well i have been really focused on My Lai. Do not really know what to write about it has me questioning a lot of different beliefs as to why a soldier can do things in a war situation. Anyways i wrote a poem, if anyone reads these i hope you enjoy.

Soldier, lonely like the soldiers one last shell,
Darkness overcomes him, leaves him without breath,
Shoot, fire, hide, all the while, think about death,
Think about nothing else until it is your hell,
With a bullet, the young and innocent never yell,
War is a drug, orchestrating illusions like meth,
The lies, but the eyes the soldier’s tale does tell,
When he arrives, his pain will be his end,
Upon his return, his end will be his pain,
Broken like the wind on a sunny day,
And the last shell becomes his only friend,
On the darkness, the soldier lies slain,
And he owes Hades nothing, no more death no more pay.

FOLLOWING ORDERS?

This week in class we tried to choose a foci assignment for the class to begin a study on. This week I did not learn a vast area of things but I did learn about My Lai. The story of Hugh Thompson really made me think about the age old question “I was just following orders.” On one side of things you have William Calley who is dead set on following the orders he was given. He even believed the orders included killing woman children and basically everyone there. Hugh Thompson however even in the heat of the battle was able to establish that what was happening was wrong and would not cooperate and attempted to stop them.

The thing I found most troubling about these events was the aftermath in which Hugh Thompson was condemned for his actions. It was not until 2001 he was actually rewarded with some gratitude for his accomplishments. It really makes me think about the boundaries of war and at what point is too far. In conclusion it is just nice to see a little humanity in war.

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Learning Journal

So I do not have time to write much sorry folks. But if anyone reads my journals or enjoys my writing I do have great news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico. Ok that’s not true but I think I’ve discovered the meaning of life sort of speak with this Aquinas class. The reason we have checkmarks. Its so we write for ourselves. And I have probably heard that said 2000 times this year by Thom but it was this week I actually started applying it. Now when I write, I write what I want to write about but try to relate it to our topic, or write in a way in which I would like too. The opportunities are endless. This is the time to be completely original, creative and write basically anything you want. So from now on for learning journals I’m going to start something new. I’m going to try to write stories, and poems and things of that sort and tie them into the topic of the courses. Anyways I’ll be back next week.

A man falls without a care, drifting with a strange look of flying,
A man drifts into the air, oblivious to the fact that he is dying,

Oblivious or proud of what he had done, a nameless man who we know not,
Knowing not his love or if he had one,

But this man is hated and stays without claim, with little sign of mourning while falling,

Maybe it’s like having an arrow without any aim, why spend the last few minutes bawling,
but I hope this man can have his grave, for I do not envy his death,

I hope he has a family and his soul they do save, I hope they give him breath.

South Park

This week in class I’m sure everyone noticed my intolerance towards scientology and the way Thom let me know how I was wrong. At first I was a little pissed off, I’m an emotional guy. Then I thought about it, and as much as I have been trying to be more tolerant, religions or cults like scientology that do not make sense to me, I seem to cast aside with haste and disbelief. I think it’s important to understand that some religions though silly to first glance, can teach messages of love and teach valuable lessons to which we can live our lives. It is easy to belittle, make fun, or laugh at other religions or “cults” or “new religions” but it is even harder to attempt to see the point of the religion or the benefits.
This point that I am trying to make is made very clear in an episode of “South Park” of all things. Those in class who know me, know how much I love “South Park” and references the quirky little messages on life that are displayed subliminally in almost every episode. The twelfth episode of the seventh season of “South Park” is all about the Mormon religion. The entire episode displays a summarized version of the way the Mormon faith was started and how Joseph Smith did so. When the episode shows the flashbacks of the religion being born it does so with mockery, even having a chorus of “dumb’s” in the background during the entire flashback. Meanwhile back at “South Park” the kids and even the parents insult this religion and make jokes at the Mormon’s expense. The entire episode seemingly made to make fun of people of the Mormon religion. This thought however, vanquishes quickly as the creators of South Park throw a curveball in with the last couple lines of the show. The main Mormon kid in the episode says this quote “Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls.” An entire making you believe one thing is so quickly changed. The first time I watched the show I really felt like a jerk for feeling animosity towards the Mormon religion all show just to have the main Mormon kid lecture Stan on pretty much the way I was feeling.

