New York Posts

Creationism in American Public Schools: The Latest Battle in Science v. Religion Part 1

2011-02-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

Originally written in December 2010

The Copernican Revolution in astronomy was a watershed event in the history of science. The event can be seen as the birth of modern science and the cause of the first of the first major battles between science and religion were brought about due to conflicts between the Bible and the field of astronomy. The theory of evolution, another watershed moment in science was introduced in 1859, and is one of the most controversial theories ever brought about, yet despite the approval of an overwhelming majority of scientists, this is a theory which has not been accepted by many people in the United States and is quite controversial especially in evangelical Christian circles. Many in this group of Christian evangelicals are opposed to teaching evolutionary theory in public schools and instead favor intelligent design or creationism due to the perceived conflict between evolution and the Judeo-Christian Biblical account of how life came about. The theory of evolution is even viewed as an attack on the Bible itself by fundamentalist Christian groups several of who teach that the Bible and its teachings are infallible. The debate over teaching creationism or intelligent design in public schools is one that has drawn supporters from Evangelical Christians and politicians, and has simultaneously drawn much criticism from the scientific community and others. Intelligent design was at one time widely accepted among scientists, but now in its current form has been derided as pseudoscience by prominent scientists in court cases and literature as a belief which does not pass the merits of scientific theory yet and should not be taught in public schools.
The debate over evolution vs. creationism is one of the many battles in the war between science and religion that has been ongoing for centuries. The debate over intelligent design vs. creation opens up many secondary questions such as the role of religion in the classroom and whether two theories that seem very different can in fact be compatible with each other. This study will examine the scientific backgrounds of evolution and intelligent design, the controversy and history of the teaching of intelligent design and evolution in the United States, and ask whether such theories which look radically opposed to each other can indeed co-exist.

Part I Science and Religion Background

The Bible as a book contains answers to many questions such as the creation of the universe, the Earth, and the origins of life on Earth. The Bible in its opening book of Genesis refers to the creation of animals according to their own kinds, and the creation of man in God’s image. The Bible which is the basis of Christianity is perhaps the most influential book in Western civilization. During the final years of the Roman Empire and in the centuries after its demise, the Roman Catholic Church became the leading power in Europe and its position of power also allowed it to be the main provider of education. The church’s position and authority put the teachings of the Bible in the forefront as the mainstream accepted view of how things came to be in Western Europe. The goals of science for a long time were to corroborate the teachings found in the Bible. To attack or challenge the authority of the Church and it’s teachings was very dangerous and could be punishable by death. In the past other scientific theories have been introduced in the Western World which have been attacked in religious circles for disagreeing with commonly accepted religious teachings, among them are the heliocentric theory, the age of the Earth, and evolution. The displacement of the geocentric theory by the heliocentric theory may be the most famous of theories that was condemned by the Catholic Church.
"To be effective, a theory- the framework of ideas and assumptions used to explain some set of observations and make predictions about the real world-must be continually tested." (Chaisson 2008:20) Polish scientist Nicholas Copernicus in 1543 published his monumental work explaining that the planets and Sun do not revolve around the Earth, but rather the Earth revolves around the Sun. Copernicus’ work was not too popular after its publication partly because it was written in Latin and largely because this theory was seen at odds with Biblical passages that postulated that the Earth itself was fixed and didn’t move, and in fact it is the Sun that moves. (Psalm 93:1, Job 9:6, Joshua 10:12, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Isaiah 38:8) After Copernicus’ death other scientists work such as Brahe and Kepler would do more work that would bolster the Copernican view of the solar system. But, the most important scientist to bolster Copernican theory would be Italian scientist Galileo Galilei. The invention of the telescope would help Galileo as he used his telescope to observe the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus which contradicted the Ptolemaic model of the universe but bolstered the Copernican theory. Galileo then became a major defender of the theory of heliocentrism but as Galileo lived in Italy he was living in the center of Catholic power. In Italy the Catholic Church through the Inquisition had the power to punish people suspected of heresy. In 1616 a year after Galileo’s “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina”, the Catholic Church outlawed the teaching of Copernican theory and declared teaching heliocentrism as a fact to be heresy, and placed Copernicus’ writings on a list of banned books. Galileo was ordered not to speak of the heliocentric theory except as a hypothesis. A 1632 book by Galileo, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” supporting heliocentric theory and ridiculing the geocentric view would prove to be Galileo’s undoing as shortly after he would have to face the Inquisition. The next year Galileo would be placed on trial for suspicion of heresy. Galileo would be found guilty, had his work banned, was forced to recant his claim of the Earth orbiting the Sun and would spend the rest of his life under house arrest. It would only be hundreds of years after Galileo’s death that the Church would offer an apology for what happened to Galileo.

The Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation during the 15th and 16th centuries and the later Enlightenment of the 18th century did much to end the dominant power of the Catholic Church as a new wave of learning and questioning swept through Europe. No longer would the goals of science simply be to corroborate the works of the Bible, but it was expected to provide answers for questions that might even disagree with the Bible. Scientific discoveries and theories soon started to rise arose that directly conflicted with mainstream religious Christian thought, creating dilemmas for some Christian scientists such as John Ray and Robert Hooke, who originally sought to reconcile scientific discoveries with Biblical ideas. Scientific ideas, such as the extinction of species which was once thought impossible to coexist with the idea of a benevolent creator was proven true as the discovery of fossils of extinct species started to take place. Not only did the discovery of fossils show that extinction was possible, it showed as well that the Earth was much older than what it was commonly thought to be, and it also would play a key role in the theory of evolution. But, as more work and research was done geology and biology would both be freed from the constraints of trying to make scientific ideas conform to Biblical teachings. But some scientific concepts have yet to be accepted in Western religious circles and among them are the age of the Earth and the theory of evolution. In 1859 Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” which introduced the theory of evolution and changed the perception of how life came to be about.

Who am I? A question of identity

2010-07-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

Who am I, is a question that can be said to be getting more difficult to answer in this day and age. Identities are shaped in part based on how a person wants to shape it. The case of Frida Kahlo provides an excellent example of how self identity can be constructed to a degree by how a person chooses. Although Frida was the daughter of a German immigrant and a person of Spanish descent she still largely identified herself as a Mexican. President Obama of the United States is another example as he was the son of an African immigrant and a White woman, he chooses to identify with the African-American racial group. With the advent of the Second Media Age the ability to shape identities as a person chooses to do so, has grown in ways that might have been unthinkable even 100 years ago. No longer does a person’s identity have to be ground solely on the basis of racial classification or ethnicity, but the manner in which a person chooses their identity has grown far beyond that.

The American Heritage Student Dictionary defines culture as “The arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought at a particular time.” As Krug said, self, culture, and technology not only reflect but create each other. The technological advances of the internet have led to massive changes in American culture. Terms like tweet and google which refer to internet functions have entered the vocabulary. People spend hours working on their internet profiles and searching for work on the internet. The internet is used now for banking, social networking, shopping, music, movies, school, researching, news, maps, and many more things that were formerly handled offline. The culture of this country has grown with the changes brought on by the internet, as the culture of the internet has grown to mirror the culture of America. These changes in culture and technology have as could be expected lead to a change in a how a person views their self and constructs it.

The modern self though is not purely shaped by one’s own desires. Particularly in this time outside forces and events beyond one’s control helps to shape a person’s identity. It can be argued that the modern self in the Western World is more constrained and manipulated than at any time in human history. In modern America, people are bombarded by advertising and images from advertisers who are trying to build brand loyalty from consumers of ever younger ages. The internet allows advertisers to directly tailor advertising messages to us based on the sites we have visited. In the year 2000 only ten media conglomerates controlled more than two-thirds of the annual worldwide revenue of the entire communications industry. (Steger, 2003, p.76) These media conglomerates play a vast role in what we watch and even how we think. As Krug said what we think of as choice is actually just wearing the clothes differently, as conformity in thought seems to grow more by the day. Not having the right thoughts or not being politically correct can be disastrous in many careers.

The quotes by Morgano and Barr given for this assignment are closely interrelated. The internet as a form of communication is more open than any form of mass communication available. The internet provides a platform for people to stay in touch with friends and family, but also gives them the opportunity to meet other people that it would otherwise be mostly impossible to connect with without the net. Consequently some people feel free when on the internet talking about their selves and speaking with others. They can construct their identity in a way that may be fact or fiction for all to see on the internet. But, as Morgano mentioned some employers have used internet sites to see how potential employees really are when those people let their guards down. The internet lets these employers see these people in a way how they generally never would be able to. And with people posting information about their selves, an employer can see if a person is truthful, lying, or hiding information that they might not want a potential employer to know. Social networking sites have thus become one of the best ways to do a background check on someone and find out partially who a person really is.

Identity as an issue is an issue that will continue to change in the years ahead. Technology has brought great changes to how we view and can view ourselves. The ways in manipulating identities and changing them will continue to shift as technology and culture changes.

Reference
Barker, Chris. 2008. Cultural Studies Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Steger, Manfred. 2003. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press

Analyzing Orchestra Conductors

2010-07-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Of the 5 orchestras I chose, 4 of them are in the New York area and 1 of them is in Boston. They all shared the same characteristics of having White males as the conductor.

The Astoria Symphony Conductor- Silas Nathaniel Huff- White Male
Long Island Philharmonic Conductor- David Stewart Wiley- White Male
American Symphony Orchestra Conductor- Leon Botstein- White Male
Brooklyn Philharmonic Conductor- Michael Christie- White Male
Boston Civic Symphony Conductor- Max Hobart- White Male
In analyzing the data compiled in Part 1 from the entire class the results were out of 52 conductors 44 of them were White while 1 was Black, 4 were Hispanic, and 3 were Asian. 47 out of the 52 conductors were males, with only 5 conductors being females. The orchestras profiled were from throughout the country with there being no chance of a regional bias coming out through the numbers. The numbers showed that no matter from what part of the country an orchestra was it was likely that the conductor/musical director would be both white and male. In deciphering why such a small number of women and minorities make it to the positions of conductor and musical director there are many factors to consider from a lack of training programs to prepare women and minorities to a position leading some of these orchestras, to exposure to classical music itself, to a tradition that would prefer that the leaders of orchestra are White males. All of these might account for the lack of women and minorities among the numbers of orchestral conductors. Another more controversial idea might be the idea that perhaps the reason for the lack of women and minorities among conductors is a lack of ability in comparison with the white males who dominate the field. If not that perhaps a lack of ability exists for the women and minorities who are qualified to be orchestral conductors but the numbers are so small hence their lack of representation. The numbers show that for a non-White male to even make it far in the field of conducting takes extraordinary work.

The lack of women and minorities among the ranks of conductors in the United States is one that is proven both a casual glance and an in depth study of numbers. The lack of women conductors is also an issue in Britain where apart from Jane Glover in the Royal Academy of Music, there are no women in any of the higher positions in the orchestras of that country, while in Lisbon, Portugal half of the 6 conducting jobs that are available feature women in those roles. This shows that given the chance women can rise to the top of the conducting field given the proper opportunity in the biggest cities.

Minority conductors face added pressures that women do not face with the foremost of them being racism and lack of opportunity. According to black musician Aaron Dworkin classical music has yet to even being to confront the issue of racism. In an analysis of 200 symphony orchestras in the U.S. in 2000, 1.4% of all musicians were black and 1.9% was Latino which was actually a declining number from the early 1990’s. For minorities to even aspire to being the leaders of orchestras the actual number of minority musicians must go up. Another thing that would have to be addressed in creating higher numbers of minority conductors especially among blacks is to increase their exposure to an art medium that has traditionally not seen black participate in it.

The stereotypical view of orchestral conductors as an upper class white male is part of the reason for the lack of women and minorities among orchestral conductors. Classical music is a music that is strongly tied to tradition, and the traditional elements of classical music have never seen women and minorities go far. The music played is often times music composed by European males such as Mozart and others. In Italy Julia Jones becoming the first women to conduct Wagner was a major thing due to the perception of Wagner music perhaps being beyond the reach of a woman to conduct. The traditional view of women as not being strong enough to lead and command men is a giant problem for women hoping to rise up in the ranks. The upper-class traditions of classical music also work well to bar many minorities especially blacks from getting involved in classical music from the outset, since blacks have been traditionally at the bottom of the class scale in the United States. All the upper-class trappings that are associated with the music are beyond the reach of many blacks and unless there are school programs are some kind of endowment program being used for blacks, many of them are never exposed to classical music.

References
http://bostoncivicsymphony.org/
http://www.astoriamusic.org/
http://www.americansymphony.org/
http://www.brooklynphilharmonic.org/index.html
http://www.liphilharmonic.com/index.html
The Guardian. Accessed from http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/jan/22/women-conductors-julia-jones
The San Diego Union Tribune. Accessed from http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051016/news_1a16conduct.html
The Free Library. Accessed from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Classical+music:+Black+and+Latino+musicians+hope+to+change+the+image+...-a0157950599
BBC. Accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/maestro/news/do-men-hog-the-podium/BBC. Accessed from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7612180.stm

Minority and Women conductors

2010-07-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

The lack of women and minorities among the ranks of conductors in the United States is one that is proven both a casual glance and an in depth study of numbers. The lack of women conductors is also an issue in Britain where apart from Jane Glover in the Royal Academy of Music, there are no women in any of the higher positions in the orchestras of that country, while in Lisbon, Portugal half of the 6 conducting jobs that are available feature women in those roles. This shows that given the chance women can rise to the top of the conducting field given the proper opportunity in the biggest cities.

Minority conductors face added pressures that women do not face with the foremost of them being racism and lack of opportunity. According to black musician Aaron Dworkin classical music has yet to even being to confront the issue of racism. In an analysis of 200 symphony orchestras in the U.S. in 2000, 1.4% of all musicians were black and 1.9% were Latino which was actually a declining number from the early 1990’s. For minorities to even aspire to being the leaders of orchestras the actual number of minority musicians must go up. Another thing that would have to be addressed in creating higher numbers of minority conductors especially among blacks is to increase their exposure to an art medium that has traditionally not seen black participate in it.

The stereotypical view of orchestral conductors as an upper class white male is part of the reason for the lack of women and minorities among orchestral conductors. Classical music is a music that is strongly tied to tradition, and the traditional elements of classical music have never seen women and minorities go far. The music played is often times music composed by European males such as Mozart and others. In Italy Julia Jones becoming the first women to conduct Wagner was a major thing due to the perception of Wagner music perhaps being beyond the reach of a woman to conduct. The traditional view of women as not being strong enough to lead and command men is a giant problem for women hoping to rise up in the ranks. The upper-class traditions of classical music also work well to bar many minorities especially blacks from getting involved in classical music from the outset, since blacks have been traditionally at the bottom of the class scale in the United States. All the upper-class trappings that are associated with the music are beyond the reach of many blacks and unless there are school programs are some kind of endowment program being used for blacks, many of them are never exposed to classical music.

