Blog Topic Number 11

     I find these maps pretty interesting, I had to use them both for the assignment to work.  I didn't have to do much searching, I remembered seeing these two maps once before on a website and thought about how interesting I found them to be.  There is so much information both good and bad contained on these maps it is almost hard to look away.  Each state on the first map has listed what it is best at or best known for or what it is most successful at.  The bottom map is where it really starts to get interesting when you look at both maps, you can compare what the states are 'best' at and what the 'worst' things are about them. 

     As I said the information on these maps is both unique and very interesting, some of the comparisons can be pretty amazingly different from each other.  Where do we stand as Nebraskans?  Well, the positive is that we have the least public corruption, on the downside; we are statistically the worst state when it comes to violence towards females.   There are some that you just wouldn't expect when looking at the two maps that took me off guard, like Alaska for example which is listed as the 'most equal' state also has the highest rates of suicide.  Overall these maps are incredible tools when trying understand the states that make up our country in a completely new way.

Blog Topic Number 10

    
     When asked my personal opinion on foreign aid to Sub-Saharan Africa I must confess that reading the sections of the textbook and the article provided in the assignment substantially changed my outlook on the situation in Africa.  This whole situation shows both the upsides and downsides of the massive globalization taking place in our world today.  The section "Global to Local: The Used Clothing Trade" in the textbook shows just how much certain products exhibit globalization here.  Toward the end it says we live in a world today where a shirt made in Honduras can be worn by a teen in New Jersey and then boxed up and sent over to be worn in Uganda. 

(Many celebrities have become well known for their efforts in African Aid)

Globalization becomes more of a matter of questionable results when talking about the system of foreign aid and investing in Africa.  In many countries more than 20% of the GNI comes from foreign aid, a number found on page 271 in the textbook.  Also from the textbook I learned that in 2005 that percentage was 54% in Liberia and 47% in Burundi.  This to me says we have taken our assistance beyond the point of help and progression and brought it to the situation where corruption, dependency, and laziness has been the end result of Western efforts.

     When we provide this much 'assistance' to these nations we remove much of the need or desire for their own industrialization.  They become dependent on the money they are receiving from foreign sources and lose the innovation needed by the people of a nation to make the economy self dependent and self sustaining.  However I do not think we need to completely refuse aid to these countries either.  In my opinion we need to find a healthier balance at a much lower level to provide assistance at and still encourage growth and safety of the people who live there.  Efforts need to be made to ensure the money ends up where it is supposed to and nations whose leaders siphon the money off for themselves need to receive less aid or incur some sort of punishment. 

     When I read the section of the book that talked about the clothing being sent over to Africa harming the local textile industry I realized just how delicate the issue really is.  Because there are many people who are making their meager living off of the used clothing coming into these countries from charitable foundations but at the same time we cannot expect the industry to survive and become self sustaining if it is being pulled under by the clothing being brought in.  So in closing, I think the level of aid needs to be substantially lowered but at the same time I think the aid we do send needs to be examined and put to a more optimal purpose.  Somehow we need to ensure our aid results in better living standards and survivability for the people of Africa while at the same time ensuring that in a matter of years or decades the aid will be unnecessary and these people will have their own economy and structure to care for themselves.

Blog Topic Number 9

     With the first two images on this topic I wanted to try and illustrate as we have talked about in class, and as you can see on the news, just how widespread the protests in the Middle East and the Islamic world have become.  Both of the following maps show the main nations these protests and between the two I think it is easy to get a sense of just how many places are being affected.  The second map shows specifically the geographic locations the major protests have occurred at.

     The most important thing to grasp I think is to understand how this unprecedented movement has been able to happen.  We can see the fear these governments have of the social networking sites once conflicts began to occur in their lands.  In Iran, and Egypt for example censorship and complete internet blackout were put into effect by the ruling powers in an effort to keep the people in the dark and keep the revolt from spreading further.  Never before have the youth in these nations been able to be so easily informed about the outside world, and this awareness has showed them that there is another way to live life, and that they do not have to accept the tyranny of these rulers, many of whom have been in place since the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  By the same token never before has the outside world been able to so easily observe and follow and be involved with protests like these in foreign lands, which is another chief reason these nations moved so quickly to block the internet to the outside world.  In essence they were trying to protect their image and control the riots without retaliation of their methods by the outside world.  This can no longer happen, there is always a way for these people to get their information out.  So, these riots spanning across the Middle East have been motivated basically by globalization in one form, in the way of the ability to send and receive information to and from the outside world largely thanks to the major social networking organizations like Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google.

