Presentation

To View my Presentation on Smallpox Click Here

Chapter 6: Language

Article: France’s Pointless, Hopeless Battle Against English

Somebody wanted but so then
Many french students in universities wanted classes in english, but the french government and many professors wanted to protect the french language so the professors went on strike protesting against classes taught in english then hundreds of prospective professors wanting to teach classes in english were turned away.

Map:

Although 41% of people in India speak Hindi India has twenty-two official languages, higher than that of any other country.

Essay:
Chapter 5: Languages
Disappearing Languages - Rosemarie Ostler
Language Death - David Crystal
Language Revival - Hawaiian Rates as the Nations Only Growing Indigenous Language -Ron Staton

Question: Why do languages die and how can cultures protect them? 

           As languages go extinct the world is slowly moving toward a single Global Language and the parts of the cultures attached to the language are also fading away. According to David Crystal in his article Language Death "linguists predict at least half of the worlds 6000 or so languages will be dead or dying by the year 2050" But why is this happening and how can it be stopped. 

Whether a language is not passed down because genocide, cultural change, the break up of a community or the younger generation’s disinterest in the language, the main reason languages die are because they are not passed down to a younger generation. Passing the language down to the next generation is vital in both perpetuating a language and revitalizing it, which is why some schools in Hawaii are now teaching classes Hawaiian. By passing the language down to a new generation they are actually revitalizing a language that was down to only around 1,500 speakers. Today through teaching Hawaiian to younger generations the number of speakers has risen to 6,000 to 8,000 people, proving that language revitalization is possible. Hebrew is another example of a language that was revitalized. In 1881 Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his friends agreed to exclusively

speak hebrew and thus hebrew revitalization began. These examples prove that is required to save a language is a strong desire to keep it a live. In order to save a language and keep the world from becoming Monolingual it is important that the people want to keep languages live. By spreading awareness about dying and extinct languages and fostering a desire to keep that special part of  cultures alive many languages on the verge of extinction may have a chance of revitalization.

The Demon in the Freezer-Post 2

Chapter 5: Identity, Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality

Article: Bill Thompson On New York City Gentrification: 'People Are Being Priced Out'

Bill Thompson wanted to win more votes from the african american demographic in the upcoming election for the Comptroller of New York so he gave a speech in Harlem about the negative effects of Gentrification in New York City neighborhoods for the generation who gets pushed out, but he wasn't the only african american candidate, then his speeches eventually won the majority of the vote in Harlem pushing him over the edge for reelection. 

Video:

Many people would like the world to be black and white when it comes to gender and sexuality, but gender and sexuality are much more complicated than that so it is important for people to understand that gender identity (how a person identifies) sexuality (what organs a person possesses) and sexual orientation (who a person is attracted to) are all independent of each other, when people are aware and respectful of others identity then society is much more harmonious.


Map:

I choose Australia because it has the highest amount of women empowerment next to the United States and it has been breaking gender roles and limits for years.


Essay:
Readings: 
The Big Heart by Tony Perrottet
“Chapter 5: Identity: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality” from Human Geography

Question: In what ways is Texas actually a head of the rest of the country?

Texas is the home of the poor artist, the wealthily oil field owner, and the migrant worker. In recent years Texas has actually appeared to have been gaining a diversified populations so fast that it seems to have pushed Texas one step ahead of the rest of the country in several aspects. According to a recent census out of the ten major metropolitan areas Texas had the most equal distribution of the nations four largest ethnic groups (asians, hispanics whites and black people). Sense 1980 there has been a massive shift in the ethnicities represented in Texas. The state has gone from being 63 percent anglo to less than 33 percent. The rest of the country is undoubtably headed down a path leading toward more diversity and less anglo majority, but Texas has reached a mixture that the rest of the country is unlikely to reach until 2042. Texas is also a head of the much of the country in gender equality and homosexual acceptance.

Although Texas has yet to legalize gay marriage it is the largest U.S. city to have an openly lesbian mayor and there has been much talk of the possibility of gay marriage legalization in the near future, which is one step a head of much of the country. Texas has also done a lot to pull the city out of disrepair, giving and selling abandon homes to artists and single mothers with their project row house projects. This results in a lot of gentrification making Houston a nicer place to live simply because of its charitable people. Additionally the political voting demographic of Texas reflects what the rest of the country will be more like in a few years. There are less and less Anglo voters and more voters of other ethnicities and this is what the entire country will be like 50 years from now. Why is Texas so divers? It has to do with several circumstances that did not apply to the rest of the country. One Texas is on the boarder making it easy for migrant workers to move to Texas. Secondly Texas is a thriving economy which is one of the oil capitals of the world and had a great many job openings for manual labor, which draws migrant workers. Additionally Texas is becoming less and less racist as it becomes more diverse which is yet another pull factor for immigrants. All these factors draw immigrants to Texas and the new diversity in the state is what has made Texas one step ahead of the game. 

