Finish strong class of 2k17

Couple months left and the new beginnings start. Everyone will have different paths, some easier than others but always remember its always how you finish. Couple months left and we all feel like not doing jack shit, but we still haven't walked the stage yet. This year has brought many things and has made you think of what high school was to you, some might of hated there high school years, other wish they could stay in high school forever. How do you want to be remember, everyone wants to end high school right but who will. Only time will tell. All I'm saying to my fellow classmates is lets finish strong and enjoy these last couple months we'll never get these moments back. Build memories.Finish strong.

"Country Jail"

It was interesting when Mr. Stewart mentioned Germany being in "country jail," because that was actually the experience of my family. The Bross side of my family lived in southern Ohio, near Cincinnati, an area that was amazingly German.

Lower left corner, right on the Kentucky border

The local public schools were literally taught in German, and obituaries were printed in it. (Seriously, we have an album, apparently. I actually just saw it on Friday.) Then, WWI happened. Suddenly, in my great-grandmother's generation, the public schools were all taught in English, and everyone switched languages. As you can imagine, this only got worse in WWII. My Grandpa Bross was born in WWII, and suddenly my family switched from using saint's names to "Jim." He actually wasn't taught German as a kid. Even after the war was over, when my mom was born, my great-grandmother was extremely upset about the fact that he named her Liesl. She was basically like, "Are you trying to paint a target on her?"

Essentially, "country jail" was definitely a thing, even for Germans in the U.S. who had nothing to do with the Nazis or the world wars.

Jaoquin " El Chapo " Guzman going to the U.S

Many know Pablo Escobar for being the first drug dealer to moves drugs from one country to other or off his famous tv show Narcos. El Chapo moved drugs worldwide, he was the number one most wanted person on the planet. Has escaped from jail many times and it seems to get easier each time. This man is basically the president of Mexico, why do I say that? I mean you have to pay the cartel like if it was rental. Now if you don't you might end up in a body bag. They are protection and like the government in such a corrupt country. Only time can tell when El chapo will strike back now that hes in the U.S, was a first ticket to his plan I would say.

Back on the Grind

The break was honestly great to catch up on some rest, and catch up on the work that I needed to make up. Now its on the home stretch for turning all my work so I could make sure I can walk with all my friends at graduation. Once i'm done with this senior project for Global, im gonna be happy because I really ain't gonna need to worry about any other major assignments. I just need to pass this class then I'm gonna be turning up the day of the graduation.

Broken Box Production

Hey guys! So this week, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, Broken Box will be preforming Go Ask Alice, and I encourage all of you guys to come! It is based on a true story of a teenage girl who gets addicted to several drugs and the downward spiral her life takes because of her addiction. Tickets are $5 in advance from any Broken Box member (I'm on of them! Please buy tickets from me!) and $8 at the door. Also due to mature content we recommend this play for ages 14 and up. Please come though, it is our second to last play of the year.

Can we just talk about the Title IX investigation?

Everyone's read this article by the San Francisco Chronicle, right?  Because it's honestly disturbing.

Let me be very clear, if a student says they were raped, even if they don't press charges, the school is legally bound to conduct an investigation.  (Which we didn't do.)  If they had investigated and had found that it was likely that the rape occurred, they would have had to protect the student, including banning her rapist from football games, prom, and graduation if necessary.  Every student has the right to a safe school environment, and being exposed to your rapist is not safe.

But don't worry, it gets better.

Our school sent out an email titled "Letter to MVLA community in support of our students."  It included this quote:

We want to reassure you that the schools in the Mountain View Los Altos High School District are and always will be safe places for our students and their families.  Every student - and their families - is welcome on our campuses and in our schools.

Bolding theirs.

Just to be clear, while our school is under a Title IX investigation for a rape case they clearly didn't handle well and MVHS is dealing with cases of nudes being shared without students' consent, they want to reassure us that MVLA schools "are and always will be safe places for our students."  Thank you, Superintendent Jeff Harding, MVHS principal Dave Grissom, LAHS principal Wynne Satterwhite, and Director of Adult Education Bill Pierce for lying through your teeth in a hollow message of "support" for your students, ensuring that we know that every reassurance you give must be checked, double checked, and triple checked to see what news story you're responding to.  Truly, I'm sure that saving face was that important.

