In an effort to become more connected with things happening in the world today, I have made it my goal to start researching current events and reflecting on them in this blog. However, to start out I'm going to focus on something that actually happened quite a while ago. My goal is to focus on events that could affect me in an way, so I made the exception and decided it was ok, even though it was from closer to the beginning of this year.
The event I researched is the chemical spill which occurred in West Virginia in January of this year. Though this occurred quite a while ago, I still think it's important to talk about because of the chances that it could happen to me. Though West Virginia is in a place highly vulnerable to chemical spills, so it's unlikely this could happen to me, it is still important to be prepared. Many people living in West Virginia during the chemical spill weren't ready for it, and there for suffered more than others. I think it is very important to be prepared for emergencies, at any point in time.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
Pastwatch Reflection #3- Centuries Apart
In the book Pastwatch there is two different characters that both have one extremely similar event in their life which sets them forward working extremely hard and doing anything they can to advance there lives. These two characters are Diko and Christofer Columbus. However, these extremely similar events happen hundreds of years apart.
In Pastwatch, Diko is allowed to use Pastwatch's technology and is given the assignment to help her mother by monitoring the life of Christofer Columbus and trying to find the moments in his life where he made the decision to strive for greatness. Eventually, Diko finds it and at the same time she makes her decision to strive for greatness.
In Columbus's life, he makes his decision when he questions the reasons why his father is treated differently than the gentlemen that he does business with. He asks his mother why and she responds by saying nobody with Christofer's father's job, as a weaver, could become a gentleman. After a lot of persuasion, Christofer's mom eventually convinced him that his father could never be a gentleman. So he chafed his intentions, he would become a gentleman. And from that point on, no matter what anyone told him, Christofer would strive to become successful and well known.
Meanwhile, generations into the future, Diko made the same decision. After she found the previously mentioned event in her studies in pastwatch, she was pushed to the point that she too wouldn't stop trying until she achieved what she wanted. In Pastwatch it said that Diko, "adjusted the schedule of her life to fit the hours when the machine was hers to use" (Card 73). This shows the massive amount of dedication that was gained by Diko, and similarly Christofer, caused by a single moment of motivation.
In Pastwatch, Diko is allowed to use Pastwatch's technology and is given the assignment to help her mother by monitoring the life of Christofer Columbus and trying to find the moments in his life where he made the decision to strive for greatness. Eventually, Diko finds it and at the same time she makes her decision to strive for greatness.
In Columbus's life, he makes his decision when he questions the reasons why his father is treated differently than the gentlemen that he does business with. He asks his mother why and she responds by saying nobody with Christofer's father's job, as a weaver, could become a gentleman. After a lot of persuasion, Christofer's mom eventually convinced him that his father could never be a gentleman. So he chafed his intentions, he would become a gentleman. And from that point on, no matter what anyone told him, Christofer would strive to become successful and well known.
Meanwhile, generations into the future, Diko made the same decision. After she found the previously mentioned event in her studies in pastwatch, she was pushed to the point that she too wouldn't stop trying until she achieved what she wanted. In Pastwatch it said that Diko, "adjusted the schedule of her life to fit the hours when the machine was hers to use" (Card 73). This shows the massive amount of dedication that was gained by Diko, and similarly Christofer, caused by a single moment of motivation.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Pastwatch Reflection #2: Playing God
A lot has happened in Pastwatch since the last time I wrote about it. The first big thing to happen was the introduction of Tagiri's daughter, Diko. In Pastwatch, Diko very much aspires to be like her mother. When she was young she was always around when Tagiri was working for pastwatch so from a very young age she was able to use and interact with the Pastwatch tools like the Tempoview and TruSite. Also she follows after her mother in that she has taken on a similar goal to Tagiri and hopes to help her mother in her work.
In the first section of Pastwatch Tagiri discovered the potential to communicate with people in the past through the TruSite II. They also made it their goal to use this technology to make people in the past more civilized and to make the world a happier place by eliminating a lot of tragedy. They then discover that this can be done through the elimination of one significant historical event- the voyage of Christofer Columbus.
