Human Rights Timeline

The order of the concepts is Social Contract Theory, American Constitution, French Revolution, and then United Nation. The idea that influenced Social Contract Theory was democracy, freedom, and freedom of speech, and influenced American Constitution was liberty and the pursue of happiness. Declaration of right influenced the French Revolution. This also challenged the divine right at that time. United National was influenced because of the idea of world peace. This became the declaration of human right.

China is now slowly catching up with history, they are now standing up for themselves. They are learning and slowing understanding how things are changing as they get civilized. Not everyone is equal, but China is slowly catching up.

Reflection on Teaching Civic Responsibility

In our Global Ethics class, we read an article called ”Educating the ‘Good’ Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals” written by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahn. This article talks about what a good citizen should be and should do, and how should the ideas be taught through democratic education. The author classified citizenships into three categories: Personally Responsible Citizen, Participatory Citizen, and Justice-oriented Citizen. And then, they listed out some conflicts that appear when students try to pursue these visions.

First, personally responsible citizens act responsibly in their community, work and pay taxes, obey laws, recycle, give blood, and volunteer to lend a hand in times of crisis. Second, participatory citizens are the active members of community organizations or improvement efforts. They organize community efforts to care for those in need, promote economic development, or clean up environment, know how government agencies work, and also know strategies for accomplishing collective tasks. Third, justice-oriented citizens critically assess social, political, and economic structures to see beyond surface causes, seek out and addresses areas of injustices, and know about social movements and how to effect systemic change. These three visions are all trying to solve social problems and improve society, but just in the different ways.

“Democracy requires oppressed groups to develop political determination, that is, to organize and mobilize in order to achieve their own objectives. Education can make possible such a democracy.” This is a quote that most of my classmates found out important in this article. Democracy is an agreement for everyone. Where we can start is education. If people do not know what democracy is, then it is hard to improve the society, or to solve social problems.

I think doing community service is definitely one of the most important actions to solve the society problem and improve society. Helping each other can let all the people feel being loved.

The Stimulus Plan: How to Spend $787 Billion

The U.S. Congress passed this plan a while ago. Our teacher wants us to write about three parts of the bill that we feel actively support progressive ideals like renewable energy, changes in American education for the better, and job creation for sustainable jobs. Here are the three parts that I think are more important.



1. Education and Job Training; Aid to States. Help states prevent cuts to essential services like education.
2. Tax Cuts for Businesses; Energy. Expand tax incentives for renewable energy facilities.
3. Unemployment. Extend and increase unemployment compensation.

Education is the most important first step if we want to change the world. Educating the next generations carefully can let them learn from our mistakes, and innovate new technology.
The other part, using tax credit for wind energy and other renewable energy could reduce the gasoline needs and carbon dioxide productions. Last thing, extending unemployment benefits program could save more people from this exhausted economic crisis, and stimulate the people to consume more products. This will help the companies to produce more, and provide more jobs. I think all of the plans are good. I hope these will help our society and Earth become a better place to live.

How HIS could have less of a carbon footprint & reaction to Friedman's article

I have heard of solar panels car a long time ago. The purpose of this is to save energy and avoid pollution on earth. But this is not really helping. Because, the amount of the energy we need to use is beyond the energy that solar panels could create. I really think this will not solve the global warming issue. The only way to solve it is to reduce the amount of energy that human need. For example, a lot of rich people only care about the size of their car. They want their cars to be really fancy. The cars are heavier, and require a lot of gasoline. This will also produce a huge a mount of carbon dioxide.
I think thinking to lessen the “footprint” will just cause more problems, because people might think it is ok to waste a lot of energy, since there are ways to produce more energy. For another example, people think buying carbon credits after they took an airplane will strengthen the life of the earth, so they might also think it is ok to take many times of airplane as they want, because there are always carbon credits to buy afterward. It is kind of encouraging people in a negative way. This phenomenon will eventually require more scientists to work harder to think of more ways to produce more energy. I think changing people mind at first place, and use the energy that is necessary are what going to solve the global issues.
Since we already created a load of carbon footprint, we still need to clean it up. Rich people cannot just pay the money and expect everything is solved. I think they need to plan trees and ride bicycles more. Sharing taxi and taking city bus can also reduce carbon dioxide. People should sweat some, so they will remember how painful it is the earth is suffering!

