People Are Good

The films High Noon and It’s a Wonderful Life depict two very similar occurrences but show two very different outcomes. In one the main character is left by the town to defend himself and in the other the main character is saved and supported by the society. It’s a Wonderful Life depicts the more likely scenario because people help each other in troubled times. For instance after the massive earthquake that struck Haiti the US alone donated more than $500 million. After the tsunamis in Asia $163 million was donated. Also after September 11 over $239 million as donated and after hurricane Katrina over $580 million was raised to help the victims as well as thousands of people actually helped rebuild the devastated community.  Most people elect to help and support others in their time of need and in return expect others to do the same. Money isn’t the only thing that is donated. Each year in the US over 8 million people donate blood. Over 15 million units of blood are collected each year. There are also numerous charities and foundations that help victims of assault, natural disasters as well as deadly disease such as cancer and AIDS.  Some popular charities include The American Red Cross, UNICEF, The Salvation Army and The American Cancer Society. The reason why people help others besides the fact that it is the right thing to do is because they feel better about themselves if they help others. It makes people feel better and feel like they have accomplished something if they help another person in their time of need. 

http://philanthropy.com/article/Donations-to-Aid-Haiti-Exce/63756/

http://www.givelife2.org/aboutblood/faq.asp

http://www.dailypress.com/news/newsletter/dp-top10.charities.pg,0,7496730.photogallery

The Death Penalty

       I agree with the death penalty but as long as the punishment fits the crime. It is up to the jury to decide that. Most likely if a prisoner is being sentenced to death the crime was something bad for instance aggravated murder. Since that is usually the case then the debate is whether or not it is better to keep the murderer in jail or give him the death penalty. If we kept people in jail who deserved the death penalty but don’t get it we end up paying taxes to feed them and pay for the jail. The less taxes the better especially because of the current economy. Another argument is that who are we to decide when someone dies but that argument is a double-edged blade. Why does the person who murdered someone else be allowed to take that life without cause but the supreme court cannot. In my opinion it is only fair that we use the death penalty for extreme cases as long as we are cautious on how much it is given out and make sure that the suspect is absolutely, no question guilty. I believe that no one should be able to play god with someone else’s life so if the sentence is given it must be for extreme cases only.

12 Angry Men

                Each juror in the film is under a ton of pressure with several different causes to that pressure. For example in the beginning of the film when the jurors first decide on guilty or not guilty juror number 8, played by Henry Fonda, is under a lot of pressure by the rest of the jury because he is the only one who voted not guilty in a case where the evidence was stacked against him. Another example is juror number 1 who is played by Martin Balsam. His character is in charge of keeping the jury in order and running the entire ordeal. He is under constant pressure to try to keep the room full of 12 angry men inline, focused and altogether efficient which means making sure they keep their cool.  

                Many of the jurors are effected by their past and this impacts their views and ultimately their verdict in the case. For example juror number 3, played by Lee J. Cobb, had a troubled past with his son. He taught his son how to fight after watching him run from a fight. Soon after they had an argument and that was the last time he saw his son. This incident is what final gets him to breakdown and change his vote in the end of the film. Another character affected by their past is Ed Begley who plays juror number 10. This character is very racist and obviously has something against Latinos and this is shown in his outbreaks and shocking comments about the boy.

                I disagree with the statement: “it is better for nine guilty people to go free than one innocent person to go to prison.” If someone who has committed a murder is not found guilty then there is a good chance they will do it again. Prisons are meant to set their inmates straight and to keep them out of the public until they are ready to reintegrate.  If 9 men are found not guilty of murder and allowed back on the streets then that  9 murders who feel almost untouchable even by the government because they were set free. Let’s take the boy for example. If he did kill his father he already has a troubled past and several other minor offenses so he would not learn anything by simply appearing in court and then being set free. There is a very high chance he will strike again. 

360 dunkin'....

                Sals from Do the Right Thing and the Chief from In the Heat of the Night have somewhat similar racial views yet they do differ. Both Sal and the Chief get along with African Americans better than most other whites around them. For example Sal’s son hates being around African Americans but Sal himself do not mind. The Chief is in a similar situation where he himself does not mind black people but the deputies around him are racist towards them. The two are different because in the end of each movie they are on different sides. Chief in the end respects Virgil where in the end of Do the Right Thing Sal becomes begins to dislike them. Mookie fights racism in Do the Right Thing by fighting back with violence where Virgil fights back by being hardworking and making an example of himself showing that blacks can do anything just as well if not better than whites.

                There were multiple acts of racism in Do the Right Thing. There were multiple racial slurs thrown around including the scene where the entire scene was racist stereotypes and insults. Both of these films were accurate in there depiction of racism because in 1989 they where countless riots like the one that occurred in the movie and in 1967 there were successful African Americans and there were white people trying to kill them.

