This past Friday was an exciting day for me, and it all started with one text message. On my way to my eight period class, I got a text message from one of my close friends that read, "DUDE! Obama just sent 100 troops to Africa to fight off the LRA!".
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Before continuing with the current story in the blog post, here is a bit of a back story:
Invisible Children is a non-profit, media based, organization that is dedicated to ending the abduction and the use of child soldiers in Central Africa. For the past twenty-five years, a rebel terrorist group, called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, has been abducting children from their homes and forcing them to become child soldiers in the LRA. Villages are terrorized, mass atrocities committed, and the child soldiers are brainwashed and forced to commit the same violence. Ever since the spring of 2011, I have had an firey and growing passion toward this war and to fundraise/advocate on behalf of Invisible Children.
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Both ecstatic and confused, I quickly sent a text to one of my friends who tours with Invisible Children, asking her if this was true. Within the next hour, I received multiple text messages and notifications of the same news as well, slowly acquiring more and more information. A friend of mine even sent me a picture of an article, that gave me the first set of real information. I quickly found out, with the help of the Invisible Children Blog and CNN news, that President Obama had indeed sent 100 troops to Central Africa in hopes of apprehending Joseph Kony. However, Obama's troops do not intend to engage in combat with Kony and the LRA, unless attacked. However, the American troops are there to advise and work with local authorities in order to eliminate the terrorist group.
Immediately, I was overcome with joy and excitement when I heard this thrilling news. In 2009, the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, was passed by President Obama in an effort to aid the conflict and bring light upon the issue. To see this planning process now taking action is an incredible experience. All that I can hope for is that it lives up to its expectations. Hopefully one day Joseph Kony will be apprehended, the LRA will diminish, and Kony's child soldiers will return home. I just hope that that day is sooner rather than later, and that Kony will not have another opportunity to ruin lives. I can tell that we are moving forward with a big step, a step that will lead us to peace in Central Africa. Justice is just around the corner, we just have to go the distance in order to reach it.
For more information on President Obama's decision and/or Invisible Children's response, please visit the following links:
Invisible Children's Response
CNN
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
The War on Drugs... in Our Schools.
When I hear the phrase, "pee in the cup", I immediately think of my trips to the pediatrician's office, in which I empty out a urine sample in the privacy of a closed bathroom. Contrary to my immediate thoughts about this phrase, many other high school students associate this phrase with random drug testing in school. Veronia School District v. Acton and Board of Education v. Earls are both U.S. Supreme Court cases that deal with the issue of student drug testing. Both cases require mandatory drug testing for athletes and/or students involved in school extracurricular activities. The cases argue the idea that with school athletics and extracurriculars, there is an "unwritten" norm of privacy already violated: sharing rooms on trips, locker room changes, showering, etc. The cases also go on to argue that random and mandatory drug tests in season are necessary in order to prevent a strong(er) drug problem in the school environment. Personally, I love the idea of these drug testings, as they do promote the values of the school environment. However, I feel that this is the wrong approach. Morally, I feel that illegal drug use is inappropriate, and that it makes a person weak. However, I cannot avoid the reality of drug use that exists in our society today. I do not know what the perfect solution is to this drug problem, but I know that this solution will not benefit our society. It will only continue to push this issue, and to be honest, it may annoy many students. If the star quarter back of a football team gets kicked out of a game for drug use, that will ruin it for the whole team. If the lead in a musical is booted out before opening night, than the whole show is ruined unless there is an understudy. Therefore, I feel that required drug testing for students involved in athletics and/or student activities is a waste of time and money.
Besides these two court cases, I also explored the issue of strip-searching in a school environment. In an article that I recently read, 13 year old eighth grade student, Savanna Redding, was stripped searched for illegal drug use due to a tip from a fellow classmate. The entire article can be found here. Overall, this is completely inappropriate. The strip search of a young student is completely inappropriate, and equivalent to prison. If the standards of a school search have now reached those of a prison environment, than the school environment is now corrupt. A school should feel like a safe environment, and that value was contradicted in this search. However, an appropriate response to this "drug tip" would have been a dog search. A "drug detecting" dog could have sniffed around Redding, and thus saving her dignity. In fact, many drug-sniffing dogs have started to make visits at local high schools. According to a recent article about this topic, found here, "The point isn’t so much to make arrests as it is to just make it as hard as possible for anyone to bring drugs into school" (Clark). Reports have shown that drug presence in school has decreased since these drug-sniffing dogs have made a mark on the school with their random searches. Many think that this disrupts the school learning environment, but I feel that it is necessary in order to ensure a safe school environment. I am in favor of this system because it scares students away from the idea of bring drugs to school, with a fear of getting caught. I feel that drug-sniffing dogs have are the most reasonable way to combat the drug problems of our school systems.
Besides these two court cases, I also explored the issue of strip-searching in a school environment. In an article that I recently read, 13 year old eighth grade student, Savanna Redding, was stripped searched for illegal drug use due to a tip from a fellow classmate. The entire article can be found here. Overall, this is completely inappropriate. The strip search of a young student is completely inappropriate, and equivalent to prison. If the standards of a school search have now reached those of a prison environment, than the school environment is now corrupt. A school should feel like a safe environment, and that value was contradicted in this search. However, an appropriate response to this "drug tip" would have been a dog search. A "drug detecting" dog could have sniffed around Redding, and thus saving her dignity. In fact, many drug-sniffing dogs have started to make visits at local high schools. According to a recent article about this topic, found here, "The point isn’t so much to make arrests as it is to just make it as hard as possible for anyone to bring drugs into school" (Clark). Reports have shown that drug presence in school has decreased since these drug-sniffing dogs have made a mark on the school with their random searches. Many think that this disrupts the school learning environment, but I feel that it is necessary in order to ensure a safe school environment. I am in favor of this system because it scares students away from the idea of bring drugs to school, with a fear of getting caught. I feel that drug-sniffing dogs have are the most reasonable way to combat the drug problems of our school systems.
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