Gender Social Experiment

Today, we had H.I.S cross dressing day, which guys have to dress like girls, and vice versa. We also went to 7-11 during Global Ethics class in our outfit, and we took pictures with the beetlenuts girls. All the passersby stared at us unusually. It felt really awkward and uncomfortable for guys to wear in female clothes. Physically, female clothes are smaller. In ethically, male do not like to do activities that girls do, such as playing dolls and doing makeups. In some religions, gender binary blurred is also known as desecrate. Cross dressing is more difficult for a guys over the girls. It is because male are inborn with aggression. Males compete for social rank and mate. Girls dress like guys do not really matter that much than guys dress like girs. The society is more used to to see girls do what guys do. I personally think cross dressing could be healthy, it is because only one day of the year when people can do crazy things. I think it was really fun today!

Ideas for Innovation

The article discuss nine ideas to innovate the world, which are:
1. Spur greater parental involvement.
2. Make schools smaller.
3. Utilize community service to foster civic engagement.
4. Teach civics effectively in schools.
5. Fund extracurricular activities.
6. Model a high school on a community.
7. Create opportunities for meaningful youth contribution.
8. Establish mentoring programs that work.
9. Ask youth for solutions.

I found out this article is quite interesting. Yes, I also believe that education is the first step to innovate the society. Parents really should spend time on what the students are doing at school. Most of the parents, even if they have time, they choose to rest from work instead of watching what kids are learning. Making schools smaller is basically also strengthening the education system. Every little kids is the leader of the future; some might be the political leader, some might be the pop culture leader.
I agree with the articles. Children even have to solve problems that the adults left out, such as global warming. Encouraging people to do community service can make the society more united. People can learn a lot from service people. I agree with that supporting more extracurricular activities can generate more ideas for innovation, because it makes the students to reach outside of the school, and to make connections. What Mr. Truchon, our math teacher does in our class is one of the most successful teaching model. We have a lot of peer to peer teaching, which I think is very constructive for students to learn!
I think our school has a lot of chances and time for students to contribute something. I think a lot of people in our school is very creative, because of these opportunities. I think one of the most important thing is every team needs a leader, especially an adult. Students all need an adult to guide and to be encourages. This is a reason why I really love my former basketball coach and baseball coach. They are all really good leaders, and give us a lot of positive feed backs.
The last point, asking kids for the answers, is the most powerful incentive for more ideas of innovation. This is why the world has a lot of conferences where they gather all the kids around the world to talk about some global issues. What we act will lead to what children will act in the future, so we need to teach them properly!

The Overwhelming Globalization

The world has become globalize. Globalization is the transformation of local to global. The purpose is to unify the world into a single society. It is the integration of economic, political and social cultures, and diffusion of modernization throughout the direct investment, capital flows, migration, and technology.

I think the three positive impacts of globalization are: promotion of modernization, reduction of unemployment rate, and doctrine of new technology for developing countries. On the other hand, the three negative impacts are wide disparity between rich and poor, rise of crime rate, and the eradication of local culture.

China is the best example of globalization. About 20 years ago, China was still really undeveloped. The production China had was mainly agriculture. Their military defense was not strong either. But after China opened foreign relationships, their traditional society promoted their economic growth throughout the multinational corporations, such as NIKE. The multinational corporations not only expand and market themselves, but also promote the international economic market. As the involvement of multinational corporations increases, it gives more jobs to people. It reduces the unemployment rate efficiently in those developing countries, such as Indonesia and China. Globalization also allows developing countries to contact and learn new technology, the ipod popularity around the world. They can have better communication systems, and also let the world network better, spread ideas broadly, such as the idea of the spiritual leader of Tibetan people: Dalai Lama.