References
The Guardian. Accessed from http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/jan/22/women-conductors-julia-jones
The San Diego Union Tribune. Accessed from http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051016/news_1a16conduct.html
The Free Library. Accessed from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Classical+music:+Black+and+Latino+musicians+hope+to+change+the+image+...-a0157950599
BBC. Accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/maestro/news/do-men-hog-the-podium/
BBC. Accessed from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7612180.stm

Jackson Heights

2010-06-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

Originally written in April 2010

Demographic change in New York City neighborhoods has been a constant fact of life in the history of New York City. Very few neighborhoods maintain a constant ehtnic composition over a long period of time. The neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens is one of the neighborhoods that went undergone a demographic change from being a White neighborhood for much of its existence to being called New York City’s most diverse neighborhood by Time Out New York. This in itself is a surprise as the creator of Jackson Heights planned the neighborhood with the purpose to keep out minorities. Jackson Heights is part of the Queens Community District 3 which also includes the neighborhoods of East Elmhurst and North Corona. From 1990 to 2000 the non-White Hispanic population numbers dropped from 28.4% to 15%. The percentage of people of Hispanic origin increased from 43.7% to 57.5%. The Asian population increased from 11.5% to 13.5%, and the Black non-Hispanic population decreased from 15.5% to 10.5%. 46.4% of the population was not proficient in English according to the 2000 census. 74.6 of people who were not proficient in English spoke either Spanish or Spanish Creole at home. 65.4% of the foreign born population is from Latin America, and 19.8% coming from Asia. The country with the most nationals in the area was Ecuador with 15.9% followed by Colombia at 14.7%. The majority of the population is from the ages of 25-44 which is 34.8% of the population and the next largest age range is 45-64 which 20% of the population is. The birth rate was 16.6 per 1000 in 2000, the death rate was 5.2 per 1000, and the infant mortality rate was 6.7 per 1000 in 2000. The median family income of Jackson Heights in 1999 was $43,197 which was lower than the median family income of the entire Queens County which was at $48,608. Only 4% of Jackson Heights residents were on public assistance. Jackson Heights is also home to a growing gay community that has been growing in numbers since the 1960’s. Jackson Heights has its own Lesbian and Gay Pride Day with an annual summer parade. Jackson Heights is home to the second largest gay community outside of Manhattan.

Jackson Heights got off to a different start from the other neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. Unlike those neighborhoods Jackson Heights was never its own town, Jackson Heights was created from the visions of a real estate developer. The Queensboro Corporation purchased 325 acres of farmland near Jackson Avenue in 1913 and named the development Jackson Heights after the avenue. The neighborhood was built on the vision of garden apartment houses. For most of its early existence Jackson Heights was a predominantly White neighborhood, and Jews, Catholics, and Blacks were barred from these apartment houses. Restrictive covenants would later be struck down as illegal and the 1968 Fair Housing Act made discrimination based on race in housing illegal. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act eased the restrictions of immigration to the United States from non-White countries and would play a big part in the future of Jackson Heights. In the 1960’s a large number of Latinos started moving into Jackson Heights. One of the appeals of Jackson Heights was its location as Jackson Heights has the 7 train running through it providing close proximity to Manhattan and buses that take people from Jackson Heights to 5th Avenue. What made Jackson Heights unique among other NYC neighborhoods is that unlike neighborhoods such as East New York, the influx of Latinos in the neighborhood did not lead to a rapid demographic change and move from the neighborhood. Jackson Heights never experienced the mass panic selling that white flight and blockbusting that occurred in other areas and that would usually be followed by a collapse of the neighborhood. Jackson Heights was actually able to obtain new white residents in the 1970’s and 80’s. Another way in how Jackson Heights was unique is that it was not an area targeted for these ethnic changes in the way how other neighborhoods were. It has even been suggested that the diversity in the neighborhood prevents segregation occurring again with one dominant racial or ethnic group.

Colombia is the home country for a large portion of the current residents of Jackson Heights. Colombia is frequently mentioned in media reports for negative things that have gone in the country. Colombia is a country though rich in culture, with a diverse population, and a rich culinary and artistic heritage that draws on African, European, and native traditions.

According to the CIA World Factbook Colombia is the home to 43,677,372 people. The median age of the population is 27.1 years old, and the birth rate is 18.09/1,000. The infant mortality rate is 17.37 deaths/1,000 live births. 74% of the population lives in urban areas, and 90% of the population is Catholic. 58% of the population is mestizo, 20% is white, 14% mulatto, 4% black, 3% mixed Black/Amerindian, and 1% Amerindian. 46.8% of the population is living below the poverty line. The life expectancy at birth is 74.07 years, and 90.4% of the population is literate. Colombia is the world’s leading producer of coca derivatives, and also produces heroin and marijuana. The violence in Colombia has at times threatened to spill into other countries and is one of the leading causes for their citizens to leave to go to other countries or the United States. As mentioned, more people have been displaced from their homes in Colombia than in any other country outside Africa with the majority of them being black.

Roosevelt Avenue in which runs in Jackson Heights through Elmhurst is known as Little Colombia. This area is the heart of the Colombian New York and is known for its wide culinary features and its slice of Colombian life in New York. The area provides services for documented and undocumented Colombian immigrants with legal services, wire services, and other tools to help them. The area though has also received a lot of negative attention. Much of this attention was due to a 1993 New York Times Article describing the area as an area where major drug dealers operated, who were also involved in money laundering and prostitution. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that 90% of its money laundering investigations in the New York area was traced back to Jackson Heights. Wire services and travel agencies were also propped up by drug dealers. Roosevelt Avenue was described as filled with brothels, and 60 brothels alone were counted on Jackson Avenue. Little Colombia also made headlines due to the murder of journalist Manuel de Dios Unahue who wrote articles detailing the drug cartels, Unahue was killed on the orders of the cartels. The crime associated with the Roosevelt avenue drug dealers led to many whites in the community claiming that Roosevelt Avenue was not part of Jackson Heights. Community groups began to fight back against the drug dealers and prostitution centers leading to a reduction of the public presence of prostitution and leading to many of the major drug dealers relocating elsewhere. Despite this Roosevelt Avenue is still viewed with a negative perception by others, mostly the older whites in the community.

References
The New York Times. [Cited April 3, 2010] Accessed from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/17/nyregion/window-immigrant-crime-jackson-heights-drugs-dirty-money-prostitution.html?pagewanted=1
Maly, Michael. Beyond Segregation: Multiracial and Multiethnic neighborhoods in the United States. Temple University Press, 2005
The New York Times [cited April 3, 2010] Accessed from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/11/nyregion/seven-indicted-in-1992-slaying-of-a-journalist.html?pagewanted=all
CIA The World Factbook. [cited April 3,2010] Accessed from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/co.html#top
Reuters. [cited April 3,2010] Accessed from http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN05469226
TimeOut New York. [Cited April 3, 2010] Accessed from http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/60591/new-yorks-most-diverse-neighborhood

New York Magazine December 31, 1973-January 7, 1974. Page 34

2008 Financial Collapse

2010-06-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

Written in May 2009

The recent financial collapse in 2008 was one of the worst financial disasters in American history. Billions of dollars were lost and the economy was ruined. Several lessons have been learned and can be learned on how to make sure such collapses never happen again.

The main characteristics that led to the financial meltdown were a lack of oversight, organizational hubris, and a lack of strategic renewal. Some companies such as Bear Stearns featured managers that had no idea of what employees were doing and were too absorbed in making money. There was no diagnosis in what needed to be upgraded, what changes were needed coming down the line, and a management concerned with keeping their positions. There was no strategic renewal, no shared diagnosis, and no change since it seemed that the good times were going to last forever. By the time the need for effective change was diagnosed at these organizations it was too late for these organizations.

The financial collapse of 2008 was one of the dark moments in American business. The collapse showed the need for companies to always be aware of future collapses and downturns despite the good economic period a company might be going through. The failure of being unaware can be catastrophic not just for the company but also the American economy.

Thoughts on CEOs

2010-06-03T09:57:00.001-07:00

Organizations sometimes have the feel as if their only motivation and the only reason for their existence is for the sake of profit. Some organizations have gone through unethical and even illegal means simply for the sake of profit. John Mackey of Whole Foods who was nominated for CEO of the year is one CEO who has remembered that organizations are beholden to multiple stakeholders and doing nothing for the other stakeholders simply in the pursuit of profit can put their teams on risk.
Currently the American marketplace is set against companies who have a reputation of being greedy. Whole Foods under Mr. Mackey has taken great strides to ensure that his organization does not have that reputation as they have taken the unusual step of capping executive pay. They have taken the rare step of ensuring strategic renewal in a down economy while not laying off a single employee. Mackey has appreciated that creating a state of congruence where the company has a positive reputation with the public can help the company beat a down period. Mackey’s policy of making sure the employees have health benefits can only increase his view in the eyes of his employees especially at a time when many companies are cutting the health benefits of their employees.
Being a successful CEO is not exactly an exact science. Going to school and having the highest level of education does not ensure competence as a CEO, as some CEOs with the best education have failed miserably and other CEOs such as John Mackey never finished college and have been extremely successful. Leadership takes the ability to properly diagnose the organization and lead the organization to the best of its abilities. John Mackey has done this with Whole Foods and become one of the best CEOs in the nation.

Colombia

2010-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

A brief country overview of Colombia

Colombia is the home country for a large portion of the current residents of Jackson Heights. Colombia is frequently mentioned in media reports for negative things that have gone in the country. Colombia is a country though rich in culture, with a diverse population, and a rich culinary and artistic heritage.

According to the CIA World Factbook Colombia is the home to 43,677,372 people. The median age of the population is 27.1 years old, and the birth rate is 18.09/1,000. The infant mortality rate is 17.37 deaths/1,000 live births. 74% of the population lives in urban areas, and 90% of the population is Catholic. 58% of the population is mestizo, 20% is white, 14% mulatto, 4% black, 3% mixed Black/Amerindian, and 1% Amerindian. 46.8% of the population is living below the poverty line. The life expectancy at birth is 74.07 years, and 90.4% of the population is literate. Colombia is the world’s leading producer of coca derivatives, and also produces heroin and marijuana. The violence in Colombia has at times threatened to spill into other countries and is one of the leading causes for their citizens to leave to go to other countries or the United States. As mentioned, more people have been displaced from their homes in Colombia than in any other country outside Africa with the majority of them being black.

Reference
CIA The World Factbook. Accessed from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/co.html#top

Mexico and Indonesia

2010-05-20T08:46:00.001-07:00

Country comparisons of Mexico and Indonesia

Mexico
GDP Per Capita $13,500 country comparison to the world 83
Infant mortality rate: 18.42 deaths/1,000 live births country comparison to the world 110
Median age total: 26.3 years
Life expectancy total: 76.06 years country comparison to the world 71
Type of government: federal republic
Major religious groups: Roman Catholic 76.5%, Protestant 6.3%, other 0.3%, unspecified 13.8%, none 3.1%
Degree of Religious Freedom: Mexico provides freedom of religion with restrictions, and generally has less freedom of religion as compared to other countries in North America.

Indonesia
GDP Per Capita $4000 country comparison to the world 155
Infant mortality rate 29.97 deaths/1,000 live births country comparison to the world 74
Median age total: 27.6 years
Life expectancy total: 70.76 years country comparison to the world 137
Type of government: republic
Major religious groups: Muslim 86.1%, Protestant 5.7%, Catholic 3%, Hindu 1.8%, other 3.4%
Degree of Religious Freedom: Indonesia does not provide for freedom of religion in its constitution and the social regulation of religion in Indonesia is extremely high even when compared to other Southeast Asian countries. Religious persecution in Indonesia is measurably high as well.
References:
Central Intelligence Agency. 2009. "The World Factbook". Retrieved May 2, 2010 at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook .
Association of Religion Data Archives. 2005. "National Profiles". Retrieved May 2, 2010 at http://www.thearda.com/internationalData .

Do We Need A New Internet

2010-03-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

Originally written in Fall 2008

Do We Need A New Internet

I did my search on whether we need a new internet. Nowadays there is a lot of concern about internet security and the vulnerability of networks to the attack of hackers. The New York Times had an article on February 14, 2009 by John Markoff discussing whether perhaps the best solution to protect the internet from those seeking to harm others is maybe to start over and build a new internet. Criminal gangs from different parts of the world have released viruses wreaking havoc on computers all over the world, and the anonymity of the internet sometimes makes it hard to track down criminals on the web. With all the advancements that have been made in internet security, others are still finding it easy to limit the progress that has made. Even the American military has found themselves the victims of hackers in the past. Researchers at Stanford believe the time has come to start over and build a new more secure network similar to the internet now but more secure. The big difference and it is a big one is an end to the anonymity that the internet provides. Such a thing would have far-reaching changes to the internet and for the first time in the history of the internet and put potential limits and controls on the internet. There is also no guarantee that hackers would not undermine the new version of the internet, and it potentially would give hackers an even bigger target and goal.

