Event Details

• What: The 2009 New Jersey State Presidents and OfficersLuncheon,
• When: Monday, July 20, 2009 from 10:30AM to 4:30PM,
• Where: Hosted by Alpha Pi Theta Chapter, Brookdale Community College
• Directions: click here for directions
• Location on Campus: Student Life Center (SLC on campus map below)
• Parking: Lot 7 (closest to SLC) or lot 6,
• Room: Twin Lights Room# 1
• Who: All New Jersey State Chapter Officers, Presidents, Committee Leaders, Advisors, and Alumni (PA, ME,& DE chapters are welcome)
• Why: To join in fellowship, have lunch, discuss regional and state service projects and ideas, and become acquainted with your 2009-2010 Middle States Regional officer team: New Jersey’s State President Joseph Eulo, Middle States President Dave Seale, President of Service Karly Chester, Maryland and Delaware State President Matt Lawson, and Pennsylvania State President Lemarr Nared.
• How: Visit http://www.PhiThetaKappaNJ.org/RSVP, & complete and submit the form!

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From Foreign Affairs , November/December 2007

Summary: America needs a president who can revitalize the country’s purpose and standing in the world and defeat terrorist adversaries who threaten liberty at home and abroad. There is an enormous amount to do. The next U.S. president must be ready to show America and the world that this country’s best days are yet to come and be ready to establish an enduring peace based on freedom.

John McCain, a U.S. Senator from Arizona, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Since the dawn of our republic, Americans have believed that our nation was created for a purpose. We are, as Alexander Hamilton said, “a people of great destinies.” From the American Revolution to the Cold War, Americans have understood their duty to serve a cause greater than self-interest and to keep faith with the eternal and universal principles of the Declaration of Independence. By overcoming threats to our nation’s survival and to our way of life, and by seizing history’s great opportunities, Americans have changed the world.

Now it is this generation’s turn to restore and replenish the world’s faith in our nation and our principles. President Harry Truman once said of America, “God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.” In his time, that great purpose was to erect the structures of peace and prosperity that provided safe passage through the Cold War. In the face of new dangers and opportunities, our next president will have a mandate to build an enduring global peace on the foundations of freedom, security, opportunity, prosperity, and hope.

America needs a president who can revitalize our country’s purpose and standing in the world, defeat terrorist adversaries who threaten liberty at home and abroad, and build enduring peace. There is an enormous amount to do. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly in blood and treasure and in other less tangible ways as well. Our next president will need to rally nations across the world around common causes as only America can. There will be no time for on-the-job training. Given the present dangers, our country cannot afford the kind of malaise, drift, and fecklessness that followed the Vietnam War. The next president must be prepared to lead America and the world to victory — and to seize the opportunities afforded by the unprecedented liberty and prosperity in the world today to build a peace that will last a century.

WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR

Defeating radical Islamist extremists is the national security challenge of our time. Iraq is this war’s central front, according to our commander there, General David Petraeus, and according to our enemies, including al Qaeda’s leadership.

The recent years of mismanagement and failure in Iraq demonstrate that America should go to war only with sufficient troop levels and with a realistic and comprehensive plan for success. We did not do so in Iraq, and our country and the people of Iraq have paid a dear price. Only after four years of conflict did the United States adopt a counterinsurgency strategy, backed by increased force levels, that gives us a realistic chance of success. We cannot get those years back, and now the only responsible action for any presidential candidate is to look forward and outline the strategic posture in Iraq that is most likely to protect U.S. national interests.

So long as we can succeed in Iraq — and I believe that we can — we must succeed. The consequences of failure would be horrific: a historic loss at the hands of Islamist extremists who, after having defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the United States in Iraq, will believe that the world is going their way and that anything is possible; a failed state in the heart of the Middle East providing sanctuary for terrorists; a civil war that could quickly develop into a regional conflict and even genocide; a decisive end to the prospect of a modern democracy in Iraq, for which large Iraqi majorities have repeatedly voted; and an invitation for Iran to dominate Iraq and the region even more.

Whether success grows closer or more distant over the coming months, it is clear that Iraq will be a central issue for the next U.S. president. Democratic candidates have promised to withdraw U.S. troops and “end the war” by fiat, regardless of the consequences. To make such decisions based on the political winds at home, rather than on the realities in the theater, is to court disaster. The war in Iraq cannot be wished away, and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe that the consequences of failure will be limited to one administration or one party. This is an American war, and its outcome will touch every one of our citizens for years to come.

That is why I support our continuing efforts to win in Iraq. It is also why I oppose a preemptive withdrawal strategy that has no Plan B for the aftermath of its inevitable failure and the greater problems that would ensue.

What happens in Iraq will also affect Afghanistan. There has been progress in Afghanistan: over two million refugees have returned, the welfare of Afghan citizens has meaningfully improved, and historic elections took place in 2004. The Taliban’s recent resurgence, however, threatens to lead Afghanistan to revert to its pre-9/11 role as a sanctuary for terrorists with global reach. Our recommitment to Afghanistan must include increasing NATO forces, suspending the debilitating restrictions on when and how those forces can fight, expanding the training and equipping of the Afghan National Army through a long-term partnership with NATO to make it more professional and multiethnic, and deploying significantly more foreign police trainers. It must also address the current political deficiencies in judicial reform, reconstruction, governance, and anticorruption efforts.

Success in Afghanistan is critical to stopping al Qaeda, but success in neighboring Pakistan is just as vital. We must continue to work with President Pervez Musharraf to dismantle the cells and camps that the Taliban and al Qaeda maintain in his country. These groups still have sanctuaries there, and the “Talibanization” of Pakistani society is advancing. The United States must help Pakistan resist the forces of extremism by making a long-term commitment to the country. This would mean enhancing Pakistan’s ability to act against insurgent safe havens and bring children into schools and out of extremist madrasahs and supporting Pakistani moderates.

Our counterterrorism efforts cannot be limited to stateless groups operating in safe havens. Iran, the world’s chief state sponsor of terrorism, continues its deadly quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Protected by a nuclear arsenal, Iran would be even more willing and able to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy, including the United States and Israel, or even to pass nuclear materials to one of its allied terrorist networks. The next president must confront this threat directly, and that effort must begin with tougher political and economic sanctions. If the United Nations is unwilling to act, the United States must lead a group of like-minded countries to impose effective multilateral sanctions, such as restrictions on exports of refined gasoline, outside the UN framework. America and its partners should also privatize the sanctions effort by supporting a disinvestment campaign to isolate and delegitimize the regime in Tehran, whose policies are already opposed by many Iranian citizens. And military action, although not the preferred option, must remain on the table: Tehran must understand that it cannot win a showdown with the world.

Meanwhile, in view of the increased threats to Israel — from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and others — the next U.S. president must continue America’s long-standing support for Israel, including by providing needed military equipment and technology and ensuring that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge. The long-elusive quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians must remain a priority. But the goal must be genuine peace, and so Hamas must be isolated even as the United States intensifies its commitment to finding an enduring settlement.

Defeating the terrorists who already threaten America is vital, but just as important is preventing a new generation of them from joining the fight. As president, I will employ every economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and ideological tool at our disposal to aid moderate Muslims — women’s rights campaigners, labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, teachers, tolerant imams, and many others — who are resisting the well-financed campaign of extremism that is tearing Muslim societies apart. My administration, with its partners, will help friendly Muslim states establish the building blocks of open and tolerant societies. And we will nurture a culture of hope and economic opportunity by establishing a free-trade area from Morocco to Afghanistan, open to all who do not sponsor terrorism.

DEFENDING THE HOMELAND

In 1947, the Truman administration launched a massive overhaul of the nation’s foreign policy, defense, and intelligence agencies to meet the challenges of the Cold War. Today, we must do the same to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Our armed forces are seriously overstretched and underresourced. As president, I will increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps from the currently planned level of roughly 750,000 troops to 900,000 troops. Enhancing recruitment will require more resources and will take time, but it must be done as soon as possible.

Along with more personnel, our military needs additional equipment in order to make up for its recent losses and modernize. We can partially offset some of this additional investment by cutting wasteful spending. But we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates — far less than what we spent during the Cold War. We must also accelerate the transformation of our military, which is still configured to fight enemies that no longer exist.

America needs not simply more soldiers but more soldiers with the skills necessary to help friendly governments and their security forces resist common foes. I will create an Army Advisory Corps with 20,000 soldiers to partner with militaries abroad, and I will increase the number of U.S. personnel available to engage in Special Forces operations, civil affairs activities, military policing, and military intelligence. We also need a nonmilitary deployable police force to train foreign forces and help maintain law and order in places threatened by state collapse.

Today, understanding foreign cultures is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. As president, I will launch a crash program in civilian and military schools to prepare more experts in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, and Pashto. Students at our service academies should be required to study abroad. I will enlarge the military’s Foreign Area Officer program and create a new specialty in strategic interrogation in order to produce more interrogators who can obtain critical knowledge from detainees by using advanced psychological techniques, rather than the kind of abusive tactics properly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

I will set up a new agency patterned after the erstwhile Office of Strategic Services. A modern-day OSS could draw together specialists in unconventional warfare, civil affairs, and psychological warfare; covert-action operators; and experts in anthropology, advertising, and other relevant disciplines from inside and outside government. Like the original OSS, this would be a small, nimble, can-do organization. It would fight terrorist subversion around the world and in cyberspace. It could take risks that our bureaucracies today rarely consider taking — such as deploying infiltrating agents without diplomatic cover in terrorist states and organizations — and play a key role in frontline efforts to rebuild failed states.

As we increase our military capacity, we must also enhance our civilian capacity. As president, I will energize and expand our postconflict reconstruction capabilities so that any military campaign would be complemented by a civilian “surge” that would build the political and economic foundations of peace. To better coordinate our disparate military and civilian operations, I will ask Congress for a civilian follow-on to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which fostered a culture of joint operations within the military services. The new act would create a framework for civil servants and military forces to train and work together in order to facilitate cooperation in postconflict reconstruction.

We must also revitalize our public diplomacy. In 1998, the Clinton administration and Congress mistakenly agreed to abolish the U.S. Information Agency and move its public diplomacy functions to the State Department. This amounted to unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas. I will work with Congress to create a new independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America’s message to the world — a critical element in combating Islamic extremism and restoring the positive image of our country abroad.

UNITING THE WORLD’S DEMOCRACIES

Our organizations and partnerships must be as international as the challenges we confront. Today, U.S. soldiers are serving in Afghanistan with British, Canadian, Dutch, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Spanish, and Turkish soldiers from the NATO alliance. They are also serving alongside forces from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea — all democratic allies or close partners of the United States. But these troops are not all part of a common structure. They do not work together systematically or meet regularly to develop diplomatic and economic strategies to meet the common challenges they face.

NATO has begun to fill this gap by promoting partnerships between the alliance and great democracies in Asia and elsewhere. We should go further by linking democratic nations in one common organization: a worldwide League of Democracies. This would be unlike Woodrow Wilson’s doomed plan for the universal-membership League of Nations. Instead, it would be similar to what Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-minded nations working together for peace and liberty. The organization could act when the UN fails — to relieve human suffering in places such as Darfur, combat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, fashion better policies to confront environmental crises, provide unimpeded market access to those who endorse economic and political freedom, and take other measures unattainable by existing regional or universal-membership systems.

This League of Democracies would not supplant the UN or other international organizations but complement them by harnessing the political and moral advantages offered by united democratic action. By taking steps such as bringing concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma (renamed Myanmar by its military government in 1989) or Zimbabwe, uniting to impose sanctions on Iran, and providing support to struggling democracies in Serbia and Ukraine, the League of Democracies would serve as a unique handmaiden of freedom. If I am elected president, during my first year in office I will call a summit of the world’s democracies to seek the views of my counterparts and explore the steps necessary to realize this vision — just as America led in creating NATO six decades ago.

REVITALIZING THE TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP

The United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War; the transatlantic alliance did, in concert with partners around the world. The bonds we share with Europe in terms of history, values, and interests are unique. Unfortunately, they have frayed. As president, one of my top foreign policy priorities will be to revitalize the transatlantic partnership.

Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union. The future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, and institutionalizing our cooperation on issues such as climate change, foreign assistance, and democracy promotion.

A decade and a half ago, the Russian people threw off the tyranny of communism and seemed determined to build a democracy and a free market and to join the West. Today, we see in Russia diminishing political freedoms, a leadership dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers, efforts to bully democratic neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. We need a new Western approach to this revanchist Russia. We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia. Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyberattacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organization’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom. We must also increase our programs supporting freedom and the rule of law in Russia and emphasize that genuine partnership remains open to Moscow if it desires it but that such a partnership would involve a commitment to being a responsible actor, internationally and domestically.

More broadly, America needs to revive the democratic solidarity that united the West during the Cold War. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves. We must be willing to listen to our democratic allies. Being a great power does not mean that we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume that we have all the wisdom, knowledge, and resources necessary to succeed. When we believe international action — whether military, economic, or diplomatic — is necessary, we must work to persuade our friends and allies that we are right. And we must also be willing to be persuaded by them. To be a good leader, America must be a good ally.

SHAPING THE ASIA-PACIFIC CENTURY

Power in the world today is moving east; the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise. If we grasp the opportunities present in the unfolding world, this century can become safe and both American and Asian, both prosperous and free.

Asia has made enormous strides in recent decades. Its economic achievements are well known; less known is that more people live under democratic rule in Asia than in any other region of the world. Japan’s former prime minister spoke of an “arc of freedom and prosperity” stretching across Asia. India’s prime minister has called liberal democracy “the natural order of social and political organization in today’s world.” Asian countries are drawing closer together, striking trade and security agreements with one another and with other states.

North Korea’s totalitarian regime and impoverished society buck these trends. It is unclear today whether North Korea is truly committed to verifiable denuclearization and a full accounting of all its nuclear materials and facilities, two steps that are necessary before any lasting diplomatic agreement can be reached. Future talks must take into account North Korea’s ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation.

The key to meeting this and other challenges in a changing Asia is increasing cooperation with our allies. The linchpin to the region’s promise is continued American engagement. I welcome Japan’s international leadership and emergence as a global power, encourage its admirable “values-based diplomacy,” and support its bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council. As president, I will tend carefully to our ever-stronger alliance with Australia, whose troops are fighting shoulder to shoulder with ours in Afghanistan and Iraq. I will seek to rebuild our frayed partnership with South Korea by emphasizing economic and security cooperation and will cement our growing partnership with India.

In Southeast Asia, I will seek an elevated partnership with Indonesia and continue to expand defense cooperation with Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam while working with willing regional partners to promote democracy; defeat the threats of terrorism, crime, and the narcotics trade; and end Burma’s deplorable human rights abuses. The United States should participate more actively in Asian regional organizations, including those led by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As president, I will seek to institutionalize the new quadrilateral security partnership among the major Asia-Pacific democracies: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.

Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American president. Recent prosperity in China has brought more people out of poverty faster than during any other time in human history. China’s newfound power implies responsibilities. It raises legitimate expectations that internationally China will behave as a responsible economic partner by developing a transparent code of conduct for its corporations, assuring the safety of its exports, adopting a market approach to currency valuation, pursuing sustainable environmental policies, and abandoning its go-it-alone approach to world energy supplies.

China could also bolster its claim that it is “peacefully rising” by being more transparent about its significant military buildup. When China builds new submarines, adds hundreds of new jet fighters, modernizes its arsenal of strategic ballistic missiles, and tests antisatellite weapons, the United States legitimately must question the intent of such provocative acts. When China threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note. When China enjoys close economic and diplomatic relations with pariah states such as Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, tension will result. When China proposes regional forums and economic arrangements designed to exclude America from Asia, the United States will react.

China and the United States are not destined to be adversaries. We have numerous overlapping interests. U.S.-Chinese relations can benefit both countries and, in turn, the Asia-Pacific region and the world. But until China moves toward political liberalization, our relationship will be based on periodically shared interests rather than the bedrock of shared values.

The United States should set the standard for trade liberalization in Asia. Completing free-trade agreements with Malaysia and Thailand, realizing the full potential of our new trade agreement with South Korea, and institutionalizing economic partnerships with India and Indonesia so that they build on existing agreements with Australia and Singapore should set the stage for an ambitious Pacific-wide effort to liberalize trade. Such trade liberalization would benefit Americans and Asians alike.

BUILDING A HEMISPHERE OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY

John F. Kennedy described the people of Latin America as our “firm and ancient friends, united by history and experience and by our determination to advance the values of American civilization.” The countries of Latin America are our natural partners, but U.S. inattention has harmed our relationships. We must enhance U.S. relations with Mexico to control illegal immigration and defeat drug cartels, and with Brazil, a partner whose leadership in the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti is a model for fostering regional security. My administration would give these and other great democratic Latin American nations a strong voice in the League of Democracies — a voice they are denied in the UN Security Council.

We must also work together to counter the propaganda of demagogues who threaten the security and prosperity of the Americas. Hugo Chávez has overseen the dismantling of Venezuela’s democracy by undermining the parliament, the judiciary, the media, free labor unions, and private enterprises. His regime is acquiring advanced military equipment. And it is trying to build a global anti-American axis. My administration will work to marginalize such nefarious influences. It will also prepare immediately for Cuba’s transition to democracy by developing a plan with regional and European partners for a post-Castro Cuba so as to be ready to spark rapid change in that long-suffering country when the time comes. We must build on the passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement by ratifying pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Peru and move the process of completing a Free Trade Area of the Americas forward.

AIDING AN AFRICAN RENAISSANCE

Africa’s problems — poverty, corruption, disease, and instability — are well known. Less discussed is the promise offered by many countries on that continent. My administration will seek to engage on a political, economic, and security level with friendly governments across Africa. Many African nations will not reach their true potential without external assistance to combat the entrenched problems, such as HIV/AIDS, that afflict Africans disproportionately. I will establish the goal of eradicating malaria — the number one killer of African children under the age of five — on the continent. In addition to saving millions of lives in the world’s poorest regions, such a campaign would do much to add luster to America’s image in the world. These and other efforts, including enhancing trade and investment, would assist Africans in sparking a renaissance that would enable the continent’s people to achieve their potential.

Africa continues to offer the most compelling case for humanitarian intervention. With respect to the Darfur region of Sudan, I fear that the United States is once again repeating the mistakes it made in Bosnia and Rwanda. In Bosnia, we acted late but eventually saved countless lives. In Rwanda, we stood by and watched the slaughter and later pledged that we would not do so again. The genocide in Darfur demands U.S. leadership. My administration will consider the use of all elements of American power to stop the outrageous acts of human destruction that have unfolded there.

PREVENTING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear reason: the mistaken assumption behind the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear technology can spread without nuclear weapons eventually following. The next U.S. president must convene a summit of the world’s leading powers — none of which have an interest in seeing a world full of nuclear-armed states — with three agenda items. First, the notion that non-nuclear-weapons states have a right to nuclear technology must be revisited. Second, the burden of proof for suspected violators of the NPT must be reversed. Instead of requiring the International Atomic Energy Agency board to reach unanimous agreement in order to act, as is the case today, there should be an automatic suspension of nuclear assistance to states that the agency cannot guarantee are in full compliance with safeguard agreements. Finally, the IAEA’s annual budget of $130 million must be substantially increased so that the agency can meet its monitoring and safeguarding tasks.

SECURING ENERGY AND SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT

America’s dependence on foreign oil constitutes a critical strategic vulnerability. America accounts for 25 percent of global demand for oil but possesses less than three percent of the world’s proven reserves. Most of the world’s known reserves are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators or nationalized oil companies. Terrorists understand our vulnerability: had it succeeded, the attempted suicide attack on a Saudi refinery in February 2006 would have driven the world price of oil above $150 per barrel. The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East through continued oil purchases helps sustain the conditions under which extremism breeds, and the burning of oil and other fossil fuels spurs global warming, a gathering danger to our planet.

My national energy strategy will amount to a declaration of independence from our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to their troubled politics. This strategy will include employing technology to achieve new efficiencies in energy extraction and consumption, enforcing conservation, creating market incentives to encourage the development of alternative sources of energy and hybrid vehicles, and expanding sources of renewable energy. I will also greatly increase the use of nuclear power, a zero-emission energy source. Given the proper incentives, our innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs, and workers have the capability to lead the world in achieving energy security; given the stakes, they must.

I have proposed a bipartisan plan in the U.S. Senate to address the problem of climate change and ensure a sustainable future for humankind. My market-based approach will set reasonable caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, provide industries with tradable emissions credits, and create other incentives for the deployment of new and better energy sources and technologies. It is time for America to lead the world in protecting the environment for future generations.

PREPARING TO LEAD

As president, I will make America’s economic leadership in the globalized world of the twenty-first century a centerpiece of its engagement in foreign affairs. Today, from Singapore to South Africa, more people than ever before have embraced our liberal capitalist model of economic freedom and our culture of opportunity. Some Americans see globalization and the rise of economic giants such as China and India as a threat. We should reform our job training and education programs to more effectively help displaced American workers find new jobs that take advantage of trade and innovation. But we should continue to promote free trade, as it is vital to American prosperity. Americans will thrive in a world of economic freedom because our products and services remain the best and because our country draws strength from the forces shaping the new global economy, ranging from inflows of foreign investment to new businesses created by highly skilled immigrants. Americans can be confident that a world of economic and political freedom will sustain our global leadership by promoting our values and enhancing our prosperity. To unite us with friends and allies in a common prosperity, as president I will aggressively promote global trade liberalization at the World Trade Organization and expand America’s free-trade agreements to friendly nations on every continent.

American leadership has helped build a world that is more secure, more prosperous, and freer than ever before. Our unique form of leadership — the antithesis of empire — gives us moral credibility, which is more powerful than any show of arms. We are rich in people and resources but richer still in ideals and vision — and the means to realize them. Yet today much of the world has come to challenge our actions and doubt our intentions. Polls indicate that the United States is more unpopular now than at any time in history and increasingly viewed as pursuing its narrow self-interest. The people who hold these views are wrong. We are a special nation, the closest thing to a “shining city on a hill” ever to have existed. But it is incumbent on us to restore our mantle as a global leader, reestablish our moral credibility, and rebuild those damaged relationships that once brought so much good to so many places.

As president, I will seek the widest possible circle of allies through the League of Democracies, NATO, the UN, and the Organization of American States. During President Ronald Reagan’s deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and President George H. W. Bush’s Gulf War, the United States was joined by vast coalitions despite considerable opposition to American policies among foreign publics. These alliances came about because America had carefully cultivated relationships and shared values with its friends abroad. Working multilaterally can be a frustrating experience, but approaching problems with allies works far better than facing problems alone.

Almost two centuries ago, James Madison declared that “the great struggle of the Epoch” was “between liberty and despotism.” Many thought that this struggle ended with the Cold War, but it did not. It has taken on new guises, such as Islamist terrorists using our technological advances for their murderous designs and resurgent autocrats reminiscent of the nineteenth century. International terrorists capable of inflicting mass destruction are a new phenomenon. But what they seek and what they stand for are as old as time. They are part of a worldwide political, economic, and philosophical struggle between the future and the past, progress and reaction, liberty and despotism. Our security, our prosperity, and our democratic way of life depend on the outcome of that struggle.

Thomas Jefferson argued that America was the “solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.” Since that time two centuries ago when the United States was the “solitary republic of the world,” more people than ever before have come under the “benign influence” of liberty. The protection and promotion of the democratic ideal, at home and abroad, will be the surest source of security and peace for the century that lies before us. The next U.S. president must be ready to lead, ready to show America and the world that this country’s best days are yet to come, and ready to establish an enduring peace based on freedom that can safeguard American security for the rest of the twenty-first century. I am ready.

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
Summary: After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership — military, diplomatic, moral — to confront new threats and capitalize on new opportunities. America cannot meet this century’s challenges alone; the world cannot meet them without America. Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY

At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world — that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders. As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat — one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best. Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century’s threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts. To recognize the number and complexity of these threats is not to give way to pessimism. Rather, it is a call to action. These threats demand a new vision of leadership in the twenty-first century — a vision that draws from the past but is not bound by outdated thinking. The Bush administration responded to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles. After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example. Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy — one that is truer now than ever before: the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. To see American power in terminal decline is to ignore America’s great promise and historic purpose in the world. If elected president, I will start renewing that promise and purpose the day I take office.

