Another Great Depression?

If something similar to the Great Depression happened today I would have the most trouble giving up traveling. If we were in a large economic recession I'm sure that my family would stop paying for gasoline. (We can barely afford it now) I hate staying at home and being bored, i would probably start reading books, which would be new to me. Our economy is going into a recession, but hopefully we learned from the Great Depression and can fix our countries problems.

Teddy Roosevelt: Wildlife Conservation

I found a very interesting article while I was researching Teddy Roosevelt.
http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/life/conservation.htm

I has a good opening paragraph that basically summarizes what Roosevelt did as far as conservation.

"One of President Theodore Roosevelt's most lasting and significant contributions to the world was the permanent preservation of the some of the most unique natural resources of the United States. According to the National Geographic, the area of the United States placed under public protection by Theodore Roosevelt, as National Parks, National Forests, game and bird preserves, and other federal reservations, comes to a total of approximately 230,000,000 acres or about 84,000 acres per day!"

Teddy was said to have a interest in natural history, this made him more environmentally conscious. Roosevelt is remembered today as one of the first presidents to help conserve our wildlife.

City of Factories

I found a great little video clip from a PBS documentary. It's called "MAQUILÁPOLIS [City of Factories] Take a look.........

http://http//youtube.com/watch?v=tRdu5qo-htU&feature=related

A Typical Day for a Mexican Sweatshop Worker

I found a great source discussing the topic of Mexican sweatshops. Its called “Sweatshops In Mexico”
Labor is a lot cheaper in Mexico than in the Unites States, so it is cheap and convenient for American companies to have their products made in Mexico. Not surprisingly, a lot of the factories that made these products were built near the US/Mexican border. These factories are known as "maquila" or "maquiladora".
This is what a typical day might have in store for a sweatshop worker.

Pay and working conditions can be terrible. This is what two women told human rights workers about the maquila where they work in Tehuacan, south-east of Mexico City:
Each shift is from 8.30 am until 8.30 pm, but if workers do not complete the number of clothes they have been told to make that day, they must work longer without any pay;
On Saturdays, people must work from 8 am until 5 pm without a lunch break;
Workers are paid between $30 and $50 per week;
Girls as young as 12 and 13 work in the factory;
When workers leave the factory (to go to lunch or to go home) they are searched to make sure they haven't stolen anything;
When women are hired, they are tested to see if they are pregnant. If they are pregnant, they are fired.
If you arrive 15 minutes late, you must work for 3 days without pay.
When one man was sick for a day, he lost a whole week's pay.
When maquila workers organized an independent trade union about 10 years ago, one of its leaders was assassinated. And on one occasion when some human rights workers visited a maquila, armed guards put guns to their heads. The maquila workers were terrified that their bosses might find out who had been talking. So life as a Mexican sweatshop over is got a great life at all. I am very grateful for being born in the greatest country in the world.

Invention In Late 19th Century

A late 19th century invention that greatly effects my everyday life would be the telephone. The telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847, Edinburgh, Scotland - August 2, 1922, Baddek, Nova Scotia) invented the telephone (with Thomas Watson) in 1876. Bell also improved Thomas Edison's phonograph. Bell invented the multiple telegraph (1875), the hydroairplane, the photo-sensitive selenium cell (the photophone, a wireless phone, developed with Sumner Tainter), and new techniques for teaching the deaf to speak. Obviously Bell has improved life for the rest of us. Without a telephone, (or should I say cell phone), I wouldn't be able to carry out my daily routine. In today's society, communication is an important factor in almost every Americans life. The constant need for communication is growing, and Bell started it all.

California v. Bakke

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,(1978) was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on affirmative action. It made quota systems in college admissions but affirms the "constitutionality" of affirmative action programs giving equal access to minorities.

Minority applicants to the University of California, Davis, Medical School went through a different admissions process than white applicants. Minority applicants who checked a box stating they wished to be considered as "economically and/or educationally disadvantaged" applicants were directed to the separate admissions committee. Bakke applied to the school in 1973 and 1974 and was denied both times. In 1973 he had a benchmark score of 468 out of 500, but no regular applicants were admitted after him with a score below 470. Bakke, however, was not considered for four special admissions slots which had not yet been filled. Bakke wrote a letter of complaint to Dr. George H. Lowrey, the Associate Dean and Chairman of the Admissions Committee, complaining the special admissions program was not what it claimed to be (a program to help the underprivileged), but a racial and ethnic quota.

Handed down on June 23, 1978, the decision of the Court was announced by Justice Lewis Powell. The court ruled 5-4 that race could be one, but only one, of numerous factors used by discriminatory boards, like those of college admissions. Powell found that quotas insulated minority applicants from competition with the regular applicants and were thus unconstitutional because they discriminated against regular applicants. This is a prime example of reverse discrimination which we discussed in class.

Brown vs. Board of Education

Brown vs. The Board of Education was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities.

But in class we discussed something very interesting. Did this ruling change the people's attitudes towards African-Americans or did it just change the school. Our class came to the conclusion that people didn't change just the school's rules. After the integration of schools, many parents pulled there children from public schools and enrolled then in a private academy. so public schools ended up closeing.

Here is a map of states regarding school separation.