BP oil spill / Getting of the oil addiction

Rachel Maddow -
The Gulf of Mexico

The oil spill in the gilf of Mexico is simmiler to the oil spill in 1979. The oil company is using the SAME method that FAILED 30 years ago. All they increased in 30 years is the risk of spilling the oil by drilling deeper in to the earth. The oil company says they have advanced techonology... ON DRILLING AND INCREASING THE DANGERS! The oil company have NOTHING, NO PROTECTION ON OIL SPILLS! They are waisting time on putting out nets to cach the oil, the nets only catch the oils that are floating on the surface, and most of the oil is deep down on the sea surface.

It is the breeding sesons for some animals in the Gulf of Mexico, and lots of fish, birds, animals are dying in that place. The oil company puts toxins to eat the oil, the oil KILLS the animals because the toxin in side making it more posinous!! The infected birds mostly seagulls, spread the toxin around the earth when they migrate!

All the Invisible Children-1st Story Tanza:

What happened: Their group of people was walking through the Wheat fields when a jeep drived by and stoped. A few solders step out, and walked twards them. The group of people fired their Ak-47 and the battle started. In the end, they defeated the solders, but one of their group mates died. The group contunue on with out him. They continue and climbed up a mountain. Under the mountain they found a vilage.
One of the boys is sent to bomb the vilage, but when he got there he is conforted by the classroom and difused the bomb.

What I think: I am guessing that the boy had a bad childhood, and want revenge, but he is touched by the class room when he saw the words on the blackboard. The boy, in my opinion, the boy had a good heart, but was mabye stloen from his home. Then he was talt bad things, etc...

Avatar thing

1. The story in Avatar is really based on the age old story of colonization. Describe why Jake's colleagues want to destroy the tree the Navi live in. Do they realize that destroying the tree essentially destroys the Navi's habitat? Why or why not?

Jake’s colleagues want to destroy the tree the Navi live in because they want to get the valuable mineral called unobtanium. They believe there is a lot of that mineral under the tree. Jake’s colleagues know that destroying the tree will destroy the Navi’s habitat because Dr. Grace told them the tree is the network for connecting Pandoran organisms but they pretend like they do not know.

2. Describe a similar conflict from history.

A similar conflict from history is when America first became a colony of the England. The early immigrants had conflict with the Native Americans at the time. The European immigrants wanted the Native Americans to adapt to the European culture and religion. This caused a lot of conflicts between the two group of people.

3. Describe a similar conflict that is happening in the world today.

Some people believe a similar conflict that is happening in the world today may be the United States war with Iraq. The United States attacked Iraq because they wanted to destroy the weapon of mass destruction. But no weapon of mass destruction was found and there is a very valuable resource in Iraq, oil.

For an A+
What is the relationship between the Navi and nature? What is our modern society's relationship to nature? Do you think modern society can help save the environment by adapting some of the attitudes towards nature that native cultures (like the fictitious Navi) have? Why or why not?

The Navi blends them selves in to the Nature and they respect the nature very much. Our modern society’s relationship to nature is that we don’t care very much about the nature. Many new technologies are causing pollutions that are hurting the nature. I think modern society can help save the environment by adapting some of the attitudes towards nature that native cultures have because they respect the nature more. They live with the nature and they understand that everything comes from the nature.

Shop till you drop!

HOMEWORK DUE FRIDAY 8:20AM:
Reflect (think) back on our in-class activity and answer the following questions in your blogs:
• How did it feel to have more or less money than other people in the class?
It feels like that life is harder than others, and watch richer people have TV's Radios..... It is TORTURE!
How did it feel to see what you could and could not afford at the Global Mall?
Oh My Gowd! Every thing is soooo expensive! I want this, I want that, but I cant afford it!!
• How many of you could not afford education? What would your lives be like if you could not go to school?
Most of us... I would be dumb... not knowing about the world, and think that the world is flat.... , a life without science.....
• How would it feel to have to choose between food and health care?
I would choose food, because it can give us energy, plus our bodies can fix our self.
• How many of you have ever been very sick or gone to a hospital or had friends and family who have? What would your life be like now if you had been unable to get medical care?
I don't know about others, but I have, if I don't get medical care, I will die.
• What were the impacts caused by people with fewer Global Mall Dollars, and what were the impacts caused by people with more Global Mall Dollars?
The impacts caused by poor people like us is a lot less than the rich people. Because we poor people uses less stuff, so we make less pollution.

What I would like to do to help people suffering from global warming

I would like to turn off my lights for half an hour, ride more bicycles, don't eat junk food(because of the paper and plastic rapping and makes you fat), ride busses/trains, put a big size rock at the bottom of the tank at the back of the toilet(to save water when flushing), use less A.C/heater, don't waist paper towels, and much much more!....

P.S sorry! I forgot to make it in to a letter! I'll do it tomorrow! and the other two blog thing too!

