Solutions Project Ideas

1. Homeless Teens in St. Louis
After hearing about a homeless teenager who attends Marquette High School, which is less than 2 miles away from my house. While I don't go to Marquette or know the student personally, I had never really thought about the teenagers who are homeless, but still trying to go to school and get an education so close to where I live. When you don't see it everyday or don't necessarily even realize that these things are going on so close to you, it's easy to push out of your mind, but I think that homeless teens is an issue that needs to be brought to the forefront of our minds.
http://www.suite101.com/blog/pytel/homeless_high_school_students
http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202129

2. Teen Pregnancy
In Missouri, there are around 8,600 teen births annually, and while teen birth rates are generally on the decline, this is still an important issue. I think this would be an interesting topic to research because it's so strange to think that there are girls my age who are having babies and going through the struggles of pregnancy or raising a child, and I think education is the biggest way to attack this issue.

http://missourifamilies.org/features/adolescentsarticles/adolesfeature13.htm
http://www.studlife.com/news/region/2010/10/29/wu-reaching-out-to-st-louis-on-issue-of-teen-pregnancy/

3. Child/Teen Obesity
I think this would be interesting especially from the angle of what schools can do to halt this growing epidemic of child obesity. Habits begin young and with children spending a lot of time at school, I think that researching the effects of schools on obesity, and how they can stop it.
http://www.stlouischildrens.org/content/newsreleasearchive09.htm?page_id=5336&inCtx12view=10&inCtx12pg=0&inCtx12news=10&site_id=1&minor=0&inCtx12news_id=220&major=1
http://www.fox2now.com/news/ktvi-childhood-obesity-has-become-epidemic-111510,0,295670.story

Prisoner of Her Past Presentation

http://prezi.com/g8e4yqna-ch4/prisoner-of-her-past-review/

Prisoner of Her Past Review on Prezi

Research Questions

I have decided to research human rights violations during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At the moment, I have a long list of resources I plan on going through during Thanksgiving Break. These include:

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Voices from the Storm- Lola Vollen/Chris Ying

A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge

When the Levees Broke  directed by Spike Lee

Unnatural Disaster; Human Rights in the Gulf Coast

http://www.amnestyusa.org/dignity/pdf/unnaturaldisaster.pdf

Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster by Michael Eric Dyson

Through just briefly scanning through some of these sources, I have found research questions that I believe will relate to my readings, but I am planning to come up with many questions so I can choose which one best fits or is able to evolve to become the best research question. 

-How were minorities treated in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina?
-Does this present a larger problem concerning race/socio-economic status of those "left behind" during the hurricane?

International Human Rights

I chose to topics to further research for the Academic Conference on International Human Rights, both through the book Zeitoun by Dave Eggers:
1) Human Rights Violations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
2) Discrimination of Muslims in the United States

I plan to choose a topic after reading the book and seeing which one it better illustrates so I can further my research.

King Leopold's Ghost: Where There Aren't No Ten Commandments

One quote that I thought was particularly interesting was when Primo Levi said, "monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions" (pg 121). I thought this was extremely interesting, not only when applied to King Leopold and the Congo, but especially how it can be applied to many historical events. I had never thought about many events in history this way or realized how true the statement was, at least in my opinion. Different aspects of the Europeans in the Congo could be applied to this, such as the violence that was used to create a sense of superiority over the Africans, as well as why they went to the Congo in the first place. They separated themselves from the acts we would see as horrendous in modern day society, and saw it as normal. Hochschild compares these feelings to those of the Nazis, as well as the Soviet gulag.  I think that looking at many events through the ideas of this quote would give a different perspective and an interesting aspect.

King Leopold's Ghost Chapters Two and Three

I found one quote particularly interesting that concerned King Leopold on pg 46. One of the reasons I chose this quote was because not only does it show Leopold's ulterior motives for wanting to colonize Africa, but it shows that he was aware that in order for him to do this and not upset the Belgian people, he'd have to convince everyone he was doing it for humanitarian reasons. This aligns with a lot that we've learned about Europeans conquering Africa and wanting to do it for other motives besides just humanitarian work, and it also shows that Leopold was kind of conniving.