References
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html?_r=1&hp

Globalization

2010-02-13T17:29:00.000-08:00

The December 13, 1999 issue of Businessweek Magazine stated, “Globalization is about the triumph of markets over government. Both proponents and opponents of globalization agree that the driving force today is markets, which are suborning the role of government.” One of the areas where globalization has had a tremendous impact is in the area of culture. Culture is itself one of the most important areas of human life, every human being is born into a group and that group in turn has a culture. Globalization has been praised or derided in bringing together a global culture and ending the distinct characteristics of individual cultures. Some others claim globalization is an process that has been ongoing since the dawn of human civilization and that new technology has just simply changed the speed in which globalization is occurring and the processes of globalization are inevitable and actually beneficial for cultures and diversity in particular.
The American Heritage Student Dictionary defines culture as “ The arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought at a particular time.” By this very definition it means that culture is not something that is stagnant but something that can change with the passage of time. With increased globalization many people fear that their cultures are changing and giving way to a new global culture. The rise of the internet and the United States' position as the world's most dominant economic and military powerful nation has led to the rise of English as the world's dominant language. Many languages have died out or are expected to die out in the future. In the year 2000 only ten media conglomerates controlled more than two-thirds of the annual worldwide revenue of the entire communications industry. (Steger, 2003, p.76) MTV which is part of the Viacom family broadcasts on every continent spreading American culture throughout the entire world. American movies, music, restaurants are found all over the world and some people are very weary of this. In particular the American movie industry not only dominates the American domestic market but also many different foreign markets. Tyler Cowen uses the example “ A Frenchman rents a Hollywood movie. A Thai schoolgirl mimics Madonna. It is commonplace that globalization is subverting local culture” (Cowen, 2002).
Globalization itself is sometimes a very controversial word. The very definition and characteristics of globalization is often debated leading to different meanings. For a definition of globalization Manfred B. Steger who is a Professor of Politics and Government at Illinois State University states, “Globalization refers to a multidimensional set of social processes that create, multiply, stretch and intensify worldwide social interdependencies and exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of deepening connections between the local and the distant” (Steger, 2003, p.13). Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, Roland Robertson states, “Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.” Jan Nederveen Pieterse states in perhaps the most comprehensive definition of globalization, “Globalization is an objective, empirical process of increasing economic and political connectivity, a subjective process unfolding in consciousness as the collective awareness of growing global interconnectedness, and a host of specific globalizing projects that seek to shape global conditions” (Nederveen, 2004, p.16). The ongoing processes of globalization have changed the economic nature of the entire world. Real time updates can lead to stock transactions processed from any part of the globe. The financial happenings of one part of the world are deeply felt in another part of the world. Manuel Castells called it a state of interdependence. This has also spread into the cultures of various parts of the globe.
Tyler Cowen in his book “Creative Destruction” argues that globalization leads to more diversity and choice in the cultures of the world rather than sameness. Cowen comments that cultures have always borrowed from other cultures to strengthen their own culture. Cowen in fact points out that globalization has helped various cultures thrive and get stronger instead of simply stagnating. Cowen also makes the statement, “Market growth causes heterogenizing and homogenizing mechanisms to operate in tandem” (Cowen, 2002, p.16). Cowen points out in the example of the music of the former Zaire how it was heavily influenced by Caribbean, American, and African influences. The music of Cuba had a profound impact on the music of Zaire and heavily influenced it especially. The Latin group Fania All-Stars concert in Kinshasa in 1974 was one of the biggest concerts in the history of Zaire. Cowen also mentions how the global interactivity helped art forms such as steel band music of Trinidad which was performed on discarded oil drums. Cowen also mentions the effect that global interactivity had in extending and preserving past culture such as the carpets of Persia and throat singing in Mongolia.
Of course many people are opposed to the effects of cultural globalization and are fighting to preserve and maintain their cultures. The government of France for example spends approximately $3 billion a year on cultural matters and employ 12,000 cultural bureaucrats to preserve French culture. (Cowen, 2002, p.3) In Canada, Canadian artists are guaranteed a certain percentage of radio play. Other countries fear the rise of American cultural dominance and put restrictions on American imports. And religious extremists in Middle Eastern lands fight to keep their lands and religions pure. Al Qaeda terrorists struck a blow against cultural globalization with the destruction of the World Trade Center and attack on the Pentagon on 9/11/01. These people blame America for the increasing secularization of their nations and the subversion of Islamic ideals. One of the manifestations of these feelings were during the worldwide outrage over cartoons done of the prophet Muhammad. The current American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led many people to join terrorist forces and battle against the hated Americans and their ideals. Manfred Steger writes about one group of people called particularist protectionists who, “include groups who blame globalization for most of the economic, political, and cultural ills afflicting their home countries or regions (Steger, 2003, p.114). Some Americans fear the influx of immigrants in this country and their seeming refusal to assimilate into the mainstream American culture.
In conclusion cultural globalization is very controversial and has its supporters and detractors. Human beings have always exchanged ideas throughout human history and only time will tell what the future holds with the current nature of cultural globalization.

The Nuclear Age

2010-02-13T17:27:00.001-08:00

The late 1800’s and early 1900’s were an exciting time in the world of science. Many long-standing beliefs were shattered and the knowledge gained by scientists went up tremendously. New theories and new discoveries were constantly pushing the boundaries of science and a whole collective of contemporary scientists were behind this. The discoveries and theories which had been worked on were perfected and brought to light in 1945 when the atomic bomb was perfected and two atomic bombs were detonated over Japan. The work of creating the atomic bomb was the result of years of scientific work in a perfect marriage with political forces.

Isaac Newton’s theories were for hundreds of years held as dogma in the world of physics. In 1896 one discovery which helped lead to the atomic bomb and a complete change in the direction of physics was made by Henri Becquerel when he accidentally discovered radioactivity which he found while working with uranium. At the time awareness what constituted the makeup of an atom would make huge strides in 1897 when the electron was discovered by J.J. Thomson. In 1905 relatively unknown Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity which led to major changes in the outlook of the science world with the new understanding of the relationship between matter and energy. This theory changed the course of physics at a time when it was thought by most scientists that most critical areas of knowledge were already known and there was just a few more areas of knowledge on which to expand. Other key discoveries were soon to come including in 1911 when Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of the atom. In 1913 Niels Bohr published the theory of atomic structure which described electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom. In 1919 Ernest Rutherford became the first person ever to artificially create a nuclear reaction when he changed nitrogen into oxygen. In 1920 Rutherford would first issue the idea of the neutron which was later proven to exist in 1932 by James Chadwick. The neutron being proved to exist was the final puzzle in knowing the atom. In 1929 American Ernest Lawrence created the cyclotron which sped up how protons could be hurled at atomic nuclei; this tool would be of major use during later nuclear experiments. In the same year of 1932, John Cockroft and Ernest Walton became the first to split the atom. In 1934 Italian scientist Enrico Fermi irradiated uranium with neutrons and thought he had found new transuranic elements. In reality what Fermi had done was produce the world’s first nuclear fission and provide further proof of Einstein’s theory of relativity of the relationship between matter and energy, but no knew that until later when in 1938 German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman conducted a similar experiment and sent their results to Lise Meltner who confirmed nuclear fission. Nuclear fission had the capacity to unleash large amounts of energy and for the world political scene in 1939 which was a world that was on the brink of war, these developments held major possibilities for military power.
Germany in the early 1900’s was a hotbed of scientific activity. Several of the top scientists in the world at the time were of German origin or lived in Germany including Leo Szilard, Albert Einstein, Klaus Fuchs and other top scientists. Germany was also a pioneer in coordinating scientific work along with military work. German scientists developed several chemicals in a well coordinated effort during World War 1. Many of the top German scientists though were Jews, and Germany was a hotbed of anti-Semitic thought. The anti-Semitic sentiments in Germany would reach a crescendo in 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany. Persecution was soon to follow for Jews and several top Jewish scientists would leave the country after the Nazis took power. Hitler in his first years in power took steps to rearm Germany and prepare Germany for war. In 1939 work started on a German project to build an atomic weapon. In that same year Jewish scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard sent a letter to American President Franklin Roosevelt advising him of the German work to build a nuclear weapon, and advised him to start working on such a project. This would eventually be the catalyst for the top secret Manhattan Project.

In 1939 Europe when Germany invaded Poland, Europe erupted into the Second World War. This war which also raged across the Pacific was the first war to feature wide scale bombing of cities and featured the heaviest use of aircraft in any war up to that time. The United States was not in the war at the time but was a strong backer of Great Britain in the war, who were making plans on building a nuclear weapon of their own. As a result of the letter of Szilard and Einstein, American President Franklin Roosevelt created a uranium committee to conduct experiments of uranium. This committee would recommend government funding of isotope separation research as well as funding research Fermi and Szilard were doing at Columbia University on nuclear chain reactions. In 1940 in Britain, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls created a memorandum that for the first time had a theoretical viewpoint of how an atomic bomb would work with the use of uranium 235. This memorandum also suggested that the bomb could be used similarly to the other bombs which were of use at the time. In 1940 plutonium was also produced for the first time ever which would be a key component in the first nuclear bomb.

In 1941 things would kick into overdrive for the effort to build a nuclear weapon. On December 6, 1941 President Roosevelt authorized the creation of the Manhattan Engineering District later to be known as the Manhattan Project. The next day on December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States was officially drawn into World War II. On December 11, 1941 Germany declared war on the United States. The United States and Great Britain would become Allies not just on the battlefield but also in sharing scientific information. Scientific work in the U.S. continued on atomic research in 1942 at different sites but without a central leadership until September of 1942 when Leslie Groves was put in charge of the Manhattan Engineering District now called the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was now placed under the control of the U.S. Army. The goal of the project was now to speed up process in creating a bomb as soon as possible to be used in World War II. The hope was to have a bomb ready for use by 1945. J. Robert Oppenheimer was appointed as scientific director of the project. The project was then to be headquartered from Los Alamos, New Mexico with most of the work in to building the actual bomb conducted from there as well as sites located in other parts of the country. During that same year of 1942, Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard who had been working on a nuclear pile in Chicago, managed successfully complete the world’s first working nuclear reactor. The pile technology would be later used as the prototype for the first regular nuclear reactor in Hanford, Washington in order to produce plutonium. At the same time the decision was made to heavily expand uranium production which would be headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In July 1943 experiments would begin at Los Alamos and shortly after Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi would also become added to the Los Alamos team.

In 1944-45 things were moving fast on both the war front and the Manhattan Project. The German army was now taking heavy losses and many German cities and research facilities were becoming lost by Allied bombs. But, the United States suffered a huge blow in April 1945 when President Franklin Roosevelt died. Vice President Harry Truman became president and found out about the Manhattan Project which was so top secret that even he had no knowledge of it. In May 1945 Germany would surrender and end the European theater of World War II. The war picture was now focused solely on Japan in the Pacific Theater. The United States had taken an island by island approach in the war with Japan that proved to be effective but at the same time had cost many American lives. The only thing left for the U.S. to win the war was a full scale invasion of Japan that was estimated to cost perhaps one million American lives. At this same time the atomic bomb was coming to fruition and the bomb was ready to be tested. The decision had been made in 1944 that the bomb would work best as an implosion device and to solely focus on using a plutonium bomb rather than uranium. The feeling was that a uranium based bomb was so sure to work that it was better to focus on the more difficult plutonium bomb. The plutonium bomb was designed to use explosives to bring the nuclear core to criticality. There were a wide range of predictions leading up to the days of the eventual testing of the bomb, among them fears that a nuclear explosion could ignite the atmosphere. On July 16, 1945 the time was finally right for a nuclear weapon to be tested. The test was a complete success and the bomb exploded had an explosive force of 18.6 kilotons. The nuclear weapon and all the research that Szilard, Bohr, Fermi and several others had worked on for the past years had finally come to fruition and a nuclear weapon was finally ready to be used in warfare against other human beings.
The atomic weapons created by scientists were a tremendous success. Their use in war led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and leveled two Japanese cities. But, the success of the weapons showed how scientists could build on the work of earlier scientists and lead to fantastic results. It also showed that with science working hand in hand with the government the possibilities for science to reach were endless.

References
Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1986.
http://www.3rd1000.com [cited December 12, 2009] Available at http://www.3rd1000.com/nuclear/cruc18.htm
http://www.atomicarchive.com [cited December 12, 2009] Available at http://www.atomicarchive.com/Timeline/Timeline.shtml
http://www.atomicarchive.com [cited December 12, 2009] Available at http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/mp/index.shtml

Because Of Race: How Americans Debate Harm and Opportunity In Our Schools

2010-02-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

Schools are one of the major agents of enculturation in America. Many kids spend more time in school with their peers than their own parents and a lot of their life outlook is influenced by what they learn in school. Language problems are one area that can have a major impact on how a child can perform in school. The book that I chose for this report was “Because of race: how Americans debate harm and opportunity in our schools” by Mica Pollock. Through this book it is possible to take a look at some of the greater inequality issues surrounding education in America.

Mica Pollock wrote this book concerning her two years in working for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office For Civil Rights during 1999-2001. During Mica’s time in this position her main job was to analyze racial inequalities in the education system while speaking with people from all levels of the education system from parents to administrators. This book is a biography of what it was like to work in that system and the problems and hopeful remedies that must be taken to remedy America’s educational system to make it equal. The book while mentioning problems due to language does not go far in enough in addressing solutions not just for Spanish speaking students and students speaking African-American Vernacular English. One example is when the author mentions immigrant parents having the same amount of time to speak as English speakers in one case. The problem was that the immigrants had to have their words translated and in the time lost in translation they didn’t have the equal time of the English speakers. More in-depth analysis would have been appreciated on cases such as this. The writing style and tone of the book show that it was intended to be read by educators, politicians, and parents who are concerned about the education process. The author’s approach to the writing of the book is to rebut four distinct arguments commonly made about discrimination in schools and to then proceed to show how flawed those arguments are. The author’s approach is both descriptive of actual situations and then using those situations to prove theoretical points. The author does this by arguing against those rebuttals which are often used to argue against change and show what the realities of the situation in the schools actually are. The principal conclusions that the author makes are primarily that the work of the civil rights era is far from complete and that the failure to realize this has made people put up obstacles in the face of creating remedies for the shortcomings that exist in the American educational system. This book also strives to point out that by analyzing the rebuttals that have been made to ensuring full equality, Americans can come to understand the work that must be done yet to ensure equality. The author supports the conclusions reached in the book by presenting several cases she and others and OCR dealt with firsthand and showing how the prevalent attitudes she seeks to dismiss are wrong. The book itself is well written and discusses several institutions and concepts that generally do not receive a lot of press coverage in the United States such as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Department of Education’s OCR. The author’s position in actually working with the cases mentioned in the book gives the book added authority but also at times does reveal bias. The author’s defense of the OCR while she was working there does not have the same feel as it would have had if the OCR was analyzed a third party writer with no ties to the agency. In overall terms this book is extremely effective in getting the message out to its intended audience. The book’s room for improvement lay in making the book a little longer by about 50-100 pages with more analysis on different subjects.

American courts struck down the separate but equal laws in schooling in 1954 and The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. Despite how long ago these measures were taken there is still a lot to go into ensuring that American public schools are equal for all. By pretending or dismissing this assertion it does not ensure that the public schools have equality. This is the very message that Mica Pollock is making and one that must be taken to heart by all Americans.

Mama Lola A Vodou Priestess In Brooklyn

2010-02-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

Misconceptions of a group’s culture can sometimes lead to prejudice and mistrust of an entire group due a mistaken view of that group’s culture. Haitians in the United States have been victims of fears and misconceptions due to the religious practices of vodou which are shared by a majority of the population, and also due to many other factors which include accusations of spreading diseases like rape and the poverty that many Haitians live under. Haitians who have fled this country in boats have also led to a negative view of Haitians. Cross-cultural research can help break down the walls between different groups and help gain a better view and understanding of a group with a different culture. The book that I chose for this report was “Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn” by Karen Brown. This book shows how removing the walls between cultures can not only lead to understanding between different cultures but also acceptance of the culture.

The book “Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn” while recognized primarily as an ethnography, tells several stories at once to form several interesting narratives. It not only contains the biographies of Mama Lola and some of her ancestors, it also gives an in depth look at some of the central characters of the vodou religion, and also some of the rites and practices of the vodou religion. The book also tells of Karen Brown’s story the author who is a White American and her growing involvement and initiation into the vodou religion. This also acts as a backdrop to talk about the growing Haitian presence in America, and the struggle of Haitians to keep their families and religious practices alive in America despite facing persecution and misunderstanding regarding their beliefs while still holding ties to their homeland in Haiti. Among the important themes of this book was in its telling of how vodou empowers Haitian women and gives them self assurance and self-reliance that makes Haitian women different from other women. And also the struggle for immigrants to hold onto their cultural values and systems despite living in a country that can be hostile to their cultural values.

The main story of the book relates to the story of Mama Lola’s life. Mama Lola’s life is very intertwined with her serving of the spirits and the book also thus contains an in depth look into the vodou religion. The story is not a complete beginning to end narrative as it starts off from one specific time period and in other chapters the narrative jumps to different time periods. This makes it at times difficult to understand what is going on in the story or to ascertain as to how and why certain things happened. Karen Brown also in some chapters writes of herself from a first person perspective while in other chapters she writes of herself from a third person perspective which can be confusing when it happens. Karen while making herself an important character in the story vaguely mentions certain problems going on in her life but speaks nothing further of it. The book is not her story but her bringing up of her problems would at least suggest a little more details about herself as she gets more involved with vodou and Mama Lola. This also adds to researcher bias as Karen is not a detached observer to most of the events she describes but also a willing and sometimes central participant in some of the events she describes. The book also in the account of the lives of Alourdes’ ancestors’ also seem very light in historical accuracy but are told in a way to focus on the morals of a story, which with the exception of the ancestors’ narrative strives for accuracy. The book strove more to describe what was happening while not spending much time on the results or success of what happened.

