Question 2

How did people fail to aid Rwanda? Where do I start. First of all, you don't see any peace keepers really doing anything to help. All that they do is give refuge's a camp. It is somewhere to begin... Its not enough. When the European soldiers came to "aid' Rwanda, they only allowed whites to go to safety. They would allow a dog, but not an African. Its not only the outsiders fault. There are tons of things that could be better inside the country. Tutsies and Hutu's could be at peace, but that is probably to much to ask. "Another example. over 2,000 Tutsi refugees took shelter at a UN troops compound guarded by Belgian soldiers who then abandoned them, went to the airport, left them to die. How do you feel about that?" I think that because it was an African nation, that the help was limited. It is really unfair.

Feedback on Africa Cartoon

This picture shows how Africa is stepped on, and how Europe left a giant footprint on all of Africa, changing, majority of the times, for the worst. This cartoon talks about how Africa is being taken advantage of and shows how there is a permanent footprint left by Europe on the country. I think the artist of the painting has a negative few on Europe and thinks that Africa is being destroyed. Because Africa is totally black and it has a giant boot footprint stuck into it, the author wanted to get a feel of desperation. I think that it is a good picture, the color and the whole idea of it is very good. In the footprint of the boot there is a lot of dry land that represents that Africa was drained for all that they had. I wouldn't add anything on to this picture if i were the author.

Africa Game

The winner of the Africa game is our group, France. We won because, even though we didn't own the most land, we owned a lot of recourse rich land, including the West and Southern coast. Our primary goal was to take control of the west coast. We did that really well, and owned the most of the west coast than any other team. Also we owned land that would be good for exporting and importing goods. Our team owned some majority of the land, and all the land we owned was heavily populated. I think the team that lost was Spain. They didn't own enough land and the land they owned wouldn't do them any good resource wise. They placed two pieces of land in the west coast. That doesn't do any good at all. In order to gain success you have to own a good hunk of land in a place and Spain failed to do that.

5 Themes of Geography

Mr.Help stands for :
Movement
Region
Human Environment Interaction
Location
Place

In Waiting for the Rain...
there is Movement when Tengo leaves the farm. It is talking about him on the train, and transportation is a form of movement. This is on page 90.
there is Region when their is a boycott of school because of the apartheid. On page 140 they talk about how students are boycotting school because of a student who got shot a year before on the same day. After this a whole lot of apartheid starts happening and the school is closed for over a year.
there is HEI on page 141 when the two army men drop Tengo off onto the ground and he got hurt, because it was the environment that hurt him. That led to him getting really angry because he got hurt and the wind blew away his essay paper.
there is Location on page 90 it says an absolute location, Winchester Drive 77.
there is Place with the farm because there is not many places like that in the city.

Feedback

The main thing I see in this picture is a octopus reaching out and grabbing other countries. His name tag reads England. He looks like a government. In two of his little claw things he is crushing two countries. It represents that he is squeezing out other countries and taking advantage of them. His tentacles have hands in the end of them and are grasping the other countries representing that England has a hold of a lot of countries. The author of this drawing had a negative few over England, and in this picture he shows that England is way to powerful and he views that it is taking control of all the smaller countries. I feel this way because of the smirk on his face as he is taking the other countries, and since the England man is in the middle reaches his tentacles out to other countries, and that represents that England owns not only countries near it but countries far from it also. I think that if the cartoonist were to show the hands squeezing the other countries and have the land crumbling down and have citizens hanging off of them. In terms of CRAP, it has good contrast. It is strong because there are colors but not to many and not to many that weren't in the same color family. It also has good repetition because all of his tentacles are touching countries that surround the English man. The alignment is also good, if I were to cut the poster in half it would be the same amount of pictures on both sides. Same if you were to cut it in half vertically. The proximity is good also. There is nothing that is irrelevant in the picture.

