King James' Blog

Although I do not pay attention to many financial news, I found this article interesting because economy was huge part in the decade. I feel that there has been many deficit in American economy; many people in America are struggling financially, and thanks to President Obama, he trying hardest to bring America back on track. This article was interesting because it talked about the events that led to Economic failures in America. I am interested in this because I want to know what caused America to have unstable financial economy and why the America stock market had disappointing areas.

This article is self-explanatory; it talks about events for past 10 years that harmed the American economy. There were decrease in economy for America, when people wanted increase. We seem to blame the leader of America, but there are real events that caused problems in economy. Job and work opportunities for citizens was major part of the economic depression in America. There were many people who did not have jobs, and that it decreased and made the situation even worse. The stock is another cause of economic failure. The contents of this article is very significant because America has to make sure that this does not happen again.

Although I see what America’s mistake was that led to suffer economic problems, I think the article should have mentioned what we could do to prevent problems again in the future. It is great to know the mistakes, but the whole point of looking back at the failures is to learn from it and prevent to make that failure again because Failure is but a stepping stone to success. The comparison of this article to real life is, getting an essay back from a English teacher and  not making any corrections. Mr. Guenther’s favorite quote is “Fail sooner to achieve faster” If the article is about just the mistakes, I think it should be fixed. It should include how we could do as common people to prevent to make this happen again.

One thing that caught my attention of this article is the title: “Are men more competitive than women?” I wanted to read this article because of the title, and because that nowadays, competition has increased for me as I grew older and older and became more independent. I though getting some ideas about the differences between Men and Women is also why I chose this article. Competition is all over in our everyday lives; there can be a small competition such as who can eat the most hot dogs, and there are also really big competitions like the competition between the candidates. The generalization of how one side is better than another should not be made, at least that is what I believe, but this article was generalizing between sexes, and because of this, I wanted to know more about it how it would affect people’s thinking. The article itself is the competition because it is trying to figure out which side is better than the other. The idea of competition should be considered as important because it happens all the time.

The article is about how competitive each sex is and how the stereotype of women affect their competition. There are more gap of competitiveness that is different between women and men. In some areas, men are considered more competitive, where in other areas women are known as more competitive than men. I believe this idea of” who is more competitive” relates to what we have just discussed in the US history class: The Revolutionary War. Back in the American Revolution era, men were mostly involved in the war and men had all the rights because the men had more reason to compete against each other, and the British. They were also mentally stronger than women, which resulted that men were superior than women. To add, there were some figures whom we learned in class, Abigail Adams, and Mum Bett, who can be considered as competitors for their rights as women. Another relevance to the article and the history is the Declaration of Indepence, where it says, “All man are created equal”. I think this is significant because it ties into what we are currently learning.

I think this generalization of how one is better than the other should not be made in articles because it would generalize this concept even more intense in the future. As people do more and more generalizations like this, we can return to the American Revolution Era where women were not even considered. Thanks to many strong leaders and competitors of women who fight to not generalize this idea of how “this is better than that”. Examples are Hillary Clinton, and Oprah Winfrey. If the articles like this are viewed more and more by the readers, then, the situation of sexism can get worse, and create huge problem. Therefore, the stereotypes should not be mentioned in mass media.

September 11th is an event that people cannot erase in their mind since it was one of most shocking events that occurred in the 21st century. So many things from the September 11, 2001 have changed and affected every one of us. When I found this article on Wall Street Journal, many thoughts passed through my brain; I was happy to see news that the suspects of 9/11 are caught, but at the same time, I questioned myself, “They are caught after 8 years have passed? This is too late for a major event like this” I was little worried about the United States’ eagerness, and effort to search about their serious problem. I also did an interview with Dr. Khalsa, president of our school, and his mother was actually at the New York City on this day, and I realized the seriousness of the event from the citizen’s point of view.

I feel that this is a major issue in contemporary history because the suspects were founded 8 years after the attack of the twin tower. I was happy that it is finally on the step towards resolving the issue, but worried that it would extend even longer. The article is mostly about the suspected terrorists are going to put in trial in New York when they arrive in US from the Guatemala prison. The government putting more effort to untie this issue. The terrorists are caught and are in Guatemala before they are going to be put in trial. The possible consequence of their actions during the 9/11 is death penalty. President Obama said that the suspects “will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice.” The government has set a plan to focus to bring relief to the world. This is significant because Americans can calm down from the chaos during the 9/11 and not worry about the aftermath.

When I first read the title of the article, I was little worried; It shows the seriousness of the United States security issue, and government’s willingness to keep the citizens safe. September 11 is a day that nobody can forget. It has impacted many things all over the world, and will affect the world in the future. This article, however, shows that government did not focus, and put effort to find the suspects enough. The attack is one of the cruelest events in the entire history, and finding the possible terrorists eight years after it occurred? This is just wrong. What did they do for the long eight years of “trying” to find the suspects? This article may bring doubts on the trustworthiness to the American security issue. The Bush Administration should have put all of their focus on finding these suspects to prevent the innocent Americans from attacks like 9/11 to happen again, or even shorten the time period between the event and the suspect caught. What if an attack that is larger than 9/11 would have happened between the eight period of time? Would you still be happy today to live in US, and still trust the government that they did their job? I think the US government should have focused more to catch the terrorists for the security of the scared Americans.

Obama, whom I consider one of the greatest leaders, visited Japan today to increase the relationship with Asia, and to become “America’s first Pacific President.” This article was particularly interesting because I wanted to know current relationship with US and Asia. I believe it is important for different countries to remain in fair connection with each other. I was happy to read the title of this because the two major powers of the world “build stronger ties” with each other. Since I am also from Asian continent I wanted to figure more about how Asia is dealing with United States.

The article describes about his visit to Japan and the speech he made at the conference. He has plans to visit many more parts of Asia and to contain better and new relationship with them. His focus on the trip is the relationship between America and Asia. Although North Korea’s nuclear problem is considered, he is planning to meet with the representatives and the leaders of country to improve cooperation. The article mentions that the spoke lengthy amount about the human rights and the economic problems. This is also important because depending on his travel to Southeast Asia, America can continue their significant relationship with other countries. What I liked about his speech in Japan was his attitude towards learning from the mistakes of past, and of course, his great speech skills.

I really like what Obama is doing with Asia countries. I strongly believe that Obama’s action towards shaping America will affect US greatly since he is keeping great relationship. Although US is considered one of the top countries, Obama does not have arrogance, and continues to strive for higher reputation. Another great choice that Obama made was his agreement with China to keep the relationship stronger. As we might know, China is considered one of the fastest growing countries, and many people assume that China will be superior country. Obama’s action will benefit current and future America.