Issues in the St. Louis Area

The three things I think I am most interested in after reading this list involve animals, kids, and education. I love animals and there are many places that house animals that need help cleaning, or walking, or caring for the animals that live there. For example, the humane society always needs people to donate things or play with the animals that are living there. It is important to make sure these animals are living in a good home so they are not roaming the streets and making messes or disturbing people who are living in the area. There were also multiple organizations that help children which I found interesting. When you help orphaned children or foster children to be better adapted socially they will have a better chance to be more successful later in life and will have a better life as they grow older because they are able to support themselves. It is really sad to hear about children that live in broken homes or do not have parents or who have parents who can't support them and give them good lives. Kind of hand in hand with children is education. There are multiple organizations, such as College Bound or Beginning Babies With Books, that help children get a better education than they may get without further help. Because I have had the chance to get a good education, I know how important it is, and I feel like everyone should have that opportunity as well.

Multimedia Slide Presentation- Made in india

Made in india

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Research Question

How does the ability to choose genetic characteristics for babies lead to new forms of separation because of appearance and class?

I will need to find out more examples of people who have actually created designer babies and why they did it and how it impacted people around them. I can delve further into the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, which will be a good tool for me to research off of because it brings up many good points that will help with topics I can research further. I'm going to talk about if it is unfair that wealthy people have more money to make designer babies while the rest of people don't have access to choosing their child's traits. Also, if certain genes are genetic and are unwanted such as obesity, is it ethically right for people to eliminate obesity from society by changing their kid's genes.   

Exam Research

I think I am interested in researching science and human rights. I'm not sure exactly what about, but it could be something like how scientists influence human rights and what their roles are.  To what extent do your rights go and how far can scientists go? (Stem cell research, designer babies) This is a question of ethics and how far people should exercise their rights and when something is right and when it is an abuse of technology. Could the ability to "design" babies lead to new forms of discrimination? When are the parents violating human rights by doing stem cell research or making designer babies? When are the scientists violating rights? This weekend I went to the Made in India movie and there were some interesting points brought up during that too about surrogate mothers and health care and womens rights in India. I'm not so sure that is the route I want to go because I would like to further research about genetics, designer babies, and stem cell research because I find those topics very fascinating and think they would be an interesting topic to pursue further.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/87/8734gov2.html
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss17/booknotes-Science.shtml
http://www.unesco.org/bpi/eng/unescopress/2001/01-90e.shtml

Maus II Part 1

I thought there were some very good questions brought up during the discussion but not all of them were answered and not all of them were answered fully enough. I'm not sure if this was because people did not know the answer to what was being asked or if they were afraid to add in their opinions of things. While I was reading I was confused by a lot of things and I had a lot of questions that came into my mind. It would have been helpful to have had some of those questions talked about but I felt like it was hard to discuss this book specifically because there are so many possible interpretations of each saying and picture. On the other hand, hearing how each person interpreted it differently would have helped get ideas about what was going on and why things were written and drawn the way they were. I found it really interesting how Spiegelman wove in parts of his present day life with the story of his parents time in Auschwitz. I also wondered what the significance of taking pages to explain things going on with his father and his current day life was.

The Congo Today

1. I am finding that there are lots of power hungry leaders of the Congo which has had some benefits, but eventually is not doing the country any good. There seems to be constant fighting there because the leaders all have ulterior motives, or there is not a stable leader in power. There are lots of political issues that have been going on throughout the Congo's history, but especially as of late. It seems like ever since they gained their independence from the Belgians that they are free but there is still lots of political turmoil and war. People are still dying and the UN is not really doing that much that will actually help the people of the Congo.

2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/world/africa/02congo.html?scp=4&sq=congo&st=cse
This article is about how the UN just recently released a report about the killings and abuse in the Congo from 1993-2003. It is over 550 pages long and interviews thousands of people about their experiences. There are issues with the report however because the other countries listed in it are not listed favorably. There are arguments about whether genocide is the correct word to use in this situation. This is the same sort of question that Hochschild had about Leopold's regime. He said technically it could not be considered a genocide because he did not intentionally go in trying to kill any one certain race. I do think that the things going on in the Congo today and concerning the Congo were affected by the things going on during Leopold's regime.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/10/05/congo.rapes.arrest/index.html?iref=allsearch
This article is about how the alleged leader of a Congo military group was arrested the other day on the accusation of committing mass rapes in the Congo. A report published last month confirmed that over 300 people were raped between July and August in one region of the Congo. It focused on shortcomings of the military and their inability to protect the people in their areas. Victims were told that the main reasons for these attacks were to punish people viewed as traitors. The things that happened during Leopold's rule did have an effect on the things going on now. There are still terrible happenings just as there were during Leopold's rule. The military under Leopold's rule were abusive to the natives, just as this article is talking about for modern times.

Discussion Thoughts

I actually enjoyed the discussion our group had. I felt that we took some of the questions and everyone had a chance to give their opinion about it. There were some very good insights given and we were able to successfully all share our thoughts and elaborate on each other's thoughts as well. It was nice to be in a group where nobody was overpowering and everyone felt comfortable sharing.