     One image I was able to find, which is the last of the previous three illustrates the confidence these people have in their connectivity to the world and the protestor's acknowledgement that their movement was started using tools such as these sources.  They are able to coordinate with other protestors as well throughout these means and be extremely effective.

    So I'm sure by now it is clear the protest I am going to focus on is the which has rocked the government of Egypt where President Mubarak (who recently stepped down as a result of these riots) had been in power since 1981.  Egypt has a total population that varies by source but is generally agreed on to be between 80-83 million people.  The TFR of Egypt is 2.97 and the median age is 24 years old.  I want to focus specifically on that first number and the last one, over 80 million people with the median age of 24, this means there is a huge portion of the population that could be considered very young.  That is important in understanding how these protests were able to become such a major event, the young people using these networking abilities are revolting and want to create a better future for themselves because they are simply more aware than the generations before them.

     The first major protest in Egypt took place on January 25th 2011 and already the people were calling for the resignation of their long time leader.  The internet shut downs also occurred shortly after this very first protest began.  The next day the government tried to subdue the protests by use of tear gas and beating and many were killed and hundreds were injured and arrested.  On the 28th Mubarak made his first television appearance on the matter and promised a commitment to democracy but refused to step down and in this press conference he announced the termination of his entire cabinet.  At least 25 were killed in protests this day and the next day the toll would reach over 100 dead.  On the 31st the army came out in support of the people saying it would not continue to use force against its great people.  On Feb. 1st Mubarak pledged to step down at the next election, which was not near good enough to please the protestors.  On the 11th Mubarak's resignation was formerly announced.  This whole movement came out of years of poverty of the people and oppression by the government and was a culmination of many other things including the corruption of their government and their desire for democracy, the people finally saw success in their movement.  By the final protests there were hundreds of thousands of people participating in the demonstrations.

     This link is an amazing source to learn about the timeline of protests not just Egypt but throughout the entire Middle East.  Middle East Protest Timelines 
     There is also a pretty decent article relating to the protests in Egypt found here. Egypt Protests

Blog Post Number 8

     I believe to effectively illustrate the view of the Earth I found to be the most unique I had to include more than one picture, actually I wanted to include five pictures.  This first one was to show the example of how the flat view of the Earth map can lead to false perspectives or misinterpreted views of distances between two points.  At least for me this map led to the idea that the United States and Australia are closer than they really are, yes the Pacific Ocean that separates them still looks pretty big, but overall the two destinations do not look to be sepeaated by an inconviently enormous amount as they really are.

     The first picture from Google Earth demonstrates how the expanse of ocean separating the two places is truly more enormous than I realized.
-Picture #2

     On the bottom left you can barely see the edge of Australia and on the upper right the edge of the United states, likewise is just barely visible.  This shows me how incorrect my views of the two locations of the countries were.  The next two pictures mainly help to show the individual locations of each country.

Great circle mapper
Great Circle Results Page From LAX to Sydney International
     I was able to find a pretty cool website that allows you to look up certain airports and map a 'great circle' or the shortest distance between the two point, the first link brings you to a search page where you can get the proper code for the airport you want to search.  The second link allows you to input the codes and see a map showing the flight path, and stats about the distance. 

     This is the map that I was given and it finishes off the lesson I learned from this assignment and I now have a new view about the difference between Australia where I hope to one day visit, and America.  This great circle on the map covers a distance of 7,488 miles!

Blog Topic Number 7

Afghan Opium War and seizures in 2010

     Increasingly, Afghan government forces and American troops are working together to eradicate the Opium fields which are so abundant in Afghanistan.  This comes after years of a U.S. Opium campaign both as a war on drugs, and as a part of the war on terror.  Opium profits greatly benefit Taliban warlords in the nation of Afghanistan.  The more recently seen united effort is a result more of a realization by the Afghanistan government that to have any hope of eventually being able to stabilize and support themselves, they need to defund the Taliban and replace the dependence of the over 80 percent of the population who live off of agriculture on Opium.

     This first picture shows the areas of the country where Opium is grown, or rather the amount it is grown in each region.  It is easy to see by the map how widespread the problem is between the higher production areas and the lower production areas, there is a clear dominance over the agriculture of the entire country.