Yugoslavian Conflict

Given a list of events from the Yugoslavian conflict, we ranked the top five most significant. In fact, we found that four of the five events were caused by political unrest. The remaining event was due to nationalism. Looking at the list of events in chronological order, we can see that politics and nationalism are the biggest factors in the cause of the conflict, which resulted in a major ethnic cleanse of the area. The conflict was caused by a combination of political and nationalistic views. The top event that we interpreted as the main cause is that Bosnia & Herzegovina have over 40 political parties and no predominant nationality. Its 4.4 million people are 40% Muslim, 33%

Serbian and 19% Croatian. We felt this could have been one of the most significant causes of the conflict because when a country has 40 divided political parties, a conflict will inevitably arise. Compared to the rest of the events, the division of politics appears to have the most powerful affect on the unrest. Overall it appeared that, politics and nationalism lead to the Balkanization of Yugoslavia.

The Demon in the Freezer- Post 1 -Beginnings

The first ten pages talks about the life and unfortunate death of a british photo retoucher named Richard Stevens. In the early 1970s he arrived in south Florida to take a job at the National Inquirer. He worked there as a photo retoucher in the days long before they used computers to retouch photos. In his free time he loved to fish in the near by lakes and swamps, but he was a kind hearted soul and he always threw the fish back. Not long before he died he took up a job at the Sun a tabloid owned by the same company as the National Inquirer. On Thursday, September 27, 2001 he and his wife to a drive to Charlotte to visit their daughter and by Sunday he began to feel quite ill. By monday he was incoherent and his wife rushed him to the hospital.

At the hospital he received a spinal tap and the fluid came out cloudy. Upon further examination of the spinal fluid the doctors discovered it was full of rod shaped bacteria with flat ends an unmistakable characteristic of anthrax. After a lab confirmed the doctors suspicion every one was shocked. There had only been 18 cases of inhaled anthrax in the past hundred years and non within the last twenty-five. After realizing the rarity of this bacteria they doctor made a call to the head of infectious disease control at the CDC who immediately sent out two teams, one to swab everything Stevens had come in contact with in the last several days and a second team to preform a carful autopsy on Stevens who had died the night before.

Chapter 4: Culture

Thoughts and Ruminations:

Article: Who is Alex from Target and what is he doing all over Twitter? by Chris Tisch

Somebody wanted But so then 

On November 2, 2014 "Rims" posted a picture of a rather attractive but other wise ordinary looking target employee which got retweeted thousands of times, so by monday afternoon the picture had been retweeted 900,000 times then "Alex from Target" became an internet celebrity.

Map:

I chose southeastern Europe because Italy is the fashion capital of the world. Thousands of fashion trends have started in the fast ion hearth of Milan and from there the diffused throughout Europe and some of them throughout the world. 

Extra Credit Video: 

             This south african comedy humorously illustrates the differences between two vastly different cultures: that of the bushmen of the kalahari desert and that of the "civilized" man.  The clear contrast between the two cultures is apparent within the first twenty-five minutes of the movie and continues to be demonstrated throughout the film. The film begins by following the bushmen in there everyday peaceful lives. In their totally isolated culture they have no greed or evil but when a Coka-Cola bottle falls from the sky it brings something that for the first time cannot be share equally. The feelings of greed and fights that arise over the bottle cause the bushmen to get angry and to deem it "the evil thing". Funnily enough the Coka-Cola brand is debatably one of the most easily recognizable symbols of capitalism in the world, so one might definitely argue that movie is saying that capitalism is evil and brings evil and greed. Regardless of the symbolism of the coke bottle Xixo the bushmen decides to throw it off the edge of the earth and thus embarks on his joinery to find a place to do so. 

             After examining the once peaceful life of the bushmen the film turns to the life of the civilized man who they say "refused to adapt himself to his environment; instead he adapted his environment to suit him.".  The narrator comically presents the ultra structured life style of these "civilized men" by going through one of their days by the hour which made them appear as if they were just funny little bugs with no real purpose other than to buzz about. There lives in contrast to those of the bushmen appeared fast paced and confusing. Later in the movie a violent warlord attempts to assassinate the president which is a concept totally foreign to the bushmen because have never even had the idea of violence between people in their tribe. In fact when he sees a gun he asks if the funny stick grew on a tree. The bushman's completely isolated culture had kept them in the dark about all the technological advancements of the rest of the world. On the bushman's journey to throw the bottle off the world he finds a pasture with goats and unaware of the concept of property proceeded to shoot one which promptly landed him in jail. His trial was especially difficult because they did not have a word for guilty in his language, but (spoiler alert) eventually he was let out on a work permit and in the end was able to throw the bottle off the earth and return home. I think this movie was an excellent depiction of how isolation can protect a culture from both the good and bad aspects of other cultures but also comes with the price of being incredibly disconnected from the rest of the world and their cultures as well.

Thoughts and Ruminations Essay:

Readings: PBS Frontline Merchants of Cool by PBS 

Question: What demographic is targeted more than others by market researchers and why? 