On an unrelated note, does anyone have ideas for a protest?  I need slogans for signs.

Democrats Are Moving Too Far Left - The Dangers

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In recent years, it has occurred to many people that America's left (primarily under the Obama presidency) had radically changed platforms/policies and moved much farther left than they had historically been.

Starting as late as 2013, the platform of the American left began quickly changing and shifting when Obama and Hillary Clinton (who are highly praised by a lot of leftists) had all the sudden began to support gay marriage and rights for homosexuals despite them and many Democrats being clearly objected to them right before that point.

Another thing that came into fruition around that time was the concept of identity politics - where it was meant to form political stances and laws around the wants of people belonging to certain "identities" but rather equated into endless shaming and harassing of people who simply disagree with somebody else's ideology and equating them to hating entire groups of people for simply disagreeing.

Economically, the Democrats had often generally operated on a fiscally centrist or center-left before 2015, however with the rise of Bernie Sanders (a self-proclaimed socialist), the Democratic Party had shifted its platform to adopt more socialist policies with a good number of followers pushing communism.

Many of these factors with the addition of the extremely biased left-wing MSM (Mainstream Media) spewing out divisive and often untrue articles and opinion pieces are creating an environment where one or two scenarios either take place. The first scenario is that many Democrats abandon their party and either become Independent or Republican. The other scenario that is taking place is that the people who stick with the Democratic party are being pushed farther left until the point where they are becoming radicalized - with Black Lives Matters, Antifa, and other similar organizations pushing violence against people who don't agree with their often times broken and false ideologies.

The radicalization of leftists mentioned above has been the most prevalent in this country after Donald Trump's victory in November with many activist groups bringing violence out into the streets (i.e punching "Nazis" or people who don't agree with them), bringing divisiveness to the country over non-existent or uncertain issues (i.e Woman's March, Black Lives Matter), or disrupting democracy and (unsuccessfully) preventing the new administration from working like usual (i.e Senate Democrats, Leakers, Activists).

Apart from continually losing support from the public, Democrats risk many things from doubling down on their newly founded platform and policies. With enough division created by them and the MSM, they create the probability that right-leaning people could be pushed further right and although the current Republican party is actually more centrist and liberal than it had ever historically been, people discontent with the radicalization of the left may look towards the far-right for an answer - which that in itself if not a good scenario by any means.

So if the left wants to really "save this country", they need to look at themselves first instead of the Republicans, tone down their rhetoric and stop becoming radicalized, and this country will eventually be united and not bear similarities to Pre-Nazi Germany.
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(Further Reading)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/02/12/jim_webb_democratic_party_has_moved_very_far_to_the_left.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-fuehrer-myth-how-hitler-won-over-the-german-people-a-531909.html

http://www.dailywire.com/news/6964/leftist-fascists-are-coming-beat-you-and-media-are-ben-shapiro#

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/13/stephen-moore-the-fascist-left-in-america/

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/02/liberals-get-hysterical-over-alt-right-but-are-living-in-their-alt-left-world.html

Ms B being gone the day we had a meeting

Ms. B this is honestly a reminder for when you get back, we were supposed to talk about my senior project during tutorial today. I just wanted to blog about this because i'm in some deep shit and I need some help. I need some help on being organized with my plan and senior project choice, because its kinda a hard topic to get interviews for, but I think with your help I will get it done. So hopefully your here tomorrow or thursday because i'm struggling.

