Response to Brady

I disagree with Brady.  I believe everything about Greek Life is a productive way to grow as a person and make you a better man or woman.  Brady brings up the issue of “paying for your friends” but I completely disagree with this.  As a member of the Kappa Alpha Order I can guarantee that no one in the fraternity came into it with the idea of “buying” friends.  Joining KA I have made my closest friends for the rest of my life and this is not because I pay my dues.  If fraternities were free I still think people would still want to join them, but not everyone would be given the privilege to join them, the bid process would still be there and probably more complex since more people would rush.  I also know I have meet more people than I would have otherwise if I had not joined a fraternity.  With this I am expanding my circle and making new connections with people I probably would have not meet before.  My pledge brothers mean a lot to me and they are my best friends and they will be for the rest of my life, I will “marry them and bury them”.  Meaning I will be with them at probably the most important times in their lives.  I would not have an extra group of brothers like this if I had not joined KA.  Fraternities are so much more than just drinking clubs.  It looks like that is what it is from an outsider’s point of view, but in reality it is a system of people you know who love you and will make sacrifices for you when you are in a time of need.  Fraternities do a lot of philanthropy work.  Greek Life is a major contributor to charities and work very involved with charity work.  

Response to Tucker

Yes I agree a lot with what Tucker was saying.  Coming down to South Carolina from Ohio people are much more racist.  Many of my white friends are more than ok with saying the N-word in any form.  But for me saying the N-word is very vulgar I respect black people well enough to not use such a derogatory term for them.  This term is crude and should not be spoken by whites as the word has such a history of tense feelings attached to it.

I think that black people should be allowed to say it if they like.  Their ancestors went through the hardships and grew up being called this.  As black people get more used to hearing the term from one of their own, it desensitizes the crudeness of the word.  Which I think is very good as black people make this word more part of their society as a synonym for friend or brother, it shows pride in their heritage and where they came from. 

The thing that happened at Oklahoma University is very terrible, two guys were caught doing something I’m sure they did not realize was being videotaped.  This puts a very bad reputation on fraternities everyone and makes Greek Organizations get more heat than we already do for hazing and being thought of as arrogant.  Fraternities and sororities are known to some people as “buying your friends” I disagree with this because as joining KA I have gotten to be so close with all of my brothers and it’s not because they have to be friends with me because we all paid our dues.  But it’s because we are all gotten very close over the past year and we enjoy each of the others company.  The money we pay just goes to make our college experience more fun as we have formals and house parties, which we need money to make happen, and dues are just the most efficient way to collect money.  

Response to Daniel

I agree with Daniel, he makes some very good talking points in his blog.  I agree that it is just as much the responsibility of the man as it is the women to raise a child.  Yes, a lot of men are cowards and run from pregnancy and leave women with a child they can raise themselves, but that is just a terrible situation for mother and child.  Women should not go getting abortions they should in turn be careful when they are having sex.  If they would only have sex with men that are reliable and they think would not run if they make them pregnant.  Women are equally responsible in choosing a partner as in carrying the child.  If they do not want a child there are ways for a women to protect herself from becoming pregnant.  Being on birth control, making sure the man is wearing a condom, or just absence.  Two of these could be against the religion of the women but if the women is that religious I do not think they would be getting an abortion either. 

Rape is a different thing, but as Daniel said there are very few instances when a baby is produced from a rape.  And even if the mother of the child was raped she could eventually put the child up for adoption.  That is a very difficult thing for a mother to do and had major emotional and physical effects on women when they must leave their new born child.  But that’s why rape is such a terrible thing and should not be taken lightly.  Rape is a horrendous thing and I personally think any man who is capable of rape is so morally wrong they should be incarcerated for years, even the thought of rape disgust me.

Abortion is both the man and women’s responsibility.  Both parties need to be more careful.  If women are raped which as Dan said is a rarity for a child to be produced the women should try to keep the child but it is understandable if they do not want to.  And that one exception almost makes it legal to everyone to get an abortion because women would just claim rape if they did not want the child.

Response to Isaac

I agree with Isaac, I believe the school system is very sub-par.  Isaac makes many good points the thing that stood out the most to me was about how teachers who are not excited to teach.  This really does have a major effect on me as a student.  I have had some very monotone unenthusiastic teachers.  This surely effects how much effort I give in class.  My senior year in high school I had a very unenthusiastic physics teacher and I just gave no effort in class and would sleep every day.  This teacher acted like she cared at first but then eventually gave up on me and just left me alone during class.  I ended up getting a 70 in the class and less than a 50% on the final exam.  I would have been more willing to give effort is she made class interesting and if she was not so biased towards the other students. 

