COLLEGE WRITING I

ePORTFOLIO

Dear my future self,

There are experiences in your life that change you instantly.For example, a death of a loved one or the moment God stops being an abstract idea and personal to you. However, most of the things that make us who we are today are slow influences over a long period of time. These are our parents, our friends, and our schools. College will be one of these influences that will undoubtable shape the course of your entire future, and it's hard to compartmentalize and pinpoint every decisive moment and factor, because there are dozens of situations and novelties given to you every day, creating that experience which is hopefully now your wisdom. When you read this letter again in 40, 50, or 60 years College Writing may not even be a memory that you can recall, but it undoubtable altered your approach ever so slightly and sent you on a course that undoubtable has made you, you. Hopefully, this reminds you of those subtle but defineable changes.

With eyes turned hopefully forward,

Jacob McDonough

        I went to an all boys Catholic boarding school.

        That seems really random, but it really is not. You see, that was what defines me most as who I am today. It still is actually, and necessarily it was reflected in my writing as well. At boarding school, I was very accustomed to writing papers addressing a very specific audience that operated on a core set of principles very much my own. I knew the biggest challenge of college was going to be just this - “Audience adaptation.” This challenge was much harder than I anticipated.

        The first project we tackled was the documentary project. Everything about it went against the grain of my writing style. I had to write a summary and give no opinion or no resolution of my own. I could not even take a guess at what the documentary was trying to say or implying. I had to simply relay fact by fact what was done and said. In high school, my teachers worked so hard to remove “summarization” from our essays, and teach us how to think, analyze and draw conclusions about what we read or saw, and then eloquently and efficiently convey those processes onto paper. I became so good at this I almost forgot how to write a summary, and the results were mildly humorous when I got my first rough draft back.

        With every project I grew as a writer. I learned more about my audience, more about me, and more about the medium of writing that I was employing. There are indeed rhetorical papers, trying to describe and analyze a debate and draw a conclusion. But also, there are times to summarize, story tell, or simply present a question for your audience to ponder. Sometimes these things, when used correctly, can be just as persuasive.

        This class was an experience. Experiences are the most important part of our lives, because it is the easiest way to learn. I already loved writing, however, I am but a small fish in a vast sea of potential. However great I am to become, I think I came a step closer. I was excited and driven in this class, so much so that is was not so much a task as a hobby at times, and I enjoyed putting in the extra efforts, because I was noticing the difference and improvement. I still have my viewpoint, however, now I posses more tools to show others what I see.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/12/03/donald-trump-honors-rosa-parks-62nd-anniversary-montgomery-bus-boycott

He is called a racist, misogynist pig.

I think he has better things to do with his time than be a racist women-hater.

The Other Side

http://video.foxnews.com/v/5651835001001/?#sp=show-clips

This side of the story is obviously going to be somewhat bios, however, its a good example of a list of good things president Trump has accomplished within the first year of his election. These are things that, of course, don't get a lot of coverage but, there good to note, and encouraging for the future.

