Gap Minder

When you look at this graph, make sure to change both axis to log instead of lin.

http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/ – $majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2005$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=rcTO3doih5lvJCjgLSvlajA;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0TAlJeCEzcGQ;by=ind$inc_

The patterns that I see in this graph are a decent in children per women while the GDP per employee increases. But once the GDP per person reaches around 20,000 the graph levels out for children per women with a small gap between the Arab and South American states compared to the European countries. But once the GDP per person reaches 40,000 in some European countries there is a small jump for the ‘children per women’ to close the gap between the Arabs and Latinos to the Europeans.

 

The justification of the indicators is that it gives us a result that we probably weren’t expecting. Usually we would think that people with more money could have more children because they can afford it. People with more money also often have bigger houses.

 

Some limitations to this is that one indicator is children per women, but it is total fertility, so there is the possibility of children dying young which this doesn’t account for. There really isn’t anything that’s unclear about the graph, it’s pretty clear. Less GDP = more fertility. But I do wonder why Europe and Central Asia are generally lower in children per women than any other regions and why they decide to increase in children per women only when the GDP per person reaches around 40,000.

The Lemon Tree Post 5

Recently in the book, there was a bombing that Bashir was accused of organizing. He was found guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. His treatment in the prisons he was in was poor and he was sometime beaten. During his time in prison his family would sometimes visit him. When Dalia heard about what happened she became extremely sad and had felt that she was betrayed. After Bashir was released, he had spent 3 years free when Israel deported him from Ramallah to Lebanon. Bashir became an important figure and has tried to return to Gaza from Greece on a ship, but Israel won’t let them. During this time, Dalis has been in a hospital bed, being pregnant and wrote a letter about their two histories. Bashir would eventually write a response letter to hers. After Dalia gave birth, she started a kindergarten school in the house where Dalia and Bashir lived.

Quotes:

1: “We can dream together.” (page 222) This quote was said by an Arab man who hepled Dalia start the school. This quote caught my attention becuase it says to me that even amongst all the fighting and hatred, there are many that still get along and can be friends even from the different backgrounds. To me, anyone can be friends no matter what the background of the people. And probably the only way the conflict with Israel will end today is if they do set aside the difference and progress together.

2: “…Arabs who still saw Israel as illegally occupying Palestine.” (page 171)    The reason why this quote stood out to me was becuase I thought it was a little funny. This is becuase the Arabs said the future of Palestine will be by the force of arms and Israel won and kind of became Israel from force of arms. So I just don’t see how they can say it’s illegal when the Arabs are the ones who said that’s how Palestine will be decided. An example is a person (the Arabs) wanting to fight another person (Israel) and saying the winner will be determined by the person who can give the first blow to head. And Israel wins, but the Arabs say it was illegal even from their own saying. It just seemed kinda stupid to me.

The Lemon Tree Post 4

At this point in the book,  Nasser had gained a lot of popularity from the Arabs from his views towards Palestine. Tensions increase and a war becomes inevitable. Israel and the Arabs wait for it to start until Israel starts an attack on Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi airfields. All in all, Israel won the war in about 6 hours. After the war ended, Bashir went to his former house and met Dalia who he became friends with. Sometimes Bashir would go and visit her, and eventually Dalia visited Bashir in Ramallah. Each time they met, they would have good discussions about their history/past.

Quotes:

1: “…Fatah, along with a new group called Abtal al-Awda, launched dozens more attacks from the West Bank and Lebanon….” (page 126) This quote caught my attention because I realized how many different organizations formed for the purpose of returning and having Palestine be a state. Many of the terrorists organizations we hear about launching attacks on Israel today have all been formed when Israel wouldn’t let the Arabs return a long time ago. Then I realize that the conflict the book is talking about is still happening and that it won’t be resolved any time soon.  