Violence Leads To More Violence

The quote "violence leads to more violence" is true because its human nature that when you get hit you back. The war in Iraq is a good example, when the twin towers were hit, the US responded with war. When someone attacks, you natural respond by attacking back, whether with force or in an emotional way. In Julius Caesar, after the conspirators kill Caesar, war brakes loose between the Conspirators and those that were faithful to Caesar. That quote is very true because you cant expect someone to just sit down and constantly get hit, they will act on it, its common sense. Defend yourself. When you get hit, you lose a lot of dignity, and a way to gain that back is to strike back. Its like that everywhere, so all we can do is be the person who doesn't start the fight.

There are many qualities of being a leader. Some of them are having the ability to listen and some of them revolve around being trust worthy. To be a good leader you have to make good decisions and be able to take the pressure of people constantly depending on you. To be a leader you have to be willing to do things, and do good things not because your told to, because you want to. You also have to be able to solve peoples problems. There is also a lot of pressure that could come with being a leader, and part of being a leader is being able to control it. The person has to be liked by all of the students, probably a funny kind of guy. At this school, I don't think that there is one leader in our school, but rather a whole group of them, which can be a good thing. I think some of them are Conor, Joel, Rahul, Jake K., Sabei, Cathy, and me. We all poses some good qualities. We make a lot of good decisions and we are able to solve problems and able to handle pressure. We would be able to lead a group to victory. I think we are some of the many students in the eight grade who have the qualities of a leader.

Conference Prep

One thing I found challenging in the first quarter was editing my work. I was careless with my spelling and grammar. On a lot of my IR pieces I lost a lot of points because of careless mistakes. I redid all of my pieces and fixed the grammar carefully so I got a better grade, but it would have been much easier if I were to edit more carefully from the start. It seems that I'm just careless when I proofread my work, and will not catch a lot of tense changes or grammar problems. If I work on that more often and focus more when I edit my work, I will do better.
Something I'm proud of is my reading. I got a good grade on the Outsiders project and I kept up with AR. I felt like I comprehended everything about both my AR books and the Outsiders. I got a 39/40 on the Outsiders project, and finished AR with more then enough points. If I can carry my focus of my reading to all my other subjects, I will do good. Overall I'm happy with my grade in Humanities and my effort towards the whole class.

Feedback on WOW

Wow was really important for us. Not only was it educational to learn what its like to live without electricity, it was a well disserved break from school. It showed us what life is like in other places except for school and acsa. It showed what India really is. It is also a chance to make new friends, are build stronger connections with those that you already have. I know that I hung out with people I rarely did before, like Nikhil and Lucas. Wow is just basically fun and its break we all need. Whether you want to go to hang out with your friends, or if you want to see the other side of India, WOW is great no matter what and there are no doubts about it. It also gave me a boost in my confidence, I jumped off the rock and body surfed a rapid. Something’s I never thought I would do. Even though I fell off the boat during a rapid, there is no doubt about it, I would want to repeat WOW any day.

Goals Reflection Feedback

I think that i met my goals really well, I got 39/40 on the final Outsiders project and I passed A.R. with more points then necessary. My goal was to improve my reading comprehension and stay ahead of the class on AR, which I have done. I think I did quite good in the reading part of the grade last quarter. This quarter, maybe I should focus on paying more attention in class, and then maybe my test and quiz grades will improve. Also, along with paying more attention in class, I want to set aside some time everyday for reading and reviewing over my notes. Along the lines of notes, cut down on the doodling and make sure I take really good notes. All of this will construct together to get better test grades, and if I am borderline A, that could really help push my grade up. Also, when i'm editing my papers for class, I really need to focus on that, I lose a lot of points because of careless mistakes. On all of my IR project papers, I didn't get grades that I expected. None of them exceeded even a B. I need to make sure that next quarter when we have our 5 paragraph piece I do the best that I can, and really focus on it, I should'nt be watching T.V. and doing homework at the same time. I think that if i focus more in this class, my grade will reflect it, that is my goal for Quarter 2.

