Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Our Loyalty

Well in class we saw two short videos. We saw the Bulgers brothers and David Kacynski. It was about loyalty. Was David Kacynski being loyal to family ties when he turn in his brother or to himself and society. Or Billy Bulgers who deny knowing where his brother was hiding. Each had their own loyalty dilemma.
In class we divided in small groups to discuss loyalty dilemmas in our own lives. I personally do not know what was discuss in other groups. I will tell you a little about my loyalty dilemma I had. I stop speaking to my 35 years old sister who had 3 children and was and still is unfit to be a mother. Her 3 kids were taken from her due to she left her oldest boy who was 6 years old to keep an eye on his 2 sister age 3 years old and a month old. When the kids w ere taken from her she came running to me to help her. I refuse to help because this was not the first time it happen and she was not going to learn anything. My two nieces were adopted by their foster parents but my nephew was given back to her last year. As of today she still live from house to house and she left her 17 year old living on his own. No money or a permanent place to live. He will be turning 18 on Dec . 14, 2011 and he told his mother he wanted to live with his older brother. He has been there 2 days already and they sign him up to get his GED.
My loyalty were to my nephew and nieces and I am happy my nieces are happy, safe, and just a joy to be with. My nephew is on the right track now and I am glad for him to realize that he was not going anywhere with his mother.
It is never easy to cut off loved ones but there is time that its needed for your own survival and peace of mind.

PSA: Expediting E-Portfolio Digication Recovery

Chapter 9 - Loyalty and Morals

If one is patriotic and loyal to their own nation, do they have an inherent responsibility to reconcile with past injustices of their past compatriots?

Where do assimilated immigrants and foreigners stand? Is it just and economically sustainable to pardon victims with repatriation for every crime? Are there exclusions and exceptions for those who are recluse and nonparticipant? Must we civilly sue each other as a way to maintain an integral society?

Can past injustices such as cruel treatment during the occupying of Manchuria by the Japanese, be ever forgiven? Wouldn't repatriation serving as a bribe, simply insult the victim? Does it only aid to clearing the conscience of the murder? Is repatriation a way of clearing the past sins for embracing a nation's economic fruition and sorrows amongst the victims?

Does this only serve as a mechanism to enable further acts of crime? Isn't it to say that recalling thousands of Ford Pintos, due to the small chance of an explosion of faulty fuel tanks, not worthwhile, because the cost-benefit analysis deems it so? Ford says it's cost-beneficial to repatriate, only when justice is brought against them. Does this deem Ford immoral?

England still hold very much of accumulated wealth, in addition to the economic uplift from their colonizing endeavors of past centuries. Should there be a ceremony and celebration when the England transferred the sovereignty of Hong Kong back to the People's Republic of China, in 1996, despite the history of the opium wars?

How does one about the event of victim refusing repatriation? Is it ever just for China to seek retaliation? An eye for an eye?

It's arguable to say that we're not always a collective human whole, when it comes to loyalty? Do we only serve loyalty amongst our six-degree of separation first, before others? What if one has no extended, nor a nuclear family? Is it perhaps, we only sincerely owe loyalty to ourselves?

Monday, December 5, 2011

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Purposeful Point-of-View? - Chapter 8

In Chapter 8, Aristotle presents his philosophical idea of Telos; justify the actions or desires based on inherent purpose.

Are ideas and beliefs completely absolute, or are they constantly being altering?

Referring back to Chapter 2; is the purpose of obtaining a college education, a scholarly desire, or is the means of a cost-benefit one?

Furthering this: Are we merely scholars who partake in research and expand the universe's knowledge for the sake of learning, or are we merely students here funded by corporate tuition reimbursements, to primarily further one's earning potential?

Are we to do more than to just simply eat, sleep, and work? Do we ignore the blessings of evolving cognition and language?

What if the purpose is to be find out our purpose here in life? What if life as we know it, is a journey, an embarkment of discovering one's purpose? What if we can't justify our purpose, in our lifetime?

What is one's purpose here, at Bunker Hill Community College?

Yet again,
Pre-Gamers

Reacting to Affirmative Actions - Chapter 7

It can be seen that Americans preach a sense of pride when they proclaim their country as "free", often referring to the founding fathers of the United States, and the amendments of our Constitutions and Bill of Rights. Incorporating the readings of Michael Sandel of Justice in Chapter 7, invokes the sudden question: how far does freedom of discrimination span?