2: “Fear of annihilation.” (page 129) This is a quote from Dalia before the six day war when they Arabs were sending threats to all of Israel. This captured my attention because I thought of how many people fled Europe from the fear of being captured and killed to Israel to face other people who want the same thing. The Jews who fled Europe never had a break. They’ve always been under pressure by someone. There isn’t room to compromise for the Arabs and Jews if they want the same thing. Even a good compromise leaves everyone unhappy, and that’s not good enough for either of them. This is why it’s taking such a long time to fix this mess.

The Lemon Tree Post 3

In the part that I have recenlty read, I remember the book talking about the family in Bulgaria. It talks about the political standpoints in Bulgaria and the different points of view of leaving for Israel between the Jews. The new Bulgarian government is communist and had been executing former pro-fasists. Then in 1947, the Soviet Union said they would wupport a Jewish state. So Bulgaria started helping/suporting the Jews to leave for Israel. Then in 1948, the Bulgarian family moved to Israel. Then the book switches to the Khairi family. The Khairi’s finally arrived to Ramallah and found that the refugees were complaining becuase of the poor conditions. Then they moved to Gaza and had the entire family working for extra money. In 1949 the war became officially over but some Palestinians lead strikes and small attacks from their anger for not being able to return to their homes.  Then in 1957 the Khairi family moved to the West Bank.

Quotes:

1:  “The poorest of the Gaza refugees survived on a UNRWA diet of 1,600 calories a day….” (page 98) This quote caught my attention reading how little food they receive. It made me think of how grateful I am for living in a nice place where I  have all the food I need and a mother who makes us many different meals. It’s something that I think a lof of people just don’t really realize how lucky they are for having as much as they do and don’t take it for granted. There are millions of people who don’t recieve sufficient nutrition that die and become sick from the lack of it. Now I want to record how many calories I eat in a day just to see the difference. If I ever had to donate money to an organization, it would be for an organization who supplies people with suffient food and nutrition becuase if I were the starving the people I definantly wouldn’t like it and would want the help.

2: “Palestine is our country…Our aim to to return, death does not frighten us, Palestine is ours, We shall never forget her. Another Homeland we shall never accept…We promise to shed our blood for you” (page 100).                                  This quote stood out to me becuase it showed how much pride and feeling the Palestinians had about their Palestine and themselves and what they’re willing to do to get it back. But then I wondered if they felt this strong about Palestine, you would think that they would have fought a little harder to protect themselves from the Jews or if the Jews were really very strong. The Palestinians really have a reason to feel this way too. They were forced out of thier land and feel humiliated. It’s very different than a Catalan feeling very Catalan becuase he’s supposed to and has no idea why. There is a history behind the Palestine and the people.

The Lemon Tree Post 2

Now in the book, there is mostly talk about the war going on between the Jews and the Arab Palestinians. It tells about different places each side is trying to take and it gives some detail on some of the missions. During this,  Al-Ramla has been trying to defend itself  from the Jewish army. During this, there have also been a lot of refugees moving about and father of the Khairi family wants the family to leave because it’s getting dangerous.  After a while, Al-Ramla has been loosing supplies and extremely low on ammunition and other defences. So they decided to surrender.  

Quotes:

1: ” Seven hundred thousand Jews pitted against twenty-seven million Arabs – one against forty.”  This quote is from a Jewish commander talking about the difference in numbers between the Jewish and Arab armies. This stood out to me because after seeing how much bigger the Arab army was I didn’t get how the Jews ever won. I guess the Jews must have had great motivation and a strong feeling for their Zion state. I’m not sure if the Arabs would have won even if they were better organized or prepared. Israel has always been just so strong and powerful against everyone, it would be hard to see them ever lose.

2: “It appeared that Arab armies could eliminate the Jewish state before it was even established.” (page 51)                    The main reason why this stood out to me was the sheer irony of it. How they thought they would be able to defeat them, but end up getting crushed in the end. The Arabs just never win. But the Arabs were right when they said that the future shape of Palestine will be determined by arms, because that’s exactly what happened. Israel takes over Palestine by force and extracting the Arabs who live in the new occupied territory. It’s a war, and that’s one of the ways war is done.

