I really liked Sheed's about how education should be as desirable as winning. I'd add that other than the competition, winning is the most important things to athletes and it should be to non-athletes as well.

A young man was driving his Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart, a Japanese made car, on an icy morning before school heading westbound on Spring Creek Road right next to Guilford High School. As the bumps on the roads rattled his car, he tried to switch lanes but the mixture of miniature bumps and ice caused his tires to slip and drift towards the oncoming lane. He collided with a Dodge Ram 1500 and a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, both domestic cars, at speeds of 40 mph from both sides. The aftermath looked pretty bad. The Lancer’s and the Ram’s front sides were ripped off and the Monte Carlo, who was next to the Dodge Ram had a smashed-in side and door. The drivers of the Dodge Ram and the Monte Carlo suffered minor injuries such as broken fingers and a knee injuries while the driver of the Lancer walked off without a scratch and went to school afterwards. This is one of many examples that show the reliability and safety of Japanese import vehicles. A common notion presented by media is that domestic vehicles such as Ford and their “Built Tough” slogan are much better and safer than the small and fragile Japanese cars such as the Mitsubishi Lancer. However, in reality the makers of the Japanese cars put great emphasis on safety all around, power, milage, size, and are still able to sell most of their cars for a smaller cost. It doesn’t mean that the cars made from Japan can be classified as better, but they sure do have more advantages than the domestic vehicles found today.

In discussion of domestic vehicles versus imported vehicles, one controversial issue has been safety and that Japanese cars are small and made of fragile materials such as plastic that would kill the driver in a collision. On one hand, Jerry Edgerton, a former car columnist and the author of Car Shopping Made Easy, created a article called “The Safest Cars on the Road” which includes descriptions of improvements made by certain companies and a list of highly rated cars on the safety chart. I would like to point out that every section, except pickups and SUVs, is dominated by import vehicles particularly from Japan. Through advances in technology, makers such as Mitsubishi, Mazda, and Honda were able to improve their ratings all around including rollovers and side collisions. So even though that the common notion of their cars being small and fragile, statistics shows that they are indeed equipped and built to save the lives of their passengers in case of a collision. Consumer Reports, a database which keeps track of buyer preferences as well as manufacturing factors of vehicles such as luxury, mpg, and power, has created an article called “How we Test our Cars” which explains how every cars new model has to be tested over and over before it can be evaluated for a certain safety rating so that every car model and every manufacturer has a fair grade. One of the things is that the cars go through 50 different safety evaluations including crash testing with Japanese cars showing consistent results of technological improvements.

On the other hand, Christopher Neiger, an engineer who has worked for both sides of the spectrum will say both sides have their advantages and disadvantages and that it is up to the people who purchase the vehicles to make the decisions that is best for themselves. He says that both companies have the buyers in mind as they work to improve safety and preferences but they still have to make profits so they can’t make everything top end. However, there are people who will create illogical reasons to why domestic vehicles should be favored. One reason is that things built in the United States should be favored because it favors our economy, even though most Japanese cars are designed in Japan, they’re still manufactured here in the US which still contributes to the US GDP. Other reasons include calling Japanese cars “Ricers” or “Rice burners.” This comes from the sound that some imported cars make after being modified with an aftermarket exhaust, but the name comes from the domestic loving muscle car enthusiasts which prefer their roaring V8 engines over anything else.

Consumer Reports has created as very thorough list of top luxury sedans found in the US. The list glorifies luxurious imports but not particularly from Japan. When people think of a luxurious automobile, they turn their attentions to the European giants such as BMW, Mercedes, and Audi which are still technically imports. Although dominated by European manufacturers, the list also complements domestic vehicles such as the Cadillac CTS and Japanese vehicles such as the Infiniti G37. Although the domestic makes a small appearance, I think this article shows the advantages of owning an imported vehicle over a domestic. Even though car manufacturing started here in the US a century ago, other countries were able to develop faster and better such as Volvo, a Swedish car manufacturer known for its strength and reliability and it literally often dubbed as the tank of the automotive world, praised as indestructible.

