I GOT A RESPONSE! Three to be exact.

Question 1:
My freshman year of college is not one that I am very proud of. I did not attend Indiana University, I fact attended Ball State. Once I had gotten there, I discovered I had made a very bad decision. Where does the conflict come into play. I was dating a girl at the time who was a Ball State alum. I stated to her that I was very unhappy there and was looking to transfer. She disagreed with me, telling me that I was just having to adjust to my new surroundings and that I was at the best place for my major at the time (Telecommunications). Being the people pleaser that I am, I decided to go with it instead of transferring at the end of the semester. This only lead to more arguments between her not caring about me being happy and she saying that it is all in my head. This to me I feel really feels as if it could be considered a level 4, conflicting local values, in Kaufer's list of Policy Conflict Sources. I was assessing my happiness in the light of the direction I was taking my education, while she was becoming more concerned with whether I was at the "correct" school for my major. While I ended up following my heart and transferring out at the end of my freshman year and we as a couple broke up, I can see now why this is a Level 4 conflict. The very end of Kaufer's description of level 4 states, "...we might be able to to resolve the conflict by convincing ourselves that one set of local values is more consistant with certain global values we think also ought to be enforced." This stand out to me with this argument because I did weigh my options and being happy with my education is something that I really think I should be proud of, doing what makes you happy is the global value found here.

Question 2:
Mario Savio makes his argument very clear from the beginning, he calls the situation in his first analogy a battlefield, these are people fighting for their denied human rights. He starts off by mentioning that his past summer was spent fighting for civil rights in Berkley, Mississippi and he did not expect that once he arrived to his college campus, he would be fighting for the same exact rights that he was working towards the summer before. He continually calls this situtation a struggle, and once he says against the same enemy, the beurocratic way things were being dealt with when it dealt with people of different race, age, and background. He finishes this paragragph by saying "...that impersonal bureacracy is the efficiant enemy in a "Brave New World." How does all of this tie together you may ask? To me the phrase, "Brave New World" really deals with a person's fear of the unknown. This speech was written during a time period when people viewed change as a very bad thing and very unnecessary. This all ties together by saying here is the situation we have come to, this battle has now spread its way from city to city, campus to campus, across the country, we are now in a position where decisions made do not represent the majority anymore. We must move ahead from the past to gain a lead, what the future holds is unknown, but we have to find out. If I were the administrator who recieved this letter I would really look into this situation of what is going on. An administrator is there to help the students and improve the school. I would probably join their fight for their voices to be heard and attempt to give this issue more attention with other administrators, because if students are no longer getting heard, most potential students would probably begin to look elsewhere to further their education.

Question 3:
Senator Barack Obama has had countless among countless things thrown at him throughout his presidential campaign. He has had everything from being called an elitist or a terrorist and has even had FOX News hold specials on how he is not fit to run this country. Obama set the stage right with his speech, he introduces himself, he describes his childhood, being raised by his single mother and her parents, aknowleging that he has a diverse background, this is what he does to make hiself appear to be equal to us as Americans. While many of us did not have the experiences that he had growing up, he gives you the knowlege that he had to work for everything he has, the key commonality among almost all of us. Like many Americans, he makes sure to state he does in fact practice religion, the basis of the founding of our country. However, he has to deal with comments made by his preacher, the Rev. Jermiah Wright. Obama goes through and gives you a complete history of his relationship with Wright, such as he officiated his wedding to his wife, baptized their children, shared dinner with them at their home. It really seemed to me as if the stasis Obama is really getting to is that we are seeing a distorted one-sided view of this man, a cause that if this is the only thing you are going to see, then you are seeing the wrong thing. His cause is to say, the Rev. Jermiah Wright is not a bad man, he made a few bad comments and the press is wanting to say this is all that represents both him and Obama. We are only hearing about the comments dealing with race and not the other, more postive things. This helps Obama's charactor by showing he realizes we all make mistakes and we can move past them. This could help both Wells and Savio with their articles by both of them realizing that we can move past this, yes it will take time, but we all have to work together, without the distorted views other people are giving us. All three of these articles/speeches give us a view of how things are and set up the image. However the one thing that Obama does that the other two really do not, is state that we are all equals, we are all the same, something that sets the tone and could ultimately be even more persuasive.