More Tokenism

The past few weeks in class, we have talked a lot about tokenism in television. Tokenism is the inserting of minority characters in an attempt to create diversity. At the end of friday's class period, I was told the only homework is to think about the world critically while on break. So, I decided to look for tokenism while outside of school.

Being Jewish, during Christmas break there are many times when my friends are celebrating the holiday with their family. During these times, I watch movies. So far this break, I have seen three movies. Elysium, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, and This is the End. While watching all three of these films, I found perfect examples of the different kinds Tokenism we examined in class.

During Elysium, a movie staring Matt Damon in which he is given special strength and assigned to save the world, token characters are most defiantly present. First off, Damon's best bud Julio is hispanic. Julio serves as a "Buddy Character". This is a character that is an under-developed minority due to the lack of screen-time. While Matt's character has many flashbacks to his childhood, Julio's past remains a mystery to the viewers. During these flashbacks, Matt's character becomes complicated, and these flashbacks stir up moral conflict, therefore complicating his character. Julio however, remains a "2-dimensional" character.  Not only does the movie have a buddy character, it also incorporates an "Authority Minority". This token character is the president of the affluent community, and makes no rash decisions. President Patel is a level-headed minority in a position of power making him the "Authority-Minority" of the film.

The second movie I watched was Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. Although I felt this movie was awful, I was interested in the tokenism present during the film. A buddy character is present: a black, half goat half human, best friend of the main, white character Percy Jackson. This was a pretty basic character, not very exciting. The token character that did interest me was the character Tyson: a Cyclops. Tyson also served as a token character, and joined the LONG list of token characters in entertainment to die heroically. Tyson leaps in front of a flying arrow to save Percy, and then falls off a cliff. As we discussed in class, Token characters almost always have heroic deaths, whether or not it fits their personality up to that point.

The last movie I saw this Christmas was This is the End. For the third time. This time, I was able to look at it critically, and saw the movie in a different light. The movie is about 6 famous actors playing themselves while surviving the apocalypse. There are 5 white men, and a black man. The black guy, Craig Robinson, serves as this movies token character. All of the 5 white men have had major roles in many over-lapping films, are are very used to working together. Craig on the other hand, is featured in only one of these films, and plays the body guard to one of the white men. Like the majority of  token characters to come before him, he dies a heroic death, distracting a monster so three of the white men can live.

I'm sure I will continue to watch movies as most of my friends are out of town, and now I know what I'll be looking for in the rest of the movies. Tokenism is present in all aspect of American Media, is very easy to see once you know what to look for.

Oreo=American

While off on the usual 20-minute random tangent my math-class takes, vital information about my math teacher's life was discovered. Turns out my forty-some year-old math teacher has NEVER tried chocolate in his life. My reaction to this was: "Wow, he has incredible self-control. Good for him." My classmates however, did not have the same reaction.


People began to shout at him, asking whether or not he's ever had a brownie, or hot chocolate, or a chocolate chip cookie. He calmly responded to all the chaos by admitting he's never had any of the aforementioned desserts. I thought that would be the end of the discussion. I was wrong. Ben, my seat neighbor who is also in the American Studies class, was the only other one near me who was not intrigued with this newfound fact.


Questions flooded in for the next 10 minutes, with people refusing to believe this seemingly impossible lifestyle existed. One of the senior girls in the front row then proclaimed that "never eating an Oreo is un-American". I guess I was not aware that abstaining from eating 160 calories worth of flour, sugar, cocoa, and corn syrup was "Un-American".

"Un-American" is defined as deviating from American values. This, by the transitive property means that eating unhealthy junk food is an American value. It is sad that being unhealthy has become such a staple in American culture that it is considered an American value. Maybe this is the cause for the 35.7% of American adults that are considered obese according to http://www.cdc.gov. Is it possible that these rates are so high not because people have low self-control, but it has become an American value to eat un-healthily?

