At the end of next month, Justice David Souter is set to retire; this gives President Obama a huge opportunity to appoint another supreme court justice. Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would like to appoint Judge Sonia Sotomayor to this position. Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican immigrant and would be the first hispanic judge appointed to the Supreme Court. With this nomination comes a lot of controversy about whether or not the U.S.A is ready for her and whether or not she is the right person to put on the Supreme Court. We were talking today about Sotomayor's life story and how it follows the very popular pattern of rising from the darkness into light. She was born in the housing projects in the Bronx, NY and neither her father or mother had a high level of education. She got a scholarship to Princeton and graduated top in her class; after which she continued on to Yale Law School and also graduated first in her class there. This is the classic redemptive arc that everyone loves to see in people who are public figures. The rest of the process looks like this: the U.S. House and Senate must approve her nomination prior to her being the confirmed replacement for Justice David Souter. My one question is about President Obama: Is this presidency going to be one of firsts only? President Obama is the first ever African-American president so was that just the beginning? What is your opinion?
So, as we all know our assignment for this week was to get a picture of an American flag and then analyze the choices that we made. So, I looked all around for flags and what not and I discovered that it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Flags are not all around the country like they used to be; on my block there is a total of ONE and it is at my house. I pulled in the driveway this afternoon to discover my dad putting up a brand new American flag and removing our old tattered one. He also happened to be wearing a sweater with an American flag on it. These sweaters were made by my Aunt while she was undergoing chemotherapy. Every person in my family had one, that is, when I was 7 and we wore them on Memorial Day to the town parade (all 12 minutes of it) and on Fourth of July if it wasn't very warm. We quickly out grew those sweaters and gave them away to charity. I chose to take a picture of my dad in his sweater next to our American flag because it symbolizes family, pride for our country and it reminds me of when I was younger. Looking for the perfect picture for this assignment was very difficult. I found myself driving around and every time I saw an American flag I would pull over and take tons of pictures of it. Over the course of about an hours drive I found a total of 6 flags. I find that to be pathetic. Our country is at war and we have the audacity to not put flags up. Our country is in distress with all the violence, the economy, the war that we have been fighting since 9/11. The troops are fighting to protect our country, I do not believe that this is a just war, but I do believe that we need to at least show them, even if we do not believe we should be at war, that we support what they are doing. The flag that I chose and the way I wanted to display the picture is for them. My family may not support this war and may not believe that what George Bush did was the right thing to do, but we do support the troops. My great uncle fought in Vietnam and has told us that he is embarrassed at how little support we now give to our troops. I do believe that they should come home, but while they are away we owe them that much. We owe them our lives and to show them that we are grateful we should fly our flags. If American's believe so much in their flag or have that much pride in our country then why are they not flying their American flags? I wanted to show that we have support for our troops and I wanted to point out that even if we do not truly believe in what we are doing, it is good to show support for the country, by flying the flag or wearing a shirt with a flag on it.
