journal 4_5

Question from last week:
What is another controversial war in American history?
The Vietnam war was one of the most controversial wars in American history.  Until recently, it was also the longest war in US history as well.  It's main purpose was to support the policy of "containment" that America had adopted during the Cold War.  The purpose of containment was to fight communism abroad to prevent it from entering the United States.  The North Vietnam was communistic, and South Vietnam was under US aid and considered a democracy.   Fought mostly through guerilla warfare, the terrorist pro-communist factions in South Vietnam, the Vietkong, fought agaisnt the American soldiers under cover of jungles, identity and night.  Thousands of lives were cost in a war that didn't  need to be fought.  Through three presidents, the Vietnam war endured the anger of many American "doves" or radical peace advocates.  Anti- war rallies were thrown, and the controversy heightened during the shootings at Kent State Univeristy, where four students were shot and killed by government officials trying to end the rally.  Vietnam was a costly, controversial and unsuccessful war. 


This week in class:

A) This week in class we talked about the principles of magic.  The ten main principles in which magicians use to create their tricks, the ethics of magic and the difference between a magician and a conartist were all topics we focused on.  Through watching much of Penn and Teller and a man that disproves phsycis and others who claim to have supernatural powers.  It is interesting to see how much of a magic trick is just distraction.  When watching penn and teller, it was easy to see the trick when the volume was on mute, but when Penn narrated each trick I was immediately drawn into the distraction, and unable to think critically about how the two magicians performed the trick.  Penn's main point, that was a common theme throughout the unit, was that Magicians are telling you that they are tricking you, while conartists never state that they are about to trick you. 

B) I thought the most interesting part of the lesson was the phsycology of magic.  The success of Penn and Teller's shows rely soley on the audiences ability to believe that what is happening is really magic.  If as an audience member, someone sits there and analyzes every single move, the show would be a disaster.  Yet, something about the human brain wants there to be an element of magic in the world and that is why magic shows are popular and succesful. 

C) There are times in a people's lives where we don't want to be in control.  That is why magic is such a phenomemon that we love and appreciate.  In amusement parks, parties and magic shows, there is the element of not knowing what will happen, that the individual doesn't have control over the situation and someone else does.  In listening to modern music every artist speaks about "losing control."  I think that is the same element that makes magic popular.
 
Question for next week:
There are different themes with magic.  There is wizards and witches, phsycics, transformers, mind-readers and so much more.  What is the most believable form?  Why?

Sources :

"The Vietnam War." Digital History. Web. 30 May 2011. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm.

 

Penn & Teller. Web. 30 May 2011. http://www.pennandteller.com/.

 

Battlefield:Vietnam." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/>.

journal 4_4

Questions for next week:

What muslim community is there in Richmond, Virginia?



I couldn't find every part of the muslim community in Richmond, but there is definitely a foundation for the muslim community.  The Islamic Center of Virginia, centered in a suburb of Richmond in Bon Air, Virginia, focuses on education and unity of the Islamic faith in the richmond area. Their website shows something very similar to a "sunday school" and their breaking ground on a new location.  It is a newer organization, but contains sunday school, summer programs, funeral and marriage services and community outreach to get other faiths to understand the Islamic faith better.

The Islamic Center of Virginia is not the only muslim faction in Richmond, however, when googling "Islamic Mosques in Richmond" only three mosques came up.  This number surprised me, I thought there would be more.  It astounds me that there are over a hundred churches in a thirty minute radius of my house, but I would have to travel 45 minutes to get to one of three mosques in the area if I were muslim.

In class this week:

A) This week in class we watched another clip of thirty days called "outsourced."  It was about a middle aged American man traveling to India to find his old job that had been outsourced to India. His initial viewpoint of the idea of outsourcing was very negative.  He thought that outsourcing was taking away from the American people, and only hurting the American economy.  After living in India for 30 days, he realized that the cost of one American job will give 16 Indians a job, but that those indians are still in poverty.  He was astounded by the fact that the Indians did not complain, and were content in their one room shaks of homes.  He returned home with a sense of compassion for the Indian people.

B)  After seeing "outsourced" I did agree that the Indians are living in poverty and it is good that new money is being put into their economy, but I disagree that it should be at the cost of American people's welfare.  So many people are losing their jobs to outsourcing that worked for American companies.  Shouldn't these companies take care of their own first?  With the American economy drastically falling, I think  it is time for us to close our borders and think about what we must do to better ourselves, not the Indians. 

C) This can be applied to American's foreign policy.  The Iraq war and dealings in the middle east are to aid and provide democracy in those areas of the Middle East.  In a lot of ways, these wars are honorable and good natured, however, they are costing American lives and trillions of American lives for some of the longest wars in American history.  Is it worth it?