In our 5th amendment; section 1:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Sandel provokes the widely held topic leading to modern-today: affirmative action. Is it just?

Countering this claim is the number of for-profit collegiate institutions that are arising, today. Most notable are The University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, The Art Institutes, Academy of Art -- with their commercials and advertisement that plaster webpages and televisions -- nationwide. Has society become intertwined with disrupted belief of the necessity obtaining a college degree?

There is also Harvard Extension School, which was founded on the belief of serving the educational needs of the greater community. Are there two realms in segregated disguise? Exclusive and lucrative side that brings prestige to the famed leading institution: Harvard, and the less idolized cousin, Harvard Extension School, whom focuses its attention on serving (educating) the greater community and beyond.

Doesn't it seem like many corporations of today, share the same setup? Bank of America, an influential Fortune 100 company, is attacked from all angles; from excessive debit card fees, unsavory sub-prime mortgage lending practices, to obnoxious annual executive bonuses. Yet, there is the acclimating Building for Opportunity program that sponsors community development, plaguing the 'like' buttons of Facebookers all over. In the umbrella of this BofA, it appears that affirmative action is in effect, pardoned, low-interest, long-term loans to serve the "Energy Efficiency" to areas with low-income families.

Must Bank of America have their charitable arm and marketing department present a shining light amongst themselves? Is there a certain image, they feel obligated to maintain?

This response can be furthered, with the rise non-profit collegiate institutions embarking on massive global fund-raising campaigns, collecting often billions -- many times triumphing the surrounding entities and businesses. You can see MBTA advertisements, in addition to those found in the Boston Metro newspaper, that feature accelerated tracks for degrees in Masters in Business Administration, or the handful of specialized degrees tailored for company men and women, as to an academic scholar. Suffolk, Northeastern, and Boston University are no strangers to marketing and tuition reimbursements.

Universities today hold more power than ever, and it doesn't seem to come to a standstill. Are we to believe affirmation is merely superficial and hollow? After all, institutions do offer honorary degrees to those dropped-out or never attended, much to those of such to the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Despite changing the paradigm of personal computing as we know it today, these technological pioneers did not completely endure the scholarly efforts in hardship of research and indoctrination, yet their offerings were distinct and warmly appreciated.

Is this the case for Harvard Extension School? Do we live in a society where we feel compelled to overshadow the unsavory things we do on a daily basis, with the presentation of doing good? Or are we misconstruing a questionable identity, which we allow entities and institutions to partake in a puppet theater of a "double-life"?

Perhaps, community engaged, Harvard Extension School, and community colleges are intrinsically more favorable to attend than Harvard College and typical baccalaureate institutions.

If promoting diversity is the objective, rather than selectively lowering standards to those of minority and disadvantaged backgrounds (and by omission, raising the standards for outsiders), shouldn't universities base their admission practices on pure merits? Meritocracies in baccalaureate institutions are commonly found all over the world. Chinese and Korean students place their child and adolescent-hood on preparing for their nation's college entrance exam. There are rarely second chances, and if ever, they are certainly hard to come by for the average family.

If we restrict the growing, influential and powerful collegiate institutions from making arbitrary discriminative admission decisions, in favor for one based purely on merits, do we, say that it's just to live in a world based on inherited, blessed advantages? Are these advantages just, for they were immorally accumulated? How do we reconcile and rekindle beyond the past endeavors and suffering, engrossed by our respective ancestors and heritage, in a balanced way? Is it ever possible without bias and contempt? Does this obstruct identifying the entirety of one's character, background, adversity, and potential?

Once again,
Pre-Gamers

Thursday, December 1, 2011

DIGICATION UPDATE (important)

Don't panic!

I know your portfolio might look like it has disappeared. It hasn't. Digication has encountered some technical problems--BHCC can't fix them, they're at the servers that Digication itself owns. I'm not clear about what exactly has gone wrong, but Digication assures us they are working on the problem. Right now, it looks like portfolios have disappeared; Digication is assuring us that your data has not been lost, and that its staff are working to restore the data.

I know this is probably disturbing and irritating to you as you work on your final portfolios. This is really irritating to me too--I know I promised to get all your portfolios back by Friday night, and I had planned to get them all back by tonight (Thursday night). Tonight is definitely not going to happen--we'll see about Friday!

We'll see how quickly Digication is able to get the portfolios back online. I'll keep you posted!