Racial Issues at Parker

The issues that have been happening at parker are a shocking to me.  Our school, which is very keen on educating people about racial fairness, had issues in small groups talking about diversity?  When everyone was told we were shocked.  But yet, they still didn't tell everyone exactly what happened.  How can we prevent something from happening if we do not know what has happened in the past?  I heard lots of outrageous stories about certain kids targeting other students and faculty members.  People were being named who I was friends with.  Also arguments were being thrown around about how it was being handled.  One of the opinions was that kids shouldn't be asked to discuss diversity without adults present.  Diversity is a hard topic for anyone to discuss without anyone overreacting or getting offended.  Another opinion is that kids should discuss it because it is the way to make progress themselves.  The way that makes sense the most is that kids should be able to discuss it and it is a hard topic but it should be guided so no kids could start rumors and such.  That was the case at the small groups, kids said something that got twisted around to a racial comment.

1. " Haiti Earthquake"  ,acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/458861292?accountid=3360,
About the general idea of the earthquake itself.  Written in a newspaper.

2. " A year after the Haiti Earthquake", acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/832014796/132B09214CF246230A0/2?accountid=3360
The differences that happened a year after the earthqauke.

3." Two months after Haiti Earthqauke",  acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/443537555/132B09214CF246230A0/9?accountid=3360
Two months after the earthquake the health issues that  were happening.

4.  " Emergency Shelter in Haiti", acessed october 28th, 2011, http://search.proquest.com/docview/444707227/132B0987F3A9F0E778/6?accountid=3360
The Haiti earthquake by a united nations point of view.

5. " Haiti's long term jobs after earthqauke" , acessed on october 28th, 2011,
http://search.proquest.com/docview/835109465/132B09F00F85E02C3E/1?accountid=3360
Jobs in haiti after the earthquake and how they are affect

6. " The world of the Haitian Revolution", acessed on october 28th, 2011, economiclyhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/225680103/132B0A307BE75507571/2?accountid=3360
Haitian revolution and economic statistics

Witches in Africa

In the reading about Bantu Language, the idea of being scared of witch craft caught my eye.  I had always known about back in the middle ages what they thought about witches and how it was a huge deal to catch one.  I found out in africa that there were many types of witches.  On the good side, there were witch doctors who were frowned upon a little but were known for their healing powers.  On the bad side were people thought of to posses huge amounts of evil power.  In the Zulu and Bantu tribes, there were groups of people called witch smellers.  They would host large gatherings of their village in particular and form a circle.  The villagers would not interact while the witch smellers would start to hum low and stomp their feet.  Then they would find who had caused the witchcraft in their village by the pat on the victims back and he or she would be dragged off and beaten till death.  The witch smeller's symbol was a quagga (type of zebra) tail.  Now in modern days witch smellers are illegal.  Yet the witchcraft continues all over africa.  People with albinism are thought to contain large amounts of power.  Because of that, it wasn't unusual for a witches to cut off limbs of people with albinism for luck.  Children were often accused of witchcraft if they had mental illnesses.  Some were sent to wellness centers to get rid of their witchcraft ways or some were just abandoned.  There really is no solution to problems like these.  Could this continue into the future?  Most likely yes.  The idea of witchcraft is part of belief which can be main factors in some peoples lives.  If you take away people beliefs then their individual pyramids could tumble down.  And when individual pyramids fall down then society then has no base and collapses.

Is the term civilization a dead word?

During the course of the year we have been learning about civilizations in general.  In class we mostly cover on how they function in the past.  Something that is never brought up is how is civilization used in the present.  No one refers to cities or countries as civilizations.  When you look at civilizations in the past they were smaller, less civilized, and less populated then cities now.  They are referred to as smaller colonies inside countries.  But they were still groups of people living together under similar circumstances.  So why isn't the United States of America referred to as a civilization? 

