Friday, January 28, 2011

Apartheid

In this entry, I will focus on the Apartheid system in South Africa. The very beginning of this thinking started in 1652 when the Dutch installed a base for the shipping activity that went from Europe to Asia. For the next century, many white people came to Africa. Many years later, a new government was elected. This new government started a campaign with many ideas that reflected around the white man as the dominant person. The other parts of the population suffered under what we are to remember for many years to come as a terrible period of grave racism.

The explorers from Europe were active in this time by means of exploring and conquering the “new lands”. They slaughtered and put down the inhabitants of the areas they came by, thinking this was their own property. We know about this from many films and documentaries of this event, for instance the Disney classical movie Pocahontas. But the explorers were not the ones responsible for the Apartheid System. In 1948, a political party called Herenigde National Party was elected. They went into coalition with the party called the African Party. This government was the ones to introduce the system. A film that has been made to document this is called Invictus. The system consists of four different groups that all the people in South- Africa were put into. These groups were the white, the black, the Asian and the colored. The white group was the dominant party, while the others were discriminated by means of habitats, education, politics, health and employment.

Nelson Mandela was a very dominant character in this historic event. He fought for equality and mutual respect between the races in South Africa. He was arrested many times for his unstoppable involvement and interest in the welfare of all the different varieties people and cultures. He was imprisoned at Robben Island, where he expiated for 27 years. He was elected president in 1994, and was the first to be elected in a fully democratic election. He has been given around 250 prizes for his work against the Apartheid system in the country, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Today, South Africa is a republic with eleven official languages. The population is of various origins; about 79.5 % of the inhabitants are of black African ancestry, 2.9 % of the inhabitants have their roots in Asia, and about 9.2 % are originally from Europe. We can thank Nelson Mandela for the improved situation in the country today, and his sacrifice for peace and equality will not be forgotten.


Sources:
- www.globalis.no/Land/Soer-Afrika/(show)/indicators
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa
- www.southafrica.info/about/people/population.htm
- www.qwiki.com/q/#!/South_Africa_under_apartheid
The Picture is found at:
- nelsonmandelafacts.com/

Thursday, January 20, 2011

9/11

In 2011, it is ten years since the World Trade Center in New York City, known as the Twin Towers collapsed due to a terroristic attack. This caused the death of 2 755 people, in the worst terroristic action in the history of the United States. In this entry, I am going to describe this terrible event, and try to reflect upon the consequences of these actions.

To understand the seriousness of this event, we have to start with the centers. The two towers in New York housed up to 50 000 people, in 110 stories. The towers were 415 and 417 meters high, being the highest up till 1974, when the Sears Tower was raised. The towers were designed by Minoru Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Sons Consulting. These towers were a part of a complex of seven buildings, known as the World Trade Center.
1993, the World trade center in New York was attacked by terrorists. This occurred on February 26, when a truck bomb was detonated below the north tower. It killed 6 people and injured 1 045 people. The original plan was that the north tower would fall on the south tower, causing both of them to collapse. This plan failed, but in 2001, the terrorists succeeded in making the twin towers collapse.

On September eleventh, 2001, the citizens of New York heard a plane engine over their homes. This sound caused many heads to turn upwards towards the sound, because in New York City, plane engines are not a common sound. That is because most of the planes fly higher or further away from the city for the sound to be that dominant. One of the people to turn their heads up was Gideon Naudet. He was with a squad of firemen from New York City firefighters, making a documentary on how it was to be a rookie in this job. The firemen had gone out to investigate an incident of smoke in the central city, not far from the twin towers. As Gideon turned his head, and his camera, upwards, he had no idea that the scene he was about to film would shake the very foundations of the American nation. The plane that caused the inhabitants to raise their heads towards the sky was flying in a straight line towards the northern tower of the World Trade Center, a complex of seven buildings in the Lower Manhattan. These towers were 415 and 417 meters high, housing 110 stores of offices, with the maximum number of 50 000 employees.

