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!