Edward Snowden

In June 2013, Edward Snowden had the entire world gasping in surprise as he leaked highly classified information about the US government during interviews with The Guardian and The Washington Post. Now, as a former NSA contractor, Snowden finds himself in an extremely dangerous position. He has become forced to seek asylum in Russia, and interviews with anonymous officials from the US government have resulted in direct death threats to the so-called traitor. Nevertheless, he says that he has not lost any sleep whatsoever. Snowden is confident in the righteousness of his actions, supporting them with saying that he is serving the people's interest by revealing governmental abuse.

During his interview with the german television channel NDR, Snowden states that national intelligence organizations have come together as one, collecting and trading sensitive information between eachother. This way, the countries involved can work their way around laws, specifically among spying and lobbyism. Furthermore, Snowden mentions that the US government is in possesion of the means needed to collect and preserve any sort of information. In an example, he says that they can record a single person's general behavior and network activity in order to create a so-called "fingerprint". With this fingerprint they can accurately track, locate, and monitor the person on any given location in the world.

The leaks that Snowden has revealed are definately frightening. They let us know that even the US, a presumed role-model for other countries, is involved in illegal activities, and is even lying about them to its' population. Despite his actions, Snowden states that he is not a traitor, as he gave all of his information to the American public. He says that if they see issues in the information given, their enemy is the government, not him. I quote him from this interview where he says: "If I am a traitor, who did I betray?" He considers himself an enemy of the government's abusive actions, and an advocate of the people. He will never rest, nor be safe, until the abusive governmental systems have changed.

Sources:
Interview with Edward Snowden by NDR
Wikipedia Article

My In-depth Project: Intro

Now, we have been assigned to write a detailed article about a topic of our choice. It is called the "In-depth Project" and we will be working on it over the coming weeks. I have chosen to write about water. Water is very important in our world, working as a crucial participant in many natural processes. The properties of water are many, providing limitless potential to the substance. These properties are what makes water amazing, and, interesting. It can in many ways be considered as the source of life on Earth, and it is therefore severely important to us. That is why I have decided to write about water. Hopefully, it will be interesting.

My Reading of The White Tiger

Double Entry Journal

Paragraph 1:

“Go to Old Delhi, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundred of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.”

I picked this paragraph because I believe it briefly presents the message of the book. The people of India are trapped in a state of everlasting poverty, which the author appropriately compares to the situation of the chickens in the markets of Old Delhi.

Paragraph 2:

“These are the three main diseases of this country, sir: typhoid, cholera, and election fever. This last one is the worst; it makes people talk and talk about things that they have no say in ... Would they do it this time? Would they beat the Great Socialist and win the elections? Had they raised enough money of their own, and bribed enough policemen, and bought enough fingerprints of their own, to win? Like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra, the voters discuss the elections in Laxmangarh.”

The reason i chose this paragraph is that it directly pinpoints a severe problem in not only the Indian society, but in most struggling societies in general. This paragraph shows just how easily corruption can lead countries into terrible states of injustice and even autocratic governments.

Varietes in English

The English language is today, and has for a long time been, the most widely spoken language in the world. And it is growing steadily. Trends and graphs from studies show that European countries, especially the smaller nations, are the ones learning English the most efficiently. Meanwhile, power nations like Spain, France and China are either struggling or actually declining in their English development, even though they are investing massive amounts of money in the subject. The causes of these unreasonable results are not always easy to accurately determine. However, there are some suggestive ideas that could potentially at least be contributing to the strangeness.

The first idea is, in my opinion, very logical, and thus the most probable as well. If you directly compare the struggling and the excelling nations by both geometrical size and native spoken language, you'll immediately discover vast differences. People living in small countries, speaking languages spoken uncommonly on a global basis, gain a natural attraction to English because of communicational demands. The large countries with vastly spoken languages follow a similar trend, but in the opposite direction. They do not feel as if they need to learn English. So basically, this idea relies on that the cause is somewhere within the motivation to learn English.

The other idea revolves around the wealth of the nations. It is a fact that wealth is not equally spread across the world. First of all, spending more money on English education usually gives better results. At the same time, globalization is greater in the wealthier countries due to Internet affordability and availability. Notice that China has placed strict limits to Internet accessibility, preventing the population from communicating with other countries. Furthermore, most Internet activities are based on the English language. Put two and two together and you see that Internet makes for globalization and then communcation in English. More communication in English makes for better English speakers, obviously!

I want to end this post by displaying the sources and statistics that i have been referring to:.

Statistics for English Knowledgeability from: http://www.ef.no/__/~/media/efcom/epi/2014/full-reports/ef-epi-2013-report-master-new.pdf

Sources:

Statistics and facts: http://www.ef.no/__/~/media/efcom/epi/2014/full-reports/ef-epi-2013-report-master-new.pdf

More facts: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/english?utm_source=feedburner

Film Review: The Great Debaters

Today's blogpost is about the film "The Great Debaters", which we have watched in class today. The film takes place in the USA around the 1930s, and it revolves around racial segregation and oppression. The main characters of the film are playing reflections of actual persons, so the story is partly true.

During the period of time that the film is displaying, USA is struggling with several problems, among the stock market crash. The film is focused on the current problems with oppression of the black population. In Texas, white farmers are lynching black people, only because they are black. The white are struggling to accept the black as equals. The situation and atmosphere of the movie is very tense, as one runs the risk of being killed for opposing the oppression. Changes are necessary, but it seems impossible to implement them in a peaceful way.

The film shows us how the main characters manage to make a big impact on this war towards equality by joining the local debate team. By winning debates against other school teams they eventually reach the national masters, and they manage to display justice for the black population through national radio. 

Edublog Award Nomination

Here are the people i want to nominate for the Edublog Awards:

For the Student Blog Award i nominate: http://kamelose.blogspot.no/

For the Teacher Blog Award i nominate: http://annmic.wordpress.com/

For the Librarian Blog Award i nominate: http://metaingrid.blogspot.no/

Novel and Film Comparison

Recently in class, we have watched the movie Gran Torino and we have read the novel When Rich came to Sunday Dinner. These pieces have a lot in common, especially their theme which is cultural struggles, and their message; to embrace immigration with mutual acknowledgement and understanding. However, they convey their messages from the opposite perspectives, whereas the movie displays an American's point of view, and the novel describes an immigrant's situation.

Watching and reading from both perspectives was to me, very interesting. Among the problems I saw, I learned that the biggest one was probably prejudice. Delusional thoughts of the other side's culture, leading into mutual fear to interact and understand eachother, making an infinite evil circle of misunderstandings. The pieces bring this problem up from both sides' perspectives, and they showed me that the only way to end the circle is by accepting and adapting to eachother. Only then one can make constructive conversation, learn from eachother, and prevent future misunderstandnings.