Potentinal topics for Issues in St.Louis

1. Increase the use of Public transportation
-This interests me because the city of St.Louis has the resources of public transportation such as the metro link, buses, trains, etc, but we tend to choose to overlook them.  For the most part around the city most people choose to drive themselves.  
Sources: http://www.explorestlouis.com/visitors/transportation.asp
http://www.helium.com/items/2049951-st-louis-public-transportation?page=2

2. Crime rates have gone up such as gang violence in the city of St. Louis.
-This interests me because the city of St.Louis was rated as one of the top cities for reported crime.       
 Sources: http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mo/st-louis/crime/
http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=St.+Louis&shttp://www.ewgateway.org/pdffiles/maplibrary/migration-june07.pdftate=MO

3.  The increase in the number of people that have moved outside of the metro St.Louis area to bordering counties.
-I am interested in this because I want to know the reasons why people are moving outside of the city. 
Sources: http://www.ewgateway.org/pdffiles/maplibrary/migration-june07.pdf

Freedom Riders Multimedia ppt

http://www.slideshare.net/TrevorUllman/multimedia-ppt-freedom-riders-copy-6007646

Freedom Riders Multimedia ppt

<div style="width:425px" id="__ss_6007646"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/TrevorUllman/multimedia-ppt-freedom-riders-copy-6007646" title="(Multimedia ppt) freedom riders  (copy)">(Multimedia ppt) freedom riders  (copy)</a></strong><object id="__sse6007646" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=multimediapptfreedomriderscopy-101202102643-phpapp02&stripped_title=multimedia-ppt-freedom-riders-copy-6007646&userName=TrevorUllman" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed name="__sse6007646" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=multimediapptfreedomriderscopy-101202102643-phpapp02&stripped_title=multimedia-ppt-freedom-riders-copy-6007646&userName=TrevorUllman" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/TrevorUllman">Trevor Ullman</a>.</div></div>

Research Question

-Why is it so common to have child soldiers fighting in battle in Sierra Leone?

-What is the reason for having child soldiers be in battle in Africa?

-What is the role of child solders in Africa that are fighting for human rights from the UN?

-How have child soldiers made such an impact on developing human rights for all?

-How much progress has been made for getting human rights for children (child soldiers) in Africa to be protected from armed conflict?

Countries to look further at Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, ad Uganda.

Potential sources:
http://saiv.net/SourceBook/Storage/documents/doc_armedconflict_children.pdf

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=6714BA85B70D593FF60C42990726EF91.inst1_3a?docId=5001368863

 

1. I was interested on how countries in Africa are sending letters of concern for their own countries on human rights problems to the Unites States government.  This shows that other countries around the world look up to the Unites States because of the success of our human rights.  In the link below there is a letter from Chad to Barrack Obama pleading about the waivers for Children Soldiers prevention act.  Many countries in Africa like Chad are in desperate need to rebuild their human rights programs to not have child soldiers in battle.  
The LRA is taking over Africa and the victims of the LRA are speaking out to President Obama and other world leaders to help stop the War against the LRA.

2.Links:
-http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/11/05/ngo-letter-president-obama-regarding-waivers-child-soldiers-prevention-act
-http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/11/10/congocentral-african-republic-lra-victims-appeal-obama



3.Questions: Why are countries in Africa relying on the Unites States to help them maintain human rights in their countries?

Response to first part of Maus 2

When I was reading the first part of Maus 2, one question came to my mind, why did Art Spiegelman use Mice for his main characters?  In my opinion, using mice as the characters can easily organize the hierarchy in the concentration camp and in the Holocaust in general.  For example, the guards were cats and the prisoner guards were pigs.  In the context of the Holocaust it makes perfect sense to have cats be the prison guards because in real life they scare mice and frighten them.  In the eyes of mice, cats are their primary enemy.  The use of pigs whom were prisoner guards is useful to show that they had more power than mice, but not a much as cats because they were not predators.  Pigs were a piece of meat which was bigger than the mice and gave them more power and in a sense they were more useful.  Overall, Art Spiegelman's use of characters to create a social and political hierarchy during the Holocaust is very creative by using mice, pigs, and cats. 

Human Rights in class Activity response.

What is the challenge to address human rights to everyone?

-The challenge with addressing human rights to everyone is that there are so many people and different circumstances which come about.  Human rights are given to everyone once they are born and it is there right to use these rights that the United Nations has created for them to further their life in the best way possible.  It becomes challenging when these rights conflict with religion or faith.  Also when giving these rights to people they tend to abuse them.  Such as the freedom of speech right which can cause riots, strikes, and bad publicity.  Overall, human rights are for everyone, but it is challenging to keep them in order all the time.