Jethro Bovingdon, an author for many automotive articles, favors one car over all other, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, a crowd favorite in the “car enthusiast” world. In his article “Mitsubishi Evo: The Greatest Evos Tested,” he describes the Evolution lineup of the Lancers from top down. He goes into such thorough detail about the safety, the mpg of the small engine that the Evolution has but the insane amount of horsepower it has as well as its technology in the all-wheel-drive system. Now this car can be compared to one of the most popular cars in the US, the Chevrolet Impala. Both cars are rated equally by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety but there are so many differences in everything else. Yes the Evolution is more expensive by $6,000 when brand new but it has so many more features. The Chevy Impala is much heavier and only has power to the front wheels, called front wheel drive. This doesn’t make it the most fuel efficient car as the engine is a 3.6L V6 which puts out about 210 horsepower. However, the Evolution is lighter, more fuel efficient, has all wheel drive which makes it an ideal vehicle in snow and slippery situations. It has a 2.0L I-4, significantly smaller than the Impala’s engine, which puts out 300 horsepower, the equal amount of power the Chevy Impala “Super Sport” with its 5.7L V8 Gas-guzzler engine has. That’s a 50% smaller engine with a 50% increase in power, may seem like fiction but it’s pure fact. It is one of the reasons the Evolution is a crowd favorite for enthusiasts but the media make it seem like a dangerous sports car. In result, the Chevy Impala is much more popular than the Evo but in my view, the car is only as dangerous as the driver.

The automotive industry has evolved greatly since its beginning almost 120 years ago. However, wherever there is competition, there is always somebody better than the other. Some may be better in certain things, some might be better at simply everything. This is what the media tries to hide by making catchy slogans such as Ford’s “Built Tough” and Dodge’s “Guts, Glory, Ram!” This formula has grown very tiresome and cliche as Japan seems to be winning the general crowd in automotive as well as the enthusiast. The Honda Civic, for example, is a Japanese made car with superb reliability. They have great gas milage and their engines are known to reach 250 or 300,000 miles without a problem and it is one of the reasons it is one of the most popular cars in the United States. If people do not agree, they can ask themselves “Do Japanese civilians drive cars like Chevrolet Impalas and Dodge Challengers?” Of course they don’t. The United States is the world leader in military technology, does that mean it’ll use inferior equipment made by the Russians? The answer is the same. Cars are different however as they are chosen by preference. One can’t be blamed for liking a domestic made car over an import because preferences are opinions, however, science and statistics are facts. Imports like the Toyota Prius dominate the “hybrid” world. Imports also dominate luxury, safety, and popularity. The only classification of vehicle that seem to favor the domestic side are the pick-up truck fans. Toyota and Honda have maybe two or three models while domestic manufacturers have sometimes up to 10. However back to facts, imports are superior in the most important things such as safety, especially when you have a child in the car, gas mileage to power such as the Mitsubishi Evolution, and overall popularity in the world. Even though I didn’t look up any sources on automotive popularity, I was born in Europe and have visited Europe many times and have rarely seen a car made by a American company. Outside the US, the popularity is owned by Japanese models and European models, I guess people can see for themselves which choice is better.

     Many people will agree that with the development of technology, our lives will get easier. However, that is not certainly a good thing because we are becoming too dependent on technology. Kids at a young age now have access to the computer, the internet, cellphone, social networking websites and more and all this does is limit their challenges and their developing imaginations. Cris Rowan, a journalist for the Huffington Post shares the same ideas in his article. Of course, many will probably disagree on the grounds that technology is negative for the younger kids. They could say that the kids can use technology as a resource to further their education.

Watching TV Makes You Smarter

Although I agree with Steven Johnson up to a certain point when he states that TV can make people smarter because it requires cognitive attention, I cannot accept his assumption that the modern reality TV shows help develop critical thinking. Sure the shows keep people guessing and trying to think outside the box by relating to everyday situations, but in the end, it's still just an entertainment channel with no useful information coming out of it unlike, for example, the History and the Discovery Channel. Our generation is being "dumbed" down by the overuse of technology and watching reality TV does not help that notion. Just because the structure of earlier reality TV changed from structured and explained to the mysterious TV to keep people watching in order to find out what happens next, does not mean it benefits people intellectually like he claims, the producers are making the shows strictly to make money, not educate their audience. So all in all, I'd have to disagree with his "Sleeper Curve" theory because letting young kids watch reality TV will never be as beneficial as doing their homework, they will have time to develop cognitively and intellectually on their own and shouldn't waste a lot of time watching reality TV for the greater good.