Do yourself a favor

We live in a world where we are subject to a million different influences every single day. We are bombarded with advertisements, announcements and headlines at a rate which is impossible for our brain to thoroughly process. Most of us are aware of this trend, especially in the marketplace, and fight it by doing our own investigations to make sure what we are getting is truly worth the price we are paying for it.
What is more particularly alarming, however, is how little intellectual rigor we hold when it comes to more serious things, topics like race, religion, and politics. Unfortunately, I think we are the victims of our own passive attitudes toward the news. We are sadly more caught up in our world of money and our world of sports while the most important things get laid aside.
I'm generalizing, so please, nobody take offense. There is a great deal of people who pay very close attention to the world we live in and are very active in making it a better place. I would, however, venture to claim, that there is an inordinate focus on our social media and sports teams before the things that really matter.
However, among those who do attempt to follow the news and make themselves aware of things that are going on, there are two groups, the "hard-core news junkie debate people" and the "eat up whatever is put in front of me people."
I heard the other day that if you cant argue the opposite side of an argument for at least five minutes then you had no place arguing because you didn't know enough about the subject to have an opinion. What does this mean for our politically "eat it up" group of people. This means if you haven't gone and made a point of listening to the other side of the "biased" media then you have no place having an opinion. For example, I align with many conservative ideas, however, I always read the story first on CNN before I look anywhere else, simply so I know there side before I proceed.
Here is a small sample from this weekend:
Of course we have by now all heard of the terrible shooting that happened in Texas this last week that left 26 people dead, as they were gathered for their Sunday worship. Many celebrities immediately came forward condemning those asking for prayers, citing them as useless, because these people had died praying. (Religious people laugh at this logic, because religious people would prefer nothing more than dying in prayer). However, that point isn't important. What is important is that once again the Liberal community exploded with outrage that we still have yet to enforce what they call "common sense gun laws."
This is the point where the average person stops reading, feels terrible, decides to write to their state representative, and tell him/her that we need more laws to prevent such terrible things from happening. The logic seems so obvious and the intentions of the media so pure. Less guns equals less violence. DUH.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. It is so disgustingly wrong and easy to refute that it makes me sick to think of why the liberal media would be pushing such an agenda, and even sicker to think that they would stand on the graves of dead innocent men, women, and children to push their ideas on a susceptible and intellectually "lazy" country, that is content with reading headlines and not doing hard, in-depth research.
The reality of the two latest mass shooting in the United States is that they were both entirely preventable by the gun laws we have in place and would not have been hindered by any further ones. In Las Vegas, the shooter used fully automatic weapons which were already illegally owned, as he did not have the required permit. In Texas, the shooter was a man convicted of physical assault and battery on his wife and step-son, an impediment to owning a firearm in this country. So really, the answer isn't to outlaw guns. The answer is to enforce gun laws that are already in place. But of course the liberal media won't tell you this. It doesn't fit in with their socialist world agenda. Once you knock out gun laws, there is nothing stopping this country from becoming a military dictatorship. If you think the bloodshed is bad now. Pick any communist country since 1917 (an important date among communists for anyone with the intellectual curiosity to look it up) and see how many people their government killed. SPOILER ALERT: Its not a pretty picture.
The media also wont tell you about the NRA member who hit and wounded the shooter in Texas. A lawful, gun owning, hero who prevented the further loss of life by doing what had to be done in a terribly scary situation. Dare to imagine with me how many more people would be dead had he not been there.
And to cap it all off, the media has got to do some Trump bashing, right? So lets get all worked up about the racist Donald Trump, who hates Mexicans and Muslims and is building this terrible wall in the very same state of Texas. Of course, since he doesn't support gun laws it just adds to the narrative of hate, right? Such a terrible person, loves to see people die. Since October 1st when Paddock began shooting on the crowd in Las Vegas 84 precious American souls have been lost to mass shooting cases. Now, keep in mind this often untold statistic, approximately 25% of all murders in the country are committed by illegal immigrants, that is about 3.5% of the population. That means in the same span of time, we'll say 40 days for a nice round number, illegal immigrants have committed an estimated 444 people, 5 times as many as crazy, unpredictable people with guns. But what's even more alarming is that the illegal immigrants who do it aren't crazy people. There just like you and me, but think its okay to kill to get what they want, to enter a country illegally and take from it without earning anything. We are never going to be able to predict when an insane person will pop out of nowhere and do insane things. But we can read the trends with illegal immigrants and act for our own safety, but no. The liberal media thinks differently, and is content with skewing the truth at your expense. The hate the wall and love the gun laws.
These are the facts. They are indisputable facts about the world we live in. The media is either incapable of relaying facts or they do not relay facts because they have ulterior motives. So they are either incompetent or malicious. You decide. Just please do yourself, and America, a small but huge favor. Study your stuff, before you open your mouth, cast a vote, or get triggered.

https://docs.google.com/

presentation/d/1zkWUbenbW1OB5Ve62CvRFhK6YCqC6um8j4kzRiA6lF8/edit#slide=id.g290ef14f7e_0

My Multimodel

When enough is enough.

I don't care if you conservative and hate Hilary Clinton or if your liberal and you love her.

