mmp008's blog

As we know childhood obesity is a huge problem in our country today, with sugary, fatty foods and fast food.  In the article it talks about how an 8 year old boy that weighed over 200 pounds was taken away from his mother because if child endangerment. He was placed in foster care. The mother feels that it isn’t child endangerment, but the agency has been talking to her for over a year now. Her son was taken to a hospital for breathing problems where the doctors gave him directions to lose weight and get healthier, but the mom made no attempt to help him get better.

I’m going to have to agree with the law officials on this one. The mother had been contacted for over a year to try to help the son out. But instead she ignored officials and the son kept gaining weight. The poor kid is 8 years old and 200 POUNDS!!!! Do you want your freakin kid to die? I feel like it is neglect because she is letting her kid die. Because obese kids suffer from diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, and joint problems. That isn’t fair to the son because he still is somewhat young and doesn’t understand whats good for him and what’s  bad for him. A responsible mother would let her son eat healthy and have some food that is bad for him every now and then, not every single meal, every single day! The deserves to have her son taken away because she wasn’t following doctors orders, after going to the hospital for his breathing problems.

The first step when Muslims get to Mecca they are suppose to cleanse the hands and feet. In Religion class we just used some good old bottled water and washed our hands. Second, the Muslims circumambulate around the Ka’aba seven times. Although Morningside couldn’t take the Intro to Religion class to Mecca we found a Ka’aba that was probably just as good as the original. We circled around a black cardboard box in the middle of the “M” seven times and one of the times we had to touch the Ka’aba. After circumambulating the Ka’aba, Muslims run between 2 hills seven times “looking for water”. They do this because Ishmael’s mother did this trying to find water for her dying son. And on the seventh time a natural spring appear and she can save her dying son. In our trip to Mecca, we ran between 2 trees 7 times. I’m just glad we didnt have to run up and down Dimmitt Hill. After finding water, Muslims stand in silence for a day, also known as Prejudgement Day. They think about death and judgement day on top of Mt. Arafat. We only stood in silence for one minute tho in our Morningside Mecca. After being silent, they cast rocks at the 3 pillars. They throw 7 stones at each pillar. They do this to remember Abraham casting out the devil. After the Muslims cast out the devil they return to the Ka’aba and recircumambulate the Ka’aba. And after that they sacrifice an animal by a halal butcher.

There are 5 basic misconceptions on the religion of Islam. The first misconception is that Muslims worship another God. That is false because Muslims are the people who practices the religion of Islam. The Islamic term for their God is Allah. The Islam prayer called the Shada is recited, “There is no God but God, Muhammad is the prophet of God”. The second misconception is that Muhammad is the “divine”. He isn’t the divine but simply the last prophet to be born. He is the prophet because Gabriel the angel talks to Muhammad and tells him to recite words which later become the words of the Koran. The third  one is that the Koran promotes violence and oppression of women. The Koran was given to Muhammad to tell people about Allah. It’s in comparable size to the New Testament.The fourth is that all Muslims are terrorists or believe in jihad. Jihad means struggle. They struggle to get over the inner struggle is the hardest. And the final misconception of the Islam religion is that all muslims are Arabs. Islam religion is spread throughtout the whole world. For every 2 Muslims in the United States, there are 200 Muslims in Southeast Asia. (Indonesia) And surprisingly Islam is the fastest growing religion.

Also with the Islam religion there are 5 main pillars. The first is saying and believeing in the Shahadah, the creed. Next its to participate in the Salat, which is saying prayer 5 times a day towards Mecca. Third, is Sawm, which is to fast during the month of Ramadan. Then, Zakat is random acts of charity and finally the Hajj is the pilgrimmage to Mecca.

Judaism is based off 5 things. The first is that it is a monotheistic religion, meaning it gives its God human attributes. The name given to the Jewish god is YWHW, (technically, you’re not suppose to say it!) And the Jewish people sing the Shema at the synagogues. The Shema states, “Hear O Israel, YWHH is your God, YHWH is one.”

The second is that it’s a textual religion, meaning that it follows out of the tanak. The Tanak is also known as the Hebrew Bible, it is different than the Christian Bible because the Tanak is only the Old Testament. The Tanak is made up of 3 texts. The Torah, which are the rules for living, is the first the first book. The second is theh Neviim, it is the historical part of the Tanak. And the third book of the Tanak is the Ketuvim, which are the writings. Also in the Tanak there are 4 story covenants. God will never flood the Earth again(Noah). God will provide land and descendants(Abraham). God will be “their God”, people will keep the Torah(Moses). God will give an eternal Kingdom and will dwell in the temple forever(David).