Immigration

A dark skinned man is sitting in a restaurant reading a menu. His son is sitting across from him and begins telling the waitress what he would like to order. After he completed his order, the waitress asked the dad what he would like as well. After the waitress realized the dad is not fluent in English, she begins talking slower and louder like he’s too stupid to understand. Just because someone comes from a different place and cannot understand the language perfectly clear, doesn't make them stupid. The Immigration to the United States spreads different cultures and ideas such as economics, science, and other contributions against the notion that immigrants are below the native citizens.

In discussion of immigration, one controversial issue has been that illegal immigration is ruining the United States of America. On one hand, travism argues that illegal immigrants are destroying the economy because they are willing to work for a lower pay which puts many legal Americans out of a job causing high employment. However, he also argues that legal immigrants ruin our economy because they still need jobs meaning there will be less jobs for Americans to have in the future. Others even maintain this mindset because there is very little room to argue because evidence of this happening can be found anywhere and it is basically common sense. The illegal immigrants have no guilty conscious shared among them about taking jobs to honest working citizens because if they are caught in this country, employed or unemployed, they are being arrested and deported. 

On the other hand however, this image that people get of illegal immigrants through media and by other means grows very tiresome and cliche. People take the characteristics that the media uses to describe the illegal immigrants in the United States and use them in their interpersonal communication with anybody who was born outside of the United States. Of course the media doesn't call illegal immigrants stupid and mindless, but since they tell the public of how they’re destroying their country, it gives the people an angry reason to hate illegal immigrants. This gets mixed up somewhere along the line and people take that hate and anger against legal immigrants. People need to realize that people who come from different countries are all made equal and that they are just in pursuit of a better way of life for themselves and their family.

       John W.Schoen, a senior producer and economic reporter for NBC News, takes his time to explain immigration and its effects on the United States. Although he admits that the immigration policies need a major overhaul, he does make it clear that unless a person in the US can trace their ancestral roots to the Native Americans, they too are immigrants because they can trace their roots back to Europe because of the European colonists that immigrated to North America looking for better life, which is known to everybody in the United States but they don’t put themselves in the Native Americans’ shoes. His argument also defends all kinds of immigrants, legal or illegal, because he also states that American jobs are at risk either way because the failure of the educational system. The American people will lose their jobs to other immigrants here in the United States, or somewhere else across the seas wherever the company decides to move its location in order to find a work force with the same education for a lower wage. He finishes that argument by saying if that’s the case, aren't we better of by having those illegal immigrant work here so they can pay their taxes to the government. His theories are supported by Jeanne Batalova, a reporter for the Migration Policy Institute. She reveals that in 2009, out of all foreign born residents, roughly 47% of them admitted to be from Hispanic or Latino ancestry. Since such a high percentage of immigrants come from countries with low educational systems, it decreases the productivity of the American workforce overall. this give even more incentives to the big corporations to move across seas to find new labor. My own view is that immigrants are people like everybody else who shouldn’t be treated better or worse. We all pursue happiness in our lives and we have the right to; people shouldn’t be looked down upon because they were born in another country. Immigrants try to escape from a worse way of life to a better one in the United States. Due to this, they have more to work for and more incentives to live up to now that the opportunity presents itself and they realize they shouldn’t waste it. I saw this first hand because the last 4 doctors I visited all happened to be born in an Asian country.

