This week in sociology we've been watching movies about the AIDS epidemic and it's actually really interesting. I never realized how close this was to this year like the 1980's doesn't seem that close to us but it's honestly closer than I thought. The doctors didn't know what it was and since it started in thr gay community no one really cared and it didn't get much coverage. They found out it was sexually transmitted but never told people to use protection which increased the amount of people with AIDS. The government specifically Ronald Reagan never even acknowledged the epidemic until almost the end of the outbreak. It's very surprising that this whole new disease would just appear and they didn't know what to do which is actually really scary because that could happen at anytime. Also they figured out that it was transferred through blood also after women and children started getting it also after having blood transfusions. Lots of people died especially in San Francisco where many of the openly gay people lived because it was more acceptable there than in any other place in America. The CDC were also researching a lot on this disease but the government wouldn't give them the funding they needed so they had to turn to Dr. Gallo to get better research. While this was happening in America, France was also working on finding a cure because they had many AIDS patients also. Dr. Gallo somehow got ahold of France's findings when they found the AIDS virus and claimed it as his. France was obviously not very happy and Dr. Gallo finally said there was help from the CDC and France's medical researchers. Also in one of the movies we watched they were interviewing people who lived in San Francisco during the epidemic and many of them said they didn't have any friends alive from that time period with them because all of them had died from AIDS. All the bath houses were shut down because they were not good for people because you could have unprotected sex there and it was a main part of the AIDS epidemic. We still don't have a cure today for AIDS which is really scary but they've got better control of it now and they know exactly how it's transmitted from person to person. What's also scary is that the medicine people with Aids have to take to keep the symptoms away is so expensive. Medicine that people depend on to live should not put people into debt to buy. It is so crazy that people have to spend so much money on a pill to keep them alive. In AP Gov we've been learning about policymaking for the government. We've learned about entitlement programs where anyone who qualifies for the program the federal government set up they have to get that benefit. Also that Social Security is the most paid into entitlement program. Also in Spanish we have been working on our new vocabulary and making presentations to show how well we know the words and things like that.
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This week in Social Movements I learned about the Black Panthers and Black Power Movement. It was really different since I've always just been taught about MLK. The Black Panthers didn't shy away from violence if needed but they didn't try to start up a lot of violence. They weren't scared of confronting people to get what they wanted. We also learned about their ten point program or the ten things they really wanted. Some were a little much like releasing all African Americans out of jails/ prisons. I think the people who were unfairly put there should be let out but the people who did actually commit the crime shouldn't just be let go. They really just wanted equality like everyone else was working towards back then. They just had a different approach then the others. The Black Panthers also opened breakfast for kids in the mornings and helped a lot around their communities to make them better since the government wouldn't. Our class decided that the Civil Rights Act was more successful than the Black Panthers because violence never is the way to go if you're trying to gain rights or freedom. They were both really influential movements and both did good things for the movement for freedom. Also we've been learning about AIM and what they did for the Indians. We learned about the Indians taking over Alcatraz since the treaty of 1868 said they could have federal land that was not being used. The island was very undeveloped and didn't even have clean drinking water. The government also visited the island a lot to try and negotiate a deal with the Indians but they insisted on keeping it. They started developing their own little city with a council, kitchen, and etc. They also had support from other people and celebrities helped them out. People would ship supplies to the island like food to give to the Indians and a celebrity gave them a boat to use. They patrolled the coastline of the island to keep unwanted people out. The protest started to fail when the college students on the island had to leave to go back to school. Many hippies and unwanted people came, ate their food, got what they wanted, and left. They were just using the island as publicity stunt. Also one of the islands leaders stepdaughter fell from a stairwell and died which made them lose one of their leaders. President Nixon also gave Indians lots of land back to them after they left the island and 50 proposals were made. Also protests at Mount Rushmore and other famous locations took place to protest the treatment of Native Americans. AIM was also formed and they took over Wounded Knee. They stayed there for 71 days to protests while government officials tried to get them out. 2 Sioux Indians were killed and many were injured. AIM disbanded after the protests since most of them were put in prison and they didn't have much leadership. Some tribes did though get large settlements from the state and federal government.
