ISIS at it again

In Mosul, the largest city that ISIS controls, they started the school year with a message from there extremist leaders: report to work or lose your jobs. That's no the only thing going on in Mosul since ISIS took over. In the school system, they separated the boys and the girls, made the girls cover up in black gown and veils, sports became only for boys, and at the university the shut down the schools of fine arts, political science and law because they were un-Islamic. In other aspects of life since ISIS took over, electricity has been off for months , tap water is now undrinkable, the fuel ISIS brings in is expensive and fills the air with pollution, prices for food have shot up because of the taxes put on the trucks entering the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/world/islamic-state-imposes-strict-new-order-in-mosul-and-deprivation-is-a-result.html?_r=0

Afghanistan Terrorist Attacks

On Friday and Saturday there were attacks in Afghanistan that killed two americans and at least 19 Afghani people. The violence on friday, in Eastern Afghanistan, started when a NATO convoy was bombed, the two Americans were killed during this attack. The Taliban openly claimed responsibility for the attack and tweeted that the targeted a US convoy and that five Americans were killed. Then on Saturday while afghani civilians were clearing mines planted by the Taliban to attack army convoys, Tanks, and other vehicles they were attacked and 12 of them were killed. The attacks have been happening for a while now. One afternoon a suicide bomber attacked a bus, killing five soldiers and injuring twelve others including to women who were bystanders. Even with all of this happening, the US is stoping all combat at the end of the year. In january we will focus on counter terrorism, training and assisting the Afghani people.


http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/13/world/asia/afghanistan-violence/

March for Justice For All

On Saturday people from around the country will be heading to Washington DC where a march will be held for "Justice For All". The March started to be organized after the cop who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson MO and the cop who killed Eric Garner in NY were both not indicted for killing their respected victim. Riots broke out in New York, Philadelphia, San Fransisco, and ATlanta after the New York Gran Jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner. Rev. Al Sharpton is leading this March in Washington and will rally those who come at Freedom Plaza just blocks away from the White House. Joining the march is the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed by police while holding an airsoft gun and not follow orders to put his hands up outside of a Rec. Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Silent Day in Ukraine?

On Tuesday, the Russian  backed rebels and the Ukrainian forces observed a ceasefire agreement. They are calling it a silent day in the war in Eastern Ukraine that has now lasted six months. The ceasefire is coinciding with new peace talks between the European Union, Ukraine, Russia and the separatists in Minsk. Both sides in this war wanted the ceasefire and the day of halted shooting honored the ceasefire called for a few months ago. In the peace talks, Russia denies having partaken in any of the fighting in Eastern Ukraine, Germany said that there is no chance of Ukraine joining NATO, and the Ukrainian government says that they might just part with pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine. Russia and the pro-Russian separatists said that they would not meet or agree to the ceasefire unless the Ukrainian government stopped its "economic blockade" and started trading again. Ukraine did and on Tuesday it restarted its natural gas trade with Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/europe/ukrainian-military-and-separatists-observe-silent-day.html?_r=0

#Ferguson

Ferguson is back after new recordings and documents were released from the St. Louis Prosecutor's office. The new documents did no good though as they seemed to not spread any more light on the Michael Brown killing. In the documents and recording were FBI interviews with witnesses and the recordings included one of the police dispatch saying that before Brown was killed there was a strong armed robbery in progress. THe autopsy reports were also in the documents and show that Brown was shot eight times, had abrasions to his face and had traces of marijuana in his system. Also, they have many differing witness records of the event, some say Brown was shot fleeing from the cop, others say that Brown tensed up and ran toward the cop and was shot, but Brown's cousin says Wilson, the cop, shot him in Brown in the head as he was on his knees in surrender

I don't know what is really going on in Ferguson and i do not take a side on whether brown should have been shot or not but Ferguson has to get under control.

White Like Me

Today in class we watched a movie called White Like Me, in which TIm Wise talks about how America is to this day racist. The movie is a documentary that goes through how racism is rampant throughout the country, how it hurts black people and white people, and how we need to stop being colorblind to the problems of race.

In one of the parts of the documentary, it talks about how Barack Obama won the 2008 election. After he won, the movie says, that everyone was talking about how we elected a black president, and this proves that all blacks can do it, and that it is not our fault they are the way they are. Then reporters were saying that we entered a post racist society in our country by electing a black president. But Obama still lost the white vote by a lot and there are still more black people in prisons, or on parol in the country now then there were slaves in 1850. This shows that there is still racism in our country and it will not go away until we sit down and face it outright.

This movie to me, made a lot of great points to why racism is bad, and whites are almost programmed to be racist. With all the points that it made i agree that racism is flourishing in our nation and is getting out of control. So I have decided to change the way I think. Look at situations involving blacks and whites and take in all the factors, not just rely on the biases that i have put in my head.http://www.timwise.org/tag/white-like-me-movie/

In class on Wednesday we watched a movie called the March. This movie is about what happened to make the march on Washington in 1963 a success. It goes into detail about the people that helped make it happen and what they actually did.

The movie started with the protests in Birmingham, Alabama and how the city was the most segregated city in the country. In this it mentioned how a lot of people were worried that it wouldn't be successful in Birmingham because everyone was afraid of the dogs and fire hoses that the police used to shut down the protests. But everything worked out after the college students got involved. They came in great numbers and even with the dogs and fire hoses stayed to protest.