MOVING BEYOND IRAQ

To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America’s civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen. Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 — a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country. At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda. The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work through the many other problems in the region — and it has made many of those problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians — a task that the Bush administration neglected for years. For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region — a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a commitment I will make. Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power — political, economic, and military — could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria. Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran’s nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran’s uranium-enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we must show Iran — and especially the Iranian people — what could be gained from fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance — which could, in turn, help stabilize Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus’ grip, and better secure Israel.

REVITALIZING THE MILITARY

To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to deploy overseas. We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale. We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training — including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness. Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm’s way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened. We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability — to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others — as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.

HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world — the spread of nuclear weapons, material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe. As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned, our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to bring a “Hiroshima” to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium — some of it poorly secured — sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 weapons — all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market. As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years — the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb. This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest — above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our security. As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot build — or come to the brink of building — a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world. Finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy — the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.

COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM

To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on 9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid, terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy operates globally, it must be confronted globally. We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan — the central front in our war against al Qaeda — so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly, judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads. I will join with our allies in insisting — not simply requesting — that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban. Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar. Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is screened for radiation. To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today, we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before 9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis. Finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists — one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity, “the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes.” It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak states and helping to rebuild failed ones. In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists’ prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development, and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity — access to education and health care, trade and investment — and provide the kind of steady support for political reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs rest on hope; the extremists’ rest on fear. That is why we can — and will — win this struggle.

REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS

To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships. Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union’s call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa. Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years, transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for peace. But today, NATO’s challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar has put it, “the growing discrepancy between NATO’s expanding missions and its lagging capabilities.” To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization capabilities. And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power — to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete. In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all the major powers — including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform. The UN Secretariat’s management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel — but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission. Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world. As the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip — by more than ten percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free America of its dependence on foreign oil — by using energy more efficiently in our cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and harnessing the potential of biofuels. Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace America as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $5

BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES

Finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow. People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law. Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu. As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner — a partner mindful of his own imperfections. Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11 Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy. There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, “To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required — not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.

RESTORING AMERICA’S TRUST

Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be “directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders.” It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home for an equally ambitious course. Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand it and feel they have a stake in its success — unless they trust that their government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve. We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm’s way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next president can restore the American people’s trust — if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility — then I believe the American people will be eager to see America lead again. I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep. It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be free. We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of our people — and all people — in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.

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WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR

Defeating radical Islamist extremists is the national security challenge of our time. Iraq is this war’s central front, according to our commander there, General David Petraeus, and according to our enemies, including al Qaeda’s leadership. The recent years of mismanagement and failure in Iraq demonstrate that America should go to war only with sufficient troop levels and with a realistic and comprehensive plan for success. We did not do so in Iraq, and our country and the people of Iraq have paid a dear price. Only after four years of conflict did the United States adopt a counterinsurgency strategy, backed by increased force levels, that gives us a realistic chance of success. We cannot get those years back, and now the only responsible action for any presidential candidate is to look forward and outline the strategic posture in Iraq that is most likely to protect U.S. national interests. So long as we can succeed in Iraq — and I believe that we can — we must succeed. The consequences of failure would be horrific: a historic loss at the hands of Islamist extremists who, after having defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the United States in Iraq, will believe that the world is going their way and that anything is possible; a failed state in the heart of the Middle East providing sanctuary for terrorists; a civil war that could quickly develop into a regional conflict and even genocide; a decisive end to the prospect of a modern democracy in Iraq, for which large Iraqi majorities have repeatedly voted; and an invitation for Iran to dominate Iraq and the region even more. Whether success grows closer or more distant over the coming months, it is clear that Iraq will be a central issue for the next U.S. president. Democratic candidates have promised to withdraw U.S. troops and “end the war” by fiat, regardless of the consequences. To make such decisions based on the political winds at home, rather than on the realities in the theater, is to court disaster. The war in Iraq cannot be wished away, and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe that the consequences of failure will be limited to one administration or one party. This is an American war, and its outcome will touch every one of our citizens for years to come. That is why I support our continuing efforts to win in Iraq. It is also why I oppose a preemptive withdrawal strategy that has no Plan B for the aftermath of its inevitable failure and the greater problems that would ensue. What happens in Iraq will also affect Afghanistan. There has been progress in Afghanistan: over two million refugees have returned, the welfare of Afghan citizens has meaningfully improved, and historic elections took place in 2004. The Taliban’s recent resurgence, however, threatens to lead Afghanistan to revert to its pre-9/11 role as a sanctuary for terrorists with global reach. Our recommitment to Afghanistan must include increasing NATO forces, suspending the debilitating restrictions on when and how those forces can fight, expanding the training and equipping of the Afghan National Army through a long-term partnership with NATO to make it more professional and multiethnic, and deploying significantly more foreign police trainers. It must also address the current political deficiencies in judicial reform, reconstruction, governance, and anticorruption efforts. Success in Afghanistan is critical to stopping al Qaeda, but success in neighboring Pakistan is just as vital. We must continue to work with President Pervez Musharraf to dismantle the cells and camps that the Taliban and al Qaeda maintain in his country. These groups still have sanctuaries there, and the “Talibanization” of Pakistani society is advancing. The United States must help Pakistan resist the forces of extremism by making a long-term commitment to the country. This would mean enhancing Pakistan’s ability to act against insurgent safe havens and bring children into schools and out of extremist madrasahs and supporting Pakistani moderates. Our counterterrorism efforts cannot be limited to stateless groups operating in safe havens. Iran, the world’s chief state sponsor of terrorism, continues its deadly quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Protected by a nuclear arsenal, Iran would be even more willing and able to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy, including the United States and Israel, or even to pass nuclear materials to one of its allied terrorist networks. The next president must confront this threat directly, and that effort must begin with tougher political and economic sanctions. If the United Nations is unwilling to act, the United States must lead a group of like-minded countries to impose effective multilateral sanctions, such as restrictions on exports of refined gasoline, outside the UN framework. America and its partners should also privatize the sanctions effort by supporting a disinvestment campaign to isolate and delegitimize the regime in Tehran, whose policies are already opposed by many Iranian citizens. And military action, although not the preferred option, must remain on the table: Tehran must understand that it cannot win a showdown with the world. Meanwhile, in view of the increased threats to Israel — from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and others — the next U.S. president must continue America’s long-standing support for Israel, including by providing needed military equipment and technology and ensuring that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge. The long-elusive quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians must remain a priority. But the goal must be genuine peace, and so Hamas must be isolated even as the United States intensifies its commitment to finding an enduring settlement. Defeating the terrorists who already threaten America is vital, but just as important is preventing a new generation of them from joining the fight. As president, I will employ every economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and ideological tool at our disposal to aid moderate Muslims — women’s rights campaigners, labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, teachers, tolerant imams, and many others — who are resisting the well-financed campaign of extremism that is tearing Muslim societies apart. My administration, with its partners, will help friendly Muslim states establish the building blocks of open and tolerant societies. And we will nurture a culture of hope and economic opportunity by establishing a free-trade area from Morocco to Afghanistan, open to all who do not sponsor terrorism.

DEFENDING THE HOMELAND

In 1947, the Truman administration launched a massive overhaul of the nation’s foreign policy, defense, and intelligence agencies to meet the challenges of the Cold War. Today, we must do the same to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Our armed forces are seriously overstretched and underresourced. As president, I will increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps from the currently planned level of roughly 750,000 troops to 900,000 troops. Enhancing recruitment will require more resources and will take time, but it must be done as soon as possible. Along with more personnel, our military needs additional equipment in order to make up for its recent losses and modernize. We can partially offset some of this additional investment by cutting wasteful spending. But we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates — far less than what we spent during the Cold War. We must also accelerate the transformation of our military, which is still configured to fight enemies that no longer exist. America needs not simply more soldiers but more soldiers with the skills necessary to help friendly governments and their security forces resist common foes. I will create an Army Advisory Corps with 20,000 soldiers to partner with militaries abroad, and I will increase the number of U.S. personnel available to engage in Special Forces operations, civil affairs activities, military policing, and military intelligence. We also need a nonmilitary deployable police force to train foreign forces and help maintain law and order in places threatened by state collapse. Today, understanding foreign cultures is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. As president, I will launch a crash program in civilian and military schools to prepare more experts in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, and Pashto. Students at our service academies should be required to study abroad. I will enlarge the military’s Foreign Area Officer program and create a new specialty in strategic interrogation in order to produce more interrogators who can obtain critical knowledge from detainees by using advanced psychological techniques, rather than the kind of abusive tactics properly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. I will set up a new agency patterned after the erstwhile Office of Strategic Services. A modern-day OSS could draw together specialists in unconventional warfare, civil affairs, and psychological warfare; covert-action operators; and experts in anthropology, advertising, and other relevant disciplines from inside and outside government. Like the original OSS, this would be a small, nimble, can-do organization. It would fight terrorist subversion around the world and in cyberspace. It could take risks that our bureaucracies today rarely consider taking — such as deploying infiltrating agents without diplomatic cover in terrorist states and organizations — and play a key role in frontline efforts to rebuild failed states. As we increase our military capacity, we must also enhance our civilian capacity. As president, I will energize and expand our postconflict reconstruction capabilities so that any military campaign would be complemented by a civilian “surge” that would build the political and economic foundations of peace. To better coordinate our disparate military and civilian operations, I will ask Congress for a civilian follow-on to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which fostered a culture of joint operations within the military services. The new act would create a framework for civil servants and military forces to train and work together in order to facilitate cooperation in postconflict reconstruction. We must also revitalize our public diplomacy. In 1998, the Clinton administration and Congress mistakenly agreed to abolish the U.S. Information Agency and move its public diplomacy functions to the State Department. This amounted to unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas. I will work with Congress to create a new independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America’s message to the world — a critical element in combating Islamic extremism and restoring the positive image of our country abroad.

UNITING THE WORLD’S DEMOCRACIES

Our organizations and partnerships must be as international as the challenges we confront. Today, U.S. soldiers are serving in Afghanistan with British, Canadian, Dutch, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Spanish, and Turkish soldiers from the NATO alliance. They are also serving alongside forces from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea — all democratic allies or close partners of the United States. But these troops are not all part of a common structure. They do not work together systematically or meet regularly to develop diplomatic and economic strategies to meet the common challenges they face. NATO has begun to fill this gap by promoting partnerships between the alliance and great democracies in Asia and elsewhere. We should go further by linking democratic nations in one common organization: a worldwide League of Democracies. This would be unlike Woodrow Wilson’s doomed plan for the universal-membership League of Nations. Instead, it would be similar to what Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-minded nations working together for peace and liberty. The organization could act when the UN fails — to relieve human suffering in places such as Darfur, combat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, fashion better policies to confront environmental crises, provide unimpeded market access to those who endorse economic and political freedom, and take other measures unattainable by existing regional or universal-membership systems. This League of Democracies would not supplant the UN or other international organizations but complement them by harnessing the political and moral advantages offered by united democratic action. By taking steps such as bringing concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma (renamed Myanmar by its military government in 1989) or Zimbabwe, uniting to impose sanctions on Iran, and providing support to struggling democracies in Serbia and Ukraine, the League of Democracies would serve as a unique handmaiden of freedom. If I am elected president, during my first year in office I will call a summit of the world’s democracies to seek the views of my counterparts and explore the steps necessary to realize this vision — just as America led in creating NATO six decades ago.

REVITALIZING THE TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP

The United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War; the transatlantic alliance did, in concert with partners around the world. The bonds we share with Europe in terms of history, values, and interests are unique. Unfortunately, they have frayed. As president, one of my top foreign policy priorities will be to revitalize the transatlantic partnership. Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union. The future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, and institutionalizing our cooperation on issues such as climate change, foreign assistance, and democracy promotion. A decade and a half ago, the Russian people threw off the tyranny of communism and seemed determined to build a democracy and a free market and to join the West. Today, we see in Russia diminishing political freedoms, a leadership dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers, efforts to bully democratic neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. We need a new Western approach to this revanchist Russia. We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia. Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyberattacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organization’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom. We must also increase our programs supporting freedom and the rule of law in Russia and emphasize that genuine partnership remains open to Moscow if it desires it but that such a partnership would involve a commitment to being a responsible actor, internationally and domestically. More broadly, America needs to revive the democratic solidarity that united the West during the Cold War. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves. We must be willing to listen to our democratic allies. Being a great power does not mean that we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume that we have all the wisdom, knowledge, and resources necessary to succeed. When we believe international action — whether military, economic, or diplomatic — is necessary, we must work to persuade our friends and allies that we are right. And we must also be willing to be persuaded by them. To be a good leader, America must be a good ally.

SHAPING THE ASIA-PACIFIC CENTURY

Power in the world today is moving east; the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise. If we grasp the opportunities present in the unfolding world, this century can become safe and both American and Asian, both prosperous and free. Asia has made enormous strides in recent decades. Its economic achievements are well known; less known is that more people live under democratic rule in Asia than in any other region of the world. Japan’s former prime minister spoke of an “arc of freedom and prosperity” stretching across Asia. India’s prime minister has called liberal democracy “the natural order of social and political organization in today’s world.” Asian countries are drawing closer together, striking trade and security agreements with one another and with other states. North Korea’s totalitarian regime and impoverished society buck these trends. It is unclear today whether North Korea is truly committed to verifiable denuclearization and a full accounting of all its nuclear materials and facilities, two steps that are necessary before any lasting diplomatic agreement can be reached. Future talks must take into account North Korea’s ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation. The key to meeting this and other challenges in a changing Asia is increasing cooperation with our allies. The linchpin to the region’s promise is continued American engagement. I welcome Japan’s international leadership and emergence as a global power, encourage its admirable “values-based diplomacy,” and support its bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council. As president, I will tend carefully to our ever-stronger alliance with Australia, whose troops are fighting shoulder to shoulder with ours in Afghanistan and Iraq. I will seek to rebuild our frayed partnership with South Korea by emphasizing economic and security cooperation and will cement our growing partnership with India. In Southeast Asia, I will seek an elevated partnership with Indonesia and continue to expand defense cooperation with Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam while working with willing regional partners to promote democracy; defeat the threats of terrorism, crime, and the narcotics trade; and end Burma’s deplorable human rights abuses. The United States should participate more actively in Asian regional organizations, including those led by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As president, I will seek to institutionalize the new quadrilateral security partnership among the major Asia-Pacific democracies: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American president. Recent prosperity in China has brought more people out of poverty faster than during any other time in human history. China’s newfound power implies responsibilities. It raises legitimate expectations that internationally China will behave as a responsible economic partner by developing a transparent code of conduct for its corporations, assuring the safety of its exports, adopting a market approach to currency valuation, pursuing sustainable environmental policies, and abandoning its go-it-alone approach to world energy supplies. China could also bolster its claim that it is “peacefully rising” by being more transparent about its significant military buildup. When China builds new submarines, adds hundreds of new jet fighters, modernizes its arsenal of strategic ballistic missiles, and tests antisatellite weapons, the United States legitimately must question the intent of such provocative acts. When China threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note. When China enjoys close economic and diplomatic relations with pariah states such as Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, tension will result. When China proposes regional forums and economic arrangements designed to exclude America from Asia, the United States will react. China and the United States are not destined to be adversaries. We have numerous overlapping interests. U.S.-Chinese relations can benefit both countries and, in turn, the Asia-Pacific region and the world. But until China moves toward political liberalization, our relationship will be based on periodically shared interests rather than the bedrock of shared values. The United States should set the standard for trade liberalization in Asia. Completing free-trade agreements with Malaysia and Thailand, realizing the full potential of our new trade agreement with South Korea, and institutionalizing economic partnerships with India and Indonesia so that they build on existing agreements with Australia and Singapore should set the stage for an ambitious Pacific-wide effort to liberalize trade. Such trade liberalization would benefit Americans and Asians alike.

BUILDING A HEMISPHERE OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY

John F. Kennedy described the people of Latin America as our “firm and ancient friends, united by history and experience and by our determination to advance the values of American civilization.” The countries of Latin America are our natural partners, but U.S. inattention has harmed our relationships. We must enhance U.S. relations with Mexico to control illegal immigration and defeat drug cartels, and with Brazil, a partner whose leadership in the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti is a model for fostering regional security. My administration would give these and other great democratic Latin American nations a strong voice in the League of Democracies — a voice they are denied in the UN Security Council. We must also work together to counter the propaganda of demagogues who threaten the security and prosperity of the Americas. Hugo Chávez has overseen the dismantling of Venezuela’s democracy by undermining the parliament, the judiciary, the media, free labor unions, and private enterprises. His regime is acquiring advanced military equipment. And it is trying to build a global anti-American axis. My administration will work to marginalize such nefarious influences. It will also prepare immediately for Cuba’s transition to democracy by developing a plan with regional and European partners for a post-Castro Cuba so as to be ready to spark rapid change in that long-suffering country when the time comes. We must build on the passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement by ratifying pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Peru and move the process of completing a Free Trade Area of the Americas forward.

AIDING AN AFRICAN RENAISSANCE

Africa’s problems — poverty, corruption, disease, and instability — are well known. Less discussed is the promise offered by many countries on that continent. My administration will seek to engage on a political, economic, and security level with friendly governments across Africa. Many African nations will not reach their true potential without external assistance to combat the entrenched problems, such as HIV/AIDS, that afflict Africans disproportionately. I will establish the goal of eradicating malaria — the number one killer of African children under the age of five — on the continent. In addition to saving millions of lives in the world’s poorest regions, such a campaign would do much to add luster to America’s image in the world. These and other efforts, including enhancing trade and investment, would assist Africans in sparking a renaissance that would enable the continent’s people to achieve their potential. Africa continues to offer the most compelling case for humanitarian intervention. With respect to the Darfur region of Sudan, I fear that the United States is once again repeating the mistakes it made in Bosnia and Rwanda. In Bosnia, we acted late but eventually saved countless lives. In Rwanda, we stood by and watched the slaughter and later pledged that we would not do so again. The genocide in Darfur demands U.S. leadership. My administration will consider the use of all elements of American power to stop the outrageous acts of human destruction that have unfolded there.

PREVENTING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear reason: the mistaken assumption behind the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear technology can spread without nuclear weapons eventually following. The next U.S. president must convene a summit of the world’s leading powers — none of which have an interest in seeing a world full of nuclear-armed states — with three agenda items. First, the notion that non-nuclear-weapons states have a right to nuclear technology must be revisited. Second, the burden of proof for suspected violators of the NPT must be reversed. Instead of requiring the International Atomic Energy Agency board to reach unanimous agreement in order to act, as is the case today, there should be an automatic suspension of nuclear assistance to states that the agency cannot guarantee are in full compliance with safeguard agreements. Finally, the IAEA’s annual budget of $130 million must be substantially increased so that the agency can meet its monitoring and safeguarding tasks.

SECURING ENERGY AND SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT

America’s dependence on foreign oil constitutes a critical strategic vulnerability. America accounts for 25 percent of global demand for oil but possesses less than three percent of the world’s proven reserves. Most of the world’s known reserves are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators or nationalized oil companies. Terrorists understand our vulnerability: had it succeeded, the attempted suicide attack on a Saudi refinery in February 2006 would have driven the world price of oil above $150 per barrel. The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East through continued oil purchases helps sustain the conditions under which extremism breeds, and the burning of oil and other fossil fuels spurs global warming, a gathering danger to our planet. My national energy strategy will amount to a declaration of independence from our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to their troubled politics. This strategy will include employing technology to achieve new efficiencies in energy extraction and consumption, enforcing conservation, creating market incentives to encourage the development of alternative sources of energy and hybrid vehicles, and expanding sources of renewable energy. I will also greatly increase the use of nuclear power, a zero-emission energy source. Given the proper incentives, our innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs, and workers have the capability to lead the world in achieving energy security; given the stakes, they must. I have proposed a bipartisan plan in the U.S. Senate to address the problem of climate change and ensure a sustainable future for humankind. My market-based approach will set reasonable caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, provide industries with tradable emissions credits, and create other incentives for the deployment of new and better energy sources and technologies. It is time for America to lead the world in protecting the environment for future generations.

PREPARING TO LEAD

As president, I will make America’s economic leadership in the globalized world of the twenty-first century a centerpiece of its engagement in foreign affairs. Today, from Singapore to South Africa, more people than ever before have embraced our liberal capitalist model of economic freedom and our culture of opportunity. Some Americans see globalization and the rise of economic giants such as China and India as a threat. We should reform our job training and education programs to more effectively help displaced American workers find new jobs that take advantage of trade and innovation. But we should continue to promote free trade, as it is vital to American prosperity. Americans will thrive in a world of economic freedom because our products and services remain the best and because our country draws strength from the forces shaping the new global economy, ranging from inflows of foreign investment to new businesses created by highly skilled immigrants. Americans can be confident that a world of economic and political freedom will sustain our global leadership by promoting our values and enhancing our prosperity. To unite us with friends and allies in a common prosperity, as president I will aggressively promote global trade liberalization at the World Trade Organization and expand America’s free-trade agreements to friendly nations on every continent. American leadership has helped build a world that is more secure, more prosperous, and freer than ever before. Our unique form of leadership — the antithesis of empire — gives us moral credibility, which is more powerful than any show of arms. We are rich in people and resources but richer still in ideals and vision — and the means to realize them. Yet today much of the world has come to challenge our actions and doubt our intentions. Polls indicate that the United States is more unpopular now than at any time in history and increasingly viewed as pursuing its narrow self-interest. The people who hold these views are wrong. We are a special nation, the closest thing to a “shining city on a hill” ever to have existed. But it is incumbent on us to restore our mantle as a global leader, reestablish our moral credibility, and rebuild those damaged relationships that once brought so much good to so many places. As president, I will seek the widest possible circle of allies through the League of Democracies, NATO, the UN, and the Organization of American States. During President Ronald Reagan’s deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and President George H. W. Bush’s Gulf War, the United States was joined by vast coalitions despite considerable opposition to American policies among foreign publics. These alliances came about because America had carefully cultivated relationships and shared values with its friends abroad. Working multilaterally can be a frustrating experience, but approaching problems with allies works far better than facing problems alone. Almost two centuries ago, James Madison declared that “the great struggle of the Epoch” was “between liberty and despotism.” Many thought that this struggle ended with the Cold War, but it did not. It has taken on new guises, such as Islamist terrorists using our technological advances for their murderous designs and resurgent autocrats reminiscent of the nineteenth century. International terrorists capable of inflicting mass destruction are a new phenomenon. But what they seek and what they stand for are as old as time. They are part of a worldwide political, economic, and philosophical struggle between the future and the past, progress and reaction, liberty and despotism. Our security, our prosperity, and our democratic way of life depend on the outcome of that struggle. Thomas Jefferson argued that America was the “solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.” Since that time two centuries ago when the United States was the “solitary republic of the world,” more people than ever before have come under the “benign influence” of liberty. The protection and promotion of the democratic ideal, at home and abroad, will be the surest source of security and peace for the century that lies before us. The next U.S. president must be ready to lead, ready to show America and the world that this country’s best days are yet to come, and ready to establish an enduring peace based on freedom that can safeguard American security for the rest of the twenty-first century. I am ready.

Read this document on Scribd: An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom

What really gets me is that some of you, won’t name any names, (on a car trip to Florida), spoke about how Bush was going to do this, and bush was going to do that, and how the economy was going to be better….and what happened? Well we started out with a surplus and eight years later were going to end up with the biggest deficit in history, and McCain supported Bush 95% of the time. Our economy has tanked, our Gas Prices have skyrocketed and everything from the cost of food to diapers has gotten insanely expensive. I won’t mention how many Americans lost their jobs, or tax breaks to companies that ship American Jobs overseas. Maybe those of you that are well off can afford the “basic necessities”, or have a “nest egg” to carry you over until the economy gets better, but many Americans, including myself, cannot.