In conclusion I think the episode of South Park is actually really important because we as a society shelter ourselves from things we don’t deem as normal or acceptable. This kid and his family were nice to everyone in town the entire episode but since they had different beliefs no one accepted them. This is also evident in the reading we did on “new religion” the non-acceptance of the Mormon religion by people, even going as far as to criticize them because their message was about peace and they didn’t want to go to war. I know the episode made me think a lot about my intolerance. I guess I have a lot of growing up to do.

Back into the groove of things students gradually piled into our comfortable home in James Dunn Hall. It was almost strange as if the time apart from each other had brought us closer as we sat there talking waiting for the teachers to compile into the room. After reading an exciting new syllabus for the next term we discussed the important parts of last semester and where we found we learned. It was during this time where we began to discuss what the difference is between a belief and opinion. After more discussion even in our last class I was still not satisfied, I wanted a better answer. While looking up the idea of opinion I came to a conclusion of my own and feel free to dispute it, in fact I welcome it. An opinion is a belief but a less guided one, you can’t formulate an opinion unless you believe in it. There are levels of conviction in which determine whether something is a belief or if something is an opinion. Without solid indisputable evidence your more likely going to have an opinion but you also can’t have an opinion without believe you are right in it.

This week also paved the way for a different way of learning at least for the first month, we would be focused more on disciplines. At first I dreaded the two and a half hour time slot that Michael Camp managed to steal from Russ and Thom after seeing all the time we had journalism I started comparing Michael Camp to Jay Leno and Russ and Thom respectively to Conan and good ole Jimmy Fallon. ( A joke that is only funny if aware of all the drama with the “Tonight Show”) However after a day of class and a reading assignment I definitely had a different attitude. In journalism this week I’ve probably had my two most interesting classes yet talking about nazi propaganda. Also the most beautifully haunting story I’ve read Captain Waskow. After reading Captain Waskow I formulated an opinion that was separate from the rest of the class. Though interestingly after more thought I realized maybe that’s what Ernie Pyle wanted. It was a time where media was censored beyond all recognition I think Pyle was well aware of this but needed to find away around this. I think that is the reason he wrote Captain Waskow. Once again feel free to dispute but this is my evidence, in English we are beginning to do exercises in which authors use a certain way of wording something to convey a certain meaning, Pyle was no exception. In my opinion Captain Waskow is about death and it’s inevitability especially in battle. I see this in the usage of words the author uses. First describing the dead man as alone, and when the third man gets up once again he says “and then he got up and walked away down the road, in the moonlight, all alone.” I don’t think it was an accident that Pyle refers to both the dead man and the last soldier as “all alone”. Finally the final two sentences of Captain Waskow could have been phrased differently if not meant to convey deeper meaning. “ leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.” My learning journal is only my opinion but I think Pyle easily could have said “the soldiers went to bed, the soldiers slept until morning.” But he chooses to say “pretty soon we were all asleep” a phrase that can have many different meanings including that the soldiers were dead to the world, or asleep to emotions or that the soldiers eventually died just like their Captain. Please people comment on this I’d love some discussion.