     Here you can see the influence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terror groups who fund as well as benefit from the crop's production.  A common scenario in Afghanistan would be for these warlords of terrorist groups to provide the farmers with the money up front to pay for the crop, or extending them a line of credit to feed their families.  This puts the farmers in the Taliban's debt and the crop is in return given to them to be funneled out to the world's drug market.  This also creates some of the biggest rifts between the Afghani people in relationship to their views of American's because those who are affected by the American influenced policies in conjunction with the Afghan government and see their crop eradicated then are not able to pay back the Taliban or keep feeding their families especially through the winter months.  The U.S. in my opinion as well as the country's government do indeed need to continue to eradicate this crop, but at the same time they need to fill the farmer's need with a substitute plan on how to feed their families and make money, both the well being of the people and the future of their government depends on this premise economically.  U.S. programs are in effect to replace the Opium crops with alternative crops and fertilizers however, many sources claim this step is skipped at an alarmingly frequent rate.

     Here we can see U.S. troops on patrol through one of the nation's many Opium fields.  We can also see the troops eradicating the crop as they go, the most frequent ways this is done in Afghanistan are simply with a stick, or tractor.  There is also the method of aerial spray to kill the crop, but is is controversial as it is effective and is not used quite as often.

     This is the common scene of an Opium field in Afghanistan.  The Opium produced here in Afghanistan in the last 20 years has led to about 90 percent of the world's heroin production.  A rough estimate of 1,500 tons to 3,500 tons of Hashish are produce in Afghanistan each year as well, so the extent of the country's drug trafficking problem is not only limited to Opium production.

     This picture represents the increased Afghan effort in the eradication of Opium more recently as a government patrol goes through an Opium field they discovered and kills the crop.  One source says the results of more cooperation between the two government led to an increase of seizure and destruction of Opium fields by about 924% in 2010 from just the previous year.

Blog Topic Number 6

ABC's Cracking the Great Firewall.
     The article I found was published just before the Olympic games and talks about the Chinese effort to censor the internet usage of their people intensifying before the games began.  They talked about some of the terms that you may search such as the three T's or even some terms than were completely out there and held no significance to me such as 'oriental red space time' being censored.  I wondered what would happen in China if you did search for these things, and the article answers that by saying a page saying 'content unavailable' may appear or you may simple just not get certain results you would get here in America from the same search.  I was interested when they talked about other countries who use internet censorship relying on technology and intimidation or fear tactics to be successful, such as Iran for example.  However, as they say in the article, no one does it quite like China and they are able to rely on some pretty advanced technology and software, and a whole section of computer savvy government workers to successfully get the job done for them.
     This point can be seen when they interview a Chinese born American citizen from North Carolina who helps in a sort of technology race against their censorship firewall.  He says they are very fast and are able to overcome their advances very quickly.  China now has surpassed the number of internet users in the U.S. but with this firewall in place, they will never be able to know what it is truly like to experience free flow of information and will be stunted somewhat in globalization.  I have a hunch that this firewall will not be tolerated by the people of China for much longer.
     I also wanted to include the following article written about China cracking down on social networking site usage in their country.
China cracks down on social networking
     As well as the following video of China's conflicts with Google recently over the issue of cecorship, all these thing illustrate the wide array of the length China truly goes to in order to keep information from its people.

Blog Topic Number 5

Rather than past one cartogram, to acurrately depict my topic I need to post two of them and they are the following.

Map #1- Number of telephone lines in 2002.

Map #2- Number of cell phone users/subscribers in 2002.

     The research and data for these maps comes from 2002 so it is fairly recent and still close to the same percentages we would see if the data were from today.  The way these maps illustrate globalization to me is by simply showing the access to means of communication across the world, yes there are areas more deprived in this field mainly Africa for example, but there is still access.  A more interesting thing I noted, and the reason I needed to use both cartogram maps to exhibit this point is that countries such as ours that have had their system of communication established for a longer period of time, as well as many European countries appear to be more dominant on the first map, illustrating phone lines.  This makes sense because these countries are where the innovation and invention took place and they have had the ability to communicate for a longer period of time, and have more of the dominant technology of the recent past, as cell phones are a relatively recent invention.
     Where I notice it starts to get more interesting to me, and further illustrate the topic of globalization is when you look at the second map in relation to the first.  The second map shows the number of cell phone users/subscribers, and as I said before the fact that even Africa appears substantially larger on this map than the first, shows the increased connectivity of countries in more recent times for free trade and idea exchange, as well as the tendency for the desire of increased communication to them.  The fact that the newest technology is more widespread in other words tells me that in more recent times, it has been easier to communicate with other nations to share these ideas and the materials themselves.  This very much illustrates globalization.  However as a disclaimer I am aware that the 'older' technological nations are still much more dominant than those I say increased in size, but nonetheless it shows progress in the development of these nations and globalization.