Catherine's Blog

Coexisting

cmontgomerie10 — Sun, 23 May 2010 00:23:31 +0000

In United States today it is just as horrifying to see someone openly homophobic as it is to see someone who identifies as anti-Semitic or racist. Although there still are prejudices against gay, lesbian, and trans-gender people.
Recently I read an article about a trans-gender person switching from female to male. When he applied for a job he stated he was male but his social security information said otherwise. His boss obviously did not understand and contacted him. The man explained and his boss reassured him it would be no problem. The next contact he had with his boss, was when his boss told him how to apply for unemployment.

I understand people are uncomfortable with things they are not use to. I do not understand how someone can dislike or be unable to work with someone because of who they are attracted to. Professionalism is defined as the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person who exhibits a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace. There is nothing about the persons likes or dislikes in a professional workplace. People should be hired because of their ability to do the job not because of their anatomy, skin-color, or orientation.
I was in a college interview a couple months ago, when the woman interviewing me brought up her honeymoon plans. She was planning to go the a Scandals resort. She soon found out from one of her close friends that Sandals does not allow homosexual couples to stay at their resort. She is in a biracial marriage and agrees that being homophobic is the same level as being racist. She switched her plans, losing at least a thousand dollars.
I believe that if someone is not bothering you, everyone should be able to coexist. You do not have to like it but everyone should be able to live with it. The only person you can control is yourself and if you have an issue with how someone lives their life it doesn’t change that they are probably going to keep doing what their doing despite your views.

Springtime?

cmontgomerie10 — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:48:14 +0000

Marine life

One hundred and fifty six turtles, twenty three birds, and twelve bottle nosed dolphins dead because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Also these are only the ones counted, others could have died in the deep, or not washed up yet. What a wonderful way to start off spring. I always thought it was the time of spring as baby animals and bright colors, not death and black oil. Our actions and mistakes affect more than just the human population.
Many endangered and threatened marine species feed and bread in the Gulf this time of year. The oil spill pumping out twenty five thousand barrels a day affects every species residing or traveling through the Gulf. Marine mammals, especially, are affected by this spill. This is because they must surface to breath and therefor go through the oil. Although the creatures in the deep are feeling the oil too. Since it has been so stormy lately the oil is all through out the water column.
Not only were the ‘professionals’ not prepared for a tragedy such as this. They STILL have not fixed the problem. Shell fish and plankton are becoming more affected as the oil spreads. Filter feeders, such as plankton, is the basis of the entire food chain in the marine environment. As the toxins from the oil travel up through the chain by one fish eating another, the toxins increase. This is called biomagnification, and if its affecting the plankton it is really hurting the apex predators.
Our mistake and failure to properly plan for it has not only affected one hundred and fifty six turtles, twenty three birds, and twelve bottle nosed dolphins but numerous others and even future generations. We will not know the complete damage of the spill for a couple years.

Guns for good guys?

cmontgomerie10 — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:45:13 +0000

My dad and I were watching the nightly news a couple of days ago, when a subject came on that caused quite a ruckus. A boy whose sister was murdered in the Virginia Tech shootings was demonstrating just how easy it is for just about anyone to get their hands on a gun. Apparently there are gun shows where all you need is cash, no questions asked. With in a matter of minutes this young boy had a trunk full of semi-automatics and otherwise just about anything. You name it, he had it.

I was disgusted that it is that easy, simple even, to go in and just buy something, without a license or background check, that could take away lives in an instant, just as quickly as they bought it actually. I voiced this opinion and did not get a welcoming response from my father. “You’re living in a fairytale, if you believe the ‘bad guys’ out there don’t already have these weapons. So why shouldn’t good people be allowed to go and buy any means necessary to protect themselves from these ‘bad guys’?” he remarked. This caught me off guard. None of you knows my Father personally, but he is a teddy bear. He drives a Prius, he cares deeply about the environment, he doesn’t hunt, and he goes fishing but throws them all back. Yet he is in support of the right to bear arms. I would have thought otherwise.
I believe guns, or weapons of any kind, are toxic. Why put more harmful things into our society whether they are for “good” or “bad” purposes? Who is to determine the mental state of someone who goes out to get one of these deadly devices, or their family’s mentality? Just because a licensed hunter bought a semi automatic to slaughter the deer before they even know what hit them doesn’t mean his son or daughter has the same intention. What if we stop selling guns easily to “good” people and allow the population of guns to fall and take the guns from the “bad” guys when they are found, and give very severe punishment to those who have one illegally.
The world would be a better place if guns or weapons of mass destruction had never been invented. Yes, we would have to kill our food in a more personal way, but is that so bad? Maybe then we wouldn’t be so desensitized to taking a life be it a cow’s or a human being’s.