We went to war in IRAQ on a LIE, remember WMDs, 4,146 soldiers are dead 30,182 wounded for a LIE .How did you all get duped into agreeing to spend 12 Billion a month in Iraq for a war, that shouldn’t even be? So far we spent $368 billion on military operations, $45 billion more in veterans care, diplomatic services, training
with that type of money we could of rebuilt the nation’s Infrastructure, invested in alternative energy and established Universal Healthcare.

Come on, be honest, when “W” moved his attention from looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan to invading Iraq, you weren’t scratching you head thinking “why in the hell are we doing that?” Intelligent and hardworking Americans such as yourselves?, didn’t have any doubt about that decision? OK, ok, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

What about when the excuse for invading Iraq was proven to be a LIE, WMDs? How about then? Were you outraged? No… no, you just voted him back into office for another four years, with the excuse, “We want him to finish what he started.” What!? Come on, wake up! If that was any other American, he would be in prison.

John McCain has been in Washington for a long time, twenty something years and nothing’s has changed. He is out of touch with reality. He doesn’t even understand economics and even admits it himself, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” McCain said on December 17 in New Hampshire, http://lburl.com/idd0k

I’m astounded, How can smart, Intelligent, hardworking people want McCain for president? Don’t get me wrong, I like John McCain, even after all the crappy things he has done, even after all his flip-flopping, I like him, just not as my Next President!

I am 36, and this will be my first election that I will vote in: presidential or otherwise. It’s Time for a change in Washington, it’s time for a president for the people, from the people, someone who has seen the same hardships that we have, made the same kind of sacrifices we made, and works hard for success, think about that when you cast your ballot in November….Obama/Biden 2008.

In Forbes magazine April 23rd article, “Building the Infinite Internet” speaks about how Akamai Inc. not only survived the dot-com disaster and the murder of their founder but how they came back through effective planning and made a daring comeback and reinvented how digital data is transmitted over the internet.

Akamai only survived its loss of dot-com busted customers and the murder of their founder by effectively planning their future. They scaled back to almost nothing, endured loses and waited for the need of internet bandwidth to be in demand. This took Planning and foresight to see that in the future that they could fulfill this need to their customers. Akamai could of easily been a casualty of dot-com bust, they not only survived through effective planning, they waited for a need to develop and sprung into action to fulfill the need.

Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple, demonstrated the type of Innovative thinking that has made his company successful when he unveiled the new IPhone at Macworld 2007 in San Francisco, California. The iPhone brings together three products: 1) a mobile phone, 2) a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and 3) an Internet communications device with email, web browsing, maps, and searching into one small handheld device. The iPhone introduces a new user interface based on the large multi-touch display letting the user control everything with just a touch. The Iphone ushers in a new age of powerful mobile software never seen before in a handheld device thus clearly demonstrating Apples creativity, ingenuity and forward thinking.

Apple strategic and analytical thinking became evident when they announced the Iphone and snatched the media’s attention from the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2007) held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Iphone was the topic of every conversation long after CES 2007 ended. Apple also announced their name to Apple Inc. Thus redefining their direction and focus and strategically positioning themselves in markets previously not available to them.

Apple continues to turn heads with its innovative products and services. They analytically thought out when, where, and how to release their products and services and strategically position themselves to do so. Apple leads the industry in innovation with its desktop and notebook Mac computers, OS X operating system, and ground-breaking applications and services. They are a company to look to for new ideas and new approaches. Apple is a company that is able to think analytically, strategically, and creatively to produce the best products and services for consumers, which is why they are so successful.

Works Cited

McMillan, Robert. “Apple Shines, Intel Stinks on Earnings.” Infoworld (2007):6

Supporters of drug prohibition say that its benefits are indisputable and obvious. Their most important belief is that without prohibition, drug use would drastically rise. In William Bennett’s, “Should Drugs Be Legalized?” Bennett uses pathetic excuses to refute pro-legalizer’s arguments that the legalization of illicit drugs will 1) take the profit out of its sales and 2) dramatically reduce crime. I disagree with the points Bennett makes on these arguments and will provide the reader with valid arguments to explain why his views are weak.

Legalization will take the profit out of drugs and generate revenue, which will then be used to educate the public on the effects of drugs and treat those who are addicted. Bennett argues, “Legalizers would have to tax drugs heavily in order to pay for drug education and treatment programs” (Bennett 28). Wait a minute; does not the American taxpayer already pay for drug education and treatment? Yes they do! Taxpayers at this time also pay for the cost of the war on drugs, which is close to ten billion dollars a year, its laws, police officers who enforce the laws, judges who uphold the law, prisons to house those who break the law, prison guards to guard them, and treatment programs and facilities to treat them. Bennett states, “In reality, this tax would only allow the government to share the drug profits now garnered by criminals” (Bennett 28). How would this be wrong? Bennett puts a negative spin on exactly what needs to be done.

Legalization will dramatically reduce crime. The moment that drugs are legalized and available at low or no cost, the demand for drugs will decrease dramatically. Drug dealers will cease to exist and addicts will no longer need to rob, steal, or murder to get their next fix; they will go to a clinic and get it for nothing. Bennett attempts to deceive the reader by passing his opinions as researched and valid. “But researchers tell us that many drug-related felonies are committed by people involved in crime before they started taking drugs.” (Bennett 29). Bennett’s statements are invalid; it is clear that he is trying to find any reason to keep from losing his foothold on this debate.

If you look at Prohibition from 1920s and 30s, you will see that the murder rate increased with the start of Prohibition, and remained there until it ended in 1933, then the murder rate dropped for eleven consecutive years. Crime involving firearms increased during Prohibition and went down for ten consecutive years afterward (Ostrowski 1989). The fact is in the last ten or so years, drug use has not dropped even with increased federal spending on the drug war (Ostrowski 1989). Moreover, in spite of all the seizures, drugs are still available to children in elementary school. Drug laws greatly increase the price of illegal drugs, forcing users to steal, kill, and rob to get the money to buy them. It is estimated that at least forty percent of all property crime in the United States is committed by drug users so that they can maintain their addictions (Ostrowski 1989).

The argument that Bennett makes about increase drug use is irrelevant. Legalization will reduce crime, take the profit out of drugs, and reduce the “forbidden fruit” aspect of prohibition, which will decrease use of or experimentation with drugs among the nation’s youth. Legalization will provide our government with an accurate picture of influences that drugs have on the United States and give control to the people to overcome its social, economical, and negative effects. The truth is, if someone really wanted to use drugs, why would they wait until it was legal to do so? People are going to use drugs regardless if it is illegal or not. Money is going to be spent on drug education and treatment either way. Legalize drugs and drug-related crimes will diminish, the prison population will shrink, and the inner cities will become safer to live. Should drugs be legalized? My answer is yes it should.

Works Cited

Bennett, William. “Should Drugs be Legalized?” The Mercury Reader. Ed Janice Neulieb, et al. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2005. 26-31

Cooper, Mary H. “War on Drugs.” CQ Researcher 3.11 (1993). CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 18 Sept. 2006 http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1993031900

Ostrowski, James. “Thinking About Drug Legalization.” Cat Policy Analysis No. 121 (1989): 18 Sept. 2006 http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa121.html

The fight for civil rights in America began when the first African, bound by the shackles of slavery, stepped onto American soil. The wicked mixture of ignorance and hatred gave birth to discrimination, strengthened throughout the 246 years of slavery, and continued to fester further even after the signing of The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution. In the 1950s and 60s, The American Civil Rights Movement fought segregation, racial violence, and voter suppression, known as “Jim Crow Law”, through civil disobedience: direct action with nonviolent resistance. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a turning point in American history; it outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment. However, after all the victories The Civil Rights Movement has won for all Americans, racial discrimination is still prevalent in American society today. In this essay, I will discuss discrimination in our justice system and provide facts to prove the disparity between white and black justice in America.

In Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King exposes the reader to the injustices and discrimination that black Americans suffered as a result of racism and segregation. King wrote this letter in response to eight Alabama clergymen who jointly issued a public statement asking civil rights activists to stop demonstrating and wait for the courts to decide the issue. King responded is his letter,

I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say wait. But when you have vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity;…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. (101)

King conveys to the reader with strong emotion the importance and the reasons why civil rights could no longer wait. However, after all the adversity that Black Americans have endured in the fight for civil rights, they are still waiting for equality in the American justice system.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program releases a report annually called Crime in the United States. This report provides a statistical compilation of offense and arrest data provided by law enforcement agencies nationwide. The UCR Program collects information on violent crimes and property crimes, and gathers arrest data for twenty-nine offenses-charges. The 2005 edition of Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States revealed that out of the 10.2 million arrests made, 69.8 percent of the arrestees were white and 27.8 percent were black (”Table 43: Arrest by race, 2005″). Out of the twenty-nine “offense-charged” categories compiled in this report, white arrestees notably dominated Twenty-seven categories. Sixty-one percent of all adults arrested for violent crimes in 2005 were white, and 69.4 percent of adults arrested for property crimes in 2005 were white (”Table 43: Arrest by race, 2005″). After examination of the facts represented, one might conclude that there would be more whites in prison than any other race. However, one would be wrong.

The U.S .Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics website indicates that blacks are almost three times more likely than Hispanics and five times more likely than whites to be in jail (”Bureau of Justice Statistics Jail Statistics”). In a report compiled by Paige Harrison and Dr. Allen Beck, entitled Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 reveals that “the largest differences in incarceration rates between whites and blacks were in Iowa (14 times higher for blacks) and Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont (more than 12 times higher for blacks)” (10). Is this because of racial discrimination or economic inequalities?

The information compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and presented in “Table 43a”, of the Uniform Crime Report: Crime in the United States revealed that over a ten-year period, from 1995 to 2005, whites made up 68.9 percent of the total arrest (see Chart 1, Table 1) and blacks made up 27.8 percent of the total arrest. As of June 30, 2004 there were 2,131,200 prisoners held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails from midyear 2003 (Paige. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. “Table 13.” 11). Out of this total number of prisoners, 42.7 percent are black, 18.5 percent are Hispanic, and 36.5 percent are white (Paige. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. “Table 13.” 11). Why are there less whites incarcerated than blacks? The numbers just do not add up. Let us review, 68.9 percent whites arrested over a ten-year period, equals more blacks in prison! Something stinks here.

At the end of 2004, “there were 3,218 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 463 white male inmates per 100,000 white males” (U.S. Dept. of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. “Prison Statistics”). An estimated 12% of black males, 3.7% of Hispanic males, and 1.7% of white males in their late twenties were in prison or jail sometime in their lives (Harrison, “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005″ 1). Is this evidence of racial bias in the American justice system or a sign that Justice has a price tag?

After all the hardships that Black Americans have experienced fighting for their civil liberties, they are still waiting for equality in the justice system. If we took economic inequalities out of the equation, would the ratio of blacks to whites in prison be different? In my opinion it would not be. Whites will still represent the majority of arrestees and blacks would still represent the majority of those incarcerated. Black Americans will continue to wait for justice they rightly deserve and are constitutionally promised.

Works Cited

Harrison, Paige M. and Allen J. Beck, Ph.D. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005. Washington, D.C.: GPO, May 2006. 12 November 2006 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim05.pdf

—. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. Washington, D.C.: GPO, April 2006. 12 November 2006 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pjim05.pdf

King, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The Mercury Reader. Ed. Janice Neulieb, et al. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2005. 95-114

United States. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Jail Statistics.” 6 September 2006. 12 November 2006 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/jails.htm

—. “Prison Statistics.” 11 October 2006. 12 November 2006 http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm

United States. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2005.” Crime in the United States 2005: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2006. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_43.htm l

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2004.” Crime in the United States 2004: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2005. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/documents/CIUS_2004_Section4adj.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2003.” Crime in the United States 2003: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2004. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_03/pdf/toc03.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2002.” Crime in the United States 2002: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2003. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_02/pdf/02crime.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2001.” Crime in the United States 2001: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2002. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_01/01crime.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2000.” Crime in the United States 2000: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2001. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_00/contents.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1999.” Crime in the United States 1999: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2000. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_99/99crime/99cius.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1998.” Crime in the United States 1998: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1999. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_98/98crime/98cius01.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1997.” Crime in the United States 1997: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1998. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/97crime/97crime.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1996.” Crime in the United States 1996: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1997. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/96CRIME/96crime.pdf

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1995.” Crime in the United States 1996: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1996. 12 November 2006. http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/Cius_97/95CRIME/95crime.pdf

This is my daughter Anna, she is my life’s “Why statement” the reason Why I exist, the reason why I strive to be a better person, a better father, a better provider. She is the reason why I overcome adversity and accomplish the things that I never thought I could, She is the reason Why I breath. She makes me want to be a better human being. She is my real life Angel.

I have a few happy memories that I think about every now and then from my early years in Florida. Back then, it was just the three of us: my mother, my sister, and I. I had to be four and my sister five. We were happy, hopeful, and content as we drove along in Mom’s metallic brown Corolla. It had to be the end of fall or the beginning of winter, because I remember the trees that lined the road had lost their leaves and their dull grey branches revealed the blue cloudless sky from my position on the floor behind the front passenger seat.

The grumble of the engine filled the car as it spewed warm air into the cabin. My sister sat on the floor behind my mother and peered out the window. We pretended that we were truckers and the seat-belt buckles were walkie-talkies chitchatting about whatever we saw. a game we played whenever we took a long trip somewhere.

A tree flashed by my window and I quickly describe to my sister what I seen: “Breaker one-zero, the trees are nakeded,” an eruption of laughter from the front seat caught my full attention. I turned and looked at my mother like a curious puppy, “What’s so funny Momma?” I asked, after a few minutes her laughter settled to a snort and a giggle, and then she began to teach me how to pronounce the word Naked. It was a happy and funny little scene: my mother pronouncing the word and I mispronouncing it and each time my mother giggling and laughing. I asked my mother if she remembers, traces of it still lingers in her mind, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I can still hear the way I pronounced the word and her laughter that followed.

]]> http://www.joesjournal.net/2008/08/a-childhood-memory/feed/ http://www.joesjournal.net/2008/08/what-happened-to-k-mart-a-letter-to-customer-service/ http://www.joesjournal.net/2008/08/what-happened-to-k-mart-a-letter-to-customer-service/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:52:01 +0000 josepheulo http://www.joesjournal.net/2008/08/what-happened-to-k-mart-a-letter-to-customer-service/ By Joseph Eulo

I would like to share my experiences that my family and I received at your Somers Point, NJ K-mart (store #9463). My family and I frequent your Somers Point store, and become aware of the poor Customer Service and lack of knowledgeable employees. Especially, on the days we decided to purchase merchandise.

On April 14 of this year, after looking at your Sunday advertisement, my father and I visited your store to purchase a boys bike (receipt# 09463 041408 005 75442). No one was available in the sporting goods department to lend us a hand and we had to walk to the customer service desk and ask for assistance on three separate occasions. Forty minutes later help arrived, but he was not very knowledgeable. We asked him about the cost of the bike, the quality of assembly, and the return policy. He referred us to customer service to get our answers and they told us to talk to someone in sporting goods. We went back and forth between customer service and sporting goods. It took three frustrating hours to purchase a $79.99 bike that, as we found out later, was poorly assembled. Two weeks later, as my nephew was trying to stop the bike, the rear brakes broke. A week later, and after a couple of scrapped knees, the front brakes went. The bike was too unsafe to ride. If buying the bike was a hassle, exchanging the bike would be worse. Therefore, we decided to take the bike to the local bike shop rather than go through the customer service hell at K-mart. It cost us $30 to get the brakes fixed, nearly half of what the bike originally cost.

Even after that awful experience on May 11 my mother and I returned to K-mart to purchase a bike for my five-year-old niece. We were looking at 16″ girl bikes with training wheels. Again, there was no one available in the sporting goods department, and I had to walk to the customer service desk and ask for help twice. The bike we were looking at, (item# 02891401954 $79.99, receipt# 09463 051108 026 68437) required assembly and had no price tag. Fifteen minutes later an employee, John, showed up in a red, dirty un-tucked K-mart shirt. He did not have a clue and behaved as if we were bothering him; he impatiently took out his cell phone to text someone and instructed us to take the bike to customer service for a price check. While waiting for him to get off his cell phone, I impatiently carried the boxed bike to the broken price scanner in the sporting goods department. After slapping the scanner, like an old television set, it began to buzz and beep and few seconds later displayed the price of the bike. Again, I asked about the cost of assembly and the bored employee called someone to find the answer. He told us the assembly would be free and Randy, K-marts bike assembler, would be in on Tuesday to put it together. Frustrated, I carried the bike to customer service and spoke to Nicole: the cashier. I told her that we wanted the bike assembled and began to haggle about the promised free assembly. We bought the bike and left it to be assembled.

I called Kmart on Wednesday to find out if the bike was ready and was told that the assembler would not be in until Thursday and to call back to speak to him then. I called on Thursday but there was no answer. I decided to visit K-mart to find out if the bike was ready: it was not. Randy, the bike assembler, did not show-up that day and would be in on the next day (Friday) I was told that the bike would be ready on Saturday. I returned on Saturday, May 17, to pick up the bike, and spent two hours trying to get someone to check to see if the bike was ready. After all that frustration, the bike was poorly put together. The seat and the handlebars were off center and after just a few hours of use, the training wheels became bent. To get the training wheels replaced would cost $18 + labor to fix at the bike shop.

Does K-mart want our business? What happened? K-mart used to be a fun and convenient place to shop. It was more pleasant and took less time at the DMV then it takes to buy merchandise from your store. I attempted to have the cost of repair of my nephews bike reimbursed to me, but was told that I should have tried to have K-mart fix the problem. Do you blame me for not wanting to spend hours of be ignored at your store? Know I have a 5 yr old sad that she cannot ride her bike, she does not understand that her bike is unsafe for her to ride. My family and I agree not to shop at K-mart again. Do you blame us? The sad part is that you (KMART) will not do anything to rectify the situation. You will not respond to my complaint, and not even attempt to win me back.

Sincerely a disappointed ex-customer of K-mart.

Response from K-mart

Dear Mr. Eulo,

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding your experience with one of our stores. We are always interested in hearing from our customers, but regret it was this type of situation that prompted you to contact us. Please accept our apology for any inconvenience you may have encountered due to the customer service experiences you encountered at our Somers Point store.

We have forwarded your message to the Store Coach. They will contact you within two (2) business days.

Once again, thank you for contacting us.

Dennis H.

Kmart.com Customer Care

1-866-562-7848

College has changed my life; in the short year that I have attended Union County College (UCC), I have become “anew” three times. The first time in developmental English with Professor Maxwell, she taught me how to write and express my thoughts, opinions, and ideas on paper, she has helped me develop my voice and has encouraged and motivated me along the way. The second time was in Psychology 101 with Professor Tharney; He challenged me intellectually and exposed me to my own self-deception, errors in thinking, and my overused defense mechanisms. I became anew a third time during the spring 2007 semester in Dr. Russell English Honors class. He supported and provided me with the tools I needed to explore my potential as a writer, artist, and poet. His insight guided me during my journey through my past and helped me emerge as man who has made peace with it. His words of wisdom were important in helping me build up the courage to throw away years of the collected mental baggage that I picked up along the way. In his class, I was able to discover my potential and develop my identity.

I have experience tremendous success within my first year at UCC. I have learned a great deal about the people I attend class with and the many different cultures that are present here. I am grateful for the opportunity to give back to my fellow students as a computer tutor in the Academic Learning Center. I have come to know and respect those I help, and honored to be able to assist in their understanding of technology. I try to lead others by example, and show them that if I can do it, so can they. I was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), Honors Society in April 2007. I am grateful for the chance to be in the UCC honors program. I never thought that I could accomplish so much in so little time and that I had the potential that I discovered here at UCC.

As a high school dropout, I never imagined that I would start a second year of college: As a member of an Honors Society; an honoree on the National Deans List; speaking a new language; As an officer in student government; and a member of a student advisory board. I never imagined that I would be building relationships with professors, staff, and students that would last a lifetime. A scholarship will help me reach my potential. It will give me an opportunity to grow intellectually, emotionally, and academically. I look forward to another year of college, another year of personal growth and maturity. I look forward in learning how I can become the father, son, brother, man that I was meant to be.

In the search for my childhood, I selfishly missed my daughters. Her first steps, her first words, her first day of school all of the events of a child that a father should never miss. I was too selfish chasing after my lost childhood. I could not hold on to the memory of it, the very moment I had a firm grip around it, my mental anguish would pry my fingers loose one by one until I slipped back into the abyss. Only the lingering feelings of isolation and loneliness were left and haunted me throughout my teens and my adulthood.

The ghost inside me chased me as I chased after my identity. Searching for my father, I denied my daughter hers. A Fatherless father with no clue how to be one; it took until my thirties to realize my errors in thinking, it was time for me to grow up. It is a full out war going on in my subconscious: little Joe acting out when he doesn’t get the attention he needs and big Joe losing control. It is time to stop being so selfish, and start being the father that my daughter deserves, the father that I was meant to be.

I can relate to two of the main characters in Toni Morrison’s book, Jazz: Joe Trace , Violet Trace, and Golden Gray. I shared the same kind of feelings these characters experienced in Morrison’s book. I understand the “nothingness” that haunts Joe and his search for unconditional love, the acceptance and attention that Golden desperately seeks from his father and the journey they both take in search of their identities, Violet’s decision to stop living a lie and develop her own identity. In this paper I will write about how I relate to these characters and how, like them, lived life through what Jazz symbolizes; love and desire, anger and blues, and ultimately forgiveness.

In Morrison’s Jazz, Golden Gray becomes confused about his identity when True Belle reveals his father to him. He comes to realize that he has been living a false identity since his birth and tracks down his true identity. His desire for his father’s acceptance and sense of legitimacy troubles him. The narrator of the story begins to realize that he has misjudged Golden Gray and makes this known to the reader:

What was I thinking of? How could I have imagined him so poorly? Not noticed the hurt that was not linked to the color of his skin, or the blood underneath it. But to some other thing that longed for authenticity, for a right to be in this place [as a Son], effortlessly without needing to acquire a false face, a laugh less grin, a talking posture. (160)

The narrator becomes aware of Golden Gray’s desire for acknowledgment from his father, and his need to identify with him without feeling like an outsider. Furthermore, the narrator reveals that Golden Gray’s anger toward his father has more to do with the fact that he grew up without him and less to do with the color of his skin. Golden Gray’s heartache is exposed when he arrives at his father’s home, “Only now, he thought, now that I have a father, do I feel his absence: the place where he should have been and was not” (Morrison 158). Golden looks into his past and becomes aware of his father’s unclaimed place in his life and his loneliness. Golden’s knowledge of himself is shattered, and he begins to piece together his identity through his father.

Golden and I share the same emotional frustrations in the relationships we have with our fathers: the anger at feeling rejected, the overpowering sadness of feeling unwanted, and the confusion of ourselves. Like Golden, for most of my childhood I grew up without a father and a true sense of who I was. I disliked being alone and hated to be rejected. I wanted the attention of a son. I wanted a father; and I needed the same attention the other kids received and when I did not get it, I acted out. At six, I despised school, mainly because I was the forgotten kid in the class, a ghost at a desk. No one, not even the teacher spoke to me. The loneliness I felt was overwhelming. one-day, I became so frustrated I threw a chair at the teacher just to let her know that I was real. As you would expect, I got her attention and a seven-day suspension that I cleverly hid from Momma. Yet, most of the time no one cared if I was there or not and for that reason, when my seven-day suspension was over, I chose not to go back.

My classroom became the streets of Ocean City, New Jersey where I was the center of attention. Ocean City a narrow seven-and-a-half-mile-long barrier island with a long sandy beachfront on the east and marshlands facing the bay on the west was my world and I knew every inch of it. I knew where the cracks in the sidewalks were, where each grain of sand was placed, the names of every street, which planks on the boardwalk were loose or needed a nail, I knew the names of the boarding houses, restaurants, and churches. I knew which beaches were best for flying kites, where the seagulls kept their nests, and which bridges were best for fishing. I knew Ocean City like the back of my hand; and the island was my best friend. Only four bridges connected the island to the rest of the world, two to the mainland and two to the other barrier islands one to the north and one to the south. In 1879, four Methodist ministers chose the island as a Christian retreat and dubbed it “Ocean City.” From the city’s humble beginnings, it was intended to be a family retreat. Ocean City’s Blue Laws were passed and effectively banned the sale of alcohol on the island and prevented business from opening on the Sabbath.