The first step in their plan to eliminate this event is to find the moment in time where Christofer Columbus made the decision to make his voyage. This discovery is made by Diko. In the book, Diko is looking through old recording made by pastwatch when she decides to check one which nobody else would. You see, everyone had already seen this recording made by the older technology, so why revisit it? This was answered when something particularly peculiar happened in the new recording made by the modern TruSite II. In the old recording, practically nothing happens. However, when she went back and watched it again, Columbus was visited by an apparition which appeared to be the Christian holy trinity. They told Columbus to make his journey west across the ocean and of course, as anyone of the time would, he obeyed.
This rose a lot of questions among Diko and her parents. Thee biggest ones being-
1. Was that really god?
2. How didn't we see this before?
Eventually they came to a conclusion that satisfied both questions. This was that they couldn't see it before because it wasn't god, it was actually someone using the TruSite II to communicate back to the past and make sure Columbus made his journey. They couldn't see it before because, without the TruSite II, they couldn't see people communicating into the past with the TruSite II.
This made me think a lot about the ethics of the situation. Is it really ok to literally play god like that to manipulate people and the world around you? In Pastwatch this is exactly what they do and what they are actually trying to do. So what if this power fell into the wrong hands? If people were really able to do this, how could this negatively or positively affect the world? Personally, I think the risk is too great for anyone to actually try to do this.
In the first section of Pastwatch Tagiri discovered the potential to communicate with people in the past through the TruSite II. They also made it their goal to use this technology to make people in the past more civilized and to make the world a happier place by eliminating a lot of tragedy. They then discover that this can be done through the elimination of one significant historical event- the voyage of Christofer Columbus.
The first step in their plan to eliminate this event is to find the moment in time where Christofer Columbus made the decision to make his voyage. This discovery is made by Diko. In the book, Diko is looking through old recording made by pastwatch when she decides to check one which nobody else would. You see, everyone had already seen this recording made by the older technology, so why revisit it? This was answered when something particularly peculiar happened in the new recording made by the modern TruSite II. In the old recording, practically nothing happens. However, when she went back and watched it again, Columbus was visited by an apparition which appeared to be the Christian holy trinity. They told Columbus to make his journey west across the ocean and of course, as anyone of the time would, he obeyed.
This rose a lot of questions among Diko and her parents. Thee biggest ones being-
1. Was that really god?
2. How didn't we see this before?
Eventually they came to a conclusion that satisfied both questions. This was that they couldn't see it before because it wasn't god, it was actually someone using the TruSite II to communicate back to the past and make sure Columbus made his journey. They couldn't see it before because, without the TruSite II, they couldn't see people communicating into the past with the TruSite II.
This made me think a lot about the ethics of the situation. Is it really ok to literally play god like that to manipulate people and the world around you? In Pastwatch this is exactly what they do and what they are actually trying to do. So what if this power fell into the wrong hands? If people were really able to do this, how could this negatively or positively affect the world? Personally, I think the risk is too great for anyone to actually try to do this.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Pastwatch Reflection #1
In the first section of the book Pastwatch, the Redemption of Christofer Columbus, by Orson Scott Card, the author introduced the setting and main characters of the book. Primarily, the book takes place in the distant future, where the human race has developed the technology to view the past, but not change it. A group called Pastwatch are the people responsible for such monitoring of the past. However, it was always believed that while using the device that was used to look back in history, called the TruSite, Pastwatch couldn’t change the past in any way. However, one day a member of Pastwatch named Tagiri found evidence that this wasn’t true.
In Pastwatch, the character Tagiri is a member of Pastwatch who has devoted their life’s work to uncovering the long forgotten stories of the slaves of history. One day during their research, Tagiri and her partner, named Hassan, were watching two people living in a small tribal village, about forty generations in the past, who were in danger of becoming slaves. The two of them were seeking guidance from the gods to help them not be captured and be sold as slaves. While sleeping, they both had a different dream.
The first of the two had a dream of pure chaos, plague and death. All the people in the dream became slaves except for those of them who died first. In the book it says, “‘This is our healing then’ said Putukam ‘To die. Better to have been captured by Caribs. Better to have our hears torn out and our livers eaten. Then at least we would be an offering to god’” (Card 31). The second had a much different dream. In this dream they saw two people, a man and a woman, who were always watching them from forty years in the future. Immediately Tagiri noticed that she could be talking about her and Hassan. Hassan was doubtful at first, but then they described Tagiri’s appearance, he admitted that it seemed as though they were talking about the two of them. Therefore, Tagiri discovered that it was very likely that, using the TruSite, they could change the past.