Auschwitz

After learning so much about Auschwitz I was very interested in the meaning of it. The text says that Auschwitz was a test of human survival and that it proves that no matter how harsh conditions are that life will go on. People still found a way to survive. I think that Auschwitz can be compared to the Stanford prison experiment we saw earlier this year. In the prison experiment, they separated them into 2 groups one with prisoners and one as guards. The guards were given power over the prisoners and would not pay for any of the crimes that they committed. Whereas in the death camp, they were separated into German guards and Jewish prisoners. I don't think the German guards were inherently evil, I think most of them disagreed with how brutal the conditions were at the start. But as shown with the prison experiment, when diffusion of responsibility and direct orders come in, humans can commit acts we never thought that we would commit. In Auschwitz, the guards were given direct power and were completely isolated from society so they were free to do as they pleased. I think that when the guards were given power over the people they easily abused it because it made them feel more superior. I think in almost any situation if you put a person in power over another person, the person in power will eventually abuse it. Auschwitz is just a intricate prison experiment where humans true natures come out. Its primal to the core as it drives humans to their absolute limits. Its both terrifying and cruel but at the same time speaks louder than any experiment.

Oscar Schindler

A fascinating part of the holocaust were the various methods that the Jews used of finding loopholes and ways to avoid being killed. One of these being Oscar Schindler in which he established a factory in which he saved 1200 Jews by having them work for him. Shortly after the war began, Schindler joined the Nazi party as an ambitious businessman. After Schindler bought several previously owned jewish factories, he began employing jews which would lead him to save them from the dangers that they faced in the ghettos. During the liquidation of the jewish ghettos, Schindler let his workers stay overnight and therefore able to avoid facing death like most others. Furthermore he was able to bring several hundred jews from brutal concentration camps to come to his factories so that they could live a better life, one that didn't include torture. Ultimately, what this shows us is that even in such harsh and brutal times there will always be opportunities to stand up and fight for what one thinks is right. It is incredible that through the work of one man, thousands of of others had their lives saved. Later in 1962 Schindler was also given the award of "Righteous Among The Nations" for his actions. Many label him as truly heroic as he constantly was risking his life to save the lives of many more others; something most would claim to do, but if put in such a situation would most likely not do so due to putting such great personal risk on themselves.

Dear Modern Feminists: You're Fighting The Wrong Fights

Over the past few years, there has been a surge of third wave feminism in which a (believe it or not) vocal minority of women and those fighting along side them have been protesting and taking part in activism in order to fight for the rights for women in which they feel that they don't have.

There happens to be a quite notable problem behind this movement though; after over a hundred years of progress and actual rights being gained by women in which they were genuinely deprived of before, there isn't a whole lot to fight for in the majority (if not all) western societies. Ever since the late 1800s when the feminist movement had began picking up steam, women have been fighting for - and also gaining many critical rights which had made them somewhat second-class citizens compared to men. Simply to put it, women are equal to men under the law and have been for a considerable amount of time.  To show just how many rights had been granted over the years, a table of many significant rights will be listed below.

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(Gathered from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html)

1890	The National Women Suffrage Association and the American Women Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As the movement's mainstream organization, NAWSA wages state-by-state campaigns to obtain voting rights for women.

1903	The National Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) is established to advocate for improved wages and working conditions for women.

1920	The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to collect information about women in the workforce and safeguard good working conditions for women. Aug. 26 The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.

1936	The federal law prohibiting the dissemination of contraceptive information through the mail is modified and birth control information is no longer classified as obscene. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, birth control advocates are engaged in numerous legal suits.

1955	The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian organization in the United States, is founded. Although DOB originated as a social group, it later developed into a political organization to win basic acceptance for lesbians in the United States.

1961

President John Kennedy establishes the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman. The report issued by the Commission in 1963 documents substantial discrimination against women in the workplace and makes specific recommendations for improvement, including fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave, and affordable child care.

1964	Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex. At the same time it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints and impose penalties.

1966	The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded by a group of feminists including Betty Friedan. The largest women's rights group in the U.S., NOW seeks to end sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace, by means of legislative lobbying, litigation, and public demonstrations.

1967

Executive Order 11375 expands President Lyndon Johnson's affirmative action policy of 1965 to cover discrimination based on gender. As a result, federal agencies and contractors must take active measures to ensure that women as well as minorities enjoy the same educational and employment opportunities as white males.

1968	The EEOC rules that sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal. This ruling is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court, opening the way for women to apply for higher-paying jobs hitherto open only to men.