Ocean City had more churches than any other business on the island and on Sundays, the churches filled to capacity. I remember the first time that I attended church; a young family that I met on the beach invited me; they were very pleased to have “saved” me. I did not understand what it meant “to be saved” but I soon found out. At the end of the service when the preacher asked if anyone had been saved, I stood up and declared that I was. At that moment, the entire church erupted in roars of “Praise the Lords” and waves of “Hallelujahs.” The preacher came over, shook my hand and welcomed me. The parishioners overwhelmed me with so much praise and attention, that tears streamed down my olive skinned face, I savored the moment and the attention. After that, I was saved at every church in town.

The two-and-a-half-mile-long boardwalk provided me with all the rides, amusements, and video games a kid could want and if the streets were my classroom, then the boardwalk was my playground. I loved the boardwalk; it became a place for me to meet new people, make friends, and entertain. It was a place where I was real and felt alive, a place where I was more than just a ghost behind a desk.

I was an outgoing little kid back then and I made friends easily. I would go anywhere, and do anything for attention, and every once in awhile I would even make a buck or two. My Momma worked as a nurse at an old folks’ home across the bay changing bedpans and linen. She worked hard to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, and at times was not able to do both. Momma, exhausted from six twelve-hour shifts, slept when she was not working. The only time that I saw her was when she came into my room early in the morning to give me a kiss on my cheek and remind me to stay out of trouble. I was always getting into trouble back then and Momma constantly received phone calls from the school or the hospital. Sometimes she would hear my name called over the police scanner. She kept a red, white, and blue leather belt that my sister and I christened, “Old Glory,” with our backsides. She would only bring it out to whip us whenever we were bad. Momma stopped using “Old Glory” on me altogether, mainly because she was too tired by the time she came home or found me. Instead, she would give me a stern lecture and a word of caution, “keep it up Joe, and you’ll turn out just like your father.” Those words echoed in my head throughout my childhood, little did I know that is exactly whom I wanted to turn out like, and if I wanted to find him the last place he would be was at my school and that was the last place I wanted to be. For that reason I disobeyed Momma’s order and skipped school to roam the streets in search of my identity [unknowingly at the time], and my father.

I was an industrious youngster and although my sister was older than I was; I always looked out for her. At the end of the day, I would count the nickels, dimes, and quarters that I earned and buy her something to eat a fish sandwich from Mickey Dees, a hoagie from the corner deli, or a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos her favorite. I remember a time we were so hungry that my sister attempted to cook french-fries on the old dilapidated stove the sat in kitchen. Neither of us knew how to cook and when the stove erupted in flames, we threw anything and everything we could at it to put out the fire. We spent the rest of the night cleaning up, we quickly tried to get the kitchen back to the way it was before Momma came home, we attempted to hide the partially blackened counter top, hoping that Momma would be too tired to venture into the kitchen before she went to bed. That point on I made sure that I brought something home every night for us to eat and we promised each other never to try that again. I shoveled snow in the winter, sold newspapers on the beach in the summer, raked leaves in the fall, and gave directions to lost tourists in the spring. Unknowingly I was satisfying two needs at the same time, the need to make money for my sister and me, and the need to satisfy my addiction for attention. On Sundays, I would walk twenty-three blocks to the supermarket on 16th Street and help the little old ladies carry their grocery bags to their cars. They would make an effort to offer me a buck or two, but I would refuse. They had already paid me. They had given me something that I needed much more than money: their attention. I would only accept the folded bills and worn pocket change from their aged hands after they fussed and insisted. It did not feel right taking their money; so to relieve the guilt I would put half of the money in the little wooden box at St. Augustine’s on East 13th Street and spend the rest on something to eat for my sister and me.

I met all sorts of people growing up in Ocean City; good ones, mean ones, and evil ones. I conjure up a memory from my childhood that I have buried under years of depression, self-hatred, and isolation. I have grappled and fought with a forgotten (repressed) memory that has misled and twisted my reality, one that has corrupted my childhood, haunted my soul and condemned me to the chasm of misery. This moment in my childhood devastated me; a moment that could not have taken more time than it takes to say good morning or hello to friend or neighbor. It happened so quickly, but the memory is so vivid and full of detail that when it invades my consciousness I am transported back to the moment it happened; the moment when I was lured under the 11th Street boardwalk by an evil creature and molested. The lessons that I learned on the streets of that small seven-mile island saved me. I had the street smarts to take advantage of the opportunity to flee when it presented itself. I kicked the devil in the groin when he tried to unbuckle his belt. He flew backward into a sandy patch of concrete blocks and broken beer bottles smashed into his head, neck and back; I could hear his screams as I rushed out from under the boardwalk and his curses as I scampered over to the summer police officer walking his beat. I never felt so ashamed and worthless in my life. I knew that if I did nothing, I would have been battered, murdered, and buried in a shallow grave of sand, broken glass, and seashells. The police caught him that day but let him go because he was a Veteran. It was the first time the Justice had failed me; but not the last. Every now and then, this memory invades my thoughts, and I cry, as I did that day twenty-eight years ago. Every time that I do, I pry a finger from its grip around my life. I take away its power and its control over my identity and destiny. That moment haunted my childhood from then on, repressed from my consciousness; it corrupted my life in other forms. Even after all of that, I still needed attention; and I needed my father even more than before.

There were more angels in Ocean City than demons, and I practically met them all. Mostly men, divinely sent, who provided me with the attention that a fatherless boy needed. Three such Angelic beings crossed my path back then and provided me with guidance; they unintentionally acted as father figures for me. The first, a soft-spoken fifty-year-old African American man named David who always had a kind and encouraging word to give me. He drove the Philadelphia/Wildwood bus every weekend. I would meet him every Saturday morning when he drove his bus up to the station platform. He would greet me with a warm smile, invite me to eat lunch with him and inquire about how I was doing. He would give me the extra nickels, dimes, and quarters that jingled in his pockets.

Every now and then, I would take the trip to Philadelphia with him. We would stop along the way to eat lunch at one of the diners that sprung up along the way and talk about football and politics over a coke and a ham sandwich. I would sit there and listen to him go on about anything and everything Philadelphia. I would look him in his eyes and nod my head to let him know that I was paying attention. I enjoyed riding his bus and meeting his passengers; I would ask them where they were going, where they were from, and tell them all about Ocean City. I would tell them about the boardwalk, the beautiful beaches, my favorite jetty, and the seagulls that filled the sky on sunny days, and the stars that took their place at night. After I spoke every word I knew, I would sit back and look at the window; watch the apple trees, tomato fields, and farms go by as we drove along the country roads. I would poke my head out the window and breathe in a lung full of country air while the sun warmed my face. The day would end, when we pulled up to the bus station in Ocean City in the early evening. Dave and I would say our goodbyes and I would hurry home with the leftovers from lunch and the change in my pockets.

A parking attendant named Gus was the next angel that I met. He worked the parking lot at Wonderland’s Pier, a popular amusement park on the boardwalk, on the weekends. Every Saturday night in the summer, I would help him park cars on the small graveled lot behind the tilt-a-whirl and the bumper cars. Gus, a tall and stout man had a laugh that would make you smile from ear-to-ear. He had given me one of those aprons, with three pockets in front, to let everyone know that I worked for him. At six o’ clock, when the lines of cars began to line-up at the entrance of his lot, he would call my name and tell me to get ready. He would collect the money and I would direct the cars to their spots and guide them into their spaces. When the lot was full, he would order us pizza pie from Mac and Mancos on the boardwalk, and we would eat until we were full. He would talk about baseball, complain how bad the Phillies were doing, and tell me stories about the times when his father took him to Connie Mack Stadium to see the Phillies play ball. His stories were exciting and gave me hope that one day my father and I would do the same. I would close my eyes real tight and pretend we were there, watching the Phillies play, enjoying a hotdog or a bag-of-peanuts. At the end of the night, Gus would give me a five-dollar bill, for me that was a lot of money, and I would scurry home to share my good fortune with my sister. We would sit and look at it for hours until our stomachs began to grumble.

Mark Soifer was by far the archangel of them all and was the one who had the most impact on me as a boy. He had written a story about me entitled, “The Waif of Ocean City” and published it in the local newspaper. I remember the day we met. I was walking the hallway knocking on office doors selling newspapers when I came across his office; it was the last office at the top of the stairs and my last stop for the day. His office filled with the amber light of the setting sun and the light from a small lamp that sat on the top of his large wooden desk. A bookcase filled with old books hugged the wall behind him. He invited me into his office with a firm handshake and a warm smile and spoke to me as if I was a head of state. His kindness and sincerity made an impression on me and when I spoke, he gave me his undivided attention and respect. In Mark’s company I felt like I was worthy of being, worthy of occupying the space that I existed in, worthy of being alive. He gave the impression of someone whom I could trust. Perhaps it was the old books, or the smell of his large wooden desk that brought me back to his office countless times, or maybe it was the kindness and the respect that he granted me that beckoned me to visit. Whatever the reason, I would plan my day around the chance to speak with him.

Mark always had an encouraging word for me and displayed a sincere concern for how I was doing; it was at those times I would pretend that he was my father, I would close my eyes and imagine it, hoping that when I opened them, somehow it would become true. I hated the end of our visits, and I think he knew that; so to distract me he would buy whatever I had to sell that day or he would give me his apple and a few dollars. Mark recalls me as a hard-working boy; and I think he did not know the motivation behind my diligence, which was not the dollars that he gave me or the shoes he bought for me. It was because he cared about me, fathered me (unknowingly), and gave me hope. Mark writes, “I recall you as a hard working little boy with street smarts, who sold newspapers. One time you came into our office and your shoes were torn and ragged. I took you to a shoe store on Asbury Avenue and bought you a new pair of shoes” (Soifer). Mark always looked out for me, one winter he bought me a coat, a grey and blue London Fog. I remember because it was the first new coat I ever had and the name sounded funny to me. On holidays, he made sure that there was food on the table, a tree to put up and decorate, and a few presents under the tree. At Christmas he would invite my sister and I to the Music Pier for the annual toy giveaway. Every year they would have a stage full of toys to give away to all the kids who showed up, and my sister and I would always be front and center.

Over time, the memory that I had of my father had faded; I kept him alive only by piecing him together from the bits and pieces that I gathered from the Angels of Ocean City over the years. For a while until I had a complete mental picture of him, the shadow was all that was left of him. On sunny days, I would pretend that my shadow was my father; and I would talk to it wherever I went. I would break only when the clouds blocked the sun and continue when the sun broke free from the clouds grasp. Unlike Toni Morrison’s character Golden Grey, at a young age, I was fully aware of my father’s absences and knew what it felt like not to have him around and unlike Golden Grey, it was more than just a “missing arm.” I had a crack in my soul that grew larger and larger over the years and there was nothing I could do that would ever fill it in, no matter how much I ate, or how much stuff I bought, took, or stole nothing ever filled it. I became aware of my nothingness at a young age and it corrupted my thinking, led me to self-destruction, isolation, and hatred. It led me to places I did not want to be, it changed me from an outgoing energetic little boy to a depressed, negative, and lost adult.

On the days, I felt depressed, I would skip school, run down to the corner deli and buy fresh Italian rolls with my lunch money to feed the seagulls. I would climb the 5th Street jetty, toddle over the rocks, sit down close to the edge where the big windswept boulders kissed the ocean and toss pieces of bread in the air. The seagulls always cheered me up; they made me laugh every time they snatched the bread from the sky. They comforted me, made me feel wanted and welcomed. They were my family; I could always depend on them to be there for me. After the bread was gone I would stare at the horizon, where the sky met the sea and think about my father, and imagine what he was like, wonder where he was, what he was doing and why he did not care. I would pretend at the same time that somewhere, he too was looking at the ocean and thinking about his son. I would imagine that he was thinking about me.

Like Golden Grey, Joe Trace also struggled to find his identity. According to Freud, the first and most important relationship in life is the bond between mother and child: the relationship that all future relationships are based upon. Joe never experienced this type of bond with his mother nor did he experience a mother’s unconditional love. It is clear that Joe, after taken in by Rhoda and Frank Williams never received any maternal love from his adoptive mother. He is just a toddler when the “nothingness” begins to grow. He reveals this when he describes his relationship with Mrs. Rhoda:

She never pretended I was her natural child. When she parceled out chores or favors she’d say, ‘you are just like my own.’ That ‘like’ I guess it was made me ask her—I don’t believe I was three yet—where my real parents were. (Morrison 123)

This lack of motherly affection from Mrs. Rhoda, combined with the understanding that his real mother abandoned him, inflicted the psychological wounds of an unmotherd child upon Joe (O’Rielly 162). The paternal role for him is fulfilled by two male figures in his life, first by Frank Williams and then by Hunter Lestory. Joe reveals this when he recalls his relationship with his surrogate father: “I didn’t miss having a daddy because first off there was Mr. Frank. Steady as a rock, and showed no difference among any of us children” (Morrison 124). Although, Joe had a positive relationship with a father figure his need for a mother’s love grows into an uncontrollable obsession. He never receives this love from his mother, Wild, or from his surrogate mother. It was that kind of love and relationship that he stalked in the forests of Vesper County Virginia; and years later in the streets of Harlem. It is that kind of love and relationship that he mourned the loss of after Dorcus’s death.

Joe and I share the same feeling of nothingness, though his much more destructive and violent then my own, both were equally devastating. We both sought after our mother’s love. I remember the day my “nothingness” began. It was a cold and dank wintery day; I was eight then, living with my mother and sister in a small third floor, two-bedroom apartment on fourth and Atlantic Avenue in Ocean City. I remember the words my mother said to me the day I was taken away. I recall my futile pleas for clemency, my frantic promise that I would be good, and the hopelessness I felt when my mother told me there was nothing she could do. I remember the warm tears that poured down my face as the three of us embraced for the last time. Most of all, I recall the unbearable sadness, rejection, and “nothingness” that engulfed me as I was carried out to the awaiting car and the overwhelming loneliness that stunned me as I looked with watery eyes through the rain-spattered window and realized my sister was not coming with me. That was the last time I cried as a child, and the last time my sister and I were close. Joe Trace and I share the same emptiness and “nothingness.” Joe, denied his mother’s unconditional love, and I torn from mine; we were emotionally wounded forever. It was the first time I would be apart from the only two people that I have ever loved, and the last time we would be together. It was the beginning of my “nothingness” and the end of my childhood.

I was placed in the home of the Granger’s, a well respected African American family that lived in a dull gray two story house on 4th and West, only two blocks from the elementary school that I hated and five blocks from where my mother and sister lived. Emotionally abandoned, It felt like they were a million miles away. I shared a room with the Granger’s two sons Jonathan and David. Mrs. Granger, Mary Jane as I came to know her, ran a day care and a small grocery store from the house. Mr. Granger worked for the city as a dogcatcher and drove around the island looking for strays; for a while, I believed that I was one of those strays. The only time that I saw Mr. Granger was at night after our bedtime when Jonathan, their oldest son, persuaded him to bring us honey buns from the store. He would sneak them up the stairs to us in a brown paper sack and then parcel them out along with the spare change from his pockets. I was envious and resentful of their relationship, and in the beginning, I refused the sticky sweet treats but eventually gave in to the curiosity of what it tasted like. After that, I was hooked.

After a few months at the Granger’s I started attending school again, and Momma was allowed to visit me on the weekends. I looked forward to our visits and the chance to prove myself to her and demonstrate that I was worthy to be her son. On our first visit, she picked me up on her blue bicycle: a Schwinn cruiser with one of those metal saddlebag baskets that hung over the rear wheel. I was a small boy, so my mother placed a quilt on top of the metal basket and I sat on top of it, one foot in each basket, knees up to my chest. From the way, I was sitting and the vibration from the bike my legs and backside fell asleep instantly. Momma asked if I was all right; I lied and then tightened my hold around her waist. We rode along the boardwalk as the sun shone upon us and the ocean wind blew through our hair.

Our first stop was Jilly’s Arcade on Twelfth Street; for a game of skee-ball. We took turns playing Mrs. Pac-man, Momma’s favorite, and then shared an ice cream cone, vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. Next, we went on to Putt- Putt golf on Tenth Street where I made my first hole in one. Momma was proud of me then when she gave me her best smile, I loved making her proud and looked for every chance to do so, I was Momma’s boy then, and I am a Momma’s boy now. After that we took a break at the bench on the far end of the music pier facing the ocean, we talked about school, the Granger’s, my sister, and other things as we fed seagulls stale peanuts. Our last stop was Shriver’s on Ninth Street; we shared a box of saltwater taffy and watched the sticky confection being made. My childhood for that moment restored and I wished that I could go home with her. At the end of our first visit, Momma gave me her portable 8-track player, a white box with a shoulder strap and the only 8-track she had: Hotel California by the Eagles. It was the only thing that I had of hers, and it provided me comfort when I was lonely. I knew every song and every word by heart. Somehow, I felt closer to Momma when I sang the songs and listened to the music. I felt important knowing that this was hers and that she entrusted me with it. However, my nothingness still lingered and spread like cancer, as I grew older; it mixed with the other phantoms and haunted my soul until I finally exercised them in my 30s.

Everything changed the day my father showed up. I was so flabbergasted: I did not know how to behave; one moment I had a smile from ear to ear the next a frown. I learned that my sister had moved to Indiana six months before, and he came to take me to live with him. Three more sisters and a brother were waiting for me; I was happy to go and sad to leave my mother behind. It took five days to reach the little town of Orestes Indiana. It was the best five days I ever spent with my father, and the only happy memory that I have of him. Orestes Indiana is a small town right smack in the middle of farm country where the tomato and soybean fields stretch into the horizon and the sky is blue as the ocean. We lived in a small four-bedroom country house with a two-car garage on the edge of a soybean field. A large oak tree, with a tire swing, grew in the front yard. That oak tree became my time machine, my safe place; I would climb its limbs to escape the anger and aggression of my older brother and sisters. I sat high up in its branches out of their reach and pretended that I was back in Ocean City on the end of 5th street jetty skipping seashells off the waves and feeding the seagulls. I would close my eyes tight and imagine that I was sitting in front of a large wooden desk inhaling the musty scent of old books and wooded desk as the setting sun filled the office with its last rays of light. I would sit up in that old oak tree until my father came home from work, he would ask why I was up there, and I would shrug my shoulders and then he would ordered me down.

Even though I lived in the same house of my father, he was never there: not emotionally, spiritually, nor physically. Sixteen-months after my arrival we move to a two-story, six-bedroom house in Alexander Indiana, about ten miles south of Orestes. Three months after that, my father began an affair with the neighbor’s wife. My stepmother, fully aware of his infidelity never confronted him, either out of fear, or lack of backbone; she instead redirected her anger toward my sister and I, she used her children to mistreat us, they hated us. They mistreated my sister more than I and after six-months of abuse, she fled. Forsaken for the second time I was left to defend myself; alone in a house full of hatred. My father did not care, he was too busy with his mistress, and I never forgave him for that, not for what he did not do for me, but for what he did not do for my sister: protect her. I missed her and the closeness that we shared when we lived in Ocean City. I miss the time when we flew kites together on the beach, and the time she held my hand as we rode the rollercoaster because she knew I was scared. I miss the times we shared a sandwich from the corner deli, and the times we stuck up for one another. I miss her and the closeness that we shared, all of that is gone corrupted by the devastating events in out childhoods.

What I remember the most about my father is his broken promises, let downs, and betrayal. I remember when he promised to sign me up for baseball; “I’ll meet you there” he said, and never showed up. My stepbrother came to tell me that he was not coming, I did not want to believe him but I knew it was true. It was the only time my stepbrother and I were close; we both knew what it felt like to be disappointed by our fathers. After my father’s divorce he and I moved into a small one-bedroom apartment. With my sister and his ex-wife out of the picture, I was the only one left in his way. He had joined the local VFW (veterans of foreign wars) and convinced them that he was a veteran. He manipulated them into sponsoring me into the VFW National Home in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. Where he discarded me like a piece of garbage three years after I moved to live with him. He never came to visit me there. He left me there with no identity, no self-esteem, and no family. He had casted me away and forgotten all about me. It was the third time in my life that I was discarded and the last time I saw my father. He never did live up to my expectations and maybe at some level I never lived up to his. A notion they I had lived with all my life, one that shattered my self-esteem; and had done more damaged to me than the demon from the boardwalk.

Even though the best thing my father ever did for me was placing me in the VFW foster Home in Michigan. I still needed a fatherly influence in my life someone to look up to and count on. I knew that I wasn’t going to get that from my real father, but from someone like I had pieced together as a boy. A father who would take me on bus rides to Philadelphia, treat me to lunch, would be happy to see me and talk to me as if I mattered. A father whose laugh would make me smile from ear to ear, listen to me when I had something to say, would take me to see the Phillies Play at Shibe Park and buy me a hot dog or a bag of peanuts. A father with a large wooden desk in his office and bookshelves filled with old books that smelled funny. A father, divinely sent, that shared the characteristic and qualities with the Angels of Ocean City. I never did find him. I looked far into my adulthood and my even my own fatherhood. Along the way to adulthood, I picked-up parcels and pieces of mental baggage. Suitcases filled with disappointment and heartache. Duffle bags packed with self-hatred and isolation. Garment bags crammed with ghosts and goblins, and footlockers overflowing with “nothingness.” I carried these bags every step of the way to my adulthood each bag bursting open at different at critical moments in my life corrupting my emotions, manipulating my decisions, keeping me isolated, alone, miserable and desperate for attention.

Golden Grey and I never experienced what Sigmund Freud calls the “Oedipus Complex.” Freud thought this was the most important event of a boy’s childhood, which would have a great effect on his subsequent adult life. Described as a moment when a son identifies with his father and begins to develop his own identity (Oedipus Complex). Golden and I never experience this, and by the time we met our fathers it was too late. Already lost, living with a false sense of being, we had to father ourselves, we had to make choices that would re-direct our lives, and we had to discover our potentials and develop our own identities. Joe Trace and I mourned our childhood; for Joe he mourned the loss of his mother and the relationship that he never had with her. I have mourned my childhood it seems ever since I was a child. My mother always told me that I worried too much, and I did and I still do.

What Joe Trace, Golden Grey and I share now is forgiveness. That last piece in the Jazz puzzle. Without forgiveness, there is no new beginning, no fresh slate, and no hope for the future: Just sadness, anger, and insanity. It took me twenty-five years to forgive those who have harmed, abandoned, rejected, and despised me. It took that long to forgive myself for not paying attention to the little boy inside to little Joe. When “little Joe” acts out, I do not ignore him anymore, reject him or treat him as a ghost, I hold his hand as we stand at the edge of our favorite jetty and point to where the sky meets the sea and tell him that everything is going to be alright. I tell him that we are going to be just fine and that there is hope for our future, that there is nothing holding us back anymore.

College has changed my life; in the short year that I have attended Union County College, I have come “anew” three times as Joe trace puts it. First, with Professor Maxwell who taught me how to write (ENG 099), the second with Professor Tharney, who helped me exposed my self-deceptions (PSY 101), and third with Dr. Russell who helped me to discover myself and gather the courage to leave a few duffel bags at the curb and to never look back. I have experience tremendous success as a college student within my first year of college, and look forward to becoming the father, son, brother, and man that I was meant to be.

Microsoft released eight different versions of its popular office suite sporting a easy to use user interface and a new feature called the ribbon. There is an Office 2007 suite for every type of consumer: Basic, Home & Student, Standard, Small Business, Professional, Ultimate, Professional Plus, and Enterprise (see figure 1). All eight Microsoft’s Office 2007 suites include the four core office applications that made it so popular: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. The only exception is Microsoft’s Home and Student 2007; it substitutes the New and Improved OneNote 2007 with Outlook (see figure 1).

Microsoft Office 2007 introduces several new additions to its Office suite: Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, Microsoft Office Groove 2007, and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. Groove 2007 and Accounting Express 2007 are currently available, but Office Communicator 2007 currently scheduled for release the second quarter of 2007.