This past week we learned a lot in AP Gov. Last Friday our Congressman for our district came to our class so we could ask questions and get answers. It wasn't like a debate because we weren't allowed to ask "loaded" questions. These are questions that are asked to start debate or where any answer he gives will make him look bad. It was pretty interesting to see his viewpoints on things since I'm pretty open to new opinions but I'm going to stick to my own on the topics we discussed with him. Also we've been learning about bureaucracy and how people claim to hate it but without it our government would not be as a good as it is. On Wednesday we did another episode where we learn about how Presidents have to make decisions they wouldn't expect to make and it shows courage to stand up to people. We learned about Ford pardoning Nixon for the Watergate scandal. That was pretty interesting since I never knew what the scandal was. Also we learned that Ford lost the election since he did this because it was a very controversial move he made. During another on of our episodes we learned about John F. Kennedy and him sending James Meredith to University of Mississippi. This state was obviously in the South and many people there were racist. This decision was very controversial since it was 1961 when it happened. The Civil Rights Act didn't go into action until 3 year after he got to go to college. There were riots and the Mississippi governor was not happy about him going to the school. John F. Kennedy didn't allow the governor to make any speeches until there was order since there were riots. Also in Social Movements we learned about the 60's. It was really interesting learning about acid rock and all the artists who made music for that topic like the Beatles and Grateful Dead. The Hippie Movement was very cool to learn about and how they lived. They lived in communes and shared everything. They were all about love and peace and were against the war. It was the era of the teenager who stopped listening to their parents and did what they wanted. Music festivals like Woodstock also came out of this era. Acid was huge in the 60's and even parents started taking their "trips". They never realized how bad it really was for them. Also the women' s and black power movement took off. Both of these movements wanted equal rights. Birth control and abortion were 2 big controversial issues in the women's movement. The women were meant to be in the house and take care of everyone and everything until the Feminine Mystique came out. Women began to question their lives. Also very huge influential leaders started leading the Black Power movement or Civil Rights Act like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X. These 2 men had completely different views and tactics but still very influential. MLK Jr. was a very non-violent, silent protests type of person where Malcom X didn't see violence as a bad thing. Malcom didn't want to be integrated and wanted to stay separate from white people but still have the same equal rights whereas MLK wanted to integrate everyone together and be really equal.
This past week I've learned a lot about the electoral college in AP gov. We've been focusing on how it works and why we have it. It was really cool to learn why we have it and what it exactly does for our states and candidates running for president. We learned that you have to have at least 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency. 270 is the simple majority of half of the amount of representatives each state has plus 2 senators. I learned also that the electoral college has been changed over time through amendments. Back when our country was just starting out you voted for your first choice candidate and then your second choice. So the person with the most votes become president and the person with the second most votes became vice president. This was bad because people from different parties were trying to run a country together which is difficult. Also it was just a really bad idea and it was better to have someone the president can really work with and not argue with since they do come from different sides and viewpoints. The amendment happened in 1800 after an election. We also learned why we have the electoral college. There are many reasons as to why we do such as it gives the smaller states more representation since other states have such huge populations the smaller states won't be heard. Another reason is so if one state has a higher voter turnout than the other than the state with the better voter rate will get more say in the presidency than the other state who can't convince a lot of people to vote. Also it's just been the way out system has worked for so long and it works well so people don't like to stray from tradition and there's really no other way to do voting that will work as well as this one does. We also learned that once a president wins a state by the popular vote than the people who were chosen by the state to vote for their party since they're lifelong party members get to vote for their candidate so if you're on the Democratic voting party then you vote for the Democrat candidate if they win the popular vote in your state which means winner-takes-all in the state they win in. States like Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and a few more are considered swing states. When these states vote you can never really tell who they're going to vote for until the final elections whereas California is almost always Democrat and Texas is almost always Republican. Swing states can also be referred to as battle ground states. Another method we learned about was District Method which is only used in Maine and Nebraska. This is where the state divides themselves up into districts based on population and each district gets a electoral vote for whoever gets the popular vote in that district. From there whoever gets the most votes throughout the districts gets the 2 votes that would be the winner-take-all part of their method.
Over this past week I've learned a lot about Russia and the way they run their government in AP Gov. We've learned how communism came and crashed in 1917. We also learned about Putin and how he runs their government. He's also very evil and poisons people if they get in his way. It's really interesting to see how he influences the youth of Russia by sending them to camps when they're young so they already start to be influenced by him. He knows younger people are very easily influenced in their decisions and the camps really influence their political interests. We also learned they have a Prime Minister and a President. The Prime Minister doesn't have much power compared to their president. Many of the people there don't belong to a certain political party but since they don't have lots of sports clubs or organizations to join in the people are always reading or watching the news and are very updated on their politics. There is many political parties but United Russia is the most powerful. They have a bigger turnout for voting than in America because they couldn't vote in elections for awhile. In Russia and other countries they also have democratic centralism which is another thing we learned. It's the power of few for the benefit of many which never really works. Something interesting we learned about was the Chernobyl disaster. It was a big nuclear disaster and it's crazy there's still so much radiation there people can't live in that area. They even had to build a dome to make sure no more seeps out. Russian government officials also didn't tell the world for 3 days and people were already being evacuated from the town near the explosion. This week we also covered a little more about our government since we focus more on America than comparative government. We are currently learning about the executive branch and how the President does his job. We learned little trivia facts about 30 of the presidents and statistically who the worst presidents are. There was a power point and a crossword over the Presidents which helped us learn more about some of the past presidents lives and what they did during their presidency. Also the legislative veto has actually be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but since this rarely happens and the Supreme Courts decisions don't have to be followed they don't listen to it. On Thursday we had a debate about one of the court cases going to the supreme court dealing with gay marriage. Our class has already learned about the clauses and the amendments used by the government to back their decisions. It was a really hard debate because it's so split down the middle and both sides have really good cases. Either decision is going to affect the society since it's either going to take religions side or the equal protection side. In class we learned that the Supreme Court can send the case back to Colorado and they have to make the choice but they more than likely won't send it back since it's such a controversial case and topic in general.
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