Question for next week:
What is another controversial war in American history?

Sources: 
30 Days (TV Series)." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 23 May 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_(TV_series.

 Islamic Center Of Virginia. Web. 23 May 2011. http://ww2.icva1.com/index.php.

 CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 23 May 2011. <http://www.cnn.com/>.

Journal 4_3

Question from last week:

As of September 2010, niether side was willing to compromise their originial positions on the conflict.  Israel is unwilling to split Jerusalem, saying that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel."  The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their capital because it contains the third most holy shrine in the Islamic faith, even though it was originally controlled by Jordan before the Six Day War. 

In Palestine, just a few days ago, two major political factions--the Farah and Hamas--signed a peace agreement.  Alothough this is not necessarily dealing with Israel, Palestine's new leadership should be elected in 2012 under both political factions.  Before the peace talks, these two parties had been competing among palestine, taking away from any chance at peace between Israel and Palestine.  Perhaps the new Palestinian government will be able to reach a compromise with Israel.

This week in class:

We began watching the show "30 days" where a West Virginian man goes to live in Deerfield, Michigan--the Muslim capital in the United States.  I think this show is controversial and important for Americans to see. So many of us live in fear of the Arabs and Muslims, when really they are people just like us!  It is hard to not be xenophobic in today's society, but one must keep in mind that only the extremists are out doing the terrorist attacks.  Many muslims integrate into society with us.  Others are harmless, and are simply preserving a culture that millions of people love and treasure around the world. 

Question for next week:
What muslim community is there in Richmond, Virginia?

Sources:

"BBC News - Middle East Peace Talks: Where They Stand." BBC - Homepage. Web. 01 May 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11138790>.

Question from last week:
Find another international peace-making operation that has worked in the past or is working in the present.  What is it about?


An organization I found is called the "International Peace Research Association."  IPRA has been working and researching issues in the world and how to create sustainable world peace since 1964.  Through the collaboration professors, political leaders and other world leaders they create publications, conferences and peace eduation to bring throghout the world in over 200 countries. 

Based out of Belgium, it has a much stronger influence in Europe, however, I found access to one of their journals through George Mason Univeristy.  The current Secretary Journal, Keven Clements, was appointed in 2010 and has begun to branch the organization out more.  There are several committees and working groups that have different professional minds working toward the common goal of peace.  A few of these committes include:

Art and Peace Commission Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building Commission Eastern Europe Commission Earth Charter Commission Forced Migration Commission Gender and Peace Commission Global Political Economy Commission Indigenous Peoples' Rights Commission Internal Conflicts Commission International Human Rights Commission Nonviolence Commission Peace Culture and Communications Commission Peace Education Commission Peace History Commission Peace Journalism Commission Peace Movements Commission Peace Theories Commission Reconciliation Commission Religion and Peace Commission Security and Disarmament Commission Youth and Peace Commission

This week in class:

This week in class we finished the documentary "Promises."  It was interesting to see the ending and what came of the children after the intial interviews.  They all changed signicantly in the interviews after the film.  When the children, two Israeli and several Palestinain, met in the film, they realized that the two races can coincide and live together.  That no matter their differences, many of them wanted to be friends.  They were all children, with the common pure purpose of finding cooperation and peace.  I found it interesting that only two Israeli children, who were twins, wanted to meet the Palestinian children and yet there were at least four or five palestians ready to meet and converse with the Israelis.  It is evident who wants change and who wants to ignore the conflict.  One Israeli boy, when asked if he wanted to converse with the Israelis, told the camera he had no interest.  Either way, the meeting was successful in the film.  However, it was identified that after the meeting the children would go their separate ways and their stride to peace would be forgotten.  That is exactly what happened, and several years later, the Israelis are serving in the army and the Palestinians and seperated and still supressed.  It is a realistic, meaningful ending.  Something must be done to stop the circle of the Palestinian conflict.  Parents teach their children to hate the other race, and by the time they are grown, they do.

This is why I think that the filmmakers kept showing a shot of a tire rolling through the dirt, never stopping, caught on fire.  The Iranian-Palestinian conflict is a reocurring cycle of hatred.  The only thing that can break it is a new generation who is able to cooperate and learn from each other.  Palestinians and Israelis should be able to share the land and their holylands in peace.  Much of the land that the Israelis took from the Palestinians is not even being used!  Why should it matter if the land was returned to those who owned it before? 

In a completely different discussion, I vacationed in St. Augustine, Florida over springbreak this year.  While there, I realized that they was a strong deaf community in the town.  There is a prestigious deaf school there and due to our viewing of the documentary about the Cochlear Implant, I was immediately interested about these people.  I ended up seeing a group of twenty deaf students on the beach for three days in a row.  I played soccer with one who had a cochlear implant and could understand me perfectly.  It was interesting to see something we learned in class so very real.

