Overcoming Odds

The article I read about overcoming odds was from Boston.com/news. The article is called Overcoming all odds Sudanese refugees celebrate a college graduation by author Jenna Russell. This article is about Moses Ajou, Mangok Bol, and Jacob Mabil. These three boys are some of the first "lost boys" to graduate and earn a four year collage degree. These three boys were refuges that had escaped from Sudan and come to settle in America. When these boys first arrived they had never touched a key board and could not understand any english spoken with a bostan accent. I thought this article was really interesting and inspiring, because to know that someone who had gone through that much, and had that little was still tough enough to make it through collage, With no family or anything is really inspiring. One quote that will stay with me from this article is ''We learned a lot of things the hard way, so when we see an opportunity, we want to go for it," this was quoted from Mangok Bol. I dont know why it stood out to me but it its really inspiring.

Love

The article i read was not really an article, I don't really know what to call it. But for some reason it attracted me. I read THE "article" Want to be my boyfriend: Please define, by Margurite Feilds. The reason i dont know if this is an article is because, Margurite Feilds is a collage student who sent in an article for a contest. She won and her article was publishe on May fourth. I think the reason I liked this article so much is because the author is young, so i could somewhat relate to it. The way she described all her relationships and thoughts were similar to mine, so it kept me hooked. This article is about our generations weird relationship status's and other things like tghat. This article was interesting because you get to see how other people view relationships, rather than just agreeing with the people around you that want you too think what they think.

War

I read an article about war on the New York Times newspaper website. The article i read was called Troops Return Immediately, By Jude Shinbin. It says this article was published on July Fourth 2009, so I am really confused about it right now. The article is stating that the American soldiers in Iraq should be returning home in just a few short weeks. “This is the best face we can put on the most unfortunate adventure in modern American history,” Defense spokesman Kevin Sites said I thought this quote was really significance and touching because it shows that even the people that were there, and fought and knew every horrible thing that happened in Iraq is willing to forget it and look at it from a new point of veiw. I also thought it was interesting to know that when our country is pulling out of the Iragi war, the U.N. is going into Iraq to help aid and rebuild there country

Colonization

When I Googled colonization I found a really interesting article from the New York Times, called "A Survival Imperative for Space Colonization" by John Tierney. This article is about how scientists think humans on earth will only survive for 5,100 more years. Many scientists also think that we need to start up a colony on Mars in the next 46 years in order to survive. The scientist who predicted this number is Dr. Gott. Dr. Gott uses the Copernican formula to predict things like when all of mankind will be wiped out. He also uses the Copernican formula to predict things like political rulers will stop ruling. In the article I was reading they explained how to get your accuracy percent when wanteing to predict something like when political leaders resign, but i really did not understand it.

Global Issue

Since our school is doing all this stuff for Darfur, I thought I would look into it a little deeper since I don't really know what was going on besides the short clip everyone saw in World History class. And since Mrs. Jarrett already had a page about it on the blog connected to Wikipedia, I just decided to read that! After reading the wiki page, I found out that the war is between the natives of the land and Afro-Arab Abbala tribes of the northern Rizeigat region in Sudan.The causes of the Darfur conflict are over population in the area, drought and desertification. The goverment has come to the estimation that two point five million people have been killed. The Sudanese government has been accused of killing witnesses since 2004, and tampering with evidence to eliminate their value

holiday

When I first Google searched "national holidays" nothing very interesting jumped out at me, but when I started clicking around I found an interesting article on about.com. It is called South Africa's National Holidays. It interested me because although I have learned about almost all the holidays in America Ive never really bothered to look at other country's or continents holidays. I thought it was really interesting to read the holidays of different countries, because they have some holidays that American's would have never though of as making a holiday. One important holiday is Youth Day. It takes place on the sixteenth of June. Youth day is to remember all the children and young adults that lost their lives while protesting Apartheid and Bantu Education. Another important Holiday in Africa is Heritage Day. Heritage day is to celebrate all the diversity the people of Africa have.

bollywood

Over MEA break i watched the new movie Slumdog Millionaire. At first i didn't think i would like it but it turns out I did! Thenn after break when i came back to school i learned that slumdog was a 'Bollywood" movie. So after finding out we had to write about Bollywood on our blog I thought hmmm maybe I'll look up slumdog so I did! One of my friends recommended I wrote about slumdogg for this blog also since, she too loved the movie. I read about slumdog in the article "Bollywood Coming to Hollywood" by Elham Khatami. Altough Slumdog is not authentically Indian, it is classified as a bollywood film, because of the editing, colors, dancing and plot which differs from many hollywood movies. Slumdog was an insperation to many indians, winning eight oscars. many people began to learn more and more about bollywood fillms and they are expected to become more popular.
Khatami, Elham. "Is Bollywood coming to Hollywood?"CNN. 23 February 2009. 1 March 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/23/bollywood.hollywood/index.html?iref=newssearch

culture

When i think of culture one big thing i think of is cults because many cults are cultures. People read about religious cults in magazines like People, and sometimes they are very interesting to see how other people act and their culture so I decided to read a little more about it. I read the article The O. Fits Definition of Cult by Kay Miller. It is about how much people give up to be in a cult, or how much they have to change to be like the people around them. The author is an expert and describes what a cult is and how the people in them act and what the "O's" culture is like. After reading about the people from the cults I kind of became a little scared of them, because of how the culture lets people treat other people.