Its time for her to move on, and stop hurting her own cause.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/11/05/hillary-clintons-loss-in-election-sparks-civil-war-between-democrats.html

Communism arose in Russia in 1917, exactly one hundred years ago. This is why it has always been the enemy of American Society and we continue to fight it in Korea.

The Las Vegas hotel security guard(middle) who was the first to respond to the gunshots

appearing on the Ellen Show with Ellen DeGeneres

The Las Vegas Massacre, as it is now known, was the deadliest of all mass shootings in United States history. Pearl Harbor, Nine-Eleven, and now Vegas. Everyone will remember where they were and what they were doing when they found out the terrible news that dozens of people were killed while hundreds more were injured in what has been credited to a lone crazed man, who accessed and smuggled dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds into his hotel room in Mandela Bay, from whence he proceeded to maniacal actions. I hope this is the case. We all do. Insanity is the most comforting explanation to this terrible tragedy. But what if it wasn't an accident? What if this was planned? And what if the perpetrators are still at large?

Interestingly enough, at the end of this month the government is due to release the top secret documents concerning the Kennedy assassination. Whether or not they will, and whether or not those documents will shed light upon any long held conspiracies is yet to be seen. But many believe that the Vegas incident could be another "Kennedy Level" government cover-up. 

Now I am always extremely skeptical when reading into conspiracy theories, because there are legitimate crazy people, who will write and believe just about anything on the Internet. Therefore, I refuse to believe or embrace any theory right now, first because its too soon after the fact for all the details to be explainable by the government anyway. In addition, I want indisputable proof, not a bunch of smoke signals, because smoke isn't fire, I'm my book. Everything the government does has smoke on it, but I want to see the fire.

However, all that being said here are three questions that must be answered by the F.B.I. if they want to keep even the most skeptical of conspiracy theorists off of their trails.

1. How did someone manage to break into the house which was inhabited by Stephen Paddock before the assassination? Who was this person? What did they want? What did they get? And how is our F.B.I. so incompetent as to allow the scene of a federal crime be infiltrated by an amateur, and if it wasn't an amateur than what did THEY want?

2. The man pictured at the top was the first to respond to the an alarm on the 32nd floor of the hotel. Earlier this past week he was scheduled to do a series of interviews with various news parties. However, he canceled last minute, disappeared for a week and then suddenly appeared on the Ellen show, which is normally a lighter show than what would be expected of such an important issue. And this is supposedly his first and last time speaking publicly about the event. So why did he disappear? And why is he only talking about it once? And what testimony did he provide to the F.B.I.? Again no fire here but lots of smoke. It at least deserves clarification from the F.B.I

3. Finally the authorities still haven't provided us with any motive whatsoever. What do they expect us to think about that? Are we to assume that he was crazy and had no reason to attack that crowd in particular? Another important thing to note is that his "insanity" claims have been analyzed by judges who claim that if he were still living, it wouldn't even be close enough grounds to win an "insanity" plea

Anyway, I hope not to upset anyone with what could be some very grave questions, and I hope the government is just biding its time while the sort all the details themselves. However, these three questions among the dozens that surround the Las Vegas shooting, are the most basic to me that need answered. Most importantly prayers for the family. But our recovery demands that we assure this never happens again. The first step in that case is to figure out who did it and why. That question might be more complicated than it seems.

Jacob McDonough

College Writing 1 @ 9:00

Dr. Kyburz

17 October 2017

Patience is a Virtue

         I am a flawed human being. We all are. One of my bigger faults is patience.

         Every morning when I wake up, I have to wake my brother up too. It takes two seconds as I walk out of the room to say, “Hey Anthony! Get up.” Yet it is one of the most bothersome tasks of my day. I come out of my room and make breakfast. It takes so long. Then I’m out the door to school.

          I drive myself most days.s. I cannot stand driving. When I am supposed to 45 I go 55. Why can’t I slow down just a bit. What’s the rush?

          I’m a clock watcher. You know that kid who always knows exactly how much time is left until the class ends. That’s me. Lunch is even worse. I go to the den a couple of times a week. I do not have a good relationship with the vibrating notification thing, that tells you when your food is done. We hate each other, and once he finally brings me good news, I leave him in the dust.