Expository Piece

This exhibit you see in front of you is about a group of people known as the Robber Barons. No, there not a mischievous group of city dwellers that rob unprotected people at night. There are a bunch of monopolistic businessman. What do is it mean to commit monopoly, well; it’s buying out all of your competitors. One of the modern robber barons might be Bill Gates, he has been charged for monopoly a couple of times. Still don’t get it? Think about the actual board game. Monopoly is about buying out all of the places on the board until your opponent is flat broke.

John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in the world, with a total net worth of $128 billion, was a robber baron. He owned a company called Standard Oil, today it is known as such companies like Chevron, Exxon, Sohio, etc. Over the years, Standard Oil was the best oil refinery in the world, but after an exposé of Standard Oil, in the novel by Ida Tarbell, The History of Standard Oil. People got curious.

Standard oil was broken up in 1911, after the congress split it up for monopolistic acts. It got split up into 34 different companies, three of which I stated above. The reason your company could get split up for monopoly is because it is simply unfair. Think of it like the gaming console companies. Let’s say Nintendo, creator of the Wii, bought out Sony, producers of the Play Station, and Microsoft, creators of the Xbox. If Nintendo was the only game producer, they could raise their prices to incredible amounts, because there were the only games available, and there had no competitors. Basically if you wanted to buy a game, it would have to be Nintendo games, so they could mess with the consumer all they wanted. They could also start making the quality of the games lower, because again, there are no competitors. That’s what the term “robber baron” means and why it is against the law to commit monopoly.

New Article

THE CLEVELAND TIMES

Standard Oil Broken Up for Monopolistic Acts

What will happen to the millions of dollars Rockefeller has?

As of 1911, Standard Oil, one of the largest oil companies in all of the USA has been broken up for monopolistic acts, after various attacks by many, the biggest by Ida Tarbell, with her exposé of Standard Oil, The History of Standard Oil. In 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States said that Standard Oil, which by then still had a 64% market share, originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. The Cleveland based company got split up into some companies like Sohio, Comoco, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, etc.

Although John D. Rockefeller, the master mind to the monopoly of Standard Oil, shed all of his policy involvement of Standard Oil in 1896, he still remained president, and kept his stock. Another push against Standard Oil was Ohio. Ohio made an anti-trust law, to rebel against the Standard Oil Trust, a way that Standard Oil to centralize their holdings

They had vigorous attack against Standard Oil. Eventually Standard Oil left Ohio. That led to other states that were victims of the Standard Oil monopoly and the Standard Oil Trust to start to pull out. Still though, despite what everyone else wanted, Standard Oil still owned 90% of kerosene producers.

At one of Standard Oil’s highest points, it owned 22 of 26 of all Cleveland refineries. It may have been that Standard’s success really brought attention to all the muckrakers, especially one, Ida Tarbell. Ida Tarbell says that she did not intend to make such a riot with Standard Oil. “I never had an animus against their size and wealth, never objected to their corporate form. I was willing that they should combine and grow as big and wealthy as they could, but only by legitimate means. But they had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me.”* Ida Tarbell’s father was taken out of business by Standard Oil. Obviously Ida Tarbell didn’t expect to cause such a “problem” for Standard Oil, but she did. Some people, like Pratt and Rogers, entrepreneurs who got bought out by Standard Oil are more then likely happy with the break up of the monopolistic company.

*Quote by Ida Tarbell from wikipedia.org

Feedback Sept. 10-14

In the stock market game, I did really well, receiving 309 dollars and getting an A-, third best in the class. I think one of the advice that really worked was, buy low sell high. It was true because, theres no reason to buy a stock that is worth 40 dollars, and have it go up to 41 dollars. Also, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Conor put a lot of investment into Comstock Silver, he has a gut feeling that it was gonna do good. He was wrong. In some cases though, if you were lucky, that might work. If you were to buy tons of Drexel and Morgan, you would be insanely rich, getting a 40 dollar profit per share you bought. Also, you need to spend money to make money. Thats just common sense. You cant just expect to make a profit without doing anything. Overall though, I made a 229 dollar profit. Hooray! Probably the let affective piece of advice was "don't let your emotion get the best of you." I didn't really find that necessary. It basically said that you shouldnt get sad and you shouldnt get happy. But overall, I think that the tips did help us. Thank you, Mr. Coyle!

