Current Event Assignment

Topic: After life. The emotion of people and their spirits after death. A journalist and photographer capturing the true essence of the afterlife.

Title: ‘About dying’: The side of death we don’t see

Date Published: September 11, 2015 8:39 ET

Written by: Ashley Strickland of CNN Photos

Summary: Ashley Strickland spent 6 months of her life at Pathological Institute in Aarhus, Denmark to document death and what happens to people after they die. She experienced many bodies bodies in various stages of decay, people missing limbs, the results of aggressively resistant bacteria and young faces for whom death had come too soon. A study of death gave her a new perspective on life. She hopes people viewing the images will experience the same shift.Her objective was to see if she could make people look at death and actually relate to it on natural ground without the grief and use it as a perspective in life.

Reaction: Strickland is photographing objects I never thought mattered to shoot. She truly captures the spirit within these past people. Strickland is doing a very unique type of photography I have never heard of. She uses it to her advantage.

World Impact: We all die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. Ashley strickland introduced a new aspect in my life and I now see this as an important matter.

 

Current Even Assignment

Written on September 8, 2015

Topic: Sarah Palin, former vice president nominee, praises Jeb Bush for being bilingual, but she would prefer people in this country to “speak American”.

Title: Palin praises Bush for being bilingual, but says English is ‘unifying aspect’ of America

Date Published: September 6, 2015 9:13 ET

Written by: CNN Politics of Washington

Summary: Palin disagrees with anybody who speaks Spanish in America. She believes if you are apart of this country, you should ‘speak American’. The article mentions Donald Trump answering a question in spanish and Palin attacking it. Trump claims he only answered the question in Spanish because it was asked in Spanish. There was also another scenario mentioning South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley saying the Republican Party “often appears cold and unwelcoming to minorities.”

Reaction: Yes, I agree with Sarah Palin, but this is over reacted. Now that I am older, I have realized news is just overreaction to simple life. This seems no big deal to me. No person can force another person to speak English (or American, as a Palin calls it). I don’t understand why so many people are saying they “love” the growing population of Hispanic people, but want to change them when we see a flaw.

World Impact: Like stated in my reaction, this seems no big deal to me, this is just today’s news. This doesn’t impact the world, or even America honestly. It may impact Mexicans by taking offence to Palin’s words, but no big impact.

CNN Politics

Current Event Assignment

Written on September 1, 2015

Topic: Med students (30%)having mental health conditions and (15%) considering suicide due to stressors of a competitive educational environment, intense course loads, and unceasing exam schedule, and lastly the emotional stress of caring for sick patients.

Title: Nearly a Third of Med Students Have Mental Health Issues

Date Published: September 1, 2015 06:30 ET

Written by: Laine Bergeson

Summary: The stress of school and work, 80% feel they don’t receive the support of friends and family they need, 16% smoke because of the large amount of workload, 25% are engaged in binge drinking every week, and 11% have taken illegal drugs more than once in their life because of stress. Only 80% of Med students have experienced mental distress and found moderate support or none at all. These students may also face stigma from within their field, which may keep them from seeking treatment they need. Some tutors and consultants have viewed a mental illness as a “weakness” and the depression isn’t a real illness. Med students are beginning to address the issue and seek help.

Reaction: The percentages presented above are not shocking. I know and they know med school is a struggle and is stressful without any place to breath. I’m not looking into going through the medical route for a career, but if I were, I would try to be on the top of my game and hide my mental illness because having an illness does seem weak and I wouldn’t want to seem weak around my competition.

World Impact: This seems to impact those of choice. Not everyone was, is, or will be a med student. This only impact those in the medical field that are new to the course.

Discovery.com

Current Event Assignment

Written on August 26, 2015

Topic: Anchor thrown out of room when speaking when not called to.

Title: Univision’s Jorge Ramos: It’s my ‘right’ to challenge Trump on Immigration

Date Published: August 26, 2015 6:05 ET

Written by: CNNMoney of New York

Summary: Jorge Ramos, said to be the most famous Spanish-speaking news anchor of the United States, was escorted from a Donald Trump press conference after he stood to ask a question when not called on. The press conference continued without him until he was able to return. While Ramos was not present, questions erupted on the topic of Jorge Ramos. When Ramos returns, he is finally “called on” and asks his earlier questions. Trump explains to Ramos on his one question and takes his sweet time getting to the point. Trump continues to discuss gangs and drug dealers who are “illegal immigrants”.

Reaction: Ramos made a bold decision with “just asking a question” to stand up when not called on. That almost seems preschool like. I know the press conference needs to be orderly and prompt, but we are over reacting.

World Impact: Ramos being escorted isn’t really a world impact. This is just a “small problem” in our society and we will get passed it.

CNNMoney

Public Sector Union

Written on May 20, 2015

The Public Sector Union includes teachers, firefighters, police officers, postal workers, and any other employee working for the government at any level. The Public Sector Union focuses on strengthening the workers’ rights and working conditions with security fair wages, buying domestically produced goods, guaranteeing workers’ safety, and elimination business abuse to their employees. This specific union, like all others,  has is advantages and disadvantages. Since about the mid-20th century, the organized labor in the United States has dramatically transformed in two categories, affecting our politics: decline in union members, and the change of the unionized work force.