         I work a lot even though I am in school. My job is not very good about keeping us off our phones. I listen to music the whole time. Its part of how I count down. Approximately thirteen songs and hour, including commercials 65 songs a shift. Then I drive home, five miles an hour over the speed limit, and that is on a good day.

         Finally, I cannot wait to crash. Dinner, shower, final texts to friends, and I am out like a light. The process repeats.

         However, I ask myself, “What are you so eager to do, that makes everything you do everyday so unimportant.” It is probably a question most of us can ask ourselves. What is so important on our schedule that causes us to rush through everything we do. Maybe, if I choose one thing a day to do slowly, methodically, and patiently, I can curb the habit. Then again, I would probably rush through everything else all the more to make up for lost time.

Freedom

This semester I have been taking a philosophy course with Dr. George Miller. This past week we had an interesting discussion about the nature of freedom that I though I would share in this weeks post.

We have a lot of debates these days about whether there is equality in the world and whether or not America is really free, etc. However, one argument which many of us do not consider is whether or not true freedom is even realistically possible.

Some would say, "Well I want to fly and I cant so I'm no free."

Others say, "I cannot go as fast as I want on the freeway, so therefore, I cannot truly be free."

Try as we might the class could not come up with an example of something that could do completely free of limitations. This led them to conclude that there was no way we could truly ever be free.

I have three responses to this.

First, if we cant ever truly be free, then why do we continue to strive after perfect freedom? What is the point if it is so impossible? I believe if we give up on freedom as a possibility than we must give up on striving to obtain it, which would make the two hundred plus years of American history entirely in vain.

Secondly,  I believe we need to make a distinction about freedom which my class was missing. We are free to choose, however we are not free from the consequences of our choices. We can choose to speed, however, we are not exempt from paying our speeding tickets. Its the same with every other choice we make each day. We choose to act, and through that we choose the consequences.

Thirdly, if we cannot truly be free, than how can we hold anyone accountable for anything they do. We cannot punish the evil nor reward the good because every decision they make is not their own, but one embedded into their natures as human beings. By this line of reasoning we wouldn't be able to put murderers in jail, nor reward incredible soldiers with medals of honor, because neither of those actions would be their own.

Just some interesting thoughts on the nature of freedom. Let me know what you think!

The Tragedies of Vegas

Mourners place candles, flowers, and signs at the site of the Las Vegas Shooting

Every week in my blog posts I have attempted to take the time to discuss controversial topics. I choose to do this because I believe that shying away from these discussions only leaves people ignorant and prolongs the issue. The more we talk, the more we can learn from each other and hopefully reach an agreement that is best for everyone. 

This week, in reverence for the poor men and women who were so brutally mowed down in Las Vegas, I will try to be brief, succinct and to the point.

Every time there is a mass shooting, the United States quickly descends into a panic, and everywhere talks ensue about whether or not America is strict enough in her gun laws. Overwhelming statistics are given. I saw one CNN article estimated that almost 12000 people had died from gun related violence this year alone. Obviously, the solution many people suggests are stricter laws. They suggest the elimination of automatic weapons, military weapons and sometimes ask that we overturn the Second Amendment all together and remove guns entirely from the American people.

Here is where people make a mistake though, and its completely understandable that they do, because events like this are just so completely traumatic to us, who wish to see nothing more than the United States lead the world into an era of peace and prosperity for our children to grow up in. 

When the founding fathers wrote up the constitution, they had many things on their minds. Obviously, they wanted to create a democracy, a system of government that in no way modeled the totalitarian English monarchy that had just overthrew. In order to guarantee the longevity of this government they gave the people ways to ensure that their government remained one elected by the people. One thing they did was establish terms. Of course, every government office is subject to a term limit, and if you do not do what the people wish, when your term is up you are not re-elected and someone better takes your place. In the spirit of this, Dwight D. Eisenhower limited presidential terms to only two, ensuring that the government would remain an every shifting power to preserve the democracy and interests of the people of the United States.

