The New PIC

         First off, the acronym PIC stands for "Prison Industrial Complex". Just thought I'd get that out of the way. Secondly, many of you may be wondering "Why, what is the prison industrial complex?". Well my confused friend, the prison industrial complex, or PIC, is the idea that for economic reasons, state owners of prisons have been selling the majority of their prisons off to private companies. Those private companies have people invested in their stocks and those private companies need to make money. One of the ways to make money for them, would be to have a lot of people on prison, whilst cutting down on some of the "expenses". The result is that a lot more people are being incarcerated and given longer sentences for non-violent crimes, as well as the fact that the amount of prisoners in the U.S. has increased a lot.
I think that the show(on netflix, bear with me) "Orange is the New Black" does a really good job of illustrating how the American prison industrial complex works. I can jut surly using this show as a source because it was based off a memoir written by Piper Kerman about her experiences in a women's prison. She was given a 15 month sentence.

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The reason why I think this show illustrates the PIC so well is that it shows how difficult the PIC makes it stay out of prison once you've been in. *SPOILER ALERT*One of the supporting characters called Taystee(stop laughing) finally gets her case re-evaluated and is out of prison. She is super excited and practically dances into the van that will drive her away. However, several ekes later, she shows up in prison again to the shock of her friends. She said that she purposely put herself back into prison because it was better then living on the outside world as a former convict. She was working a minimum wage job and had no place to stay and at least in prison she had a bed and regular meals. Even when I applied for my first job last year, there was a section on the résumé where I was forced to answer whether or not I'd been in prison.
The prison industrial complex makes is easy to stay in the cycle of incarceration, even for those who want to stay out of it. Another example: I was watching "30 Days", a show where Morgan Spurlock, director of "Super Size Me", went voluntarily to a men's prison to see heat it was like. There, he met a man who said that he finally wanted to get out of his gang and find a job. However, in the end credits,  it was stated that the man was in prison once again.

Why We Fight?

    It's no secret that America spends a TON of money on its defense system (military, creating new weapons), so much money that we have been referred to being a part of "the military industrail complex", a system where we spend millions of dollars giving private companies contracts to make the latest weapon and defense technology.

Here's a startling statistic: If you look to look at the graph posted below and did the math, you will see that U.S. spends more money on it's defense system than all the other countries (listed down below that is) combined.

It is now a perfectly valid to ask the question: Why is that?

    Last night I went to go see "Thor: The Dark World" and there were tons of previews. The majority of those previews were for movies set in high tech futures, movies with robots and spies and gadgets and explosions. and that's not the first time I've seen movies come out like those. It mad me wonder if, culturally, we as Americans are focused too much on being the best all the time. Oftentimes, we refuse to see our own faults and instead try to be the hero at any cost, running into people's business, feeling like we have to be on top all the time. It's exhausting. Our budget is getting tired (I think it fell asleep some time ago) and i think that we as a people are getting tired as well. Our spending, be it on high budget gadgets or flicks, seems to be just another example of why we need to take a break, step balk, and remember that it's okay not to win at everything. We don't have to pretend to be perfect and maybe it's time we all just stepped back and took a deep breath. 

What About Them?: Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my Typhoon Haiyan post. Now that you have been given all the information, I want to look at the picture that I posted in part 1 and talk about what thoughts it has instilled in my mind. First off, if you would like to see the picture click here. I am not posting the whole image again, mainly because it could be a little graphic for some people.

                Now, if you choose to look at the photo you will probably see a young woman lying on the rubble of a makeshift medical shelter. Draped over her lower abdomen is a strip of cloth that is splattered with blood.  Medic’s rubber glove can be seen in the corner. According to the BBC, the woman had just given birth to a baby in the city of Tacloban, one of the hardest hit areas in the Philippines. The woman is holding onto what I assume to be the father of her child as he looks at a chair covered din cloths which I am pretty sure is where the baby is sleeping.

                This image was one that really made me wonder: what about the people? Whenever we hear about disasters be it human crimes or natural disasters like this one, it seems to be all about statistics: this many people died and this much aid is being given and this is how long it lasted. Facts are good, don’t get me wrong, but I was wondering last night about the people who made up the numbers. What were they doing while we're hearing about all this? What are they doing while they’re waiting for us to give them aid? Some might be like “oh crap I’m going into labor” like the lady in the picture and others could be doing other things that can’t be stopped by a typhoon such as arguing with their parents.

                It’s difficult to imagine what it must be like to be a person among all those statistics, and I can’t even begin to think about how long the days and nights would be with nothing to do and nowhere to stay, waiting for everyone on the other side to do something besides update their Facebook status to “like to save the Philippines”.

What About Them?: Part 1

        

               

        So, I don’t know if anybody’s heard but there was this huge typhoon in the Philippines. More specifically, “Typhoon Haiyan” which has left at least 10,000 dead and about 673,000 displaced. The U.N. has launched an appeal for $300 million to try and help everybody there. The city of Tacloban is said to be the worst affected, with everything and everybody in disarray.  There is a relief effort going on but with all the roads and transport areas totally destroyed, it is difficult to reach people.  This post will have to be done in two parts, largely because this post is mainly for information, and also to let you see and absorb the image and view the links below, if you wish.

:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24901993 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24910918

WARNING: the picture I found below is one that really struck me and is a crucial image to the point that I am trying to make in the next post. However, it is a little graphic. Nobody’s head got chopped off or anything  but a few smatters of blood are visible so if you react badly to that, then feel free to close out.

“A 21-year-old woman lies exhausted on the debris-covered floor at a makeshift medical facility in Tacloban after giving birth to a baby girl. The storm surge swept away her mother.”

-BBC

Why "30 Rock" rocks

 
   

My mom and I started watching "30 Rock" together since, it was on Netflix and we'd heard it was good. I ended up passing her by about 5 seasons but that's not the point. The point is that "30 Rock" may be one of the best or at least, most unique, shows out there and I'll tell you why.
  Tina Fey's character is I think, the element which makes "30 Rock" so great. So many times, especially since television writing is a male dominated industry, female characters seemed to be used for one of three things: The personality-less/ too-attractive-for-him wife (George Lopez, Everybody Loves Raymond, every single Disney Show), the "tough" girl who wears booty shorts and fires a gun (every action movie ever), or the clingy girlfriend (see any TV show on Spike). Tina Fey's character (Liz Lemon) is none of these.
   Her character manages to be strong without shooting people up, has annoying quirks without being boring, and has an actual personality and loves and hates things and isn't perfect. I think that there should be more Liz Lemons on television and in movies. It's hard to explain just how awesome of a role model she is because there is so much depth to her that female characters often seem to miss. I can't explain all the things that make up Liz Lemon, all I can say is that if you really want to see for yourself, go watch "30 Rock". It might surprise you.