Everyone is Ordinary

    This past week, in my opinion, has been pretty amazing. I was able to be in a room among Senators, Congressmen and women, presidential candidates, and a governor. Some came alone, in a Toyota, and parked on the side of the home, others came with a fleet of secret service cars, but once you speak to them, once you see them off a T.V. Screen, you notice how Ordinary they really are.

    The most notable person I met with this weekend was Governor J.B. Pritzker, the man you have seen on YouTube ads, T.V commercials, and even on billboards or busses, but never in person. It was surreal when he stepped foot through the big door, I just kept thinking in my mind “Holy crap, that’s actually Governor Pritzker”, but once I shook his hand, it was apparent to me that he was just like any other middle age man. I was able to steal Mr Pritzker for about 5 minutes to ask him questions about his new election. The last question I asked him went a little like,  “Do you feel famous? Like when you wake up, do you think to yourself, ‘Wow, I am a pretty well known guy’” he laughed, then he said “I mean yes, the constant news cameras and reporters asking questions definitely reminds me of that, but when I am at home, with my wife and kids, I feel like a totally normal guy.” 

    Could you imagine having your every move/word watched? Could you bear the stress of helping millions of citizens and controlling the economic stability of your own state? Some say only extraordinary people could handle these tasks, but do those people even exist? I say the people of power in America are all ordinary because anyone could be a person of power if they want to.

American Led Genocide

Shane Michelon
10/11/19                                                                 
              The United States of America, year by year, give out money and troops to allies who need humanitarian aid or war assistance. A close ally of the United States are the Kurds, in Syria. The Kurds are an ethnic group who make up about a 4th of the Middle East. Given the Kurds and the United States together took down a majority of ISIS, you would believe the United States would continue to help out our close ally.
              While in the mists of a war for independence from turkey, the Kurds also have tens of thousands of ISIS soldiers captured. After news that some ISIS members had escaped, president trump believed the Kurds were doing this on purpose, so he spoke with the president of Turkey, eventually removing his troops from Syria, within weeks of this withdrawal, the Turkish Army attacked the unstable boarder of Syria, freeing hundreds of radicalized ISIS members.  “Kurdish authorities have reported the escape of hundreds of ISIS family members from a camp in northern Syria, and warned that ISIS militants held in prisons could be next to go if fighting with Turkish forces continues to escalate.” (FULL ARTICLE)This fear that Kurds and Americans in Syria could be killed by ISIS members is very scary. 
              This whole situation is kind of confusing, this quote should help explain ( FULL ARTICLE) “The situation is deeply complicated. Turkey has launched an invasion against Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who were the primary American ally in Syria against the Islamic State and who control northern Syria. Turkey has been fighting separatist Kurds inside its borders and considers the Syrian Kurds terrorists”. The Islamic state and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been in conflict within Syria for some time now. The president of the United States, previously allies with the Kurds, continue to let Kurds die and allow ISIS member to escape. On another note, Trump has business interests in Turkey including a Trump Tower - many critics believe he did was he thought was in his best business interest versus proper American foreign policy that was in best interest of our country. Is this justice? Do we strive to democracy or tyranny? Why are we leading the Kurds to genocide? 

Shane Michelon
Lawler English p.3
09/14/19

                                                                 My Italian History

I recently interviewed my father, Jon Michelon, and I began by asking him about our origin. I first asked, “where did our ancestors come from?”, he quickly responded with “In a little town in France, where Italian troops stayed during an invasion, called ‘Michélon’” “My Great, Great, Great grandfather, Giovanni, an Italian special forces troop who took orders directly from king Victor Emmanuel II, fell in love with my Great Great Great Grandmother Edah, and legend has it he never went back to Italy.” I found this interesting, My great great great great Grandpa left everything behind in Italy, his family, friends, and his army because he fell in love.  He said I thought about the reasons my father left it all behind for a girl, and the best one I could think of is compassion. My brothers, sisters, cousins, and parents all are very compassionate people, and I now see where they got it from. My father also went on to tell me about how our DNA got from Italy, to France to Chicago. He told me that Edah gave birth to her son, Francesco, who eventually migrated to Spain, and then back to Italy. From Italy, my fathers grandpa moved to Montreal Canada, and then moving with my father to Chicago when he was young. I loved to hear this because I now know exactly where my blood has been for the last 110 years. The last topic I talked to my dad about was his grandpa, Alvin Cohen-Michelon. My great grandpa was a hustler, who started working at a coffee bean distribution center when he was 14. After working their for 10 years, he began to understand how the coffee business worked. When he was 25, after just getting married to my great great grandma Loraine Cohen-Michelon, Alvin quit his job and began his own company, calling it “Continental Coffee”. After about 20 years of putting blood, sweat, and tears into the company, he sold it. Today, the company who bought my grandpas company, is valued over 5 billion dollars, my father told my grandpa would always say “I worked 20 years, I made a fair amount of money, but If i waited 10 more years, we would have 5 houses instead of 1.” This got me to understand that my great grandfather was a funny and intelligent man, makes me want to meet him more.This activity was quite intriguing because I got to learn where the morals of my family came from, and learn about how my family got to where we are today.