They have the expendable wealth, the numbers and the desire to have fun and stay trendy.  Who makes up this demographic? They are the american teenagers. Today teens are being targeted by marketers more than ever in a desperate attempt to capitalize on this growing market. This generation of teens is the largest it has ever been, even larger than that of their baby boomer parents and marketers are ecstatic. One executive in the film noted that "teens are like Africa" in the sense that they are going to be moved in on by marketers as Africa was colonized by the europeans.  In a market where a trend disappears very shortly after it is discovered it is vital to stay one step a head of the game at all times. In order to keep their products a part of the popular culture companies must always be ready to move on to the next big thing. material culture of teenagers is valuable to marketers who can use this knowledge to create products that the teenage consumer will devour. Cool hunters also create focus groups where they pay teenagers to come in and answer questions on what is cool, all to gain more information on how to better target the teenage demographic. Everyday teenagers are studied for so large corporations can make a profit, but why is this? The answer is simple the teen market is home of the fastest changing trends, a large amount of wealth and they care about being cool.

To do this they use specialists who have been deemed "cool hunters". These specially trained marketers go out into the public and look for trends that are rising before most of the demographic has even heard of it. They search for the teens who are ahead of the trends and then study them. Sometimes cool hunting involves studying a specific cool teen and asking him or her on their opinion on things such as new products or even just looking at their clothes and they types of music they listen to. Any insight on the

The media is one of the markets who aggressively targets teens. The music industry constantly studies teens to predict what they want to listen to and see so they can break out with the next big thing. Because trends spread from celebrities to the general public through hierarchal diffusion the media has the power to set trends in motion at will. The often will back product to get that product to be more popular among the general public, such as what Sprite did to repopularize their brand. In an attempt to make their brand more popular Sprite hosted a party where they payed teenagers to dress cool and dance to hip hop music while drinking Sprite. They also payed several popular rap artists to come and preform under a huge neon Sprite logo thus making the brand appear cool. Then they 

filmed the party and put it on MTV and immediately had a jump in sales. This spending power that teenagers weild is extraordinary and corporations realize that the teenage demographic is a valuable resource that if used correctly can be a major money zone for far over a hundred of thousand companies.

Chapter 2: Migration - The Voluntary Migration Comic of The Jones Family

Article: Immigrants Who Speak Indigenous Languages Encounter Isolation  by Kirk Semple 

Laura is a Mexican immigrant who's dream was always been to move to the United States, but she speaks no English or Spanish, she speaks Mixtec, so when her and her family moved to East Harlem she lost her ability to communicate with almost every one in the city and now she has essentially lost her ability to get around without the help of her spanish speaking husband.  

I chose Mexico because it has the largest number of people who immigrate to the states out of any country. In 2009 Mexican immigrants accounted for 29.9 percent of all immigrants in the United States.

Chapter 3 Migration Comic: The Jones Migrate to Indonesia 

Click Here to view my comic

Short Outline
It was a cool summers night in 1972. Phil and I sat anxiously outside Gate 12 waiting for the flight that would change out entire world. Our daughter, only two years old, slept with her head on my husbands shoulder, her small pigtails brushing the side of his cheek. Her face looked calm and relaxed, not frightened by the fears of a new country which plagued my mind. As watched the seconds tick by on a clock across the terminal, the broken voice of a flight attendant over the intercom announced that flight 123 to Macassar was now boarding. Wordlessly my husband and I stood up, tightly clutching our two bags which housed all our worldly possessions. We exited the terminal via the door the flight attendant directed us to and slowly climbed the stairs to the plane. It was the first time any of us had been on an airplane and the strong sent of burnt rubber on tarmac was far from comforting. California had been all of our homes since birth, but we were now leaving in hopes of spreading our evangelical views. It took about 16 hours for us to fly all the way from California to Macassar.  Everything was new, all the way from the takeoff to the landing.  By the time we got to Indonesia, we were exhausted, and we hadn't even done anything yet!  Once we touched down, we needed to find where we were going to.  This was hard because everything was in Indonesian. We pulled out a map.

1) The Jones leave their home in California for a plane to Makassar 
2) They arrive in Makassar and get on a plane for Jayapura 
3) They are met at the airport by a man named Setiaboodee who took them to the village 
4) One the way to the village they were told of the suspected cannibals who lived near by
5) They arrived at the village and all the villagers were dressed up like cannibals to scare them
6) After the short scare they had a welcoming ceremony
7) Gradually JoAnne got use to her new teaching job and the lived happily their for years

Pictures:
- family photos in California and in Indonesia
-  California
-  Indonesia
- them in the airport
-  the airport
- map of their journey
- a plane
- their daughter and Setiaboodee
- family with car
- villagers
- welcoming ceremony
- children playing together
- school children with school house

Rough Draft of Scrip:

Picture 1: Text box from the baby saying, “What’s an Indonesia?”

Picture 2: Picture of the couple with text box saying “Welcome to Southern California”

Picture 3: Airport pic with dialogue box from top saying, “Flight 42 to Kalimantan now boarding”

Picture 4: Airplane pic going across ocean with text box saying, “Here goes nothing”

Picture 5: “17 hours later…”

Picture 6: Picture of gibberish on paper with text box saying “What does this mean?”