Another thing the founding fathers did was establish the second amendment. This would guarantee that, even if a man in the government or the military decided to attempt to assume all the power and turn the US into a dictatorship, the people would always have the means necessary to protect their rights and democratic country. 

The minute you take away the weapons from the people of the United States is the moment we are in more danger that what any one crazy man could ever put us in. What happened in Las Vegas will be a tragedy that will not be forgotten certainly in my lifetime. However, the tragedy that would be the ending of democracy within the leading free country on our planet would be much worse. If you think that the US government is incapable of being infiltrated or corrupted and could never fall apart then you are naïve. Our government had done shameful things in the past and all it would take is one man to overthrow it if the people were all unarmed. Sadly, that's all it would take.

So in a time of mourning, lets not point fingers and say, "Country fans who voted anti gun laws deserved to die at the whims of a crazy man." Lets not politicize the thing and demand sweeping gun laws which would put us in more danger than we are in now. Instead, lets work together and find the warning signs. There had to be some. Lets work together to figure out how to stop these things from happening again. The answer surely doesn't lie in making ourselves more vulnerable that we already are. 

                

The Cubs celebrate after winning their second consecutive central division title and a trip to the 2017 postseason.

When you have two tests on Monday, one-hundred annotations due, and a paper. Sometimes its nice to escape to the world of sports. The Cubs made my sports world  very happy the other day!!!

Colin Kaepernick, formerly QB of the San Francisco Forty-Niners sits during the playing of the National Anthem, while a Marine Veteran and purple heart recipient stands tall despite his apparent injuries.

                      These are the images of two very different individuals. One understands the value of freedom and the other clearly does not. One has been given a homeland, where he is free to speak, think, and act how he wishes, without the undue interference of any totalitarian authority. The other earned that privledge. One man goes day to day unconscious  of the organized efforts of hundreds of thousands of men and women everyday who work to preserve those freedoms which he so blatantly takes for granted. The other man lives a life haunted by the constant presence of that prainful price, which makes America "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

                      The world we live in is soft. Our generation is one that understands nothing of earning and all of taking. Colin Kaepernick is a perfect example. 

                       The popularity and publicity of sports stars provides them with a perfect base for advancing agendas, whether they be social, political, humanitarian, etc. An excellent example of this, as I am sure most of us are aware, are the ongoing efforts of J.J. Watt, who has raised over 37 million dollars to date for the relief of the victims of Hurricane Harvey. However, as inspiring as this may be, there are some who abuse their social status, and divide the country with their twisted and warped ideas.

                    In 2016 Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem. When asked about the gesture, he justified his actions siting institutional racism within our police forces which targeted specifically African-Americans, but more generally, the lack of social equality in the United States today. 

                    To begin I would like to say that I have no problems with sports stars using their first amendment rights. However,negatively targeting the American flag and the National Anthem is cowardly, for it is by this very same flag and anthem that the right for you to speak thus was earned. And please pay very close attention to the fact that this is earned, men and women die everyday to protect this freedom. The man in the picture above lost his legs for it. What has Colin Kaepernick done to earn his freedom. What have you and I done? We have done nothing. We are free-loaders on the American bandwagon of freedom. What right do we have to insult it. 

                   Some say kneeling is not meant to insult any flag or military people, but then why do you do it during the National Anthem then? What else are you trying to say. If you attack what I believe in then you necessarily attack me as well. Of, course the military people are offended, you attacked the principles the trained and fought under. It is despicable. This is why Alejandro Villanueva came out of the Steelers locker room and stood alone without his team in respect of the national anthem. As a military veteran himself, there was no way he would disrespect those whom he served with.

                  So to summarize so far, I believe the venue and formatting of Kaepernicks protest is inappropriate. Sports is a part of our lives we should be able to escape to. It is a relief of all the drama from our real lives. However, Kaepernick has destroyed that.

                  One of our countries greatest problems right now is the lack of grey area between the two ideologies of hard-core liberals and hard-core conservatives. The problem with the media and society in general is they paint every issue as so black and white when, in reality things are more complicated. In this case, you Kaepernick had clearly drawn a line in the sand which everyone who sits on an NFL sideline must choose. Your either with him in supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and condemning police brutality or you stand and you are obviously a white supremacist.