What Feel about listening to your presentation

I fell sad when I found out that people are suffering because of us. They are suffering because we are making too much pollution with cars power plants fridges and a lot more... I also dislike the countries that their goverment don't want to save the Kiribati people.

Something that is hard to forget

I can't forget how curl some countries are... They prefer to let other people die and suffer?? They don't want to help because it will effect their money? It's like if you save a penny(witch looks very small) for a hundred billion times, you will get a lot of money! And you can't use money to buy lost life, if we all stop using the lights for half an hour the power plants won't have to produce that much co2.(witch can save the Kirabati people)

What I learned about Kiribati

1. Kiribati is a small group of islands in the South China Sea, and is south of Hawaii. It is made out of three groups of 33 small islands. The population in Kiribati is around 100,000 people. They believe they exists around 3000 years ago, they originated from Micronesian people. Historians said that Micronesian people came from a tribe in China. Kiribati has there own language, their second language is English because their colonized by the British Empire. Environmental experts said that Kiribati will disappear in 50 years, it will disappear sooner if we continue to cause global warming. The people of Kiribati rely a lot on the sea, but the sea is attacking Kiribati caused by global warming. Kiribati is made out of coral islands, thats why there is not a lot of plants or trees. that industries are dying because there is no pure water and there is no land to hold upon. Sometimes it doesn't rain for three years and it cause the plants and people to die... They start to depend on rain water when the water wells are contaminated with salt water. Salt water is making farming almost impossible. Hotter weather makes the fishes go deeper in to the to be out of the sun or for cooler water, it makes fishing harder too. The sea is getting higher, so the people live close to the sea has to move their house. The highest point on Kiribati is 2 meters above sea level! The government of Kiribati is trying to save his country by asking other big, rich, and developed countries such as the U.S.A to produce less co2. Those country respond by not responding....(Is it funny?) The Government of Kiribati is also asking for other countries to migrate people from Kiribati in to their country. But some people don't want to leave their land because their ancestors fought for it, so they have to fight for their land too.

Notes:What Does a Good Citizen Look Like?

What Does the Good Citizen Look Like?

A. Introduction

1. Define: Citizen

Good citizens are mindful of and even zealous about the common good. Being a citizen should not be a matter of "I'll get what I can for myself, and I don't care what it costs others". Citizens should be willingly in compliance with the law and should consider it a privilege to take part in the system when appropriate.

Minimal duties

• Voting is a privilege of citizenship but it is not required. This is in contrast to nations like Belgium where citizens can be fined for failing to vote. Still, many citizens continue to vote. Historically, voting rates in presidential elections by eligible citizens hover around the 50% level, although the recent election of Barack Obama in 2008 saw levels rise over 60%. Legal immigrants are sometimes motivated to become citizens for a chance to exercise voting power.

• Civic participation is not required in the United States. There is no requirement to attend town meetings, read newspapers, stay informed about issues, belong to a political party, or write letters; citizens can stay home and do nothing if they choose. One source suggested that a benefit of naturalization is letting immigrants "participate fully in the civic life of the country." However, the general pattern is for most Americans to avoid politics. There is disagreement about whether popular lack of involvement in politics is helpful or harmful. Vanderbilt professor Dana D. Nelson suggests that most Americans merely vote for president every four years, and that's all they do, and she sees this pattern as undemocratic. In her book Bad for Democracy, Nelson argues that declining citizen participation in politics is unhealthy for long term prospects for democracy. Generally, civic participation is almost nonexistent for wide swaths of the American public. One 2009 study found that seven in ten citizens showed "declining civic involvement" nationally, and that citizens of Illinois were "disappointed, frustrated and disillusioned by recent political scandals and the pressures of the recession." However, writers such as Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic see benefits to non-involvement; he wrote "the very indifference of most people allows for a calm and healthy political climate." Kaplan elaborated: "Apathy, after all, often means that the political situation is healthy enough to be ignored. The last thing America needs is more voters–particularly badly educated and alienated ones–with a passion for politics." He argued that civic participation, in itself, is not always a sufficient condition to bring good outcomes, and pointed to authoritarian societies such as Singapore which prospered because it had "relative safety from corruption, from breach of contract, from property expropriation, and from bureaucratic inefficiency."

• Military participation is not required in the United States. In 2009, the armed forces were made up of volunteers and contractors. But in the past, such as during World War II, citizens, particularly men, were expected to fight. During the Vietnam War, there was a highly unpopular policy of drafting men. Today, there is a professional paid military, and citizen-soldiers are not needed; Johns Hopkins political scientist Ginsberg wrote "the professional military has limited the need for citizen soldiers." It is possible, however, that in future conflicts, citizens will be required to participate in the military.

