Spying on Allies

If a country is a US ally they should not be spied on. What the NSA is doing has been going on for a long time and needs to stop. Unjustified surveillance of the world's people is immoral and downright wrong. The statement the US responded with to Merkel's accusation was very childish. Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, said,"The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel." Basically, the NSA was caught red handed and they are trying to not fully admit that they spied on Merkel. This is the same way a child acts when he lies, not fully telling the truth, but bending it. If the US wants to keep its superpower status it needs to be truthful with its allies. Merkel said it perfectly,"We need to have trust in our allies and partners, and this must now be established once again. I repeat that spying among friends is not at all acceptable against anyone, and that goes for every citizen in Germany." Although not as severe, it's the same concept when a friend is caught reading through another friends text messages. The friend loses trust in him and makes sure it doesn't happen again by putting a passcode on his phone. I also believe that Obama needs to take responsibility for this. He can't avoid this because he supposedly didn't know about it. He is the President of The United States. He runs the show and there should be no excuse for not knowing. As we can see in all these situations, the government is corrupt. It does not matter who you elect becuase most likely they will be a liar.

Riots in Moscow

It seems like mostly all the bad things that keep popping up on the news everyday have some relation to ethnicity. I believe these are bogus problems because the simple solution is people just learning to live together. The migrants are the main root of the problem and many Russians are very scared. One woman said,  "They (migrants) are always attacking, stealing from and killing people. They don't even abide by basic rules like stopping at a red light." I think this can be considered an act of terrorism. The migrants are instilling fear into the people of Moscow, and many are scared to even leave there houses because of the fear of being mugged or killed. One resident also said that the migrants do take low paying jobs like construction, which is needed in the the country. Migrant labor has also played a crucial role in Russia's oil fueled economic boom. Both parties are benefiting from each other so in a perfect world there should be no problem. There is a positive and a negative to having these migrant workers in the country. I think the Russian people need to come to peace with the migrants because they have been a huge part of the success of the nation. In the future, we might see Russian government restricting immigration because of the problem. This problem also looks like it relates to the United states problem with immigration. Immigrants are taking the low paying jobs in both countries, and many are also criminals. All in all, there needs to be a resolution so the Russians and migrants come to peace with one another.

3rd Golden Age of Television

 Many shows have circulated through the cycle of television in the 21 century. The most popular shows tended to deal with men and were more action packed. These shows also had a good amount of criticism from feminists. The main roles of the popular television shows were men. I think that if a woman as described in the article would have played the main role in some of these shows they would not have been nearly as popular.  People today want to see something they would not see everyday. A businesswoman would not appeal to many viewers. Phillip Maciak says "Imagine if that show had focused on a powerful woman rather than a powerful man, a businessperson rather than a murderer, a potential hero rather than the anti-hero." I think that if this change would have happened these shows would not have made it this far. People just don't want to see everyday things on TV. The show with the powerful woman might seem like it would help the feminist movement, but all in all it would not be a popular show. A perfect example from the article would be the show The Sopranos. Old time Italian gangsters are not ordinary in today's world, but when you throw one on television everyone loves it. Today's society enjoys action and things that are out of the ordinary to their everyday life that they will probably never experience themselves, so the our age of television also needs to revolve around this.

Government Shutdown

This Shutdown is by no means good for the economy. An expected 800,000 government employees would be sent home and tons of money will be lost. In Washington D.C. it is estimated that everyday the government is shutdown that the local economy will lose 200 million. I think they could have approached this issue differently with another stopgap budget, but congress can't even decide on this. I thought this administration was supposed to boost the economy not make it worse? I don't blame a single party, but more of the legislative and executive government as a whole. Agreements need to be made. Congress is so split that it is impossible for anything to get passed, even if it is something that is funding itself. From my analysis of many articles it seems that most of the problem revolves around Obamacare. The house passed a funding bill that delayed Obamcare and repealed a tax on medical devices. The senate rejected the bill and there is still no agreement, so now a government shutdown. Republicans believe that Obamacare will have bad effects on the economy and on health care.There are two totally opposite views on this situation, so it is very difficult to come to an agreement. Republicans need to find a replacement for Obamacare if they want to get it out of the picture, and democrats need to negotiate a deal that will please conservatives and themselves. A issue in spite of the government shutting down is the debt ceiling. Treasure Secretary Jacob Lew stated that on October 17 the US will run out of borrowed money. There are so many huge issues in our government today, and with congress being so split it will be very hard to solve these problems. The only way I believe these problems will be solved is with negotiation of a new bill.

Kenya Mall Shooting

Kenya has been a victim of many acts of terrorism in the past, but the most devastating one seems to have occurred a couple weeks ago at a mall on September 21. It is almost becoming a normal thing for these acts of terrorism to happen because we see them every day on the news. Our modern society is becoming desensitized to these horrific attacks, and on the other hand people are becoming more and more capable mentally and physically to carry out these attacks. Mostly all the survivors of the shooting have all mentioned something about the attackers not being normal human beings and being insane. These people are trained to kill innocent civilians, and they say they are doing it for their religion. I'm pretty sure no religion justifies the killing of innocent human beings. One witness stated that the attackers " said that they didn’t shoot women and children and told the women and children to stand up. When the women and children stood up, they started shooting again"(Reini). These constant occurrences of terrorism need to be stopped. Terrorism is the act of using violence to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. We can not act in fear and discontinue our normal everyday lives because of these terrorists because that is what they want. The attackers in this act want the people of Kenya to be afraid to go to the mall. We can not give into these terrorists, but rather we need to find ways to prevent these lunatics from attacking again and again and again. 

Reini, James. "Mall Siege Survivors Recount Harrowing Ordeal." ALJAZEERA. N.p., 27 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013.