What is Power?

Power can be defined in many ways. My definition of power is when one person or group in a certain area that has more privileges than others and uses them to their advantage over everybody else. Over the course of this year, I have learned that power can be expressed through different actions. Three events in history that really defined and showed me what power really is were Imperialism in Africa, World War 2, and the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Revolution displayed a lot of power within it. My definition of power is shown a lot during this event and I can tell for a few reasons. One is that the upper class which was basically Tsar Nicolas II. During his rule he didn’t help Russia succeed in fact he brought it down. He gave the citizens of Russia bad living conditions and not many rights leading to inequality. The Tsar was influences by a man named Rasputin and under his wife’s control. This man with all the power over the country wasn’t doing anything at all. This lead to the Russian Revolution where there was lots of power in it.

Imperialism in Africa also displayed a lot of power during it. The British had all of the power while the Africans were under them. The British used their power to make the Africans their slaves and work for them. Since they had power, they were free to take any of the materials and important resources that they wanted. In return, however, they did give them school and jobs to help them survive.

During World War II, in Germany, the person with all of the power was Adolf Hitler. He started a group called the Nazis which was short for Nationalsozialists. World War II was from 1939 to 1945. Hitler and the Nazis used the technique OF Genocide during this time. First they used classification and discriminated the Jewish, gypsies, and other people by making them stand out wearing a star on the head. They dehumanized those people treating them like they were objects. After, they killed anybody who went against them, they used the process of denial so they wouldn’t get into any trouble.

So, altogether, I feel that power really is when one person or group in a certain area that has more privileges than others and uses them to their advantage over everybody else. Even though it may have its negative effects there are also positive effects that benefit others as well.

The Giver: Power or Control?

Throughout the book, The Giver, I identified the main theme as control. I say this for many reasons. One is that everyone in Jonas's community is being controlled by the Chief Elders. Their whole lives are being controlled and they don't even know. The Elders choose everything; gifts they get each year, their Assignment(job), who they marry, and one other is when to be released (killed) from the Community. They have no say in anything, but the good thing about that is that they don't know that they are being controlled. The only people aside from the Elders who know what is going on are Jonas and the Giver. Jonas knows that everything is wrong and really wants to help. He is very mad about this situation and doesn't like anything. On page 144, Jonas is talking to the Giver about what is going on.

Net Effect of Globalization

PROS:

• companies get cheaper labor
• more work gets done because of large population in poorer countries
  
• more people have the opportunity to get a job

CONS:

• people lose their jobs to others in a poorer country
• when people lose jobs, they have less money
• in order for some to get their job back, they must travel to apoorer country

So, overall, globalization has its pros and cons so it has good benifits and disadvantages.

Population Project: Thoughts

In my opinion, the three most valuable things I learned from The Population Project process are:

1. That due dates are very important and work needs to be turned in at a certain time or it is not graded. This can help me in the future because it will give me a stronger motivation to do work properly and on time.
2. How to write a proper data analysis, research paper, and create a digital story with information that says the same thing in a different way. This will help me in the future because I will know how to change my ideas around in a new and creative way.
   
3. That even though the population in India has been increasing, but at the same time diseases or otherwise my topic, infant mortality, has been decreasing. This will help me in the future because now I now that even a small contribution can help. This will motivate me more to help.

Overall, I can tell that the Population Project has really helped me understand the problems in India and how to solve them.

Technology and School

What are the main visual elements?

The main visual elements are the family of three sitting eating dinner. The son is in the middle and his parents are asking how his school day was.

What issue is this cartoon about?
This cartoon is about how technology takes over kid's lives and is used as a substitution for speaking instead. The parents are asking the son how his day went and he obviously said something like this, "Instead of me telling you how my day went you can just read my blog and find out." The parents don't like how their kids are becoming lazy.

What is the cartoonist’s opinion on this issue?

The cartoonist's opinion is that us students should spend so much time on computers and other technologies when we should spend it on doing school work and playing outside or other sports. If a kid goes to the extent to say that my school day description is on my blog it means that computers are consuming us.

What evidence in the cartoon supports your opinion on how the cartoonist feels?

The evidence in the cartoon that supports the cartoonist's opinion is the look on the boy's parent's faces; they look dumbfounded. They are surprised that their kid has a blog to skip the retelling of the school day. They are also surprised that their child is very connected to the computer and have no other life besides it.

