It was not until after reading a chapter from the highly regarded Thoreau book "Walden" that I realized how big of an impact it had on others and how it influenced many in the years to come. In the book "Into the Wild" the main character Chris looks up to Thoreau and makes numerous references about him. Both had similar theories about life but ultimately Thoureau was the pioneer of these beliefs. He was the one that came out a made bold statements such as "our life is frittered away upon detail" and "we are determined to be starved before we are hungry". Those thoughts had never been broughten up until Thoreau issued them in his book. These words along with his story titled "Civil Disobedience" paved the way for rebelling against the government and going against what Americans held as values. Henry David Thoreau clearly paved the way for future generations to question American society and do it their own way.

This week my sister came home from school with a book titled "The 101 Most Influential People who Never Lived". It looked interesting so I took a peak to see who was mentioned. Those included were Santa Claus, Robin Hood, Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog, and Luke Skywalker. Until seeing this book I never thought how fiction impacted our lives that much. On the cover it says the book shows "how characters of fiction, myths, legends, television, and movies have shaped our society, changed our behavior, and set the course of history." Those mentioned really have affected us a great deal and will continue the trend. We usually learn about these characters when we are young and we take after them for the rest of our lives to a certain extent. Everyday it seems like people are being influnced by something new, even though it might not be real.

According to Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" President Bush should be impeached. But does Gore have enough evidence and facts to back it up. He makes bold statements such as telling us that Bush reads the mail of Americans. That is against the fourth amendment of the Constitution but is it enough to get him impeached? Impeachment calls for major violations to the Constitution but has Bush done that much to jeopardize our country's welfare? Agreed that Bush has made some poor choices with his power and such but is he deserving of impeachment? Presidents are our country's leader and should not necessarily be replaced just like that but if Bush cant turn our country around will he be the first President to be impeached?

Over the past week our class has been comparing and contrasting the Iraqi and U.S. Constitutions. I found it very interesting how similar they were and how much the U.S. has an effect on other coutry's rules and regulations. Also, it was interesting to see how much Iraq vaules religion and how many times "God" was stated in the preamble. But do you think it was ok that U.S. influenced their constitution? Shouldnt they themselves choose what should be allowed in their own country? Or was it justified that since we helped them that we should throw in some of our beliefs as well?