 

The history of the Public Sector Union may be complex, so let me break it down into three categories, then summarized all with a conclusion: history of the Public Sector Union and the differences between public sector and private sector, how the Wagner Act affected this union in history, and finally, the Public Sector Union in present day.

 

The first Labor Day was upon creation as a national holiday in 1887, and at that time, there wasn’t a such things as a Public Sector Union. Many people thought the idea of workers going on strike rather than serving their country was absurd, but that’s what Americans did. Even as late as the early 1950’s unions for government workers did not exist, but that changed in just a few short years. At that time, mayor of New York City, Robert Wagner, appealed to the votes of city workers and gave his executive order to unionize the people. Soon, state Democrat legislators followed. The membership after the Wagner Act was signed, grew from under 1 million union members to over 16 million union members between the years 1900 and 1950. The year when the act was signed, membership consisted of 4 million, and shot sky high in just 15 years. Later on in history, between 1973 and 2008, labor changing membership dropped with private employers, and increased with public employers, with both almost equal. Public sector and private sector operate differently in government. Like stated in the introduction, public sector is employees work for the government, while private sectors are privately owned and not apart of the government workforce, e.g. corporations, profit and nonprofit organizations, and charities.

 

The Wagner Act was signed in to play on July 5, 1935 to establish the National Labor Relations Board and addresses the relations unions and employers in the private sector. The Wagner Act was signed to create a new independent way to enforce employees rights in a calm fashion. It gave employees the right to join unions. Like stated in the above paragraph, union membership did indeed shoot sky high, but did have a decrease of numbers two years before the Wagner Act was signed. During the Great Depression, the rate of unemployment had a high rise and put unions and workers’ rights and brought attention in the political stage. Following World War II, increase of labor strife, union violence, and corruption led to claims that the Wagner Act required minor changes. The Wagner Act also goes by the name Taft-Hartley Act, and the Taft-Hartley Act could also go by Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. Very confusing, I know, but we will get through this together.

 

The Public Sector Union has had their struggles in the past, but in present day, they are strong as ever. Like stated before, the membership of this union has increased, meaning more and more people have joined the Public Sector Union, and left the Private Sector Union. That’s good news and bad news for all of us. Most reports, essays, and news articles I have read all repeat and emphasize the difference in percentage between public and private sector union. Just last year, “Supreme Court strikes blow to public sector unions” was published by MSNBC on April 2, explaining: “limiting their ability to automatically deduct dues from public workers who nevertheless benefit from union-negotiated contracts.”

 

To conclude all research, the Public Sector Union has accomplished so much as a union. I have learned a lot in this project and quite enjoyed the research. I learned the past, the present, and the future of the union. I learned exactly what a union was and more specifically what a Public Sector Union is.
This lesson, and this research paper has concluded the year with all our work. I am glad my teacher had us end the this amazing year with the project as I learned a lot. I have brought previous projects into this paper and expanded into research of those projects and learned more than I thought I would. This year I have retained a lot of information about how businesses and industries operate.

Change of Respect

Written on April 24, 2015

“Mom!” Ana shouts, “I hate you!” – spoken words of teenagers at one point to a parent in our family life. We have disrespected ourselves, our parents, best friends, even strangers we’ve never met. Respect for other people is important because it allows us to treat others equally and build a lasting relationship that will last a lifetime.

Treating people with the same respect is essential in life because it can lead the human race to seeing an individual as a worthy person to be around. For example, when Ana is screaming in her mother’s face, her mother feels the pain inside her as she hears “I hate you”, spoken from her one and only daughter. Ana lost respect for her mother, and her mother lost respect to her daughter because they disconnected, making the respect for each other unequal. In addition, when I was younger, I remember my older brother, Justice, always talking back to my dad, storming, stomping away when he didn’t get his way, slamming doors when he received information he didn’t want to hear. The respect my brother gave to my father was weak and horrifying to watch, I told myself all the time I would never be that disrespectful to, not only my parents, but every person I come across in my path of life. Too often, parents are disrespected by their children; respect for other people is important because it allows us to treat each other equally and fairly.

A long lasting relationship begins with respect, from yourself, and to others. For example, when a person introduces himself, he has respect for the man because this person has given him no reason to be disrespected by him. Many people don’t want to hang around a person that is rude, disrespectful, or ungrateful. In addition, while friends could have a relationship for 20 plus years, once the moment either of them lose respect, the friendship would end and communication would be gone forever. The friendship down the drain, unable to be visible ever again. For many of us, making a friend and building a relation begins with respect from within ourselves.

Much like Ana yelling at her mother, respect in both, our family life, and in our real world life, respect is important because it allows us to treat each other equally, and help build lasting relationships.

DNA Project

DNA ProjectThis photo is a DNA project that Cameron, Addie, Lucas and I constructed as our end of year project. We worked on this project for five days, in class and out of class. Our theme for the project was “Up”, like the movie, with the old man and the balloons, yeah, that one. We started out with our imagination as our strongest tool. We came up with many ideas on how to accommodate the balloons with the poles and the string, but most of them wouldn’t work, we finally came up with this as our final project.

 

Green // Phosphate

Pink // Sugar

Purple // Adenine

Orange // Thymine

                                                             Blue // Cytosine

                                                             Yellow // Guanine