The plane hit the north tower at 08:45 in the morning, between level 93 and 99, in the center of the building. This caused all the stairs to collapse, trapping 1 344 people in the tower. The whole city of New York was in shock. Could this really be true? Gideon kept his camera running through the whole incident, with no idea that he was about to make a documentation of the worst terroristic action in our time. As the firemen jumped to their cars and drove down to the trade center, another plane approached. This plane hit the south tower at 09:02 am, around the 77th and 85th floor of the building, causing 700 people to die. However, this plane did not hit at the center of the building, so one stairwell was left intact. Anyhow, only a few people managed to successfully get safely down before the tower collapsed. At 9:59 am, only 57 minutes after the plane hit, the southern tower collapsed, due to the fires which caused the steel structures to fail. At 10:28 am, only one hour and 43 minutes after the hit of the first plane, the northern tower collapsed.

These two buildings crashing down caused thousands of people to die, both in the towers and at the ground level. But it was not only these two towers that were affected by the planes. The collapsing towers damaged a lot of the surrounding buildings in the area, causing many fires, and some of the buildings also collapsed as a consequence of both the towers and the fires. In total, 2 755 people were killed by the incident caused by the hijacked planes.
Cantor Fitzgerald LP, an investment bank, lost 658 employees, and was the company that lost most of its workers. 343 of the New York City firefighters were killed in the attempt to rescue the people in the Trade centers. 60 policemen were killed. Of all the people who were still in the towers when they collapsed, only 20 were pulled out alive. The process of cleanup and recovery continued 24 hours a day, for eight months.

But this particular event wasn't only a great catastrophe. It was also a sign of war. This was the first time since Pearl Harbor that America had suffered losses and the strike of war on their own soil. Most of the First World War happened in Europe, in trenches. The Second World War raged mostly in Asia and Europe. The Americans did contribute solders to these wars, but the wars never affected their homeland. Naturally, the American people started looking for the ones responsible for the attack. Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were pointed to as possible wire pullers. But the first measures put to life, were a higher level of security at the airports and the campaign to stop terrorism. The whole western civilization was in shock and filled with fear after this incident with the twin towers. At every airport around the world, strict restrictions to liquids and sharp objects were introduced. These rules we know today too. It is much more strict rules for the flights nowadays. But that is a price I think we should be glad to pay, considering the reason they are there. The attack on the Trade Centers shook the foundations of the western civilization, and we should not forget the people dying in this attack, and the importance of understanding and equality between humans.

The information for this entry is found at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center#Destruction

The pictures have been found at:
www.softwareartist.org/andrews-New_York.htm
no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:September_17_2001_Ground_Zero_01.jpg
b4teanews.blogspot.com/2009/09/world-trade-center-8th-anniversary.html

Friday, January 7, 2011

Can we trust what we read?

The three articles offer different information on marriage of couples consisting of two people of the same sex. In the following paragraph, I will discuss the level of which the articles can be trusted.
The first article is written by Roberta Combs from the Christian Coalition, posted at www.CC.org. Already here, I can see that the views in this article support the values of the American Christians, because this entry is posted on the sight of the Christian Coalition. Since the author has given her name, we know that she is a single person representing these views. This means that the text is likely to be influenced by her personal conviction as well as tie coalition she is representing. I can also assume that her statistics will be chosen to support her visions. I do not find these statistics completely trustworthy, because she does not refer to the source of them in her text.
The second article is written for the newspaper USA Today. This newspaper is an acknowledged paper, which has a good nice reputation. Already here, I get a feeling that their views will be less unambiguous than the previous article, because the paper is dependent of readers from all parts of the society. I can therefore assume that the author have tried to present the news in a neutral way. It contains quotes of people expressing their views on the cause, and both of these are involved in the cause. They are both presented with full name and position in the case. This makes the article more reliable.
The third article is posted on http://lesbianlife.about.com, and this information shows that the people reading this article are likely to accept marriage between the same sexes. This gives a hint to the reader, that the following will be colored by their positivity towards lesbian and gay marriages. The article is also much more personal than the previous. It is based on her own experiences, as well as an event that supports the main idea in the text.