Picture 7: Plane ride to Jayapura

Picture 7: Pic of cannibal village with text box saying, “Uh oh...what’s going on?”

Chapter two: Population "103 women sterilized in a day at West Bengal hospital"

This is a news video on the horrible treatment of the 103 women who had sterilization surgeries at West Bengal Hospital in yet another of the India government's desperate attempts to control their country's ever growing population.

Chapter Two: Population; "What Happens When We All Live to 100" & "The US Economy's Big Baby Problem"

Katie Taylor
September 28, 2014

Article: Horror in a Mass Sterilization Camp by Carol Kuruvilla

..................

The indian government wants to control their population growth, but this is very difficult in areas were women don't often have access to birth control, so four government employed doctors performed sterilization operations on 103 women in one day, then they left them in a field to recover and many died from infections. 

Map:  I chose Eastern Asia because it houses 1/4 of the worlds population. China alone has an astounding 1.3 billion, which is the highest population of any country. The map also features Taiwan which is the 8th most densely populated country in the world and Japan which has the highest life expectancy and the oldest population.


Model: "The Demographic Cycle"

The Demographic Transition model was first invented by Warren Thompson in 1929. The model demonstrates the five stages that a country's birth and death rates go through as the country develops over time. In the first stage (when a country is still quite undeveloped) the birth and death rates are close together, but as time progresses and medicine becomes better the death rate plummets and the population skyrockets in stage two. However, as the country approaches stage three birth control becomes available and women start choosing to have fewer children causing the birth rate to drop. Even with the low death rates when the country reaches the end of stage four and enters stage five the population is declining because the birth rates are now too low to replace the number of people dying. If this model is correct it will mean that the world population will drop drastically in the future.


Readings:
What Happens When We All Live to 100 by Greg Easterbrook
The US Economy's Big Baby Problem by Derek Thompson
Chapter Two: "Population"
Question: Despite the public's positive desire for longevity, what problems do an aging population present for the economy?

Around the world longevity has always been desired and respected. People are taught to respect their elders and strive to live to a ripe old age themselves.  With current advances in medicine and genetic research, we are well on our way to the era of the centenarians. Each year the newborn is expected to live an estimated three months longer than those born the previous year. But is this really good for the economy? 

Two hundred years ago the world was concerned with the Population Explosion, but in recent years the concern in developed countries has actually been population shrinkage and an aging population. The new fear is that the fall in Crude Birth Rates (CBR) and Crude Death Rates (CDR) will result in Zero Population Growth causing the economy to collapse. The Demographic Transition that occurs when people live longer and CBR declines puts tremendous stress on the work force because the elderly need to be supported.  The elderly no longer contribute to the economy by working and generating income, instead they require expensive health care and social security checks.

As medicine and technology has improved, the average life expectancy at birth in America has gone from 47 years to 79 years. The U.S. appears to be entering what Thompson’s Demographic transition cycle refers to as at the 4th stage in which the population is ceasing to grow and begins to simply age. As you can see in the figure below if these trends continue in 100 years the population pyramid of the U.S. demographic will be very top heavy. If this occurs it will crush the work force with taxes and create a huge over flow of empty jobs because there simply won't be enough people to fill them. 

Another problem an aging population presents for the economy is the decrease in the amount of money the average family spends per year. People with children spend about $14,000 per child each year. The elderly with grown or no children have no need for these large expenditures. If there were no longer be a large enough demand for the supply the markets geared towards adolescents and children would take a huge hit. Universities, a major revenue generator in our economy, would find themselves struggling to get enough students enrolled and would have to redirect their advertising efforts towards getting senior citizens to take classes. College towns that had thrived on youth culture would begin to have more elderly inhabitants and have to build fewer bars and more hospitals. So although living to one hundred may be the shared goal of many, for the sake of the economy we better hope that never happens. 

Potential Books for Reviewing - Epidemics Blog Link

Click Here for a link to my book search blog on Epidemics

Fast Food Fatalities Powerpoint Slides APGeoGroup5Period5

Presenters: Katie Taylor, Charlotte Sutherland, and Maggie Berry

Click here to view this presentation on slide share.

"The Tipping Point" & "Chapter 1: An Intoduction to Human Geography"

Katie Taylor
September 7, 2014


Thoughts and Ruminations

Article: U.N. Struggles to Stem Haiti Cholera Epidemic
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/world/americas/un-struggles-to-stem-haiti-cholera-epidemic.html?_r=1

Chapoteau Haiti was in desperate need of funds from the United Nations in order to fund clinics to treat the cholera epidemic, but the United Nations failed to raise even $5 million of the $2 billion promised, so clinics ran out of even the most basic of treatment supplies and many were forced to shut down. Then 8,562 died from a disease which should be easily treatable.

Readings:
The Tipping Point Chapter One By Malcolm Gladwell
"Chapter One: An Introduction to Human Geography" of Human Geography
"How do Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point and chapter one of Human Geography relate?"