Office Groove 2007 is a desktop client that allows team members to quickly create and customize collaborative workspaces right on their PCs and easily invite others within and across organizational boundaries. Groove offers customizable tools, automatic synchronization, and integrated alerts. Groove’s contextual communication tools let teams work together dynamically from virtually any location, helping save time and increase productivity. Groove integrates with other Microsoft programs and technologies and is a great application for use in an Office environment. Groove comes with Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate and Enterprise editions or can be purchased by itself from Microsoft’s web site.

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is a new program designed for the millions of new businesses that use pen and paper, spreadsheets or personal finance software to manage their business. Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is Full featured accounting application that provides a single place to manage a company’s business finances with the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office system programs. Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is included with Office Small Business, Professional, and Ultimate suites. Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is also available as a free download from Microsoft.com.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 due to be released mid 2007 is a communications program that helps people to be more productive by enabling people to communicate easily with others in different locations or time zones using a range of different communication options, including instant messaging (IM), voice, and video. Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 integrates with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Groove, and SharePoint Server to offer information workers many different ways to communicate with each other. Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 will be eventually released with Office 2007 Professional Plus and Enterprise suites, and be available for download from Microsoft website the second May of 2007.

All of the new Office 2007 applications that Microsoft introduced can benefit all types of business and corporations. The collaboration feature of Groove 2007 combined with the communication features of Office Communicator 2007 could increase productivity and lower the cost of doing business. Microsoft’s Accounting Express 2007 address the needs of small business that currently use pen and paper methods of record keeping and allows them to view their data in ways they could see before. These three new additions to Microsoft’s Office suite can definitely be used in an office environment to help increase productivity and efficiency.

Microsoft Office 2007 introduces a new file format based on XM; which are based on open standards. The new XML file formats enables fast creation of documents from different data sources, speeding up document assembly, data mining, and content reuse. The formats simplify exchanging data between applications in the 2007 Office suite and enterprise business systems. The Office 2007 released is not required to create a document in the new XML formats. Users can improve productivity by publishing, searching, and reusing information more quickly and accurately in the environment they choose using XML which is based on industry-standard XML and ZIP technologies, support full integration by any technology provider, and are available via a royalty-free license.

While the best way to minimize compatibility issues is to standardize your environment on a single file format, many organizations will need to deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office system in a phased rollout, or will need to collaborate with other companies. For this reason, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Word 2007, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 contain features to ensure compatibility with previous versions of Office. You can use the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack to allow backward compatibility, so that previous versions of Office can open and save files in the new file format. In addition, the openness of the new file format makes it more compatible with non-Office programs.

In Office 2007, Microsoft replaces the traditional menus and toolbars with a new User Interface called the Ribbon. The Ribbon organizes commands into a sets of tabs. The tabs on the Ribbon display the commands that are most relevant for each of the task areas in the applications. For example, in Office Word 2007, the tabs group commands for activities such as inserting objects like pictures and tables, doing page layout, working with references, mailings, and reviewing. The Home tab provides easy access to the most frequently used commands (Microsoft). Office Excel 2007 has a similar set of tabs that make sense for spreadsheet work including tabs for working with formulas, managing data, and reviewing. These tabs simplify accessing application features because they organize the commands in a way that corresponds directly to the tasks people perform in these applications.

It took me a little while to adjust to the new layout and use of the Ribbon, I admit at first I felt a wee bit disorientated, but after a few uses I felt right at home. In fact, I dislike using Office 2003 now. The Office 2007 User Interface provides me with easy access to the commands that I use the most and helps me become more efficient and effective at my task. The only thing that I miss from Office 2003 is the “Ask your question here” help text box at the top right corner.

Microsoft Office 2007 system requirements are fairly straight forward: for a PC with a 500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher, at least 256 megabyte (MB) RAM or higher, a Hard drive with at least 2 gigabyte (GB) available; a portion of this disk space will be freed after installation if the original download package is removed from the hard drive, a CD-ROM or DVD drive, a 1024×768 or higher resolution monitor, and Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack (SP) 2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, or later operating system. Speech recognition requires a close-talk microphone and audio output device. Remember that these are just the minimum system requirements. I tried to install Office 2007 on a computer with 512 megabyte (MB) of shared memory and froze halfway during the install, I recommend at least 1 gigabyte (GB) of memory to alleviate this problem and to activate additional features such as OneNote Audio Search, and Grammar and contextual spelling features in Word.

In conclusion, I recommend upgrading to Microsoft Office 2007. Its streamlined interface is easier to use and will increases user productivity and efficiency. The new applications included with the suite will assist businesses and organizations of any size collaborate more easier and effortlessly than ever before. Microsoft Office 2007’s systems requirements are straightforward, the cost of upgrading your hardware is paid in full the increased productivity and efficiency that the suite provides.

With the release of Windows Vista, The question on everyone’s mind is: “Should I upgrade or should I wait?” This is not only a difficult decision for consumers but confusing as well. Microsoft has released six editions with many different features: Starter, (not available in North America) Home, Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise. Vista’s different versions and strict hardware requirements are leaving many consumers scratching their heads. Corporate and business decisions makers have a lot more to consider than which version they will use. Since Windows Vista’s hardware requirements are more demanding than the previous Microsoft OS releases. Business and corporate customers must also figure in hardware upgrade, deployment, and training costs into the equation; they must also think about legacy software compatibility and upgrade, configuration, and service pack issues. In this article I will discuss what a software manager for a large corporation needs to know in making the decision to upgrade to Vista.

Before making the leap to Windows Vista, you must know which version fits your business or personal needs. The first step is to compare Vista features and decide which version is right for you or your business. You should then list the benefits you expect to receive from a Vista upgrade. Furthermore, you should find out if the software you currently use will work with Vista. Software managers must contact their software venders, to see if their software packages need a service pack, a patch, or an upgrade.

After determining that you or your company will benefit from an upgrade to Vista you should make a list of all the systems, you would like to upgrade and their current operating system and hardware configurations. List the age of each system above and its remaining life expectancy. Check each system and verify its Vista upgrade path (either a clean install or In-place installation). Test each system for its Vista hardware compatibility using The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (a free download from Microsoft). The advisor will tell you what hardware upgrades you will need in order to bring your computers Vista compliant. Next, List the total cost of any hardware upgrades necessary, the cost of any labor to perform the upgrade, and the cost of the Vista itself. Then determine the per system cost and the age of each system. Compare the total costs of the upgrade to the expected benefits, and finally consider the outcome above vs. buying a new PC with Vista preloaded (Technical Specifications).

If it the upgrade to vista is not mission critical, then it is a good idea to wait a few months until the first service pack is released. Microsoft says that software that runs on your XP system should run on your Vista system, the key word here is “Should” (Microsoft). Do not take that for granted, some software manufactures are still working on a Vista version of their software. When considering Vista, one should check with software venders to ensure Vista compatibility.

First, it is important to understand the range of Vista options. Windows Vista, at the time of its release, will be available in six different flavors. Windows Vista Starter: This edition is a 32-bit only version of Windows aimed at emerging markets, with a very limited features and minimal graphical improvements over Windows XP (Simonds). Your typical customer probably will not want this edition; the better choice would be Windows Vista Home Basic. Microsoft’s Home Basic is the entry-level version of Vista and targets the modest consumer who wants the newer elements of the Vista, but does not need the advanced features like Media Center or DVD Maker. Windows Vista Home Premium adds the Aero Glass interface, tablet PC support, synchronization features and digital media applications (Microsoft ). Home Premium is essentially at the same level as Windows XP Media Center Edition.

Windows Vista Business is the most basic business-oriented edition of the operating system, and includes the ability to participate in a domain, as well as better management and security features, like Group Policy support and Encrypting File System capabilities (Simonds). Windows Vista Enterprise builds on Vista Business and adds the subsystem for UNIX applications support as well as Virtual PC Express (which allows you to run virtual Operating Systems). Vista Enterprise is available only to Microsoft volume-license customers. However if you want all of the features Microsoft has to often then Windows Vista Ultimate is for you it contains all of the goodies in every edition (Microsoft).

For small businesses that run XP Pro, Microsoft recommends reformatting the drive prior to installing Vista (Microsoft ). You need to back up your data, reformat the drive, reinstall your applications and then reinstall your data. Typically, that is when you will find some of your applications will not work with Vista. It is not just your PC either. Upgrading to Vista affects your PC peripherals such as digital cameras, printers and scanners. Part of the upgrade process involves hunting down and installing new drivers to make these devices Vista compliant.

There are two ways to get Windows Vista: 1) Installed on a brand new computer system, this maybe the easiest way to upgrade to Vista, because the hardware is built with Vistas hardware requirements in mind. 2) Upgrade your existing machine, this may be time consuming and difficult for an inexperienced person. Older computers need an extensive hardware upgrade, especially memory and processing power and hard drive space. For businesses, the cost of upgrading to Vista may be a substantial investment.

For business, I would recommend Windows Vista Business Edition. To succeed in today’s changing market, businesses small and large must constantly strive to maximize their competitive advantage. Today’s business applications give the unparalleled ability to expand the impact of the most valuable asset in those businesses: the employee. Windows Vista Business Edition will help people to work more efficiently, help teams to collaborate and communicate more effectively, regardless of their location, and enable IT managers to lower costs and increase security (Simonds).

Portable MP3 players have come a long way since their humble beginnings in the late 1990s. The world’s first MP3 players, The Eiger Labs MPMan F10 and the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300 were shipped with 32 Mbytes of internal memory. MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) the standard for audio compression that makes any music file smaller with little or no loss of sound quality redefined how music enjoyed and launched a new industry (Bellis). In October 1998, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that Diamond’s Rio PMP300 violated the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. The Feds ruled in favor of Diamond, which paved the way for the development of the MP3 portable player market. Apple was one of the first companies to take advantage of this new industry when it developed and released the iPod. Microsoft entered the game in 2006 with its Zune. The iPods and the Zune are very popular MP3 players and are similar in features they offer. However, they are also very different. By discussing their Features, Ease of Use, and Synchronization software, I will compare them and discuss both types of MP3 players in some detail. I will then give my pick and my reasons why.

Ease of use is one of the most important selection criteria one must consider before purchasing a MP3 player. Apple’s 30GB iPod features a simplistic user interface called the click wheel. It allows the user to select, adjust the volume, pause, play, and seek music, videos, and podcast with just a thumb. Other then the click wheel there is a hold switch and an earphone jack that sits on top of the device. The 30GB iPod weights in at 4.8 oz, and the 2.4″ x0.4″ x4.1″ body makes the device easy to handle. In contrast, Microsoft’s Zune weighing 5.6 oz with a 4.3×2.5×0.7 body is a lot thicker, blockier, and heavier than the 30GB iPod. The Zune has no buttons on the sides, only a hold switch and an earphone jack on top, and a USB/accessories port on the bottom. The three control buttons are simple and are flush with the body. The heavier and bigger Zune does not fit as comfortably as the IPod and it is cumbersome to control.

Features are very important in a player and both the iPod and the Zune have what consumers are looking for, however they differ in a several ways. The 5G iPod has a bright 2.5-inch LCD display, a sleek design and 3.5-hour video battery life. The iPod supports gapless playback, an instant search feature, and enhanced games. Movies are available for purchase from the ITunes or sync with your own. The iPod has Notes, Calendar, and Phone book features and can synchronize with your calendar and or contact program. The iPod supports MPEG-4 and JPEG photo playback and can be used as an external hard drive. The iPod does not feature a built in FM Radio or Wi-Fi like the Zune. Microsoft’s Zune plays audio, and displays video and photos just like the iPod but sports an impressive 3-inch (4:3) screen. Unlike the iPod, the Zune offers a FM radio and Wi-Fi capabilities and works well with Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace software. The integrated wireless allows limited sharing of songs and photos. However, the Zune Marketplace does not offer video content and cannot play protected content. The Zune is not backward compatible with WMA-DRM9. Unlike the iPod, the Zune cannot be used as a hard drive.

Apple and Microsoft both have developed software that allows users to synchronize music to their players. Apple’s iTunes not only allows users to preview, purchase and download content but rip their current CD collection as well. Free podcasts on every topic from gardening to learning how to speak Spanish are offered on iTunes. In addition to music, iTunes also allows users to purchase games, movies, TV shows, and audio books and synchronize them to their IPods. iTunes helps organizes user’s audio and video libraries and play everything from your Mac or PC, Then synchronize it to your iPod to bring it along. iTunes is very easy to use and allows you to Burn your own custom CDs, iTunes is a free download from Apple.com. Like iTunes, Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace software allows you to purchase music and sync with your Zune. It allows you to synchronize your music, videos, and pictures to your device, and it allows you to sync up with an Xbox 360. You can Rip and burn CDs and create playlists just like iTunes. However, the Zune Marketplace software only works on windows and not MAC (Technical Specifications).

In conclusion, I like the 3″ screen of the Zune, the built in FM stereo, and Wi-Fi Features. however, I love the ease of use of the iPod and the fact it fits perfectly in the palm of my hand, it is easy to take out of my pocket, and adjust the volume or change tracks with just one hand. Apple has been in the industry since the beginning and has worked out the bugs of previous models. Over the last few years Microsoft’s has been trying catch up and the Zune and it has not been the “IPod killer” that it was billed to be. Ease of Use, seamless UI, and easy synchronization are the reason why I chose the iPod over the Zune. Even thought I like the big 3-inch display and the built in Wi-Fi. I will save my pennies for Apple’s next iPod release.

The Hard drives discussed in this report have been tested with two industry benchmark applications: PCMark05 and HD Tach. The PCMark05 Test measures the performance of your PC and determines its strengths and weaknesses. The HD Tach is a physical performance hard drive test that checks the hard drives actual physical performance. In This article I will talk about two hard drives the Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 and Seagate NL35.2, both 500GB and 3GB SATA drives.

Each drive was tested by Computer Power User magazine’s Marty Sems, singly on a fully updated system with an Athlon FX-55 (2.6GHz/1MB of L2 cache), 1GB (2 x 512MB) of PC4400 DDR RAM at 400MHz, with a 1.5Gbps Western Digital Raptor 74GB Hard drive, and Windows XP Professional with service pack 2 (Sems 16). The Nvidia nForce4 chipset on the DFI LAN-Party NF4 SLI-DR main-board provided the 3Gbps/NCQ SATA controller.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 was the first hard drive to ship with a half a terabyte of storage capacity. The 7K500 was PCMark05’s clear favorite between the two 7,200rpm hard drives in this report, almost matching the 10,000rpm Raptor’s scores. The 7K500 sports a 3GB SATA interface and has a seek time of 8.5 ms, with 16MB of Cache. The 7K500 cost $379.99 and comes with a three-year warranty. For performance the 7K500 is definitely the better choice. It can be purchased on-line from Hitachi, http://www.hitachigst.com, or bought in your favorite computer electronics store.

The 500GB Seagate NL35.2 is rerelease of a Barracuda 7200.9 with modified firmware (Sems 17). The Seagate NL35.2 also has a 7,200 RPM spindle speed and a 16MB of Cache. Although it did beat the Deskstar 7K500’s Windows XP start up time, its seek time is only 11ms which makes it slower of the two drives tested. The NL35.2 has a 1-million hour MTBF rating because of its build, tolerances, and testing (Sems 17). The NL35.2 did well in HD Tach benchmark test conducted by Computer Power User magazine’s Marty Sems. The Seagate NL35.2 is your best choice for 24/7 reliability. The Seagate NL35.2 cost $384 and also comes with a three-warranty. The NL35.2 can be purchased directly from Seagate, http://www.seagate.com, or from a retailer.

For performance The Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 is your best bet its performance in both PCMark05 and HD Tach were excellent (see table 1). For longevity, The Seagate NL35.2 is the pick with its 1-million hour MTBF rating. When purchasing a drive one must decide what is most important: short-term performance or long-term reliability.

Managers of business must be aware of the environmental trends that can give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace. They must deal with market and environmental forces more effectively than their competitors and must consistently perform “something” of high value that their competitors cannot achieve or perform as well. Customer Service is one such “something” that can give businesses a competitive advantage.

Business Week’s March 5 article, “Customer Service Champs” highlights twenty-five businesses that excel at providing customers with a level of service unmatched by their rivals. Their commitment to adding value to their products and building lasting relationships with their customers give them an advantage over their competition.

I think the missing link in business today is a good customer service ethic, business take their customers for granted. Making customer satisfaction a factor in setting pay is a great way of making sure that everyone is invested in providing the best customer service. Having employees experience what their customers go through is another. I think that businesses that take care of their customers and sincerely care about them will have a competitive advantage in the market place.

One such company that I believe that excels at customer service is Southwest Airlines. In 2001 Southwest Airlines (number thirteen on Business Week’s list) created a new executive customer service position. This position manages all communications with their customers in the event of a flight disruption (McGregor 54). This proactive approach demonstrates Southwest Airlines commitment to their customers.

I watched this movie four times. The first time, I listened to the language read the captions and understood the story. The second time I paid attention to the choreography, action scenes and serenity; a third time to catch the parts I overlooked and/or missed, and finally a fourth time to mentally bring it altogether. I am enchanted by Chinese culture, traditions, people and the martial arts. I remember when I was a boy I would always make it home in time to watch Kung-Fu Theater on Sunday afternoons. I enjoyed watching the heroes beat up the bad guys, save the girl, and win the day. I would pretend that I was a Kung-Fu Master with a long white beard that could leap in the air and fly beating up bad guys and teaching them “lessons” along with my favorite heroes. Ang Lee presents Kung-Fu and the Chinese culture to his audience like no other. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is much more than any of the movies I watched on Kung-Fu Theater; it brings the martial arts together with matters of the heart, through the magical powers of a sword the Green Destiny. Two loves clash each other in a mishmash of Chinese martial arts styles that seem more poetic then violent.

The loyalty to a dead friend keeps the feelings between Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien from becoming a reality. Li Mu Bai returns from Wudang Mountain and never experiences enlightenment that he expects during his meditation, Shu Lien questions Li about experiencing enlightenment and his response puzzles her:

No. I didn’t fell the bliss of enlightenment. Instead…I was surrounded by an endless sorrow. I couldn’t bear it. I broke off my meditation. I couldn’t go on. There was something pulling me back. (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

I think what was pulling him back was his inaction to act upon his love for Shu Lien; and the endless sorrow that he was surrounded by belonged to Shu Lien for the lost unexpressed love: his. Li comes to the reality that he will never get the chance to express his love to Shu Lien. I believe that during his meditation Li perceived his death at the hands of the Giang Hu underworld and attempts to give up his sword the Green Destiny, the object that starts the story, to prolong the inevitable. There are only two times in this movie where Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien profess their feelings to another and both times interrupted indirectly by circumstances surrounding Li’s sword the Green Destiny. Could this magical sword be jealous of their love? I think so, the Green Destiny wants to claim Li and through events of the story seduces Jen to cause controversy and Li to pursuit of it.

Jen fascinated by stories of the Giang Hu underworld planted in her head at a young age by Jade Fox corrupts her reality. Jen rebels and steals the Green Destiny and is seduced by its power. Lo and Jens forbidden love intertwine throughout the story and fatally clash with the other love. Rebellious Jen runs away from her prearranged marriage to live the warrior’s life but finds out that she is not ready for it. I enjoyed watching Jen fight the big tough guys in the restaurant and beat them black and blue. The very next scene when these big beat up tough guys are crying to Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien about how she beat them up. Overall I enjoyed this movie, I understood the ending but didn’t like it, a double tragedy, the only ones left standing at the end was a lonely Shu Lien, a heartbroken Lo, and the Green Destiny.

I can relate to several of the characters in Toni Morrison’s book, Jazz: Joe Trace , Violet Trace, and Golden Gray/Lestory. I have experienced the same feelings these characters suffered in Morrison’s book: Jazz. I understand the “nothingness” that haunts Joe and his search for unconditional love, and the acceptance and belonging that Golden desperately searches for, Violet’s decision to stop living a lie and develop her own identity. In this response I will write about how I relate to these characters and how, like them, I lived life through what Jazz embodies: desire, depression, and forgiveness.

Golden and I experienced the same emotions in regard to our fathers: anger, depression, and loneliness. Like Golden, for most of my childhood I grew up without a father or an identity. At six years old I hated school, mainly because I was the forgotten kid in the class, a ghost at a desk. I only received attention when I acted out. Most of the time no one cared if I was there or not; so I chose not to be there. My classroom was the streets and beaches of Ocean City, New Jersey where I always earned good grades. On the days I was feeling sad, I would go to the corner store and buy fresh Italian rolls to feed the seagulls. I would climb the 5th Street jetty, toddle over the rocks, sit down close to the edge where the boulders kissed the sea and toss pieces of bread in the air. The seagulls always cheered me up; they made me laugh every time they snatched the bread from the sky. They comforted me, made me feel wanted and welcomed, they were my family, I could always depend on them to be there for me. After the bread was gone I would stare at the horizon, where the sky met the sea and think about my father, contemplate what he was like, wonder why he did not care. I would imagine that he was looking at the sea thinking about his son; I would dream that he was thinking about me.

I craved attention and sought it out, any kind of it, good or bad; at least I would have it. My mother worked all the time, I had no father I knew of, and school was that last place that I wanted to be. I was an adventurous little tyke in my seventh year of life. I shoveled snow in the winter, sold newspapers on the beach in the summer, raked leaves in the fall, and gave directions to lost tourist in the spring. Every Saturday night in the summer I would help park cars at the Wonderland Pier, a popular amusement park on the boardwalk. The parking attendant would give me a five-dollar bill at the end of the night for helping him direct tourist to their parking spaces on the small graveled lot behind the Tilt-a-Whirl, and the bumper cars. On Fridays and Sundays I would walk to the supermarket on 16th street and help the little old ladies carry their grocery bags to their cars. They would try to give me a buck or two, but I would refuse; they already had paid me, they given me something worth much more than money, something that I needed much more: attention and love. I would only accept after they fussed and insisted. I would put half of the money in the little wooden box at St. Augustine’s on East 13th Street, and the rest I would spend on something to eat for my sister and me: a sandwich, a bag of chips, and a soda pop from the corner deli. This all ended in the winter of 1980.

I remember everything about the day my “nothingness” began. It was a cold and dank wintery day; I was eight then, living with my mother and sister in a small third floor, two-bedroom apartment on fourth and Atlantic Avenue in Ocean City. I remember the exact words my mother said to me the day I was taken away. I recall my futile pleas for clemency, my frantic promise that I would be good, and the hopelessness I felt when my mother told me there was nothing she could do. I remember the tears; the warm tears that streamed down my face as the three of us embraced for the last time. Above all I recall the unbearable sadness, rejection, and “nothingness” that engulfed me as I was carried out to the waiting car and the overwhelming loneliness that stunned me as I looked with watery eyes through the rain spattered car window and realized my sister was not coming with me. That was the last time I cried as a child, and the last time my sister and I were close; after that we fought tooth and nail for our mother’s affection. Joe Trace and I share the same emptiness and “nothingness” that devastated our lives. Joe, denied his mothers unconditional love, and me torn from mine; we were both emotionally scarred forever. It was the first time I would be apart from the only two people I have ever loved, and the last time we would be together. It was the beginning of my “nothingness” and the end of my childhood.

I was placed in the home of the Granger’s, a well respected African American family that lived in a dull gray two story house on 4th and West, only two blocks from the elementary school that I hated to attend and five blocks from where my mother and sister lived; but emotionally I was million miles away from them. I shared a room with the Grangers two sons Jonathan and David. Mrs. Granger, Mary Jane as I came to know her, ran a day care and a small grocery store from the house. Mr. Granger worked for the city and drove around the island capturing strays; for a moment I thought that I was one of the strays he captured. The only time that I seen Mr. Granger is when, Jonathan, their oldest son persuaded him to bring us honey buns from the store; he would sneak them to us in a brown paper sack and gave each of us a silver dollar. I was resentful of their relationship, and in the beginning I refuse the treats but eventually gave in to the curiosity of what it tasted like, after that I was hooked.

After awhile after I had started attending school again and my mother came to visit me on Saturdays. I looked forward to the opportunity to prove myself to her, demonstrating that I was worthy to be her son, that I was worthy of her love. She would pick me up on Saturday mornings on her blue bicycle, a Schwinn cruiser with one of those metal baskets that covered the rear wheel, the one with large left and right side baskets. I was a small boy, so my mother would put a quilt on top of the metal mesh that was fixed to the top of the rear tire guard and I would sit on top of it, one foot in each basket knees up to my chest. I would hold on to my mother waist as she peddled and the salty ocean wind blew my hair. We rode along on the boardwalk to our destinations: Jilly’s Arcade on 12th Street, Putt- Putt golf on 10th, and then to Shriver’s on 9th where we watch them make saltwater taffy; my childhood was restored for that moment and for that moment I was happy.