Pratt Letter

Dear Mr. Rockefeller,
I, Charles Pratt, am disgusted by your monopolistic acts, seventeen years of hard work gone to waste when some hot shot gluttonous robber baron comes along, trying to get grasp of every single oil company. My Unlike you, I had to work to gain money, not buy everything out. Incase you forgot because you were to busy counting money I moved to the USA in 1850, and soon became accustom to the American lifestyle. Soon before long, I had bought an oil refinery from two young men, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Ellis but before long; they were heavily in debt to me, being unable to give their end of the deal. Ellis gave up, but Rogers came to New York to tell me personally that he would pay back the debts he owed me. Now, that impressed me so much, I felt like this was someone that I was more then willing to hire. After he paid the debts, sure enough I hired him as my foreman of my Brooklyn refinery, and promised him a partnership if we made over fifty thousand dollars a year. And that we did thus came Pratt and Rogers Co. The Rogers continued to live frugally and young Henry worked very hard. Abbie brought his meals to the work, and often he would sleep but three hours a night rolled up, rocking back and forth in a dusty down blanket in the corner of a freezing cold room. Sometimes his wife would worry about him, she would constantly ask about him. Henry Rogers would wake up at the crack of dawn and went straight to work. I would bet you anything that he would skip at least one meal everyday so he could get some errands done. Then you came along. Sure, you can say that hard work pays off, and when we were forced to join Standard Oil, that we all got paid, but I assure you that Rogers and I could have out done you any day. I think that you truly ruined the oil business; you ruined the good feeling of having a partner, waking up everyday bright and early, and head out to work. You ruined the feel of seeing your employees smile as they come from their warm cozy homes. You demolished the love of going home after work. There were no more companies that were run by someone who wasn’t obsessed with money. Now all I see everyday is the morose faces of those who hate their job but are only doing it to raise money for the kids. Most of them working for minimum wage any way. Some of them would have tattered tops on, others wouldn’t even have tops. Some came without shoes, but most importantly they all came without a smile. This letter is to get your attention; I hope you learned that there is more to life then money and oil. Thanks John, I hope you learned that money isn’t everything, but I don’t blame you, it would be hard to get it through your thick bald head of yours!
I despise you,
-Charles Pratt

Goals Update

I think right now, I am doing fine in Humanities. I have 7 AR points, and I am nearly done with a 8 point book. Also, one of my goals, to improve my reading comprehension skills, has also been met. I fully understood the Outsiders, and got a great score on the final project, a 39/40. I got good grades on my Outsiders Bio Poem. I'm shooting to get 20 AR points in AR this quarter, and I think I can do that, if I keep up with the reading pace I am in right now. I think that I have completed most of my Humanities goals, I've been comprehending all my books, and been ahead of AR, so far. Yay!

John D Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller, born July 8, 1839, was one of the first billionaires ever. Born and raised in Richford, New York, He founded Standard Oil. A company based on transporting, refining, marketing, and producing oil. He Have a Net Worth of $128. John D. Rockefeller died on May 23, 1937 at the age of 97.

How was your early life?
I was the second of six children. My father was a salesman, selling patent medicine, such as Cancer Cures. When I was a boy, my family moved from Richford to Moravia and, in 1851, to Owego, where I attended Owego Academy. In 1853, my family bought a house in Strongsville, a town close to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1902, an audit showed I was worth about $200 million—compared to the total national wealth that year of $101 billion.

What exactly was Standard Oil?
By the end of the Civil War, Cleveland was one of the five main refining centers in the U.S. Eight years later; I started Standard Oil, which was rapidly growing into the most profitable refineries in Cleveland. In 1872, Standard Oil had absorbed 22 of the 26 refineries in Cleveland. If a company denied an offer from me, I would show them how good Standard Oil was and made the threat that if a company didn’t agree, I would run them out of business. Most of them agreed to become a part of Standard Oil.