            In both Malcolm Gladwell's best seller "The Tipping Point" and chapter 1 of "Human Geography People, Places and Culture" the authors discuss epidemics using the examples of the spread of diseases and fashion trends through cultural diffusion.  Gladwell starts his chapter by using the example of the contagious spread of hush puppy shoes in 1994. The hush puppy epidemic probably all started with a few hipsters wearing the outdated shoes with no intention of promoting them. Through line of sight and word of mouth the popularity of a shoe which had been near extinction continued to rise. As more and more people started catching on throughout the area, it continued to gain public attention until it had snowballed into a national phenomena.

            The text book refers to this process of the spread of an epidemic through connected individuals as contagious diffusion. Although it uses the example of silly bands instead of hush puppies, the principle discussed is still the same. The brightly colored silicon bands may not be all that exciting for the average adult, but the product spread like wildfire among school children. One day only a few children would be adorned with the silly bands on their wrists and the following day the whole class would have them. Much like the spread of hush puppies, the wearers of the silly bands were not deliberately trying to promote the product, but nonetheless its popularity spread like a highly contagious cold.
             In addition to the hush puppy epidemic that swept the nation in the 90's, Gladwell examined the spread of several sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, HIV and Aids and how they were mapped with the use of medical geography. Each time a new patient is admitted to a public clinic in Baltimore for treatment of syphilis or gonorrhea, their address is subsequently entered into a database which maps all the cases in the city with a black star. This use of medical geography to create disease maps helps geographers understand more about how the epidemic spreads and its patterns, which is the first step towards finding a cause and a cure. In "Human Geography People, Places and Culture" it discusses how this same technique was also used to map the spread of Cholera which swept the Soho district of London in the 1850's. Eventually through the use of the map created, scientists were able to determine that the epidemic was being spread through the water pumps and were able to advise people to boil their water, nearly halting the spread of the disease altogether.
            The two authors insights brought several important concepts to the table. The first being the ease through which an epidemic can disseminate and the fact that it only takes one individual to be the catalyst for the rapid spread of an epidemic. Secondly the ways geography helps to stop epidemics and lastly both authors illustrated that whether it be shoes, silly bands or STDs, geography is essential for understanding what propels the spread of epidemics.

 

This is a map of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in which epidemic, such as cholera easily entered the countries through people coming to help with disaster relief after the earthquakes and then spread gontagiously due to poor health care.  

Why Rome Fell

Katie Taylor, World History Period 6                                                                                  April 5, 2014

Thoughts and Reflections on: "Why Rome Fell"

By Professor Gerhard Rempel

Rome is and always will be considered as one of the greatest empires of the ancient world but Rome, like any great empire, eventually had its downfall.  The down fall of Rome was caused by a combination of many unfortunate events, but when we boil it down three major causes appear: an economic crisis caused by over expenditure and subsequently high taxes, military greed and lack of allegiances and two horrible plagues.  

The Roman way of life was extravagant and their entire culture seemed to be based off of conquests and spending money. The Roman government ran into numerous expenses trying to fund its growing empire, while also paying for things such as building public buildings, the monthly dole to feed the public, and lets not forget the hundred million dollars spent annually on the games. As the Roman Empire expanded more and more money was required to sustain the growing army and maintain all of its territory, but the Romans continued to maintain there lavish spending habits throwing the country into an economic spiral. As the country continued to move closer toward bankruptcy the government raised taxes on the middle class. The trusting people, who were well fed because of the dole and mostly happy because of the constant entertainment were content with the rise in taxes briefly but eventually the high taxation of the middle class dissolved it entirely leaving only extreme wealth and extreme poverty. 

Through its conquests Rome had acquired many territories that really had no loyalty to the Roman Empire, but with it's expansion came the need for new troops and soon the Roman army was mostly comprised of either foreigners who had no allegiances to the Roman Empire or poorly trained gentle farmers. Eventually this caused turmoil throughout the empire by causing civil wars and in all the chaos the soldiers pillaged and terrorized Roman citizens. While the Romans fought to both expand and defend their empire from outside attacks and keep a handle on the civil wars caused by disloyal territories and overly taxed civilians, Rome was essentially being attacked on all fronts and was burning through its resources at lightning speed. 

The final straw to break the camel's back, or in this case to break Rome, was the two plagues that came. The first of which lasted 15 years and wiped out 1/4 of the entire Roman Empire and the second caused rome to loose 5,000 each day at its hight. These devastating losses combined with the loss of troops in civil wars throughout the empire eventual seemed to Stop Rome in its tracks.  

Letter to Lucius

Dear Lucius, 

You probably don’t realize this, but writing letters is so tedious. You would really love these text message things that I keep telling you about. I’m happy to hear your brother made it to 15 alive. I suppose I have never worried about my sister making it to 15. Rome has a pretty scary survival rate… maybe it would be a little better if you all cut back on the drinks and didn’t bathe with strangers. In Colorado most of us do bathe daily, but we take showers privately and we usually don’t sit in other peoples disgusting filth unless we go to Water World.

I think you are pretty lucky to live so close to the city though, apart from the fire hazards and high risk of disease it must be pretty nice to be able to walk everywhere you go. I live pretty far away from any city so to the capital of my state it is about 45 minutes away by car (yet another invaluable invention you should really try and look into inventing).

