Current Controversy III: The Burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

The question of what to do with the accused Boston marathon bombers remains has been a heated issue in the last month or so.  People are torn between hatred and anger and whether or not it is morally wrong to not put the deceased to rest, even if they committed such a terrible crime.

Protests rose up outside Peter Stefan’s funeral home in Worcester MA the other day after he accepted the body and prepared it in Muslim tradition.  The citizens of Cambridge Massachusetts where Tsarnaev lives said that burying him in their town would disturb the peace.  There were reports of sending his body to Russia where his parents lived, but that would have cost too much.

A retired Vermont teacher, Paul Keane, offered to surrender a family spot in a Hamden Connecticut cemetery.  He said it was a tribute to his mother who taught him to “love thine enemy.”  Keane, not surprisingly, received many hate emails because of this.

An undisclosed burial sight has been found for Tsarnaev.  On Thursday his body was moved from the funeral home where it had been for a week.  Police in Worcester said in a statement, “His body is no longer in the City of Worcester and is now entombed.”  Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme stated, “There is a need to do the right thing. We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.”

I am really torn with this issue.  I have a lot of hate and anger toward Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  He effected many people with the awful tragedy he caused.  I feel like the best thing would be for him to be sent back to Russia.  When I heard that he had been killed, I never thought he would even be allowed to be buried in the U.S., a country he clearly hated.  Part of me thinks he should just be disposed of like trash, but part of me realizes that he is a human being and he needs to be buried somewhere.  It was still very shocking to me though that some Americans are coming out and saying that they’ll give away the own family spot to Tsarnaev.  At the same time, I guess I’m glad in a way that they found a burial spot. In the end it just shows that we value civility in this country

Colleges in America and “Rave Culture”

Electronic music has recently become extremely popular among college students in the U.S. A rave is defined as “a party atmosphere designed to enhance a hallucinogenic experience through music and behavior, which consists of an all-night dance session at a club or party, accompanied by the ingestion of recreational drugs”.

What is it about colleges that particularly feed into tis type of music?

On reason is that it is a very new and energetic type of music.  Like many other new energetic types of music in the past (for example, punk, rock and roll), it is college age kids that really follow it the most.

Another reason is the fact that EDM (electronic dance music) is becoming very popular in nightclubs.  College kids go to nightclubs more than any other age demographic.

This type of music is very user-interactive.  With the use of websites like Soundcloud, we can listen to a song and comment on specific parts of the song rather than the song as a whole.

Another reason college students like this music is that it isn’t just music. It goes beyond that.  Its a full blown show with light shows, pyrotechnics, confettie, etc.

I don’t particularly like EDM music, but it is interesting to me that I am growing up in a time where a new type of music is taking off.  It makes me think I can relate to the days when my grandparents were my age and rock and roll was becoming popular.  It is going to be interesting to watch this genre of music and see how it evolves in the coming years.  Maybe my grandkids will be listening to this music and I can tell them about the time when it was first becoming popular.

Thoughts on Dorothy Lange: A picture of a person is worth more than a thousand words

I’m a big fan of photography and one of my favorite types of photos are photos of people.  Those are the type of photographs I like taking the most myself.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I believe that if there is a human being in the photograph, it can speak an infinite amount of words. If you see a picture of an ocean or a mountain, you know your looking at a picture of an ocean or a mountain.  When you look at a picture of a person, particularly the face and facial expression, its not just a person you’re looking at.  You’re looking at someone that is thinking about something and has a conscious in that blink of time.  You begin to wonder what they are thinking about, how old they are and where exactly are they in the picture.  Who is taking this picture and why? This is why Dorothea Lange’s photos were so intriguing to me.  They were candid pictures of people in such stressful times.

You can look at a photograph of an incoming dust storm and think, “Wow! Thats so scary. How awful.”  You might think about what you might do in that situation, but it stops at that.  Dorothea Lange’s photos portray the emotions of people actually experiencing such hardship during the time of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.  You can feel their emotions when you look into their tired, haggard faces.  This is especially true in her photograph titled “Migrant Mother”.  Lange gets her camera really close, which she seems to do consistently.  You can see the stress in the mother’s face and how it has aged.  You can see the children leaning on her and not looking at the camera which makes the viewer wonder what might be wrong with the children.

As we looked through Lange’s pictures during class, I remember feeling very sad for the subjects of the photos.  I had it in the back of my mind that they were from around 80 years ago.  They seemed like old photos that portrayed things that would never happen in our country nowadays.  I corrected myself though.  I realized that there is still poverty like this in our country.  A black and white photo of today’s victims of poverty would not look too different from Lange’s photos.  Her photos are something that I’ll always remember from this course.

