Niger's Crop Failure

In Niger, they are facing a huge drought that is drastically affecting their economy. A lot of the crops that Niger normally produces are not growing due to the lack of water. Nearly 8 million people are affected by this drought and the UN is trying to help. They have stated that it would take nearly 13 million dollars to get the Niger crops and economy back on track, which is looking like something that cant be done. The UN is hoping they can adress this issue much earlier unlike what happened to Niger in the 1980s where millions of people died due to a drought that wasnt addressed. Niger's economy went under the tank and great controversy arose as the UN and many other nations did not act to help the Nigerians. People in Niger are only able to have about one meal a day and sometimes people dont even eat. The UN is doing everything to prevent another food crisis like they have seen in history.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8648215.stm

"Homeless good Samaritan left to die on NYC street"

I found this link to an article about a man who died on a street when he was trying to help a woman who was being attacked. He saw this woman and a man fighting and it began to get physical so this guy stepped in to help her but he ended up getting stabbed and was then laying on the side of the sidewalk. It was reported that 7 people walked by before an ambulance actually came and an hour or two had already passed and so it was too late.

I thought this was just awful because people could have had the opportunity to help but they didn't and so they basically killed him. I understand that seeing someone stabbed may be shocking but I wouldn't just leave him and walk by.

This made me think of how people judge others and how they don't always think of how they can help. Some people are too nervous to take a stand and others are too selfish to help anyone but themselves. To connect to this to history, it can sort of tie to people being to afraid to help someone who is in a different situation. In history, there have been many instances where people are not being treated fairly but the people who are treated fairly don't have the guts to stick up for the other side because they are worried that will hurt them and make them be treated unfairly. In this case, the guy was stabbed and bloody on a street and people may have been frightened that they might be killed if they helped or that the blood would get on them and cause a disease or infection. I think that someone should have helped earlier on by at least calling 911 or getting someone else to help if they couldn't. Personally, I would feel awful if I found out I could have saved someone's life but instead I chose not to be late for work or something.

Article URL:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_dying_and_ignored

UKRAINE PARLIAMENT

In this current event, ukraine was having a debate on wether or not Russia can use a naval base in their country. The president of Ukraine was explaining and describing this law as betrayal to their country and it got ugly. Fist fights were present in parliament. I think that this relates to modern world history by portraying Nationalism. The president is just trying to get the picture out that they would be betraying their own country if the law past and that the people in Ukraine should have pride in their country. It is a very controversial subject.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/27/ukraine-parliament-fight-eggs

Iran's Nuclear Threat

This article talks about the problem that I believe we have all probably heard of, and its the problem of nuclear weapons and Iran. Iran claims to not having or making any nuclear weapons, and that the Uranium is just being used for medical purposes, but other people are 100% sure that the Uranium is actually being used to develop bombs. If Iran did develop nuclear weapons they could bomb Israel, and cause a massive nuclear war. This would happen because the US is allies with Israel, and they would have to protect the Israel people. One way that this article connects to some  of the stuff that we have been learning is that it could potentially be one big war crime for Iran to break the treaty that all countries currently have.

"Muslim says mistresses are the French way of life"

This article is a case regarding a Muslim man's mistress charged a payment for driving a car with a veil because it blocks her sight. Following this, a discovery was made that the husband actually had four wives that were not under French law, but only done ritualistically. The head of the Muslim group in France, Mohammed Moussaoiu, had a meeting with the French officials to talk about the crisis. He mentioned how emphasis of the veil was not being given compared to other issues.