I also heard about your brother’s new toga, that’s exciting. My sister also got a new item of clothing except she bought a zebra print onesie with a hood that has speakers. No one in the family could keep her from buying it. In my generation we are allowed to choose a lot of things like who we marry and at what age, but with the freedom of to choose also comes some bad fashion mistakes on everyone’s part. Arranged marriages don’t really happen much anymore, which is a good thing. On the bright side you will probably never get dumped. 

Congratulations on nearing the end of your education by the way. At 17 in my country you would be just nearing the middle. You would still have one more year of high school and then possibly years of college and graduate school before you would be finished. 

You mentioned that you lived in the city in a poorer neighborhood. Here socio- economic status is often a combination of education, income, and occupation and each of those have an effect on each other essentially putting a box of limitations around many people that is very hard to escape. If some one isn't well educated, then they probably have a low paying job and then there kids may not go to college and then they may not get a high paying job and their children will be effected and so on and so forth. There are also always geniuses who never attend college and yet create some of the worlds most used products like iPhone. I’m still waiting to see if my streak of genius comes out, but my guess is that I will go to college and get a perfectly boring job.

I think its amazing that your family is so close and that you have family meals together. My family rarely eats together. When we are hungry we just go to the refrigerator and get food. We only have large meals together in special occasions. I also think it is realty cool that your father taught you so much about athletics. Where I live it is a little different. Dads teach most kids the rudimentary knowledge about athletics, but when we get into school kids often play on sports teams where coaches take over most of the teaching. I currently play basketball and volleyball. You don’t have either of those sports (but if you are looking for a new idea for an awesome sports think peach basket...enough said.).

I actually forgot what religion you practiced but you will be happy…or unhappy to hear that Christianity is still being widely practiced. Sense the death of Jesus over a hundred different denominations have been formed over both nitpicky disputes and full-fledged wars. I am 7th day Adventist which means I go to church on Saturday where as many other Christians attend church on Sunday. 

It's also exciting that you now have the opportunity to command soldiers. In the United States you must be 18 to enter our army but in your first few years in the military there is virtually no chance that you would command soldiers. I don't think I will be going into the army even though women have the right to join the army.

I have to go write my friend Oga the cave man.

Write soon, 

Your friend Katie 

Human story chapter 7 questions

  Katie Taylor, World History Period 6                                                       April 17, 2014

Thoughts and reflections on: The Human Story by James C Davis 

1) What did the Indus Valley leave behind that archeologists believe has connections to Hinduism, and more specifically, Shiva?

Indus Valley civilization left behind seals which contained a god with an erection which had a strong resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva. Archeologists recover phalluses which is one of the symbols for shiva today. 

2) How did sacrifices play into what the Aryans believed about the state of the world?

The Aryan's believed in a fragile world which could be either reborn or thrown in to chaos by re-enacting the sacrifice of Prajaptati correctly or incorrectly. 

3) Where did the religion known today as Hinduism remerge from?

Hinduism was combination of the belief systems belonging to the Upanishads and the Aryans and originated in the Indus Valley 

4) What was Siddhartha's journey to become the Buddha?

Siddhartha was a prince with all he could ever wish for and was sheltered from the evils of the world. Eventually he began to wonder about the world so Siddhartha left to find enlightenment and through meditation and after eating a bowl of curds he found the answers he searched for and be came the Buddha. 

5) What man made the largest contributions to, and essentially created Christianity? How did he do this? Why was his approach appealing to others?

The man who made the largest contributions to, and essentially created Christianity was Jesus. 

He did this through his teachings and miracles and spread them via the travels of him and his disciples. His approach was appealing because unlike many religions and communities even, Jesus was excepting and willing to talk to anyone no matter what there backgrounds or social standings were.  

6) How is Islam different from Christianity? Who started Islam? How did his leadership come about?

Islam and Christianity are different in the sense that Islam was the platform for their military and Christianity was spreading, however not via conquest. Muhammad was the founder of Islam and his leadership came about when an angle named Gabriel came to him and told him that he was the messenger of God.

7) What role did Muhammed's time in Mecca play in the development of Islam as a religion?

Muhammad's teachings were not initially welcomed by the people of Mecca, but after Islam peacefully conquered the city many people converted to this new religion. This was the first major step toward their goal of converting millions and the rest is history. 

8) How did the Arabs conquer so much land so quickly? How did this contribute to the spread of Islam? Did the Arabs force Islam on the conquered peoples?

The Arabs were inspired because the believed it was their mission to spread the word of god and their conquests seemed to be the result of some sort of domino effect because once they concord a city the Arabs could use the captives and new converts to feed their growing army. 

The Muslims constant victories made it look like the power of God was on their side, which was a very convincing reason for people to convert to Islam. The Arabs did force their religion on people despite the fact that their main purpose was to spread the word of god, because they believed that it was easier to rule people who were split by several religions. 

9) What two events stopped Islam from spreading throughout Europe? How did these victories for the Europeans help the spread of other faiths?