I think that it is very important to look at an article with a general view. This way, you can more easily identify which point of view the author has taken, and where the text is leading. By doing this, you as a reader will be more able to locate the matters mentioned above, and be capable to see whether the text will be influenced by personal views or not. Where the text is posted and which organization or group they represent can also help you to get a clue of to which extent the information can be trusted as trustworthy.

The first article can be found at:
The picture is found at: https://yourname.net.au/

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven books written by C.S. Lewis. We have seen the film made of the first of these, The Lion, the Witch ant the Wardrobe. This book, and film, is
about the four children Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter, and their first visit to Narnia. At this point, the White Witch is the leader of Narnia, and the four children have to kill her in order to make peace in Narnia again. They are considered the four rightful kings and queens of Narnia, and have many people who help them. There are many legendary creatures in Narnia, such as fauns, unicorns and mermaids, andall the animals can talk as well.

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Ireland in 1898. He was an educated man, but he is most known for his books about Narnia. He was a close friend to J.R.R. Tolkien. The two authors and their main works have some things in
common. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a series of four books. This includes the Hobbit, which is the very beginning of the rings of power, and tells about how Bilbo Baggins came in possession of the One Ring.

Both of Tolkien and Lewis’ series is located in a country that does not exist. They both created their own world for their characters. Unlike Tolkien, Lewis also includes real places, like London. Both the characters in the two series go through distressing and difficult tasks, and in both of the stories, the imagined world is at war. Tolkien has also included creatures in which we don’t know of from the real world, such as hobbits, orcs, and dwarfs.

But there are also some differences. Tolkien made his own language, and trough the series of the Lord of the Rings, he makes a tale in which some of the characters speak the language. He made the elvish language, which is spoken by the elves. I think that his story is much more detailed and thought trough. Lewis has decided that the time in Narnia goes faster than the time in the real world. This means that the children can sta
y in Narnia for years, while it in London only has passed 10 minutes. This also means that many years pass when they are absent. The problem is that Lewis is not consistent in this matter. Between the second and third book, many months pass between their visits to Narnia, and
when they finally arrive, prince Caspian is still alive. This should not have been possible if he had kept to his own rules. I also felt that he was a bit short on ideas after a while, and that some of the books could have been made into one. But I defiantly see wh
y they are such a huge success. I found The Lord of the Rings much more detailed and filled with action. I enjoyed both of the series, but I would recommend the Lord of the Rings.


Information on Lewis and Tolkien can be found at: http://atheism.about.com/od/cslewisnarnia/a/jrrtolkein.htm

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Christmas


“Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la'Tis the season to be jollyFa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Don we now our gay apparel
Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la.
Troll the ancient Yule-tide carol
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.”
(Deck the halls)

We all know this song, at least from the Disney shows they show on TV in Norway during Christmastime. However, some people do not find Christmas jolly at all. Many people around the world have a hard time making ends meet, even more thinking of Yule-presents. For these people, Christmas can be really stressful and nerve wrecking.

But of course, many people have a much harder life altogether. In Africa, HIV and AIDS are common diseases. Deceases strike, also during the holidays, so there is no difference between Christmastime and other parts of the year. People in these continents are poor, and barely educated. The hygienic conditions are bad; making diseases spread fast trough polluted drinking water. These people don’t care about Christmas presents, but how to survive the coming year. In the western parts of the world, we use millions and millions of dollars to buy presents. Still, the question to ask ourselves is this, what if some of this money went to charity?


The Killers, a sensation

Every year since the Killers got together, they have made a Christmas single, where every single dollar of their income goes to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa. They started this in 2006, with their single A great big sled. This single was in cooperation with Toni Halliday. In 2007, they released Don’t Shoot me Santa. In 2008, they released Joseph, Better you than me, together with Elton John and Neil Tennat. In 2009, they published ¡Happy Birthday Guadalupe! This single was also a cooperation project, but this time with Wild Light and Mariachi El Bronx. In 2010, they published Boots, and all the income from these singles has been given to charity, as mentioned earlier.