China also provides some of the best examples of negative impacts of globalization. There is a big disparity between the rich and the poor in China. The gap is so wide that poor people do not even have chance to become rich. Urban city has all the advanced technology to network well. But on the rural sides, people have lack of transportation and network to get into the city. Even in such an urbanized city, there are still lots of homeless people, begging for food and money.

The crime rate has also risen as the world globalizes, such as Internet fraud, and inappropriate pictures and films distribution. There is also more and more telephone fraud from China. Prostitution has also turned into big business with the growth of tourism, such as the prostitution organizations in Macau, and the entertainment business, such as strip club.

Multiculturalism has supplanted the local culture. This reduces cultural diversity. For example, Hollywood movies play most of the time on televisions channels and movie theaters than local movies. The whole world is all watching Hollywood movies. There are also less people wanting to dress and eat traditionally; everyone is following the same pop-culture.

There are negative and positive impacts of globalization. People need to keep the positive impacts; modernization, reduction of unemployment rate, and doctrine of new technology. Multinational corporations also need to find ways to reduce the disparity between rich and poor, drop crime rate, and keep the local culture. “Multinational corporations symbolized what is wrong with globalization,” implied by the author of the book Making Globalization Work, Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Reflective Blog on Movie, End of Suburbia.

Last week Friday, we watched a movie called "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream" during Global Ethics. After I watched this movie, I really had no ideas of what the movie was talking about, but I kind of got the ideas of the suburbanization and oil crisis. As global warming is going worse, people start finding some ridiculous solutions, such as moving to the countryside, places without polluted air, and buying hydrogen cars, vehicles without oil, etc.

I am shock by these facts, because my parents just bought a house in Jhudong, Hsinchu's countryside three years ago. My parents are always complaining about spending too much money on gasoline, because it is far to go everywhere from our house. Whenever we are out of town, we always have to go to RT- Mart, and buy a lot of food and daily necessaries. It is beautiful here, but it also brings a lot of inconveniences. We also have a Nissan SUV, so it needs more gasoline than that of small cars.

What is happening in the US is actually exactly what is happening in Taiwan. Taiwan's first car corporation started in 1988, called the Formosa Automobile Corporation. During that time, the price of gasoline was really cheap, so everyone wants to fill the gasoline fully. But, during the world gasoline crisis, this car company has closed. And now, the price of gasoline has declined again. People who have cars might just add more and more gasoline during this time, because they never realized there is one-day gasoline is going to run out.

Taiwan is also doing these "Suburbanism" advertising. There are more and more people who want to live on the countryside, but changing the way we live cannot change the fact that natural resources are running out. I also think this is not a sustainable life, because one day if we ran out of gasoline, there is probably not many ways to travel.

What Do Organic Food & Financial-Collapsed Company Have In Common?

Our senior students read an excerpt called Big Organic, from chapter nine of the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma written by Michael Pollan. Our task is to make connections with a movie we watched last week, Enron- The smartest Guys in the Room. As I first read this excerpt, I really do not know how simple organic food have relationships with a financial-collapsed company. I realized what our Global Ethics class exhibition currently is- Corporation.

I started thinking that everything we study must have to do with money. The reason why it is really hard to maintain a sustainable business is because it does not earn much money, and it is too small. Originally, organic food companies were good; they started off small, worked with only small farm, but when corporation involved, they produced as much as they can, and do whatever they can do to get the economic benefits. They now have the same as the purpose of Enron. For example, Earthbound Farm started off really small with small washing lettuce in the living room, but it industrialized in the end, and became the business type like Enron.

When we talk about business, we need marketing people. Organic products and Enron all have really persuasive marketing group. Corporations need marketing people in order to package their figure, control the media, exaggerate their good, and twist consumers' minds. For example, organic company's marketing people will tell loads of benefits of buying organic food, and by doing that, the company earns so much more money than those of regular company. They tell a good story, same as Enron telling people that their company is going to be fine and earn money.