The two events which stopped Islam from spreading throughout Europe were getting defeated by France and loosing the invasion and the uneventful blockade at Constantinople. These two European victories not only stopped the spread of Islam, but they also allowed other religions to expand, because the Muslims stopped their conquests allowing other religions to develop in this new safety. 

10) How are Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam similar and different?

They are similar in the sense that they all believe in a creation and afterlife, they all have codes or morals or standards to follow, and they all have become major religions of today.

The differences are that Hinduism did not have a set prophet and Hinduism and Buddhism are polytheistic where as Christianity and Islam are mono theistic. Additionally they differed in where they originated, along with the views on life's purpose and their views on the creation of the universe. 

Jainism blog URL

http://jainismhistory.weebly.com

Why Snowden is a modern day Socrates

Edward Snowden could be considered a modern day socrates for multipule reasons. In many aspects Snowden embodies Socrates belives and way of thinking. Like socrates he spokle his mind with disregard for his own personal safety despite the posible out come. Snowden is obviously a strong believer in freedom of speech simular to socrates he risks federal punishment and his social standings. Both Snowden and Socrates felt that government officals especaily should be held accountable for their actions and should not be aloud to belieave that they are wiser or more powerful than they are, which is why Snowden leaked the documets and Socrates continuously questioned government officals. The two men both maintained strong personal opinions about the government despite ridicule and threats. Which is why Edward Snowden and Socrates are both men of great strenght and. 

Procecution

Procecution main points  

  Snowden cost the US billions of taxpayer dollars by forcing the NSA to start over in tracking many terrorists and the damage done by leaking these documents will force the government to spend an inordinate amount on fixing these damages 

Snowden took the job in Hawaii only to gain access to these surveillance documents, “[The job] granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked. That is why I accepted that position,” he said to the South China Morning Post.

Edward Snowden is guilty of espionage, violation of the Intellectual Property law, and treason. Treason against the United States according to the US Constitution, “shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” He also broke the contract he signed with the National Security Agency.  

The Espionage Act of 1917 put laws in action on the matter of espionage, also known as spying.

This act states: “To convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies.” Going against the espionage act is punishable by death or up to and including 30 years in jail. “Giving national defense information to someone without a security clearance and revealing classified information about communications intelligence.” This is exactly what Edward Snowden did when he leaked information regarding over two million classified NSA documents to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian.  

The Intellectual Property law states that owners and/or companies are entitled to trade secrets, defined as something created by a person or company that is not generally known material or personally divulged. Snowden leaked trade secrets of several companies - PRISM, MUSCULAR, XKeyscore, and Tempora - all of which are privately owned internet surveillance companies contracted by the NSA.

-Snowden broke the espionage act, the intulectual property law, 

-Snowden had an online persona called the TheTrueHooha, and he commented on political issues, saying, The New York Times was “like wikileaks” and deserved to go bankrupt; sources who leaked “classified shit” to the Times ought to “be shot in the balls.” He’s is a very large hypocrite.

-Snowden joined the US army special forces but was discharged, making him not only a distrustworthy soul, and also gives him great reasons for a personal Vendetta

- there is a secret congress that governs all of the NSAs actions and they approved this surveillance 

-snowden chose not to raise his concerns to the proper NSA officials because he had previously been "treated poorly" by a superior whose private encrypted email snowden hacked into. 

- snowden went and gave information to two of the Americas greatest enemy's 

-snowden chose not to raise his concerns to the proper NSA officials because he had previously been "treated poorly" by a superior whose private encrypted email snowden hacked into. 

- leaking these documents may have seriously compromised US security and the safety of its citizens 

-snowden cost the US billions of taxpayer dollars by forcing the NSA to start over in tracking many terrorists and the damage done by leaking these documents will force the government to spend a inordinate amount on fixing these damages 

- Snowden is anti American and hates Obama and obamacare and how elderly people don’t contribute to society (comments on chat room as proof) 

Snowden trial

Prosecution Opening Statement

Edward Snowden is guilty of espionage, violation of the Intellectual Property law, and treason. Treason against the United States according to the US Constitution, “shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” He also broke the contract he signed with the National Security Agency.  

The Espionage Act of 1917 put laws in action on the matter of espionage, also known as spying.

This act states: “To convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies.” Going against the espionage act is punishable by death or up to and including 30 years in jail. “Giving national defense information to someone without a security clearance and revealing classified information about communications intelligence.” This is exactly what Edward Snowden did when he leaked information regarding over two million classified NSA documents to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian.  

The Intellectual Property law states that owners and/or companies are entitled to trade secrets, defined as something created by a person or company that is not generally known material or personally divulged. Snowden leaked trade secrets of several companies - PRISM, MUSCULAR, XKeyscore, and Tempora - all of which are privately owned internet surveillance companies contracted by the NSA.

Our opposition’s argument has nothing to do with the legality of the treason committed by Snowden. The acts of the government, whether they moral or not, does not change the fact that Snowden committed treason by stealing and exposing classified information. 