Why is this cartoon ironic?

The two main reasons that this cartoon is ironic are:

• Kids that age don't usually have a blog; I am thirteen and I don't have a blog unrelated to school
• If kids had a blog, then they don't usually tell their parent's to check their blog
  

How does this cartoon relate to our study of technology and the future?

This cartoon relates to our study of technology because it shows us how the people of this generation are overusing the internet for unneeded things like blogs about our school day. They could be used for reference, but the intention was not to make a person become lazy.

What other techniques could the cartoonist have used to make this cartoon more persuasive?

I think that the only thing that tell me about the cartoon are the words. To make it more persuasive, the cartoonist could have made the parent's expressions a little more surprised and have the son have his chin on his hands to show he is too lazy to tell his parents about his day.

Population Project: Schedule

This week in Humanties class, we have time to work on our population project. So this is my outline plan of what I plan to do this week:

Monday:
Make outline of Data Analysis and draft first paragraph (with citations).
Write outline of research paper.

Tuesday:
Edit first paragraph of Data Analysis and draft second paragraph (with citations).
Draft first paragraph of research paper (with citations).

Wednesday:
Edit second paragraph of Data Analysis and draft third paragraph (with citations).
Edit first paragraph of research paper and draft second and third paragraph (with citations).

Thursday:
Edit paragraph of Data Analysis (with citations) and if possible begin fourth paragraph.
If time, edit second/third paragraph of research paper.

Friday:
Edit fourth paragraph and get a good start on fifth.
Draft fourth(or if worked on at home maybe fifth) paragraph of research paper.

Technology and the Present

1. What is technology?
Technology is, objects being created for people or animals made to make processes quicker.

2. What are the 5 most and 5 least important technologies used today?
The five most important technologies used today are, computers, cell phones, iPods (mp3 players), television, and air conditioners. The five least important technologies today are Smart Boards, hair dryers, light up shoes, automatic sliding doors, and coffee makers.

3. How do you feel about the amount of and use of technology at AES?
I think that the technology at AES is overused because people use it even when not needed. They have the light on even when there is enough coming from the window.

Technology and Kurt Vonnegut

“Do you know what a Luddite is? That’s a person who doesn’t like newfangled contraptions. Contraptions like nuclear submarines armed with Poseidon missiles that have H-bombs in their warheads, and like computers that cheat you out of becoming. Bill Gates says, “Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming. What you can become is the miracle you were born to work—not the damn fool computer.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

I agree with this statement because technology is something that does stuff for you. I do agree that it is helpful and gets work done faster and neater. But, I prefer to hand write everything. And if you think about back in the day when people did not have or even know about computers and they were fine. So, if we did not know about technology, life would be different. And when you say, "I wrote this paper for my Humanities class," technically, you didn't; the computer. It was just your ideas and you pushing the keys, but the computer is the object making it all work. I would not consider myself a Luddite, because computers are helpful, but I say that we could do without them.

Quarter 3 Feedback/ New Goals- Quarter 4

My goals for 3rd quarter were:

• To do my homework the night it was assigned, so I wouldn't have a load the night before.

• To add more detail and voice into my writing pieces. I would be able to know if I improved if I could picture what I was describing very clearly.
  

• To improve my geography skills. I would know if I improved if in TMTU questions.

My goals for Quarter 3 were not exactly met. There were sometime I didn't do my HW on the night it was given. We didn't actually do writing this quarter so I couldn't tell. Also, my geography hasn't improve. I know this because in TMTUs I didn't improve the amount of right answers
My goals for quarter 4 are:

• To make sure I do my homework on the night it's assigned. And if I have a project I should work on it during the course of several days
• To learn how to paraphrase better
• To make my writing pieces more descriptive and add imagery to them

Is Holy War an Oxymoron??

An oxymoron is two words that don’t belong being used together. Why is the phrase “Holy War” an oxymoron? Why is it that so many conflicts in the world today are based upon religious differences yet all major world religions condemn killing?

I think that "Holy War" is an oxymoron the two words, holy and war, just don't go together. I say that war can never be holy it doesn't help anyone in any way shape or form, just destructs our economy and wonderful land. People think that war is the solution to all off of our conflicts with others. Some war world peace, but that can never happen with all this fighting going on. War also ends friendships between countries that may have been on good terms. So many conflicts are about conflicts, because many believe that their religion is the best and feel that it should be spread all over the world.