Today, some military officials came to speak at Pitt about future defense strategies and answer questions about current and past topics. At first the men introduced themselves and than began to host a Q & A session which brought up various topics such as forces in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay ethics, presidential candidates, troop removal and other topics. The crowd listened tentatively as the military men answered questions very formally and sensitively. They spoke like they knew they messed up big time, but at the same time they spoke defensively like everything wasn’t they’re fault. There was a very respectful and formal mood to the forum, well, that was until the hippies voiced out.

Dirty, raggedy, long haired…(insert hippie adjectives here) hippies have always been long time enemies with the straight edge, box cut, rifle toting military men. The image of the two sides evokes memories of Vietnam protesting and flowered V.W buses. The heroics behind the protesting the military guys is noble and should be respected, but this just wasn’t the place. Academics requested the military speakers as to get their perspective about the war. The ideas and points of view can be discarded or can be taken into consideration, but that is up to the listeners. The protesters weren’t giving the choice to anyone, they were forcing us to listen to their perspective and now one else.

I can understand the appeal of protesting the military, in fact, I would be down for it any day, but this event was the wrong place. This was a voluntary attendance event tucked away somewhere in a student Union room. No one was forcing anyone to attend or listen to the military men, only people interested went. Unfortunately the only thing that could be heard for about 15 minutes was the quacking of some non-thinking protesters. It was funny, I was laughing for the duration of the 15 minutes.

I recently watched An Inconvenient Truth which is a documentary starring Al Gore and discusses global warming. After viewing the movie, I wasn’t inspired to rally the people and fight global warming. In fact, I was a little depressed and hated the people of the world a little. There was one scene where Al Gore weighed gold on a scale with the world. He said we had to choose between money and saving our globe from global warming. If I could revise that metaphor, I would compare luxury and the saving the globe from us(human beings). Global warming is part of a bigger picture: there will be just to many humans for the earth to support. And to build on that, humans live a life of luxury at the earth’s expense. We use resources like oil, coal, and wood at alarming rates. It isn’t a slow procedure either. We blitzkrieg the land with drilling, mining and mass deforestation leaving the land stripped. To make matters worse, we spew the resources back into the world in a very unhealthy manner like fossil fuels and CO2. We use too much water, and pollute the sites from which we draw it.

Agent Smith from the Matrix movie claimed humans were like a virus, populating an area until it can’t hold us anymore then we move to a new area. Humans are throwing off the world’s natural cycle. We are overpopulating the world with our luxurious lives. We need to change the way we live and reduce our carbon footprints so that we can slow down our speed of destruction. Humans need to balance between living comfortable lives and caring for our earth. Right now we support our luxurious lifestyles more than we are caring for the health of the globe.

I would also like to add comments about the use of visual media in An Inconvenient Truth. In Al Gore’s actual presentation, he used quite a bit of visual media, but the visuals used in the movie were totally different.  Al Gore used images of nature to stir “homegrown” emotions about what we would be losing if we didn’t take care of the world now. He also used visuals of his life to personalize, and humanize the movie. In his actual presentation, he used many pictures of suffering glaciers because of global warming. He showed diagrams and charts to better communicate his ideas. He also used the famous scissor lift to enhance his point about growing CO2 levels. It was a good blend of visuals, very effective.

1. A new purifying device that would be distributed to poor villages in Africa.

A made up device, like a cauldron looking pot where small amounts of water can be held and the clean water leaks down to the bottom providing clean water for a family. The press release would aim to inform the public of the device and distribution plans. The hopes would be that the awareness would lead to investors and donations. The device would then pick up some steam.

2. News about an infectious water related disease that had an out burst in a town in Africa.

The news would raise awareness about the disparity in access to fresh water and sanitation. There are many press releases about how dirty water kills people all the time, so this could be another reinforcer. Keep pounding the idea in and maybe people will get it, that the water inequality in the world is killing tons of people. The press release would cry out to close the gap on the disparity.

3. News of a new foreign policy which will allot money toward developing water access infrastructure in developing countries.

This would be a press release about progress in closing the gap in the access disparity. It would be a way of promoting the new foreign policy.