Hour of Fun

While procrastinating writing a new blog post, I found an incredible website that one of my Facebook friends had shared. The website is "Hour of Code" and can be found here. Hour of Code is a fun and easy way to teach children the basics of writing computer code. The website is genius. It takes well-known children's characters, such as the Angry Bird and the zombie from Plants vs Zombies to immediately grab the attention of children. Once the Hour of Code has started, videos from famous people such as Bill Gates and Chris Bosh hook the viewer in even more. The purpose of the site is to teach children the basics of computer code by leading recognizable characters through mazes. It is absolutely incredible to think that what used to be an advanced skill only offered in college is now being taught to small children just a few years late. One completes the maze by moving blocks depicting words such as "Move Forward" or "Turn Left" is the correct order so the character can complete the level. My immediate thought is this isn't basic computer science, this is a children's game. But I was WRONG. Between every two or three levels is one of the famous people teaching you about real-world programing applications that are connected to the little blocks. For example, one of the blocks says "Repeat" and all the smaller boxes inside of that box, continue to repeat until the maze is finished. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, tells the viewer that the repeat box is similar to the coding used on Facebook to send out millions of "Happy Birthdays" each day. To the left of the blocks are lines of actual code that each box correlates to. When you put these boxes together and complete the maze, code is written. The boxes get more and more complicated as the game goes on, and after the 20 levels, your Hour of Code is complete. The site then offers more easy ways to learn code. What a genius way to create interest in a field that only continues to grow as people rely more and more on technology: target the youth. Almost 300 million lines of code have been written by students already. The ages listed on the website are ages 6-106, sos if you fall into this age range, you should be okay to try. If you are interested in coding at all, or you love Angry Birds, go check out this nifty website!

21st Century Executions

During my ninth period class, Social Service Board, my peer made a current event presentation on a very disturbing news article. He shared with us an article reporting on the public execution of 80+ people in North Korea. In cities such as Wonsan and Chongjin, people were put to death for minor offenses such as owning a bible and watching South Korean movies while about 10,000 people were forced to watch. The scariest part of this whole endeavor was that my friend who shared the article said it was a very difficult article to find. It made no headlines, and many major news networks such as CNN did not report anything about it. How could such a major story not be ALL over the news? If the execution took place in New York, it would be the headline of every newspaper all over the world.

 I believe the article was so under-reported because if the U.S news released this story and claimed it to be an act of terrorism against North Korea's own people, there would be a huge push by the people to send troops to help these poor civilians. The last thing America needs is to instigate another war after just ending the longest war in American history. On the other hand, if injustice is present in our world, shouldn't the rest of the world, as fellow human beings, do everything possible to ensure justice?

This argument becomes the never-ending argument: Is the U.S the world's police? Since the U.S spends more money on it's military than the rest of the world does combined, should we be the second line of defense for every country? (Mr. Bolos's presentation) How can we sit back while horrible things like this happen to innocent people? These are all questions to think about while reading these horrific executions to inevitably come in the future. 

Hazing: Tradition or Bullying

While scrounging ESPN for interesting articles to read, I found yet another article about hazing. Hazing has been all over the sports news stations recently, so I decided to search the word hazing in the search box on ESPN. I found 13 articles written in the past week regarding hazing, 8 of them in response to the Miami Dolphins story.

In the past few weeks, the sports world has been deeply diagnosing the hazing charges of Miami Dolphins offensive guard Richie Incognito. Jonathan Martin, the victim,  released texts and voice mails left by Incognito on Martin's phone containing racial slurs, homophobic content, and slander of Martin's family. The Dolphins immediately suspended Incognito when the horrifying messages were leaked to the news. Incognito then argued that it was tradition to haze young players. Martin then retaliated by understanding the harassment during his rookie year, but he was no longer a first-year player, and felt he deserved his teammates respect. When the problem was reported to the rest of the Dolphins, the overwhelming majority took Incognito's side. They too argued that his incident was tradition, not bullying. While looking at some of the other articles on ESPN, and researching other cases, the argument of tradition vs. bullying almost always comes up. 

While reading all of these articles, I began to think about my older brother, who is currently in the fraternity Theta Chi and the University of Michigan. College fraternities are often associated with hazing as well. In an interview with an anonymous fraternity brother conducted by Cornell University, the tradition argument came up again. He says fraternities haze in order to "Mold good brothers", learn "responsibilities" and to "create links to past generations" (A defense of Hazing-Cornell). The student's entire interview can be found here.  If fraternities use it to create a sense of brotherhood, can sports teams use it for the same function?

I believe that hazing can be successfully incorporated into professional sports. Although some athletes cross the line between hazing and bullying, hazing is a tradition, and should continue to be allowed in sports. Do you agree?