This book’s story is very personal to me, because although I was born in America I am a first generation descendant of Haitians. Many of the terms and perspectives held by some of the Haitians described by Brown are familiar to me. I can picture being in the houses and areas described both in New York and also Haiti. I am also a descendant of vodou priests from both sides of my family, and I easily picture and know the attitudes and thoughts of people like Mama Lola and the other characters. But, both of my parents are not into vodou and have never discussed any of the tenets with vodou with me so I am a stranger to many of the practices described by Brown. Vodou is often explained by Protestant Haitians as a religion of serving Satan. There is also a view that vodou itself is responsible for Haiti being as backwards as it currently is now. Vodou practitioners on the other hand have relayed a different view of this. This story not only opened my eyes to parts of Haitian history that are unknown to me it also expanded my knowledge of a religion that many of my family members still hold dear. It also helped to break down misconceptions that I hold about vodou and allowed me to come to a greater acceptance of a religion that if I was born in my homeland I would have had a better knowledge of. The book also helped me to see how vodou affects Haitian culture so thoroughly that it affects even those who don’t practice vodou. The vodou mindset in Haitian culture expands deep in basic Haitian culture even if you’re not into it, and that helps me to look at Haitian culture and vodou being intertwined. I never realized how much I had in common with the mindset of vodou practitioners as I always thought that my not being a vodou follower, I had very little in common with those who were followers.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has the highest rate of AIDS infections in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti has been beset by corrupt governments and insurrections ever since Haiti gained independence from France. Few Haitian leaders have ever managed to finish a full term in office without being overthrown or killed. Women in particular in Haiti face many severe problems from a high rate of child mortality to deaths in childbirth, rape, and many other problems. In a country where life is so difficult, many especially women turn to vodou for solutions with life’s problems. Vodou unlike many other religions actually empowers women instead of affirming a second class status. Women could be in charge of their own temple and make their own decisions unlike in most Christian denominations that do not allow women to take any kind of leadership positions. Mama Lola in her service of the spirits became an empowered women similarly to her female ancestors. In looking at lists like “The 100 Items of the Pancultural Adjective Checklist” (Matsumoto, p.153, 2008), we can see that many of the adjectives that are male associated can easily be used to describe Mama Lola. In religions such as Christianity women are taught to be subservient and wait on God or a man to solve their problems. In vodou women are taught that if they are seeking something they have to go out and get it their themselves. Before the women’s movement in the United States this would have been a radical idea in the United States. Karen herself born under the typical Western image of women must also change her mindset and become more of a go getter as she progresses in the vodou religion. The vodou religion also allows the women to view the world from a female based viewpoint. Mama Lola had a matrilineal view of her ancestry with only one male having an important role in her family tree. Mama Lola also expected her daughter to carry on her legacy and continue the family tradition. Mama Lola also followed the spirits her female ancestors followed and did not pay too much attention to the spirits followed by her male ancestors. There was acknowledgment of the male spirits but they were not as important as the female spirits, which mirrors Haitian society where many households do not have a male father figure around even though they are generally desired. The female spirits and the female priestesses do not have the time to sit around and wait for the effects they desire but they have to make a conscious effort to make it happen. Self-reliance and self-assurance are stressed for the women in vodou as well as Haitian culture in general. The women who must sell goods in the market to feed themselves and their families have no one to rely on but themselves and their spirits. An independent attitude must be fostered to know how to sell properly and keep others, especially jealous ones out of their business, similarly to how the female spirits foster an independent attitude. Vodou morality also does not condemn women for doing what they deem necessary to help themselves or their children. Normally under Christian moral guidelines women like Mama Lola would be wrong for committing prostitution or taking many lovers at a young age. Under vodou morality staying true to a person’s character is considered moral. For a person like Mama Lola doing whatever it takes to feed her children is morally acceptable under vodou.

One of the more interesting conflicts that Mama Lola and other Haitians faced in living in America is the loss of family ties and the struggle to maintain those ties. While vodou does promote the independent self and helping practitioners to fight for themselves, at the same time it acknowledges the need for interdependence. The spirits themselves are part of family groups that are important to them, and the followers of the spirits generally look for strong family ties. A big struggle for Mama Lola is to tie the religion that places so much emphasis on Haiti and the family members who lived there and bring it to America where those ties do not exist. In America also Mama Lola and her daughter Maggie are very tied together and feel entirely dependent on each other. Success and continued good luck is also dependent on remaining aware of doing what is owed to the spirits. While affirming independence to be successful in life requires a proper combination of independence and interdependence. Not having that interdependence either with the spirits or the family would only be disastrous in the long run.

Another perspective in which to look at the story is the larger story of immigrants keeping their culture in the face of adversity. Throughout the story it is frequently mentioned that Mama Lola and several other vodou followers keep their practices secret to avoid scrutiny. This goes in hand with Haitian culture where people with differing views to the status quo particularly in politics must keep their views hidden or face repercussions. Also in vodou itself, for large sections of Haitian history vodou followers had to keep their beliefs hidden. Under the French days of slavery, vodou was forbidden and followers had to cloak the religion. Into the days of Haitian independence vodou was also outlawed and shunned by the upper class and Roman Catholic clergy. Haitians thus had vast experience in managing to practice vodou while remaining undetected. So in New York, Mama Lola and other Haitians were well practiced in how to avoid unwanted attention. The 1980’s, the time period which was the time period when a large portion of the events in this book took place was also a tough time for Haitians in Haiti and America. Large numbers of Haitian refugees were fleeing to the United States on dangerous boats and facing repatriation to Haiti if caught. The overthrow of Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier only increased the number of refugees coming to America. Haiti received attention due to the large numbers of Haitians who had AIDS and political violence rocked Haiti in the late 1980’s. This news would leave to a negative perception about both Haiti and Haitians such as was shown to Maggie. Personally I can also attest in school in New York City in the 1990’s I can also recall myself and other kids being made fun of for being Haitians. It was a big insult to even call another kid a Haitian, and Haitians from Haiti were derided as boat people and other cruel terms. As shown in the story Mama Lola still maintained her practices and beliefs and considered it a great skill to be almost invisible with her practices so that she did not have problems with others.

Another method of analyzing this book is by using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory of Development in analyzing the growth of Mama Lola. There was not even information given in the book to examine whether exosystem and microsystem had an impact on Mama Lola’s development. Macrosystem is especially useful in Mama Lola’s development. The larger cultural values and beliefs had a direct impact on Mama Lola. She absorbed the values and beliefs of her culture and used it directly to guide her life. Her entire outlook on life is guided by the value system she learned growing up. This affects her so much that it can realistic for Karen to call Mama Lola a Haitian living in America, while her daughter Maggie who spent the first 12 years of her life in Haiti was an America who grew up in Haiti. Growing up and living in Haiti had made too much of an impact on her to change even with living in New York for over 20 years. Haitian culture is at times a hierarchal culture with strong emphasis being placed on social class. Mesosystem can be seen in playing a strong role in Mama Lola’s development. Her interactions with her children, her religious disciples always showed and reaffirmed her status. She dealt with people in a manner consistent with what a person of status in Haitian culture would be expected to. Her role as the primary financial and spiritual power in her family obligated her to behave in her specific manner. The chromosystem component seemed to be of little value for Mama Lola. The changing sociohistorical influences in her life seemed to do little to change her. The political upheaval in Haiti and life in the United States actually seemed instead to strengthen her resolve and hold on to her culture and beliefs. Cultural change among Haitians and vodou is slow and near nonexistent.

The story of Mama Lola is not just the story of one Haitian voodoo priestess but also the story of Haitian lives in America. Haitians in America have faced adverse challenges in America while at the same time striving to remember their homeland and provide for family members still living there. Careful analysis of this story can lead to a better understanding of how to understand different cultures and break down walls that exist in America today.

References
Matsumoto, David & Juang, Linda. Culture & Psychology 4th Edition. Wadsworth, 2008.
http://www.wehaitians.com/aristide%20populist%20appeal%20dwindles%20in%20haititi.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ha.html
Brown, Karen. A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn Updated and Expanded Edition. The University of California Press, 2001.

The Godfather Part II Film Review

2010-01-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Written on November 6, 2009

Films are often used and viewed as diversionary entertainment, but films often have the power to provide an excellent look into American society. The power of language, its use and what its use entails is often a critical factor in how immigrants get along in America. The use of language and its mastery can relate power and weakness among immigrants. The film, The Godfather Part II is an excellent example of the use of language and its effects on immigrants. The sociolinguistic situations of the film provide an excellent examination to see how language use affects immigrants.

For immigrant groups coming to the United States, language is power. The inability of an immigrant to learn English can often leave them with a feeling of powerlessness and in a second class state. The immigrants generally then stick together to their own group where their language is dominant, as with the Italians in the turn of the 20th century, and Puerto Ricans and other Latino groups later on. Adjusting to and learning a new language can be tough especially for older immigrants, as language is learned more easily during the first years of life.

The Godfather Part II tells two stories, one of a young immigrant named Vito Corleone’s rise to power, and the other of his son Michael Corleone’s bid to keep the family power. Early in the film an important scene occurs that shows a connection between language and power. At a public ceremony for Michael Corleone’s son, a United States senator badly mispronounces the Corleone name. But, in a later one on one meeting with Michael Corleone, the senator not only pronounces a dislike for Italians, he also proceeds to pronounce the Corleone name perfectly. He thus showed that not only could he properly pronounce the name, he deliberately mispronounced the Corleone name as a sign of disrespect and to assert his power over the Corleones, who come from a stigmatized ethnic group.

In the film’s progression where Vito is a young poor man, he never speaks English. English is used as a language of emphasis to declare emphatic points, while everyone speaks mostly Italian. The first time Vito uses English it is when he uses the words, yeah and sure, as he goes out to commit his first crime. Vito’s partner Clemenza addresses him in English in giving him instructions showing his power over Vito. A turning point in the film and Vito’s life is when he takes a turn from being a subordinate to his crime partners is when he addresses them in English for the first time basically asserting himself as the power among his group. Vito then uses English as the language he speaks when making assertive claims. Vito from then on uses English as the language he needs when making dominant statements, and others use English toward him in a subordinate role. As a rich man English the dominant language of the country becomes the language he uses to establish and reinforce his dominance over others.

For the later characters of the film such as Michael Corleone on the other hand Italian is rarely used. As a more refined American born member of society he uses English. Frank Pentangeli on the other hand who is portrayed as a more crude non upper-class member of society speaks Italian at times frequently code switching with English. When Michael speaks with Frank at a point he also breaks off into speaking in Italian. Michael’s use of Italian here does not signify a loss or shift of power as it would have for his father, but simply reaffirms his status as a member of the ethnic group despite his upper class lifestyle. When Michael though does speak to his mother in Italian later on, due to his feeling of losing his family it signifies a moment of weakness. Michael is unsure of whether he is doing the right thing and English normally the language of power and confidence can do him no good in the situation.

The Godfather Part II is a film that shows the significant role between language and power among immigrants and others in America. The shifts and usage of the language can mean much more if you really take a look into the meaning.

References
Bonvillian, Nancy. Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of Messages
5th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.

Media Ethics and Journalism

2010-01-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

Written on Novemer 17,2009

In 1981 Janet Cooke a writer for the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for a story about a 8 year old heroin addict. A few days later the story broke that Cooke’s story was a fabrication. In May 2003 it was discovered that Jayson Blair a writer for the New York Times had been plagiarizing and fabricating stories. In recent years in America the issue of Media ethics in journalism has been a frequent issue that has been brought up due to serious scandals like the ones mentioned threatening the integrity of Media institutions.

In discussing ethics in the Media it is important to note that the Society of Professional Journalists which has been in existence since 1909, has already established a code of ethics. Among this code of ethics is an obligation to seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable. The problem though with this code of ethics is that it is voluntary and not necessarily subscribed to by all journalists. Some commentators like John Merrill are of the position that the media is essentially unethical. This position is true for some media people, but I would make the argument that the vast majority of media people are ethical and looking to uphold high standards of journalism, since the entire credibility of journalism rests on a credibility with readers. Journalists from the International Federation of Journalists have launched an Ethical Journalism Initiative. Journalists have sensed that the growing sentiment about unethical journalism is affecting their field, and they are working hard to bring a higher standard for journalists to adhere to. The use of digital media has jumped in the journalism field and sometimes the news being distributed via social media is unverified as happened in the Iranian Election protests of 2009. Journalists have looked for ways to ensure that the digital media conforms to ethical standards of journalism. Journalists who have been found to fabricate or misrepresent stories have been forced out of the field or punished in various other ways no matter how esteemed as Dan Rather at CBS found out.

The power that the Media holds in America is significant. Scandals brought out in the press have helped take down government administrations and ensured that democracy is working correctly. It only makes sense then that standards exist to make sure that the press is working ethically. Under a free press system as the one here in the United States there is not too much that the government can do to ensure Media ethics in journalism aside from whether journalists break the law, but consumers and owners of Media outlets have to be the ones to ensure that the media is working ethically. Consumers have continually spoken as public esteem for the press has been continuously falling for about the last 20 years. The public has also spoken with their usage of traditional media outlets which continues to drop. For the Media to continue to ensure the public trust constant vigilance is necessary to make sure journalists are trained in the right way from the very beginning to uphold a standard of ethics and for it to carry over in their professional work.

Sources
Richardson, R. (Fall 2009) Accessed from http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101912
Gottlieb, Stephen F. Accessed from http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9213/media.htm
The Mindanao Examiner. Accessed from http://www.mindanaoexaminer.com/news.php?news_id=20080813195638
Leach, Jan. (Fall 2009) Accessed from http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101899
Dennis, Everette & Merrill, John. Media Debates 4th Edition. Thompson Wadsworth, 2006

Freedom of the Press

2009-12-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

Written in September 2009

Freedom of the press is considered one of the most essential rights Americans enjoy under the Constitution. The concept of freedom of the press dates back to the colonial era of America and is at times taken for granted by Americans. The internet has been one of the most important inventions in the history of the world. The internet has impacted about every era of human life as it has come to further and further prominence. Freedom of the press is one area that has been especially impacted by the area, as the internet has shaped a big impact on how the press and the freedoms of the press.

