Final Blog Post

The articles that we read for the final blog focused on Arab countries. The first article, “Waking from its sleep” touches on the United States Invasion into the Arab countries, and how it affected their countries both then and now, and looks at why the US invaded in the first place. It looks at Gorge Bush’s reactions to the attacks on September 11^th, and how our reaction was not much more humane. The second article “The world of Arabs” describes for us just how different those that are being identified as Arabs are. It compares being Arab to being European. It is very different because there are so many different ethnic, racial and religious variables that are not accounted for in just one word. The third article “Which way will they go”, discusses the roles that non-Arab countries have played in the role of Arabs lives. This has a large focus on the different reactions by both George H. Bush and George W. Bush, and Barrack Obama. We also see how the United States role in the Arab countries has affected other Non-Arabs rules like Iran.

The Wikipedia article that we had to read discussed the protests of many Arab countries as they try to fight for freedom. An article I found on Google News that had to deal with Marx, was “Dalai Lama Calls Himself a Marxist: Acceptable or Absurd?” This was a very short article that discussed why the Dalai Lama believe that he could be a Marxist, and why others argued that he was not. An article that I read that featured something by Max Weber was “Merkel’s flip flop”. This article discussed the constant flip flop of Angela Merkel’s mind on nuclear power in Germany. At the end of the article, they try to justify this flip flop by saying that Weber even said there had to be passion in politics. The final article I read was “Doctor Kevorkian Dies”. This article discussed the practices of the infamous doctor, who was known for his assistance in helping others commit suicide. This article mentions Emilie Durkheim in passing when looking at how he looked at suicide, and said it was not a sin but a social fact.

The first articles that I read really hit home for me. I spent a few weeks in Dubai, while I was on deployment in the Navy. During that time, I did some sightseeing and spent a small amount of time talking to locals. This usually happened in taxi cabs that were taking me places. During one of my trips, we talked to a man that was very open about his view on the United States. When 5000 Americans get off a boat and invade your city, you quickly realized that they are in the military. The man in the taxi told my friends and I that we are sometimes unfair when we are invading these countries. I also thought about an article I read about how American invasion has set back American suffrage movements in many of these countries. The Wikipedia article reminded me of a news story on National Public Radio. They discussed some of these protests one day. The news stories that I picked out from Google news were also interesting to me. The story about the Dali Lama was humorous to me because it was so absurd. The story about Germany was also one that I heard a story about on NPR, and so I had some background, but wanted to see how Weber was tied into the story. The final story I picked out because I did a project on physician assisted suicide in one of my ethics classes. It was interesting to me how these everyday stories can be related to our big three sociological theorist.

This really opened my eyes to how much around me can be linked back to sociology. I took a basic sociology class while I was in the Navy. I did not really focus much on the class, and only took it to get some credits while I was still in. This class has allowed me to open my eyes and see how much sociology is around me. I think it would be interesting to ask, how is sociology involved in our everyday lives?