The Lemon Tree Post 1

In the first part of the book, three refugees travel to visit the places where they first grew up.  It also talks about a girl who had moved into an empty house with a lemon tree. Then the book switches to the past and talks about the family who first lived in the home and the family who is currently living there. The book talks about a family (the Khairi’s)  who settled in a place call Al-Ramla, who built a home, the breakout of an Arab Rebellion and then it explains the background of Bulgaria and the family who is currently living in the home when they lived in Bulgaria.

Quotes:

1: “They all spoke Arabic and were Palestinians like us.”  This quote is said by one daughters of the  in the Khairi family about the Jewish kids at her school.  After reading this quote I thought how the views about certain people change if one grows up with them like this girl or if one just hears about them and makes their own opinion like Hitler. A question I thought was that if Hitler grew up with Jews as friends and who acted like him, then would his views change about Jews. But then I thought about the Palestinians hating the Jews. But then I realized that they hated the Jews that were immigrating and were pressuring for a new state for themselves. The Palestinians don’t like the immigrants, but I’m sure they were friends with at least some Jews.

2: “By the turn of 1940, the British authorities had finally defeated the Arab Rebellion…tens of thousands jailed, thousands killed, hundreds executed, countless houses demolished, and key leaders…in exile.” (page 21)                    This stood out to me because I saw how many people were jailed and executed and knowing that thousands more will be jailed and executed in the future. I would have thought that the Arabs would have “slowed down” their resistance for their right to return after what had happened to them. But they didn’t and they get hammered again. You can’t blaim the Arab’s for how they feel, but then you can’t really blaim Israel for what they’ve done too in responce to the Arabs resistnace. This has got to be one of the most difficult conflicts the world has seen.

Human Rights Watch Blog Post 3

It has been found that in Nepal, children ages 13 and up are being tortured. This year, there have been 200 reported claims of children getting torture from the police force. The fact that the police force is doing this is shocking. The police should be doing the protecting, not the hurting. It has been said that most children that are tortured are suspected of committing petty crimes, or are children living or working on the streets. Torturing is not even a crime under the contry’s civil code.  One first-person testimony obtained by Human Rights Watch came from a 15-year-old boy who was routinely abused over a period of four days by police officers from three different police stations in Sunsari District in January 2008. The boy, who was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a robbery, explained:“As I denied their accusations, [two unidentified police personnel] started beating me with a green plastic pipe and a bamboo stick on my hands, legs, and all over my body. Then, they forced me to lie on the floor with my legs on the table and started beating me on my feet. While beating, they asked some questions such as ‘Who was involved in robbery?’ and ‘What are their names?’…. They tortured and interrogated me for about one hour.”The next day, the same boy was transferred to a different police station, where he said he was again abused:“Some five or six unidentified police personnel asked me the same questions as [I had been asked the] previous day. As soon as I stated that I was not involved in the robbery, they started beating me with a plastic pipe, a silver pipe, and a bamboo stick all over my body. They even punched and kicked me with their boots. After a while, they placed a pistol on my temple and threatened to shoot me dead in an encounter. Then, they forced me to admit my involvement in the robbery…. They forced me to lie on the floor and one police man put his legs with boots on my chest and another sat on my head and the next police officer started beating me on my feet, legs, and all over my body with sticks. Then, they forced me to jump up and down on the floor for seven to ten minutes and again started beating me. I was beaten and interrogated simultaneously [over a two-hour period].”

This is an extremly important matter becuase no one should be tortured. It’s in our declaration of human rights that there should be no torture, and there especially shouldn’t be any torture to children. This torturing can ruin the rest of their lives. I think this should be important to us becuase we wouldn’t want to be the ones being tortured or being the parents of the child. So we shouldn’t just leave them alone. There has to be a way to help them. And this is a trustworthy source becuase we have an actually account of a child that was tortured and this isn’t something to joke about.

