have any opinion on this stuff, the supernatural, the paranormal, the weird, the ghoulish...???

People Don't Buy What You Do, They Buy Why You Do it

Tonight, I was looking through some Ted Talks, and found one that intrigued me quite a lot. It was by a man named Simon Sinek. In it, he discussed the idea that "people don't buy what you do, but why you do it." He explained this by using Apple, and how they sell their products, Apple doesn't just say that they make great computers that are user friendly, but they say what they believe in. He also gave the example of the Wright brothers, who were first in flight, but had no funding, no team of experts, no college degrees- and yet they achieved what many who were well funded and well educated could not. This idea was hard to wrap my head around at first, but slowly it came to me. If you get people behind you who share your beliefs, then leading them and accomplishing things becomes much easier. He also gave the example of Martin Luther King Jr.- who apparently gained such a loyal following from spreading his idea, not his plan. The line he is famous for, "I have a dream" is key, and Mr. Sinek makes the point that he gave the 'I have a dream speech', not the 'I have a plan speech'. If you tell people what you believe, or why you want to do what you want to do- they will follow you. If you have time, I would reccomend watching the Talk, it is quite captivating. What do you think about this abstract idea?

You Ain't Got No Legs Lieutenant Dan: JT is finished!!

        After a a very long process, my Junior Theme is pretty much finally done. I've gone from thinking I was going to talk about the economy, to writing about military spending. After my first draft, I had nine pages of loosely connected drivel in desperate need of refinement. And thats just what I did, I looked for more information, I pared down stuff I didn't need, I refashioned my language, and voila'- I was getting closer to a finished product. I used countless online articles, three books, one podcast, and one documentary to write my paper. The biggest change I ever made came yesterday, where I full on cut 3 paragraphs from my paper, because they didn't directly prove my point. They included my portion on "Adams" by George Saunders, which Doc Oc really liked, but in the end wasn't essential to prove my point, so I eliminated the whole block on the subject. I then changed my last pargraph block from talking about asymmetrical threats to talking about how the government is not spending our money as smart as they could be. I think this change helped the clarity of my last paragraph, and fit better with the paper than it did before.
      Now you might be asking yourself, what does "You ain't got no legs lieutenant dan" scene from Forest Gump have to do with military spending? And I have the answer- it doesn't, but why not do it?

Times Square Car Bomb Discovered!

Yesterday, after getting home, I hadn't been in the house 30 seconds, before my dad called me into the TV room. So, I walked in and he explained his calling me. He said there had been a car bomb discovered in Times Square, and I was quite shocked to hear this. So far, no one knows the exact motive for it, but this Huffington Post article explains that there might be a connection to the popular animated show South Park. The reason for this connection is because South Park recently depicted the Muslim prophet Mohammed wearing a bear costume in their TV show. The SUV was parked outside the Viacom building, which owns Comedy Central, the network that South Park airs on. This may sound ridiculous, but if you're familiar with the show, you know what I'm talking about. And after that particular episode aired, Muslim extremists issued threats to the shows producers. According to the New York daily news, the vehicle in question was a Nissan Pathfinder packed with M88's, propane tanks, gasoline, and fertilizer. There is video surveilance of a man exiting the vehicle and quickly changing shirts and fleeing the scene, and thanks to a quick acting street vendor and the NYPD, the threat was contained before anyone was hurt. The car bomb could have shattered windows, done large amounts of damage, and injured dozens of people. The liscense plate was taken from a car in a repair shop, and the car most likely stolen. Police say that this could be a terrorist attack, or it could be the efforts of a "lone wolf". Whatever the case, it was luckily thwarted by a street vendor selling I Love NY shirts, who in an interview gave his message to New York City, "If you see something say something."

JT Update: Chillitary Spending

Early this week, I conducted my interview with Northwestern professor, Johnathon Caverly. He had a lot of interesting points to make, and the interview suprised me a bit. Despite being fairly awkard, I learned quite a lot. I expected him to agree with most of my points, but instead he provided a good part of my Adress the Other Side part. He didn't completely deny my claims, but he took sort of a middle ground on most of the questions, where he leveled with me, but provided a very sophisticated view as well. For example, he didn't agree that the cold war directly led to high military spenidng today, but he did say that a document I'm examing, called NSC 68 represented the philosophy that the United States shouldn't put up with communism. It was very enlightening, and valuable to have someone scholarly who offered opposing views.

JT Update: Thrillitary Spending

After having written a rough draft on my paper, I come to the hard part: editing and refining. My topic is military spending, and my sub-topics are: the cold war, military expenses, Eisenhower's farewell speech, the current Military Industrial complex, the short story "Adams" by George Saunders, and asymmetrical threats. This may sound like jibberish, and it is. The hardest part thus far has been making smooth transitions so the paper flows like a waterfall. That and collecting more statistics and facts, and integrating those in well enough so they actually make sense, and don't seem tacked on. The good news is that I've attained an interview subject, a Northwestern Professor named Jonathon Caverly.