My mother gave me her portable 8-track player a white box with a shoulder strap and the only 8-track she had: Hotel California by the Eagles. It was the only thing that I had of hers and it provided me comfort when I felt lonely. I knew every song and every word by heart. Somehow I felt closer to my mother when I sang those songs and listening to the music. I felt important knowing that this was hers and that she entrusted me with it. This book has exposed to me the feelings and emotions that has haunted me my entire life, it has given me the opportunity to confront them face to face and to forgive my mother, my father, and myself. I am a changed man; I am now whole, no longer filled with nothing.

The confrontation in chapter seven between Assef and Hassan in the alley was disturbing and shocking. I was disappointed but not surprised by Amir’s cowardice. However, as I thought about it, Amir has gone through life having other people fight his battles for him, so could I really expect him to stand up to a person like Assef? The answer is no; throughout the rest of the story Amir is haunted by the choices he has made. I was saddened to hear that Hassan was killed, and shocked to find out that Hassan and Amir were brothers. It made me see Baba in a different light; it made me think of him as a Hypocrite. In some sadistic way I was happy that Amir got his “ass” kicked by Assef, he finally took the beating that he should have taken for Hassan in the Alley, It is Ironic how and by whom Assef become one eyed. Amir in my eyes redeemed himself, going to Kabul, risking his life for his nephew, and then stepping up taking responsibility, finally being a man of character and conviction. I thought the ending was a little drawn out, it was a touching ending when Amir ran the kite for Sohrab.

I was disgusted when I read that Amir did nothing to help Hassan that day in the alley. I could understand his fear, but I cannot understand his lack of action to help his friend. The outcome and the decisions that Amir makes in this story, stem from one character choice not to show affection toward his son. Amir longing for affection did anything he could to win approval from his father. Baba didn’t give it that often, and when he did Amir had to make sacrifices for it. I, like Amir, ached for my father’s attention and love when I was a boy; I acted out, behaved badly, and got into trouble. I understand how Amir felt growing up. But I never did what Amir did in this story. I felt the fear the Amir felt, when Baba stood up to the Russian soldier, and I cried when Baba died. The author tells this story very well, I wonder if this is his story.

You see the jealousy that Amir has toward his father’s attention for Hassan. It seems at times during the story that Amir’s father, Baba, favors Hassan and Amir is envious and jealous of this relationship. It gets worse when Amir overhears his father’s complaining about him. Hassan always seems to be content and would do anything for Amir. I feel sorry for Hassan, it is like his life is one big lie, and he is deceived by the very person to whom he is loyal.

Hassan is not a stupid as Amir thinks he is; I think that Hassan is a pretty smart kid. When Amir was faking reading the story to him, Hassan knew, but instead of getting mad, he enjoyed the fable and told Amir it was the best story he ever told him. These encouraged Amir and he started writing he first story. It is sad that Amir really considers Hassan a friend, Hassan’s demonstrates strong character when he stands up to the neighborhood bully, and his is courageous to defend Amir. The dedication and loyalty that Hassan demonstrates toward Amir is unmatched by Amir.

It is refreshing to see that a man of Baba’s standing shows Hassan compassion by giving Hassan the greatest birthday present he ever received: paying for an operation to repair his harelip. It is also somewhat sad for Amir, that his father does not show the same compassion for him as he does Hassan. The sincerity and integrity that Hassan has for his friend is unmet by Amir. Amir does not internalize the same feelings that Hassan has for him.

I am flabbergasted to hear how the villagers in this story treated the pregnant women, even if she did get pregnant from a man that wasn’t her husband. What was even more shocking was how the family just forgot her, dismissed that she was ever alive, after she killed herself and her baby. No mourning for the lost of a family member, no sadness for the lost life of a child, just disgust for the disgrace she brought to the family. That is the difference I think between American culture and other cultures. In America it is easier to forgive the wrongs of others. Family is more important than how something looks or is perceived by others. In America “blood is thicker than water”. The unforgiving Chinese culture is harsh on its women; I do not see how a culture could treat women that way, as servants or second-class citizens. I am glad I read this story, it increased my awareness of the societal mores that other cultures have. I am glad to live in the United States where everyone has the opportunity to be accepted as who they are and women are considered to be the mothers of humanity

The good ole days of meaningful talk shows died when Phil Donahue called it quits. It began to wither before that with shows like Jerry Springer and Maury. There was once a time when people believed in what happened on those shows, it is what made the show appealing to its viewers. Maury Povich, Montel Williams, and Geraldo Rivera once respected talk show host who spoke about important societal issues eventually sold out to sensationalism in favor of ratings. Every single episode of “Maury” and “Jerry Springer” are the exactly same but with different misguided guest who belittle their families or friends on national television. Montel Williams’ public humiliation and insincere sermons to guest who do wrong is what attracts his viewers. There are still some good talk shows out there: Oprah, The Tyra Banks show. Still, I would like to see more meaningful talk shows that speak about the issues that are important. I would like to see more discussions on talk shows about the war in Iraq, gay marriage, women in the workplace, the war on drugs, and the direction of our nation’s youth. But all I see is paternity test results, partial nudity, and staged fights.

It is amazing how people tend to handicap themselves sometimes. I enjoyed this story and I am happy that the character found peace with her and finally accepted her handicap. It is ironic that her life turned out the way it would even if her eye wasn’t disabled. This event definitely put a damper on her vanity and the way she viewed herself in the world. Maybe this was divine intervention, maybe in some weird way this was good for her. Just because I think that she would have grown up differently if this did not happen to her eye. I hate to see any child go through want she went through. I enjoyed this story and I would like to read more from this author.

I commend those who use Hip Hop as a means of expressing themselves. They resort to words and rhythm to let the masses know about the social injustices they face rather than violence. The power of rhythmic words has given voice to America’s youth, not just blacks, but browns, and yes whites as well. Although Hip Hop has become commercialized over the last ten or so years, it still gives voice to those who were not able to speak up. Hip Hop brings people together on positive terms not negative.

I think what Hip Hop should do is steer it devoted followers towards self-development, and empowerment, and get off the “look what I’ve got” mentality. Hip Hoppers are driving Mercedes Benz’s but still live in public housing, or are decked out in the $150 sneakers, $120 Jeans, $100 shirt, and $30 socks, but have no food in their cabinets. Hip Hop needs to start taking social responsibility, because, that is the message that Hip Hop wants to be heard.

I never new, before reading Margaret Atwood’s story, “Pornography”, that there was such a thing as violent pornography. I never heard about it or seen it, nor would I want to see violent pornography. I have on occasion, once in a blue moon, utilized the internet to look at pornography; I have never seen the violent destructive pornography that she speaks about. I believe that it exists, there are some crazy things that people are into, but it would turn my stomach and make me hurl. I agree with Atwood, that pornography is addictive and too much of anything is never good for anyone. When I was young and began having an interest in girls I crept into my father’s room for a peek at the magazines he had stacked in his closet. I had access to them only when no one was in the house. Today everything is on the internet. Porn is the number one reason why people go online, the second is email. You cannot prohibit pornography, even if you wanted to, it would have the same effect that prohibition did on alcohol use: increase its consumption. So what can we do as a society? The answer is educate.

This is a tough issue to discuss. I think state and federal government should keep their noses out of their citizens business, especially medical records. I also feel that people should be more responsible for their health, and if knowingly infect others be held accountable. The problem with mandatory testing is it makes people comply, and people in general do not like to be told what to do. It will force people who need testing into hiding in fear of being pointed out publicly. The state and federal governments are supposed to have in place programs, and treatments for those infected with HIV, but do not. The cost of medication is still too high, especially for those who need it the most. I am against the government snooping in the private lives of its citizens. If you give them an inch, next time they will want two, than three. AIDS is scary, and we need for a cure. We need to make sure government owns up to the promise made. However, I think government involvement in this situation is a necessary evil to prevent the spread of HIV.

Pro-choice and Pro-life supporters need to walk in each other’s shoes for a day, not only each other’s shoes, but the shoes of the pregnant fourteen year old, the thirty-something who intended to get pregnant. Let them face the choices that these women have to make. Then they will see that the life altering decisions do not come as easy as they believe. All human life no how small or miniscule deserves the right to thrive and grow. There are cases when rational decisions need to be made to abort. Examples are in case where the fetus has defects, a deformity, or the chances of survival are slim. Ultimately it is up to the mother to make this difficult decision.

I am on the line with this issue. I believe in life and in choice, when rational thinking is involved. I have a friend who was pregnant. Her decision not to abort and put the baby up for adoption was admirable; she gave the baby to a family who had the resources to provide better future for the child then she could. She has the opportunity to visit the child and have a relationship if she chooses. I can’t imagine making such a tough decision. If she chose to abort that decision would have haunted her for the rest of her life.

This is my least favorite story that I have read thus far. The beginning is a little confusing; is she saying that women are prostitutes when they do what others want them to do and not what they want to do? What I got from the story was about the author’s memories of her mother and how her mother made her poverty seem insignificant by growing flowers. I could not see the meaning behind the authors’ use of analogies. It is probably due to my inability to think abstractly. That’s how I feel, that is my response to “In Search or Our Mothers Garden.”

I agree with the author when he writes “the world is here” (Reed 50). The United States is a big stew of different nationalities and cultures. Foreign influenced have been here for ages. Just look around, on every corner in a major city; you will see the kosher deli, a Muslim mosque, or a bodega. The African influence on America began when Africans were brought to America as slaves, and continues to have influence to date. The mish mash of different cultures and ethnicities are what makes America what it is. It is the only country in the world where practically everyone’s origins can be traced back to another country. That’s what makes America great. That’s what makes America a multinational society.

Before reading this I did not know what the difference between Erotica and Pornography were. I never actually seen the violence that the author speaks about in pornography. Maybe if boys were introduced to the female body at a younger age they would not consider it so forbidden. That is what made me, when I was younger, want to go sneak a peek at my father’s nudie book collection. But because it is forbidden, it naturally will make boys curious, which in turn can lead them into viewing the sick pornography that the author speaks about. I do not condone violence against women of any kind. So I will stop using Google to search for pornography and instead use the word Erotica. If I sound sarcastic or callous it is not my intention and I extend my apologies to those whom I offended. This author has already changed my view of pornography and I just cannot quit cold turkey. Pornography is an addiction to many. Therefore, I have to wean myself, slowly away from porn.

What I got from this author is that there is a lot of money being spent on research with animals that are designed to benefit humans. I love animals, I don’t want to see them suffer or die, but some animal testing is necessary. Would animal activist rather researchers use humans, or just stop all research? Wouldn’t be great if the world was disease free? But it is not, yes I agree science needs to evolve. But until then animals will be used in experiments, money will be wasted on studies that have little or no effects for humans, and countless animals will die for the human cause.

I can see the contempt for that the media had for Malcolm X. The hatred for him is obvious. After reading all six accounts of his death only two events remained consistent throughout, one. Malcolm X was shot, and two. Malcolm X died. Perhaps Malcolm X was killed by the Muslims I do not think we will ever know the truth. Malcolm X stirred up controversy not only with the white man, but with his own people. I wonder how different America would be if Malcolm X was not assassinated. Would the nation of Islam be what it is today? How would life be different in the US, I think Malcolm was a great leader for African Americans. What kind of impact would Malcolm have had on this country, we will never know.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are human, and like every human make mistakes. It is ironic, because of these two men, because of what they done for the country, their contributions and efforts, people today can without fear of imprisonment or death, criticize them. They owned slaves; does that take away the impact that these men have had on the country? No, what is in the past can never change; we cannot go back into time and scold Jefferson for being a hypocrite. Nor can we change the impact that slavery has on American society. I for one am thankful that these men were alive at this point in time to established this country. However flawed they may be , the choices they made for this country are the reasons we are free today.

It is no surprise to me that Country-and-Western and Rap music are similar. They both sound the same to me, except rap talks about status, images, money and “bitches” and Country-and-Western sings about pick-up trucks, gun racks, and two timing yeller belly adulterers. They are both entertaining and annoying almost at the same time. My ears start to ring whenever I am in earshot of any device that spurts out this type of music. Both genres have a purpose, to let known, in their unique ways the woes of the lives of those trying to make money off of their heartache and sorrow: Country-and-Western, or exaggerated socials status and image: Rap music. I must admit, when I was around ten years old, I went to see the Oakridge boys in concert at the state fair, and when break dancing was popular, I was doing the backspin to rap music. But as I aged, and the genres changed so did my taste in Country-and-Western and Rap music.

After reading Mr. King’s letter to the clergyman, I find in my soul a deeper respect for him. While reading I transcended time, space, and ethnicity and understanding. I felt and experienced the segregation that he felt through his words. Mr. King was a powerful communicator. Before reading this letter I was oblivious to the reality of the black man in America. I have a deeper understanding of the heartache that African Americans experienced at the hands of ignorant whites. Although I will never feel or experience the type of hatred that was and is felt by African Americans then and now, I have a deeper understanding of the how they feel.

Jackie Robinson’s accomplishments in life were just as important as his accomplishments were in sports. He spoke out on the struggles that his people faced in America. I did not know that Jackie Robinson was actively involved in the fight for civil rights, but as I think about it he has been beginning with his college career and then throughout his professional baseball career. His endured and persevered regardless what the racist said about him. Jackie Robinson opened doors for all African Americans not only in baseball but in other sports as well. I have learned a lot as a college student, I am filling in the gaps of knowledge that I missed since I dropped out of High School.

I have read this essay four times, there is the worst story I have read thus far in class. It has left me scratching my head; I am more confused about AIDS than I was before I read this essay. It is obvious that this author needs to read Lipson to refresh her memory on how to cite sources. The only information that I learned from this essay was that AIDS is being compared to cancer and syphilis and AIDS symptoms are as well defined as other diseases. While I was reading this essay, I felt that I was being held hostage in a conversation, and I was just nodding my head, as the author was speaking to me. I only understood bits and pieces of the conversations. I went to sleep thinking maybe that I was tired and so bright and early 5:30AM, after washing my face and brushing my teeth, I read this essay a third time. Nope it is not me, it is the way this essay is written, confusing, and no direction.

I don’t think basketball is about black or white, I think the author takes a racist view of the sport, even though this essay was written back in the 70s and maybe it was socially acceptable to mention topics like this in national magazines then. Basketball just like society is a mish mash of styles, people, colors, races and cultures. The lines between black and white has blurred. Steve Nash, a white player was named MVP a couple of seasons ago. It’s not about color or race it’s about style, moves and even grace. Back then there was no Pro women’s basketball, now there are WNBA teams is almost every major metropolitan city in the US. Basketball is a commonality among cultures, races, classes. Basketball brings us together not only to play the game, but to interact with one another in harmony.

It is ironic that the author was ridiculed for not speaking Black English and getting good grades. I do not understand why it matters to some, how one sounds. What does white sound like anyway? I guess that speaking Black English brings people together and is a part of Identity. But if one knows how to speak right, why not do so when appropriate why be at a disadvantage, as the author suggests. In another 100 years there will be no black or white everyone will be have the blood of all the ethnicities running through their veins. Black English served its purpose in the past, it allowed people from different tribes to communicate with one another, and Black English had a purpose back then. My question is does have one now? Only time will tell.

I hate that word; The N-word it is a very tricky word. It has so many meanings, depending on who, and what context it is used. The author answered some questions that I had about the use of the word; even though I have heard it used in various situations, by African Americans, and by whites, but with different meanings. I have been called the N-word in a friendly context. I just hate that word, too much controversy, too much hate. People were lynched by mobs chanting that word with evil and hate running through their veins. I have heard African Americans use the term, often as a term of familiarity, endearment, or kinship. I just hate that word in any context. Words are very powerful; people are elected, and murdered over the utterance of them. Negative words have a negative impact, not only to the person the word is spoken to, but by the person who is speaking them.

What is Language? What does it do? It is a means to allow people to communicate with one another. In James Baldwin’s “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell me, What Is?”. Baldwin reveals the way language shapes and is formed by life’s circumstances. You can feel the anger of the author in his writing, the emotional content of his prose is more powerful than the actual words. Culture affects how language is used, it allows one to identify with or separate from a different culture. Baldwin reveals this when he writes, “Language…is the most vivid and crucial key to identity, it reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity” (Baldwin 89).Baldwin reveals how important a language either sets people apart or brings a people together. Baldwin describes the purpose of language and how it used to control reality. “People evolve a language in order to describe, and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be submerged by a situation that they cannot articulate” (Baldwin 89). Baldwin explains that language evolves so people can understand and communicate with each other. Thus, allowing people to participate in something greater than themselves and give people a sense of belonging that every human being craves: to be a part of society. By definition, Black English is a language.

I visited Ocean City library to look up an old article that Mark Soifer wrote back in 1981 about me. Tried several different search phrases including my last name, thinking that my name was mentioned in the article. There were nine matched to my query. Eight of those matches were obits with the word Eulogy in them. The ninth was this one. My father’s AF basic training press release posted in 1971.

Many immigrants come to America to escape poverty and violence in their native countries. They assimilate into America culture to avoid being isolated. They learn the language and customs and make it their own. America is full of Immigrants who assimilated and meshed their customs with America’s. That is what makes America great; the mixture of traditions, the mishmash of nationalities and customs. I enjoy meeting and talking to people from different countries, my position as a computer tutor gives me the opportunity to meet people from many different countries. One shouldn’t have fear of losing a culture, but be excited and happy to embrace and adapt their culture with a new one

I have always held the view that the U.S. War on Drugs was a war that could not be won. It is in my opinion that this war has created more jobs for Americans than any other. Because of the war on drugs there are more prisons, judges, DEA agents, police, and drug treatment facilities; more jobs and more money for state government, police department and new prisons. In 2004 Police arrest 1.7 million people nationwide for drug-law violations — 22 percent more than in 1995 (Katel 2006). Like any other war it has created its own industry.

The question should be: is America really trying to win the war on drugs? The Author reveals weak statements about how legalizing drugs would be worse than what it is already, “legalization might cause a five to six fold increase of cocaine use” (Bennett 28). Granted it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but the legalization of drugs will reduce crime, reduce the forbidden fruit dilemma, people wanting what they are not allowed to have, and allow the government to finally have a clear picture of actual drug use in the U.S.. Let’s face it, if someone really wanted to use cocaine, do you think they would wait until it was legal to do so, I just don’t buy it. Legalize drugs and crime, murder, the prison population will decrease. The illegal drug trade would cease. The argument that the author makes about increase drug use is irrelevant, people are going to use drugs regardless if it is illegal or not. Should drugs be legalized? My answer is yes it should.

This essay has profoundly affected me. While I was reading, images flashed in my head gathered from all of the movies, pictures and stories that I had heard or seen. Clips of the concentration camps, mass graves, people being starved to death, beaten, cremated, and gassed flickered through my head. I am troubled by the definition of the word “holocaust” and angry that such a gentle word was given to this terrible event in history. I am in agreement with Bettelheim’s contempt and outrage for using a technical term such as “holocaust” as a distancing device; it separates the intellectual from the emotional (Bettelheim). We have to remember what happened and experience the emotional side of this ruthless and brutal act. Not only to prevent it from happening again, but to remember the millions of Jews who were murdered.

I believe that being academically honest in the work I do in college is important to my education, my confidence, and sense of worth. It ensures that I understand and comprehend the subject that I am learning, and establishes my personal and professional integrity and credibility. I never really thought about Academic Honestly this critically before. I never thought I would be a college student, but I have come a long way since dropping out of high school and earning my GED. At my age I have a lot more to lose if caught being academically dishonest. The consequences are not worth the risks.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s, “How it Feels to be Colored Me” the author reveals to the reader how she feels about being colored. Her sense of humor and wittiness catch the interest of the reader throughout the piece and provides a comic relief to an otherwise serious subject. The author does not let the color of her skin define her as a person, and refuses to let her race’s history cripple her. This is evident when she writes, “… I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a low down dirty deal…” (Hurston 3). Hurston’s perspective on being her social status and skin pigmentation does not cripple her from her aspirations and dreams.

Hurston reveals her wit when she responds to being reminded that she is a descendent of slaves, “It fails to registers depressions with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, Thank you.” (Hurston 3). Hurston reveals to the reader how she refuses to let the past determine her future. The way Hurston writes motivates the reader to want more of her writing and encourages one to read.

I agree with the author when he writes, “the world is here” (Reed 50). The United States is a big stew of different nationalities and cultures. Foreign influenced have been here for ages. Just look around, on every corner in a major city; you will see the kosher deli, a Muslim mosque, or a bodega. The African influence on America began when Africans were brought to America as slaves, and continues to have influence to date. The mish mash of different cultures and ethnicities are what makes America what it is. It is the only country in the world where practically everyone’s origins can be traced back to another country. That is what makes America great. That is what makes America a multinational society.

Truman Capote is a very charismatic person, one who would say or do anything to win the hearts and minds of his audience. Capote cleverly manipulates people into revealing personal and poignant facts to him by revealing something personal and poignant about himself. He becomes an omnipotent character in the book he writes, a character that he never writes about in his book. He purposely takes himself out of the story, never mentions his involvement or his relationships. Capote deceives and manipulates everyone, from the police to the residents of Holcomb and Garden City and ultimately Perry Smith the convicted murderer, in order to gather tidbits of information to use as ammunition to write his book.

Capote’s attachment to Perry haunts him as he comes to realize that he shares the same kind of devastating childhood experiences with Perry. This becomes evident when Capote responds when Nelle Harper Lee questions him about his relationship with Perry: “It’s as if Perry and I started life in the same house, One day he stood up and walked out the back door while I walked out the front” (Futterman 69). Capote believes he could have become Perry if he had made the same choices that Perry made, and he sees himself in Perry. The fact of the matter is that Capote chose a different path, which leads me to believe that his obsession with Perry and his choices led to his creative and psychological destruction. Capote begins to manipulate himself into believing that he and Perry are alike and becomes emotionally attached to him.

The attention and affection that Capote desperately needed but that was denied to him by his mother haunted him. He saw the same ghosts in Perry that he felt inside himself. The lack of affection and attention from his mother deformed his personality, which became a powerful force behind his peculiarity. This unmet need for attention and affection forced him to satisfy it any way he could and he did so through his writings and his unusual behavior. It seems it was an addiction for him to receive attention from everyone good, bad or indifferent. I believe he enjoyed the challenge of manipulating people and forcing them to deal with him.

Even though Capote identifies with Perry, he further manipulates him to get the details he requires to finish his book. I think that there were two opposite but equal emotions that were at work inside of him. Capote reveals these emotions to Nelle Harper Lee at the end of her visit in Spain when he says, “Jack says I am using Perry, but he also thinks I fell in love with him when I was in Kansas. How both of those things can be true is beyond me” (Futterman 69). I think that Capote was using Perry but eventually empathized with him and began to see himself in Perry and wanted Perry to live. However, I think the manipulative and peculiar force inside Capote wanted to see Perry hang so he could finish his book and get the praise and attention that he desired from his mother but received from his audience.

Capote’s deceitful and manipulative view of the world dictated the last words spoken to Perry. Moments before Perry was executed with tears streaming down his face Capote squeaks, “I did everything I could…I truly did” (Futterman 104, 105). Capote tried to persuade himself at this moment that he did everything he could to save Perry but knows that he did not. I think what finally broke Capote was seeing Perry hang. It would be devastating to watch a person hang even if one did not know him. I think what Capote saw when the floor of the Gallows dropped under Perry’s feet was the death of himself. The conflicting emotions raging inside of him corrupted his soul and led him to Alcoholism and eventually to his death.

Potential problems may arise during the installation of a computer system. The kind of problems in my experience falls in three broad categories: Hardware, Software, and Ergonomics. In this essay I will discuss a potential hardware installation problem and I will reveal possible causes for these problems and suggest solutions to resolve it.

