The current Republican frontrunner is Mitt Romney, but Newt Gringrich has risen up int he ranks due to his second place win in the Florida primary and win in South Carolina. Romney has been popular because his conservative stance on many issues. Voters in Florida think he is conservative yet still able to beat Obama as far as electability goes. Romney has swept almost every state to have a caucus so far with wins in Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire. He has already stated himself to be the de facto Republican candidate to fight it out with Obama. The other candidates with any chance (Paul, Santorum, and Gringich) will have a hard time beating Romney.
Last week in class we discussed what it means to be part of a community. We all drew diagrams of the communities we are a part of and discussed how they differed and were related. Many people included their families, friends, sports teams, school, jobs and other activities as communities they participate in. We realized that we act differently depending on which community we are with at a certain time. For example we may act professional at work and form good relationships with our co-workers and bosses, but we act differently at sports practice or at school. We also discussed how people from differently communities can overlap. For example, you have some friends from school, some from work, and some from sports and those friends all form one community even if we know they are from different communities.
We also watched an episode of "30 Days" a show created by Morgan Spurlock which puts people in a lifestyle that is completely unfamiliar to them. (e.g. working for minimum wage being in prison, a Christian living as a Muslim etc.) We watched an episode in which a Christian husband and father from West Virginia moved in with a family of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan and practiced Islam for 30 days.
I thought the "30 Days" episode was really interesting. Putting a West Virginian practicing Christian in a Muslim home was really a fish out of water experience. There were so many things Dave didn't know about Islam, and by watching that episode I learned with him. I never thought that all Muslims were terrorists, but it shocked me to know most of the people Morgan interviewed on the street did. I realize that there are extremist Muslims just like there are extremist Christians, and that mujahideen are no different from KKK members. I was kinda strange to know that so many Americans are that ignorant when it comes to Islam.
Watching "30 Days" this week reminded me of the show Wife Swap. If you've never seen it, two wives swtich families for two weeks. More often than not, the two families lead dramatically different lifestyles, for example a neat freak mom switching places with a messy mom. In the first episode the moms would be completely disgusted with their new families, but warm up to them as the weeks go by. They would institute their way of doing this into the new household and it was interesting to watch the families reactions to that. It is different from "30 Days" in that their is only one person switching lives, and that person cannot make the new families live their way, it is the other way around.
My question for next week is why are so many Muslims populated in Dearborn, and are there any other cities in America heavily populated with Muslims.
Works Cited:
- 30 Days (TV series). (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved February 5, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_%28TV_series%29http://
- Fouhy, B. (2012, February 5). Analysis: Romney win leaves rivals few options. Assoicated Press. Retrieved February 5, 2012, from http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCfjc3GycHG6wY8t1pMS6PN_q4aQ?docId=d4e68887ab4d40c7b0fc4bfe668fea61http://
- Those Protestant Muslims Next Door. (2011, December 15). www.patheos.com. Retrieved February 4, 2012, from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/blackwhiteandgray/2011/12/those-protestant-muslims-next-door/http://
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