The Killers is a very acknowledged band, with many fans all over the world. Therefore, I think this act is even more touching, because they could have earned a lot on these singles. Another prospect of it is that these songs are very well planed and thought trough, which make them great hits. Giving the income of such big successes as these is a big-hearted action. One person can not change the world by himself, but together we can make a difference. I believe that actions like this, and using ones talents to change another human's life for the better, is really kind. But, isn't that what Christmas is all about?Doing something as selfless as this? If everyone started to act upon a greater good, I think we can make a difference together. Why not start by listening to the Killers, Boots? Let us hope the Killers will keep this tradition alive, and that we get to hear many great, new songs from them in the future.

Marry Christmas, and a Happy new year to you all!

If you want to see the video made for Bo
ots, use the link below. Every time it is showed, 5$ dollars is donated to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa.



The complete lyrics for Deck the halls:
Picture of Mickey Mouse & friends:
Picture of the cover for Boots:
Picture of the Killers:

Friday, November 26, 2010

Japan and Anime

Today, we had a quite free lesson, where we were to work on Japanese culture. We were able to do whatever we wanted to, as long as it had something to do with this topic, and the point was to learn about Japan. The teacher gave us three texts that were related to the topic.

I started by reading the texts and writing notes. I think this was a good start, because that gave me useful background information on the topic. The notes were a good idea when I sat down with Eline, Julie and Heidi and watched Anime. We watched Ouran High school Host Club. The anime was from a high school where we got to see what the students did, and how they acted. This anime was a good example to illustrate the facts I had just read about. However, this anime was not very dark. I thought it was very fun to see what so many people around the world find so fascinating. In the Anime, I found many of the same characteristics that you can find in many other cartoons and films. In the Anime, the main character was a regular girl with no superpowers. Her schoolmates had their faults, and none was like the American dream- male or female. This gives the series personality, and also, this makes people able to relate more to the stories. In the anime, I also found characters that are similar with famous characters from the west, like Fred and George Weasley. Their behavior were very similar, indeed, as wel as the fact that they were identical twins too.

Fred and George Weasley
Hikaru and Kaoru Hitatchin












Of course, there are a lot of differences between the Japanese Anime, and our western comics. First, like I’ve mentioned, the main character in Anime is a regular person. The Anime also refer a lot to the culture in Japan. The culture in clothing and greeting are being showed trough the Anime, giving its fans a quick impression of the society most of the Japanese people live in. You also see Japan in the houses and gardens in the series.

I have learned a lot this lesson. I have personally found Anime a waste of time earlier, but now, my eyes have opened to the brilliance of this way of letting the world know Japanese culture. I also figured that it was a good idea to start by reading a little on the background information, and ending the lesson by seeing a real example.


The picture of Fred and George:
The picture of Hikaru and Kaoru:

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Film vs. The Book

For this entry, I am to choose one of the passages in the movie and relate it to the book. The passage or scene that I will analyze is the first time Amir meets Rahim Khan in many years. He has traveled all the way from America to Pakistan to meet Rahim. Khan is very sick. He has one last request of Amir; to go back to Kabul and save Hassan’s only child, a boy called Sohrab. In the book, this is an emotional part, and a part where Amir also finds out how close he and Hassan actually was. It is also an big turning point, where Amirs life in America is changed forever. I think that this is the first warning that something dramatical is about to unfold, and that the scene and all the emotions involved are essential towards the developement of the story. In the movie, I didn’t get that feeling. The scene was a bit too short and impersonal to meet my expectations. I also feel that it was given very little attention and importance.

I feel that this is the general mistake in the movie. The scenes are to short and lacks a lot of important details, like Hassan’s hare clipped lip, Ali being crippled, Assef having blonde hair, and I think they cut out too much on their life before the Kite fight that fatal winter. This makes the whole change in atmosphere less noticeable, and Amir’s failure less clear. Therefore, I am actually a bit disappointed of the film, and there are many things I would have done differently if I were to make the movie. This made me want to give the movie not more than 4, but mostly it gets this because I like the book so much it feels wrong giving it less...