Change

I read an article from the star tribune called, Use Stimulus to Modernize Minnesota by Walt Ling. This article is about Minnesota's chance to prepare for the future to come. Many people have lost their jobs because of the economic crisis we are having. Last year alone Minnesota spent billions of dollars just to repair bridges after 35w. After realizing how much time and money were spent on reconstructing bridges and roadways, many people thought that instead of spending money on things that don't need to be fixed the government should start spending more money on modernizing our society. Recently, the government has asked IBM what the impact of $30 billion in stimulus funds for three areas -- "smart" electrical grids, health-care information technology and broadband technology. IBM let the government know that that this modernization change would cause 900,000 job opportunities.

The War is Over? WHAT!

I read an article called "Faux New York Times Issue Inspires Hope, Declares Iraq War Over". This article is about the a flame of hope that washed over a group of people on a New York subway, only to get it extinguished again. On November 12, a group of people called the "Yes Man" group made a bunch of fake New York Times news papers declaring the war in Iraq to be over. The team handed them out on the subway one morning, expecting to get laughs or at least smerks, But the reactions were everything but that. This News paper was not ment to upset people, or anger them, it was just simply to get people thinking. Thinking about "What if the war really was over" or if we our country would stilll have financial problems. Thats exactly what this paper did, it let the readers imagine a world with no war. Although this article caused some to get their hopes up, many people are still hoping for the war to ebd soon.

Stem Cells

I read an article on New York Times.com called "How India Reconciles Hindu Values and Biotech" by Pankaj Mishra. In America stem cell research was banned, which saddened many American scientists, but made many Indian scientists very happy. Stem cell research is a chance for Indian researchers to get "lucky". Stem cell research has opened up many job oppurtunitys, it is also helping with medical issues, scientists are learning new treatments for diabetes and Parkinson's disease, to create human skin, blood and replacement organs that are matched to their intended patients. some are even trying to clone endangered species. Although the old hinduism would not allow stem cell research, the new and improved religion does, helping people find cures for the sick. In some places where buddism is the main religion, like South Korea, Scintists recreat stem cells claiming they are just recreating life like the reincarnation cycle.

Mishra, Pankaj " How India Reconciles with Hindu Values and Biotech". New York Times. 21 August 2005. February 15 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/weekinreview/21mishra.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Working mothers

I read an article in New York Times called "Working Mothers Find Peace on the Road" by Lisa W. Foderaro. This article talks about how in America, most families the father is working to support the kids, and their wife. But the number of working mothers and stay at home fathers is growing rapidly. For many others, work business trips become like mini vacations. They can escape cooking, cleaning and things like homework. Although businesswomen are less likely to travel on a business trip then men, when they do it takes a lot of preparation. The need to prepare the smooth running of the house and make sure everything will be okay for the time period their gone. Although to many women an out of town business trip is relaxing, it is always very emotional too. Mothers having to leave their children when they go away is always sad.

rice

I read the article Mrs. Jarrett linked to her blog about rice farmers in Africa, called West African Villagers Stake Their Fortunes on the Future Price of Rice by Lydia Polgreen. It is about Rice farmers who are risking everything to make a profit. Since the prices of food are so high all over the globe, some people are trying to take advantage of it. Farmers can either double their profits or loose everything. Mame Bassine Gaye, is a rice producer who this year went all out to increase production, borrowing money from from a local credit cooperative and family members. She stated “If I win, I will win big,” she said. “But if I lose, I’ll lose big. I am worried because of my debts. If you don’t pay, they cut you off. I could lose everything.” Which is just about what every other rice farmer is thinking this year sonce there is so much competition.

I read the article that Mrs. Jarrett linked to her blog, Struggling but Still a Bit of America, by Dan Barry. This article is about the hardships that the people from he Alaskan tribe of Yup’ik Eskimos have to go through, and how they are trying to keep their native traditions alive. They work hard to keep native traditions, like the language, the care and respect for elders, and the refusal to waste food like salmon. About one third of the population of the small town of AKIACHAK do not have running water, and the prices of food and such has gone up so high that the many families have to catch there own food, like moose or fish. Although the city is trying to modernize, many people feel that they would like to preserve some of the eskimo culture. One civilian is fighting for presidential ballots in their native language. Many of the townspeople have had to leave their homes because of the high prices, but the culture manages to still keep on.
Barry, Dan. "Remote and Struggling but Still a Bit of America." New York Times. 5 October 2008. 15 March 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/us/06land.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1>

Earthquake!

In the article, Superstitions About Quake Meet the Web, Irritating the Chinese Authorities, by Andrew Jacobs, the author is debating about being able to predict the coming of natural disasters like earthquakes. Many people in China think that there were signs of the deadly disaster that was coming, like droughts or invasions of toads. These people thought that these events were "signs" wondered why the government did not do anything about them. Because of the comments regarding the governments actions, Four people were taken to jail for spreading rumors about authorities. The culture has also been suspicious about predicting other things, like when a ruler would end his reign. The Government also even had the Bejing olympics set on a date with as many eights as possible starting them on August 8, 8-08-2008 at 8:08 pm. They did this because in their culture eight is a lucky number and they wanted as least disasters to happen as possible.