reflection

My favorite guest lecturer this past semester was Bill Allen from the schools of CAFNR and Journalism.  He spoke about our impact on the world and what we have done and will do one day.  When I think of my future I always think and hope about the positive impact I will make.  This impact would be through my career and people I will give my time to help.  I have always been driven by serving others and am going into a career of cause marketing starting this March.  However after hearing Bill Allen speak I started to think of the impact I would really make.

I still plan of creating change in the world through service, but I never truthfully thought about my impact on the environment.  I always think about person-to-person interaction in regard to helping others.  After this lecture I realized that changing my daily activities to help heal the environmental issues we are facing would impact so many more people at once.

He was very inspiring to me because this was a lecture that no student could say, “it doesn’t apply to me”.  We all leave a legacy and part of it will be our environmental impact.  After the useful sites on our water footprint day to day and throughout our life, I was stunned.  I never understood how much water was used simply to grow the food we eat.  I always thought that I should only be concerned about the length of my shower, and turning of the faucet when brushing my teeth.

My reason for wanting and needing to make a lifestyle change is for the future.  One day people are going to be rationing water in a more extreme manner than California has faced.  This will change the lifestyles we live, our children live, and their children live.  Swimming pools to green lawns will cease to exist, and it breaks my heart that someone won’t have the beautiful experiences I have had.  Because of this I know I need to make a change.  This change may not make a large difference, but even if it makes a slight change I’ll be proud.  If everyone made a small change, it would create a bigger difference.

While it is going to be very difficult to change my lifestyle completely I know I have a moral obligation to do so.  I have an obligation to my future children, my earth, and my health.  While researching about sustainability it really let me dive into my research on Peru.  Peru is known for Machu Pichu and its beauty.  The main tourist attraction will cease to exist is the environment continues to plummet.  This would cause Peru to no longer thrive.  In addition, I researched the affect the current storm El Nino will have on Peru.  Peru will face mud slides, destruction, and heavy rains.  This environmental impact is due to the heating of the ocean.

While we cannot stop the progression of the heating of the world, we can slow the progression through our individual lifestyle changes. Overall I loved this class, especially professor Brooks.  He had such insight into globalization from all of his life experiences.  I hope to live a life full of adventure, as he has!

Politics of the veil

In the West we have a tainted view of those associated with the Muslim religion.  In particular many Americans relate extremists with the entire religion, which is entirely unfair.  This viewpoint has swept the nation as a common understanding.  The major influences that spread this attitude are political leaders and the media.  Political leaders use their personal opinion to influence legislation and political action.  The media is the most widespread manner in which the suspicion of Muslims is spread.  When we have had extremist attacks it is made clear to the America people that the reason they did this was because of their religion.  However, when it comes to Christianity it doesn’t cross over.  If the Klu Klux Klan attacks an individual or groups the act is not usually seen as an action out of Christianity.  The truth is the Klu Klux Klan are Christian extremists, and just like us who are a part of the religion do not want them painting the image of them as a group, Muslims are the same.

 

Politics of the veil

The implications when talking about Muslim women up to the standard of their French sisters (or western sisters) pertains to the rights women have in these different cultures.  In the Muslim religion women are not treated with loyalty, respect, or privilege like western women.  A man most commonly controls Muslim women who participate in the religion, whether it is their father, brother, or husband.  The implications that would bring Muslim women to the western privilege generally means that they have more personal rights.  This includes a right to an education, a right to personal choices, a right to be self sufficient, and a right to dress and act as they wish.  The unfortunate circumstances that some women living in the middle east face is if they “break” religious rules the punishments, like public stoning, are legislatively accepted. 

A Muslim girl

Women should be treated with respect.  In my opinion it is as simple as that.  However, westerners sometimes have trouble understanding the religion’s reasoning for the treatment of women and ruling in particular.  Some women chose to participate in the Muslim religion abiding by all rules because it is what they believe.   It is no ones place to tell someone that what they believe is barbaric.  Because of the cultural moral ground that seems to vary based on location and groups of people, what is right is not always right.  There is no superior culture, but we’d all like to hope that people would respect human life.

Course Relflection

Source: http://pressclubdallas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/newspapers-are-dead.gif

During this course there were two lectures that really stood out to me. The first lecture that stood out to me was the one where we discussed the German train.  The other lecture that stood out to me was Dr. Brook’s lecture about human rights around the world.

When Dr. Kopp from the German department came, she started class off with the video of the German trolley.  As an active user of CoMO Connect, I am defiantly fascinated how other cites transit systems work. The way the fare system on the German train works is similar to the Metrolink in St. Louis.  You pay the fare at the station, but for the most part you are on the honor system.