After reading this article, it made me think about the respect that should be given to all races of people around the world. The veil, in Islam, is very important to some women, but not all. The lady should not be charged of wearing a veil, because that is disrespect to the religion. Just like others, this women should be free to live a lifestyle she wants to. The government does not have the right to do that, unless she was actually crossing the speed limit during driving. We are all the same people, its just the factor of religion that draws a border among us. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100426/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_forbidding_the_veil;_ylt=AqApG9ayOY0FRjhFr2_DhYNvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTMyNnY0NTlzBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNDI2L2V1X2ZyYW5jZV9mb3JiaWRkaW5nX3RoZV92ZWlsBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN5bl9hcnRpY2xlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDbXVzbGltc2F5c21p

 

'I can't afford surgery in the U.S.,' says bargain shopper

An Indiana man needed surgery on his nose, but could not find a hospital that would do it for less than $33,000. So, he looked for surgeons in other places and found that he could save about $30,000 by traveling to the UK. The number of people traveling outside the US to get medical assistance is greatly climbing as prices for medical aid continue to rise in the US. This trend can relate to many times in the past where trade with other nations became necessary during times of hyperinflation or general economic struggle. This also benefits less wealthy countries by giving them more business and allowing them to have a chance to bounce back from their financial deficit.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/26/cheaper.surgery/index.html?hpt=C1

Mao: His Impact and Leadership

Some of the main issues that caused a downfall for China were mostly tied to Mao who was for Communism. He thought that everyone should work together and that way they could over power the United States. He tried to get involved in the Korean war but many thousands of soldiers died. He also tried what he called the Great Leap which ironically caused them to fall or go backwards. He wanted everyone to work together so that they could "surpass America" by killing the sparrows because they ate some of their grain. Mao didn't really think of the "then what" or what came after he killed the sparrows. What ended up happening was that then there were too many insects and they ended up eating a lot of the grain which cause a famine. Mao failed to think ahead and that is why many of his ideas were failures. The plan sounded great the problem resulted after the plan had been achieved. Like when he tried to increase harvests. He thought that having people work harder would make them produce more and indeed it did, but it was more of a unrealistic competition. They would say they would produce a ton and so the government would take that as a promise that they could collect a certain amount of what they were going to produce. But when it came time for the government to collect, they hadn't produced what they thought they would and so the government would take what they were promised and left the country workers with nothing.

Mao had great ideas like getting them motivated with competition and to work together to be more efficient, but as I have said before it only lead to disaster. Mao wasn't a good leader in the sense that he didn't think ahead. He thought of what they could do at that moment and then he would try it out. He experimented but it was like testing ideas with people's lives. If his plan failed, which most of them sort of did, then lots of people would die. He was not aware that some many people of the country side were dying when they were supposed to be prospering because of the hypothetical amounts of grain. But the people were actually dying of starvation. A leader needs to be in contact with all the different parts of land and all the different kinds of people, that way he can prevent a chain of deaths from starvation. A leader also needs to be able to think ahead of what could happen if I did this, or what might go wrong and if it does go wrong what can I do to help the people. I think he was so consumed in his own ideas that he got overwhelmed with how well he thought things would turn out.

Who was involved with the Korean War

On June 25, 1950 the Korean war reached the climax of the battle. Once North Korea bombarded and invaded South Korea the finances and other countries began to get in the middle of the war. The US and UN helped North Korea with the chaotic army. Since World War II ended about five years after the US had a lot of military material which was helpful for the korean army because their weapons were up to date and powerful, Airplanes, machinery. Because the UN army swiftly moved through North Korea, China jumped ship thinking it would be a careless win, however the soviet union was not as willing to join the war. In the middle of the war the South Koreans fought back and pushed them back making china "give up" essentially. The US army became even more stronger and powerful but very expensive. The war came to closure on July 27, 1953, the USSR concluded it was a waste of financial resources and needed to end. It was considered a waste for four decades, until they were able to make up for all the wasted money.

The Holocaust from the eyes of a German

When I was researching what about the Holocaust I wanted to blog about, I was thinking about my Grandma who grew up in Germany during the time. I came up with a question, should she have to take the blame for what her country did? I think that even since she lived there, she should take the blame because of what some of the people in her country did. She was not involved and did not want anything to do with it. But usually when people say they are German the first thing that comes to mind is the Holocaust. How can these people take the blame if they had nothing to do with it. However the actions that Hitler took to exterminate the Jews was to a certain extent of being endlessly cruel and not needed. When talking to my grandma about this she said that the time during the Holocaust was so sad and depressing she didn't know how to go on living normally. She said all the test they did to find out if the people were jewish or not was unnecessary and horrible. One time they measured her nose, but her blond hair and blue eyes meant she was a dominate German(I think they checked her records too). To this day she has the horrible image of the Jews being taken away to camps and then hearing about what they did. However she still is proud of the fact that she is German but wished the Holocaust never occurred.