You CAN grow flowers from where dirt use to be.

cmontgomerie10 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:43:31 +0000

If you have ever seen the movie Wall E, you have suffered at least slight fear that the age of waste covering the entire earth would be in your lifetime. Although we might not be able to fly off to space and leave the little cute Wall Es to clean up our mess. This is an ever pertinent fear for every one. Some, even in communities near Tabor, are taking positive measures to prevent this fear from being fulfilled.
Current Danehy Park in Cambridge MA used to be a landfill. In 1970 the Cambridge based Camp Dresser and others decided to turn the dump into a recreation park for the public. By 1990 the park was complete with 3 softball fields, 3 soccer fields, a multi purpose grass area, and tons of paths to walk, jog and bike on. This shows you how one area that is a huge eye sore and not being used for anything but rotting trash, can be turned into a gorgeous park.
Only if more people could see what was done here and learn something from it. Even thought it looks nice now the park is still sitting on 4 to 40 feet of trash in some areas. The issues is not fixed by us painting it over with grass and paving it with sparkling paths (they actually sparkle i think they have bits of glass in the pavement). We need to see what we are doing to ourselves before we get to the point of Wall Es waste covered earth.
So many movies now adays show us where we are going to end up. Yet all we see are the star studded casts or the cool effects. Instead of walking out of Avatar, squeeling about how cool the 3D is or the amount of money it cast to make, take a look at the plot line. Humans completely trash their home planet to the point of being unable to live on. They try to move and take the resources of another, to destitute pandora as well. hmm does not sound to far off to me.

Trashy!

cmontgomerie10 — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:24:30 +0000

You walk in to your nearest super store, usually not more than a couple of miles from where ever you are, sometimes even across the street from one another. You grab your essential new shampoo, razor with plastic shower holder, large rubber ball, Starbucks mocha frappuccino and 6 pack of Diet Coke and throw them in your Prius because your environmentally friendly. After their long life of a week all the way up to a couple months, where do all of these item end up? In a land fill with their over packaging and families of mass-produced products. It takes that plastic bottle of shampoo and convenient shower holder, that broke in a week, four hundred and fifty years to decompose. That rubber ball takes fifty to eighty years, the aluminum cans take eighty to two hundred years, and the glass bottle from the coffee you had to have never decomposes.
How do you feel about the fact most of the things you buy on a daily basis will probably out live you, maybe even your children as well. Landfills are the historic way of disposing of our waste. We bury our trash as if some day we wont run out of land to put it in. After all of the strides we have made to move forward as a planet, we have flown to the moon, we have broken down atoms, but we can not figure out a better way to package out purchases that wont cause us to turn our entire earth into a dump. Even with the horrible way of burying our trash there is still a huge mass in the pacific ocean. Not only do we have a bad method of dealing with our waste we have a bad follow through to get it there. I truly believe there is a better way of dealing with our waste then throwing it in a hole in the ground. Perhaps its not finding a way to deal with the problem but eliminating the problem in the first place. Making packaging and items that don’t minutes to make but lifetimes to decompose.

Two Opposite Sides of the World

cmontgomerie10 — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:31:49 +0000

Many do not believe in global warming, some even do not believe in climate change. If you do not believe why not try to keep our beautiful earth the way it is. Who would want to risk what we have, it does not seem as if anything we are doing that affects the earth is making it a better place to live. Researchers say our ice caps will be gone in twenty years, some say six years. In twenty years I will only be 38, it would be very disappointing to get to the prime of your career and family life and have the world become to hot to inhabit.
I have no expectation that most people will change their ways. However everything counts. In the south pole an ice shelf the size of my home state, Connecticut, is on the verge of disappearing because the bridge that held it in place shattered. This is very startling to me. I know my state is one of the smallest but even so its a pretty big chunk of land to just go missing. If Connecticut stamps are cut out of the poles even ever month or year we wont have them for long at all.

original?

cmontgomerie10 — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:03:52 +0000

In this day in age an original thought is a rare one. Almost everything you can think of has already been thought of, and most everything you say has been said before. This idea is greatly reflected through popular, top 40, music. Every other song that comes on a hit music station is the same as the last. Not only do they all sound similar but most are so incredible over played even someone who does not like hit music would be able to sing every word. This is a very sad concept to me. I think the lack of originality, mainly because simply everything has been written down already, is horrible.
This also causes artist and movie directors to go to greater risks with their work. Horror movies are becoming more gruesome, romantic comedies are becoming more explicit and song lyrics are becoming more outrageous. It cannot be denied we all knew this day was coming.