"[Leopold] had learned form his many attempts to buy a colony that none was for sale; he would have to conquer it. Doing this openly, however, was certain to upset both the Belgian people and the major powers of Europe. If he was to seize anything from Africa, he could do so only if he convinced everyone that his interest was purely altruistic. In this aim, thanks to the International African Association, he succeeded brilliantly. Viscount de Lesseps for one, declared Leopold's plans 'the greatest humanitarian work of this time.'"

I quote that I found to be interesting about Henry Morton Stanley was on page 48.

"He left his own name on Stanley Falls in the center of the continent and on a spot about a thousand miles downstream, at the head of the rapids, where the Congo River widened into a lake. He claimed that naming the latter was the idea of his second-in-command, Frank Pocock, who cried out, 'Why...this is a signal expanse we shall call Stanley Pool!'" Pocock was not able to confirm this; he drowned in the river soon after christening, or not christening, this portion of it."

The reason I found this quote to be so interesting because of what we had learned about Stanley in the previous chapter. We read about how he really liked to embellish his stories and sometimes would tell flat-out lies. If we are to apply that knowledge to this quote, it's very likely that Stanley just named the pool for himself and that his second-in-command had nothing to do with it. This is especially noticeable because his second-in-command drowned and wouldn't be able to confirm the story either way.

Another quote that I would affirm about King Leopold can be found on page 39.

"What mattered was the size of the profits. His drive for colonies, however, was shaped by a desire not only for money but for power."

I would affirm this quote because it aligns with the beliefs of many European rulers and in other accounts we've read about imperialism.

Current Events Report: Rwanda Threatens to Pull Peacekeepers Out of Darfur

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/world/africa/01rwanda.html

The title of my article was “Rwanda Threatens to Pull Peacekeepers from Darfur.” It was written by Jeffrey Gettleman and Josh Kron, and it was published in the New York Times.

            In the article, it discusses how on August 31^st, Rwanda had threatened to withdraw thousands of peacekeepers if the United Nations published a report accusing Rwandan forces of massacring civilians and possibly committing genocide in the Democratic of Congo in the 1990s. The report that was leaked to new sources last week charges that invading troops from Rwanda and Congolese rebels deliberately killed tens of thousands of members of the Hutu-ethnic group that were civilians (mostly women, children, and elderly) and that posed no threat to the forces. It also points out that until recently, Rwanda had been celebrated by many because it had seemed successful as an African nation that had been able to rebuild itself after genocide in 1994. It seemed so successful because of economic growth rates, low crime rates, and innovation regarding fighting poverty. Recently, though, people have begun to question Rwanda’s democracy especially after the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, won in re-elections with 93% of the vote in August. Officials have tried to quietly persuade the U.N not to publish the report, or at least take out the heaviest accusations.

            I think that this is an important news event for the world because the United Nations is an important organization in the world, and its relationships with certain countries are also very important. Rwanda threatened to remove the 3,300 peacekeepers it has in Darfur to persuade the U.N from publishing the report because the peacekeepers in Darfur are essential to the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission there. This is an interesting development because the report makes very serious accusations against Rwanda and would definitely affect the way in which Rwanda is viewed in the world, especially because more people are starting to question their brand of democracy despite the promise they showed as a country after rebuilding. I am interested in seeing what the United Nations does concerning the report because not only will it affect their relationship with Rwanda, but also the way that people see the organization. It will affect how people see the organization because I think that it will be easy to question their authority and have them be a reliable organization of the Rwandan officials are able to persuade them out of publishing the report. This would make them seem kind of shady to go back on their own word after they are threatened and could open new questions about the U.N not being entirely truthful or trustworthy.