Today in humanities class we just had a discussion about the one child policy in China. Above is my headline for the class, ‘China’s one-child policy…Just or not?!’ I named it this, because during class we all talked about what we felt on the subject and whether it is right or wrong.
After having more time to think about it, I have decided that I truly don’t feel that it is a just law…for many reasons.
My first reason is that it goes against human rights. Don’t we all have a free will? Not deciding how many children you have isn’t free will. You are being restrained, and have no say in how you decide to live your life. That is definitely unjust.
People may say that a huge portion of the justification is because China will run out of resources. After thinking about this, I have decided that this doesn’t have to be a factor. If the world was one, and there was unity, everyone would help countries like China that would be in need.
Also, who says that whoever was born in China must live there for the rest of their lives. The world in an enormous place. Why can’t people spread their wings and live in another country, or even another continent? If this were to happen, then they wouldn’t need so many resources.
Another reason I feel the law is unjust is because it doesn’t support equality among men and women. I feel as though now we live in an era where men and women should be presented as equals. Apparently this doesn’t apply in Chinese politics!
If a family has a girl, and then another girl, they must give the second girl up.
If a family has a girl, and then a BOY, they may KEEP the BOY!!!
That is UNJUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Men are NOT superior to women.
This has caused an imbalance between the amount of men and women in China. There are 117 men to every 100 women. Officials even estimate by 2020 there will be 30 million men known as ‘bare branches’, which won’t have or find a wife to marry.
I hope that if this does happen, it will straighten their views.
I also know the effects it has on the children, because while I lived in America, my friend, Isabel, was adopted from China. Her mother had too many children, and had to give her up. Although Isabel ended up with an extremely loving and caring family, who’s to say that all children will end up like her. They could become foster children, or end up with a bad family. Isabel still always wondered what her birth-mother was like.
It is just as difficult, if not more, on the children; their countries unjust law.
Also, who’s to say that if the law is abandoned that people will immediately begin having children. I think that the reason the baby boom was so drastic was because the people were encouraged to have children. Now that they know the problem, they may only have one or two. They aren’t crazy!
If this law were abandoned, so many problems would cease. There would be no more problems with children being abandoned (girls mainly) and put for adoption.
Even if China did run out of natural resources, at least it will make the world realize that we all need to work together in order to make the world a better place. There isn’t one country on earth that is indestructible.
"I am excessively diverted." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Showing posts with label humanities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanities. Show all posts
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
From Then To Now - Mesopotamian Evolution
Today in class we watched a video on the evolution from Mesopotamia, to what life is like now. It was a three minute video showing someone on Google Earth. They zoomed in on the middle East. As the video zoomed into the Middle East, a yellow map covered the countries, it represented a map as it would have looked in modern day Mesopotamia.
First it showed a plain map of Mesopotamia with not many details. It just said "The Ancient World" at the top and then it said things like Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, the Persian Empire...etc. Then that map evolved into a geographical map that was filled with color. There was a key at the bottom that explained what each color was representing, but even when you zoomed in, you couldn't understand what it said.
After it showed the geographical map, it turned into a more modern form of the Middle East. Not only did it show all of the countries like Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Syria, and so on, but all of the capitals of the countries were put in their place, beside a red star. The map had evolved from modern day Mesopotamia, to the present.
My partner was Mitsu, and once we finished watching the video, we started to make a See-Think-Wonder chart in our writer's notebook.
Our See part of the chart had the most information, we randomly started writing the names of the places we saw on the map, and anything that we may have noticed that was close to Mesopotamia:
First it showed a plain map of Mesopotamia with not many details. It just said "The Ancient World" at the top and then it said things like Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, the Persian Empire...etc. Then that map evolved into a geographical map that was filled with color. There was a key at the bottom that explained what each color was representing, but even when you zoomed in, you couldn't understand what it said.
After it showed the geographical map, it turned into a more modern form of the Middle East. Not only did it show all of the countries like Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Syria, and so on, but all of the capitals of the countries were put in their place, beside a red star. The map had evolved from modern day Mesopotamia, to the present.
My partner was Mitsu, and once we finished watching the video, we started to make a See-Think-Wonder chart in our writer's notebook.