Race implication

After we talked greatly about the racial conflicts in the 19th and 20th century, a news story I stumbled upon intrigued me. The story is that a White Republican won a seat on Houston's district two board of trustee's by misleading voters into believing he was black. Dave Wilson, a middle-aged white man, sent out campaign flyers depicting many African American people on them, and no pictures of himself. These flyers not only contained misleading pictures, but he wrote he was "endorsed by Ron Wilson". Ron is a long time state representative that happens to be black. Underneath this endorsement read the words "Don Wilson and Dave Wilson are cousins". The immediate thought is that this is slander, and Dave Wilson lied to a whole community of voters, but that is not completely true. Dave does have a cousin named Ron Wilson, who currently resides in Iowa. A local news station interviewed Dave about this topic and reported his response:  "He's a nice cousin," Wilson says, suppressing a laugh. "We played baseball in high school together. And he's endorsed me." (WFAA Report- Doug Miller) The rest of the article can be found here. Dave released many more flyers like the one below, in which never say that he is black, but one would immediately assume he was after reading the flyer. As an older White Republican living in an overwhelming black democratic district, it seemed as if he had little hope. He won the election by a mere 26 votes. Wilson even admitted after the fact he never thought he would actually win. After reading about this, I began to wonder if Dave Wilson is in the wrong in this scenario. Of course it doesn't seem very ethical to mislead innocent voters, but he technically did nothing illegal. There are most certainly better, and more fair ways to win an election, but in politics, anything is fair game. I do not believe Wilson did the "wrong" thing. He did what he needed to in order to win, which is the whole point of an election is it not? 

 

Homosexual Blood

While donating blood during school today, I was greatly disturbed by a conversation I had with a buddy of mine. My friend is openly gay, and quite the humanitarian, but was denied from donating blood due to his sexual orientation. I thought he was joking when he first told me, but as I filled out the mandatory 53 question survey about my life choices, it hit me that he was completely serious. The question read: "From 1977 to the present, have you had sexual contact with another male, even once?" I'd heard the stigma of homosexuals having a higher chance of contracting HIV, but I never thought they would be discriminated against like this in such an accepting part of the country. If the donor selected "yes" to the question, he would be kindly told he is "permanently deferred" from donating. A perfectly healthy man who had sexual contact with another man in 1980 would be denied while a man who got a tattoo, slept with a prostitute, and was diagnosed with Gonorrhea 13 months ago could donate. When I came home, I did some research to figure out if there is scientific reasoning behind this absurd rule. Turns out, this debate is a very lively one in Medical Forums. I also learned that no matter how high the yield of a blood drive, blood banks always need more donations. Because of this, most blood banks are actively trying to change this rule set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Barry Zingman, an Aids expert even used the word "ridiculous" to describe this FDA mandated order. Every bag of blood is tested for 8 diseases before being distributed, HIV being one of them.  He says it takes about 7-10 days after infection to show up on HIV tests, not a lifetime. If any of the eight core diseases surface as positive, the blood is discarded. The chances of a unit going undetected after 10 days of extraction is less than one in two million. A California assemblyman put it perfectly: "Blood has no sexual- orientation, and the FDA should have no discrimination". The Banned4life project is a rights movement whose mission is to raise awareness about this FDA ban, and eventually bring it to an end. They have a petition to sign on their website if anybody feels strongly about this discrimination. More information, along with more studies conducted by Barry Zingman can be found here. As the needle went in my arm today as a first time donor, and my friend walked out the door, the lyrics to a Ronnie Dunn song came to mind: "We All Bleed Red".

