'Killing the Rising Sun': A Book Review by Pat McGurrin

Background

Bill O'Reilly usually gets a bad rep on television by many, usually for his anger and sometimes critical political views. However, what most people don't know, is that O'Reilly has an expansive historical knowledge. He has written over 10 books regarding American history, one of which I had the pleasure to read.

I'm half Japanese, and I have always been interested in both sides of the WWII conflict. So, I thought it was only appropriate for me to read one of his bestsellers; Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan.

Overview

Killing the Rising Sun takes readers on a journey of what it was like fighting Japan in WWII from both a soldier's perspective and a political perspective. Unlike any opponent before, Imperial Japan followed the samurai code of  'Bushido', which meant that the nation would refuse to surrender; as doing so would be dishonorable to their god/emperor, Hirohito. The Japanese forces were also particularly brutal, since they did not have survival as their top priority-only kill. 

The Japanese, being an unusual opponent, helps explain and drive the book's tension. While history has already happened, O'Reilly makes it seem new and exciting, and you are sure to learn more than ever before. In history class, most of us have only been taught about the Nazi party in WWII, but we rarely talk about the brutality of the Japanese. Not only does the book explain the mindset of Japan during the war, but it also helps shape why society in Japan is the way it is now. 

Read It!

This is one of the best books that I have ever read, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in history and politics. If you're not necessarily interested in this title, O'Reilly has written many other books discussing American history and political figures. 

Thanksgiving by Nuriel Rozenberg

Thanksgiving just recently passed, but it is clear that most of us want to go back to the four-day food filled weekend we just had. I know a lot of us had the simple struggle of wanting to stay in bed because you are tired, but then getting hungry, so you contemplate the pros and cons of going downstairs. The aroma of delicious food making your mouth water. It was hard for me not to go downstairs especially when my grandma called me her "Official Taste Tester." Once downstairs, I knew I had to start helping set up three tables for all the family that was coming over. This year especially, I heard that a lot of families were trying to skip the political talk and keep a calm environment. My family was one of those families, but when thirty-five people sit at the table with not much to talk about, it became hard to not talk politics. Everyone was mostly in their own conversations until my uncle loudly disagrees with his brother. Then one of my aunts exclaims her reasoning for agreeing. By now, most of my family was listening to the argument. My uncle then shoots up from his seat yelling in his brothers face why he's right and why his brother should agree with him. This triggered his brother to then stand up too and yell back why he's correct. Suddenly, my uncle takes a small piece of turkey and flicks it in his brother's face. The room is dead silent, my grandma looks offended by the actions that my uncle took with the turkey that she made. His brother was about to launch some mashed potatoes into the air until my grandma hits the both of them on the head and yells at them and curses in Arabic. The feud died down and this was definitely not the point and purpose of Thanksgiving. As we all know, the real reason Thanksgiving happened was because of the peace that the Native Americans had with the colonists. That is not completely true either since the colonists not only took their land and invaded their villages. Also, a war was started. The real story that happened was that hundreds of women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for the annual Green Corn Festival. This is similar to our Thanksgiving. The Natives who were sleeping at the time were surrounded by English who were ordered to shoot whoever walked out. Others, who did not go outside were then buried alive. The following day, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony declared that a day of Thanks should happen since hundreds of unarmed natives were killed. So, no matter how crazy or bad your Thanksgiving goes, just remember that we are honoring the natives that were caught in the genocide.

Election Day by Jessica Longstreth

This is the end of the wait,

but uncertainty looms no matter the path.

Today marks the end of this great blood bath.

Is this the end of the hate?

Today we decide our fate.

Will it be enough to heal the divide,

or is it impossible to put our differences aside?

Surely many will be irate.

Who will say "checkmate"?

Will the runner-up be content?

Will they sit there in contempt?

All these questions bear their weight.

At least the end is near for this debate.

For months and months it trudged along,

its angry presence forever prolonged;

always there to frustrate.

How Donald Trump Contributes to Rape Culture by Sylvia Kloian

Everyone knows Donald Trump; in the face of this election, he has become a household name. And almost everyone knows the allegations against him, and the things he has been quoted on saying, but not many people stop to think how his words affect others. In a world where a woman is raped and the man serves only three months jail time, this topic is much more relevant than you might think. Every 109 seconds, somebody is sexually assaulted. And 7% of those people were at their school at the time(s) of the assault. That might not seem like a large percentage, but just one person being sexually assaulted is already too many.
So how does this relate to Donald Trump? A recording released from a conversation between Billy Bush and Donald Trump in 2005 puts Trump on the record saying, "I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab them by the p**sy … You can do anything." This quote alone is startling, but what Trump has said about it after the release is even more unsettling. Trump has put this quote down as simply "locker room talk", and has said that they are "just words". He said that these are "just things that people say".
These words are dangerous. Trump basically admitted that he sexually assaults women, but then  again,  "everyone" says that, right? He is normalizing his actions, making it seem like his words are something you would hear mixed in with the camaraderie of the "locker room". But Trump was not in a locker room; he was in a trailer on set for an interview. And so many others who speak this way are not in the locker room, they are on the streets, or in their houses, or at a restaurant.
Trump's attitude is comparable to the "boys will be boys" outlook. It is sentences like these that make victims believe that it is their fault that they were assaulted. It is sentences like these that leaves a rapist with little guilt. It is sentences like these that bring us one step closer to completely accepting rape as an every-day occurrence instead of a heinous crime.
One might be saying, "But Donald Trump said this back in 2005. Can you really be judging him on a quote from 11 years ago?". This quote isn't the last instance of Trump making sexist and offensive comments. In a 2013 tweet, Trump commented on sexual assault in the military, saying "26,000 unreported sexual assults [sic] in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?". Think about those words. Trump is saying that one can expect nothing less if you put men and women together, that sexual assault is normal, so why would someone expect for it to not happen? This is exactly what someone means when they say "rape culture"! By insinuating that people can't control themselves, and that the only way to stop sexual assault is to keep men and women separate, is to say that it is human nature to take advantage of someone. It is not. Or at least is shouldn't be.
Every time someone says something sexist or demeaning, we get farther away from an assault-free future. It is a basic right to be able to walk down the street without fearing an assault, but when Trump and people like him are still out there, saying these kinds of things, they are making it seem like that if an assault were to happen, it would be okay. This mindset is outdated. We must rise above negative comments and victim-shaming if we are ever to live in a rape-free world. And a rape-free world is one that is worth fighting for.

Citations
"Scope of the Problem: Statistics | RAINN." Scope of the Problem: Statistics | RAINN. RAINN, 2016. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

Mahdawi, Arwa. "This Is What Rape Culture Looks like – in the Words of Donald Trump." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 15 Sept. 2016. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.