One can only pray for a pain free and easy computer installation, but the truth is that there is always a obstacle to overcome and a problem to resolve; you may encounter a clean and hassle free computer installation every once in awhile, but remember if it was that easy, anyone could do it.. When building a new computer a technician must consider hardware compatibility. The days of “Plug and Pray” are coming to an end with new releases of more advance operating systems. However, hardware malfunctions or installation problems can occur and do more often than not.

Problem: The PC seems to boot up fine, but there is no display. A possible Cause is could be the monitor cables. A Solution is to make sure that the cable between the monitor and PC is secured tightly. If the monitor has a separate power cord, make sure the cord is connected firmly at both ends. Another possible solution is to check the video card. If the monitor is working fine, it’s time to power down the computer, disconnect the power source, and open the computer case. Once you locate the video card, remove it from the expansion slot. Check to see if the card is damaged. If it looks to be damaged, replace it with a known good video care and try to boot the computer again with the monitor turned on. If it is integrated video they problem may lie with the motherboard, However, This is not likely, but it’s worth considering. It’s unlikely because you would almost surely be having other motherboard-related problems, such as random reboots or lockups, or a system that refuses to boot at all.

Todays operating systems and applications require more system resources than ever, especially memory. More memory will speed up your computer applications and increases your computers overall performance. Some benefits of adding more memory include quicker boot-up times and the ability to run multiple programs simultaneously. Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) memory offers maximum data transfer rates to increase performance of memory demanding applications such as streaming video, games, and graphics programs.

Some computer manufacturers such as Toshiba ship their laptop computers with the least amount of memory to keep the selling price low. Toshiba embeds 256MB of DDR2 RAM in it laptops and has one to two open memory slots to allow upgrades. Windows XP will run painfully slow with the minimum amount of memory. Which according to Microsoft is, “128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or … (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)” (”Windows XP Professional System Requirements”). You can never have too much memory by adding just 512 MB of additional RAM will dramatically improved your systems performance.

Computer Memory is analogous to the top of your desk, the bigger your desk top the more things (applications) your can have on it at the same time (multitasking), such as a writing tablet (word processing program), a date book, (a calendar program) etc. Think of these items as your computer programs and the desktop as RAM, the more RAM in your computer (bigger desktop) the more applications you can run simultaneously (the more junk on your desk). Software applications will also run much faster with more memory especially memory hungry applications such as graphic intensive programs. The amount of memory you can upgrade your system to is based on your budget and your computer’s memory requirements.

Some laptops can only be upgrade to 2GB of RAM, and laptop memory usually is more expensive then desktop memory. Most new desktops can be upgraded to 4GB or more. Make sure that you know your computers model number when searching for memory, not all memory will work in all computers. If you’re in doubt contact your computers manufacturer to find out what kind of memory you should buy or purchase memory directly from them.

Blue is how I feel this morning, disappointed in myself. Disappointed that I let myself down, that I sabotaged myself, knowing that I was sabotaging myself when I was doing it, Damn me! I earned 82 on a Spanish test. seems petty, doesn’t it? it does! thirty-four years of this type of thinking, it is not easy to change. I am working on it, I have to remember that life is 90% of what happens to me and 10% how I react to it. Ok! time to react: study harder, get help, refocus, ask for help…Time to take control, and stop sabotaging my progress, the little neglected boy is acting up again.

Ok, know I am feeling Mucho bettero! (bettero not actually a word in Spanish “use at your own risk”) Chin up, back straight, chest out, optimisimistic. My thoughts are all over the place lately, refocus Joe. Eye on the prize, this is not just for you, but your daughter. Focus, step by step, live for today. Just for today. Count the small victories: got up this morning,(always a blessing), earned a 114% on first business test, (wow), on my way to a degree, daughter is healthy, sun is shining, I am in school.

Ok, I am focused, know what I need to do, put the plan in action.

Monday I fell into the abyss, took me two days to climb out. I cried today, an attempted cry on the bus and a full out bawling in the cafeteria, I hid it, from everyone. embarrassing it is. A grown man, of 34 crying. I needed to let it out, all of the emotions that have been bottled up, that I repressed over the years. I am glad I did, I feel relieved. Relieved of all the baggage, maybe not all the baggage, but definitely, a duffle bag or two. all of those repressed emotions that I have carried around all of these years, I have like Joe Trace from Morrison’s JAZZ, become new.

In the search for my childhood,

I selfishly missed my daughters…

her first steps, her first words,

her first day of school,

all of the moments in a child’s life…

a father should never miss.

I was too selfish chasing after my lost childhood,

I could not hold on to the memory of it,

the very moment I had a firm grip…

my anguish would pry my fingers loose…

one by one…

until I slipped back into the abyss.

Only the lingering feelings of isolation and loneliness lingered

which haunted me throughout my teens and into adulthood?

The ghost inside me chased me as I, chased my identity

Searching for my father, I denied my daughter hers.

A Fatherless father with no clue how to be one;

it took until now to realize my foolishness

it is time for me to become an adult.

It is a full out war going on in my unconscious:

little Joe acting out when he doesn’t get attention

and big Joe losing control.

time to stop being selfish,

and start being the father that my daughter deserves,

the father that I was meant to be.

I flew to Las Vegas solo, no luggage, no carry on, just the cash in my pocket and the shirt on my back. I sat in the window seat, isle 10; took me ten minutes to convince the little old lady sitting there that she was in my spot. She stared at me as if I were a crazed vagabond, who could blame her, I am unshaven, disheveled and look as if, I belonged in a cardboard on top of a steam grate. The flight attendant sauntered over, confirmed my story, and told the old bag to move. She did, reluctantly, cursing me under her breath. Damn me!

I sold everything I owned to gamble it in a poker game, the poker game: the world series of poker. My chances of winning at poker were better than black jack, and much faster than playing the slots. It was my last ditch effort to redeem myself to my friends, my family, and the two big Italian guys with the broken noses. I owed them too much money and this was my only way to get them off my back and reclaim any crumb of dignity that I had left. Damn my gambling habit!

I prayed the poker gods would grant me good cards and enough luck and wisdom to play them. I had been practicing my poker face the moment sin city invaded my thoughts, but is hard to hide a smile when you have good cards and a scowl when you do not. It is difficult, and I am emotional. Damn me!

As I looked out the window over the wing of the plane, I could see the lights of the strip, the green glow from the MGM grand, and the pulsating light shooting up from the Luxor. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been to Vegas and I with any luck not my last. I don’t know if it was the stale peanuts or the thoughts of the torture the gentlemen with the broken noses would inflicted on me if I lost, that gave me so much heartburn, so I starting popping Tums in my mouth like ticktacks. Damn me!

The butterflies in my stomach made me vomit as we landed. Bits of peanuts and strawberry Tums stained the dress of the little old lady that sat next to me “Sorry” I said as I attempted to wipe off the vomit from her dress, “get your hands off of me, you freaken asshole!” she howled. Great, I have been in Vegas for less than five minutes and I am already making great friends! Damn me!

Re: Geeksquad service order#: 00472-890838806

11 days after dropping off my Laptop on 2/9/07 for repair at the Best Buys store, Rt. 22, in Union County , and told that the extended warranty that I bought covered the cost and parts of the repair. I received a phone call.

A phone call on 2/20/07 from Geek Squad city, stating that there was damage to the bottom of my laptops case, that the extended warranty that I purchased did not cover the repair, and it was going to cost me $179 to have them fix it, needless to say I felt like I was flamboozled. I was instructed in this message to contact the store where I dropped off my laptop, and inform them of my decision.

First of all, When I dropped off the laptop there was no damage to the bottom case. The technician thoroughly looked my laptop over and noted the condition of the laptop on my service order as only “scratched throughout the unit”.

On 2/24/07 I attempted to contact the Best Buy store on Rt.22, and after my sixth call after being hung-up on several times and spending over 30 min on hold, I spoke to a customer service rep named Shakira. Shakira had to actually go and physically drag ,[ I may be exaggerating a wee bit ] David, the Cadet agent for Geek Squad to the phone.

I complained about the phone wait and all of the attempts that I made and he replied “that it he was busy”. After 20 minutes on the phone he repeated to me about the case being damaged and that it was not covered under the warranty, I informed him that there was no case damage when I dropped off the laptop and instructed him to look at the Condition notes on the service invoice. David said that the laptop was on its way back to the store and that I could speak to a manager when it arrived and discuss the discrepancy.

I am a college student and I need my laptop, so far it has taken 2 weeks for them not to repair my laptop, and it goings to take another 2 weeks for them to get it back to the store, and what? another 4 to 6 weeks for them to repair it? Needless to say I am flabbergasted.

Frustration races through my veins like fire,
It corrupts my thoughts, overpowers all rational thinking,
I regress, act out, and behave like a child who doesn’t get his way,
Frustration turns into Anger,

An anger that cannot and will not be directed outward,

So inward it seeks me, it belittles me, and demeans my soul,

It festers into self-destruction and tricks me into hopelessness and despair,

Into self loathing and hate

It is drowning me,

Pushing my head under the water,

I resurface and thrash about for a few gulps of air,

Back down I plunge: isolated, rejected, and damned;

I attempt to grab a moment to bring in a positive thought or two,

To pull myself out of the abyss,

I dig my nails into the wall of this mental hole and claw my way up

Up from the chasm of dejection that has consumed my childhood… my identity,

I am fighting it, but afraid…

Punching with all of my might… but shivering in fear,

I am yanking the hair from its scowling head,

I am stunned that it is laughing at me,

And shocked to see that it is I, whom I fight,

I begin to realize that it I who sabotages my progress,

I keep myself Hostage to the anger directed inward.

I begin to comprehend, that I have a choice,

A choice NOT to let Frustration turn to anger pointed at inward

I just do not understand the reason why I am always singled out: I go to school, I earn great grades, I do what is ask of me, and still get constantly picked on by the Director of the Program [ I am currently in a residential program and in recovery] . Not one positive word, it is always clean this, do that, have Eulo GI this, paint the wall, rip up the carpet, take out the trash, always spoken to me in a disrespectful tone. I do not know if it is racial or personal, I just do not understand why I am being harassed. I get the feeling they want me to fail, this Director, never a kind word for me, Never. Not that I need any kind words from them. I just would like to be treated with respect and dignity, is that too much to ask for? It is their own rules, to treat residents with respect. They change and make up their own rules every day.

I cannot complain or make waves, they’ll take it out on me even more: shit details, GI the stove when I get back at 10:PM at night knowing I have to get up to go to school the following morning. Now they want me to get an attendance sheet filled out every day, ridiculous, never have I had to do this before. I am trying to learn a new way to live, to make choices. I do not want my professors to have to sign a stupid attendance sheet, I am mad, calm down, take a breath, and write. One more year, of this hell, one more year, if I can survive this I can survive anything. You would think that they would be happy that I was doing so well in school; you CAN NOT earn the grades I earned last semester and not be attending class.

They are nit picking, it will be forgotten about in a day or two, until the next time they find a reason to pick on me. Attempt to trap me, and send me back to the abyss. An educated man is a man who thinks with reason, not emotion. I am working on it, truly I am. Life is 90% of what happens to me and 10% of how I react to it. I think they want me to react, to get upset, to revert back to the Joe I was before I came to college: The Joe that wore his emotions on his sleeve, The Joe who exposed his buttons so they could be pushed, No that Joe is gone, I found new avenues to vent my frustrations and Anger, Just Blog it! Instead of turning the frustration into self directed Anger and depression, Just Blog it! Ha! Sorry Mrs. Director you can t push my buttons anymore, you are the 90% and I am the 10%It is amazing.

The registry is a hierarchical database that is used by the Operating System (OS) to store information that is necessary to configure the system for users, applications and hardware devices. It contains information that Windows continually references during operation, such as profiles, applications installed on the computer and the types of documents that each can create. It also contains information for property sheet settings for folders, application icons, hardware that exists in the system, and the ports that are being used (”Windows registry”).

The Registry replaced most of the text-based .ini files used in Windows 3.x and MS-DOS configuration files, such as the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys. You can edit the registry by using Registry Editor (Regedit.exe or Regedt32.exe). But be careful if you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you can cause problems that may require you to reinstall the operating system (”Windows registry”).

The Windows Registry is split into five logical sections. These all begin “HKEY” (an abbreviation for “Handle to Key”). Each of these keys is divided into sub keys, which contain further sub keys, and so on (see table 1). Any key may contain entries with various types of values. The values of these entries can be: a String Value, a Binary Value (0 or 1), a DWORD Value (32 bit unsigned integer), a Multi-String Value, or an Expandable String Value. Registry keys are specified with form similar to Windows’ path names, using backslashes to indicate levels of hierarchy. E.g. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows refers to the sub key “Windows” of the sub key “Microsoft” of the sub key “Software” of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key (”Windows registry”).

With support for dual-core CPUs and the latest graphics, motherboards are packing more muscle than ever before. One such monster for the Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, and the Pentium EE is the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe Motherboard (see figure 1). It features NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI x16 chipset, in an ATX form factor that supports up to 8 gigabytes (8GB) of DDR2 800/667/533 non-ECC memory and a blazing fast 1066MHz front side bus. The P5N32-SLI SE offers more than enough expandability options with its 7 internal PCI expansions slots (2 x PCI Express x16, 1 x PCI Express x14, 2 x PCI Express x1, 2x PCI). The back panel of the P5N32-SLI SE sports a plethora of external ports: 1 x Parallel port, 1 x S/PDIF Out (Coaxial + Optical), your typical PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse ports, and 1 x External SATA, 2 x RJ45, an 8-Channel Audio I/O, and 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports. the P5N32 also has two Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33, and four Serial ATA 3 Gb/s controllers and supports NVRAID: RAID0, 1, 0+1, 5, and JBOD on Serial ATA drives (”P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe”).

The P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe features NVIDIA’s SLI technology which takes advantage of the increased bandwidth of the PCI Express bus and features intelligent hardware and software that allows two Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) to efficiently work together to deliver mind blowing graphics and performance. NVIDIA’s SLI technology offers twice the PCI Express bandwidth of the X8 SLI solutions making use of the two full-bandwidth 16-lane PCI Express links (”P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe”). ASUS’s 8-Phase Power Design builds a more steady power supply environment for the CPU and generates less heat than conventional power design. Moreover, with this strong power pump, the P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe can perform better when over clocking the processors.

The ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe motherboard supports the next-generation hard drives based on the Serial ATA (SATA) 3Gb/s storage specs, delivering improved scalability and doubling the bus bandwidth for high-speed data retrieval disk writes. As a plus the P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe offers an external SATA port on back input output panel that is designed for external SATA devices; is hot-swappable compliant and supports up to 16 devices with port-multiplier functions (”P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe”).

The P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe features “Stack Cool 2″ technology, which is a fan-less and zero-noise cooling solution. It effectively transfers heat generated by the critical components to the other side of the specially designed PCB (printed circuit board) for effective heat dissipation. The fan less design provides a cool environment without all the typical problems associated with fan less solutions. Cooling fans, over time, become noisy as the ball bearings wear out. The ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe can be purchased at ZipZoomFly, http://www.ZipZoomFly.com, for about $209.99 to $214.99. If you are a serious PC, gamer or power user the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe motherboard is for you.

I dropped out in the middle of my junior year of high school, I was a “G” student (worse than an F) , my grades were so bad they had to invent a grade just for me, the only subject I was good at was Lunch. I regretted dropping out of high school. I have made many mistakes in my life, and I was the king of bad decision-making until I decide to earn my GED 6 years later. Despising math, hating to write anything other than my name, (because it was hard for me), and struggling to read, I slowly and painfully earned my GED.

At 34, I decided to pursue a college degree. I never thought that I had the potential to be successful. I never thought that I could earn an “A” in anything. Last semester I earned four of them and a “B+”. Me, a success! I am not the same person as I was when I started college in the summer of 2006. My college experience has profoundly impacted my thinking, perceptions, and relationship with others, my experience here has revealed to me opportunities that I never imagined.

One’s future is not determined by chance or fate, but ultimately by the choices one makes. If a high school dropout chooses to go back to school and earns a diploma, academic and employment opportunities arise as a result. That is a positive choice that has affected the future and direction of that person. If one decides to commit a crime, the most likely consequence is prison and separation from society and family. That choice has a negative consequence that affected the person, victim, society, and his or her family. In American History X, Derek’s choices have directly impacted the way he sees the world, his attitude, and his family. In Panos Ioannides’ “Gregory,” the choice the narrator makes not only alters the course of his life but the other soldier’s lives as well. It is important that one considers the outcome of each decision carefully because the choices one makes in life have either a positive or negative consequence that not only affects their attitude and their paradigm, but other people as well.

The narrator in “Gregory” reveals the effect that his prior decisions, the execution of prisoners, had on him. “The first time, I remembered I vomited, the second time I got sick and had a headache for days. The third time I drank a bottle of rum. The fourth, just two glasses of beer. The fifth time I joked about it” (Ioannides 422). The narrator is saying that at first, this was a hard thing for him to do, but after making the decision to follow through with the murders, it became a normal process. Even though the soldier was given the order to execute the prisoners, it was his choice to act them out. The result of his actions affected him physically and mentally. The negative effect of the decision changed his attitude and the way he viewed the world around him forever. It affected the other soldiers because he was the one chosen to do the job. Therefore, they did not have the same feeling of guilt as he did.

In American History X, Derek blames his father’s death on the blacks in the neighborhood where his father was shot fighting a fire. The choices Derek makes after his father’s murder greatly affect his paradigm and attitude toward minorities. This profoundly affects Danny and seals his fate. After his father’s death, Derek takes over as the man of the house, and Danny seeking direction and guidance, follows Derek blindly. The effects of Derek’s choices manipulate Danny to choose a negative attitude toward non-whites. Derek blinded by anger and hatred over his father’s death, develops a negative attitude that influences the choices he makes, and ultimately affects his brother’s destiny.

Gregory, The hostage in Ioannides’ essay, becomes comfortable and believes that his new friend, the storyteller and his executioner, will not cause him any harm. Gregory decides not to escape when the opportunities are presented. Gregory’s murderer, the narrator in his mind, belittles Gregory for his inaction, “… you are going to pay for your stupidities wholesale. Because you didn’t escape the day the sentry fell asleep, because you didn’t escape yesterday when we sent you alone to the laundry—we did it on purpose, you idiot! Why didn’t you let me die from the sting of the scorpion?…it’s all your fault, nitwit” (Ioannides 424). The narrator and the other soldiers befriend Gregory and gave him several opportunities to escape, but Gregory decided not to run away. The narrator feelings are revealed when he questions why Gregory saved his life. It is ironic that Gregory’s life is ended by the man whose life he saved. The decisions Gregory made affected the soldiers that he befriended and had a negative and final impact on his life.

Danny’s father in American History X made decisions that affected others around him. Danny looked back into time to reflect “why it went the way it did, and why it all started” (American History X 1998), meaning when hate started to take over his family. Their father’s decision to convey his racist beliefs to them, planted the seeds to his family’s demise. At family dinners, the father expressed his biased views on Affirmative Action. Danny exposed the truth, despite what his brother thought, that the detriment of his family began long before their father died. The result had a damaging influence on the attitudes and choices of himself and Derek. The death of their father was the catalyst for the beliefs they held toward minorities and the evolution of their blinding anger. As a result of Danny’s father’s choices, the mixture of hate and anger had a fatal impact on him and his family negative consequence on which ultimately led to his brother’s incarceration.

While in prison, Derek starts to understand how his mistaken beliefs have misled him and destroyed his family. Derek learns some hard truths about life from a black inmate, Lamont, and from Dr. Sweeny, the principal of his old high school, who takes a special interest in him. He realizes that the choices he made: to hate, to kill, and to “be pissed off”, have affected his attitude and the way he viewed the world. After three years in prison, Derek emerges with a desire to change attitudes; he tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path and finds his words are not enough.

Derek’s new point of view is revealed when he speaks to his brother, “Danny. It is wrong and it was eating me up, it was going to kill me. And I kept asking myself all the time, how did I buy into this shit? It was because I was pissed off, and nothing I ever did ever took that feeling away. I killed two guys, Danny, I killed them. And it did not make me feel any different. It just got me more lost and I am tired of being pissed off, Danny. I’m just tired of it” (American History X 1998). Derek is saying life is too short to be “pissed off,” and nothing he did relieved the pain he held about his father’s murder. Derek decides to save his brother from making the same mistakes that he did.

In “Gregory” and American History X, death was the result of the choices the narrator and Derek made. Not only did their choices have an impact on other people, it affected them personally. The death of Gregory filled the narrator with guilt. The same can be said for Derek after the death of his brother. These feelings change the characters’ attitude toward the choices they make and prove it is important that one wisely consider the end result of the choices they make.

Language is affected by race, identity, culture, and reality. It is a key component to one’s identity. It reveals the characteristics of the speaker. Without language, one would be unable to express feelings, thoughts, or ideas to others; one would experience loneliness, isolation –”death.” In James Baldwin’s If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell me, What Is? Baldwin reveals the way language shapes and is formed by life’s circumstances. In Ilan Stavans’, essay Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, Stavans reveals the influence culture has on language. Through culture and life circumstances, people adapt language to keep from being submerged in situations where they cannot articulate.

Culture affects how language is used, it allows one to identify with or separate from a different culture. Baldwin reveals this when he writes, “Language…is the most vivid and crucial key to identity, it reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity” (Baldwin 93). Baldwin reveals how important a language either sets people apart or brings a people together. If a southern person comes to the north, they are automatically “divorced” from the public identity. They eventually try to adapt their language to fit in with the larger community. In Baldwin’s essay blacks adapted English to communicate with each other, this is just one example of how culture affects language.

People mend their native language with English to bring what they understand together with what they do not understand, in doing this they maintain their native culture and meld it to their new one. Stavans speaks about this when he writes, “As an immigrant, my road to full participation in American life was—as it has been and continues to be for any immigrant, regardless the origin—through English” (Stavans 100). Some Immigrants speak through a relative or friend in order to communicate. Slowly they began to understand and use English; until they were able to speak on their own. In Stavans’ essay, Spanglish serves as the connection to the American way of life for the people who spoke limited English.

Baldwin describes the purpose of language and how it used to control reality. “People evolve a language in order to describe, and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be submerged by a situation that they cannot articulate” (Baldwin 92). Baldwin explains that language evolves so people can understand and communicate with each other. Thus, allowing people to participate in something greater than themselves and give people a sense of belonging that every human being craves. For example, when an immigrant comes to America and cannot speak English, they are immersed in situations where they cannot communicate with others, without some kind of interpretation, they are lost—”submerged.” Baldwin give details about a moment in time when a family member spoke to him in a language, Black English, which a white man could not understand, in order to warn him about a danger he was in. Therefore, people adapt to their circumstances, they meld what they understand with what they do not.

Circumstances may present situations where to use a language is unsafe. Baldwin speaks about this when he writes, “There have been, and are, times and places, when to speak a certain language could be dangerous, even fatal” (Baldwin 93). For example, In Iraq it is very dangerous to speak English because it reveals that one is from a western culture. Speaking English in a region of Iraq where insurgents are known to occupy exposes one to hostility, torture, mutilation, and death if taken hostage by insurgents. In the news this past year an American Iraqi teenager took a journey to Iraq, while shopping at a market in Baghdad he did not speak the Iraqi language, Arabic, he spoke English, immediately he stood out, the people around him knew that he was not from the same culture as they were, even though he looked like them, he did not speak like them. After realizing his mistake, he found safety. This is just one example of how circumstances can present a situation where the use of a language is dangerous.

Stavans talks about how culture and circumstance affected one of his students, Lisa Martinez. Lisa, an East Los Angeles native and ex gang member, felt disconnected from her true self. Lisa, “nostalgic for la casa” felt out of place in Amherst, Massachusetts. Stavans reveals to the reader the personal conflict that Lisa was going through while attending college. “..Lisa felt disoriented…anxious to finish and return home. She also expressed her ambivalence at being an affirmative action student, enticed to the place by a fellowship, but often looked at suspiciously by her Anglo counterparts because her skin color…and her ethnic idiosyncrasy” (Stavans 101) Lisa dealt with her circumstances by adapting her language even thought she did not like doing so, she conformed. She spoke the language of the academic culture in which she was a part. The culture shock that she experienced made her feel out of place; she craved to be around people who accepted her. She yearned for home. Cultural differences can affect how one feels about adapting language.