 Civilization nounthe stage of human social development and organization that is considered most advanced (Definition from Webster Dictionary)  
As a member of social development thats at one of its most advanced states why are we not referred to as a civilization?  A other way to look at this I guess is that we don't know how advanced we are going to get and what other civilizations may evolve to.  So maybe we aren't called a civilization because we aren't there yet.  It really is just a question that can never be answered.  

Hurricane Katrina p1

Hurricane Katrina was a large hurricane that hit New Orleans very hard.  Something that really surprised me was that they were warned about the hurricane 3-4 days before it actually hit.  I remember this hurricane happening and my memory of it was that it hit randomly.  My question is why would they not take a hurricane like this not seriously enough even before they knew about it.  In the film we were shown even after people were warned about the hurricane, people weren't leaving.  Locals had such a strong commitment to staying with their property.  That brings up a interesting point about what are the lengths people will go through during a disaster.  Its all depending on the person.  Some people left their houses to find safety for their families and some people left because they were forced to by the emergency evacuation.  But there were still some locals usually with ancestors from the area who decided to stay.  A lot of the footage was showing people trying to exit New Orleans.  Some people were taking cars, planes, or even bikes and scooters.  They were all carrying different items.  Some families were carrying children and necessary supplies.  While other families were walking with computers, television sets, or larger pieces of furniture.  Also the places people escaped to were interesting to me.  A majority of people who couldn't get hotel rooms, or a way out of the city went to the superdome.  The superdome was said to be the only public structure that would be able to withstand high winds and rain.  All of these people resorted to safer locations and were all together with their families as opposed to the families that waited in their households right as the storm broke out.  My opinion is that when there is a disaster, you can never play it too safe.  

Epoch 3-4- 4th blog

Epoch 3 covered a massive amount of American history.  It was well written and was full of information on the history of America.  The whole epoch ends with saying that a united world, or a global world brings a consequence of world war.  In class we talked about how in a argument about a event changing history wouldn't happen again if it was prevented that first time.  Never argue the negative.  In this point it said that because of a global world, the result leads to world war.  What if the world was never united?  what if two countries grew on both sides until finally only two major civilizations were left.  Will our world ever come together as one?  Well my prediction is that in the next 1000 years, all the leaderships and democracies will form one together.  I think this because looking at the past, countries form together as times go on into larger and larger countries.  Eventually it will become one huge unite world and that is how we will face the future.  In Epoch 4 it covers World War 2 and the Cold War.  I didn't think the reading covered it enough, just skimmed the topic briefly.  It spoke more of how it begun and how it ties into the Cold War more then it actually talks about the war itself.  In this reading the opinion was strong about the bombings in 1954.  It made a big point on the Soviets opinion against the Americans.  I think that is interesting because in English we are reading about A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessings which is set in this time period. 

Epoch 3-3rd post

In the epoch it talks about how Greece became Rome to Middle Ages to Renaissance.  I thought it didnt talk enough about the technology booming in Asia and the Middle East.  While reading it I found that the reading would start with the Greeks, then bounce to Asia, then bounce back to Rome, then to Asian technology again.  I found myself being a little confused about that.  I think they should have written it as separate chain events leading up.  When it was talking about the Renaissance period I never knew that they invented the printing press.  When I picture this invention, i can imagine how much the literacy and writing rate went up.  Also materials were less expensive so more and more people became more involved with writing.  Which makes me think.  What if there was no invention of the printing press?  Then our written words wouldn't be as advanced.  Or would they be more advanced?  A outcome i could think of if what is was invented later, lets say at the end of the Renaissance period where they were more intelligent.  Then maybe the printing press would be invented in a whole knew way with more advanced ways of writing.  This could have also been a huge impact of ideas in this time era if it had happened.  In this epoch it covered a lot of time and changing between cultures.  The reason why i think that so much more about ancient cultures are condensed into one section in textbooks in general is because we don't know as much about them.  The textbooks which were more recent have more detail in them because of more recent communication from it.  All we know from ancient civilizations is artifacts and tales were told from long generations of stories.