As I think of corporation and money, I think of greed. These companies all have lots of people who are behind scenes, and helping to make more and more money. As this phenomenon happening, organic food is going to be the next economic impact!

Internship at NIKE.

Nike is a very good place to work. People there are mostly really friendly. Their dressings for work are very casual. Shirley, the director of finance and administration is the person who we interview with, and got accepted. She is a really nice person, looking after us like mother and sons! John is the mentor I work with. He is like the director of the footwear-testing laboratory. Judy taught me all the materials that were use in shoes manufacture. Finny taught me how to type a data entry report, which is most likely what I will be doing through out the year. The other four cool and humorous ladies teach me how to do footwear-testing all the time. Betty is Angus’ mentor. She was also the lady who took us to the factory last time. I think that was the most powerful experience I had. The shoes manufacturing process actually looks very complicated, and it takes a lot of workers to make a pair of shoes. A worker might have to do the same step for years, such as packaging the shoes. It has been a tiring month, but I think the experiences I have are valuable.

Foxies In The Room

After I watched this movie, I was really shocked by the facts. I have heard lots of companies collapse, and people can not get their money back. But, I did not know that there are these kinds of things happened behind each financial collapsed company. Enron- The smartest Guys in the Room, This movie really shows the greed and hubris of people. One same moral between Enron’s movie and Ishmael is that people eventually hurt themselves by getting more and more power. Peter Parker’s uncle, the main character from Spider-man, Ben once told him: "With great power, comes great responsibility." As Enron got more and more power, they did not handle well with responsibility and ethics. Those managers and CEOs do not care the others at all. This ties back to the book Ishmael, the competition and survival fits ideas by human. People want to be at the top to take control of everything. I think once people got on the top, they would do whatever they can keep themselves away from falling. One of the parts from the movie that really shocks me was the psychological test where one person is acting to be electrified and another person is adding up the voltage without knowing it is fake. This just shows that Enron’s Company already lost their ethics when they were lying to people. The founder of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling is serving a 24-year, 4-month prison with the conviction in 2006 of many crimes as the financial collapse of Enron. Kenneth Lay is dead by the heart attack in July 5, 2006, just about three and a half months before sentence. I think one of the misinterpretations they had which let to their financial collapse is- “Market will correct itself.” They are too arrogant and over confident with curability they might have. They did not want ask people for, because they feel it might look bad. Enron cares too much about the look. They did not want to be frank, because they think it might damage their reputation, even though it is just temporally. One thing I really think all the company should follow is King Car Company. It is a Taiwanese drink company. When the contaminate milk powder events exposed in China, King Car Company was the first one who acclaim that they imported milk powder from China, so they took back every milk powder products they sold, and apologize to the people. Now, the consumers would more likely to buy their products, because they are really honest and sincere, and they stopped using the contaminated milk powder. They might loose some money and reputation, but these are just temporally; they will be really successful in the future. Honesty is the most important thing in corporation!

William McDonough and Mr. Hawken are friends.

We read an article from last class, The Opportunity of Insignificance,which was written by Hawken from his book. It explains what are the six things that build up the sustainable businesses, I think one of factors relates to the Tedtalk which William McDonough gave is "Create objects of durability and long-term utility whose ultimate use or disposition will not be harmful to future generations."
In the begining of his speech, he askes "how can we secure local society, creat world peace and save the environment?" Later on, he thinks that, in order to do this, people have to design green architectures, and we still have growth, free energy from sunlight, and metabolism. He thought of a very amazing idea, building the New Chinese City, which with green roofs that people can farm on the roof, fresh water and fresh air. This new city will be built for 400 million people in 12 years. It is very good. This city will have the durability and long-term utility for farming and will not harm the future generation and enviroment.
"Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power- economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed." - William M

