reflection blog

This past wednesday I was fortunate enough to attend a gathering with former President Jimmy Carter. The topic of the forum was Sudan and the conflic in the Darfur region. While President Carter did not go particularly in-depth about the conflict, it was interesting to hear it from his perspective. He mentioned a new international initiative known as the "elders" project, which brings together past world leaders to try and solve human rights issues around the globe. He spoke of the ongoing struggle between the North and South regions of Sudan. Apparently, the discovery of oil along the border has caused peace negotians between these two areas to weaken. Presient carter did say that he did not believe either the North or South wanted to go to war, as the cost and consequences would be far to great. The primary issue with Darfur is that the number of rebel groups in the region is increasing all the time. What started as two or three rebel factions has risen to over 30, making it extremely hard to negotiate peace between them and the central government. Carter was hesitant to call the conflict a "genocide", saying that although it was a serious problem with many casualties, it has not been a premeditated and sustained effort to eliminate all blacks from Sudan. I really did enjoy listening to the President's adress. His southern charm and easy going nature drew some laughs from the crowd, and you could tell he was really sincere and genuine in his concern. I feel extremely lucky to be one of the 100 students allowed in the event. I hope the Mayoral visit was equally informative as to the workings of the DC government.

Friday's class was a nice change of pace, as the advertisements were both humurous and extrodinarily relevant to world politics. While I doubt the manufactures were thinking about terrorism, fear tactics, and freedom when making their commercials, the connections are striking. I especially enjoyed the Mountain Dew add that showed how much more dangerous ferrets are than grizzly bears. This came after I had read an arcticle explaining how American's and the national media constantly overreact to the threat of terrorism. An example is the common misconception that cars and safer to travel in than planes (we know this not to be true). Tom said it well when he gave the example that a news station will never say, "Today, all 1,500 flights landed safely today". You only hear about the one that didn't. So I am looking forward to some more creative student-run classes (not to knock on PTJ's lessons). My group is up next week, so we'll see what's in store ;).