April Current Events

1. Continous attacks on school students in China.

For the past month, there have been many reports of violent acts against elementary school students. Last friday, a man attacked a pre-school and violently hit 5 kids with a hammer, before setting himself on fire. They were all hospitalized, but had no life-threatening conditions. The day before that, over 28 kindergarden children were hurt after being attacked by a knife. Three of the children were killed in this incident. A few days before that, a man attacked 18 children in primary school. Police have suspects for all of these incidents, and two of them were recently executed for their actions.

This doesn't have much global significance, but hearing about these things just make me sick to my stomach. I don't see how people in the world can have no sympathy towards others and especially children who have the rest of their lives ahead of them. The man who attacked the 28 children claimed that he did it because of, "failures in his romantic life". Some people are just sick, and I don't think that the world will ever be able to get along if there are people like this still around in the world, doing these vicious things to harmless students.

2. Rescuing girls from sex slavery

This article was about a girl named Geeta who was sent to a brothel in India when she was 9 years old. She was in there for 7 years before a rescue team came in and saved her. In those brothels, she would be verbally abused, have to sleep with any of the men that came through the door, and exploit herself everyday. Her family was tricked into sending her away, by thinking that she was getting a good job that would support them. 10's of thousands of girls are trafficked like this every year. The families are tricked by sometimes people that they know and never see their girls ever again.

This is a huge issue going on in the world. Although this article only talks about the brothels in India, it is happening all over the world. People don't treat others as equal people, just things that they can sell off and make money off of them, and then get rid of them when they aren't wanted anymore. This affects so many families every year, and it is something that no family should ever have to go through. I think that people all around the world should help and try to stop these abuses and torture towards girls.

3. Oil spill in gulf is worse than thought

Gov officials have come out and said that the Oil spill that occurred in the Gulf Of Mexico is five times worse than they have predicted. Coast Guards have concluded that oil is leaking at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day; not 1,000 as they initially thought. They have set up many "in situ burns", which will prevent the oil from spreading any further.

This is important for a couple reasons. First being that we are losing gallons and gallons of oil each day in the gulf, which is paid for our economy because it will raise the price of oil, and we will need to buy even more from OPEC to make up for this loss then we already are doing. Second, the ocean life that lives in the Gulf, which is known to be some of the prettiest coral reefs in the world, are being destroyed slowly, along killing the animals that are living within them. The fresh seafood that we get from the gulf, and all of the other natural resources are slowly being ruined, and this will have a major impact on our economy when we are in need of some of these resources.

Wonders Of Africa

1. Pyramids of Giza

I didn't realize that not only there are historical pyramids in Africa, but I didn't know that it was the highest structure in the world until skyscrapers were created. When I thought of Africa I thought of tribal things and wood huts and stuff like that, nothing like great pyramids.

2. Vodou Religion

I thought it was crazy how everywhere in the world I have seen it spelled as "voodoo", when really that isn't a spelling for it. I wonder how the west got those ideas of using dolls or placing hex's, when that isn't what the religion is about at all. It seems like the west has been making fun of the practice, because we always pretend to "possess" people and not take those things seriously, where as in this religion it is a very big deal.

3. Mosque of Djenne

It's sad how myself and tons of other people don't know what kind of history and architecture Africa has. This castle-like mosque was the center of the town square for centuries. I didn't realize that Africa had ever had these kind of cities, and it lets me see the potential it has to modernize itself and become a prospering nation.

Africa - 4/29

When I first think of Africa, I think of jungle. In cartoons Africa is the place that has all of the animals and plant life. It doesn't have many mountains, and can be considered a vast plateau. I also think of a lot of terrorist and bad leadership as well. There are many terrorists who are stationed there, and end up taking control of a country's government because they rise up and become stronger than the government. I always think of the movie Blood Diamond, and that I think that is a pretty large issue still going on in Africa today. A lot of these things aren't a good way to consider Africa, because they do have many good natural resources for the world, but these are what our media portray to us and what we hear about a lot.

OBSESSION:: Radical Islam's War Against the West

I find it crazy how people can stand their with such calmness in them when they are lectured how they are going to blow themselves up. They must be so focused and don't have a fear of death, and that is why they are so dangerous to everyone. I don't see how they can go ahead and kill fellow Muslims, just because they live in peace and don't "fight" for what they believe in. I don't understand how people can have the mindset that they can just go around killing others and themselves with not having a hint of guilt shown on their face.

The Jihad is just a holy war for "Allah". They are doing this for the sake of Allah and they will fight with whatever they have. They have elementary schools kidding saying how they will fight for the sake of Allah. That is so wrong. They tell false information about the United States and manipulate the media into propaganda and this is why so many of the people are convinced that the US isn't there for good things. They are all against the Americans, English, and Israelis. They brainwash their people into thinking that they are fighting against the Iraqi people, and therefore, fighting against Islam. It is hard for me to understand this because of how I was raised and I guess the "brainwashing" that our media does to us, but it is still so hard for me to believe that little kids go around saying and actually believing that fighting and dying for Allah is their path in life.