1969	California becomes the first state to adopt a "no fault" divorce law, which allows couples to divorce by mutual consent. By 1985 every state has adopted a similar law. Laws are also passed regarding the equal division of common property.

1970

In Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co., a U.S. Court of Appeals rules that jobs held by men and women need to be "substantially equal" but not "identical" to fall under the protection of the Equal Pay Act. An employer cannot, for example, change the job titles of women workers in order to pay them less than men.

1972

Mar. 22 The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Originally drafted by Alice Paul in 1923, the amendment reads: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." The amendment died in 1982 when it failed to achieve ratification by a minimum of 38 states. Also on Mar. 22 In Eisenstadt v. Baird the Supreme Court rules that the right to privacy includes an unmarried person's right to use contraceptives. June 23 Title IX of the Education Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools. It states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." As a result of Title IX, the enrollment of women in athletics programs and professional schools increases dramatically.

1973	As a result of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court establishes a woman's right to safe and legal abortion, overriding the anti-abortion laws of many states.

1974

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits discrimination in consumer credit practices on the basis of sex, race, marital status, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance. In Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that employers cannot justify paying women lower wages because that is what they traditionally received under the "going market rate." A wage differential occurring "simply because men would not work at the low rates paid women" is unacceptable.

1976	The first marital rape law is enacted in Nebraska, making it illegal for a husband to rape his wife.

1978	The Pregnancy Discrimination Act bans employment discrimination against pregnant women. Under the Act, a woman cannot be fired or denied a job or a promotion because she is or may become pregnant, nor can she be forced to take a pregnancy leave if she is willing and able to work.

1984	EMILY's List (Early Money Is Like Yeast) is established as a financial network for pro-choice Democratic women running for national political office. The organization makes a significant impact on the increasing numbers of women elected to Congress.

1986	Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the Supreme Court finds that sexual harassment is a form of illegal job discrimination.

1994	The Violence Against Women Act tightens federal penalties for sex offenders, funds services for victims of rape and domestic violence, and provides for special training of police officers.

1996	In United States v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that the all-male Virginia Military School has to admit women in order to continue to receive public funding. It holds that creating a separate, all-female school will not suffice.

2005

In Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, the Supreme Court rules that Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, also inherently prohibits disciplining someone for complaining about sex-based discrimination. It further holds that this is the case even when the person complaining is not among those being discriminated against.

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Of course, what many third wave feminists like to ignore - or simply are too ignorant to pay attention to, is the current day oppression of women in many Islamic countries where the women are both deemed inferior to men (often treated as subhuman) and are legally oppressed. The various links below are good resources to outline what exactly is meant by this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28/saudi-arabias-oppression-of-women-goes-way-beyond-its-ban-on-driving/?utm_term=.be4f740d65ee

http://www.famafrique.org/oppression.htm

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,185647,00.html

http://www.islamic.org.uk/women.html

The Judenrat

After reading "The End of the World", I became interested by the creation of the Judenrat. The few Jewish people who were chosen to follow orders by the SS to kill other Jews are people that I don't fully understand. It is clear that the Jews in the camp were desperate to live one way or the other, and that can explain a lot of the attempts to flee and even the suicides. The creation of the Judenrat is a clear tactic of the Nazis to force Jewish against their own people. By doing this, the Nazis were able to establish complete control over the people of the camp. They were able to turn people against each other and do basically whatever they say. This complete control though was due to the fact that the prisoners were so desperate to survive. Though it may seem weird that they would help the enemy, it is most likely that we would all do the same thing if put in that situation. It was those people that did try to help, like the messenger lady and some of the Judenrat, that used this 'powerful' position to good use. Though they weren't able to save everyone, they were able to deviate the system in one way and save hundreds of people. If I were put in that position, I am now exactly sure what I would do just because it is such a big responsibility. Were these people able to perform these positions because they were able to create distance between themselves and the other Jews? Or was it just because they were so desperate to survive? The conditions in the camps were so bad that it truly does make sense why people were willing to kill others of their culture.

Ahmad Taking My Post

Surach/Ahamd swooped my post about El Chapo. On January 20th I told him about that plain that the great Chapo got. This is just a joke post but aye lock Surach free Chapo.