• Obeying laws is generally not considered as a duty of citizenship. Like paying taxes, people must obey laws whether they're citizens or non-citizens and if caught may be punished regardless of citizenship status. In some instances, people convicted of breaking laws have been stripped of citizenship. Breaking a law is more dangerous for non-citizens or illegal aliens, since there are fewer protections in the courts; accused felons have more difficulty applying for citizenship at a later time. And if convicted, illegal aliens face a much harsher prison environment, according to writer Tom Barry in the Boston Review. Barry suggests there is a crackdown in 2009 against illegal immigrants in which hundreds of thousands are detained in a "profit-driven public-private-prison complex."

• Jury duty was a duty of citizenship. Up until fairly recently, when a trial happened, citizens were asked to serve as jurors to listen to opposing arguments, and render a verdict. It was an important lesson in thinking and law, and gave people a chance to participate in the justice system. Today, however, there are indications jury duty is declining; there are fewer trials. Newspaper reports have chronicled the decline of juries, and noted how many people don't get summonses, and how Americans see jury duty as an "inconvenient" chore. Avoiding jury duty has rarely, if ever, caused a person to lose their citizenship. But only citizens are eligible for jury duty; illegal aliens are exempt.

• Paying taxes is not a duty of citizenship since everybody earning income in the United States, regardless of citizenship status, must pay taxes. Tax avoiders, if caught, may be prosecuted for tax evasion. Further, law requires employers to bypass workers and pay taxes directly, on behalf of the worker, to government; this practice of tax withholding began in 1943 during World War II to spare the government the fuss of hunting and prosecuting tax avoiders, while allowing government to raise income taxes to pay for an expensive war. But this practice undermined the link between voluntary tax compliance and citizenship, according to Amith Shlaes in The New York Times. Benjamin Ginsberg criticized the policy of tax withholding as undermining citizenship: "The withholding tax has made the voluntary component of tax collection much less important," he wrote, and saw it as one factor which had an effect that "Citizens have been marginalized as political actors." The requirement to pay taxes extends to American citizens who travel abroad. The US system is unique in that it taxes Americans wherever they go in the world. Since the United States requires citizens living abroad to file taxes, some Americans renounce their citizenship as a way to cope with the administrative burden of filing complex tax forms. In 2006, one former United States Marine and former resident of California bandoned U.S. citizenship discreetly while living in Switzerland; she had considered various options over 10 years, but finally decided to become an alien. In 2007, 470 Americans renounced their citizenship to move abroad. One estimate was that the numbers of Americans turning in their passports each year for political and economic reasons was small, with the numbers reaching a high of about 2,000 during a Vietnam War-era boom in the 1970s. One lawyer commented that the "administrative costs of being an American and living outside the U.S. have gone up dramatically." In 2003, there were 509 Americans who renounced citizenship. One account suggested that increased "taxation is driving many Americans to turn in their passports." But Congress passed rules to tax assets on so-called tax exiles or renunciators of American citizenship, who abandon US citizenship for tax purposes, as well as tax any heirs or beneficiaries of those people who still live in the territorial United States. According to a tax accountant, "The new rules say, if you leave any of your property to a U.S. person, it will be taxed at the rates for U.S. gift tax," which were 45% in 2008.

B.A good citizen of one’s personal community (choose between family, neighborhood, or school)

1. Kinds of communities where good citizenry needs to be practiced and the duties and responsibilities good citizens have for each community

Residential neighborhood needs good citizenry practiced. The duties and responsibilities good citizens have for neighborhoods include helping to maintain a clean and safe environment for all the residents and paying fees for serving the community.

2. Examples of people who have crossed social boundaries for the good of their communities or for humanity at large.

Martin Luther King helped to make the communities fairer for people with different backgrounds.

3. How can this knowledge make our communities better?

If people can take action to help what they know is unfair, life can be better for the community.

C.A good citizen of one’s nation

1. Social Boundaries such as cliques and discrimination in various

Cliques and discriminations may cause conflict between different groups of people in a community.

2. What does it mean to have a hidden bias?

Hidden bias means when people are discriminated for some reasons but it is not announced openly that they are discriminated.

3. What are biases and behavior that lead to discrimination?

Treating someone differently or not allowing someone to do things that others can do because of that person’s race, gender, family, etc. are biases and behavior that lead to discrimination.

4. How do we learn prejudice?

Social scientists believe children begin to acquire prejudices and stereotypes as toddlers. Many studies have shown that as early as age 3, children pick up terms of racial prejudice without really understanding their significance.

Soon, they begin to form attachments to their own group and develop negative attitudes about other racial or ethnic groups, or the "out-group". Early in life, most children acquire a full set of biases that can be observed in verbal slurs, ethnic jokes and acts of discrimination.

5. The Effects of Prejudice and Stereotypes

Hidden bias has emerged as an important clue to the disparity between public opinion, as expressed by America's creed and social goals, and the amount of discrimination that still exists.