War Crimes

The Holocausts, around 1933-1945, were one of the biggest war crimes ever committed throughout history. The killing of about 6 million innocent Jews just because of prejudice is not fair at all. The way many of these people died is also a big crime. Burning someone, or starving someone to death is really unethical and torturous. All of this was done to satisfy only one person which is the worst part of this all.

The Atomic Bomb was also a war crime because it murdered thousands of innocent civilians. It would have been better for the US to just fight them without the use of this bomb, because Innocent women and children would have most likely been safe. If the US would have just fought them without the bomb, they would have avoided the extensive Cold War that came as a result of them dropping the bomb.

Who is responsible in a war crime?

I researched more when I got home about who is responsible in war crimes and why more people should feel bad for the actions that they pursue in a crime. War crimes were happening all over the world during World War II and many followers of the Nazi Party took place in the killing of the Jews. We read a document written in the point of view of one of the Nazi commanders. He states that he was in great pain seeing these children and men suffering and having to be burned alive and dying in the gas chambers. If he felt any sympathy towards them, he would be killed as well. Back to the idea of who is responsible for the war crime, I would say that anyone who lets or does the duty of killing is considered responsible. It doesn't matter if you didn't help with the actual killing, but if you witnessed the scene you are held responsible. The Nazi commander did not think he was responsible for anything since he just gave the order to have someone kill the Jews, but in reality he could have stopped this and it wouldn't have been a war crime anymore.

Who started the Cold War

I think that although America may have over reacted to the soviets stuborness in trying to convert european countries to communism, it is the soviets that started the cold war. Its understandable after all of the losses that Russia went through in both World War I and II, that is not enough justification to split up Germany half of it being trapped into a third world country. Families were seperated for generations after the berlin wall was put up and the boundry between eastern and western Germany. Russian claimed that it was stopping germany from the terror of imperialism, but the allies let Germany become independent much before the Soviets let Eastern Germany gain its independence. I think that America was quite clear that it was nuclear weapons, and Russia never revealed whether it did or not. Furthermore, Russia tried to take over a bunch of Nazi war factories after the war was over. This to me at least seems very wrong, these were factories not even in Russia built to kill millions and millions of innocent people. America communicated with the rest of the world, or at least european nations, while Russia became extremely secretive. ONly increasing America's suspicion and paranioa of the Soviets.

Cause of WWII

I believe that the cause of the first world war was Germany's expansion. At first when it took over the Rhineland, it was as though Germany was testing the waters to see how far the western powers would let them go. They had already broken the treaty of versai by no longer paying the war indemnities and raising a large army, and now they were taking land that was given to Fracne through that treaty. The western powers let them have. Then germany wanted Austria and then Czechleslavokia and then Poland. It was the need for expansions, their goal of being like the British Empire that caused word war one. Germany would never stop growing and so the western powers had to put a stop to it when they finally invaded Belgium and then France.

Eugenics

Eugenics is the practice of selective breeding towards humans. It has a lot to do with the theory of natural selection. Society aims to protect the weak and underprivileged, and help keep them alive. Natural selection says that only the strongest and best survive, so by protecting the week, society is essentially going against the natural process, and keeping mankind from becoming stronger. Eugenics does the opposite, it aims to improve the gene pool by any means necessary. One example of eugenics in the 1900s was the holocaust. The Nazi felt that mankind must continue moving forward. The Nazi Germans wanted to be the strongest of the human race, and they wanted to rid the human race of any weakness. They began to identify any races that they felt were inferior, and exterminate them. They decided that the Jewish must be eliminated, so they began mercilessly murdering Jewish people. it was a ruthless genocide. They also began trying to breed perfect humans to enroll in their army. Strong healthy males would breed with strong healthy females in am attempt to create the ideal human being.