Immediate Game Gratification

While looking through my iPhone apps, attempting to delete old games to make room for new music, I began to think about the difference in the popular games from when I was in grade school, to the popular games now. The one major difference in the games from these two time periods is the new addition of limited energy, or lives. The old, classic iPhone games such as Fruit Ninja, Tiny Wings, and Cube Runner all shared the same format. You would continuously play, as much as you desire, until you beat your personal high score. Over the past year, incredibly popular games like Candy Crush, Deer Hunter, and Injustice all force you to either wait the required amount of time, or buy a full set of lives/energy when your original set is used up. I believe this phenomenon goes deeper than just the greediness of application manufacturers, but extends to the impatience and need for immediate gratification of America's youth. Game makers are banking on the impatience of children (and possibly adults) who feel they must play immediately, so they spend 99 cents instead of waiting the 10-30 minutes needed for new lives. Have Americans become so snobby that they must have exactly what they want, when they want it? Well according to iTunes top grossing chart, Americans are that impatient. Although free, Candy Crush Saga is the #1 top grossing game. The immediate need for gratification is a problem in the U.S, and App manufacturers are not the first to utilize it for themselves. Skipping advertisements on a video by clicking a pop-up ad is another example of a company banking on the fact the user will be too impatient to watch a 15 second ad, and will therefore direct themselves to a whole new website, [usually] close that new tab, and proceed to watch their initial video. That sounds like so much work compared to just sitting patiently for a fraction of a minute, yet most Americans go through the tedious action to save themselves a few seconds. I can only assume that more and more games will take on the format of a pre-set number of lives before having to buy new ones, or test ones patience. Betting on American's to be patient, especially with each generation's attention span becoming shorter and shorter, is not a bet I would make.

Trophies for everyone

In today's youth sports programs, trophies are divvied out like orange slices are at half time. The winner, the loser, the MVP, and the bench warmer are all rewarded the exact same prize: a plastic golden trophy. As I looked up at my trophy collection sitting atop my bookshelf earlier on tonight, I began to think about how many of those I earned, and how many were given to me. Out of the 21 trophies, 5 of them are trophies that tell of the accomplishment, and 16 were given to everyone who participated. I'm sure my team won some of those leagues in which I was given an "everyone trophy", but I have no proof or source or pride because the administrators of those leagues felt everyone needed a trophy.  The point of everyone receiving a trophy is meant to raise the self-confidence of the group as a whole, rather then just the winners or the best. Although this is in theory a smart idea, it sets up these children to fail in their future. If you try hard and succeed, rather then slack off and lose, you are not rewarded any differently. This ingrains the idea that one does not need to work hard in order to get the outcome they desire. It teaches these children that life is not about succeeding, but about trying your hardest. This utopia does not exist. Basically all of my current high-school life is based on succeeding in what I do, not attempting. Whether it is receiving the grade I want, or making the team I've trained for, there is no one set prize all participants are given. Results are what matter at the high school age and on, so it should be taught and trained that way at younger ages as well. In a similar blog post by Todd Henry, he writes that everyone getting a trophy "has de-emphasized the value of contribution, and has emphasized the importance of recognition". (His post can be found here) He has a very legitimate point. He claims that by giving trophies out, it de-motivates children to put in their full amount of effort. Looking back on all those house-league basketball games, I wonder why I practiced so much and tried so hard only to receive the identical 8-inch plastic statue as the last place team. I'd be incredibly curious to see if countries like China, Russia, and Spain have taken away the importance from trophies by handing them out for free, or if you still must earn a trophy. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was an American idea. American parents never want to disappoint their children, so they came up with this temporary solution that in fact does nothing but hurt their child in the long run. This aspect of American culture is a very flawed one, and does nothing but damage the futures of America's generations to come. 

Walter White: A Family Man?

After beginning to watch Breaking Bad, the hit television show that the entire world told me I "had to watch", I have not stopped thinking about the American values demonstrated in the show. For those of you that are unaware of the storyline of Breaking Bad, it is about a Chemistry teacher, Walter White, who is diagnosed with lung cancer, and decides to manufacture Methamphetamine to pay for his treatment and to support his family. What made me decide to write a blog about this is a scene I watched yesterday, in which Gus, Walt's distributer convinces Walt to keep cooking Meth because he must be the man of the house: the provider. Walt takes the advice, and continues with the illegal actions. This is a perfect example of two American values at a crossroads. On one hand, family, and the safety and security of family is such a prized value is America. By Walt continuing to cook, he is putting the whole family at risk. On the other hand, the classic American gender roles are at play. If Walt stops cooking, he stops providing for his family, leaving his wife to be the bread-winner of the house. Rather than hurt his pride by doing the smart thing for his family's safety, he lets his ego control him and he takes the offer. I think this decision extends deeper than just the life choices of an incredibly interesting t.v show character, but reflects the true values of America. This example is just an extreme version of a choice that men make everyday: choosing their career (whatever it may be) over their family. Of course the argument can be made that by choosing a career, you really are helping your family. The reason people work so hard is to provide the best they can for their family, just like Walt is doing. So is Walter White a family man even though he is putting his family in danger?

