Presentations

I have really appreciated the excellent presentations given by the students in our class.  People have come well-prepared, with a great deal of information.  Some people turn out to be amazing public speakers as well.  Everybody has been articulate.

The videos have been extremely helpful, too.  Charles's video on Amnesty International made me so proud to be an AI member.  Lin's video was shown with the purpose of exposing the fact that the U.S. had supplied Iraq with uniforms and other materials -- before declaring war on Iraq in 2001.  Juliana showed just enough to make us aware of the purposes and reality of torture of prisoners.


Three people have talked about how Marjane's family dealt with the issue of the veil.  Thank you all for being culturally sensitive.

 Thank you to everybody -- what a great class!

Maps

I really appreciated the use of maps by people who were giving presentations last Thursday!  Of course, as I said, I also appreciated every mistake, from spelling to facts, because those mistakes showed that the writers had not plagiarized the material.  Yay!
 One blog which uses maps well and which covers difficult topics like torture is Indra's.  Here is the link to it:http://indraexis.blogspot.com/

Here is the map that one student used to show where there are nuclear facilities in Iran:
I have to say that this map is what scared me the most last Thursday.  Yikes!
Keep up the good work, students!

Leaving Earth's Gravity

When I consider that these words and pictures are going out into space, far beyond our solar system (eventually), then maybe they should be *REALLY IMPORTANT* words.
Well, they aren't.
However, once in a while, the thoughts will escape Earth's gravity and go whirling around ideas like the Big Bang, Dark Holes, spaghettification, portals, the Anthropic Principle, and other things that I am thinking about.

For today, I'm thinking about the connection between Persepolis and the Nuclear Pact.  I opened up an Economist issue from July18-24, 2015 and here are the first words:
"Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany reached a deal to lift sanctions in exchange for Iran accepting limitations on its enriching of uranium and allowing inspections of nuclear and military sites.  Some hailed the deal as a historic one that will bring Iran in from the cold and strengthen the hand of reformers within the country.  Others called it a historic mistake that will pave the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons" (5).

We just read in Persepolis about how the demonstrators thought that they were bringing about a new democracy in Iran -- and it turned out that instead the religious leaders took control of almost everything about daily life.  So what people THOUGHT would be the outcome turned out exactly the opposite of the case.
 I wonder if that will happen with the Nuclear Pact????