Learning Journal

This week was a very interesting week in Truth in Society. The week started pretty uneventful like a normal week. We had to do assignments in which we researched pirates. After we came up with research we were put in groups to further discuss things and to narrow our research so we can begin work on certain topics. My learning journal this week however isn’t going to talk about pirates but about Thursday and the discussion in regards to the learning structure of this class.
First I want to be clear that in no way am I trying to put down anyone or put down the course but rather state my feelings about it and the structure. When we were discussing the problem Justin was having with the class, there was an interesting point made by Thom or Russ. The class isn’t about grades because it encourages you to strive away from that necessity of writing for grades and persuades to write for yourself. I do think this is very important. However, I think Truth in Society is failing in this respect. The way the class is structured and the way the marking scheme works doesn’t encourage free writing, it encourages laziness. Once again an important objection was made about this, if you do lazy work people will judge you, you will be ridiculed. This is the main reason I don’t think Truth in Society is working. Yet, it is something that has almost nothing to do with how the class is structured but our overall class. There is a very clique like atmosphere amongst some of the students. As not part of this “clique” I feel like nobody reads or gives a shit about my writing anyway. I post blogs, reflections, whatever I am asked to do. Every week though, it is the same people’s postings being commented on by the same people. In the classroom during discussions, I feel overpowered because if I state my opinion or stand behind my writing and one person from this “clique” does not, I have to begin to explain my opinion to seven different people. Also I feel that the class discussion over the past few weeks has completely deteriorated into jokes and people throwing out stupid opinions to avoid work. Once again I am in no way claiming perfection or to be above any of this but I’m spotting this problem.
Lastly, the marking scheme is a major concern for me. I understand the checkmark system really does not matter that much. It is more about writing, having an opinion, debating, and changing this opinion and that is fine. Though we do get an overall mark based on our learning reflection and assignments completed throughout the year. As I was trying to explain in class before I felt ridiculed for having an opinion. I do not feel posting something to your F drive is more important then a 5 page turning point assignment. This is when Thom informed me checkmarks don’t matter and asked if I would like to have 5 for it. The problem is that the checkmarks do matter. They make up your mark. If you forget to post something by Wednesday at noon, it affects you. It’s not the fact that there are so many assignments that angers me, but when they are all worth the same you lose your motivation. If I have the ability to write on my sheet “ sorry, didn’t have time to do this” and still receive a mark, it’s a problem. I completely understand that the program is trying to use this as a way to encourage free writing but it promotes quantity over quality in a bad way. I can write 50 completely meaningless posts at 4 am without a care in the world but personally it wouldn’t feel as good as writing 1 meaningful post that I studied, examined and took the time to care about. Having to do so many assignments, with so little guidance and such little motivation makes it really hard to care about the topic. Especially if no one cares how you do the work just whether or not that it is done.

That’s all I have to say, if I offended anyone it was not my intention. I needed to get this off of my chest. Hopefully next time someone tries to bring up a topic like this in class it can be done without making that person or those people feel stupid and awkward

PeaceEric

Learning journal

Dear journal. I have been sick for the past month. It is either death or swine flue. I’m falling behind on my assignments. And I can never seem to do these damn learning journals. Unfortunately due to my deteriorating health I was only able to attend one class last week. In this class we once again graciously discussed piracy but most importantly we discussed Johnny Depp. It was an interesting discussion but nothing really changed my mind on feeling that pirates were just dirt bag, rum drinking, rapists and thefts. Then my beliefs changed so much that I had to do a learning journal right after.

I think I found out why piracy was so appealing. Piracy was like joining the army except without the political pressure. Yet at the same time it was like resorting to a life of crime because they had no other options. After reading about the Somalia pirate situation I was hit by my misjudgement on pirates. Realizing I completely misinterpreted why pirates are the way they are I read more and more. I think one thing I read is really important the Somalia pirates turned this way because of illegal fishing in their community. They were mostly fisherman who lost their job because richer countries just went in and stole their resource. This is sad in many ways. One way it promotes the poor getting poorer as the richer get richer, secondly these men had to resort to a life of illegality and sin and thirdly these men were put in the worst of situations, they needed money, they had no opportunity or wealth it left them with only one thing to turn to. I think this is a lesson we can all take in our everyday life. Next time you see someone to something stupid, or say something ridiculous, find out why they are doing it or saying it, the reasoning could shock you.