What's in a Name

This week in the headlines an issue surrounding the different names being used to describe ISIS, ISIL, Daesh or the Islamic State. Noting that most of the time the terms Islamic State or ISIS/ISIL are accompanying the caveat of “self–declared” or “self-described”. With the recent the tragedy in Paris, the use of the term Daesh by the French president Francois Hollande caught the medias attention and the debate regarding how we label this group has gained momentum.  Secretary of State, John Kerry, has been calling the group Daesh for a year now, while the US media and President Obama still continue to call it ISIS or ISIL or the worst of all, the Islamic State. Should we be giving these groups the idea of assumed statehood?  I do not believe so, not when you think about the power behind a name.  Alice Guthrie made an excellent statement during her interview with PRI’s Nina Porzucki; she said,  “The victim should choose the name, not the criminal”. I could not agree more with her opinion and I do think that we should refer to the group as something other than a state. If the term Daesh is offensive, believed to sound similar to other negative Arabic words and the terrorist group despises being called Daesh, why are we not doing so? We should not give them the accreditation they are looking for and even if the “play on words” is a petty, passive aggressive, psychological demeaning of their name, it may take on a bigger connotation abroad. We definitely should not play into their egos and if using terms that refer to statehood like rights, then we should discontinue them immediately. How about Daeshbag?! I have a feeling they won't appreciate this name either.

I could not agree more with my classmate and fellow blogger, Jennifer Patel, on her stance to fight global climate change.  Attention to global warming and natural disasters in correlation with industrialization are increasingly shedding light on the issue; while scientists continue to research and examine the evidence, reveal their findings to the public and hope their efforts are not debunked by skeptics.
The question my colleague initially asks “should we fight for global climate change?” is a war I could put my name behind, one that will have to be fought with intellectual tactics. A war does not have to be with guns and human casualties, it can be a strategic war against forces unforeseen and yet to come, as our planet responds to our growth and development.  And just as she suggests most people understand the concept on a basic level. The media has done a decent job acclimating the masses on key terms and the basics on how individuals can do their microscopic part, but it is failing at actually providing the public with concrete and effective comprehensive understanding of our direct influence on our environment.  
Although scientist are warning we might be reaching the point of no return and traditional methods, like recycling, in which Ms. Patel suggests should be a mandatory requirement in every city, are now under study to “conduct a detailed life cycle analyses on recycled goods” to see if the benefit of recycling out weigh the economic and environmental impacts.  It’s important to remember that it took a long time to accumulate this much excess carbon and our attempts to curb pollution now, won’t be felt for years to come.
And what we think we are doing to correct the problems might have to be questioned and looked at with a critical eye in order to improve our efforts. 

so true

How America Was Made

Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck. - Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912)