War on Hunger

The attacks on September 11, 2001 impacted us all. Most of us remember where we were and our reactions. The fact is that many people died in a terrible apparently unprovoked manner. Although I agree that the 9/11 attacks were awful the fact is that many more people die daily in ways that could easily be prevented.

This image tries to put into perspective the number of people that are starving in the world with something most Americans can relate to. We obviously cannot witness 824 million people starving. To most of us the concept of starvation is foreign, something we have never suffered from or witnessed, whereas we were all horrified when we saw the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. Since then, the "war on terrorism" has been a priority for our government, politicians and many people who have served in our armed forces. But few government officials touch the subject of "war on hunger". We have not separated billions of dollars to solve the issue of approximately 35 million people in the United States who are going hungry, let alone world wide. The image effectively gives us a point of comparison of a number of people we can relate to and makes the viewer aware of the huge disparity in the numbers.

The controversy behind this image is using a very sensitive time in our history which has provoked a long and costly war (not only in dollars but in human lives) which many of us believe has been completely justified in order to protect the world from terrorists. Meanwhile it makes us aware that we all turn a blind eye to an issue as delicate as people who die everyday from something as simple as not having food to keep them alive.

Personally, I am against all wars. I was also horrified and frightened at the 9/11 attacks, but I am much more horrified of the idea that millions of people do not have enough to eat. Growing up, my mother would have me make food for those less fortunate than me, mostly children who lived in the slums in my country and I would take it to them, this gave me a huge perspective of how blessed I was. I mean I have never been rich, but I always had a plate of food on the dinner table. I would watch children that were my equals similar in age and size, scarf down the food as if it would run away, we would drive by garbage dumps with children walking through them in search for scrap metal in order to make some money and therefore have access to food. (Since my childhood, the military dictatorship in my country ended and there are many laws in place that protect and provide nourishing meals to children, and the number of children searching through garbage has gone down tremendously.) These altruistic actions my mother taught me since a very early age has made me a compassionate person. I was always taught to make sure that everyone had there basic necessities met. To me it is very difficult to conceive that the idea of spending trillions of dollars on a war that has cost many more lives than the attacks that triggered it is justified. If the effort and money that has been placed on the war had been placed on making sure all children had access to food and water, I would sleep better at night, wouldn't you?

Internet Safety

Internet safety and actions related to this subject are discussed in both articles. The first article “MySpace and Sex Offenders: What is the Problem?” discusses the experiment which MySpace ran in order to weed out possible sex predators and reports on the conflict between MySpace and government entities over the findings. The government was concerned about the amount of time it took for the social-networking site to find and remove sex-predators the site contended that due to the lack of a national sex offender database the process was long. Another valid point discussed in the article was that the search considered the names reported by MySpace users and sex offenders could very well use aliases. The second article “MySpace Not Responsible for Predators” reports on the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who was raped and murdered after meeting with a person she befriended through MySpace. This person is reported to have been a sex offender and the victims family are suing MySpace because they allowed a registered sex offender identify himself as a young boy on the networking site. The author in this article sustains that the victim should have made better choices and the parents should have provided better guidance. The responsibility in the matter of internet safety is portrayed through two points of view through these articles. Even though I agree that it would be wonderful that social-networking sites had better control of their users, I am a firm believer that ultimately we are responsible for our own actions and their consequences.

One of the things I enjoy most about the internet, and I think I am not alone here, is keeping in touch with friends and family with whom I could have lost touch if it were not for modern technology. Younger generations use it to make friends and reach out socially. In either case I do not find anything wrong with the concept of social-networking sites. However, in the same way that I do not believe that just because I meet someone who appears to be a certain way I do not immediately go somewhere with that person or share my bank account information with them, I would not go somewhere or share personal information with someone from a social-networking site without some sort of guarantee of who the person really was. Even when meeting someone in person there have been endless accounts that the individual turns out to be different than what judged at first impression. Online precautions must be taken to another extreme. There is no actual way to verify who is typing on the other end. One of my Facebook friends, whom I know personally, goes by the name “Whatdo Ucare”, his parents gave him a more caring name. My cousin is tagged as being in a picture of a bunch of cute puppies, I can calmly tell you my cousin is human. Being conscious of all these innocent changes in profile or misrepresentations, I think it comes down to the personal responsibility we have and, in the case of children, the responsibility they must be taught and the interest and protection parents must have in there online usage.

My stance on personal responsibility is mostly influenced by the examples that my family has given me. On one hand my father in many aspects gave me the example of how not to take responsibility for your actions and my mother how to take complete responsibility for yourself. From them I learned that we cannot blame the situation we are in on other people. Sure it would be wonderful if social-networking sites had the technology to control the age, identity and intent of everyone who joins, but other than a web site that confirms your identity through fingerprints or DNA, I do not see it possible to stop people from misrepresenting themselves. In the meantime I think the public should be aware of the dangers that lurk on the web and take responsibility in order to protect themselves.

"Don't Expect Anything"

If I had to create a bumper sticker that modeled my philosophy for life, it would be "Don't Expect Anything". This has been an important lesson for me and thanks to it I feel my life is fuller and richer.

Basically if you are always expecting things from others you will constantly be let down. If you don't expect anything every time someone does something for you or others you will be very pleasantly surprised. Also by not expecting things to happen and taking a more active approach to your accomplishments will be much more satisfactory than just "expected".

This has given me much more control and responsibility over my life and it has helped improve my relationships with others. I hope that by reading this someone else may take a little bit of my philosophy and applies it to their lives and feel as fulfilled as I do.

Hi!

Welcome to my EN102 blog. I have never followed any blogs let alone blog. So we'll see if I get hooked on it or not.