How did you commit monopoly?
Standard Oil gradually gained control of all the refineries of America. In 1882, Rockefeller's lawyers created an original form of partnership to merge their holdings, giving birth to the Standard Oil Trust. The partnership's size and wealth drew much attention. Despite improving the quality and availability of kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil's business practices created intense controversy.

What were the effects of your monopoly?
One of the most effective attacks on Rockefeller and his firm was the 1904 publication of The History of the Standard Oil Company, by Ida Tarbell. Tarbell's father had been driven out of the oil business during the South Improvement Company affair. Her book took a huge bite out of Standard Oil. By 1896, I shed all of my policy involvement in the affairs of Standard Oil; however I retained my nominal title as president until 1911; but I kept my stock. Standard Oil was later separated into 34 different companies, including, Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Sohio

Are you as bad as they say?
No, I gave10% of my paycheck to my church. As my wealth grew, so did my giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. In 1884, I provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for black women that became Spelman College, $80 million to the University of Chicago, and many other donations.

Pros and Cons of the IR

Pros

• Made things easier to produce
• Gave a lot of work opportunities
• Started more ideas, therefore leading to machines
• Began the use of assembly lines, which now prove to be very effective
• Made commodities more abundant
• Created the idea of Steam-Powered engines

Cons

• Conditions were risky
• Made a lot of pollution
• Endangered a lot of people
• Made bad quality items
• Made living conditions worse and worse
• Had long work hours
• Started controlling peoples lives

http://www.newint.org/issue122/Images/key2.jpg

Factory Game 2

Today was different in many ways, first of all, it wasnt nearly as much fun. Its more fun to be creative and make your own idea, then cut out all these shapes over and over and over and over again. It was boring! I couldnt stand doing that for more then an hour, let alone my entire life. Although we worked faster and got more "Hersh" done, they were all pretty poorly done, because we were in a rush to "mass produce" the toy. The original "Hersh" didnt look anything like the final "Hersh." In the end it really matters what you want, quanity or quality!

Toy Activity

I started cut out the paper shapes as fast as I could, constantly looking at the clock and back. After I was done cutting I dashed over to the glue box, noticing that Conor was already drawing. I had to speed up. I started towards the body, trying to quickly get the head on straight. All I got think of was bitting into that savary candy bar. A Twix... maybe. I started to place all the body parts on, franticly glueing and drawing and downing all sorts of things all at the same time. My mind was moving two ways at once. I didnt know what to do, but then it hit me, I caught a glare of a neon green marker, coloring time. I try to color as fast as I can, glancing over to the clock, 10 minutes left to finish my master peice. I started coloring and coloring, but not to fast, I had to stay in line. Once I was done I grabbed some tape and slammed my guy onto the white board, just before I heard Mr. Coyle say, "Have a nice day!"

Roller Coaster

The handle bars fall onto my lap with a loud “chiss.” Slowly the roller coaster heads uphill, it rises with a “click” until it starts to slow down. The coaster lies on top of what looks like to be an endless fall. My heart starts to beat faster, I taste the sweat pulsating down my face, my hands loosing grip of the handle bar. There was only one way to go here, and that way is down. The cart starts to move once again, its nose pointing down. My stomach lurches as we rush downhill, I can barely keep my open because of all the air pushing against my face. I hear the screams of all the other riders. I raise my hands up from the bars, the strong air feels like small needles jabbing at my skin. I taste the fresh air as we end the drop. We speed through a curve and head straight into a corkscrew. I quickly feel the blood rush to my head, but before I know it I’m heading down another drop, before I can feel my stomach lurch again, we are shooting up a hill. My head flings back as I hit my head on the wooden backboard. “Owwww!” I scream, but before I know it, I’m re-docking back at the station. I want to go again!