James O’Keefe: A Modern Day Muckraker

James O’Keefe is a conservative American activist.  He produces audio and video recordings of meetings with public figures and workers in many different companies and organizations.  These recordings show abusive or illegal behaviors by the people in charge of these organizations or businesses.  He has gained support from conservative media and interest groups.

O’Keefe started an independent conservative newspaper in college.  He began to use available technology to make videos and he distributed these them to conservative news station where he thought they would be the most effective.  Some of his videos have even influenced congressional votes.

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is an advocacy organization for people of low and moderate income.  In 2009, O’Keefe’s associate, Hannah Giles, acted as prostitute and O’Keefe posed as her boyfriend.  The hidden videos they took showed low-level ACORN employees in six cities giving advice to Giles and O’Keefe on how to avoid detection by authorities of tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution. Congress then voted to freeze federal funding to ACORN and the Census Bureau and the IRS terminated their contract with ACORN.  

In the summer of 2011, O’Keefe released videos showing Medicaid fraud in offices in may  states.  The releases these videos through conservative outlets in the weeks following.  In July 2011, conservative groups released recorded video in Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services.  The videos showed workers assisting actors who were applying for benefits.  The actors were hinting that they were drug dealers.  The actors were receiving the benefits anyway.

I believe James O’Keefe is an interesting muckraker because he is a great example of someone using modern technology to muckrake.  Muckraking has come a long way since Jacob Riis’s grainy black and white photos.

Bruce Springsteen and “The Grapes of Wrath”

Bruce Springsteen is an American rock and roll musician that is known for singing about the hardships of America’s blue collar working class.  Bruce Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey.  He was raised in a working-class household in a town called Freehold. His father, Doug Springsteen, had trouble holding down a job and worked at different times as a bus driver, millworker and prison guard. Adele Springsteen, Bruce’s mother, brought in steadier income as a secretary in a local insurance office.

One book that Springsteen says has really influenced his writing is “The Grapes of Wrath”.  He has a song and an album called “The Ghost of Tom Joad”.  The album features songs that focus on the lives of steelworkers, illegal immigrants, and migrant farmers. Tom Joad was one of the main characters in the book.  Bruce sings about his curiosity toward what happened to Tom Joad’s ghost.  In his song, he mourns the loss of Tom Joad, who he considers an ideal picture of a true American.  He portrays the trouble of the American people during that time period when he sings:

“Now Tom said “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I’ll be there
Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin’ hand
Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ downhere in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad”

These lyrics also portray the uncertainty and fear these people had during the Dust Bowl.

Current Controversy II: My Position on The Defense of Marriage Act and How It Actually is Unconstitutional and Un-American

On September 21, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law.  Under this federal law, marriage is defined as the union of a man and women.  The Supreme Court is going to be taking another look at DOMA in the near future.  

I believe this law unfair and it contradicts the Constitution. The federal government is exercising too much power with this law when it is their responsibility to leave issues not mentioned in the constitution to the states.  They are violating the 10^th amendment in this situation. Same-sex marriage is just another marriage between two human beings and it does not bring any illegitimacy to the already married different-sex couples.   That notion is just ignorant.  Different-sex married couples are worried about their own marriages being made illegitimate while simultaneously trying to make same-sex marriage illegitimate. 

The federal government is violating the 14^th Amendment by allowing states to deprive their citizens of the same rights their different-sex married couples receive.  Once the state decides that its okay for same-sex couples to marry, under the 14^th Amendment, the federal government should be obligated to make sure the states obey the constitution and provide the same rights to all of it’s citizens.  According to the constitution, this would be the right thing to do. 

When it comes to the full faith and credit clause, congress does not have the power to decide what laws get respect from state to state and when people’s rights get taken away from them when they are travelling from state to state.  This is the states responsibility.  The full faith and credit clause was meant to unify the states, not split them.  People argue that the word “marriage” means a union between a man and women. At one point in time, the word “vote” only pertained to white men as ridiculous and discriminatory as that sounds now. 

The Defense of Marriage Act is unfair, it gives the federal government too much power where they don’t need it, and it dehumanizes homosexual people.  DOMA violates the 10^th Amendment, 14^th Amendment and Full Faith and Credit clause by allowing the federal government to define marriage, depriving citizens of equal rights and using the Full Faith and Credit clause to separate the states. 

Current Controversy: Obama and The Imperial Presidency

Recently there has been an argument over whether Obama is going beyond the powers of the Presidency.  I believe he is going beyond the powers of the presidency but so has pretty much every other president within the past 60 years. (for an extreme example: Nixon in Watergate) It is not a new thing and it shouldn’t be a surprise that Obama is using things like executive orders and signing statements to move his agenda forward.  