This made me think about what I would have been doing in the situation of PastWatch in this setting.
Though Tagiri’s intentions seem mildly insane, I see her motive for wishing to take such actions. She is an extremely compassionate character and cares about nothing more then to help people. So when she discovers there is a way to communicate into the past, and potentially change it, she immediately takes her chance. If I were in the same setting as Tagiri and Hassan, I would definitely support Tagiri. However, for her own good, I would help her focus on the consequences of her actions. What she does to change the past could completely rewrite history and change the future, which could make it impossible for her to ever even make the changes to the past. Such a thing would make a time paradox, and bring unpredictable results. So I would certainly join Tagiri’s cause. However, I would have to really work over the logic of the whole situation with her and hope to bring her to her senses or at least help her to come up with a legitimate plan which would not cause huge unpredictable results.
Though Tagiri’s intentions seem mildly insane, I see her motive for wishing to take such actions. She is an extremely compassionate character and cares about nothing more then to help people. So when she discovers there is a way to communicate into the past, and potentially change it, she immediately takes her chance. If I were in the same setting as Tagiri and Hassan, I would definitely support Tagiri. However, for her own good, I would help her focus on the consequences of her actions. What she does to change the past could completely rewrite history and change the future, which could make it impossible for her to ever even make the changes to the past. Such a thing would make a time paradox, and bring unpredictable results. So I would certainly join Tagiri’s cause. However, I would have to really work over the logic of the whole situation with her and hope to bring her to her senses or at least help her to come up with a legitimate plan which would not cause huge unpredictable results.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Artifact Five Reflection
My fifth and final Artifact was another commercial about immigration. This commercial however, had a very different theme to it than the first one I analyzed. In this commercial many undocumented immigrants living in the US talked about how they were being denied healthcare. In America today, we have Obamacare, which was made so everyone in the US can be given healthcare. However, the immigrants in this commercial were not being given healthcare because they weren't documented US citizens.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure about my opinion on with this commercial. In the commercial, they make the point that in America, the government has promised affordable healthcare to "everyone". However, illegal immigrants aren't given such healthcare. They say that they want to be a par of "everyone" and they deserve healthcare just as much as any of us do. However, in a way their argument is completely flawed simply from the fact that they aren't lawful citizens of the United States.
This made me see that, though a lot has changed since the time period of The Distance Between Us, some things are still the same. In the book Reyna has to be taken to a dentist appointment pretending to be her dad's girlfriend's daughter, Cindy, because Reyna's family didn't have insurance. The commercial I examined has about how immigrants were being denied health insurance. So this shows me that, despite everything I've seen that has changed, some things, like it being hard for immigrants to get insurance have stayed the same.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure about my opinion on with this commercial. In the commercial, they make the point that in America, the government has promised affordable healthcare to "everyone". However, illegal immigrants aren't given such healthcare. They say that they want to be a par of "everyone" and they deserve healthcare just as much as any of us do. However, in a way their argument is completely flawed simply from the fact that they aren't lawful citizens of the United States.
This made me see that, though a lot has changed since the time period of The Distance Between Us, some things are still the same. In the book Reyna has to be taken to a dentist appointment pretending to be her dad's girlfriend's daughter, Cindy, because Reyna's family didn't have insurance. The commercial I examined has about how immigrants were being denied health insurance. So this shows me that, despite everything I've seen that has changed, some things, like it being hard for immigrants to get insurance have stayed the same.
Artifact Four Reflection
The fourth Artifact I found was a short clip from a fox new program. In the video, a news anchor expresses his opinion on the crisis of immigration in America, and he really helped me to understand the position America is in with whether we need to deport people or not. In the video clip, the news anchor talks about how, being the generous country that we are, America has let much too many illegal immigrants stay in America. However, this hasn't been much of a problem. He then goes on to say that it will become a problem if we let more waves of people come into America and stay without the United States deporting them.
The news anchor in the video then goes on to express his opinion on how this would become a huge problem in America if Obama doesn't promise there won't be more people moving into the US illegally and does something to prevent illegal immigration. He also says that it would be a very wise choice for politicians to favor the plan to not let any more illegal immigrants become residents because he claims that would get a politician eighty percent support from Americans.
