Make up: Penn State Scandal

Since I missed a post a few weeks ago and I wanted to discuss this issue, I’m going to discuss my thoughts on the recent Penn State scandal.  First, I’d like to say this should have waited a few weeks to happen because it would have been a great topic to do the group project on since there were so many organizational issues dealing with what happened. It is a terrible thing that happened, if everything Jerry Sandusky is being accused of took place, which it definitely seems that it did. I think that the leadership at Penn State did a terrible job of handling this issue. Since there were trials regarding this matter long before it became publicized, people obviously knew what was going on. The fact that they did not take immediate action was highly irresponsible. I guess people thought that the issue would just go away if they did not do anything about it. Because of the  neglect to take action, the board of trustees was put in a position to do something once it did become publicized. The actions they took were very hasty and in my opinion not only did nothing to resolve the issue but punished the wrong people. The fact that Joe Paterno was fired came as a shock to me. He was made guilty by association and unjustly fired. What really bothers me about this issue is the fact that he said he was going to resign at the end of the season. With how much dedication he has had to Penn State and everything he has done for the school over the years, it is really disappointing that he went out with no dignity thanks to those trying to do damage control. I think that firing Joe Paterno did more harm to Penn State than good, especially after the reaction of the students.

Virginia Tech

Yesterday there was a police officer killed at Virginia Tech. When I first heard about this I instantly thought of the massacre that took place a few years ago. Luckily what took place was not as bad as this but it is still a tragedy that there was a police officer killed. This morning I was reading an article about the shooting and it discussed that within minutes the entire campus was on lockdown and everyone was aware of what was happening. This was able to be accomplished because after the first shooting there were plans set in place for an emergency like this. The article explained that this is partly because some said the school was not prepared enough and did not properly respond to the first incident. I think that it is pretty impressive that within such a short time the entire school had been alerted of what was going on. This made me wonder if Ship would be able to properly handle a situation like this. I know the school has things such as the emergency text message system in place but I don’t think this would be enough to alert everyone on campus. I’m guessing there are a lot of students and staff that are not signed up for this program. A friend told me about a time they pushed an emergency button on campus for a minor emergency they had. The said it was several minutes before anyone showed up. This makes me question how prepared we would be if something terrible like this was to happen at our school.

BP oil spill

I think that yesterday all of the groups that presented did a really good job. Out of the three groups that did present, I enjoyed the group that discussed the BP oil spill the most. The reason I liked this one was not that they necessarily did any better than the other groups but I think the topic they presented is most relevant. The BP oil spill was a massive catastrophe that had an immense negative impact on so many people all over the country. The effects of the spill were not limited to those who had to deal with cleaning the spill. I think that it was highly irresponsible for BP to do what they did to allow for this to happen. As the group explained BP could have taken more preventative measures to ensure something like this did not happen. Not only did BP fail to avoid this incident, but once it occurred they did a terrible job of taking care of it on multiple levels. First, they could have been speedier in the manner they acted to block the leak and stop oil from pouring into the ocean.  Also BP was not very apologetic to those this affected. They could have taken more responsibility for the situation they caused. Another point on this topic is that I do not think BP was held as liable as they should have been for the damage they caused. Not only did they cause an environmental disaster but they also had a huge negative impact on the economy. They put many in the Gulf Coast area out of work and essentially halted the productivity of this area. I think that the government should have been harder on BP in the way they were punished. It is unacceptable that an event like this can happen with all of the safeguards available.

Power

In our discussion Wednesday, we discussed many aspects of power that I think it is important to understand. With regards to the six institutions where power is found, I agree that the government military and business hold immense power in contemporary times. Even though there is power found in the military, I think that the power found between business and the government is a growing topic of interest. The connection between government and business has been increasing since the emergence of the modern corporation. This is even more apparent in recent years I feel. The integration of private business with government is considered socialism. It seems that more and more our country has been moving in this direction with examples such as the recent healthcare bill. Although there are some benefits that can come about from things such as the healthcare bill, I do not think that government and business should have such a strong integration. An even more worrisome aspect of the integration of business and government is the influence business is able to place on government. The power that corporations have has gotten to a level that I don’t think is acceptable. Corporations are able to influence politicians through lobbying and campaign funding. I think that these activities need to be eliminated, if not abolished. The fact that businesses are able to influence public policy, I find very unsettling. Because of their almost unlimited funds, businesses will continue to be able to carry out these activities. Without these activities stopping, corporations will continue to be able to have unfair advantages.

Activity from a few weeks ago

Before we discussed the activity we did two weeks ago I was unsure of what the point of it was. I was somewhat confused due to the lack of instruction given by Dr. Goates. However after our discussion it became more apparent of what we were supposed to gain from doing this activity. One of the main points that we discussed about this activity was the degree to which people would take the initiative to deviate from the ambiguous rule sheet. I wanted to act in a way that wasn’t completely following the rules that were established, I did not do this though. This was not because of fear of having a negative consequences, which was the main reason we concluded was the reason people did not do this, but rather I did not want to take the risk of doing something that would make the activity not turn out the way it was supposed to. I thought that doing something that was not specified in the rules may lead to some sort of confusion or miscommunication. One interesting aspect of this activity I noticed was how everyone did make an attempt to follow the set of rules we were given for the most part. During most of the activity many people were trying to follow the directions as well as they could. This seemed to change abruptly though as we began to run out of time. As we got close to the end of class people seemed to be less concerned about following the rules and began to act as they felt necessary. I think the reasoning behind this is that since we were running out of time people realized a sense of urgency for wanting to earn extra credit. People knew that they needed to do something to gain control of the extra credit so they started caring less about what the rules were and started playing by their own rules so they had a better chance of getting extra credit. I thought it was interesting to see how people started to look out for their own interest rather than the interest of the group that they were in.