Waste Not Blog

An article, called Waste Not, which from the book Natural Capitalism, talks about how much natural resources people are using unnecessarily, such as Lithium for soft drink cans. It also talks about how many high educated people do underemployed jobs, such as doctor drives taxi, and how much money people are spending, such as car accidents charge health care costs, people can not go to their jobs, property damage, and judicial service costs. Human civilization is growing with a wasting system. "People are using too many resources to make too few people more productive", a quote from the book Natural Capitalism implies how people are wasting resources. These will not only damage the environment, but also decline the global economics effect.
I think there are lots of ways to connect the concepts of this article to my senior project- building a green business model. For example, I will trace back to all the products that I am going to sell, in order to make sure that there are no extra resources wasted during manufacture. I also have to be aware of not using any of the cheap labors. I will have to confirm that everything is made in Taiwan, because Taiwan's Labor Bureau has a better policy to avoid labors get low-paid. In the end, we will please people who have their own unique strength to do what they can do, such as Jim is good at making statistic, so we will ask him to help us account the money, and Eugene is good at drawing, so we will ask him to help us design some shirts. Everyone has their own special talents, so we can help them to let other people hear their voice. We are going to use the least nature resources to make the best and most efficient green business model!

It's Business!

The inqury question I want to be able to answer over the year is "Can a business model be not harmful for the enviroments?". I think as the greenhouse effect gets worse and worse, business people should be the first group of people to stand out and resist the global warming. Business men have like the strongest power in the world; most of the richest people are business men. They have the most money, lands, and rights, then why not spend some to help the earth? Have those rich people ever think about how and why the air has been polluted when they are smoking a 50 USD cigar? I think greed for money is one of the human nature. People always want more and more money, and it never satisfies themself. As people gain money, they forgot about other things which revolve around them, such as enviroments and ethics. So, I want to build a business model that does not harm the enviroments, and still be ethical. I am going to plant trees or small plants depends how much carbon dioxide I made while runing a business. If my model really runs, I will donate all the profits that I make to the World Vision Organization, save some people who are suffering.

Silicon Lambs Blog

After I read the article about health and environmental impacts at Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, I realized that there is dark side behind every big industrial companies. Working in Science park is the job that a lot of the people want. Before science park was built, Hsinchu was just a place with lots of cemetery. I remember once my teacher told me why choose Hsinchu City to build Science Park, was because Hsinchu was the only city that has two of the best universities in Asia. After the Science Park was built, the economy starts rising up rapidly, but also the pollution as well. Before Hsinchu Gieant, one of the biggest marts in taiwan, was built, that was a place where Science Park dumped most of the heavy metal wasteproducts. I used to live in Hsinchu Science Park. This article makes me think of where I used to live. I saw the orange water down in the ditch, or sometimes green water with bubbles on top. They also dumped these chemicals in to the rivers; these also caused the oysters were seriously polluted. Taiwan's electricity generating, steel-making, and plastic producing are companies they emit most of the carbondioxide. Hsinchu Science Park makes a lot of people become rich in a few years, but the pollution problems it makes will take decades to be solved. I have research that Taichung's Science Park is also having more contamination as Hsinchu. I think this really will contaminate Taiwan's air, water, and soil. These things really shock me, I think I would like to become a business man or a electronic engineer, helping to solve the problems when I grow up. I want to be able to change something in Science Park. One another thing, I really wonder that does become a rich must to pollute the Earth? May be, I will find this out when I grow up, if it was true, I will prove it wrong! Yes, "I" Can!!