Natural Disaster

cmontgomerie10 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:05:17 +0000

Tonight my computer crashed, I was very upset about this worrying about my files all being lost and not being connected for the next week before spring break. After coming to the library to get some homework, that all requires a computer done, I signed on to CNN and saw the latest news. Earthquake in Chile 708 dead, numbers continuing to rise. This really turns my little mishap into nothing at all. Here in America, especially at tabor we can be so consumed with our live and the little burdens of day to day life the greater scheme of things really slips by us. A huge relief effort was made to help Haiti after the terrible quack. I really hope the same will be done for Chile, even if the death toll does not reach the same numbers, which it hopefully will not. I strongly believe someone’s true strength does not show until you put them in a bad situation. The whole world pulled together to help Haiti after this horrible natural disaster.

If only these NATURAL disasters would make people think before starting man made disasters. We all fell very badly for those innocent people killed in these earthquakes. What about the innocent people who are killed everyday. What about the US soldiers that are still fighting over seas for a war that was started for a different reason than its being continued for, or the civilians caught in the cross fire. These natural disasters open our eyes to what suffering really is. Its not being unable to surf the web, its being unable to know if your loved ones are safe. It’s not worrying if the dinning hall will serve your favorite meal, its worrying it you will have a meal the next day. As well educated Tabor students and faculty, I believe there is more that we could be doing to better the community around us, and maybe even worldwide.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/28/chile.quake/index.html

Stealing from Kids

cmontgomerie10 — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:27:49 +0000

When it affects the children most anyone gets riled up. Kenya is having multiply political issues. One of which is money being taken from donations to schools and education. America and Britain have stopped giving money because of this siphoning. After just one month 1 million dollars had mysteriously disappeared. Politics do not affect everyone, but when it affects children especially those in need everyone listens. Stealing was shown with-in the education system as well as others. Mr. Githongo was assigned to investigate these high-level looting. After finding the culprits he left the country, because he did not feel safe. If the people investigating cannot safely work through the mess of politics to find the problems, how is anyone expected to trust the system? Without this trust the money will stop being given. If other countries cannot trust their money is going to the cause, which they want, they will stop giving. These looters are not only chasing away their source of income but the money for children’s schools and books. Protests on the streets in Kenya have arisen because of the money being held back. The police allowed this, or did not using tear gas. This is a small step forward, allowing the public to voice an opinion, even if there were more reporters than marchers. The looting as well as protests leads to issues with in the political field. The ministers of education and agriculture are questioned by the prime minister, who is not on good turns with the president because of a dispute of who has authority over the ministers. Politics sound like high school all over again. The basis of most of these conflicts is power, power over others, power to take money, which is not yours, and the power to give to those in need. If more people thought of the greater good than being promoted to a higher title with more money coming in each month then world would be a lot more functional.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8526824.stm

Women in the War

cmontgomerie10 — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:30:12 +0000

Women in the war and in combat situations are increasing. This article states three times the amount of women suicide bombers are attacking in recent times. Just yesterday 41 were killed and 106 wounded. “GI Janes” are now increasing to deal with this threat of women bombers. These women are not all just in administration jobs, some are checking women at check points for bomb vests hidden under their robes. These women, are supporting their families in the only way the see how. One woman, talks of he husband and only son being killed in the war and bombing. Now she must support her three daughters and elderly mother. Allowing women to do the same jobs as men is a huge step for equality and the women are proving able to keep up with the men.

This is a good solution to keep the defense up to date with what is happening on the other end. However is it a solution to the problem? Putting more people, men or women, in harms way to stop bombers is not a solution. One day one would hope these threats would not have to be dealt with.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/02/02/iraq.women.soldiers.baghdad/index.html?hpt=C2