Freud- Id, Ego, Superego

In the video we learned about Freud and his ideas about our unconscious mind. He talked about how people wanted to kill their father because they were jealous of them because they really liked their mother. That is kind of gross to think about. Many people of that time agreed and were very disturbed by the thought of his ideas. He came up with the terms id, ego, and superego. Id is the "pleasure" part of our minds and is what we want. Ego is the "reality" part which thinks of the real world and takes into consideration the id perception and tries to figure out if it works. When thinking of reality, it considers the fact that other people have wants too and so you can't be selfish because that hurts others.. Finally, superego is the part that tries to balance the two and considers the moral parts of situations. In the movie, id was sort of seen as the red, and "evil" figure or part of your mind. It was thinking of the person's wants and would set everything else aside to achieve those wants. ID being red could be seen as a devil sort of figure. Ego was seen as the white, angelic character, considers the reality situation and it talks about what the person can do and what will hurt others. Id is selfish while ego is considerate of other and how the person's actions will effect his or hers surroundings. Superego tries to balance both of those. People sometimes think of the superego as your conscience. It tells you what is right or wrong. Consciences tend to hold onto the bad things that you do and they bug you until you fix them. The superego is what tries to balance what you want so you are satisfied but also at the same time making sure that other people are content. These were very obscure and unsettling ideas at the time, and given the father mother situation, still today they may upset people. Here is the video from Youtube that we watched in class if you would live to watch it.

Video

Sites:

http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html

Class on Friday

Kodak Camera vs Paintings

"You press the button, we do the rest." Creator of Kodak cameras, George Eastman said this in 1888. Cameras were only available to professional photographers, but Eastman created a kodak film roll that can take about 100 exposures. This way, even regular people can take advantage of the camera and carry it around in their hands. The customer uses the kodak camera and returns it to the company to receive clear prints. 

If a camera can capture images perfectly, then what is the point of art? When new technology and advancements were made, there was a talk about how photography might take over the beauty of art. A photograph gives you an image of the real world, while art is all about color and interpretation in one artists mind. In the image above, you can see how the photograph is very dull but realistic. The painting seems to have a unique creativity that the artist chose himself. It has color and idea to it by changing its style. 

http://lcni.uoregon.edu/~mark/Marks_photos/stereo_pairs/Apollo_moon/as12-49-7318_AstroOptiMax_comparison.jpg

Monet, the Impressionists

Monet was an impressionist in the mid-late 1800s. HIs paintings include Sunrise, Water Lillies, The poppies, and many others. Unlike other painters of his time, the impressionists would paint what they saw around them instead of copying from old paintings at the Louvre. Monet charmed his way into getting food and clothing while living in Paris and he eventually moved to Giverny. There he lived with all of his children and his 2nd wifes children, making it so that about 10 kids were running around. Monet created a remarkable garden for himself. This is wear he painted Water LIllies which to this day remains one of his most famous paintings, and an extremely well known picture in itself. He has rows of flower with sunflowers next to hibiscus, making a very diverse and beautiful garden. The most beautiful part of the garden in my opinion is the Water LIllies. He has Japanese bridges and a stream runs around all of it. The famous boat in his pictures is still there as well. (picture from http://www.allmonet.com/1%20Water-Lily_Pond__1897-1899.jpg) Most people hated Monet's pictures because they thought they looked so sloppy. Monet did find various customers in France who bought his work and kept him afloat. Clearly with such a nice in Giverny his work was somewhat appreciated, but most of the other impressionists never got to that point in their life-time. During the begining of MOnet's career, after attending well-renown painting schools the majority of France rejected all of Monet's paintings and he was not chosen to display paintings in the major auctions, museums, and collection locations in France.