However, this is not the issue at all. There is a whole range of opinions in the middle. Here is mine.

                 White Supremacist are racist and are evil people. However, Black Lives Matter, and Kaepernick, would have you believe that our police force as a whole are white supremacist. They claim proof for this on the incidents of white police shooting black people. The problem with this is that it is a part-to-whole fallacy. For anyone who does not know what that means, among the rules of logic one cannot prove that a law or trait is characteristic to all those in a group merely because a select few have displayed that trait. I will stand today and fight any white supremacist and condemn their actions. But I also refuse to stand with the pillaging, destructive, disrespectful, and out of control mobs that make up Black Lives Matter and condemn the valiant men and women who defend our country on the inside. Honestly, we have multiple police men and women on campus. If the police are a racist institution, shouldn't at least one of them be a racist. Who wants to go burn and pillage their cop cars? Nobody does. That's because the Black Lives Matter movement is just as out of control as the white supremacist. They are hateful people. They obviously have no respect for the country or those people who protect it with their lives. Their message is not one of love but of hate and achieving a sort of revenge. If their story was honestly just one of love and equality, every player would kneel, but they don't. 

                Instead they stand in unity for the principles that define our nation, a nation which always seeks to improve itself, but which I believe is currently shaming itself at the expense of good men and women who risk their lives to protect us everyday, both at home and abroad. Today I applaud their efforts, as they are sadly being met with such shameful ingratitude.

              

Dinosaur 13 Q's and A's

Sue the Dinosaur, now located in Chicago Field Museum

1.       The entire film Dinosaur 13 was a tragedy. It was difficult to watch knowing that the story would not have a happy ending. I think the picture’s most relatable emotion was dissappointment as the paleontologists watched in horror and helplessness as their one big breakthrough, their lives work, was torn away from them by those who failed to see its true value. For anyone who has ever labored for weeks over a puzzle or any project, just to see it destroyed by a careless sibling, you might l understand in a small way what this is like. How much more must this have destroyed the paleontologists who devoted their whole lives to this oftentimes unrewarding science.

2.       What surprised me most about the film was the landowner who originally sold the dinasour fossil to the paleontologists. He originally sold the piece to them for a total of $5000, the largest sum to date for the purchase of a fossil. However, once it became clear to him that he could have much more for this incredible find, he reclaimed the fossil through a series of legal loopholes and auctioned the complete t-rex skeleton for over seven million dollars! This man’s integrity for flipping the script so cruelly on those who had devoted so much time and effort to unearth and clean this fossil was low.

3.       The documentary did a fantastic job answering what all the "common" man questions surrounding the story of what happened to Sue the Dinosaur and those involved in her case. However, what did remain unsolved was how this was going to be rectified so it did not happen again in the future. Unfortunately, this burden of correction has now fallen on the paleontologists who must carefully and rigorously follow obnoxious guidelines to prevent their work being taken in a similar way as what happened to those incredibly fortunate yet unfortunate workers who discovered the incredible T-Rex.
               Besides this, there are many other questions in this story which should be addressed. The main one for me may actually be an unfixable problem. Should people have recourse to laws selectively? What do I mean? What I am asking is why would the government remain silent about the findings while the are small and worth little, but then be allowed to raise a huge stink about something like Sue. This shows that they are obviously just in it for the money. So if a judges were to witness something like this, where there is an invocation of a particular law strictly for someone's profit and not for the common good which the country is supposed to be protecting, shouldn't a judge be able to rule in favor of those who are being injusticed?
                The problem with this is it leaves all law then to the subjective interpretation of each individual judge, and I think that that will cause more problems then it would have fixed. So in my honest opinion, I really don't think there is any major changes that can be made to fix this error without more devastating consequences. Therefore, I think its important for all of us to learn the lesson of Dinosaur 13. Remember to keep your tracks one-hundred percent clean because, if you ever become successful, people will try to tear you down.