Our See part of the chart had the most information, we randomly started writing the names of the places we saw on the map, and anything that we may have noticed that was close to Mesopotamia:
- The Earth
- Mesopotamia
- Babylonia
- Iraq
- Iran
- "The Ancient World
- Egypt
- Syria
- Africa (close to the middle east)
- Yellow and green (colors on the map)
- Tehran
- Baghdad
- The Caspian Sea
- Kuwait
- The Persian Gulf
- The Arabian Gulf
- Jordan
- Saudi Arabia
- Masqat
- Qatar
- Abu Dhabi
- Blue sea surrounding the world
- The Black Sea
- Uzbekistan
- Afghanistan
- Yerevan
- Ankara
- Red stars, (for the capitals)
- Dark pink (on the map)
- Memphis
- Jerusalem
- Dimashq
- Al Iskandariyah
- Hittite Empire
- Bulgaria
- Assyria
- United Arab Emirates
- Turkmenistan
- Yellow border lines
- Africa
- Europe
- Asia
- Cairo
- Key
- Colors
After we finished the See section of the See-Think-Wonder Chart, we moved on to Think...it was not as long.
- We think Cairo used to be called Memphis (not Memphis, Tennessee), because as we saw the map evolving, we noticed that Memphis stayed in the same place that Cairo used to be.
- We think that the yellow color in the map stands for the dry, desert areas, and the green areas stand for the areas that have more greenery.
The last section was...Wonder. In this part we asked about various questions we had.
- When did Mesopotamia evolve into the modern countries that now stand in its place?
- How did Mesopotamia evolve into the modern countries that now stand in its place?
- How much land did Mesopotamia cover?
- What was that big turning point that caused modern Mesopotamia to be formed...was there a war?
- Why did Memphis change into Cairo, was there an important reason?
- In Mesopotamia, did everyone speak a different language, depending on where they lived, or was there a nationally spoken language?
After everyone in the class shared a bit of their information, class was over and it was lunch time. It was interesting how everyone had different observations, inferences, and questions.
Bye!!!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Why do civilizations have laws?
There are many reasons civilizations have laws. The most basic reason would be so that they can keep order in their society. If there were no laws, there would be chaos and confusion, people would kill each other, or do things that would negatively harm themselves and those around them. For example, there is a law against drinking and driving. If there wasn't, people would shamelessly drive while they were drunk. Not only would they be crashing into other cars, but they would also run over and kill innocent pedestrians. If there wasn't a law that stated that you must have a permit in order to have a gun, people could just stroll over to a shop that sells guns, buy one, and then randomly start shooting anyone that walks by. I think you get my point...laws keep order in a civilization.
In humanities class today we also talked about "The Code of Hammurabi". For those of you who don't know, Hammurabi was the ruler of Babylon, and eventually formed the Babylonian Empire. "The Code of Hammurabi" was made in order for Hammurabi to keep order in his empire, yet some may argue that his laws were too extreme and severe. I would agree with that, yet I think he has reasons for why it was so. Before I explain my opinion, I would like to give you some examples of some of his "harsh" rules. The first one would be that if a boy struck his father, the son's arm would be severed off. Another example would be, If someone fails to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them, or the proprietor, and in the fourth year they shall be set free.
I think that Hammurabi made the laws so severe because he wanted to make sure that no one would commit the crimes, or make such huge mistakes. If the punishment was very brutal, people wouldn't want to face the consequences, and would think twice before committing the crimes. If the punishment for murder was a 300 ringgit fine, like speed tickets, rich people could just go around killing people. If the punishment is death, less people would be murderers!
I guess Hammurabi even had his reasons!
In humanities class today we also talked about "The Code of Hammurabi". For those of you who don't know, Hammurabi was the ruler of Babylon, and eventually formed the Babylonian Empire. "The Code of Hammurabi" was made in order for Hammurabi to keep order in his empire, yet some may argue that his laws were too extreme and severe. I would agree with that, yet I think he has reasons for why it was so. Before I explain my opinion, I would like to give you some examples of some of his "harsh" rules. The first one would be that if a boy struck his father, the son's arm would be severed off. Another example would be, If someone fails to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them, or the proprietor, and in the fourth year they shall be set free.
I think that Hammurabi made the laws so severe because he wanted to make sure that no one would commit the crimes, or make such huge mistakes. If the punishment was very brutal, people wouldn't want to face the consequences, and would think twice before committing the crimes. If the punishment for murder was a 300 ringgit fine, like speed tickets, rich people could just go around killing people. If the punishment is death, less people would be murderers!
I guess Hammurabi even had his reasons!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Connect-Extend-Challenge Part 2!!!
This is an extension to my previous post, 'Connect-Extend-Challenge'. I would like to expand my thinking. As you saw below, I was wondering how we evolved all the way from 10000 years ago, where there was barely any technology, to now, where most people would have trouble surviving without it.