Freedom of the press in America is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment in the Constitution. Despite the guarantee in the constitution of press freedom there have been some famous attempts by the government to limit this freedom. The Sedition Act of 1798 and the Pentagon Papers were attempts by the government to limit press freedom. The advent of the internet age though has made it harder for the government to limit press freedom and has also made it easier for news to get out that otherwise would not be widely reported. Prior to the advent of the internet individuals didn’t have the ability to get their thoughts easily broadcasted to a wide audience. For example, one of the most controversial aspects of the internet press is the ease that racist groups can broadcast their message to people on the internet. This was one of the earliest attempts to see what can and can’t be published on the internet. The internet has democratized the flow of information and allows virtually anyone to broadcast their views to a wide audience that they otherwise would not be able to reach for the most part. At the same time as the internet has risen as a venue for people to get news, the mainstream media has consolidated more with each year. The last 20 years has seen a rise in media conglomerates such as Rupert Murdoch’s Sky/Fox network which has outlets in newspaper, local, national and international television. As Robert McChensey pointed out in a 2003 piece, the rise of media conglomerates has also led to a reduction of information that was once reported in the mainstream media. The best way to find out certain information has become to search it out on the internet. The information being presented by the mainstream media has become reduced to a certain few who can disseminate the news how they wish. One of the popular aspects of the internet is that it also affords a certain anonymity that is almost impossible to duplicate in other media forms. Bloggers until recently can publish whatever content they want without fearing their identities being revealed. The mini controversies over whether Barack Obama is a Muslim or whether he was even born in the United States started on the internet and grew large there before it was reported in the mainstream media later. While journalists in the mainstream media such as Christiane Amanpour have admitted that the networks had censored their coverage of the Iraq War, the internet was rife with criticism of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War. With bloggers showing little self-censorship the internet is the place where people can find access to news and photos that the mainstream media has decided not to air. The mainstream media for the most part has agreed voluntarily not to air images of dead soldiers coffins being returned to America from the Iraq War. Bloggers and others on the internet have not followed this convention and show these images regardless.

In February 2008 one of the first major cases of internet censorship occurred in the United States when the website Wikileaks was temporarily shut down due to a lawsuit by Bank Julius Baer. The wikileaks website is well known for leaking government and business information. This temporary shutdown was soon met with protests by many different groups in favor wikileaks. On February 29, 2008 the judge who had ordered the site shut down removed his injunction against wikileaks. A major battle about internet press also broke out in 2009 when Google was forced by a court to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who was accused of defaming a model. The blogger who had her identity has planned a lawsuit against Google for revealing her identity. This case of Google revealing the identity of an anonymous blogger has far-reaching consequences beyond someone being called a name on an blog. This could also set a precedent of more regulation and control over the internet that currently does not exist so far.

The internet has changed and is changing the way how the press functions in this country. The internet is almost a frontier area in the area of freedom of speech as the battle to see what can and can’t be said on the internet. The next few years will certainly see more on the front of possible internet censorship.

Sources
http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2003-09-14-media-mix_x.htm
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2927431720080229
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2427/

Indian movie "Water"

2009-11-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

The film “Water” is a film that can be enjoyed not only for its story and its filming, but also for use in cross-cultural and psychological studies. Through the use of Bronfenbenner’s Ecological Theory of Development a greater understanding and appreciation of the story is possible. It can also help us to garner a better understanding of the changes that India was going through during their late colonial period under Great Britain.

The film Water is set during the late 1930’s in India. India at the time was a colonial possession of Great Britain and known as the crown jewel of the British Empire. The independence movement was underway in India led by Mohandas Gandhi who was organizing a number of nonviolent protests aimed at undermining colonial rule. Under British rule laws were made to change parts of Indian society including the abolition of the practice of suttee and infanticide, and allowing widows to remarry. But, in more rural and poor parts of India, traditional culture still reigned supreme and this was the world in which 8 year old Chuiyha lived in and was developed under.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory of Development consists of a five part system consisting of microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chromosystem. The character Chuiyha’s psycho-social development was influenced clearly by chromosystem and microsystem. Chromosystem which refers to patterns and transitions and changing sociohistorical influences clearly had a development on young Chuiyha. Chuiyha was raised in a time between the transition of change from old India to British India to the modern independent India, and all of those affected her. Cultural traditions led to her being married at eight years of age and then being sent to an ashram when her older husband died since widows are traditionally supposed to be kept apart. She was at the same time exposed to the changes going on in society at the time through Kalyani and Narayan’s impending marriage, as people were rebelling against society’s standard that widows should not remarry and that they should be shunned. The specter of Mohandas Gandhi and his revolutionary work also hung as a specter throughout most of the film as one of the forces destined to have a major impact on Chuiyha’s life. This was also shown in the rebellious and questioning attitude of some of the characters in deciding whether they would follow the current status quo or challenge it for something more beneficial. Microsystem also played a huge part in Chuiyha’s social development. Her direct interaction with the people in her life played a huge role in how her life was turning out. Being married by her parents to an older man at age eight was bound to change the way how she viewed her parents. Chuiyha’s husband dying and her parents abandoning her even though she still felt her parents would come to get her would change her view of adults and possibly cause her to become a more cynical person. The influence of each of the widows also changed her life tremendously. The influences of Narayan, Shakuntala, and Madhumati were also change her life perhaps even more than the influences of her parents. Their influence led to her being used as a prostitute and going off after Mohandas Gandhi with a new name and new look on life. Being around the widows all day she gained an outlook into Indian society that most people could never have in their entire life and doing it an very young age.

The way how a person ends up depends on their situation, the times they are living in and the people they are living with. Such situations directly affect the development of young children and their world outlook. Cinema is a medium that can help us to appreciate this, and the film Water is an excellent work of cinema that can help us analyze such issues further.

Reference
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1871britishrule.html

Tuskegee Experiment

2009-10-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

Race has always been one of the most troubling questions facing America. Blacks for many years were seen and are still seen by some people as inferior to whites. Films are sometimes used as simple tools of diversionary entertainment, but films often provide an excellent lens at looking into society especially when they give a look into America’s race problem. Films can be studied on a deeper psychological and cross-cultural basis to see the values and way in which a society treats its members. The 1997 film “Miss Evers Boys” which was based on the famous Tuskegee Experiment in which the American government did a research project on African-American males without fully informing them about what they were doing is an excellent example of a film that captures the deeper issues that film can capture.

The Tuskegee Experiment was an experiment that took place for 40 years from 1932-1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama. The goal of the experiment was to test what would happen for untreated syphilis in Black males, and to see if syphilis affected Blacks differently than it did for whites. The subjects of the experiment were never fully told what was going on in the experiment. At the time when the experiments began, Alabama was under Jim Crow law. Blacks and whites were segregated in almost all aspects of public life, and were treated as second class citizens throughout Alabama and other Southern states. The film “Miss Evers Boys” is based on the experiences and point of view of a Black nurse who worked on the study named Eunice Evers who knew what was going on but failed to let the subjects of the research know that they were misled by the government. The film shows her struggle to “care” for the patients despite the fact that she did not truly care for them because if she did she would have informed them about what was really truly going on. Miss Evers helps the men out of a sense of duty as she feels as though she can’t abandon them, though the government has already abandoned these men.

The role of culture and gender played a key part in the film in examining the actions of Miss Evers. The time period when most of the experiment took place was before the rise of the feminist movement. Traditional women stereotypes were more prevalent in American culture then and Miss Evers was expected to follow them. One gender role Miss Evers was expected to confide to was the role of conformity and obedience. Miss Evers had to conform to the way of life in the South and expected to obey the rules and wishes of the doctors conducting the experiment. As Matsumoto and Juang wrote in their book, “In short, females were expected to conform to decisions imposed on them by males or by society In general.” (Matsumoto, 2008, p.161) Despite her willingness to do more to help the subjects, Miss Evers was ultimately constrained and followed the norms of society. Bronfenbrenner’s theory of development and the chromosystem theory can also help to gain an insight into the film. Miss Evers was directly affected by the changing sociohistorical influences of her time. As a Black woman living in the 1930’s-1960’s there was not much she could to stand up. But, by the time of the Senate hearings in the 1970’s, the changing scene of America had opened up new rights for Blacks and for women and she could speak out more forcefully and advocate why she did what she did. And the movie can be seen through the lens of showing the importance on racial relations to America. Blacks were not seen as the equals of whites and therefore it was not a big deal to conduct such an experiment on inferior people. It was highly unlikely that such a deceptive study would have ever been performed on whites or allowed to last for as long as it did. Despite race being a social construct, that social construct played a huge role in how Blacks were treated even by members of their own race.

In watching this film on The Tuskegee Experiment it showed me the dangers of just going along with conformity to expected roles. Miss Evers had the chance to stand up and do something more brave and change the way how things are going and she didn’t. The enculturation process that people go through is so lasting and permanent that it’s hard for many to do something different and take a stand. The movie also helped illustrate just how hard it is for those who change society, because it’s so much easier to go along with the flow.

References
http://cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
http://faculty.headroyce.org/~us2001/ginad/myessay.html
Matsumoto, David & Juang, Linda. Culture & Psychology 4th Edition. Wadsworth, 2008.

Black English

2009-10-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

I chose as the article for this project a New York Times article from November 27, 1979, written by Robert Blair Kaiser and titled, “Wrestling With Meaning Of ‘Black English”. The article ties in closely with some of the works we’ve been studying so far as the article is about a lawsuit in Michigan regarding Black English. Eleven children in the Ann Arbor school district were classified as retarded because they spoke Black English, and a lawsuit was filed against the school district. The lawyers of the children argued that Black English was a separate language and the judge agreed with the lawyers and ruled in favor of the children.

The article itself uses the Ann Arbor case to go into whether Black English is a separate language as the judge ruled in the case, or whether Black English was a dialect as many linguists who testified in the case stated. The lawyers in the case their goal was to stop having Black kids who spoke Black English from being classified as retarded and to have the teachers sensitized to that. According to a director for the Ann Arbor public schools as a result of the trial teachers were made to undergo a 20 hour course on language variation and sociolinguistics. The article stated that 80% of Black Americans at the time spoke Black English and that most linguists agreed that Black English was just as good as any other language. The article also went in depth on some of the characteristics of Black English such as dropping the sound th from words which is explained by there is no th sound in African languages.

Black English is now mostly referred to as African American Vernacular English. This article about the treatment of the school kids in Ann Arbor, Michigan is similar to what was going on with the Puerto Rican kids in New York City being studied by Ana Celia Zentilla. The Puerto Rican kids were being stigmatized because they had not mastered standard English and were seen as deficient. Children seen as not speaking standard English were not being treated properly by the education system even though experts agreed that there was nothing wrong with the standards of the children’s speaking. In the years that have passed since this ruling AAVE is more recognized around the country but still controversial as shown in the 1997 Oakland school board ruling. Teaching kids to speak English properly should not lead to educators denigrating children for their speech or classifying them as retarded. There is no evidence that this enhances the school system or improves the lives of the students. More understanding should be made to help kids who speak English differently and stigmatization should be completely avoided.

References
Kaiser, R. (1979, Nov 27) Wrestling with meaning of “Black English”. The New York Times pp. C1, C4

The world of newspapers

2009-09-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Written in May 2009

In choosing a media issue to write about, it is kind of hard to narrow down an issue to just one as there are many important media issues right now that are well known. But, an important media issue that is picking up more traction is the issue of the collapse and possible impending demise of the newspaper industry. The newspaper has played an important role in shaping the development of the United States of America since the colonial era, from the John Peter Zenger trial, to the publication of the Federalist Papers, to the Watergate scandal, newspapers have been there in shaping the growth of the American nation. But, almost with every new technological invention from the radio to the television to the internet, the newspaper medium has taken hits that threaten its position, and now seems to be facing the position of a veteran fighter trying to last just one more round as the very survival of the newspaper is threatened.

Having a successful newspaper was once likened as having a license to print money, but as with all things times have changed that former situation. There had been a lot of talk in recent years that the newspaper industry was in serious trouble. Some have even said that the impending demise could have been seen as far back as the 1970’s. Newspaper columnists had been getting bought out by their papers as a quarter of newspaper jobs have disappeared since 1990, classified departments have been getting smaller and smaller, and newspaper size had also been getting smaller. Writers have been predicting the collapse of the newspaper industry for years now and in just the first five months of 2009, it appears that the prophecy has started to come to fulfillment as there has been a staggering amount of newspaper collapses. The oldest newspapers in the states of Colorado and Arizona both went out of business. The Boston Globe came close to closing its doors, and several large newspaper companies such as the New York Times and Tribune Corporation have been seriously devalued. Major cities are facing the impending possibility of having no major newspapers for the city. In the city of Detroit home newspaper delivery has been reduced in a model that could eventually spread to other cities as a cost reducing measure. Newspapers such as the New York Times have also had to increase prices in an attempt to retain ever shrinking profit margins. The advertising revenue that the newspapers depended on for so long is drying up and the model for newspaper profitability appears to be broken and in need of serious repair.
The newspaper has been a part of America since 1690, even before the establishment of some of the colonies. For many years newspapers thrived in America as they were the main source of information for Americans to know about the globe and even other parts of America that they had never visited. Newspaper writers helped shape public opinion and provided entertainment, sports, critiques, weather, advice, and comedy. The power of the newspaper was so great at one point that William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer filled their newspapers with incendiary headlines to help get the U.S. involved in the Spanish-American war of 1898. Newspapers were also instrumental in social reforms such as the abolition movement and the temperance movement among others. Ethnic newspapers helped spread the news that was significant to a specific group such as immigrants or racial minorities and keep them informed of relevant issues. Newspapers were published with an morning edition, and a afternoon edition to provide news for the whole day. The relative length of time it took to get the news from one place to another helped the newspaper industry tremendously. But, one thing that the newspaper industry has not fared well with is technological developments in media.

Radio was one of the first mediums to deliver a blow to the newspaper industry as radio served some of the same functions that newspapers did. Radio also delivered news, sports information, weather, and entertainment. Unlike newspapers radio delivered this package in real-time and could be enjoyed in a setting where the whole family could enjoy it, unlike a newspaper which was designed for one person to read. The radio also provided listening as voices that were just words on a newspaper page came to life with rich sound. The newspapers in particularly the Associated Press tried to battle back against the advent of radio before realizing that they were in a battle they could not win and that it was better to cooperate with the rising industry.