Despite 30 years of equal-rights legislation, levels of poverty, education and success vary widely across races. Discrimination continues in housing and real estate sales, and racial profiling is a common practice, even among ordinary citizens.

Members of minorities continue to report humiliating treatment by store clerks, co-workers and police. While an African American man may dine in a fine restaurant anywhere in America, it can be embarrassing for him to attempt to flag down a taxi after that dinner.

A person who carries the stigma of group membership must be prepared for its debilitating effects.

Studies indicate that African American teenagers are aware they are stigmatized as being intellectually inferior and that they go to school bearing what psychologist Claude Steele has called a "burden of suspicion." Such a burden can affect their attitudes and achievement.

Similarly, studies found that when college women are reminded their group is considered bad at math, their performance may fulfill this prophecy.

These shadows hang over stigmatized people no matter their status or accomplishments. They must remain on guard and bear an additional burden that may affect their self-confidence, performance and aspirations. These stigmas have the potential to rob them of their individuality and debilitate their attempts to break out of stereotypical roles.

6. What You Can Do About Unconscious Stereotypes and Prejudice

Conscious attitudes and beliefs can change.

The negative stereotypes associated with many immigrant groups, for example, have largely disappeared over time. For African-Americans, civil rights laws forced integration and nondiscrimination, which, in turn, helped to change public opinion.

But psychologists have no ready roadmap for undoing such overt and especially hidden stereotypes and prejudices.

D.A good citizen of one’s world

1. Why is an important issue that requires active Global Citizenship?

World peace is an important issue that requires active Global Citizenship and require everyone to work together to achieve.

2. What is Global Warming or Climate Change?

Global Warming or Climate Change is a phenomenon that the world’s temperature is going up gradually because of the pollutions and industrialization caused by human beings. It is hurting the environment for everyone living on the earth.

3. What are some ways people can show good citizenship in stopping Global Warming at the local, national, and global level

People can help with Global Warming by reducing the use of natural resources. Try to waste less gas, electricity, water, etc. People can also help by trying to produce less garbage and try to use more recycled products.

E. Conclusion

The good citizen needs to have positive contribution to the community, the nation, and the world. He should do what is good for everyone and should not discriminate. The world will be a better place if everyone can be good citizens.

What does a good Citizen look like?

Being a good citizen is not like"I'll get what I can for myself, and I don't care what it costs others." Citizens should be willingly in compliance with the law and should consider it a privilege to take part in the system when appropriate.

Finishing the Minimal duties required for a citizen is another example of being a good citizen. Minimal duties include voting, civic participation, Military participation, obeying laws, jury duty, and paying taxes.

Voting is a privilege of citizenship, but it is not required. This is opposite in nations like belgium where citizens continue to vote. Historically, voting rates in presidential elections by citizens are around 50% levels, voting in 2008 the level rose to over 60%. Legal immigrants are sometimes motivated to become citizens for a chance to exercise voting power.

Civic participation is not required in the United States. There is no requirement to attend town meetings, read newspapers stay informed about issues, belong to a political party, or write letters. Citizens can stay home and do nothing if they choose. One source said that a benefit of naturalization is allowing immigrants to "participate fully in the civic live of the country." However, the general pattern is for most Americans to avoid politics. There is a disagreement about whether popular lack of involvement in politics is helpful or harmful. Vanderbilt professor Dana D.Nelson suggests that most Americans merely vote for president every four ears and that's all they do, and she sees this pattern as undemocratic. In her book bad for Democracy, Nelson argues that declining citizen participation in politics is unhealthy for long term prospects for democracy. Generally, civic participation is almost nonexistent for a wide swath of the American public. One 2009 study found that seven in ten citizens showed "declining civic involvement" nationally, and that citizens of illinois were "disappointed, frustrated and disillusioned b recent political scandals and the pressures of the recession." However, writers such as Robert D.Kaplan in the atlantic see benefits to non-involvement. He wrote the very indifference of most people allows for a clam and healthy political climate.

Avatar Blog

1. Under the Navi's tree, there is valuable rocks that produce energy. Jake's colleagues are trying to get the rocks, they have to dig out the tree to reach the rocks under the big tree. Jake's colleagues know the Navi's habitat, but they are still digging for energy rocks.

2. European colonists in the 17th century, colonize other country to make their country more powerful and also to make money in other countries.

3. Some people believe that the U.S attacked the Mideast for natural resources such as oil.

The Navi treasure their forest and all of the living things in it, they keep it clean and no tree killing. The Navi save everything about the forest that can possibly be saved. They can also connect to the trees and animals, share memories or tell the animals to do certain commands.

We humans, destory the forest and make black smoke out of the wood we get from the forest. All of it is mostly for money, natural resources.

We can adapt the Navi love towards the forest, if we love the forest we will not continue to destroy it.