            Also Isaac talked about the strong push towards math and not the humanities.  I do not like this push because I am extremely bad at math.  This type of learning problem solving can be taught through many other ways not just math and science.  I would say I am an average problem solver learning to become a better one, but I’m not learning through math and science, I am learning this through the humanities like political science classes and classes that teach me how to think critically.  

            So if the school system had super fun teachers that were excited about teaching, I think that students would be much more willing to learn.  And the fact that math and science are being taught more so than other areas of study.         

Response to Hana

                I was spanked as a child multiple times.  I was not a well behaved child, I was always told I have an “attitude” problem.  My mom used to spank me when I would whine or just not do what she told me.  Being spanked was a normal part of my childhood.  I never really learned from the spanking, I kept repeating whatever I did wrong.  My mom eventually figured out this was not working and stop spanking me. 

            I think spanking is very acceptable and it’s by the discretion of the parents to see how much they spank their children or if at all.  But there is a thin line between spanking and abusing your child.  Child abuse is very terrible and should never happen and spanking can lead to child abuse if a bad parent gets too eager to spank their children. 

Parents should spank because it instills respect for authority.  With authority comes responsibility, these authority figures need to learn how to spank effectively.  They need to instill the threat of spanking and try to reinforce the threat without actually spanking.  Parents that can spank and then remind the children of the threat of spanking to make them act respectful is the ideal way to discipline your child using corporal punishment.  Certain parents do not understand that they spank their child too much and it turns into child abuse. 

I think spanking is a very good thing and when it is used the proper way children will behave the correct way and respect authority.  Spanking is a tool that can be used properly to teach children how to behave.  I think I will definitely spank my children as a parent but only as a last resort and try and threaten spanking more than actually doing it.    

Response to Kat

I agree with Kat studying abroad is a very important.  I haven’t taken classes in another country but I have been a few places around the world and the experiences I've had were extremely fun, and memorable.  In 2010, I went to South Africa.  I spent tens days over my Easter break helping grow relationships with the underprivileged people of South Africa and created relationships and made experiences I will never forget.  Throughout the trip we built houses and planted gardens for the people to better their lives. 

I also went to Spain and Italy summer of my senior year.  We went to Barcelona and traveled all throughout Italy.  I went to all the famous land marks and enjoyed every second of it.  But that is not what I take back most from that trip.  I learned how to overcome language barriers with many Spanish and Italians, buying stamps could not be any more complicated.  But I also learned how to manage my money and not spend it all on the first thing I saw.  I learned how to barter with street venders and get the best deals on fake sunglasses. 

These two experiences have taught me a lot and I believe they have helped me discover who I really am, and helped me mature as a person and as a man.  These trips helped me and I would like to go study abroad sometime because I feel as though I would return with similar and hopefully better experiences.  Going abroad just would open my mind up to many new ways of thinking and new cultures, and I think that is very important especially for college students as they are discovering who they are themselves and what they want to be doing for the rest of their lives.        

Response to Jack

I disagree with Jack the money that these sports players make is something they have earned.  Yes it seems like they aren't working but being a NFL player is a year round job.  These player deserve the money they are making.  Their job is their body, they must maintain and workout everyday of every year.  They sacrifice their body for the entertainment of the people.  At any moment they could injure themselves, and live with a handicap for the rest of their lives.

            These athletes deserve a portion of the money of the entertainment industry.  Sports is the biggest entertainment industry, think of the jerseys and memorabilia that millions of people buy.  The spending on this merchandise is outrageous and the percentage of the total money made by the leagues is multiple times greater than the amount the athletes themselves are being paid.  The leagues are profiting of the name of big players with jersey sales and you want to watch the game to see how certain players perform. 

            Another fact is that yes these athletes are being paid millions by the leagues.  But where they make their real money is with endorsements.  Athlete’s endorsements are how they make a majority of their money.  To stop this athlete over-payment would also be impossible, once you stop paying the athletes you kill the sports industry.   The Super Bowl wouldn't be as competitive, the World Series wouldn't matter as much, and no one would watch the NBA Finals (not like many people do anyway).  But each of these events have millions of billions of dollars spent on advertising and hype up to the game.  I think that these athletes deserve a portion of this money that companies are spending/profiting off of when the athletes are performing or doing their job. 