The Arab Media does many forms of propaganda to portray the United States and Israel as people of "Satan". After 9/11, many people wondered, "Why do they hate the United States?" I don't think it was one action that makes the Islam people hate the United States. I think its the constant seeing America as Satan, and therefore having them grow up, almost brainwashed, to believe that Americans are the devils. I think that many people in the Middle East can see that, because when American troops go into Iraq and Afghanistan, for people who have never seen Americans before, they portray them as people who are fighters and killers.

There are chants and songs and raps all about the end of Americans and UK. How can people believe anything different when all of their media is about hatred, and international news can't get through to hear the other side of the story? "Allah is happy when non-believers are killed". All of this interpretation and talk from the high officials continue to brain wash their people, and it just continues the never-ending cycle of terrorism and hate.

I think that is so similar that it is scary how the world is almost repeating itself with the Nazis and the Holocaust. In this movie there are pictures and videos of little kids doing the nazi motions with their hands, handling weapons, chanting abut how they want to kill the Jews; it is all a repeat of Nazi Germany. This is so horrifying to watch because I didn't realize how bad the situation was with the hatred and wanting to kill Jews and Americans. The propaganda and tv shows that make Jews and Americans seem like people they want to kill. An expert said that they relate and it is the same hate speech, the same propaganda, and the same us vs. them. The United States and so many others around the world all say how they will never let the Holocaust repeat itself. Yet, in over 55 Muslim states, there are groups all over that are building themselves up to succeed in their goal of taking over the world with Islam and ridding it of Jews.

Can the United States Ever Win The War Against Afghanistan

I think that the war going on between the United States and Afghanistan will not end unless the United States pull out. We are fighting to save our people from getting hurt by terrorism, but the Taliban and Al Qaeda are fighting for their religion, and that is something that they won't be willing to give up. Even if we do take out Osama Bin Laden, that wouldn't help us defeat those terrorist groups, just complete one of our "goals". There is more than enough chance that someone else will rise up and take control of the groups, and that person might be even more dangerous and ruthless then Bin Laden is. If we want to "win" this war, the only thing that we can do is pull out and accept that the fact that Afghans don't want our help. I don't think that there is side who is going to "wins" this war. It is something that we had to deal with in 2001, and we did accomplish a few of our goals. But now that it is has 9 years later and thousands of U.S troops dead, this war isn't going to go anywhere and it is just two sides fighting just to fight.

Why Bush Went To War Response

I think that what Patrick Doherty brought up some very good points in his article. However, this is only his interpretation of the situation, which is definitely biased. The three main points that he choses are what I also think are the three main ones, however, I think that the Oil issue is the #1 important. Even if the other two issues didn't exist, I think there would still be all of this dispute because Oil is something that every country needs and craves for. The reason why I think that Oil lead the US into Iraq is because of the Carter Doctrine. That and the fact that Iraq had the second-largest oil reserves but couldn't exploit them, because Saddam Hussein had control over the Iraqi oil, and didn't want to increase their oil industry. The United States believed that the only option would be to seize and privatize Iraqi oil. This is what I think was the major issue that lead the United States into Iraq.

Article Responses

1. I think that America should slowly decrease it's reliance on the Middle East. Luft made a very good point by saying how every time we go to the gas station we are fueling Muslim groups who are set to destroy the United States. The solutions in his article that he listed are all very good ideas, but i believe that we should slowly start using our Alaskan Oil. We shouldn't take out a lot at once, but if we slowly use it, and we can cut down the prices so they are reasonable and OPEC doesn't have all the control over exporting petroleum, we would be in a lot better of a situation.

2. The United States needs to be concerned with the growing water issue in the Middle East because, as of now, that is where we get almost all of our oil from. Water is used to make oil, and without water, there wouldn't be nearly if not any oil that could be used for energy. With the Middle East's population continuously growing, and it being an almost all-desert area, Broderick says that we can most likely predict that there will be water-shortages in 2/3 of the population in 2025. As this happens, oil prices will sky rocket because it will cost more and more to import the water to use to make the oil, and then export the oil. Overall, if the Middle East suffers from water loss, so will the United States and most of the world.

True Life Response

I think that in the movie, Julia caught me as in the most interesting. She was put in a different situation, because she was born in Russia, where she was made fun of being a Jew. Then she moves down to Israel, where she didn't have to deal with that type of bullying. I think that is why she has so much compassion for the Palestinians because she knows how bullying feels and doesn't want any other people to go through that. Also, her friends died while riding public transportation. I couldn't imagine losing my friends like that. I think that teenagers in America take for granted all the things we can do. We can walk around with our friends, and although we do have a curfew, we won't get beaten up or maybe killed if we aren't in it. We feel safe using transportation, where as Israeli's may get bombed if they are on a public bus. But we also have many things in common such as getting an education and hanging out with our friends.