Fruit Roll Up

The blue raspberry fragrance stung me as I ripped through the crinkling plastic. The smell was strong, it was almost like citrus as I slowly unwrapped the sticky piece of candy. I saw the green swirls and bluish-purple texture and I knew that this was gonna be a good humanities class. I carefully pulled the Fruit Roll Up, as of not to rip its fragile body. I heard the "zip" sound, as the sticky candy was being ripped apart from its plastic holder. I grasped the candy, feeling the sticky surface along my hands, and then it was time. I slowly headed towards my mouth and bit straight into the sugar loaded candy. But it wasn't as I expected. The Roll Up was to sweet, it was almost sour, like citrus. There was a huge cloud of artificialness as I swallowed my first bite. My second bite was bigger, I felt my canines wary as they tried to demolish the chewy candy. Another bite, this one not as big, an easy slash by my incisors and then down the drain it went. I went for another, but then realized it was all gone. I touched the plastic wrapping to here a crinkle, and looked down. All I saw was the colorful plastic, and I knew it was gone.

Mother Necessity

Necessity is the mother of invention because if someone is driven enough, and has a good reason to make or do something, he or she will do it. Thomas Edison wanted light for her mother, and the love of his mother was enough to make him invent the light bulb. Graham Bell wanted a way to communicate with other people easier, thus came the phone. Henry Ford wanted a way to travel easy; the Wright Brothers had the dream of flying. If someone wants something enough to go the extra mile for it, they WILL go the extra mile to accomplish their dream. The Wright Brothers had the dream to fly, they wanted it bad enough that they came up with a way to make a flying machine, as did Henry Ford, who wanted a way to travel easier, thus came the first car. Necessity is the need for something, and without Mother Necessity we wouldn't be living the same way as we do right now
http://members.aol.com/SHRLIST/mother.jpg

Feedback Aug. 13-17

I think I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. I like to watch movies, but I don't like to read, and I like to make stuff and see plays. The reason I am not a auditorial learner is because I have a short attention span, and I cant stay on track if I don't like the subject I'm trying to learn. I think that if we Incorporated more drama into humanities class, like making skits, it would be easier for me to understand the subjects better. Although I like to watch movies, I really don't like to read big text books that are filled with unnecessary junk. That is why I think that I am not a reader.

My Gang

My gang consists of a lot of people, each of them have there own way of helping me. Conor, Jacob, Cooper, Avi, Joel, Rahul, Jacob, Andrew.
Conor and Rahul were my first ever friends, since 4th grade, they have been with me through think and thin. Like all my friends, they give me tons of laughs. I met Kobza in 6th grade, he is the guy I talk to about football, and is my basketball buddy. Cooper is the odd one of the group. He is always thinking of a lot of crazy things, he came in the beginning of 7th grade. Greenberg is also like Cooper, crazy, but to a much bigger extent. Jake is kind of scary crazy, he knows some of the weirdest facts that you would never need to know. While Cooper is more “different,” Jake is crazy. Avi is also a basketball buddy, he came in the beginning of 6th grade, and he has a good help for a lot of things. Andrew is leaving soon, August 27th, he is moving to Virginia. He is going to be missed by everyone. It would be like Soda dieing, Andrew was like a brother to all of us.
We all depend on all of us in our gang, whether its to get a homework assignment, or just to hang out with, we wouldn’t be the same without one another.

Feedback Aug. 6-10

My first impression of Humanities was a good one. I knew that Mr. Coyle was a nice teacher from 6th grade Computer Studies, and Humanities had been one of my better subjects, so I could kind of guess that I was going to have a good year. All of the pennants and Simpson's memorabilia gave a kind of relaxing feeling. I don't have to get tensed up in Humanities and dont have to worry about tests and quizes. I also like all my other classes, I have almost all my classes with a really close friend. I think this is gonna be a good year. Two highlights of the first week of school are seeing Rush Hour 3 and seeing all my friends and teachers again. My two goals for this quarter are to stay on top of the reading, both the class books and AR, and also to improve my reading comprehension skills so when there are tests, I can be ahead of the game. Overall, I think im going to do very well in Humanities this year.