            Athletes deserve the money they make because they are sacrificing their lives for the entertainment of the people.  The money they make is not just from the league and teams it is from the endorsements.  The reason they have so much money is because we are willing to pay them.  If you think athletes are being paid too much you need to make a movement to get everyone to stop watching sporting events.                

What am I supposed to eat?

I’m here writing about the Furman Dinning Hall.  This is something I think most of us have the same opinion on.  The Dining Hall is not a good enough source of food for college students.  The food they put out is on occasion good, but usually terrible.  What upsets me the most is the meal options on the weekends that Furman provides.  On one occasion the only thing that was available to eat was chicken nuggets.  How am I supposed to get the nutrition much less be satisfied eating processed chicken nuggets that test like rubber?  And the worst part about it is the pden and paddock are also closed during the weekend.  It is like Furman wants to starve their students on the weekends so we have no energy to do anything.

I realize Furman is a smaller college but I would still like more food options later at night other than Einstein’s.  Why would I want an overpriced bagel at midnight?  Furman should invest in putting a restaurant on campus that is open 24/7, I realize that would be kind of costly but all waffle house stores already are open all day every day.  How hard would it be to put a diner like waffle house on campus somewhere.  I realize that it may not look the best having a restaurant building on campus, but I think Furman is too worried about how the campus appeals to outsiders than keeping the students that spend four years of their lives here happy. 

The Furman dining hall should upgrade their quality of food, and stay open longer.  I would like to go to the dining hall after eight o’clock especially when practice ends at seven or seven-thirty. I have to rush over and eat the scrapes of what is left over from dinner that day.  It is hard as an athlete to get the amount of food I need from the dining hall.  I have lost close to ten pounds coming to college because I am just not getting the nutrition or amount of food I need.          

Response to Sydney

I agree with Sydney on this issue.  To be honest knowing Sydney and her usual comments in class I thought this was going to be some outrageous feminist paper.  But thankfully I was wrong.  I didn’t really know this was a topic that was a problem in society seeing how I have never been accused of rape.  But as I looked deeper into it, this is a very prevalent problem men have.  Women usually get the advantage in these situations because men are usually thought of as pigs.  I am proud to say that I am not a pig and all men are given a terrible stereotype when it comes to sex.  Men are always the ones who are blamed for rape, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse.  Now yes men usually are the culprit, but men are raped, abused, and harassed by women.  Now probably not as much but this should be brought to the attention of society as well.  Women are not all sparkles and rainbows.  Some women can be mean cold blooded killers.  Women are just as effective at doing bad things as men are. 

Women that do bring false rape charges to court should be punished.  Accusing someone of rape is a very serious thing, that goes on a man’s record and when future jobs look at that no one wants to hire a rapist even if they weren’t convicted.  This ruins a man’s reputation.  Also the amount of cost that goes into lawyers and court fees is astronomical.  No man should have to pay for all this if they never did anything wrong. 

What I think this all comes down to is some people are desperate for attention.  Women just say they were raped to get attention and cause a scene by doing this.  And if they win the case they will get a lot of money and aid in the future.  If they don’t win nothing happens to the women, it’s a win win situation for women to accuse men of rape.  That is a sad realization that some women are taking advantage of.             

Response to Matthew

From reading this blog post it just made me think about the death penalty and if it is the right thing to do or not.  Coming from a Catholic background I am against the death penalty, you cannot justify the act of killing another human being in cold blood.  God gives us the ability to repent and forgive our sins, so no matter what we do, God will be the final person to judge us and decide whether or not we deserve to move on from this life and go to the next.  As these men are being killed on death row they are losing time God has given them to repent for what they did and accept God as their savior.  God created life and should be the only one to decide when to take it away.   

Also the death penalty is very hypocritical and not very economical beneficial to anyone.  Most of the people on death row are serial murders/rapist, but as the United States government kills more and more of these criminals they are doing the same thing these people are being punished for.  Two wrongs do not make a right, killing is bad and always will be.  Also it is not cost effective to kill a man, much time in a court room and proper steps must be taken to kill a man.  All in all killing a man is more expensive for the United States than it would be to keep him in jail for over 20 years. 