Another technological advance that would put a serious dent on the newspaper industry was the invention of the television which started picking up popularity in the late 1940’s. Unlike radio which was just sound, television also provided picture images, and unlike newspapers television provided moving images. Television provided footage all over the country and the world and broadcast them streaming into the comfort of your own home. Television took the words read on a newspaper and provided the picture moving and had a much stronger effect on the populace as was shown in the Nixon/Kennedy debates of 1960. Reading and listening to the debates without the broadcast conveyed that Nixon won the debate, but watching on television the popular consensus was that Kennedy was the winner. The newspaper could never hope to have a similar effect. The evening news reduced the importance of the afternoon newspaper and the visual advantages that the newspapers retained even with radio were forever gone. Television did some of the same things that radio and newspaper did except on a bigger scale. Cable television and 24 hour news channels such as CNN and FOX have also hurt the newspapers. You could now get the latest breaking news at any hour of the day in your home further reducing the need for newspapers. But, the medium which has struck the newspaper industry harder than any others is the Internet or World Wide Web. The newspaper is not much different than television or the radio which is also had its influence wane due to the internet. The internet provides the exact same service as newspapers except in most cases you can get it for free on the web. Very few people want to buy something that they know that they can get for free. Classifieds can go on the internet for much cheaper than it would in the newspapers on sites like Craigslist and reach potentially a much larger audience. The news is updated much faster and the internet is interactive in real-time. The news in a newspaper does not update after it is printed like the news on the internet which is always updating. Newspaper stories themselves are printed on the internet and read for free. Newspapers have started their own web sites but they have yet to come close to the profits formerly generated by the printed papers. Blogs dedicated to a specific political point of view provide the slanted news that certain people want to read. One of the things that the internet and cable TV have brought about is the furthering of niche categories for people who are interested in only one subject, while most newspapers are of general interest trying to appeal to everybody. Another problem that the industry has faced is a failure to pick up newer younger readers which is a problem that has confounded the book industry also. Newspapers have a stigma of being outdated and out of touch. With inventions such as cell phones and portable videogames, young people have more things to keep them distracted on places like subways where in the past they would have most likely read newspapers. There has not been much of a fight to save the newspaper in America, just a series of countermoves to hope to stop the bleeding. In Europe there has been a much more concerted and successful effort to try to save the newspaper. Polish newspaper designer Jacek Utko has radically redesigned newspapers throughout Europe and has helped boost newspaper circulation by as much as 100%. But, even a dying patient may make a brief show of strength, and whether something as simple as a newspaper redesign which might be viewed as a gimmick, can work in America is unknown.

I started reading newspapers when I was 6 years old as form of current events homework and eventually I started reading newspapers for fun. My favorite newspaper was the New York Daily News and I liked the general quality of their pictures and the articles were easy to read. My own personal views on the apparent impending demise of the newspaper as it has traditionally been known are mostly that the newspaper is a great tool but facing the possibility of becoming a relic. I used to read a newspaper everyday at one point, and I always made sure to never miss the Sunday newspaper as they have the best classifieds. But, as time has gone on I now rarely buy the newspaper. I mostly only read the newspaper when I can get it for free or at a library. With the new ipod, I just read the New York Times articles on an app for free. I can go on craigslist to find job listings and things for sale. The Sunday newspaper which was so important no longer means anything to me, and the rising prices have been a turnoff for me in purchasing a newspaper and most of the news I need I find online. Also online there is a greater variety of news stories that you would not generally find in a regular newspaper. I worked in the advertising department of a community newspaper that had been recently purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. My job was to get people to buy space in the classified section listing cars, homes, or jobs and I did it during February 2008. The manager who hired me told me that community newspapers were still going strong despite the decline of the newspaper business and things were still going robust for them. Once I started how different that was from the actual reality. What was once a business that sold itself now was something extremely difficult. Many people were reluctant to pay the advertising rates of the paper and expressed the opinion that they could advertise on the internet for cheaper or free. Some people even questioned whether anyone still read the newspaper or felt that the newspaper was becoming obsolete. I did not have too much success at the paper and I quit working there after a month as I felt that despite Murdoch’s billions the newspaper industry was a sinking ship that I didn’t want to stay on. The newspaper can be a great historical resource as a lot of historians use newspapers as a primary source. Newspapers are printed on paper and you can always look back at the paper some time later to see what was going on that time and they are easy to archive. Community newspapers are a great way to keep local communities abreast of situations facing the community and local events. Local businesses who might not have enough money to advertise on television or the bigger newspapers, can get their advertising placed in a local newspaper. But, the newspaper is another medium that it at a point where it faces becoming obsolete as its time has passed it by. The newspaper in my opinion can possibly survive, but not with the value and profit margins it was once capable of reaching, as there is too much service being provided for free on the internet for that to be possible. The business model that the newspaper uses is a model that is very old and obsolete. Technological advances have rendered them useless and there is no need to feel sympathy for something that has no use and needs to be changed. Trying to relive past glories that are no longer capable of being achieved is not the way to go, the industry must realize that those profits and influence it once wielded is gone and undergo a transformation to reach a level where they can somehow manage to remain in business. For the industry to survive they must manage to provide something that only they and no other industry can provide.

The future of the American newspaper industry is one that is full of uncertainty. Some people in the industry are convinced that newspapers can make a comeback based on their brand names and traditions surrounding them, while others are of the opinion that the newspaper resembles a patient that is terminally ill. It’s hard for old technology to remain viable in an era when new technology replaces it or it has every one of its strengths be replicated by something else. Only time will tell if we are seeing the newspaper continue a march toward obsolescence, or if there is a way to avert this fate.

References
The New Yorker. [cited May 19,2009] Available at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman?currentPage=1
New Communications Review [cited May 19, 2009] Available at http://www.newcommreview.com/?p=664
USA Today [cited May 19,2009] Available at http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2009-03-17-newspapers-downturn_N.htm
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jacek_utko_asks_can_design_save_the_newspaper.html
Rodman, George. Mass Media In A Changing World, 2nd Edition. McGraw Hill, 2008

Media Use

2009-09-17T08:07:00.001-07:00

Written in the spring of '09.

The media has an profound effect on the lives of virtually all Americans. The media casts messages to effect people of all ages from preschoolers to the oldest of Americans. The media can affect our relationships, political views, and the way how we view the entire world. In this paper I will discuss how the media has affected my life from the earliest times I can remember to the present day.

I am currently 24 years old and I have been affected by the mass media for my entire life. During my preschool days my media use was limited only to radio and television and the advertising that takes place on both mediums. I listened to the radio stations that my parents listened to and was thus exposed to the music they listened to which was mostly R&B and adult contemporary music. My parents listened to artists such as Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson and that affected me in the way that I am still a fan of those artists today. I watched television shows such as pro wrestling like a lot of other kids and I remember during preschool days doing wrestling with other kids and my brother imitating what I saw on television. I watched public television programs such as Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and other programs. These programs taught values such as tolerance, getting along with others and teaching kids how to recognize numbers and letters. I also watched a lot of cartoons such as G.I. Joe, Transformers, and DuckTales. This had a major effect on me and my peer group as during those cartoons there were a lot of toy commercials and the toys that were shown in the commercials were the toys that everybody wanted. Cereal commercials for brands such as Rice Crispies made me want to ask my mother to buy me cereals like Rice Crispies and I still eat many of the same cereals now like I did 20 years ago. McDonald’s used to advertise heavily during children’s programs with Ronald McDonald, the Hamburgler and the other McDonald’s characters. I used to think McDonald’s was the greatest place in the world and used to be extremely excited to go to McDonald’s to get a Happy Meal. I also used to watched reruns of old shows such as Happy Days and I learned the jingles to all the different products that were being pitched even if I didn’t use many of them. Looking at it now the media has a profound effect on the minds of young preschoolers. A lot of brand recognition is built during that time and relationships can be built with consumers. I built a relationship with many brands during that time that I still use to this day, and watch some of the same programs. Advertisers can reach the parents of kids by reaching out to kids.

During my elementary school years I started making more choices on my personal media use and using a greater variety of media. At this time period I started to have my first tinges of race consciousness and became attracted in my choices to things that had Black people or things Black people did and the release of the movie Malcolm X had a strong effect on that. I started listening to radio stations and music on my own without the decision of my parents. I started listening to rap music which was a very controversial form of music in that time period of the early 90’s and had a stigma attached to it. My parents were not fans of rap music so I listened to it whenever they were not around. Rap music definitely had an effect on me as I was attracted to the storytelling and anger and hopelessness expressed in the lyrics by artists such as Wu-Tang Clan and the Notorious B.I.G. These artists were young Blacks who were getting money and had the persona of not caring what anybody thought and that definitely attracted me. The rap world also seemed to be centered right on New York and that was a strong lure. My favorite radio station was Hot 97 which seemed to be the only station that cared about the thoughts of young Blacks and the whole station approach from advertising to music to personalities seemed to be catered to us. I also started reading newspapers when I was 6 years old as form of current events homework and eventually I started reading newspapers for fun. My favorite newspaper was the New York Daily News and I liked the general quality of their pictures and the articles were easy to read. I started reading magazines around the same time period. At first I only looked at pictures and then started reading the actual articles. The early magazines I read were Sports Illustrated, the WWF Magazine, and magazines I used to see at doctors offices. I also became a big fan of reading books during my elementary school period. Around the time when I was in 3rd grade I started reading a lot. I read kids books such as The Hardy Boys and The Cat In The Hat. Then when I was in 4th grade I started reading sports history books just so I could find out more information on the past, who did what and how did things come to be the way they were. Then I started to read general history books to find out more about the past. My favorite books though were a series called Choose Your Own Adventure where as reader you made a choice of how the story turned out, and your choices could lead to disaster or success. I started watching movies on television and on a few occasions in movie theaters. I didn’t pay any attention to the violent and scary movies I watched. But, it did leave an effect as for many years I was deathly afraid of ghosts and the supernatural, and I had my first experience with death during this time period. I watched all kinds of movies in this time period from dramas to romance to comedies to fantasy movies. Even as a kid I wasn’t too fond of most children’s movies as I felt they were dumb and even then I could see they had far too many plotholes and inconsistencies. In this time period I started to pay attention to the broadcast news around the time of the 1992 elections. I became an ardent observer of current events and was shaped by the political views of the newsmen that I watched and read. My favorite TV show at the time was The Simpsons and what I enjoyed most about the show was the absurdity that took place in the lives of The Simpson characters. I enjoyed the tales of character redemption that happened in some characters and the strong bonds that tied the characters. The show was also extremely funny and it wasn’t too unrealistic of a show. At the time I paid no attention to the effect the shows on TV were having on me and I used to hear reports of the media’s effects on kids and I disbelieved those reports. The media continued to have an effect on my views as the way how the cool characters dressed and acted in tv shows was the way I wanted to act. I also was a big fan of Power Rangers and all the ancillary products that was anchored to the show from toys to food. Another big part of the media that affected me was videogames. At that time period violent videogames started to get a lot of publicity about corrupting the youth and I played some of the early violent videogames which now seem tame. I spent hours playing games like Mortal Kombat, StreetFighter and others.

It was during my junior high school years when I first heard word of the internet. I already knew how to use a computer and I had my first limited experience with the internet which was much slower and less advanced than the way it is now, so it had as of yet to affect my life. During this time I became much more aware of the media and the way how it influences people. I started to notice on TV shows how they tried to get people to think a certain way such as what was right and what was wrong. I started to read religious literature that said the media was a tool of Satan to undermine faith and so I started paying closer attention to what I was watching. As a result I started watching less television shows and also because I started to find most television shows boring and predictable. I noticed most shows had the same plotlines, the same twists and turns and everything that if you saw once you’d become bored to see it again. My favorite TV show was still the Simpsons because it could still captivate me in the same way it did when I was in elementary school. I became a big fan of movie dramas during this time as I was interested in stories of conflict and how people deal with adversity. I wanted to watch stories of how people can redeem themselves or find themselves victims of their own hubris. I was a big fan of rap music during this time and it continued to have a big impact upon myself and peers. This was the time of the East Coast/West Coast rap war and the realization that the music meant more than just the songs started to spread as rappers lives started to be put in danger. I started actively reading magazines such as Newsweek, Time, other general interest magazines, sports magazines and just about anything that I found interesting. I started to read less fiction books and read almost exclusively non-fiction books with the exception of what is still my favorite book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. The book had everything from class conflicts to racial conflicts, to moral situations, to the redemption of a racist kid who decides he’ll go to hell even if he’s going to have save his Black escaped slave friend. I became a big fan of the comic book genre during this time after being exposed to comic book characters like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four through cartoons. My favorite comic books almost immediately became Spider-Man and X-Men books. I was strongly attracted to these characters because they were outcasts and strongly mistrusted by the general populace. Despite this they still tried their best to be heroes even though the characters being easily discouraged. Spider-Man used humor to cope with the danger of what he was doing, and he didn’t want to be a superhero as he was always quitting. Even though he was always quitting there was almost a sense that he loved being a hero too much to stop and he had a responsibility to help others. The X-Men seemed to be based on the civil rights movement as the X-Men’s founder Professor X and their main “villain” Magneto seemed to be based on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. as Professor X wanted peaceful coexistence and Magneto wanted mutant separation. The X-Men fought to save a world that hated them and there always seemed to be a lingering question, what if Magneto’s right? These comics had a strong impact on me as they helped me to understand diversity and tolerance and other aspects of the human psyche.

During my high school years I became much more cynical on life and the media. The book “Catcher In the Rye” had a strong effect on me as I started to notice how phony many people are. The Bible book of Ecclesiastes also had a profound effect on me as it helped me just how pointless so many of the things people strive in life for actually are. “Of Mice And Men” also had a strong effect as it was just a sad book that showed no matter how hard some people try, they’re just not going to reach their goals and things can end up so badly. I started to read more books about race relations, sociological issues, crime and more in-depth about American and world issues. At this time period I also started to use the internet heavily getting involved with chat rooms and talking to people on the internet. I started finding out info on the internet and became entranced with the internet. I started branching out in my music listening as I was now listening to all kinds of music from R&B to rap to classic rock to all kinds of music dating back to the 1950’s with the exception of jazz, classical, and country. I kept watching all types of movies with the main criteria for me to watch a movie being that the movie had an interesting story. I stopped watching new TV shows almost completely until I discovered the Sopranos in 2001 and it quickly became my favorite TV show. I loved the raw language, the sexual situations and that it seemed to be so completely different from regular broadcast TV fare. Tony Soprano seemed like a real guy with a real family with real problems and it never seemed fake like most broadcast TV shows are. He was like a guy that anybody could know and no punches were pulled. It didn’t really affect my perspective on life as I was already aware that there are some criminals who have families and lives away from their lives of crime.

My current media use is heavily internet based. I now use the internet for banking, social networking, school, discussion forums, researching, maps, and just about anything. If there’s something I need my first thought is to turn to the internet. The internet has almost completely replaced magazines and newspapers for me as get my most of my news online. I don’t buy magazines anymore except for FEDS magazine and magazines I can’t find in a library. My television watching has dwindled to the point where I watch no new television programs that are scripted. The only TV shows I watch are The First 48, Gangland, real crime television shows, the news, sports, and documentaries about history. If it’s not real then I don’t want to watch it. The only sitcom I watch is Cheers and I have rediscovered my love of The Twilight Zone. I also watch movies on TV but rarely go to movie theaters. Most movies out have stories that do not captivate me and I have no interest in paying a lot to see a bad movie. I have become convinced that most television is a waste of time and an unnecessary distraction from real life. The news now I also notice is almost purely entertainment as there is very few reporting on the issues that really matter. The music industry is almost dead to me as I don’t but any new albums and borrow CDs from the library to get songs or just download them. The music that is now out is unimaginative and slickly packaged and the terrestrial radio playlists seem to shrink more and more every year to the point that I no longer listen to the radio unless I am in a car. I listen to satellite radio on the TV sometimes as there is a greater variety in the music and there are no annoying commercials. I no longer read fiction books unless I am doing so for a class as I just prefer to watch the film version if it’s available. My perception of life is now no longer clouded by fiction as I pay almost no attention to fiction. I’m mostly interested in reality and don’t really try new things that are not internet based.