          Now that the negative aspects have been revealed, Daniel Griswold, the director of the Cato Insitutue’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, wrote an article called “Immigrantshave enriched American Culture and Enchances our influence in the world” in which he explains all of the benefits of immigrants immigrating to the United States. He states that immigrants do not push Americans out of jobs because they take the jobs that no American is willing to work which is usually a low end job such as dishwasher, landscaping, garbage man, and many more. Since the United States is a dream place to live for many people, that also attracts the well educated immigrants. The well educated immigrants push the United States further into progression as they represent human capital and make our entire economy more productive. Believe it or not, the American work force would shrink in 20 years if no form of immigration existed meaning that the US economy would face an extreme recession. One of the reasons that Americans do not like immigrants, according to Griswold, is because of September 11, 2001. People fear that it will happen again if we allow immigrants from the Middle East to move into our country. However, the 19 men that were responsible for the 9/11 attacks were not legal immigrants, so why should the honest people be punished because of terrorists, its illogical. However, there are other things that stop immigrants from coming into our nation and also from revealing themselves as immigrants completely. According to “Impact of Alabama’sImmigrations Law on Access to Health Care Among Latina Immigrants and Children:Implications for National Reform,” domestic policies concerning the use of health care for immigrants requires them to show proof of legal residency. However, this frightens certain immigrants because they might be mistaken for illegal and be deported and because it is such a long process, it basically made it extremely hard for immigrants to have any access to health care.

          Every person wishes the best for their loved ones and is willing to move to a different country in search of the best way of life. Due to this, immigrants all over the world come together and share their cultural aspects with one another that we all benefit from. The low skilled immigrants do jobs that people are usually not willing to do and the highly skilled and educated immigrants contribute their knowledge to improve our everyday use of technology and more. Their mere presence in this country keeps the workforce in sufficient numbers to operate properly. If we closed our borders to immigrants completely and treated them like pieces of trash, it would backfire on us as we would only be hurting our nation and showing the rest of the world of how highly we think of ourselves and how selfish we really are. Although our foreign policies need major overhaul, we should not think of immigrants any different than we do of any natural born citizen, except of course certain privileges such as voting and running for president which are only available to citizens and natural born citizens, respectively. They are still people of equal characteristics whose potential is as great as anybody’s. Nobody is born perfect and exactly the same, we would rather live by each other’s happiness than each other’s misery; therefore we need to accept each other’s differences so that we can all benefit from each other and the place we call home will be a better place.

As He Himself Puts It

     According to John W. Schoen, "the wave of immigration a century ago also brought to this country some of the most important contributors to American culture, science, business, education and health care, to mention a few." In making this comment, Schoen is saying that immigration is not as bad as most people think it is and that immigration spreads different cultures and different proficiencies all over the world that society can benefit from as a whole.

Sebastien Vettel's Domination in F1

     In his article "Is Sebastian Vettel Bad for F1?" BM23Reviews reveals that many fans of the sport are in rage because the results of the sport have become too predictable. Vettel is a 26 year old German driver who races for Red-Bull Racing team for Formula-1, an open car racing sport. He became the youngest driver to win the World Championship at age 23. Some critics of Vettel say that they can watch the beginning of the race, fall asleep, and wake up when it's over and know automatically that Vettel has won and that this takes away the excitement of the sport. BM23Reviews writes back in Vettel's defense that he shouldn't be hated because of his superior skill in driving. That's like hating Michael Jordan for dominating the NBA in his era, it's absurd.    
     Since I grew up in Serbia, the most popular sport in Europe was soccer and F-1 after that. And if you haven't noticed yet, I an extreme car enthusiast. Anyways, at the turn of the century, another German driver, Michael Schumacher was in his prime and ended up winning 5 consecutive World Championships in addition to his previous 2 making him the most successful driver the sport has ever seen. Yes, the races were very predictable because Schumacher would rarely lose but it did not take away any excitement from the sport. My dad and I used to watch every single race, even though we knew who would end up winning, the sport was fascinating to see these cars fly though corners left and right at speeds of 150 mph. I support BM23Reviews because you cannot hate an athlete because of their superior skill. Matter of fact, most sports have that athlete or team at some certain point of time. For example, the Chicago Bulls during Michael Jordan's Era, the Lakers with Kobe Bryant, and less known athletes such as 8 time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb. So for those who say Sebastian Vettel is bad for F-1 just because their favorite driver doesn't end up winning because of his, all I have to say is that there is always next year!