In a large section The Distance Between Us, Reyna's family has a lot of trouble because they are in America illegally. Through the process of doing these reflections on the artifacts I've found, I've realized how much more difficult it would have been for Reyna's family if they had tried to immigrate in the modern time period instead of the time period that it was at the time. Now it has become a much more difficult process and in their situation in could have been almost impossible to make it as long as they did without being deported.
The news anchor in the video then goes on to express his opinion on how this would become a huge problem in America if Obama doesn't promise there won't be more people moving into the US illegally and does something to prevent illegal immigration. He also says that it would be a very wise choice for politicians to favor the plan to not let any more illegal immigrants become residents because he claims that would get a politician eighty percent support from Americans.
In a large section The Distance Between Us, Reyna's family has a lot of trouble because they are in America illegally. Through the process of doing these reflections on the artifacts I've found, I've realized how much more difficult it would have been for Reyna's family if they had tried to immigrate in the modern time period instead of the time period that it was at the time. Now it has become a much more difficult process and in their situation in could have been almost impossible to make it as long as they did without being deported.
Artifact Three Reflection
The third artifact I found was an article from the Wall Street Journal called Obama Weighing Business-Friendly Immigration Actions. The article stated that our president, Barak Obama, has been evaluating options to change the immigration policy so they could possibly change it to be more friendly to businesses. It would also make people in the United States illegally more protected. Many businesses are pushing to remove the requirement of dependents for employment green cards. This would double the amount of employment green cards per year to 280,000 green cards a year.
Based on the first two artifacts I examined, this could become a big problem in America. The article and commercial I first analyzed as artifacts talked a lot about how there is too many immigrants in fAmerica and that was causing a problem because not enough citizens of America are working. Based on these, it would appear to me that, should these changes be made to the immigration policy, they will not be good for people in America looking for work. This is because there will be many more people looking for work, making more competition for people already living in America and trying to find for work.
Though I don't agree with this action, I do think it would have been good for Reyna's family in The Distance Between Us. In the book, Reyna's dad illegally immigrates into the US for work. However, he didn't have a green card to be in America. If the action that is being considered now was activated when the events in The Distance Between Us were happening, it would have been much easier for Reyna's father to get his green card earlier on and it wouldn't have been as much of a problem in the book. They wouldn't have to hide the fact that they immigrated from Mexico, and would have to, and Grande describes it in the book, "hide in the shadows."
Artifact found here
Based on the first two artifacts I examined, this could become a big problem in America. The article and commercial I first analyzed as artifacts talked a lot about how there is too many immigrants in fAmerica and that was causing a problem because not enough citizens of America are working. Based on these, it would appear to me that, should these changes be made to the immigration policy, they will not be good for people in America looking for work. This is because there will be many more people looking for work, making more competition for people already living in America and trying to find for work.
Though I don't agree with this action, I do think it would have been good for Reyna's family in The Distance Between Us. In the book, Reyna's dad illegally immigrates into the US for work. However, he didn't have a green card to be in America. If the action that is being considered now was activated when the events in The Distance Between Us were happening, it would have been much easier for Reyna's father to get his green card earlier on and it wouldn't have been as much of a problem in the book. They wouldn't have to hide the fact that they immigrated from Mexico, and would have to, and Grande describes it in the book, "hide in the shadows."
Artifact found here
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Artifact Two Reflection
The second artifact I found was a anti immigration commercial. In the commercial they drew a lot of attention to the fact that illegal immigrants were taking jobs that should be taken my US citizens, not immigrants. In the commercial, they claimed that because of immigrants, American citizens are incapable of getting jobs and it's making our economy worse. However, this commercial wasn't only against illegal immigration. It also said that unless the lack of working citizens is fixed soon, we need to keep some legal immigrants from immigrating into the US, as it would keep citizens from getting jobs.
This commercial made some very good points. It said that unless we slow legal immigration the work crisis in America will only get worse. However, I don't think that's our best course of action. I think we mostly need to focus on stopping illegal immigration and work on keeping illegal immigrants from getting jobs and start trying to find illegal immigrants to send them home. Though I do think we shouldn't stop legal immigration I like the plan they had in the commercial. They said we should slow legal immigration, and I think that is a great idea.
