Trip To The Mosque

Our class trip to the Islamic Center was by far the most rewarding and informative experience I have had so far in our class study of Middle Eastern Literature. The Imam was so friendly and knowledgeable it was hard not to like him, and having been raised Catholic and taught to fear Muslims it was reassuring to feel safe and at home in a frequently visited place of worship by Muslims.

I was disappointed that our time got cut short from our lesson on Islam because there were so many things I wanted to ask about find out more about but there simply was not enough time. I found it extremely interesting to find out that he held Jesus Christ with the utmost respect where Christians often poke fun at the Islamic figure of Muhammad. He went on to say that he respects anyone who follows Muhammad's beliefs and seeing that Jesus was spreading virtually the same word how could he righteously laugh or poke fun at him.

It also struck me at how important Islam is to the family, I had to attend catechism and sunday school all the way up until I was in high school but these Islamic children have such a beautiful grasp and understanding of their religion and it's core values. I thought I was being taught about my religion but it is an obligation of Islamic parents to teach their children about their religoin.

After our class field trip i came to the conclusion that there is no need to fear Islamic Muslims, they are pretty much following my religion through the interpretation of a different man. Despite the few concentrated areas of terrorists in Islamic areas of the Middle East, it is foolish to fear them or ridicule them when they are just as threatening as you or I.

The Road to Love

I had mixed emotions on the film The Road to Love, it covered such a controversial subject in a very effective way but at the same time was so poorly shot it was hard to follow the plot. It may have been because my seat in class made it difficult to follow the subtitles but i think it was because of the wide varieties of camera angels that were used in the film that made the plot hard to follow.

From the begging of the movie I was sucked into the unfamiliar surroundings of France and was ready to take in as much knowledge as I could... and then the subtitles kicked in followed by the distracting in focus-out of focus camera transitions. It took me a while to figure out that the road to love the main character was traveling was not so much of a school project as it was a struggle with his own sexuality.

One thing that I did like was during one of the first interviews, the man being interviewed said how the person being openly gay is not criticized nearly as much as the straight guy is for not tormenting the gay man. This drew a parallel to my own experience with homosexuals in high school, The macho-man football stud was teased more than the student being openly gay and comfortable with his decision. This opened my eyes to the struggle the gay community is going through and how badly they are being oppressed, this is not only a struggle here in the United States they are struggling in countries all over the world.

I found it hard to believe the a seemingly straight man could possibly change his sexual orientation through interviews with fay men, and that gay men would be so forward with there physical attraction to men. Maybe it was good acting maybe this story was truth but I can not get over the fact a school project could have such a gripping effect on a student.

I don't know what else to say... as a movie i thought it was very poorly written and shot but as a learning tool i thought it was extremely effective and the only thing i think would have helped would have been if we had a copy of the dialogue to follow with the movie. But i would like to thank Andrew for choosing to cover such a controversial subject!

"Blood and Oil"

The movie Blood and Oil that we watched for class a few weeks ago was terrifying to me at first partly because i was distracted from the dialogue by clips of marching soldiers but also because of the sincerity behind the narrators voice. I watched it a second time yesterday and was amazed at how much i missed out on the first time through.

The fact that the United States have been allies with Saudi Arabia since the early 1930's was shocking to me. I just figured that with the consumption of oil in America becoming more and more of a concern these days it just seemed fitting that we befriend one of the worlds largest suppliers of crude oil.

The fact that the documentary constantly showed clips of politicians arguing over whether the war in Iraq is really over terrorism or if it is mainly being fought for the control of oil, kind of slapped me in the face. For the longest time I was a large supporter of the US war in Iraq and never really thought that there may be an ulterior motive than the one we are being force fed by the media. The United States is most definitely fighting in Iraq so they don't lose control of the oil rigs in the Middle East but you know what, why not kill two birds with one stone.

This film would have served better as a public service announcement than a horrific documentary. I feel like the movie was successful in that it definitely made viewers afraid of what if's, what if shit hits the fan, what if we lose control of oil to the Soviets or the Chinese, what if World War III spurs from a dispute over oil? These are all tremendously concerning what if"s but for now it is not that large of a threat, and we have time to figure out solutions to these problems.