The MLK Speech Scandal

After reading an article about the possible plagiarism committed by Martin Luther King Jr. during his "I have a dream" speech, I began to think about the legitimacy of the claim. The accusation was that a Chicago Pastor named Archibald Carey Jr., recited almost the identical ending to MLK's I have a dream speech 11 years before King Jr. did. At the Republican National Convention of 1952 in Chicago, Carey exclaimed: "From every mountainside, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and the White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Great Smokies of Tennessee and from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia — let it ring."Anyone who is familiar with MLK's famous speech on August 28, 1963, knows that the ending is eerily similar to previous words spoken by Carey. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke:  So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring."When Wbez first stumbled upon this audograph disc no more than six months ago, people began to argue whether this changed the brilliance and passion of MLK's speech. I absolutely do not think it takes anything away from MLK's speech. The article discussing this topic claims that MLK and Archibald Carey Jr. had met at least twice, and members of the church Carey was the Pastor at even considered the two of them to be close friends. This is not a matter of plagiarism  it's a matter of two people, both looking to accomplish the same goal, working together to complete their mission. It would be a different story if Obama used a section of Carey's speech in regard to healthcare, or a non-racial related theme, but MLK used this idea with the same outcome in mind: racial equality. Plus, people who consider it plagiarizing haven't considered that fact that the core line of the speech, from every mountain side, let freedom ring is originally from the anthem: "My Country tis of Thee". If MLK plagiarized Carey, then that means Carey plagiarized Samuel Smith, who wrote the lyrics to My Country tis' of Thee. Though there is no way to know if Carey gave King permission to use his words, one can only infer that he was okay with it, considering he never claimed those words to be his own. He also wrote a letter saying that "When I need help, I can count of Martin Luther King, and when he needs help, he can count on me" (Wbez article). King obviously took these words to heart, and took Carey's words and made them famous. Carey's speech can be heard here. It is very interesting to listen to how different the two of them say basically the exact same words.  King's ending to this speech was world-changing, whether or not he thought of the words himself. 

Banning Ads- NOT Okay

While taking an ACT on saturday, I planned to go home and write a blog post on how a 5 hour test should not determine ones future, until I got to the writing portion. The prompt was whether or not the U.S should ban potentially dangerous or harmful products from advertising. I was so intrigued by this prompt, I kept thinking about it long after the test ended. The more I ponder this dilemma, the more I think that the United States should NOT be able to ban these products from advertising. The obvious arguing point is that it is unconstitutional to silence a company from advertising due to the first amendment: freedom of speech. Along the same line of thinking, equal opportunity is a core idea that many of the last century's problems have been boiled down to. If one company can advertise, all should be able to. Although it pains many to hear, these harmful products are some of the most profitable brands in the country. According to yahoo finance, 3 out of the top 5 most profitable brands can be labeled harmful. The article can be found here. Along with being successful, they are usually taxed higher than the average product. The U.S would lose a huge part of their tax revenue if harmful products were banned from advertising, which would lead to lack of sales.  While these points are very easy to come to, this problem has much more to it. Who's decision would it be to label a product dangerous or harmful. Of course there are the obvious ones like tobacco, alcohol, and tanning beds, but it is logical to make an argument for just about any object. If a child steps on a Lego in the dark and needs to go to the ER, will Toys' R' Us be forced to stop advertising? How about if someone has a deathly peanut allergy, will the peanut with the monocle cease to be seen? Both of these seemingly harmful brands could be forced to stop advertising if the U.S began to ban companies from releasing ads. Even banning just a few products could lead this country down a slippery slope. The U.S cannot ban harmful products from advertising, no matter how many people disagree with the morals of the brand/company.