Treason against the United States according to the US Constitution, “shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” Snowden committed treason by leaking documents to China and Russia, self proclaimed enemies of the USA. These documents also stopped threats of national security. Over 3,000 lives were lost in 9/11, and these classified surveillance programs stopped at least 5 terrorist attacks. If each of these planned terrorist attacks were as large as 9/11, that’s over 15,000 American lives lost. 15,000 lives saved are worth being under surveillance. 9/11 was one of the greatest and most recent tragedies in US history we cannot forget the fact that these approved government programs stopped at least 5 attacks of equal or greater scale, is minor surveillance really a great price to pay for protection? 

The Espionage Act of 1917 put laws in action on the matter of espionage, also known as spying. This act states: “To convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies.” Going against the espionage act is punishable by death or up to and including 30 years in jail. “Giving national defense information to someone without a security clearance and revealing classified information about communications intelligence" is exactly what Edward Snowden did when he leaked information regarding over two million classified NSA documents to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian.  

The defense said that this went against the fourth amendment, saying that the information stolen was “unreasonable.” If by “unreasonable”, they mean the NSA only veiwing a coding of 1 and 0s, then sure. All the NSA sees is binary  encryption of the messages sent between people. They do not see a specific text, or a specific email, unless they found terrorist encryption within, and do not look through most of the information taken. This is in no way the “unreasonable” you presented, and the fourth amendment protects against. 

Snowden Main Argument 

  Snowden cost the US billions of taxpayer dollars by forcing the NSA to start over in tracking many terrorists and the damage done by leaking these documents will force the government to spend an inordinate amount on fixing these damages 

Snowden took the job in Hawaii only to gain access to these surveillance documents, “[The job] granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked. That is why I accepted that position,” he said to the South China Morning Post.

-Snowden had an online persona called the TheTrueHooha, and he commented on political issues, saying, The New York Times was “like wikileaks” and deserved to go bankrupt; sources who leaked “classified shit” to the Times ought to “be shot in the balls.” He’s is a very large hypocrite.

-Snowden joined the US army special forces but was discharged, making him not only a distrustworthy soul, and also gives him great reasons for a personal Vendetta

- there is a secret congress that governs all of the NSAs actions and they approved this surveillance 

-snowden chose not to raise his concerns to the proper NSA officials because he had previously been "treated poorly" by a superior whose private encrypted email snowden hacked into. 

- snowden went and gave information to two of the Americas greatest enemy's 

-snowden chose not to raise his concerns to the proper NSA officials because he had previously been "treated poorly" by a superior whose private encrypted email snowden hacked into. 

- leaking these documents may have seriously compromised US security and the safety of its citizens 

-snowden cost the US billions of taxpayer dollars by forcing the NSA to start over in tracking many terrorists and the damage done by leaking these documents will force the government to spend a inordinate amount on fixing these damages 

- Snowden is anti American and hates Obama and obamacare and how elderly people don’t contribute to society (comments on chat room as proof) 

Modern day Socrates

Born and raised in Seattle Washington, rapper and song writer Macklemore became famous after his album "The Heist" hit it big in 2012. His musical interests began when listening to hip hop at the age of six and he began to write his own lyrics at the age of fourteen. He now use his music to make a difference in the world by fearlessly expressing his opinions on controversial issues such as gay marriage.  Through his music Macklemore shares his beliefs with his listeners and forces society to reexamine its views. Although many people have strong opinions on issues like gay marriage society is often unwilling to listen to them, but using music to address more serious issues is a perfect way to reach many people who wouldn't otherwise be willing to listen.

Macklemore impresses upon society the need for self and societal examination in order to create a more equal world. Throughout his song "same love" Macklemore emphasizes the need for expectance and dissolving stereo types and questions peoples interpretation of the bible. Macklemore makes it very clear that he is a strong supporter of gay marriage. Like Socrates Macklemore strongly impresses his views upon socioty and causes induviduals to rethink what they believe and most of his followers are the youth, making him the person I think is a modern day Socrates 

http://youtu.be/OQngzapK5dM

Thoughts and reflections on When free speech was first condemned

Katie Taylor, World History Period 6                                                          February 24, 2014

Thoughts and Reflections On: "When Free Speech was First Condemned: The Trial of Socrates Reconsidered"

By: I. F. Stone

This article "When free speech was first condemned" is appropriately named because it is referring to the trial and eventual death of Socrates, who was basically condemned for practicing his right of free speech. This article changed my opinion of Socrates a little because originally I thought he was just extraordinarily full of himself, but this article caused me to wonder if Socrates was really pretentious or if he was actually just a little suicidal and was trying to be as dislikable as possible.  If I were the head prosecuting attorney in the trial of Socrates I would call upon Socrates to be a witness for his own prosecution.

Socrates really seemed to be one a path of self destruction so I would let him further incriminate himself by asking him questions like "How do you feel about democracy?" Or "What are your feelings toward Sparta and their government style?" I believe his answers to those questions would be enough to sway any jury. If I was the head attorney for the defense I would call upon someone who knew the law well and have them point out the fact that it is barbaric to condemn someone for free speech, especialy when it was considered such an important right in Athainian socioty.