Now Matthew relates all this to what is happening with ISIS and Jordon, what I think is that neither of these people are correct for killing these men.  ISIS killed and videotaped it to create publicity for themselves, which I think is one of the worst reasons you could have for killing someone.  But because ISIS did kill these men Jordon had to respond or other countries would not respect Jordon and things would end up worse for Jordon.  I think ISIS is responsible for all of these deaths even though Jordon did kill the captured terrorist, they wouldn’t have if not provoked by ISIS to do so. 

                                                                                                                                                   

Response to John

I agree with John on this subject very much so,  I too am a young registered Republican.  I feel as an educated young person I have the right to have my opinion and that is the great part about this country.  And I too feel the same being a Republican is very frowned upon in society and the way the media portrays it is very biased.  The media makes me think that my opinion is so wrong because I "judge people", "don’t care about the less fortunate", and "how can you be Catholic and be republican, you aren't following the teachings of Jesus".  And all of these are strong misconceptions, people who are Republicans don’t hate people, we just think that you should work for what you want, and the harder you work the more successful you will be.  I get very offended when people say these things about me, because I am not a judgmental person.  I think you can do whatever you want but you do not need to force your opinion on others let everyone think what they want to think it is your right to be entitled to your opinion. 

So John I think people think it is "so wrong to be right" because people get very offended and sensitive about the issues that are brought up in this argument.  And the people who think this are scared that they will be persecuted about the way they live their lives, so they feel they must protect themselves.  The way they protect themselves is trying to ridicule and make the other side of the issue be so frowned upon, and the media always portrays this side of the issue in such a bad light.  So the media needs to stop producing biased news which is a very hard thing to do and I don’t think any news sources are completely unbiased, and that is where you need to educate the viewer to look at both sides and figure out what is the real truth about what happened.

College; is it really worth the money?

As a college student, I realize that higher education can be a huge waste of time, money, and resources if the time at school is not spent wisely.  The job market has been flooded with young people who have received degrees in general areas of study such as a business.  People are going to college, getting four-year degrees, and graduating with massive amounts of college debt.  Because the job market is so concentrated, these college graduates are being given jobs for which they are overqualified. (http://www.salon.com/2014/09/03/robert_reich_college_is_a_ludicrous_waste_of_money_partner/ )  

My mom is a perfect example of this situation. She went to college, graduated with a degree in History from the University of Cincinnati, and she now pushes paper across desks and enters numbers into a computer, nothing to do with History.  Although she did not graduate with debt, she had to work her way through school.  After college she never really did anything with her degree.  She ended up working for her parents as an event planner at a rental agency.  Subsequent to that, she moved on and now does secretary work.   A lot of her skills that she uses at her current job come from working for her parents.  She was taught how to talk with customers and appeal to what they need.  She learned how to manage people to accomplish specific tasks and guide them in the right direction.  These skills were not taught to her at college.  So why do we go to college?  Why do we go into all this debt?

The best way to learn is through experience.  So why are we sitting behind a desk having people tell us what to read and write about when the most effective way to get experience is to go out and work for it?  If people were given actual jobs out of High School based on their interest instead of going through several more years of school to learn a personalized skill set it would be much more effective.  These young adults would learn specific traits tailored to themselves, but would also be getting paid.  The more you learn and work the more experience you would have and you would receive salary increases as you gain more experience.  If this were the system, college debts would be irrelevant because one would not pay for an education, but rather receive pay as they work and gain practical knowledge.

College can be a good place to learn skills that will be used in the workplace, after all people go to college now and thrive at their jobs with their college degrees.  This system I have thought of has many flaws, like who would like to hire someone not knowing if they could be a total bust at the job and be a waste of time and energy for the company.  If people do well in college, put in the time and graduate from school with good grades, and prove they are hard workers, they would be at a disadvantage, because people who did not go to college are being given the same opportunities. 

As I said above this is not a perfect system but it’s definitely something that is fun to think about and consider.  If the school system could integrate some of the ideas I have said or change the cost of school, I believe that college would then be more efficient and effective for students to attend.  With this more affordable system everyone would benefit.  Companies would have a higher educated work force, workers wouldn’t be in nearly as much debt, and colleges could still be places of business, although the cost is cheaper more people would attended causing schools to bring in more money altogether.