Question for next week:
What is the current situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Sources:

The Promises Film Project. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://www.promisesproject.org/.

International Peace Research Association." Redirect. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://soc.kuleuven.be/iieb/ipraweb/index.php?action=page.

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://www.cnn.com/.]

Journal 3_9

This weekend...: TEDxTeen

I walked into the TED conference not knowing what to expect.  I arrived early and realized how many different types of people were there.  I had no idea this was going to be an international event, or that all the people would look so professional.  It was daunting.  And then, out of nowhere, this little teeny bopper girls comes over to me.  I immediately felt relaxed...until she asked me, as serious as can be, "so...What do YOU do!?"  I replied that I was a high school student in virginia, and she repeated her question, "No, but what do you DO?"  I didn't know how to respond.  Thoughts raced through my head: what does she mean? whats she trying to ask?  What DO I DO?? It was a question I soon realized I needed to answer. 

My trip to TED made me understand how tangible global change really is.  The idea of kids younger than me and other young women and men going out and taking control of the future is infectious.  These speakers before me were not very different from myself, and had taken the intiative.  They provided examples, advice and connections to becoming an activist.

One man, an artist in New York City, gave me the idea of how the purest meaning of an idea or message will become contagious.  His message: Love me, has spread throughout New York City in graffiti and can now be found all over the world.  His simple idea can be teh same as Farah Pandith's (another speaker at the conference) "Youthquake."  A ripple effect young people have on society through social media and the information age.  A theme throughout the conference was how the connections on line have broke division and barriar in creating social change.  It has also elimanated a strong factor of fear.  One of my favorite speakers, Jeremey Heimans stressed the importance of the web over social change. Politicians are chanied by compting parties and re-elections.  They are a face in the public eye: an effective movement is not a face, but an idea.  A true social innovator, a disruptive innovator, someone who solves problems with news inventions and ideals instead of directly solving the problem--is effective.  These people are most effective when they are a so-called "anonymous extraoridanary," letting their idea lead instead of themselves. 

The first woman I met at TED, Tammy Tibbets, is a prime example of this new-age leader and changer.  She is the social media worker for Seventeen Magazine by day, and presdient of her own non-profit organization "She's the First" by night.  Shes's the First is an organization celebrating young women in education or the working world.  They partner with schools in Uganda, India and Tunsinia- to name a few.  Tammy was a college graduate, but her story made this life and actions seem so accesible.

These men and women have led me to my own beliefs about creating change.  They have made me feel as if I can do something.  That I need to focus on something.  That I can be the change they are, and that I really need to get going on it.

Creativity is key to the process.  Without a creative mind, and the idea of accepting failures with perserverence you will never achieve your goal.  The creative, ready and active minds of youth today are leading the world.  The effective change happening is inevitable.  Revolutions, such as the Egyptian Revolution, have been spurred by the ideas flowing at this conference.  Our generation has more technology and means to create movements than any previous generation.  Innovation, however, is the key to a progressive and prosperous future.  One quote that they showed at the conference that stuck with me was a quote by Steve Jobs: "The difference between a leader and a follower is innovation."  To be a leader today, you don't need to get up on a podium and make some big long speech and run for election, you need to be active.  You need to be communative.  You need to let an idea speak for itself.  And if your idea is good enough, it will create the change it needs to.

I have to begin to answer the question of: What do I do?  Right now, I am creating a sufficient list to What will I do?  I want to spread my ideas about the power of youth that I learned from this conference.  I want other kids to see that how plausbile it is to really, actually, change the world. 

Journal 4_1

Question from last week:
Research one of the TEDxTeen speakers.  What are they doing?  How did their talk relate to the infromation on the web?



Jeremy Hermiens, a speaker at TEDxTeen, is actually very similar to how he spoke to how he is on paper.  His work includes, purpose.org, LIVESTRONG campaign, Avaaz.org and GetUp.org.  He is from Australia, and talked mainly about creating a movement that is about the people, not a leader.  He has sucessfully done this in his work.  Through his campaigns and websites, he has given the people the means to create political revolutions and "get-up" in their own country.  He has made a campaign about fighting cancer about a band, not a figurehead. 

This week in class:

This week in class we did a few various activities--all of which I can relate back to my experience at TED.  The first class Kari and I spent a lot of time talking to everyone about everything we learned and how excite we were about TED.  I wish that the other students could imagine just how spectacular that conference was.  We also watched a TED talk this week about a french artist who changed the world with huge photographed posters of people's faces in need.  He was spreading the stories of the people of drug-ridden towns in Africa and poverty districts of Paris.  It was an amazing project, and segwayed perfectly into our next documentary, "Promises," which is centered around the Isreali-Palestinian conflict.