The media has changed a lot since the late 1980’s when I was in preschool and so has my usage of the media. The internet has been the biggest innovation of my lifetime and it has taken over a lot of my mass media usage. Looking back at it my usage of the media has shaped me more than I’ve thought and it probably will continue to shape my life.

Franco-Prussian War effect on World War 1

2009-05-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

Written in December 2008

World War 1 broke out in the summer of 1914 and it was at the time one of the bloodiest and largest conflicts in human history and it had far reaching effects on the future of not just Europe but the entire world. Every one of the major European powers, Japan, the United States, and the African and Asian colonies of the European powers all sent soldiers into the conflict. The devastation of the War left millions of people dead, the map of Europe changed, the end to some of the oldest dynasties of Europe, and an end to the myth of European cultural superiority. World War 1 lasted for four long years from 1914-1918 but the buildup to the war was many years in the making. There were many factors leading to the war breaking out but one of the biggest factors leading up to the War was the hostilities between France and Germany as a result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and the resulting alliances and entanglements that proceeded as a result of the hostilities between the two nations.

The rivalry between France and Germany and the bad blood between both nations following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 was a turning point in the history of Europe. Prior to the war France was the dominant European power and Prussia was the most powerful of several German states. The Franco-Prussian War was the culmination of several wars won by Prussia that led to the creation of Germany. The Treaty of Frankfurt ended the war with Prussia emerging victorious and the ramifications of that victory did not take long to be felt. The Franco-Prussian War led to several changes in Europe including the end of France’s Second Empire and the rule of Louis Napoleon, the end of the old European balance of power that had existed since 1815, the long awaited unification of most of the German states with the exception of Austria, and France losing the territory of Alsace- Lorraine to Germany. Most importantly France’s role as the leading power of Europe ended and they were replaced by Germany. France was also forced to pay Germany an indemnity of one billion dollars, which would greatly help German industry. The Treaty of Frankfurt aimed to end France’s reign as a dominant player in European politics. France would become a republic as a result of the aftermath of the war. Prussian Prime Minister Otto Von Bismarck the architect of the unification of Germany would take on the role of German Chancellor and Prussian King Wilhelm I would become the 1st German emperor or Kaiser. France after the war desired revenge on Germany and a return of the Alsace-Lorraine territory, and Germany wanted to keep France weak and isolated. This would set the course for the hostilities between the two nations that would simmer until exploding into the Great War.

As a result of the Franco-Prussian War, the French government put in place a universal military training system in preparations for a rematch down the road with Germany. War came close to breaking out during 1875 as Germany was alarmed by France’s military buildup and their rapid economic recovery from the Treaty of Frankfurt. Revenge against Germany became a major theme of French politics of the period following the war with Prussia, and there was a strong desire to regain the territories of Alsace-Lorraine. The feelings in France at that time gave birth to the word Revanchism. Georges Clemenceau who was one of the French deputies during the Franco-Prussian War who refused to ratify the Treaty of Frankfurt, became one of the leaders of the politicians who wanted revenge on Germany. The German government although the strongest country in Europe at the time knew that they were more powerful than France but were wary of a war with France allying itself with other countries. The German government under Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck decided to isolate France diplomatically and deter French aggression by entering into peacetime military alliances. In 1873, two years after the Franco-Prussian War, Germany entered into an alliance with Russia and Austria-Hungary called the Three Emperors League. This alliance would not last long due to tensions between Russia and Austria in the Balkans leading to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, and having to choose between Russia and Austria, Germany chose Austria a country to which they held close historical ties as Austria was also a German state. In 1879 Germany formed the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary, and three years later Italy joined the Dual Alliance and the Alliance became known as the Triple Alliance. The alliances provided Germany with protection against a possible French attack and left France isolated diplomatically which was Bismarck’s goal all along.

In 1888 Wilhelm II became the new German Kaiser. Unlike his predecessor Wilhelm I, Wilhelm II wanted to take much more of a direct role in government affairs and that would put him into direct conflict with Otto Von Bismarck. The relationship between Bismarck and Wilhelm II would only last for two years as Bismarck resigned from his position in 1890. Wilhelm II was determined for Germany to have its “place in the sun” and he pursued a much more involved role in domestic and foreign affairs. Wilhelm began building up Germany’s colonial possessions in Africa and Asia which would put Germany into conflict with their rival France who already had a substantial empire in Africa and Asia. Wilhelm II also desired that Germany have a powerful navy so he began building up the German navy. This would put Germany into conflict with Great Britain, who were the possessors of the world’s largest and most powerful navy. Germany and Britain would soon enter into a naval arms race as Britain sought to maintain its dominance of the seas.

Without Bismarck, the carefully orchestrated isolation of France would soon come to an end. Russia who had been dropped out of an alliance with Germany would enter into an alliance with France with in 1892, as Wilhelm II let a secret agreement between Russia and Germany expire in 1890. Germany was now placed in the position that if they had to engage in a war with France it would have to be a two front war as they would also have to fight Russia on the Eastern Front. France and England had been rivals for hundreds of years but their long period of hostility was coming to an end. Great Britain who had long favored isolation and neutrality for most European affairs of the 19th century watched with nervousness the growing extent of the power of Germany. Great Britain had initially favored Germany over France changed course and their relationship with France grew stronger while Germany also grew stronger and in 1904 France and Britain signed the Entente Cordiale which was an agreement but not a formal military alliance. France now had two of its own allies in case of a war with Germany. Russia would join the Entente Cordiale in 1907 and the alliance of France, Great Britain, and Russia would become known as the Triple Entente. The cooperation between France and England would be tested immediately as German ruler Wilhelm II made it known that he did not recognize the Franco-British agreement and he would attempt to undermine it during the First Moroccan crisis of 1905. As a result of the Entente Cordiale, France was allowed to eventually take over the country of Morocco. Germany opposed this move and Wilhelm II made an appearance in Morocco supporting Moroccan independence. A conference was called to settle the dispute and it was a major loss for Germany as France’s rights in Morocco were confirmed and the Franco-British alliance managed to survive the German test. The Germans were not pleased with the results of the First Moroccan crisis and it would be four years until the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911. Germany sent a warship into Morocco to challenge the position of France in Morocco and wanted territorial concessions from France in Africa. England pledged support of France in the face of the German demands. Germany was facing the possibility of a war with both France and England but the crisis would be solved with France agreeing to give portions of its territory in the French Congo to Germany. The crisis would have the effect of further strengthening relations between France and Great Britain. Tensions between Germany and France remained at high levels and Europe was close to exploding with a war due to the Franco-German tensions.

In the end the event that would lead to World War I breaking out would occur in the Balkans when on June 28,1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary along with his wife was killed in Bosnia by a nationalist Serb who wanted Bosnia to be part of Serbia. But, the military alliances of Europe brought about as a result of the tension between France and Germany would soon blow Europe into a full-scale war. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the assassination and would soon declare war on Serbia. Russia which was a Slavic nation like Serbia was pledged to defend Serbia and soon began mobilization of its troops against Austria-Hungary. Germany issued an ultimatum both to Russia and Russia’s ally France and both countries rejected the ultimatums. Germany would declare war on Russia the next day and two days later Germany declared war on France. Germany had prepared for the eventuality of a two front war with the Schlieffen Plan which called for Germany to attack France by invading Belgium which was a neutral country. France’s ally Britain demanded that Germany retreat from Belgium and Germany refused. This gave Britain the pretext needed for joining the War and they followed it up by declaring war on Germany on August 4, 1914. A war that took years to buildup would explode in less than two months where Europe as a result of the many alliances brought about as a result of the tensions between France and Germany would become involved in one of the most destructive wars of European history.

Most wars that have happened in human history did not just happen overnight. Most wars are the result of years of tension and posturing on two sides ultimately ending up in conflict. World War I was no different as the long standing tensions between France and Germany led to the War breaking out.

Sources
Guerard, Albert. France A Modern History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959, 1969
Bentley, J., and Ziegler, H. Traditions And Encounters: A Global Perspective On The Past, vol. II, from 1500 to the Present, 4th Edition. University Of Hawaii: McGraw Hill, 2008
Mt. Holyoke. [cited December 13, 2008) Available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos137.htm
WWIaccordingtoBob. [cited December 13, 2008) Available at http://www.ww1accordingtobob.com/shCh5.php
http://www.ww1accordingtobob.com/shCh7.php
KBismarck. [cited December 13,2008] Available at http://www.kbismarck.com/ottovbis.html
FirstWorldWar [cited December 13,2008] Available at http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm

Student Learning Outcomes

2009-05-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

Written on March 1,2008.

“The Effect of Computer Mediated Conferencing and Computer Assisted Instruction on Student Learning Outcomes” by Darrell L. Cain and Paul E. Pitre, was an article published in the Journal Of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Volume 12: Issue 3-4. The article was about a research study conducted among college students between May and September 2003. With the increased use of technology taking place in college classrooms by both teachers and students from 1995 to 2000, there has been criticism by some that the increased use of technology does nothing to enhance student learning. There had been few studies examining whether these tools enhanced learning. The researchers set out then to examine how the use of technology contributed to student learning outcomes after controlling student demographic variables. The researchers had a hypothesis that a sample of students who frequently used newer communication tools would achieve significant gains in learning outcomes as compared to their peers. The dependent variables for the study were personal and social development, general education, intellectual development, science and technology, and vocational preparation. The independent variables were frequency of interaction via email, frequency of collaborative work online, frequency of computer use to prepare papers or reports, and frequency of use of the Internet for course related information.

Previous studies in the past have shown that collaborative learning with the use of computer technology has the potential to increase learning. A study published in MIS Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 159-174 by Maryam Alavi titled “Computer-Mediated Collaborative Learning: An Empirical Evaluation” found that the use of a group decision support system enhanced learning greatly in a study of 127 MBA students. Bebe F. Lavin in the Teaching Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jan., 1980), pp. 163-179 wrote an article titled, Can Computer-Assisted Instruction Make a Difference?: An Analysis of Who Benefits. This article was written before several of the modern advancements in computer technology and computer learning were made but it still sought to answer the questions for its time. This study showed that students using self-testing computer programs did better than those using computer programs.

It is very evident why Cain and Pitre’s study is an important one to do. The internet has revolutionized the world and its impact on college classrooms is one that has never been well defined. For America to retain its leadership among the nations in the world, it is imperative that American students have the best possible opportunities to learn. Even though there was not a lot of research to look to as a guide, Cain and Pitre made extensive use of previous studies. The objective of the study was clearly stated as well as the research hypotheses. The study was conducted by utilizing the 2003 College Student Experiences Questionnaire Database and sending an invitation to participate on the survey website, and the website was open for three months. The survey was measured on the Likert Scale which is numerical and ranges from 1-4. The only demographic variables that were used for the study were gender, race, and education level. Since demographic characteristics were analyzed to determine the impact of student background on learning outcomes, I believe an important factor that could have been used but was not used was income status. The sample consisted of a sample of students who completed the CSEQ survey. A majority of the participants in the study were White females and was similar in overall percentages to those who took the CSEQ survey. Cain and Pitre’s study showed similarly to previous studies that the use of technology in the classroom does aid learning and that student background variables can help increase that gain even more. The researchers had assumed that the relative effect of technology on student learning gains would have been greater than what the study showed. The researchers proved everything that they had set out to prove in their hypothesis.

The report itself was clearly written and very understandable, and the language was not biased at all. Among the report’s flaws were the few variables that were used in determining learning outcomes. Financial status would have been a very helpful thing to use, as many people don’t go to college at all or last there a short time due to poor financial health. Marital status and living situation would have also have been very helpful if the researchers had decided to also utilize those variables. Another flaw was the study took place for a very short time of only three months. The study would have been much more better if it had taken place for an entire semester. The study was also not that diverse or representative of the entire college population of the United States, as it featured 60% White females. The language used was very poor on the term word processor and using it as an independent variable. Most computers purchased now come with pre-installed word processors and other types of software. Another thing to consider in the study is that it took place in 2003 and internet use has grown even larger since then. The report’s strengths lay among that it was very clear and had a clear set of goals it was looking to test. The study did not try to prove too many things and it was well-defined. The implications of the research are that technology can be a huge assist to aiding learning and that more use should be made of this technology. Also instructors must decide what is the best way to implement technology to enhance the learning experience. The study also paves the way for future studies to build upon the foundation that was set with this study, with more room to learn about how this best research this issue.

References
1.Alavi, M. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 159-174
2.Lavin, B. Teaching Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jan., 1980), pp. 163-179

Roger Clemens & Barry Bonds

2009-04-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

Written on December 15, 2007

Barry Bonds was villified by the media for using steroids long before there was ever any proof that he did it. Roger Clemens got a free pass even though to anybody with eyes he was obviously doing something to keep getting better with age like Barry did. Now with the proof that Roger Clemens did steroids, it only makes sense for Roger to be villified like Barry was or else it will show that the main reason they got after Barry like they did is because he was black. Not only black but a black man who refused to be subservient to the white media. Time will tell how they treat Roger.

NCAA Football ’07

2009-04-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

I wrote this on December 2,2007 in response to that wild Division I Football Season. No team seemed to want to win the national title that year and all the top teams fell week after week like a stack of falling dominoes.

"This is the craziest year I have ever seen in any sport, I don't understand how every team loses the games they are supposed to win compared to the NFL where the good teams like the Patriots destroy the teams they are supposed to beat. I don't think that's exciting and until they put a playoff or at least have a year where some teams can actually win games that they are supposed to division 1 college football is a joke."

The Kite Runner

2009-01-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on 12/17/08.

The story “Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini is a piece of historical fiction that reads all too true as a story that could have actually taken place. The novel is a work that can draw on many sociological perspectives as it has so many issues especially about race and ethnic conflict in Afghanistan that can be discussed. It is the story of an upper-class Afghan boy Amir growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970’s along with the son of his father’s servant Hassan. When he is 12 years old Amir watches Hassan get raped by another boy named Assef and does nothing about it . Feeling guilty and unable to face up with his own inaction Amir eventually has Hassan and his father driven from Amir’s home. In this same time period political turmoil started to envelop Afghanistan and Amir and his father flee Afghanistan in 1981 after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. They wind up first in Pakistan and then immigrate to the United States. In America, his life is a complete turnaround in class as Amir and his father become working class people. Years later after his father dies and Amir gets married, Amir travels to Pakistan and meets an old friend of his father who informs Amir that Hassan was actually was his brother, and Hassan is now dead with a son who has become an orphan named Sohrab. Amir travels back to Afghanistan for the first time in many years with the mission of leaving the country with Sohrab. Amir finds his nephew living with Assef who has become a member of the Taliban. Amir then fights Assef and manges to escape with Sohrab’s help. At the end of the novel Amir ends up adopting Sohrab.

For this Final Project I have decided to focus on a paragraph on page 25 of the novel where a young Amir talks about how despite how he and Hassan would have seemed to actually be friends, Amir never thought of Hassan as a friend and nothing could change the fact that they were of two different ethnic groups, one superior and the other one inferior. This section of the book elaborated just how fixed and closed the race relations and religious differences are between the ethnic groups, the Pashtun tribe and the Hazara tribe in Afghanistan.