People use language to express thoughts, ideas, and feelings with others. Without language or the ability to express one self, one would be isolated; left out, submerged, According to Baldwin they would experience “death”. Baldwin reveals this to the reader when he writes, “What joins all language, and all men, is the necessity to confront life, in order, not inconceivably, to outwit death” (Baldwin 93). All human beings have the need to interact with other human beings, without this capability they would experience separation, isolation—”death”. Throughout life, people experience situations where they adapted their language in order to fit in to a different culture than their own.

Through culture and life’s circumstances people adapt their language to keep from being drowned in situations where they cannot express themselves. Language is affected by culture and reality. Without language, one would be unable to express their thoughts, ideas, and emotions with others. Baldwin makes known the struggles Africans face when they were brought to America, and the way they melded their language together to create Black English. In Stavans’ essay, he reveals the influence; specifically Spanish culture has on language. Both Baldwin and Stavans prove that through culture and life circumstances that people must adapt in order to remain articulate.

In this essay, I will discuss the similarities and differences of two popular customer support websites: support.microsoft.com and support.gateway.com. I will provide a review of Microsoft’s and Gateway’s support Web sites based on content, format, organization, mechanics, and ease of use. I will point out key elements and provide you with my pick of the best for ease of use.

Microsoft’s support website, http://support.microsoft.com, exhibits a very appealing look and feel. The blue theme Microsoft chose invites the user to explore and provides a sense of tranquility. Microsoft’s support content is up-to-date, robust, and informative once you are able to find it. Its content is written more for the experienced professional, non technical-savvy end-users may have trouble understanding the techno-jargon Microsoft employs. The format of the site which includes the FAQ knowledge base, and support contact information are simplistic and easy to find.

The website navigational controls shift from the left side of window to the right, depending on the link that you clicked, this could confuse or frustrate site visitors. The navigational links are context sensitive and change according to the type of support page that you are viewing. Clicking on the Windows XP link displays a webpage with Windows XP’s Latest News and Solution Center articles that are placed in the main content area of the webpage. The organization of Microsoft’s support website pages are somewhat awkward and are presented with a vast amount of information, a significant amount of scrolling is necessary to view all of the material. It is easy to get lost or distracted when surfing the site.

The consistent element throughout Microsoft’s website is the navigational banner at the top of each web page. It is the only element that never changes, and it is home to the Microsoft’s website search engine. The search engine allows users to search Microsoft’s content more quickly. A link to Microsoft’s site map, support, and home page are also in this area. Microsoft’s support site is very informative; but it contains some confusing navigational controls. I found no spelling or grammar mistakes anywhere. Microsoft’s support site is definitely tailored towards power-user and computer professionals and leaves the average end user scratching their heads. Microsoft’s web site has the potential to be a better support site than it is, all it needs are few usability tweaks and content adjustments.

Gateway’s support site, http://support.gateway.com, boasts a brilliantly designed user interface. The home page is appealing to the eye and welcomes the user to explore the website. The first element that you see when the website loads is the navigational aids at the top of the webpage. This gives the user a sense of control and direction. Like Microsoft, Gateway also displays a search engine at the top of every web page.

Gateway’s content is easy to follow and understand than Microsoft’s support website. The unique design of the user interface provides ease of use and quick access to content, downloads and technical support. Gateway also includes a help link that displays an FAQ and the website requirements and procedures. Quick links back to the home page and site map round off the top navigational element. Gateway also provides the user the opportunity to provide feedback. It is obvious that Gateway put a lot of time and effort into the design and implementation of their end user support web site. Gateway’s support site features well formatted easy page views with very little scrolling. Users are able to find content in a matter of seconds. The step-by-step layout ensures that users find the right support needed quickly.

I like Microsoft’s and Gateways look and appearance, they are both very eye appealing. Equally, both support websites display a consistent navigational and search engine element at the top of each webpage. However, that is where the similarities end. Gateway support website is easier to navigate and provides the user quick and easy access to needed information, driver downloads, and technical support. Gateway also put text-only navigational links at the bottom of each page with little or no scrolling. The ease of use, the layout and the content are concise and to the point, that is why I prefer Gateway’s support website over Microsoft’s.

After thirty-three years, the United States drug policy has failed to achieve its intended purpose. Drug related crime has increased, more illegal drugs are on the streets today as ever before, and drug use has reached elementary school children. The “war on drugs”, the longest running war in United States history, has cost the American taxpayers over $300 billion (Katel); and has ruined lives and claimed untold casualties. Supporters are afraid that without prohibition, the number of drug users will increase and that legalization would send the wrong message to the nation’s youth. Over the past ten years, the controversy over the legalization of drugs has stirred up debate among the terminally ill, politicians, and lawmakers. It has given power to some states to defy federal law. Regulation is the answer to the growing drug problem in America because it will accomplish what drug prohibition failed to do: reduce crime and drug addiction.

A brief look into American history is important to understand how the United States attitude towards drugs developed, and how the “war on drugs” started. Drug use began in the United States when injured Civil War veterans became addicted to morphine (Cooper). Addiction spread and grew among middle class Americans, who self-medicated with cough medicines, tonics and other medications that contained opium or cocaine (Cooper). According to Cooper, “Reports of adverse reactions to patent medicines fueled public pressure for regulation” (Cooper). As a result, in 1906 the Pure Food and Drug Act passed which required manufactures to list ingredients on product labels (Cooper).

In 1912, the criminalization of narcotics started when the United States joined “The Hague Opium Convention” which gave jurisdiction over drugs to the criminal-justice systems that regulated the production and distribution of opiates, and restricted its use to medical purposes (Cooper). The United States participation in the convention began when “fears about narcotic use compounded by racial bias, grew with the rapid influx of opium-smoking Chinese railroad laborers in California” (Cooper). In 1914, the United States passed the “Harrison Narcotic Act,” the first drug law which regulated “the production and sale of opium, cocaine and is later amended to ban heroin” (Cooper).

Alcohol, far more commonly consumed than any other mind-altering substance was banned in 1919, with the passing of the 18th Amendment of the Constitution; which made it illegal to make, sell, or consume alcohol (Cooper). However, the demand for alcohol continued and gave birth to bootleg alcohol production, which was accompanied by the rapid rise in crime associated with the struggle over control of alcohol distribution. In 1933, after thirteen years, the failure of the prohibition prompted the United States to pass the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution that rescinded the 18th Amendment leaving the power to regulate alcohol to the states (Cooper).

In the 1937, the United States passed the Federal Marijuana Tax Act requiring anyone who grew, used or distributed marijuana to pay a high tax (Marshall). The Marijuana Tax Act effectively “extended the drug ban to include marijuana whose use among Mexican immigrants in the southwest had sparked the same kind of racially motivated concern about narcotics use earlier targeted Chinese immigrants and at African Americans, who were said to commit crimes while high on cocaine” (Cooper). In the 1960s, Marijuana use spread to the middle class through musicians, artist, and soldiers returning from Vietnam.

In 1970, the “Federal Controlled Substances Act” was passed which made marijuana possession illegal (Marshall). In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon created the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention that is designated to coordinate drug policy, which included prevention efforts, treatment and rehabilitation for addicts and to conduct research into addiction (Cooper). Additionally, in 1972, President Nixon’s National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse released a report to congress entitled “Marihuana [sic], A Signal of Misunderstanding,” which favored ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage marijuana use (Marshall). The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) petitioned the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a “Schedule 2″ drug so physicians could prescribe it legally (Marshall).

In 1973, the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) was established to supervise the federal prevention and treatment programs (Cooper); and Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, signed the country’s most ruthless mandatory-sentencing laws for drug offenses (Cooper). Additionally, in 1979, illegal drug use among the population in the United States hit its highest point at 14.1 percent of the population, twenty-five million Americans (Cooper).

In the 1986, President Ronald Reagan declared a “war on drugs” and dramatically increased the funding for the United States anti-drug policy with the passing of the “Anti-Drug Abuse Act” (Cooper). This Act raised the nation’s anti-drug budget from $2.2 billion to $3.9 billion. In 1988, the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act called for mandatory-minimum prison sentences for possession of crack cocaine as part of effort to strengthen drug-sentencing laws (Cooper). This Act created a cabinet position with the title of “drug czar” to oversee the newly created Office of National Drug Policy Control, (ONDPC) (Cooper).

In 1995, President Clinton’s first “drug czar”, resigned after the administration and congress rejected his emphasis on drug treatment (Katel). In 1996, California voters passed initiatives that shielded medical marijuana users from state prosecution (Katel). Despite a U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM), report that found some medical benefits in marijuana the Federal government shut down six marijuana cooperatives in California that provided marijuana to patients (Marshall).

In 2003, The U.S. Supreme Court, by declining to reverse a lower court’s decision in Conant v. McCaffrey, held that physicians may recommend, but not prescribe marijuana to patients and in 2004, police arrested 1.7 million people nationwide for drug-law violations, twenty-two percent more than in 1995 (Katel). In November of 2004, voters across the country passed seventeen initiatives aimed at liberalizing marijuana laws. To date thirty-six states have laws that recognize marijuana’s medical value. Moreover, since 1996 twelve states have passed laws that effectively allow patients to use medical marijuana despite federal law (McVay).

It is obvious from American History that prohibition does not work. Drug prohibition like Alcohol Prohibition causes more crime by driving up the price of drugs. Moreover, prohibition forces drug users to commit crimes to pay for a habit that would be easily affordable if it was legal. The criminal nature of the business means that rival drug sellers must resort to violence to settle disputes among themselves. A look at Alcohol Prohibition of the 1920s and 30s shows that murder and assault-by-firearm rate rose steadily while alcohol Prohibition was in effect and remained there until it ended in 1933; then the murder rate dropped for eleven consecutive years and crime involving firearms went down for ten consecutive years (Ostrowski).

Politicians should recognize that Drug Prohibition and Alcohol Prohibition share the same problem and solution: regulation. The United States drug policy, has had little or no effect on the levels of drug addiction among American citizens, but has instead resulted in a tremendous increase in crime and in the numbers of Americans in our prisons and jails. With 4.6% of the world’s population, America today has 22.5% of the world’s prisoners (Katel). The United States needs to make drugs a controlled dangerous substance, just like alcohol.

In a country were the past is used to predict future behaviors of people demonstrate that Regulation will dramatically decrease drug related crime, drug addiction and drug use. The fact is in the last ten or so years, drug use has not dropped even with increased federal spending on the drug war (Ostrowski). Moreover, in spite of all the seizures, drugs are still available to children in elementary school. Drug laws greatly increase the price of illegal drugs, forcing users to steal, kill, and rob to get the money to buy them. It is estimated that at least forty percent of all property crime in the United States is committed by drug users so that they can maintain their addictions (Ostrowski).

Drug regulation is a better alternative to straight out legalization and is much more reasonable then prohibition. The United States should take a lesson from its past: that prohibition did not work then and does not work now. Regulation gives control back to the people and reduces crime, and the ill effects that come with it. “Drug abuse would clearly decline under a legalized system” (Johnson).Regulating drugs will reduce crime, take the profit out of drugs, restore order to the cities of America and it will remove the forbidden fruit aspect of prohibition that has been tempting the nation’s youth for over thirty three years. Regulation will provide our government with an accurate picture of the influences that drugs have on the United States and give control to the people to overcome its negative social and economical effects.

Works Cited

Cooper, Mary H. “Drug-Policy Debate.” CQ Researcher 10.26 (2000): 593-624. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 14 Dec. 2006 .

Feder, Don. “Who’s winning the war on drugs?.” Human Events 51.41 (1995): 15. Academic Search Premier. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 17 December 2006.

Johnson, Gary E. “Stop Arresting People for Bad Choices” Cato Policy Report: 21.6. (Nov./Dec.1999): Cato Institute 18 Dec. 2006.

Katel, Peter. “War on Drugs.” CQ Researcher 16.21 (2006): 481-504. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ.14 Dec. 2006 .

Marshall, Patrick. “Marijuana Laws.” CQ Researcher 15.6 (2005): 125-148. CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press. MacKay Library, Union County College, Cranford, NJ. 2 Oct. 2006 .

McVay, Douglas. “Medical Marijuana.” DRUG WAR FACTS (2006). 1 Oct. 2006 .

Ostrowski, James. “Thinking About Drug Legalization.” Cato Policy Analysis No. 121 (1989): Cato Institute .18 Dec. 2006

The fight for civil rights in America began when the first African, bound by the shackles of slavery, stepped onto American soil. The wicked mixture of ignorance and hatred gave birth to discrimination, strengthened throughout the 246 years of slavery, and continued to fester further even after the signing of The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution. In the 1950s and 60s, The American Civil Rights Movement fought segregation, racial violence, and voter suppression, known as “Jim Crow Law”, through civil disobedience: direct action with nonviolent resistance. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a turning point in American history; it outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in employment. However, after all the victories The Civil Rights Movement has won for all Americans, racial discrimination is still prevalent in American society today. In this essay, I will discuss discrimination in our justice system and provide facts to prove the disparity between white and black justice in America.

In Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King exposes the reader to the injustices and discrimination that black Americans suffered as a result of racism and segregation. King wrote this letter in response to eight Alabama clergymen who jointly issued a public statement asking civil rights activists to stop demonstrating and wait for the courts to decide the issue. King responded is his letter, “I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say wait. But when you have vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity;…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait” (King 101). King conveys to the reader with strong emotion the importance and the reasons why civil rights could no longer wait. However, after all the adversity that Black Americans have endured in the fight for civil rights, they are still waiting for equality in the American justice system.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program releases a report annually called Crime in the United States. This report provides a statistical compilation of offense and arrest data provided by law enforcement agencies nationwide. The UCR Program collects information on violent crimes and property crimes, and gathers arrest data for twenty-nine offenses-charges. The 2005 edition of Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States revealed that out of the 10.2 million arrests made, 69.8 percent of the arrestees were white and 27.8 percent were black (”Table 43: Arrest by race, 2005″). Out of the twenty-nine “offense-charged” categories compiled in this report, Twenty-seven categories were notably dominated by white arrestees. Sixty-one percent of all adults arrested for violent crimes in 2005 were white, and 69.4 percent of adults arrested for property crimes in 2005 were white (”Table 43: Arrest by race, 2005″). After examination of the facts represented, one might conclude that there would be more whites in prison than any other race. However, one would be wrong.

The U.S .Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics website indicates that blacks are almost three times more likely than Hispanics and five times more likely than whites to be in jail (”Bureau of Justice Statistics Jail Statistics”). In a report compiled by Paige Harrison and Dr. Allen Beck, entitled Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 reveals that “the largest differences in incarceration rates between whites and blacks were in Iowa (14 times higher for blacks) and Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont (more than 12 times higher for blacks)” (10). Is this because of racial discrimination or economic inequalities?

The information compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and presented in “Table 43a”, of the Uniform Crime Report: Crime in the United States revealed that over a ten-year period, from 1995 to 2005, whites made up 68.9 percent of the total arrest (see Chart 1, Table 1) and blacks made up 27.8 percent of the total arrest. As of June 30, 2004 there were 2,131,200 prisoners held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails from midyear 2003 (Paige. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. “Table 13.” 11). Out of this total number of prisoners, 42.7 percent are black, 18.5 percent are Hispanic, and 36.5 percent are white (Paige. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. “Table 13.” 11). Why are there less whites incarcerated than blacks? The numbers just do not add up. Let us review, 68.9 percent whites arrested over a ten-year period, equals more blacks in prison! Something stinks here.

At the end of 2004, “there were 3,218 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 463 white male inmates per 100,000 white males” (U.S. Dept. of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. “Prison Statistics”). An estimated 12% of black males, 3.7% of Hispanic males, and 1.7% of white males in their late twenties were in prison or jail sometime in their lives (Harrison, “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005″ 1). Is this evidence of racial bias in the American justice system or a sign that Justice has a price tag?

After all the hardships that Black Americans have experienced fighting for their civil liberties; they are still waiting for equality in the justice system. If we took economic inequalities out of the equation, would the ratio of blacks to whites in prison be different? In my opinion it would not be. Whites will still represent the majority of arrestees and blacks would still represent the majority of those incarcerated. Black Americans will continue to wait for justice they rightly deserve and are constitutionally promised.

Works Cited

Harrison, Paige M. and Allen J. Beck, Ph.D. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005. Washington, D.C.: GPO, May 2006. 12 November 2006

—. Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. Washington, D.C.: GPO, April 2006. 12 November 2006

King, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The Mercury Reader. Ed. Janice Neulieb, et al. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2005. 95-114

United States. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Jail Statistics.” 6 September 2006. 12 November 2006

—. “Prison Statistics.” 11 October 2006. 12 November 2006

United States. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2005.” Crime in the United States 2005: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2006. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2004.” Crime in the United States 2004: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2005. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2003.” Crime in the United States 2003: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2004. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2002.” Crime in the United States 2002: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2003. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2001.” Crime in the United States 2001: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2002. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 2000.” Crime in the United States 2000: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2001. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1999.” Crime in the United States 1999: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 2000. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1998.” Crime in the United States 1998: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1999. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1997.” Crime in the United States 1997: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1998. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1996.” Crime in the United States 1996: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1997. 12 November 2006.

—. “Table 43: Arrest by race, 1995.” Crime in the United States 1996: Uniform Crime Reports. Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1996. 12 November 2006.

The birth of Web 2.0, a second-generation of Internet-based services, offer users a variety of web based services. Social networking sites, wikis, and communication tools, let people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways (Baumann). The number of “social utility” websites that allow users to create personal profiles, and join, or create social networks have increased in recent history. Hundreds of these social networking websites such as hi5.com, Blogger.com, and Classmates.com have experienced success since they started. The most popular by far, based on the number of user, has been Myspace.com (Myspace) and Facebook.com (Facebook); they are just a few of many Web 2.0 websites that are considered social networking utilities, but are far the most widely used. They both have millions of registered users and are similar in the services they offer. However, they are also different; from the number of features offered to the type of user they attract. In this essay I will discuss both websites in detail and compare them based on their features, layout and design, ease of use and the number and type of users they attract.

Myspace is home to over 2.2 million bands, 8,000 comedians, thousands of filmmakers, and over 100 million members; on a typical day, it signs up 230,000 new users (Sellers). Myspace describes itself as, “a social networking service that allows Members to create unique personal profiles online in order to find and communicate with old and new friends” (”About Us – Myspace.com”). A contributing factor to Myspace’s success is that fact that site visitors do not need to have an account or be logged in order to use sites features. Similarly, Facebook like Myspace is also a “Social utility” in that it connects users with the people around them. Users of Facebook can use its services to share information with people in their networks and see what’s going on with their friends. Facebook is also made up of many networks: individual schools, companies, and regions (”Facebook | welcome to Facebook!”). Facebook is different than Myspace in that in order to become a member, users must be validated through a school, work or regional network. Moreover, Facebook is more exclusive than Myspace and claims to be the home of over 9.3 million users and signs up 20,000 new members a day (Kornblum). Users also must have an account and login in order to use any site features or services, see figure 1 above.

Facebook and Myspace offer their users a variety of dynamic and easy to use features, content, and services. Myspace offers an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, internal search engine, internal e-mail system and videos. It recently added an instant messaging application called MyspaceIM, see figure 2, which allows users to instant message their Myspace friends any time and allows users to find and view friends’ profiles with one click. It also provides a one-click login to mail and bulletins and provides instant alerts for all requests, messages, and comments. Myspace’s content is constantly updated and new features are gradually added and made available to all users. Similarly, Facebook also offers users personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, internal search engine, an internal e-mail system. Facebook like Myspace allows user to join or create networks. Facebook is the number one site for photos, ahead of public sites such as Flickr, “with 2.3 million photos uploaded daily” (”Facebook | Inside Facebook Engineering!”). However, Facebook does not offer music or video content. Facebook content is mainly provided and update by its users.

Facebook and Myspace hit the mark on website layout and design and on ease of use. Myspace’s blue theme is pleasing to the eye. The home page is not too flashy or busy, see figure 3, and the websites content changes every time you refresh the page or visit the site. Myspace’s navigational elements is displayed in the blue and white logo banner at the top of every web page; you will find a search engine here which rounds out Myspace’s navigational element. Site visitors do not need to log in or have an account in order to use Myspace; however, registered users have access to extra features and content that is not accessible otherwise. Advertisements are strategically placed on every page, top, right and left of web pages, except for the home page, but are not annoying or disruptive. Similarly, Facebook exhibits a very appealing look and feel, see figure 4; the blue and grey theme Facebook chose invites the user to explore and provides a sense of professionalism and tranquility. Facebook content is robust due to user contributions. However, the main difference between Myspace and Facebook is that users must log in before they can use any of the sites features. Once logged in, the user interface provides a clean and easy to use environment. Similarly to Myspace, Facebook also displays a search engine at the top of every web page, but the main navigational element is placed vertically on the left side of every page instead of the top. This gives the user a sense of control and direction. The site is fuss free and easy to use along with its navigational elements. Facebook site design and visual layout is more cleaner and succinct than Myspace’s layout.

The creation of second generation of internet based services, known as Web 2.0, has provided people with the means to share information online in new and innovative ways. Myspace and Facebook are far the most popular of these internet based services known as “Social utilities.” They both exhibit an appealing look and feel and provide a place where millions of users can keep in touch with friends, colleagues, and family. Myspace and Facebook are alike in the services and features they offer, but are different in the types of features and the manner they offer them. As these two sites grow they will continue to offer features and services that will attract users.

Works Cited

“About Us – Myspace.com.” Myspace.com. October 21, 2006 <http://www.Myspace.com/Modules/Common/Pages/AboutUs.aspx>

Baumann, Michael. “Caught in the Web 2.0.” Information Today 23.8 (2006): 38-38. Academic Search Premier. Ebsco. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 21 October 2006. <http://search.ebscohost.com.>

Graham, Jefferson. “Yahoo, Microsoft check into Facebook.” USA Today 22 SEP. 2006. Academic Search Premier. Ebsco. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 19 October 2006. <http://search.ebscohost.com.>

“Facebook | welcome to Facebook!” Facebook.com. October 21, 2006 <http://www.facebook.com/>

“Facebook | Inside Facebook Engineering!” Facebook.com. October 21, 2006 <http://www.facebook.com/jobs_engineering.php>

Kornblum, Janet. “Facebook will soon be available to everyone.” USA Today 12 SEP. 2006. Academic Search Premier. Ebsco. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 21 October 2006. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Lacy, Sarah. “Facebook: Opening the Doors Wider.” Business Week Online (2006): 8-8. Academic Search Premier. Ebsco. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 19 October 2006. <http://search.ebscohost.com.>

Sellers, Patricia. “Myspace Cowboys.” Fortune 154.5 (2006): 66-74. Academic Search Premier. Ebsco. Union County College Libraries, Cranford, NJ. 20 October 2006. <http://weblib.ucc.edu:2113>

Over the past decade the controversies over the legalization of marijuana has provoked debate between advocacy groups and politicians, the terminally ill and lawmakers, and has empowered some States to defy federal laws that classify marijuana as a “Schedule I” drug. Since 1996, eleven states have passed laws that in effect allow patients to use marijuana for medical purpose; eight of the eleven did so through ballot initiatives (McVay). A twelfth state, Maryland, passed a law in 2003 preventing medical marijuana users from serving jail time but not from being arrested (Thomas 1). Those opposed to any type of legalization argue about the ill effects and corruptive impact that legalization will have on society and refute supporters’ arguments that marijuana should legalized base on marijuana’s medicinal value alone. In this essay, I will present the both sides of the issues and controversies over the legalization of marijuana.

A brief look into American history is crucial to understand how this controversy began. In the 1930s, The Uniformed Narcotic Act was drafted and the Federal Marijuana Tax Act was passed requiring anyone who grew, used or distributed marijuana to pay a high tax (Marshall). In the 1960s, Marijuana use spread through musicians, artist, and soldiers returning from Vietnam to the middle class, and in the 1970s, the Federal Controlled Substances Act was passed which made marijuana possession illegal.

Additionally, In the 1970s President Nixon’s National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse released a report to congress entitled “Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding,” which favored ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage marijuana use (Marshall). The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) petitioned the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a “Schedule 2″ drug so physicians can p