Fantasy People

While sitting at lunch today, like any tuesday, the conversation switched to the previous night's Monday Night Football Game, which inevitably then changed to fantasy football. For those who don't know what fantasy football is, it's an online league one does with a group of people (8-12 usually) in which you draft NFL players to your team, and however well they do in real life, is how many points they earn in fantasy. The goal is to get the most points each week. Of the twelve or so people at the lunch table, only my friend Carl doesn't have a team. He turned to me, while the rest of the table was in deep discussion about who the most valuable tight-end is, and asked who would be on my fantasy person team. I laughed, thinking he was joking, and then thought about it for a second. After asking 5 or so followup questions like "dead or alive", or "real or fake", Carl and I started talking about who our first pick in this hypothetical draft would be. We spent the next 30 minutes spitting out any name that came to mind, with names ranging from Will Hunting, to Moses, to Dennis Haysbert (The All-State voice). We started asking other people, and received answers such as Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and Socrates just from people in the American Studies class. After school, I asked some of my family, and got responses such as Jay-Z, Benjamen Franklin, and Zac Brown. It seemed as if there was such a variety in the choice of people, until I thought about how each person embodied a specific characteristic Americans seek. Not one person (so far) has said any war hero, or someone who embodies physical strength. But I thought American history was all about wars? Although we have a history of war, were founded on a revolution, and continue to use our military strength internationally, our "American Dream Team" seems to be made up mostly of artists, activists, and innovators, and. I believe this says something about American people, and not only about what we wish to embody in the people we admire, but also about the people themselves as well. Below is the roster that my interviewees ended up with, along with their reason for being "drafted".  Looks like a pretty good team to me. I still have not come to a conclusion on who my first pick would be, but I hope to soon. I'd love to hear some of your early draft picks in the comment section.

Will Hunting- Intelligence
Moses- Leadership
Dennis Haysbert- Trustworthiness
MLK- Visionary for change
Abraham Lincoln- Honesty and Courage
Socrates- Wisdom
Jay-Z- Multi-talented
Ben Franklin- Innovativeness
Zac Brown- Pure musical talent.

Falsely Patriotic

While patiently waiting for my plane to take off, I began to make light conversation with the passenger sitting next to me. Turns out, he was in basic training at Fort Bragg military base, attempting to become a chemical warfare specialist. He began talking to my mom and me about being deployed to Syria, and when my mom finally interjected, asking whether it was a sure thing that troops would be sent out, he gave her a look that everyone there understood. After that, conversation died down, and all three of us put our earphones in. Per use, I went to a country music playlist, and shuffled my ipod. I couldn't stop thinking about what this man had said. The second song that came on was a song entitled "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" by Toby Keith. Keith is widely known as the most patriotic, America-loving artist in current music. Whenever I listened to this song, I would immediately feel more patriotic, and feel "high on America" as my friend Brian put it when he first heard it. For the first time, I didn't feel the same energy from of the song as I usually did, but instead, multiple lyrics bothered me. Lines like "We'll light up your world, like the fourth of July",  referring to how America handles military conduct made me feel almost embarrassed of my country. The lyric that really got to me was: "An' yo'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. 'Cos well put a boot in your ass, it's the American way". The rest of the lyrics can be found here. This line openly states that if you disagree with America, we'll immediately resort to violence to solve our problems. Of course no one would assume that because Toby Keith says something in a song, those are the political standards the U.S chooses to uphold, but these ideals are what the next generation is hearing every day. After the song finished, many of the lyrics kept echoing in my brian. I realized that although I consider myself to be a fairly patriotic person, I know so little about what is actually going on in Syria: America's biggest current event. The man sitting to my left will be fighting for our country's safety, and the majority of the U.S. won't know any of the root causes of this conflict, including me. When I got home, I did some further studying on the conflict, and realized how little I actually knew. I had no idea the conflict started almost 30 months ago, or that there have been over 100,000 deaths in just over two years.  I also found it crazy that although Obama said that we wouldn't be sending troops over, even someone as low down on the chain of command as my seat mate could say with certainty troops would be on the ground soon enough. It also never clicked for me that this man is in the chemical defense unit, and just under a month ago, a huge chemical attack hit a suburb of Damascus. This was arguably the most deadly attack this conflict has seen yet (BBC), and this kid could be right in the middle of things in less than a year. I recently stumbled upon a syria conflict quiz to test your knowledge that the NY Times put out and I received a 5/12 (rough right?). You can find the quiz by clicking this link. I'd love to hear the score everyone received in the comments section. Although not everyone can meet a soldier on a plane, while coincidently listening to patriotic music in order to enlighten themselves, I highly suggest everyone who reads this and isn't already fluent in this mater decides to study up. I certainly hope the man next to me on the plane will be safe if he is deployed, and I want to thank him for opening my eyes to this conflict.