The broad powers of the President of the United States are outlined in Article II of the Constitution. The President acts as Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy. He can make foreign treaties, with two-thirds consent of the Senate. He can appoint ambassadors, Supreme Court justices, and federal judges, with the approval of the Senate. The President can deliver a State of the Union address to Congress and recommend legislation to Congress. He can convene Congress on extraordinary occasions and adjourn Congress, in cases of a disagreement about adjournment. It is the President’s duty to “Take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He can also receive foreign ambassadors and ministers. Only Congress can write legislation. The president can only recommend it. When a President goes beyond these powers, it is considered being imperial. President Obama is an imperial President and he has maintained many of the expansions of power set forth by George Bush and Presidents before him. He has continued the “war on terror” through drone strikes and has neglected Congress on many other issues in order to move his agenda forward.

At the beginning of his presidency he Obama stressed that he did not want to maintain the expansion of powers set by Bush. In his second term, Obama became more comfortable with doing what he had to do in order to move his agenda forward. One example of this is that he disapproves of the Defense of Marriage Act. Instead of getting Congress to repeal, he stopped defending it in court. Additionally, he has delayed the deportation of some young illegal immigrants even though Congress disagreed. On another occasion, he told the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence. Congress stopped this research 15 years ago. He also told Congress he would act on his own if they didn’t make policies to prepare for climate change. He is using executive powers to bypass the Congress, mostly the republicans in Congress. 

Another example of Obama bypassing Congress is when Congress killed legislation that was intended to get rid of some of the emissions that cause global warming. Obama told the Environmental Protection Agency to create regulations by themselves. When Congress turns down regulation, he allows the certain regulation to be passed that incorporate parts of the bill he wanted to be passed in the first place.

I’m a little torn with this controversy because it does seem that Obama might be exercising too much power, but I believe he really is doing it for the good of the American people.  I don’t think it is democratic to have one person make legislative decisions, but I do think it would be easier if Congress acted quicker on decisions so President Obama didn’t have to feel like he needs to make decisions himself. 

A Casino In Springfield: Pros and Cons, Effect on Crime

Pros

• thousands of jobs created (people to build it and people to work there)
• stimulate the economy
• keeps gamblers from going and spending their money in Connecticut
• tourism, entertainment, tax revenues
• Yale study found some health benefits for older Americans in terms of increased activity level and enjoyment

Cons

• traffic/having to build new roads
• dropped property value
• associated with higher suicide rates
• bad for compulsive gamblers
• increase in personal bankruptcies
• break up of families
• could hire 2,000 employees, but that doesn’t mean it created 2,000 jobs
• opposed on religious grounds/bad morals
• type of people that will be coming in and out

Effect on Crime

• crime DOES increase:  Theft, embezzlement, domestic violence, fraud, illegal gambling, loan sharking committed by violent organized crime gangs, drug use and prostitution increase after casinos open their doors. (anti casino website)
• Statistics show that in some places crime has increased, while in other places crime has decreased or stayed the same
• Springfield is known as a dangerous city.  Will the possible added crime from the casino “even out” with the added jobs and better economy?

A Brief History of Sam Adams and what he had to do with beer

Samuel Adams was a statesman, political philosopher and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.  He was second cousin to President John Adams.  Sam studied at Harvard and went on to become an unsuccessful businessman and tax collector.  He then decided to concentrate on politics.  

In January 1748, Adams and some friends were very angry at Britain and they launched the “Independent Advisor”.  This was a weekly newspaper that printed political essays written by Adams.  He talked about the decline of the Roman Empire and compared it to what could happen to New England.  He became a leading advocate of republicanism and was a good friend of Thomas Paine, the author of “Common Sense”.  Sam became a member of Congress where he was a passionate advocate of independence from Britain.  In 1794, he was elected governor of Massachusetts.  

During the Sugar Act, when the British raised taxes on the colonies, Boston had a town meeting where all the representatives met.  Sam Adams was elected to write the instructions that were provided to each representative.  Adams talked about the dangers of taxation without representation.  He did this again during the Stamp Act.  

Now when it comes to beer…..  

After Adams lost his money being a businessman and tax collector, his father made him a partner in the family malt house.  The Adams had a history of being maltsters.  They produced the malt necessary for brewing beer.  They didn’t brew beer themselves.  

Questions about “Bastards of the Party”

1) How is the gang violence in L.A. 8 years later?

2) What is the government and the police doing about the gang violence?

3) Have they resorted to Chicago’s method of not responding to certain 911 calls?

4) Is figuring out the history and origins of gangs a useful tactic in trying to to stop gang violence?

5) Are the Black Panthers still an organization? 

6) Were the Black Panthers supposed to be a good thing for L.A.?

7) Where have the Crips and Bloods expanded to?

8) Is the gang violence in L.A. the result of a weak city government?

9)  How does one go about leaving a gang? Once they split from the gang, do they have to leave their neighborhood/city also?

10) How strong was the police force back around the time certain gangs in L.A. were formed? Could it have been prevented in the beginning?