Change The World

When I was little, I've been thinking about being famous when I grow up. There are many different ways to be famous, for example, being a singer, criminal, politician, rich guy, actor, professional player and also model. But, the way I think to be famous in the future-- is to help someone. Have you seen the movie called "Pay It Forward" ? That is what I actually want to do in the future! There is a really famous and rich guy in Taiwan. His spent his first half life on earning money, and after his year of 50, he started to spend his money on some foundation, such as cancer foundation, etc. To be famous is because you want people to notice more about you; it is easier to spread love and ideas through the media, like giving lessons to people. What I want to do in the future in order to change the world, is to become a rich man first. Basically, this is why I'm going to be a business man, because it is easier to earn big money. After I quit my jobs, I am going to help people around the world, to let people who never love people or being loved by people to love each other. There are a lot of people who die every minute because they do not get loved. There are also thousands of people who were born with love but never satisfied it. I want to let all the people around the world to understand how good is it of being loved. We must to cherish it; it is precious. Because only love could let people put down their weapons, tolerating each other, and creating the world peace. Love people who are around you, and let the all hatred become love.

Sacrisfice

We finished watching a movie called "Grizzly Man" last Friday. The movie was about a guy tried to become a grizzly. In the beginning of this movie, where he talks to the foxes and the grizzlies, I think this guy is crazy. It is my first time to see a guy could be that enthusiastic at animals. However, after watching the whole thing, I started thinking this guy is a hero. In the book of Ishmael, it tells people that the man of destiny is to educate. I think this guy named Timothy has done his destiny. He sacrificed himself for bear. He is dead physically, but not mentally. There is a scene where his ex-girlfriend wore his watch; it represents that his soul is still with us, he still reminds us do not kill grizzlies. His death aware people that grizzlies are also like human being; we got to stop hunting them. He finished his destiny of man; protecting animal. So, what's your destiny of man?

Pola Bear

We watched the movie called "Arctic Tale" last class. The movie was really funny and cute. The director used humor and cute animals to tell a serious story to children. It is a stunned lesson to educate our next generation and aware ourselves. This Arctic movie makes me think about the global warming; the masterwork made by us. We are deforesting, over-emitting CO2, polluting water and air. The Arctic land is getting smaller. The most funny scene was the walruses were letting out gases. But the point of the scene was trying to show that the land is decreasing, walruses can only crowded together. The ice land is getting thicker than thicker, so the walruses are easier to run away from the polar bears. It is really interesting to watch the little polar bear, Nanu with his mother adventure in the melting Arctic. IPPC said after 30 years, the north is going to be a ocean, the polar bears will also be gone. By that time, the sea level will increase 7 meter high. Many things on earth will also disappeared in our hands. If we can control the emission of CO2 right now, at least we can extend more time to find a better solution. So, let's ride bicycles!!

Movie Review from "Fast Food Nation"

We finished watching a movie called Fast Food Nation. This movie describes a dark side of how McDonald's has became one of the world biggest cooperation. It how the cows were killed by the men. This film has also made me refuse to eat beef, but then I realized that we are also animals like tigers and crocodiles. Man also needs to kill animals for food in order to survive. The world has changed, nobody really thinks like that anymore. Man kill animals for money; and money will never been fulfilled. So the more people kill, the more money people make. This phenomenon will never end until the end of the world.

Expeditionary Questions

1. Do we have an ethical responsibility toward animals?

Yes, I think we do have an ethical responsibility toward animals. Human is a species in the animal kingdom. So, how come human could have the responsibility toward themselves but not animals. The behaviors of animals are really close to human being's. They also have intelligence quotient, just like us. These two examples can explain why we should have an ethical responsibility toward animals. Human are animals, we evolved from them. However, we should have, but we are not having an ethical responsibility toward animals. If we had, then we would not catch the animals in the cage and eat them. We will become vegetarians!

2. Do animals have emotions? Give examples if possible.

Yes, I do believe animals have emotions. From the long-term research of Jane Goodalls, she finds out that chimpanzees have identical emotions as human have. They cry, love, hug, kiss and scratch each others' back. In the film called Extinct, the gorillas ran out and tried to save the old man. That is emotion! I used to hear cats crying in my backyard. They cried loudly and sadly. One day, I brought a fish can for one of the cats, and it smiled to me. I was impressive. And then, it started singing to me in front of my house.