IHSS Blog 2020-2021

Liberty After reading the Liberty section in the Encyclopedia of Political Philosophy and Montesquieu, I took away many things. One being Montesque defining liberty as " a tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety". I really agree with how he said "safety". Liberty is commonly recognized as freedom, what he is saying is that we feel free when we feel safe. I completely agree with this, everyone that lives in fear is almost like a prisoner to their own safety willing to take others’ liberties away to reach their own. He also says that in order to obtain liberty we have to have laws set in place to make us feel protected, but still free. I am not really sure I agree with this. The laws set in place to protect us mean not everyone will have liberty. The guys locked up in prison for being a menace to society don't have liberty. Anyone can go to prison, they just got caught. Also in order for these laws to protect us, they have to be...

     For my engagement, I made little informational books and handed them out to the adults and children of my neighborhood. I was thinking of a way I could share the information I learned while researching alcohol abuse. I decided on something creative and pleasing to look at. I made small books telling all about alcoholism, I included the basics of alcohol abuse; why people abuse alcohol, what does it affect, treatment options one has, and the symptoms of alcohol abuse. At the end of the book, I give a handful of resources and foundations they can use to either donate the cause, find treatment/ hotlines, or if they just want to learn more about the addiction. I made around 15 copies of these little informational books, and I handed them out at a birthday in the neighborhood. It made it a bit awkward, everyone looking at my books, so I left very early, but it was completely worth it. Now they have the information if they ever need help with addiction. I also heavily enga...

     Economics in America has been pretty wack right now, due to Covid-19 countless jobs have been lost and businesses fell under. I will first talk about how Covid-19 had a big impact on the stock market. At the beginning of Covid, most stocks were very low, but as January rolled around they went back up. This is normal even on a non pandemic year, they call it "the January effect".  Unemployment rates have gone up, the United States went from 3.7% in 2019 to a high of 8.9 %  in 2020 and is now 14.8 % , Canada went from 5.7 %  to 9.7 % , and Brazil went from 11.9 %  to 13.4 % . This is a very intense change, the last change we had that large in our unemployment rates was from 1940 to 1942. Most countries are now in recession, the United States went -5%, and Canada went under -15%. In all honesty, I have tried to research recession, but I still cannot grasp what it means, so I apologize if anything I just said was confusing. The countries that rely on ...

 Little Rock Blog      While being an advance in integration the Little Rock Nine faced threats and violent racism from malicious students and parents, but is there a possibility the transition could have been smoother? Take Melba Patillo’s story, for example, the way she described a “terrible wrenching awful fear” leading the students to sneak out of school simply to survive, then having to acquire a presidentially instated bodyguard to protect the 9 kids, which was a good decision on behalf of the president that noticed the adversity and tribulation the kids were facing, however, predicaments such as the violent mob outside of the school may have been prevented if the children were sent into school with bodyguards, to begin with, considering the racist/hostile climate of Arkansas in relation to integration there could have been some anticipation as to the malice and animosity.

  Civil rights in Iran      Iran is a beautiful country, but it has some major human rights issues such as the  freedom of expression and assembly. You are prohibited to protest even if it is completely peaceful. As an example, I am going to use something that happened in January just last year, there was a peaceful protest being held for the Ukrainian plane crash victims. The protesters had to deal with airgun pellets, rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and being beat and arrested. Another flaw in their civil rights is their systemic ill-treatment and torture. Irans police and security services use torture methods like flogging, prolonged solitary confinement, beatings, the use of electroshock, and forced chemical substances. They use this for crimes such as assault and theft, they also use this for people of the lgbtqia community. The Penal Code went further in exposing them are allowed to use flogging, blinding, amputation, stoning, and crucifixion. The ...

  Week three  I am three weeks into the interview process and no one has responded, I did reach out to Claude my uncle, but I didn't get too far through the interview before everything he said was becoming nonsense. I tried getting some more out of him, but once again he is a very scary, practically insane elderly man weighing under 110 pounds with a track record of attacking nurses, so safety was an actual concern here, I didn't want to anger the bull. Anyways, like Mr. Roddy said I should do, I emailed them all again, but this time in the end I said "this isn't spam, I am just a little desperate". I think that was a bad decision adding that now because I still have no responses when I now need them. I have been thinking of other people, and or organizations I could interview, but the selection is pretty sparse. I am thinking about sending a longer email, telling exactly what I am doing, and why I need this interview, but I feel as if that would be too much, I do...