The video was about 10 minutes long.  Eight of those minutes was just this old lady just ranting about how she hates people who are different than her. Even though I didn’t understand the German she spoke, I could still tell she was using profane language. Finally, the poor Black man sitting next to her had enough and literally ate her ticket!

What was shocking was during that lady’s rant, nobody bothered to really do anything, but people were aware of what was happening Additionally, people did notice the ticket being eaten, but said nothing. Even though I understand why the man ate the lady’s ticket, that man really had no right to eat her ticket, just as much as she did not have a right to behave the way she did. Finally, when the lady got in trouble, she got in trouble for fare dodging (which is something she is not guilty of), but she did not get in trouble for her obscene behavior.

If that incident happened in America, I’d say there is a 50% chance that old lady would have gotten in trouble for her obscene behavior. However, I would be almost positive, that the black man would have been busted for eating someone else’s ticket!

Switching topics, the other lecture that stood out the me was when Dr. Brooks showed up the map from Reports without Borders. Journalism is something near and dear to me.  While I am not a journalism major, I was on my high school newspaper, so I have a good understanding how journalism works.  Also, my father is a copy editor for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, so journalism runs in my family.

The other part of that lecture that really hit close to home was when Dr. Brooks talked about how bad the newspaper industry is hurting. My father has been with the newspaper for 31 years. He has been there during the peak of newspapers, and now at the downfall of the papers. He has seen several rounds of layoffs in the past decade, and he is one the last remaining copy editors, and he is unsure how long he can keep his job.

I could not agree more with the point brought up about the importance of the newspaper industry, even in a world where print media is dyeing. Most of our news still comes from a newspaper company, and newspaper used to be the most profitable part of the operation. But now, newspaper companies can’t make any money, and companies are at risk of folding. It would be a bad thing because they still provide most of our news, and they are the ones who do the in-depth reporting, and ask the tough questions. Without these newspaper companies, free speech as we know it could be put into danger.

The last thing I need to mention is about my research on Brazil. Researching Brazil definably made me a better researcher. At the beginning of the semester, I knew vary little about Brazil. The reason I picked Brazil was because I once sold an item on eBay to a customer in Brazil.  The blog posts helped me learn about different aspects about life in a different country, and about corruption at its worst.

I found this to be a really cool course. I learned about Globalization from many different perspectives. Almost every week we had a different guest lecture, on a different topic. Then, since this was a writing intensive course, I got to focus on the material from the course I really connected to, and learn more about it. I am hoping to take PEA_STU 4810 next fall so I can finish up my certificate, because I really enjoyed what we did in this class.

Final Thoughts

I found the guest lecture by Peter Motavalli the most interesting because I think the challenge of feeding the world is going to become a very real problem in my lifetime. Even modest estimations predict another 3 billion people in the world in the next 50-70 year. Seeing as 1 in 8 people in this world currently don’t have enough to eat, I can’t imagine what the future will be like. I found Motavalli’s general knowledge about how much food American’s waste each year and why developing countries aren’t on the same level as the US. His potential solutions were also very interesting because they touch on other issues like women’s rights by doing things like making an effort to reach women to teach them how to grow vegetables. I also found the section about how the food market is so intertwined really cool. I always wondered why prices went up on certain food products and it makes sense now when you look at the whole food system. Everyone needs to eat and agricultural is a topic that isn’t talked about as much but is so crucial to everyone’s daily life.

Learning about Argentina was really insightful because I thought I knew a lot about South America and I really didn’t. My aunt is from Brazil so I know a decent amount about Brazil but Brazil is so different from a lot of other South American countries. I previously always thought of Argentina in terms of people who I knew who went to Buenos Ares. And while Buenos Ares is a huge part of Argentinean culture I don’t think it gives a full picture of the country. I learned a lot about politics and how differently the government is set up there. Although it is modeled after the US system, there are a lot of problems with corruption in their government. However, I think this is pretty common for developing countries and developing democratic systems. It is easy to forget but there were once (and still instances of) corruption issues within the US government system. However Argentinean citizens seem to pretty aware of these issues and much like our government at one time, things are starting to slowly change.

The intersection of corruption, drug trafficking and sex trafficking was also interesting to learn about. It is easy to think these are all separate problems but in Argentina they are all interconnected. This is why fixing the problem isn’t as easy as outsiders want it to be. Overall, I feel like learning so much about a country helps you to understand.