This morning I read in “The Daily helmsman” that Robert Dozier, forward of the Memphis tiger basketball team is two weeks suspended from playing basketball. On Sunday morning at 3:30 a.m., Dozier followed his ex-girlfriend downtown and slapped her two times in the face. Besides that it is a scandal that a man hits a woman and that Dozier should feel ashamed, he also jeopardized carelessly the success of his team. Furthermore, in general nobody should hit another person! If somebody has to hit another person to convey or to punish this person is weak and not really blessed with intelligence. Anyways, now that we are number one in the nation we need every player more than ever to stay on top and win the NCAA tournament. With his ruthless behaviour, Dozier also damaged immense the image of his team and the entire university. Dozier should be aware of the fact that he as a very successful student-athlete is a public figure and that he represents his team and The University of Memphis. As this public figure it should be clear for him that his actions, positive or negative, have consequences. He is not in the position to lapse like he did on the weekend without serious consequences. Next time before one of our athletes do something stupid which affects all other students they should think about their actions and what consequences they might have.

In this blog, I am referring to a post from “watchdog,” posted on January 23, 2008 which is about the salaries that the past city councils receive. According to watchdog, the city council left Memphis a $ 6 Mil bill, plus $ 1.5 Mil every year. Due to the fact that in 2001 a pension resolution was passed which said that every elected or appointed person has the right to retire early if this person served for 12 years no matter how old this person might be or what kind of living standard this person might have. We as Memphis citizens are paying their pensions by paying our taxes. In my view, that is a scandal. Who else in a free market is able to retire after 12 years in a certain job and gets health insurance and pension? This is not fair to all the other hard-working Memphian out there who go every day to work until they are seventy or even older. Who gives these politicians the right to receive all this money? - The politicians decide by themselves that they should receive all this money and that is a scandal!!! The politicians make decisions which ensure their income even after they retire early.

I am usually a person that tries to understand the other person’s point of view and to put myself into his or her position to be able to reproduce their train of thought. But sometimes I catch myself by doing what Wendy described in the exercise for today’s blogs, I just shut down and stop listening. Sometimes, I just shut down because I think that my oponents views are so unrealistic or not relevant but sometimes I tend to shut down because I already focus on a contra argument in my head. That I stop listening because I am thinking about my own counter arguments happened to me a lot more since I am in the United States because I have still trouble to speak fluently and correctly so I tend to verbalize the sentences and arguments in my head before I speak them out loud. This causes me to lose focus on what my conversation partner has to say.
One time, I heared Jorge W. Bush defending himself because of the intervetion into the Iraq and I just stopped listening during one sentence because I already had manifested my own point of view about this issue. I could not stand him and his excuses with the weapons of mass destructions that were never found. Even after five years he still used this argument and never said in public that one of the main reasons was that the United States had to intervent to maintain their oil demand. It was like “an elephant in the room” but nobody talked about it. When Bush gave his speech that were my only thoughts and I got angry listening to him so I just stopped listening. I was already thinking about 100 counter arguments. I still think that the military intervention from the United States into the Iraq was a big mistake but I think that the common citizen is not able to understand all the reasons for that war and that the “oil issue” was just one of them. Today, I think that I should have given him another chance to defend himself because I could have probably found out another reason, which might be not so obvious, why this war is taking place.

Memphis vs. Vanderbild
This weekend, the Memphis men’s Tennis team played in Nashville against Vanderbild. On Sunday at one o’clock, we played a team from the South Eastern Conference and they were the big favorites. Last year, we lost to them 7:0. This Sunday, we started pretty good in the doubles but after 30 minutes we were on all three double courts on break down. The tigers kept fighting, showed great energy and gave everything but finally we lost all three doubles. Afer doubles, our coach gave a motivating speech and encouraged us to “go out there and have some fun,” and “play as hard as you can.” I was really fired up after that speech and I wanted to win so badly that I was kind of tight. My arm was not relaxt and I could not swing fast, hard and normal. I tried so hard that, in fact, I played worse because my entire body was so tight. I was swinging fast but the ball did not move faster and I did not know what was going on. In contrast, my oponent was totally relaxt, he played really well and relaxt like he would not be nervous at all. I did not understand what was going on and before I could figure out why I was playing so bad the match was already over. I lost 6:2 6:1 against Vanderbild’s number two player. My team mates fought hard but after five and a half hours we were just able to win one match. That was a bad day for the Memphis tigers but there are not only great days where you play your best tennis and everything works. You have to get along with these situations and the person who is able to deal best with this tough chanllenges will be the winner. What I want to tell you with this story is that I will never give up. Yes, I had a bad day last week but this Sunday I will go out there and try as hard as I can again!

several rankings, for instance, “the best city for young professionals,” or “what’s your favorite city.” This person was wandering why Memphis was never mentioned in these rankings published by the “Forbe’s Magazine.” I mean, at the moment we have the number one basketball team in the country. How is it possible that we are not even mentioned in a ranking for a city for young professionals? We have the number one draft player for the NBA called Derik Rose and some more players who have the potential to play in the NBA, too. In my view, this magazine did not mention Memphis because of other facts that have nothing to do with sport. I did some research and I found out that Memphis has the 3rd highest crime rate in the United States and the most overweight citizens. Perhaps, these facts influenced the judges and make them ignore Memphis when it came to our positive sides, such as sports. I hope my views help you to find out why Memphis is discriminated in these statistics and I hope that we will be mentioned in 2008 as the number one basketball in the nation!!!

Democracy?

The article posted by “watchdog” on January 24, 2008 criticizes the current situation of Memphis voter’s society. In his blog, he argues that the citizens of Shelby County do not have the right to vote their own Sheriff, Tax Assessor, Trustee, Register and County Clerk because the major appoints all these important jobs. This right gives the major too much power, according to “watchdog.” In my opinion, it is very important that in a democracy the people have the power and not one person that rules over the citizens. If there is just one person who is allowed to decide everything and appoint just his own supporters there will never be any opposition and this political system comes closer to a local dictatorship than to a democracy. Opposition is one of the most important basics of democracy, and the will of the citizens should be represented by the politics and not the will of a single politician/”dictator.” I share “watchdog’s” opinion that people have to act, I appreciate that he reacts with this petition and I support his idea 110%. There should be more people like him who are not ignorant and who have the courage to take action and fight for the basic rights of every citizen in a democracy.

Class Struggle???

The article “Decline is the new Groth (?),” written by Santo published on February 13, 2007 inspired me because a few German institution, for instance, the “Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art.” From my point of view, this movement away from the big cities to the nice and comfortable suburbs is a movement which exists for years. The richer people tend to leave the big cities and move to the family friendly suburbs, such as Germantown in Memphis, because they think that the city is more dangerous. If this movement will go on for the next years, one day all poor people will live in the big cities which will fall more and more into despair except some big companies in which rich people invest. Imagine an America where all minorities such as African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians etc. live in the cities/downtown and all the privileged, white and rich Americans live in the nice suburbs. It will become even more dangerous for the richer people to go into the city because the minorities will envy these people and also want to get some of their wealth. But the problem is that the rich people would have still to come into the cities to buy food and other goods because they will not be produced or sold in the suburbs. This movement makes the increasing cap between rich and poor and the two class society in America even more visible. A solid middle class tends to disappear in the American society which creates anger, frustration, crime, and many more problems because the class struggle that America had in the time of the industrialization will come back. Politicians have to act to encounter this movement or a civil war is not far away anymore. This might sound exaggerated but it is closer than everybody thinks.