                A major question that comes up when watching the movie Do the Right Thing is if Mookie did the right thing. The answer depends a lot on your race. As an all white class most people thought that Mookie did not do the right thing. The main consensus was that he did not solve anything by doing what he did. My opinion was that it depends who is viewing the movie. Me as a white kid who say no he didn’t do the right thing by harming other white people. But if I were black I feel that my opinion would be opposite and I would say that he did do the right thing by standing up for his race and fighting racism and intolerance. When asked if Mookie did the right thing Spike Lee had this to say “No person of color has ever asked me that.” Lee is saying African Americans know the answer. Yes he did.

                

Questions for Gasland and CI

Gasland


1) We you at any point afraid that someone would stop you from making this documentary because you were getting to involved?


2) Were there more people interested in talking to you or afraid of talking to you?


3) What role do you think your documentary will play in the passing of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act?


4) What restrictions if any were you given by your executive producers in terms of what you could investigate and how deep?


5) Did you have the chance to interview any CEO's or executives of any major gas companies?


Crude Independence 


1) Why did you choose to start the documentary with a talk about aliens?


2) What is your opinion on what is happening in North Dakota?


3) Where are you from?


4) If your film could clearly convey one message about the drilling what would that message be?


5) Why did you choose to show the parade?


This is the link to my source that I forgot to put into my last post:
http://www.opensecrets.org/

Political Action Groups Corrupt Government

The oil and natural gas lobby influence state and federal legislation by forming Political Action Committees or PACs. These PACs contribute funding and donations to certain candidates in order to gain power in the government. Companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil, which ranked 73^rd and 74^th biggest donors respectively, have a lot to gain from paying for candidates campaigns. If elected that candidate would remember what and more importantly who got them to their current seat. They would vote in order to further help the companies which helped them.

For instance in the documentary Gasland major companies were able to influence the government so that their process called hydraulic fracturing would be exempt from laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act and other important acts that protect our water and air ultimately keeping us safe. Because hydraulic fracturing was exempt from such acts, water in places like Colorado, Texas, Utah and Wyoming is contaminated with natural gas as well as several of the 257 chemicals that are in the hydraulic fracturing liquid. As shown in Gasland reports ranging from animals hair falling out to actually being able to light water on fire straight from the tap.

                These companies are able to corrupt our government in ways we cannot imagine and until a law is passed where these companies cannot provide funding for candidates we will not be able to escape this corruption. Getting this law passed would be nearly impossible because more than 50% of the people voting on it are the ones who are corrupt.

Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

Movies do far more good than harm when it comes to our understanding of history when you take into account that they are products that are usually stretched in order to add value to the finished products. The viewer must take into account that it is a movie and movies are designed to entertain but more importantly make money which does mean stretching the truth in order to create drama and excitement. After this is taken into account the viewer is able to get a somewhat accurate depiction of the past because films do incorporate true facts, where else would they get the story? Great examples of this are the films In the Heat of the Night and Birth of a Nation. Both of these films are based on true stories but are tweaked here and there to create excitement and a pleasurable viewing experience for the public.

                These films can be used as a primary source as long as a warning is given that it is a film and films do stretch facts, followed by an accurate explanation of the situation shown in the film and if possible inform the reader of the true facts compared to the movies stretched version.  Otherwise the reader may take the instance from the movie literally and either miss the point or believe a false truth shown in the movie.  

                When movies say in the opening credits, “Based on a true story” viewers tend to believe since the movie was based on actual events that all of the events in the movie must have also happened. This is a key mistake and can do harm to our understanding of history when not taken into account. Therefore viewers must be careful when seeing things like this that they acknowledge that not everything the viewer will see is true. On the opposite side when a viewer does not see this statement in the beginning of a movie they tend to not believe any of the events even if they did happen.

                Movies add to historical inaccurateness in a couple of ways but there is one major way. When an audience sits down in a theatre most do no attempt to separate true facts from wrong. They solely want to be entertained which is the main purpose of a movie.  This causes that audience to tell people about the events in the movie and in turn those false happenings become fact and common misconceptions. For example the movie Troy is based off the Iliad. Despite historians having little to no evidence on the happenings of the Iliad this example is still effective in that the movie is very similar to the epic however there are slight differences. These differences were apparent in my English class where we are reading sections from the Iliad and they were key differences between the two that cause many errors in class. This is the same in movies and real life in that people talk about the movies they saw which in turn becomes the new truth due to massive popularity of the movie. This can all be prevented if the viewer knows that not everything they see is factual.

                Films add another dimension to history, a dimension that textbooks can’t come close to touching.  Movies are able to create feelings and display ideas that are not possible to portray in textbooks. For example textbooks talk about the civil rights era and go into in depth analysis and provide graphs and statistics but hearing an African American living in the Ghetto talk about his/her experiences is worth much more than a statistic in a book. It touches people and motivates them to act more than textbooks can. Textbooks educate where movies inform and motivate.