The Na'vi

Na'vi flag of Ewya

The four stars on the right side represent the four clans of the Na'vi. The blue background represents the color of our skin. The tree in the middle is what we call home tree and it is where we live and where our culture is based. The red triangles make it look kinda cool and serve no purpose whatsoever. The black and white circles represent our peace with between the good and bad in nature and our unity with nature and our home tree.

National Anthem:

O land of the Na'vi, of rivers and plains;
Made rich by the sunshine, and lush by the rains,
Set gem like and fair, between mountains and sea,
Your children salute you, dear land of the free!

Green land of Pandora, our heroes of yore,
Both bondsmen and free, laid their bones on your shore.
This soil so they hallowed, and from them are we,
All sons of one Mother, Pandora the free!!

Great land of Earth, diverse though our strains,
We are born of their sacrifice, heirs of their pains,
And ours is the glory their eyes did not see,
One land of two peoples, united and free!

Dear land of Earth, to you will we give,
Our homage, our service, each day that we live;
We guard you, great Eywa, and make us to be
More worthy our heritage, land of the free!

http://naviblue.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=122&start=10

National History:
We are known as the Na’vi. Our nation is located on the eastern coast of what is know Brazil, but we are spread out all across South America. There are 4 major tribes that fall under our nation, each one having its own unique dynamic that makes the Na’vi so powerful and diverse. The first tribe is known as the Omaticaya. The capital of the Na’vi empire is located in the center of the Omaticaya tribe in the dense forests of Brazil. We live in what we call the Hometree were everyone in the tribe is located. We all live in this tree because it enables us to connect with the one thing we value most, and this is our bond with nature. We feel that all beings including animals, plants, and humans are all connected and share one common bond. We feel that you should try and differ yourself from your common being but try and be with them. Some ways we try and make ourselves one with our planet is we wear minimal clothes. This helps be as much part as the Earth as the animals we live with. The only time we use accessories is when we go into battle, which has only been one time in our history. This is when the British came over to our homeland and tried to change our ways. They wanted to bring us new technology that would diversify ourselves from nature. They insisted on bringing new technology and even diseases to us, we resisted. We then summoned all 4 tribes of the Na’vi to fight off the evil Englishmen and were able to defeat them fairly easily. This truly send a message to the rest of the world that our land was not going to be taken over and we were not open to this outside influences that wanted to change our ways. We then broke back into our four tribes and went on with living our way of life.

One thing that is very unique to our people that no other nation obtains is our special bond we have with nature. We strongly believe in a secret bond that we share with all organisms and this helps us be that much more with our Mother Earth. This is a special ritual we do and accomplish this ritual by putting our feet in the roots of the plants. These plants then give us the nutrients that help them survive and let us be even more one with the world. We do this with animals by taming them completely and being able to rid the animals across the plains of Nagat. When we able to accomplish this, we are accepted into manhood because our Mother has accepted us as part of her. Our Mother is also called Ewya by our people and it is what we value most in We believe that all creatures on Earth’s fate is controlled by the sentient intelligence Ewya. We have no choice but to live in harmony and natural equilibrium with their surroundings. If we become too numerous, Eywa will devise a way to limit their numbers before they cause an ecological imbalance. Over the years of our existence as a nation, we have a healthy respect for their surrounding environment. In return, the environment has provided them with sufficient food and shelter, creatures to ride for ground and air transportation, and an ambient, comfortable temperature throughout one creature, but only for the balance of nature.

At first we were willing to interact with humans, but after concluding that humans had nothing of value to offer to them, they break off contact and start engaging in guerrilla warfare to resist the human's mining operations. The Na'vi have no far-reaching political structures on the scale of nation-states, but are organized into relatively structured clans. Occasionally different clans from far-reaching areas will cooperate in times of great crisis.