“The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not in the usual sense, anyhow. Never mind that we taught each other to ride a bicycle with no hands, or to build a fully functional homemade camera out of a cardboard box. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile.
Never mind any of those things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was going to change that. Nothing.”
From this section of the book we see it clear the distinct class distinctions that existed between the majority Pashtun tribe and the Hazara. The Pashtuns make up about 42% of the overall Afghan population, and Pashtun has sometimes been synonymous with Afghan. The Hazaras are smaller in number and make up about 9% of the population. Despite Amir growing up with Hassan and sharing so many things during childhood, their relationship was that of one between and a servant and master not that of two friends, since a Pashtun and Hazara could not be friends as Amir learned from his father. The distinction between Pashtuns and Hazars was clear and it was definite and unchanging. Afghanistan has different ethnic groups but the country is dominated by the majority Pashtun tribe. Smaller ethnic groups in the country include Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. According to the constitution of Afghanistan all Afghans are considered equal in front of the law but reality has shown that has not been the actual case. Afghanistan is a heavily socially stratified country with discriminations going back centuries as in the case of the Hazaras who have been brutually subjugated by the Pashtuns in the past and subjected to social exclusion. Hazaras are discriminated against not just because of their race but also because they are Shiite Muslims while the majority of the population are Sunni Muslims. The hatred between Sunnis and Shi’as goes back even farther than the rivalry between Hazaras and Pashtuns, and has sparked a lot of violence in other Muslim lands. Hazaras were considered to be the lowest group on the social scale, and relegated to jobs as servants with no social status. According to Max Weber’s theories the Hazaras fit the very definition of being a pariah group. The opportunities provided to other groups are denied to the Hazaras. Hassan didn’t go to school as he was expected to be like his adoptive father Ali was, a servant for life. Being born and living such a life also shows a lack of social mobility in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan for the Hazaras there exists no upward social mobility for their group due to the hatred felt for the Hazaras and their status as second class citizens. Afghanistan doesn’t have situational or symbolic ethnicity as a Hazara will always be a Hazara. The fact that Hazaras are Shi’a in a Sunni society where religion matters strongly also does not help out their situation also as the rivalry between the Sunnis and the Shi’a is a centuries old rivalry which has seen a lot of bloodshed. As mentioned later in Kite Runner the Hazaras were also the victims of ethnic cleansing in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998, and Hazaras were massacred during an uprising in 1892 which also saw large numbers of Hazaras displaced from their homeland of Hazarajat. The situation of the Hazaras is very similar to that of lower groups in a caste system. A lot of people avoid associating with Hazaras and even those who are familiar with Hazaras do not consider them as friends. Assimilation does not exist in Afghanistan as shown so clearly by the thoughts of Amir. In Afghanistan pluralism is the order as all the different ethnic groups exist side by side with very little mixing. With the amount of hatred and mistrust and centuries old rivalries that exist in Afghanistan it is very difficult to ever picture an Afghanistan that has all the ethnic groups living peacefully side by side.

It can be shown by statistical data that countries like Afghanistan which are not considered free as defined by the Freedom House survey of freedom in 2006 (Giddens, 2007, p.396) are generally proven by statistical data to be some of the poorest nations on Earth, while also being some of the hungriest nations on the Earth as listed in the UN FAO map of 2003. (Giddens, 2007, p.264) (Giddens, 2007, p.268) Afghanistan also had the lowest life expectancy in all of Asia as of the year 2002. (Giddens, 2007, p. 637) On the reverse side, from the World Bank Development Indicators Map of 2005, almost every country in the high income range is also listed as a free country. Almost every country listed in the high income range also is listed with hunger as an extremely low problem. In those statistics it is easy to see a trend that exists. Generally the poorer the country the less free it is, while the richer the country the more free it is for the most part. The work of Rostow applies heavily in the case of Afghanistan as it looks as it is the traditional cultural values of Afghanistan that is holding the country back. The hatred of Hazaras due to race and religion, and the rise of religiously backed governments who rule to the detriment of the country at large has definitely hurt the country and hurt development. It can be argued that if Afghanistan were more of a free country striving to protect all of its citizens then Afghanistan would be more of a modernized country. Afghanistan has taken steps forward in this decade under the presidency of Hamid Karzai progress has made been made in race relations and more freedoms for the populace. Hazaras have been allowed to join the army and some have started to hold government positions. But, with the progress that has been made there is still a long way to go in Afghanistan.

Ethnic tensions and also religious tensions sometimes go a long way in defining a nation’s identity. The country of Afghanistan is a country that has been shaped by its ethnic and religious tensions. By understanding these tensions it’s easier to come closer to an understanding of Afghanistan.
References
1. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p06s02-wosc.html?page=1
2. http://www.iranica.com/newsite/index.isc?Article=http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v12f1/v12f1080b.html
3. http://www.iranica.com/newsite/index.isc?Article=http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v1f5/v1f5a037.html
4. Giddens, Anthony. Introduction to Sociology 6th ed. New York, 2007.

Life On Other Planets

2009-01-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

I wrote this originally on 12/08/2008.

For thousands of years man has pondered the possibility whether life exists on other planets, usually with the question are we alone? To this day the thought of extraterrestrial life intrigues scientists, scientific writers, and the general public as that question has never really been answered. If extraterrestrial life were to actually be discovered in this 21st century life as we know it and our way of looking at things would make a major change as we would have discovered that we are not alone.

As of today there is no evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. “ Earth is the only place in the universe where we know for certain that life exists, and we have no direct evidence for extraterrestrial life of any kind.” (Chaisson McMillan, 2008, p.758) But if life were to be discovered elsewhere it would have a huge impact on life, religion, and politics. One of the areas where it would have the biggest impact is on religion especially here in the West. The whole concept of God creating life on only one planet here on Earth would have to be completely disregarded and the perception of the Earth having a special place in the universe would finally disappear once and for all. Understanding of Biblical stories of angels descending from the heavens or people rising into the heavens would come to be interpreted as stories of aliens from another planet visiting Earth and men being taken into spacecraft. The discovery of extraterrestrial life could also possibly lead to a serious decline in religion in around the world as people’s who had their worldview shaped by religion could possibly come to lose faith in their religion and everything they believed in. Extraterrestrial life discovery could also change our very conceptions of life and existence, and it would make a huge impact also on the field of philosophy. Other aspects of human life would also change depending on whether or not humans are advanced compared to the discovered life or whether the extraterrestrial life is advanced compared to us humans. If they are advanced it could lead to rapid discoveries in fields such as science and medicine.

The discovery of extraterrestrial life could rapidly change our existence here on Earth. It would be the type of discovery that was only dreamed about by men for centuries coming true. It would truly make the 21st century a century of discovery.

WMAP Satellite

2009-01-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

I wrote this originally on 11/21/2008.

The WMAP satellite originally known as the MAP satellite has been very significant in our understanding of cosmology and galaxy formation. Since its launch in 2001 it has been at the forefront of some exciting discoveries in the field of astronomy. The WMAP satellite has also provided answers and opened up new questions and ideas for scientists to consider.

WMAP stands for Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and its main objective is to measure temperature differences in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation also known as CMB. WMAP was launched in 2001 and its mission is scheduled to end in 2009. The WMAP is positioned in the L2 orbit which is very beneficial because that position helps keep its sensors away from both the Earth and the Sun. Scientists have estimated that CMB radiation has taken 13 billion years to reach the Earth. Using WMAP scientists were able to take the best photo ever taken of the early universe and made some startling discoveries. Discoveries from WMAP have put the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years. Scientists also have come to the conclusion that the first stars from the Big Bang came about 200 million years after the Big Bang. Indeed the WMAP has helped to strengthen the entire Big Bang theory, and it also helped bolster the cosmic inflation theory. The WMAP also gave some of the first real clear insight into dark matter, which is currently mostly unknown. Scientists have also come to the conclusion that neutrinos play no part in the evolution of structure in the universe. Another important facet of the WMAP is that it is helping to help understand the actual size of the universe.

The WMAP satellite has offered new insights into the size and age of the universe. It is helping to open doors that were previously closed and bringing up intriguing new things to study. The WMAP is scheduled to end its mission in 2009, so only time will tell if it will be at the forefront of another discovery.
References
1. http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=977
2. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Astro/wmap.html
3. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/map_mission_basics_030211.html
4. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0206mapresults.html
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Microwave_Anisotropy_Probe

Computing in 2018: A prediction

2009-01-09T19:22:00.000-08:00

Originally written by me on September 17, 2008

Advancements in computers have changed the way how people live time and time again in human history. Computers have made several advancements in the last 10 years. In the next 10 years computers can be expected to make several more advances in the next 10 years.

Changes in computers have always come and gone rapidly. 10 years ago broadband internet was virtually unheard of, DVD burners were unheard of and few people even knew what a DVD was. MP3s and MPG format movies were rare and didn't have much of an impact. Now in 2008 all of these technologies are widespread. In the year 1975 Gordon Moore said the increase in computing power would double every two years. That means in 10 years we can expect downloads of 100+MB files to take place in only a few seconds time. The amount of information that can be placed on a chip will expand, with laptops holding only 30 GB or less of memory becoming a distant memory. There is even talk of dna being used instead of silicon chips all making computers more interactive. The current complexity of writing software programs for certain microchips which is now plaguing certain software developers can be expected to fall aside, as hardware makers work better with software developers to overcome these problems.

In conclusion technology has made rapid jumps in the past, and the capacity for what the computer can do hasn't been fully tapped into yet. As time goes on the amount of people who were born when the computer wasn't an important tool will continue to diminish and the computer will continue to grow and provide new technologies.

Reference: http://www.idecorp.com/WBS/rapid.htm

Large Hadron Collider

2009-01-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

Originally written by myself on 9/22/2008.

I’ve chosen to do this writing assignment on the article “The Origins Of The Universe: A Crash Course” written by Brian Greene and published by The New York Times, appearing in the print edition on September 12, 2008. The article is about the Large Hadron Collider Project taking place in Geneva, Switzerland which is supposed to revolutionize our knowledge of the universe, as scientists try to recreate the conditions that led to the Big Bang.

Work on the Large Hadron Collider began over a decade ago, and it has involved thousands of scientists from many different countries. The cost of the Collider is about 8 billion dollars. The Collider is supposed to work at full power by having trillions of protons racing at each other at opposite speeds faster than the speed of light, producing over a half a billion head on collisions. Scientists hope that when this happens they will be able to produce particles not seen since the Big Bang.

One of the biggest mysteries to scientists right now is the origins of mass. The mass of almost any object or particle can be determined, but where mass itself originates is actually unknown. Peter Higgs an English physicist came up with a potential answer for this question when he suggested that space is pervaded by a field similar to electromagnetic fields that act like invisible molasses. Brian Greene explains in the article that according to Higgs theory, when we push something to try to make it move faster, the Higgs molasses exerts a drag force and it’s that drag force that we call mass. In the 1970’s scientists incorporated this theory into the theory called the standard model of particle physics. Scientists also hope to see sparticles for the 1st time that have evaded detection, but scientists believe exist and can help further understanding of dark matter. The Collider is also hoped to maybe reveal the existence of transdimensional particles which have never been confirmed to exist. The biggest fears of the Collider is that they might be able to produce micro black holes that could possibly lead to the destruction of the planet. But, there exists little evidence that would actually happen. The greatest hope for the Collider is that instead of proving an existing theory, that it will produce something totally unexpected to change our working knowledge of the universe.

I found this article to be very informative because it provided me a lot of knowledge with what the Large Hadron Collider is actually about, and what they are hoping to discover from it. A lot of news media reports I saw on the Large Hadron Collider simply refer to it as a doomsday machine that could lead to the end of the world. The Large Hadron Collider I’ve seen after reading this article is the type of project that can either totally confirm pre-existing theories, or it could be the type of project that completely changes notions and renders all theories existing right now completely obsolete.

Sociology

2009-01-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

Originally written by myself on September 25,2008

The 1800’s were a changing time for the Western World. The entire societal order seemed to be in upheaval, technological changes were brought about by the Industrial Revolution that rendered some jobs obsolete, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars brought the old European system to an end and also brought on new ideas such as nationalism. Religion which had once played a huge part in Western life was being increasingly de-emphasized, with science taking the role of religion. In this upheaval there began to be new ways of looking into the question of human nature and why do people do things certain ways, it was in this era that sociology was born.

“Sociology is the scientific study of human social life, groups, and societies.” (Giddens, 2007, p.3) Sociology is fairly new compared to the other sciences, since sociology started only in the 1800’s. Sociology came about as thinkers began using science to understand why human nature is the way it is, why society is structured the way it is, and why do societies change. They also wanted to predict human behavior and use these answers to make life better for everyone. In the 1800’s advances in science had already transformed different disciplines like medicine, astronomy, engineering and other fields. Sociologists hoped to use science to also transform the human being. “Science is the use of systematic methods of empirical investigation, the analysis of data, theoretical thinking, and the logical assessment of arguments to develop a body of knowledge about a particular subject matter.” (Giddens, 2007, p.24) Also important in science is the use of theories. “To be effective a theory-the framework of ideas and assumptions used to explain some set of observations and make predictions about the real world-must be continually tested.” (Chaisson McMillan, 2008, p.6) This was something very important for the early sociologists because they wanted to make predictions for the future based on human behavior and how they could hopefully make aspects of human life better. The actual term sociology was invented by French author Auguste Comte. “Comte originally used the term social physics, but some of his intellectual rivals at the time were also making use of that term. Comte wanted to distinguish his own views from theirs, so he introduced sociology to describe the subject he wished to establish.” (Giddens, 2007, p.13)

Emile Durkheim came along after Auguste Comte and built on his work establishing new ideas such as organic solidarity, which states that society depends on cooperation among its members. He also was a proponent of social constraint where it’s said that society puts constraints on the actions of the individual. Durkheim was also one of the first people to write extensively about division of labor. Durkheim felt that division of labor took the place in society that was once held exclusively by religion. Division of labor increased interdependency among people because if one person does only one certain function such as working in a factory, he is highly reliant on a person who’s growing food because the factory worker does not do food production, and the food grower is reliant on the person working in transportation to ship his crops. Durkheim also analyzed suicide rates which he felt were explained by feelings of helplessness many people feel in a modern society where religion no longer had the place that it once did to give people’s lives meaning. Karl Marx was another important early sociologist. “Marx’s viewpoint was founded on what he called the materialist conception of history.”(Giddens, 2007, p. 15) Marx believed that history was based on conflicts between classes. He thought that in the future the proletariat class would rise up and overthrow the dominant class and create a classless society. The teachings of Marx came to be known as Marxism.

In the modern world there is similar upheaval similar to the upheaval experienced at the dawn of sociology. Large numbers of people are immigrating from poor countries to richer ones, new technological advances are rendering certain jobs obsolete and changing the way people live, jobs are leaving communities after years of being in one place to relocate elsewhere. Terrorism and mass shootings have become a fact of life and people are having problems coping with life in the modern world. Just like when sociology was formed there are many questions about human beings that are being asked and sociologists are looking for answers.