The Klan is back?

"Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

As we watch the Bush administration come to an end, we are excited to see what Barack Obama will do to improve and advance our country. Americans are very optimistic and see Obama making change to move our country forward. If our society is advancing, wouldn't Emerson argue that our society is receding as well? He was right. I opened the Chicago Tribune and saw the headline "Hate Incidents in U.S. Surge." This article explains that a surge in white supremacist groups have been noticed because of President-elect Obama. The Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, has hung "effigies of President-elect Barack Obama." Emerson's idea that "society never advances" rings true. Our nation should be in a time of change and advancement, but that has been halted by the rise in hate crimes. A lady from Angie, La., Judy Robinson, "decided to place an Obama campaign sign outside her home a few weeks before the election. On the morning after Halloween, she awoke to find 'KKK' and 'White Power' spray-painted around her yard." It is frightening to hear that the KKK is reviving and terrorising people for supporting our new President. Emerson's beliefs are clearly shown through the surge of hate crimes.

Rugby Linked to Progress??

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a teammate about how to play rugby. The game seemed very interesting and I think I would enjoy playing it. Coincidentally, I looked online and saw an article from the New York Times named "The Unlikely Scrum." After just hearing the positions and how the game of rugby is played, I knew that article dealt with rugby. This sport has become more and more popular around New Trier, but in this article, I was shocked to hear that Hyde Leadership Public Charter School has the "nation's first all African-American high school rugby team." When I think of Rugby, I think of large English brutes hitting each other as hard as they possibly can. I never knew that African-Americans played the sport of rugby.

When the first students from Hyde asked their friends and family about playing the sport, a common response was, "You're crazy, that's a white person's sport." Regardless of what they said, the students began to pursue the sport of Rugby. Tal Bayer, the rugby coach at Hyde, encouraged the students to play "a pick-up game after school." These pick-up games led "to the birth of a team in 2000." The sport has become very popular at Hyde school and "now, 45 of the high school's 110 boys play." It is amazing to see how a game that was own known to these students is now something they all look forward to after school. Not only has Hyde created a school full of Rugby players but, "Hyde has become one of the city's top programs, finishing second out of seven teams in the Metro Area Varsity Rugby Conference."

Who would have thought that a group of inner-city high school boys would be playing rugby? Since this team has been able to compete against white affluent schools, it is a "barrier that rugby has broken down." Seeing an African-American rugby team excel and play against teams who have only encountered white opponents is progress in braking down racial barriers. It is amazing to see how our Constitution has allowed for once slaves to now be accepted in our American society. I have always seen the videos of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the M.L.B., and how he broke down racial barriers by playing in a "white mans sport." America is making progress! This rugby team is one of the thousands of examples of how our country is progressing in the right direction.

The Reality of Moving into the White House

When I think of Barack Obama, I think of the word "Change." Everyone is anticipating when Obama gives his inaugural speech and becomes the President of the United Sates of America. The question I ask is, how much change will he bring once he faces the realities of our country?

I opened up the Sunday Chicago Tribune to a huge picture of Obama with the title, "Great Expectations: Harsh economic, political realities will test Obama's mettle and ideas." It is great to see so much optimism out of our President-elect, but what will be his first objective to accomplish? On the front page of the Tribune it said that Obama will begin by stimulating the economy with a "stimulus package around energy development" which will start "creating manufacturing jobs in the alternative energy sector." This approach is killing two birds with one stone. It will help stimulate the economy by providing jobs, and it will also help our country slowly move form dependency on foreign oil. This is a very realistic goal that he can pursue, because honestly, there is no way he can just solve all the problems quickly, he can only take it step by step. Even though his campaign was about "change," Obama will need to look at all the problems he is facing,"a plunging economy, ongoing wars and a massive federal deficit," and deal with them pragmatically. Our new president is a very intelligent man and will do everything in his power to help the American people. He may not heal all the wounds of our country right away, but give him time and he will be able to move our country in the right direction.

Space Sports?!

In 1969, people were amazed that two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon. In the early 2oth century, idealists were dreaming about the day an American would walk on the moon, but pragmatists thought it would be an impossible task.
As I was surfing the web, I saw a headline that shocked me, "For Ex-N.F.L. Star, a Dream of Sports in Space." Ken Harvey, a retired Washington Redskin football player, has high hopes for "Float Ball." This would be a sport, a mixture of "basketball, football and the Lionel Richie video for 'Dancing on the Ceiling'", played in space. This "space sport" would be very expensive unless the rate for space travel decreased dramatically. One thing that caught my eye was when Ken Harvey said,"Sometimes it doesn't happen in your generation, but you plan to see it in the next generation." When I read that, I immediately thought of how the first Puritans were trying to set up a better place in America for their children. The Puritans had a dream to live life with religious freedom, and Ken Harvey has a dream of playing sports in space.
In my previous blog, I established how I am an idealist. If Ken Harvey has a passion for "Float Ball", I believe that he can make his dream a reality. A realist would say that playing sports in space is almost impossible, but I beg to differ. If one man can make a space traveling device that is cheap and affordable, sports in space might become a reality. I am positive that many people would be interested in playing if it was affordable. I hope that Ken Harvey stays optimistic and tries to find a way to make his dream into a reality.