What is Power?

As usual, as for any of my definition related blog posts, I went over to dictionary.com to look for a meaning for, Power. Frankly, to copy and paste down all the 20 definitions would take up way too much space. Ill attempt to give you an insight into what is power, through examples from what we have learned in humanities this year, and what has been on the news recently.

I think we can safely conclude, that true power, whether it be in the ages of imperialism, or somewhere in the distant future, will more than often be related with money. The people with money, the bosses, the business owners, bankers, presidents, leaders etc., all feel that they have power. And, not to defy them, they do! Money can get you almost anything these days, and this includes respect and obtaining cooperation from others, a sign of power. Yet I believe that power is still a very broad and controversial topic. What is all numbs itself down into is, the people who have power, how they use it, for what, and how their power is enforced. These reasons may be plentiful but they are all closely related. Every leader, is different.

Take Hitler as a bad example. He had power. Alot of it.
He managed to turn a whole region of the world into believing his cause, and revolt against...well, the world literally. How did he enforce this power? Fear. The same can be said for Stalin. Even modern day shows fear. Whether you may agree or not, Osama bin Ladin holds alot of power today. Not only religious power over his disciples, but he rules a number of daily people's lives with fear (the middle east). Another presumably negative example of power would be the Imperialism of Africa.

Europe, bieng tremendously wealthy, had power. This gave them the assumption that they could bend the lives of people with less power, in this case the Africans, to their will. What im really trying to say is, the majourity of people with power, misuse it greatly. The money they accuire, is not in reality always used for "the greater good", but for the greed of the power bearing leaders. Yet, POWER, is a necessity. Without it, there would be chaos. As the world has seen countless times before, and unstable government or ruling power, can cause civil war, starvation, etc.

Power, is almost like a drug. Addictive, attractive, yet very oftern misused. Power needs to be controlled and possessed by the correct individuals who can make the right decisions. This makes me think about democracy. Its supposed to allow us, the citizens, to have power. Yet the only real decision making capability we have is to elect one individual to accuire all the power and rule. While this isn't always bad, it's up to us to make the right choice and elect the correct individual.

Now, as i'm looking at those ol' dictionary.com defenitions, I think it would be nice of me to at least copy and paste the most reasonable one...ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something. What is bieng accomplished? How? Who is accomplishing it, Why? Who really has power? You may not agree with me, yet ask yourself these questions. In todays society, nomatter what you might say, money and greed, prevails.

The Net Effect of Globalization

Honestly, at this very moment, I cant say I have a definate answer for this question. The more and more I find out about Globalization, the more harder it gets. I even had a conversation with my mom about the issue. Well, might as well mention what she thought.
She took Globalization as mainly a negative thing. The idea of making everybody virtually "the same", is not only ubsurd, but near impossible. She doesn't agree in a single universal culture. I'd have to agree with her. Culture, language, food, clothes...it all makes us unique. Uniqueness in a way is what makes us humans in a world. I asked her "What about trade?". Isn't that vital for our nations to strive? She agreed, but never called it globalization. She believes, that this world does not need globalization, but cooperation. A part of globalization, yet not the whole thing. I can safely say, that I agree with what she says.
In summary, the ultimate goal of Globalizing the World, I don't agree with, but some steps in fullfiling it prove to me more than useful in our struggle to survive, and keep our economies healthy.

Population Project Feedback

Questions have been commonly asked like, "Does UBD (PoP) actually help you in anyway?" Many students have come to a conclusion that PoP was created by teachers to torture us kids for the pure fun of it, and many older kids still believe thats the case. But I believe that it really does help us, just maybe not so directly. Maybe the material we covered that had to do with population isn't that critical to our education to understand so fully as we do now, but the format of the project is what helps us. Most of PoP was about time management. The separate projects themselves maybe werent individually long, but there were majour projects that we all had to work on and have them turned in at approximately the same time. You had to make time for each one seperately, making sure that you dont get behind on any of the others. But, because this was our very first majour assignment of our schooling careers, its safe to say that many people may have made a few mistakes here and there. I for one spent too much time on my Data Analysis. Even though it may not be a bad thing, I had less time to work on my other two parts, mainly bieng my Extension Option.

In conclusion, I think that overall PoP may have prepared us for what is to come in the next several years in terms of long assignments. The specific material may not be too important, but you never know, you may end up working with global issues of overpopulation, diseases, and social issues like Poverty in the future aswell.

Feedback 13-17

http://mrcoyle.edublogs.org/files/2008/03/blog-cartoon1.jpg

1.What are the main visual elements?

There is a family of 3 sitting at the dinner table. A father, mother, and a son.

2.What issue is this cartoon about?

The issue if Social Networking, also know as Blogging. Whether its a good thing, or a bad thing.

3. What is the cartoonist’s opinion on this issue?

I think the artist is moving towards this a bit on the negative side. It's hard to say 100%, but through analyzing the quote, I feel this is my best choice. It's showing how we post so many things up on Facebook, Myspace, etc., that we are putting out a little too much information for people to easily find, hence the father asking if he should just visit his blog to see how his son's day was.

4. What evidence in the cartoon supports your opinion on how the cartoonist feels?

As I said before, the whole tonal quality of the quote makes it sound that way. Also, the son's expression is a bit like "What?". How both of his parents are looking at him may also be a slight giveaway.

5. Why is this cartoon ironic?

Well usually, the dinner table is classically the place to talk about how your day was at work, school, etc. Yet, the father is asking whether is necessary to talk about it when he can just visit his son's blog.

6. How does this cartoon relate to our study of technology and the future?

Social Networks are becoming part of our lives more and more. More information is going aroung in SN's. Maybe in the future, they will be even more important. Also, what we put up on blogs can effect us in the future in many ways.

7. What other techniques could the cartoonist have used to make this cartoon more persuasive?

Maybe he could have made each person's facial expression more elaborate, to see what each character was really feeling.

Monday--------------------------------
Today I plan to work on getting most of my notecards together to be able to start my outline

Tuesday--------------------------------
Finish my notecards and then write my outline

Wendesday----------------------------
Revise and finish everything to do with my outline and maybe get started on first draft, depending on what else I need to do for PoP

Thursday------------------------------
Finish my first draft. And revise (whenever we actually do it in class)

Friday----------------------------------
Revise my first draft and make it into a second draft

PoP Time Organization

Feedback 16-20

What is technology?
The good ol' dictionary.com defenition for technology is: "the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science."-In more simpler user friendly terms, technology is the...

What are the 5 most and 5 least important technologies used today?
The most important would probably be most of the transportation technologies we have today, like planes, cars, boats etc. Some others would be communications, like mobile phones, email - even computers themselves are a very important technology. Others include other computer related objects like ipods and USB drives. What is some un-useful technology out there? Well, I cant answer this, but there is something to consider. Technology, more specifically NEW technology, is made to be beneficial for us and make our lives easier.

How do you feel about the amount of and use of technology at AES?
I feel that technology is used well in AES. In this advanced technological age, it is important that me learn as much as we can about technology. It is slowly starting to be part of our everyday lives more and more. One thing that i feel should be done would be providing more mandatory technology related courses for students. Throughout high school and middle school, we have the choice of choosing computer studies/ video production, and other classes. A large amount of people dont choose these classes. I think we should make there at least ONE mandatory computer related class for students at AES.