I think everybody deserves an equal chance in their life including the aspect of work, and I understand that America is one of the best places to go for that opportunity. However, I agree that we need to slow the amount of legal immigrants. In The Distance Between Us, Reyna and her family illegally migrate to America. In the book they try very hard to hide the fact that they illegally migrated because their dad could lose his job and they would have to go back to Mexico. This partially gave me an idea to solve the problem in the commercial. Instead of stopping immigration, we should give the citizens of areas with job a crises a priority to get jobs and send immigrants to places with more job opportunities.
Artifact found here
This commercial made some very good points. It said that unless we slow legal immigration the work crisis in America will only get worse. However, I don't think that's our best course of action. I think we mostly need to focus on stopping illegal immigration and work on keeping illegal immigrants from getting jobs and start trying to find illegal immigrants to send them home. Though I do think we shouldn't stop legal immigration I like the plan they had in the commercial. They said we should slow legal immigration, and I think that is a great idea.
I think everybody deserves an equal chance in their life including the aspect of work, and I understand that America is one of the best places to go for that opportunity. However, I agree that we need to slow the amount of legal immigrants. In The Distance Between Us, Reyna and her family illegally migrate to America. In the book they try very hard to hide the fact that they illegally migrated because their dad could lose his job and they would have to go back to Mexico. This partially gave me an idea to solve the problem in the commercial. Instead of stopping immigration, we should give the citizens of areas with job a crises a priority to get jobs and send immigrants to places with more job opportunities.
Artifact found here
Artifact One Reflection
The first artifact I found was an online article called Americans Worry that Illegal Migrants Threaten Way of Life, Economy, an article on reuters.com by Alistair Bell. This article focuses on how most americans, seventy percent to be precise, believe that people illegally moving into the United States threatens the current way of life of americans. These same Americans also believe that the ecomony will not be stable if too many illegal immigrants come to America. According to the poll done in this article, 70 percent of Americans actually believe that illegal immigrants are threatening are way of life and customs, not just the economy. However, they do also believe that they are hurting the economy.
This article clearly relates to the events in The Distance Between Us. In the book Reyna, her dad, and her siblings Mago and Carlos illegally cross the border. During their time in America you can clearly tell that Reyna's father knows the threat they could be putting on Americans because he often times reminds Reyna, Carlos, and Mago to never tell anyone that they illegally crossed the border because they would be treated terribly in America if people knew that and eventually they would be deported back to Mexico. However, in The Distance Between Us Reyna's family doesn't ever pose any threat to America's culture or way of life. In fact they conform to the culture in America more than they oppose it. Though they keep certain things from Mexico, mostly the family tries very hard to act American in any way possible. When they get to America, everyone in Reyna's family tries very hard to learn english so they can fit in in America.
In conclusion, I think that, though in some cases their claims may be legitimate, most of the people who feel threatened by immigrants are basing their claims mostly around stereotypes and biases. I believe that these claims are exaggerated and not very legitimate. Any beliefs based around stereotypes or biases are often far from the truth. I believe that though they might cause some small problems with our economy, most immigrants will not threaten American culture in any way whatsoever.
Artifact found here
This article clearly relates to the events in The Distance Between Us. In the book Reyna, her dad, and her siblings Mago and Carlos illegally cross the border. During their time in America you can clearly tell that Reyna's father knows the threat they could be putting on Americans because he often times reminds Reyna, Carlos, and Mago to never tell anyone that they illegally crossed the border because they would be treated terribly in America if people knew that and eventually they would be deported back to Mexico. However, in The Distance Between Us Reyna's family doesn't ever pose any threat to America's culture or way of life. In fact they conform to the culture in America more than they oppose it. Though they keep certain things from Mexico, mostly the family tries very hard to act American in any way possible. When they get to America, everyone in Reyna's family tries very hard to learn english so they can fit in in America.
In conclusion, I think that, though in some cases their claims may be legitimate, most of the people who feel threatened by immigrants are basing their claims mostly around stereotypes and biases. I believe that these claims are exaggerated and not very legitimate. Any beliefs based around stereotypes or biases are often far from the truth. I believe that though they might cause some small problems with our economy, most immigrants will not threaten American culture in any way whatsoever.
Artifact found here
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