How did this evolution occur? After doing a project on Homo erectus, I guess it is safe to conclude that as time has past, mistakes would happen and a new things would be discovered. For example, look at fire. It is technically a form of technology. Homo erectus confronted natural fires and would have noticed its warmth. He would have possibly preserved it and stayed close to it when he was cold. He would also use fire to cook meat and keep away any predators.
Overtime the human brain has evolved and become somewhat more sophisticated. When this happened we received more advanced technology. For example, Thomas Edison creating the light bulb. In the future technology will advance even more and more and more...and more.
Now, is the advancement of technology making a positive, or negative impact? Well, I guess it depends on the way you look at it. For me, the fact that we now have things like light, cars, computers, air conditioning, etc., is helping develop the world in a positive way. Imagine life without these things. I know that for most people life would be much more difficult.
There are also times where I think that technology is making a negative impact. For instance, since there is technology like game boys and PSP's, we have actually created new diseases like diabetes type two. It is caused because we are not as healthy as the past generation.We sit at home and watch T.V. to pass the time, whereas our parents and grandparents would go outside and play tag for fun (as kids). Another negative impact is that we are literally destroying our environment. When you think about it, before technology we weren't really using up so many natural resources. Now our continents will literally be under water, just because people don't take the time to do simple things like turning the air conditioning and lights off before they leave a room. Don't get me wrong though, I know I would have a loooot of trouble surviving without technology.
That is my point of view anyways.
Thanks for listening!
How did this evolution occur? After doing a project on Homo erectus, I guess it is safe to conclude that as time has past, mistakes would happen and a new things would be discovered. For example, look at fire. It is technically a form of technology. Homo erectus confronted natural fires and would have noticed its warmth. He would have possibly preserved it and stayed close to it when he was cold. He would also use fire to cook meat and keep away any predators.
Overtime the human brain has evolved and become somewhat more sophisticated. When this happened we received more advanced technology. For example, Thomas Edison creating the light bulb. In the future technology will advance even more and more and more...and more.
Now, is the advancement of technology making a positive, or negative impact? Well, I guess it depends on the way you look at it. For me, the fact that we now have things like light, cars, computers, air conditioning, etc., is helping develop the world in a positive way. Imagine life without these things. I know that for most people life would be much more difficult.
There are also times where I think that technology is making a negative impact. For instance, since there is technology like game boys and PSP's, we have actually created new diseases like diabetes type two. It is caused because we are not as healthy as the past generation.We sit at home and watch T.V. to pass the time, whereas our parents and grandparents would go outside and play tag for fun (as kids). Another negative impact is that we are literally destroying our environment. When you think about it, before technology we weren't really using up so many natural resources. Now our continents will literally be under water, just because people don't take the time to do simple things like turning the air conditioning and lights off before they leave a room. Don't get me wrong though, I know I would have a loooot of trouble surviving without technology.
That is my point of view anyways.
Thanks for listening!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Connect-Extend-Challenge
Today in class, we did an activity where Mr.McQueen gave us a piece of paper that had three columns, based on the movie 'Guns, Germs, and Steel.
The first column was about making connections with what we saw in the movie, and what we already knew about the world. For my answer, I basically wrote things similar to the post below. My connections were that, since places like Europe had better crops, they were more advanced than places like Papa New Guinea (Papa New Guinea's crops were not as nutritious). My other connection was that the America's have good livestock and crops, because it was shipped over from Europe. The only live stock that Papa New Guinea really had were pigs.
The second section was about what made us expand our thinking. I wrote that since Papa New Guinea did not have very nutritious crops, they would not be able to take care of their people very well. If the people weren't able to be healthy, they would not be able to be as productive as different places around the world.
The last section was about what questions we still had. The movie was very informative, so I only had one main question. I asked about how technology transformed and evolved from 10,000 years ago, where the most sophisticated technology was a plow, to today, where we have sooooooo much technology everywhere.
The first column was about making connections with what we saw in the movie, and what we already knew about the world. For my answer, I basically wrote things similar to the post below. My connections were that, since places like Europe had better crops, they were more advanced than places like Papa New Guinea (Papa New Guinea's crops were not as nutritious). My other connection was that the America's have good livestock and crops, because it was shipped over from Europe. The only live stock that Papa New Guinea really had were pigs.
The second section was about what made us expand our thinking. I wrote that since Papa New Guinea did not have very nutritious crops, they would not be able to take care of their people very well. If the people weren't able to be healthy, they would not be able to be as productive as different places around the world.
The last section was about what questions we still had. The movie was very informative, so I only had one main question. I asked about how technology transformed and evolved from 10,000 years ago, where the most sophisticated technology was a plow, to today, where we have sooooooo much technology everywhere.
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