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na'vi_language

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Na'vi

Alliances and Connections:

Christmas town to Christmas land

Flag:


Anthem:


National History:

Halloween town was at the top of the world. Everyone knew about Halloween town; they had the best exported items, they had the money to buy anything in the world they wanted, and they even had possession of 4 different holidays (countries). Christmas town was a branch off from Halloween town, they were more peaceful and respectful rather than Halloween town. They didn't like fighting, but they were very patriotic and nationalistic. Over the course of 100 years, Halloween town became very needy and greedy. They started taking things from Christmas town and Easter town more than usual. They never asked or told the towns what they were taking, they would just TAKE. Christmas town was getting tired of being the nice one and decided the rebel. Even though it was going against their way to break the peace, they were being treated unfairly and they did not like that more than anything. Christmas town finally won after a long hard battle and was could finally become their own nation. As a part of their emancipation, they called themselves Christmas land. A new nation deserves a new name. I compared this "becoming a nation" to how USA broke off from Britain. They didn't like how the British were taxing them, so they decided to rebel. Both cases the weaker nation was treated unfairly and in order to be your own nation, you have to govern yourself.

Alliances and Connections

Elle, Kaitlin and I decided to make our nation named Christmas Tree Land. It is in the North Pole so therefore we decided to be allies with Europe, Canada, and Russia. We are very open to new cultures or different people. We have our own traditions but we are open to new options and suggestions because we try to have open views. Europe had part of the Ottoman rule which was very strong for a long time. Europe also had the rising Scandinavian Countries which were very strong and had powerful nationalism. We also have powerful nationalism and we take pride in what we do. We would be alliances with Canada because they are a big country and Russia is as well. The North Pole being relatively empty and weak needs those bigger nations and countries to help us when we need protection.

Pacifica

National Flag:

National Anthem:
Pacifica is so profound,
Battling the torment of our brotherʼs ground,
And as our city bells do sound,
Weʼll keep living on this world around.

National Culture of Pacifica
Pacifica has a free-form government and is very accepting of all races and religions. The only times we draw the line is when one forces religion on another. We have a very diverse palette of languages ranging from English, Spanish, French, and more. Our dominant language is English, due to the large percentage of our people previously being American. But when we broke off we did not lose the cultures that the US had, we simply added the other cultures. Holidays that were once practiced in the US are still practiced in Pacifica, but we do not make them mandatory. We still appreciate the efforts that brought the 50 states together, only now we thank them as a separate nation. Everyday life in Pacifica is fairly similar to the lives of most Californians. But we have tried to create eco-friendly communities and have self sufficient cities. We do not want to be forced into trades by other nations, but rather only export specialty goods. Being small in size, we do not have much to offer, but just like Japan and China, we have a large threshold for learning, and we will stop at nothing.

National History
Our nation is called Pacifica, our nation grew out of California and are located in the Bay Area. Unlike the Ottomans who became chunks and had its down fall, we became a very successful nation. Pacificans broke off from the US and bought the land that way we could build our own laws. We believed US was too independent, we wanted to build a strong bond between the rest of the Americas and maybe even the world. When we saw that Canada was lending out a hand to us, we immediately took it and that was our first step as a nation. Canada helped us with resources because the US was furious with our actions and henceforth they cut all connections between us at the time. After some years Mexico decided to take arms with us because they saw our prosperity. Also they people of Mexico were considered inferior and the idea of acceptance of all appealed to them. Not long afterward the US gave in to the Pacificans as allies and they became one of our strongest allies. We do not resemble other nations like China, because when they wanted to close their doors to westernization and make China for the Chinese they fell profusely. We instead do the opposite. We open our arms to the foreign allowing us to prosper because we have learned that we can prosper better as one. That is why our allies are so strong, since we have accepted them.


Allies and Connections
The main 3 allies are Canada, Mexico, and the United States. All four of us are on the same continent of North America, so it makes great sense for us to be friends. We watch everyone's back. If one of us is at war, we are at war. We watch our borders to the West, Canada to the North, the United States to the East, and Mexico to the South. All four of us are allied nations. We could be compared to brothers and sisters. Together we are the nations of the future. None of us can do it alone. Each and every one of us is necessary for this equation. If one of us backs out, in essence we all back out. Together we shall prevail, and alone we shall die.