After this it goes into the making of the march on Washington. It talks about how they had councils about when it would be held, who would speak and things of that nature. They had talks with President Kennedy bout the march to calm his fears of the march turning violent. They had people all over the country talking about it and doing things to spread awareness. They even had a person talking to the famous celebrities of the time.When the march started, few people were there and some people were nervous about it, but soon after people started showing up in huge numbers. By the time the big speakers were making there speeches there were over a hundred thousand people in attendance.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3122416/

FYS 1000 Fights Cancer

This week in FYS 1000 Talking About Freedom we did something very special for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This Wednesday we walked into class with a mission. We were going to spread awareness of this cause by passing out flyers asking students and faculty all around campus to wear a dash of pink with their purple on friday, a weekly tradition. 

Walking into class, a buzz of excitement was felt by all. we knew what we were going to do and we were happy to do it. We started the class by doing all the crafting to make the flyers. We even bought and cut pink ribbon to make the famous Breast Cancer Ribbons and pinned them to the flyers. There were kids cutting the white off of the edges of the flyers and others cutting the ribbons to appropriate lengths and pinning them to the flyers.

After all of the flyers were finished our teams headed to our designated areas and started handing out our flyers. My team, team Sullivan headed to the promenade to do our job. After we hit the promenade we started walking to different areas around campus. We handed out flyers to all kinds of people until we had none left.

Moot court of Plessy v. Ferguson

In todays moot court we heard the case of Plessy V. Ferguson. This case is over a man named Plessy who was removed from the whites only railcar on a train. This came to be through an act made in 1890 by the Louisiana State Legislature. They said that railcars had to be separate but equal. The problem with Plessy was that he was 7/8 white and 1/8 black with very fair skin. The Ruling went all the way to the Supreme Court in which they made the final ruling that separate but equal was ok in all aspects.

Those who spoke against the Supreme Court ruling made points that Plessy was allowed to sit in the whites only car. One of these points is that Plessy purchased and was handed the ticket allowing him to sit in the whites only car. This was done because he is 7/8 white which gives him very fair skin. Another point is that him being moved to the blacks car goes against his 14th amendment rights. The 14th amendment says that since he was born in the U.S. he has all the rights and protections of a full citizen, and this violated the equal protection clause.

Those who spoke for the Supreme Court ruling made points that Plessy should have been moved to the blacks car. They made points that his rights were not abridged because he was only asked o move to a different car and not kicked off of the train. They said this is because the public accommodation for blacks and whites was equal so that his equal protection rights was not violated. They also stated that he was knowingly breaking the law, because he knew he was 1/8 black.

Over 130,000 Syrian refugees have fled over into Turkey from its border near what the Arabs call Ayn Al-Arab and the Kurds call Kobani. For around a week ISIS or the Islamic State has been going into mostly Kurdish inhabited areas with tanks and heavy artillery and laying waste to it. With this causing a massive flow of refugees Turkey is becoming afraid of the numbers saying the not knowing how many more villages are going to be raided or how many more refugees are going to be made that this is worse than a natural disaster. Even with this being said, there is still fighting against the Islamic State, the Kurdish militia has stopped ISIS troops five miles outside of the town of Ayn Al-Arab. And not only they are fighting, fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey or the P.K.K. have joined the fight. Also, with westerners getting involved, even the small degree that they are, ISIS is not happy about it. They have given the command for Muslims to attack non-Muslims. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/world/europe/over-130000-flee-syria-for-turkey-in-wake-of-isis-raids.html?_r=0

In todays court, we heard the two sides for and against the shooting in the back by Mr. Mann of Lydia, the slave rented to him by the slaves actual owner Mrs. Jones, in the case State V. Mann, a case mainly for or against slavery. The shooting occurred after Lydia ran away from a lashing that Mr. Mann was going to give her causing near death injuries. The team against slavery, talked about how the slave was rented out to Mr. Mann and he is not the owner of the slave so he does not get to decide whether the lave needs to be punished. With the injuries given to the slave by being shot in the back lessens the amount of work and the quality of the work that Lydia could do. Doing this to a slave lessens the worth of the slave and ruins a slave's livelihood. Finally they spoke about how for certain animals there is a fine and a chance for imprisonment, and a slave is higher up than an animal, even if it is only 3/5s a person. The side for slavery talked about how Mr. Mann was upholding law and tradition. He was upholding law because he has the right to whip the slave for punishment because Mrs. Jones rented Lydia out to Mr. Mann giving him full rights over the slave and making her technically his possession. They spoke about how he needed to whip her so that she would fully submit to him and do the work he needed done. And finally they spoke about how the slave was not a full person and should so be considered property and that the slave is needed to tend products such as cotton, tobacco and other products. After hearing both sides of this case I came to the final conclusion that slavery is a bad thing and I am for abolition. Slavery should be outlawed in these United States because as the Declaration of Independence states "All men are created equal." http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/268/entry/

NYC… For or Against Lincoln during the Civil War?

According to Bill Morgan of the New York Times, The Great City of New York was very much against the war and the Unions war aims. The citizens of the city believed that it would be bad for business to fight the South in a war. Also, Southerners owed New York Banks tons of money and poor New Yorkers thought that if the Union won, the city would be flooded with cheap work from the newly freed slaves. Knowing this, when Lincoln went up for reelection in 1864, he lost in New York by a landslide, but won the electoral vote for the state because of upstate New York's love for Lincoln and the cause. Instead of Voting for Lincoln, the City voted for Senator Stephen A. Douglas in 1860 and Gen. George B. McClellan in 1864. To surmise, the City of New York voted against Lincoln almost entirely so that they would have bad business and a flood cheap African American Labor, which would have hurt the more poor citizens of the city Link below: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/why-new-york-city-opposed-abe-lincoln/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0