The Liberal Media Reality

This blog is a response to the article posted by Dr. Kyburz written by Dr. Chuck Tyron concerning the presence of a liberal bias media within the United States. The article calls it a "myth, built on misleading evidence and faulty logic."
I would like to make a brief apology for the language and descriptions in the above video. They are rather harsh and entirely inappropriate. However, Dr. Tyron would have you believe that those news anchors and journalist were giving you nothing but the story and that they in no way were trying to force their views upon you. If you knew nothing about the election and you saw that video you could only make one conclusion about the election of Donald Trump, namely that it wasThe  "the end of the World." Those news bits show one side of the story and one side of the story only, that is the side that the owners of their respective companies want shown. Whatever their motives are I will not judge, but there is no way to claim that these men and women wish to clearly demonstrate two sides of an argument without inserting their liberal opinion.
I would like to clarify that I am in no way a Trump supporter ( I wasn't a Hillary supporter either). However, to not recognize that certain branches of the media have no problem manipulating the news for their agendas is a rather innocent and sheltered view of the world. What I am not saying is that a liberal media is bad. I do have the intellectual honesty to recognize that they do, however, dominate the mass media.

   

The Value of Suffering

            This last week has been a traumatic one for the United States, particularly for Houston. Hurricane Harvey swept through the area flooding it in unprecedented amounts and currently has killed over 50 with hundreds more still missing. For those who survived the midsummer mansoon, years of hard work and toil remain if they are to rebuild what once was the proud city of Houston.

            This past week was also difficult for a small boarding school located in central Illinois. It is called Notre Dame de La Salette Boys Academy. The school is 12 years old and has proudly graduated approximately 180-190 students. It is a small private high school, where students eat together, room together, and engage in each and every task not as a school but as a tight nit family. Students from a decade ago return as alumni and will engage in the joyful recollection of similar experiences throughout the unique expierience that was their high school education. This past week that small school lost one of its dearest sons, a young man by the name of Michael.

            Michael was a jokester yet an incredible leader when he needed to be. He was incredibly strong and fit and when he joined the marines after his graduation in 2014 he achieved a perfect 600 points on his physical test, a rare and hard- earned score.

             This past week Michael died. News has still not gotten out officially how. Rumors circulate through the alumni telephones. Some say he drowned. Others say he died of heat exhaustion. They agree that it happened during a special training exercise and that it happened overnight alone. Whatever the reason, Michael is gone.

             I went  to that high school. I knew Michael. He was a good friend. But he's gone.

             How many people feel the same way in Houston right now? How many people have lost family or friends? Thousands I am sure. Many including myself seek an explanation. Here's mine.

          

     This past week I see that the nation and myself have experienced terrible suffering. Where is the value in the death of these innocent  people? 

         I believe the answer lies in the response of those left behind. How incredible are the efforts put together by athletes and famous people to bring quick aid to the people of Houston. J.J.Watt, for example, has raised millions for this purpose after making an initial donation of $100,000 himself. What is better are the stories of heroic first responders risking their lives day in and day out to rescue those who cannot rescue themselves. The coolest responses for me have been the heroics of ordinary people like you and me who stayed behind and used their knowledge, wits, and grit to rescue others like themselves. Nobody asked them to. It wasn't their job. But they did it anyway because their love for their neighbor was greater then any hurricane and flood this world has ever seen. 

       When Michael passed away it dawned on many of the alumni of my school just how out of touch they had grown with each other since graduation. Alumni talked to other alumni they had not spoken with in years. Personally, I had the opportunity to offer some words of consolation to Michaels girlfriend, whom I've never met in person. What I said was simple, it could have gotten lost in the hundreds of comments left on her instagram telling her how sorry they were for her. But she, brave women that she is, had taught me more about srength in adversity than anything I have ever seen. Troubling as a time she is going through, she refuses to be consoled but rather wishes to console those who loved him too!

         What instances like this teach people are the preciousness and brevity of human life and how we must protect and cherish each and every moments with those whom we love. In a time like this when we all as students seem to focus on the future, I believe it might be a temptation to forget the moment, the people who are here now that we love. So take a second enjoy your moment, tell whoever you have to that you love them because you may never get the chance again. I love you Michael! We love you Houston!