Human Rights Watch Blog Post 2

As in the last blog, a matter of juvenile execution have arisen. Iran has recently executed another juvenile offender of the seven that have already been executed this year.  Iran accounts for 80% of all juvenile executions, but will refuse to stop after the UN has been urging them to stop. But the difference in this case is that the juvenile offender was 19 years old, which at that age is considered to be an adult. The main problem however are the executions of people younger than 18, who aer still considered minors and children. 

So I think that the childrens rights shouldn’t be applied to him for the execution, but it is still wrong of the country to do an execution anyway.

Human Rights Watch Blog Post 1

 The UN has urged Latin American and Caribbean states to an immediate suspernsion of juvenile executions. These Latin American and Caribbean countries even though they are all party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits executions of people under the age of 18, and they haven’t executed a minor for many years, have refused this proposal. After their refusal, the UN starting debating about the juvenile death penalty as part of negotiations on a General Assembly resolution on the rights of the child. Even after the UN General Assembly began its annual debate on children’s rights, more than 300 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from 82 countries called on the General Assembly to take urgent action to end executions for crimes committed by children. And as of now only 5 countries still continue these execution practices which are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Modernity Essay

Modernity Essay

Marc Waddell

Oct. 15th 2008

 

    People all have views and opinions of everyone and everything going on in the world  whether it be big or small. For centuries, many people have written about their views whether it is about politics or sports.. But there is one subject that has been popular among many different people. The future and the past. Many writers in all of time  have had mixed perceptions, good and bad, about the future and whether or not it will be brighter than the past.

 

 Over the past many hundred years, many writers wrote and weren’t in favor of the future and modernity. One of the many writers that weren’t in favor of modernity was Gandhi. In one of Gandhi’s papers, he states  about how “civilization” is making everything easy for everyone. He also argues that civilization is making many things go from good to bad or bad to worse. Gandhi is also stating that men’s intellect have been decreasing because of the many things that men are doing that would have never have been done a hundred years ago. He states, “Formerly, only a few men wrote valuable books. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people’s minds…Men are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires.” And, “Formerly, men were made slaves under physical compulsion. Now they are enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy.”  Another writer named Olive Shreiner also wrote negatively about modernity in 1911 negatively states that, ”We find that wherever that condition which we call modern civilization prevails, and in proportion as it tends to prevail…there has arisen, all the world over, a large body of males who find that their ancient fields of labor have slipped or are slipping from them, and who discover that  the modern world had no place or need of them.”

            Over these past many hundred years there were also people that believed that modernism will lead to a better future.. One of these people is Jean Antoine Nicholas de Condorcet. He believed that, “man will achieve individual and general prosperity, that man will achieve a state of perfection.” Many other people also had some of the same ideas as Condorcet.. such as Walt Whitman and the group called the New Youth. .They believed that “that the future society can also reach a state of perfection.” A statement by the New Youth can clearly state one of these views, for example that “The new society we have in mind is characterized by honesty, progress, positively, liberty, equality, creativity, beauty, goodness, peace, love, mutual assistance, joyful labor, and devotion to the welfare of mankind…” In 1851, The Economist stated another view, stated that referring to the past, “We should find ourselves grumbling at heavy taxes laid upon nearly all the necessaries and luxuries of life – even upon salt, blaspheming at the high prices of coffee, tea and sugar, which confined all these articles, in any adequate abundance, to the rich and easy classes of our society” This quote is stating that in the past many things (like high taxes) used to be worse, but are now better.

 

     In this world, everybody has an opinion on everything. But one popular topic of discussion is about the future and modernity. And over the past many hundred years people have written about their views. Gandhi and other writers have written about how modernity is wrong while just as many people have written how modernity is a good thing. As of now, there is no right or wrong answer if modernity is good or bad. From these many authors what can we learn from their writing and what messages can we take out from it.