The third is that its a religion of the land. Israel is the place to be. In Israel the North half is lush and green, and the South half is dry and “dead”. There is a lot of fighting in Israel because everyone is fighting over Jersulam, “the holiest of the holiest”.

The fourth is that is a Ritual-Oriented Religion. For example, a daily ritual is Kosher which is appropirate food and dress. A weekly ritual is sabbath and to rest on the sabbath.

The last trait of Judaism  is that it is a nonpilgrimage religion. Some religions that they celebrate yearly is Yon Kippur (Day of Atonement) Yon Kippur is mostly spent praying and fasting for 25 hours in the synagogues. They also celebrate Rosh Hashanah also known as the Jewish New Year.  And lastly the holiday of the Passover which is celebrated to remember Exodus when Moses freed the slaves from the pharoah.

This weeks reading was about the Wall Street and the protesting that is going on all over the world. I found it interesting that so many types of people that sitting in on the protest. For example that homeless man who rode a freight train just to say he screwed the government. I want to shake that man’s hand. And the lady who has social security and is retired, she still found the need to go out and support the next generation that probably won’t have social security.

To be honest I don’t have a clue on what’s going on because I don’t watch the news. I hate watching the news because it is seems like it is full of bad news today. But by what I’ve heard its not good and its probably not going to get any better for a while. A lot of people are blaming Obama, and he may be to blame but he couldn’t have done this without help from some other people..

In the reading, “Offensive play”, by Malcolm Gladwell, his exigence is the dangerous effects that contact sports, such as football and boxing have on the athletes brain.After years of hard hits to the head the brain starts to get injured and leads to negative changes in a person. The audience for this reading would be the athletes themselves, by reading this they can learn the negative parts of being in a contact sport over a period of time. It could also be directed to the makers of football helmets. They could be trying to make a helmet that helps prevent such hard blows to the brain. The constraints are that that type of technology isn’t necessarily known yet. And we can’t stop football because it is such a crowd pleaser, a lot of people would be mad.

I attended a liberal arts college not because it was a liberal arts college, but because it was a small college that was close to home. How else would i have clean clothes if my mom wasn’t close enough to do it? I’m just kidding but I wanted to be away from my family but still close enough to see them once a week if I wanted. It also had the ideal class size and it had a dance program that I knew I wanted to be apart of. If the class sizes were any bigger I’d just be a number, and I’m the kind of student that has to be somewhat close to the board otherwise I would not care and not pay attention.  And then I’d fail at life and become a bum, and that would be a waste of life. So in all, I’m thankful that Morningside is making me think outside the box and become a successful perso.

This week’s reading was about the different arts and how they affect a school. It talked about how the arts makes it so there are no right or wrong answers, and it makes students look outside the box. I think that today’s school need the arts for this kind of learning because in today’s society everything is ever changing and people need to be always thinking of new and random things.

It also gives the students chances to explore the different traditions of other cultures. For example learning differrent styles of dances or singing songs from different countries give students another look at a different culture. Like learning how to cha cha or tango or salsa. Its fun and yet the students are still learning.

And to finish my blog this week I’ll leave you with a quote from Mrs. Darbus from “High School Musical”. She states that, “The theatre is a chapel of arts, a precious cornucopia of creative energy.”

This weeks reading was about Urban Legends and all the crazy stories that people have heard over the years. The first one was about the lady who was driving home and was creeped out by the man that followed her home. When your reading this you automatically assume the guy that is following her is the creeper but when he’s actually the hero!  Or the story about the babysitter where she keeps getting phone calls and the killer is in the house?? Creepy…

As creepy as it is though, people are super attracted to these kinds of stories. I thinks its because not many people understand the paranormal, and because there really is no explanation to why these stories happened and why people tend to believe them. Take “Ghopst Hunters” for example, that show isn’t very interesting, just 2 men that repeatedly say, “Did ya hear that?” and there is nothing. But by using science they find things humans can’t hear or see with the naked eye.

And for the ghosts stories of Morningside, there better not be any or I’m going to have to transfer at semester:)

After reading this weeks topic of Christmas, I was surprised on how much Christmas has changed since the start of it. I feel Christmas is too much on the gifts people give each other and not enough of being with family or the people you love. In the beginning of Christmas, there was no gift giving, no Santa Claus, or baby Jesus’s birthday. This facts surprises me because ever since i can remember those are the 3 main thing Christmas is about.

Even being the somewhat religious person that I am, I knew nothing about how it says absolutely nothing in the New Testament about the birth of Jesus. I think its weird how historically we don’t even know when the heck Jesus’s birthday even is. But I did know that they picked the end of December because they wanted to keep the celebrations continuing throughout the end of December.

This Christmas I’ll definitely be thinking about Christmas in a different way this year.