My favorite part about what we did this week was relating what the French artist did in Palestine to the documentary, "Promises."  Both have the same message.  The French artists decided to take you posters of Israeli and Palestinian people and post them anywhere with high visibility.  The project was called "Face to Face" because he would always post the a picture of an Israeli and a picture of a Palestinian--Face to Face.  When he asked the citizens which was which, most could not tell.  In Promises, the filmmaker is comparing the childhoods of several children who live within 20 mintues of each other, and yet lead different lives.  Though we have not finished the documentary yet, it would be interesting of the documentary's main point was that the two chilhoods were relatively similar except for religion. 

It is interesting to me that so many regions and countries where much of the culure is the same, is where fighting begins.  The Mexican drug wars are a good example of this.  Gangs, who share the same heritage, language, culture and country, are ravaging their homeland because of drugs.  They are bringing their children, their future, into the conflict and not thinking twice about it.  What would happen, if the Face to Face project compared two leaders of different factions of the drug war?  They are so similar, they have the same goals, why does humanity always have to fight?

Question for next week:
Find another international peace-making operation that has worked in the past or is working in the present.  What is it about?   

Sources
Jeremy Heimans." TEDxTeen.com. Web. 12 Apr. 2011. http://www.tedxteen.com/jeremy-heimans.

"Avaaz - The World in Action." Web. 12 Apr. 2011. http://www.avaaz.org/en.

The Promises Film Project. Web. 12 Apr. 2011. <http://www.promisesproject.org/>.

Journal 3_8

Question from last week:
Find a phenomenom of the natural world and how it works.  What ethical environmental challenges come from this phenomeon?

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/03/25/lah.japan.town.leaders.gone.cnn

This video is one of many of the natural disaster that took place in Japan this past week.  The earthquake and tsunami were two of the most extreme natural disasters seen in a long time.  Astronomers believe the quake and tsuanmi were so severe because the moon was closer to the earth than it has been in twenty years, causing the tides to change drastically.  Japan is also situated on a fault line.  The destruction was already massive, but then nuclear plant problems increased the damage even more.  As the destruction caused lack of available water in the cooling systems of Japan's nuclear plants, more explosions caused radiation and destruction.  Right now, the radiation in Japan's sea water is 1,250 times the normal amount. 


Many Japanese have been faced with the dillema to stay and help or leave their hometown and country.  Staying with that kind of exposed radiation is dangerous for the human body, and yet some people don't know anywhere else but their small towns in Japan.  It is a tragic loss of an emerging country.  The world sends hope to those survivors as they make life changing decisions.

This week in class:

A) This week we began the study and watching of a documentary about the deaf community and a new invention called the cochlear implant.  A cochlear implant, or bionic ear, is a surgically implanted electornic device that provides a sens of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing.  Many deaf, especially young children, are beginning to turn toward this device as a means of hearing.  The younger a person has the implant, the more successful it is.  This documentary focuses on the debate between two deaf parents allowing their five year old to recieve the surgery.  The father is against the surgery, as he believes that the deaf community is more beneifical and that his daughter can find a home within that specific culture and community, while the mother think it may be beneficial for her daughter. 

B) As a "hearing person" I know I don't fully understand why a deaf person would want to remain deaf.  The father says that he, "likes being deaf, it's peaceful."  But he also believes that life started for him when he learned sign language, his form of communication.  Though this family seems to get along fine with sign language, in today's society communication and information rule, and this five year old could learn to speak the way that the rest of the world does, what is the harm in that?  Today, over 188,000 people have recieved the surgery sucessfully, so why not give it a try?  It is a completely different perspective.  Before this documentary, I never knew the extent of deaf culture and deaf communities.

C) To bring another disability into the discussion, my family has a family friend who is blind.  She has been blind since she was four years old, and can only sense when it is light or dark outside with her vision.  She is also a graduate of Jullliard and a professional pianist and composer.  She lives with another "legally blind" man and they take care of each other.  Their culture of blind muscians is strong, and they are happy people.  When I think of them, I understand the point of the father of the deaf child in the documentary.

Question for next week:
Is there a deaf community in Richmond?  What kind of work do they do?

Sources:

"Radiation in Seawater off Nuclear Plant Spikes to 1,250 times Normal - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 26 Mar. 2011. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/26/japan.nuclear.disaster/index.html.

Cochlear Implant." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 26 Mar. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant.

Herskovitz, Jon, and Paul Eckert. "Tsunami and Radiation May Sink Japanese Fishermen| Reuters." Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com. 26 Mar. 2011. Web. 26 Mar. 2011. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/26/us-quake-japan-fishing-idUSTRE72P0ZK20110326>.