This article is about Hijabs and it talks about the religious aspect of Hijabs versus the cultural aspect. It states that the hijab is a sign of modesty, which is not a strictly Muslim ideology, but is addressed in many religions. It also talks about how the hijab is not directly mentioned in the Quran. It states that the hijab is almost as much a cultural symbol instead of a religious one and talks about countries with laws about hijabs and how women should dress.
Hijab is the expression of a concept of modesty. It is not specific to one religion, nor is it specific to one region. This expression of modesty is encouraged, but not clearly defined, in Islam's holy texts; rather, it is informed by personal or cultural notions of what it means to be modest. Hijab's association with extreme or radical Islam has led to heated debates in Western nations about whether or not it is acceptable for people to express hijab, with many people citing "national/public security" as a reason to ban certain coverings.
The geography of the hijab is important for Westerners to understand. Only two countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, require women to dress by the strict standards of hijab. The vast majority of Middle Eastern, North African, and Muslim countries around the world do not have a legal dress code for women. Some laws and cultural traditions encourage women to dress modestly. Other countries like Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria (all predominantly Muslim) had laws to restrict women from wearing the hijab in order to be more secular and modern. Many other countries, like Pakistan and Jordan, do not have any laws on the book concerning if women should or should not wear a hijab. These countries understand that it is a personal choice regarding privacy, reputation, and personal faith. Like many religious precepts, the concept of hijab is open to interpretation. As a result, a Westerner can safely assume that having a large Muslim population, or a significant number of Muslims operating in a government, will not lead to a takeover of Sharia law or oppressive fundamentalist codes of behavior. Instead of being afraid of the unknown and making assumptions about entire societies, Westerners should find out more and be exposed to how diverse and broad differing cultures and societies can be.
Do you speak African? Well, neither do the 1 billion people on the continent.Africa is home to 54 different nations, more than 2,000 languages and four of the world's 10 fastest growing economies, but is often painted with a sweeping stroke of doom and gloom. In this week's Reality Check, Mehdi Hasan exposes popular misconceptions about the African continent.
This short video is full of with examples and statistics that show that many of the 'doom and gloom' perspectives and ways of thinking about Africa are outdated (at best). Here are some good facts to update how we talk about Africa.
This short video is full of with examples and statistics that show that many of the 'doom and gloom' perspectives and ways of thinking about Africa are outdated (at best). Here are some good facts to update how we talk about Africa.
This video combats many misunderstandings about Africa, the biggest one being that many people view Africa as one nation instead of 54 unique nations. It also talks about how some African countries are on the rise and that women have a large role in many governments in Africa. The video aims to take away the stigma of war and poverty that goes along with Africa.
This video mentions that the Western world's negative, doom and gloom perception of Africa are "lazy" and this is important. Westerners may have become so accustomed to the colonial and post-colonial problems in Africa, that there is an outside attitude of "what good could possibly come from Africa - they are doomed and deserve our pity and charity." In reality, as this video points out, Africa is not just one single entity and its different players are on the rise. It is a continent of 54 separate countries containing 1 billion people who speak from a range of 2,000 languages. The video mentions that nearly one third of Africa is part of the middle class. With that said, in our geographic mental maps, it is time to start looking at Africa like the 'Tiger Countries of Asia', like South Korea, who blossomed into economic powerhouses. This is a fair comparison as Africa now has the ten fastest growing economies in the world, outpacing the West. With this line of thinking, Africa is a continent full of opportunity containing a lot of promising potential if given the chance. Interestingly, if white-Americans and white-Europeans improved their attitudes about the 54 countries of Africa (and saw them as capable societies) this would humanize non-white people in general and probably reduce racist, bigoted attitudes.
"Despite global inequalities, most of the world is better off than you think - and better off than it has ever been before. Watch Hans Rosling explain why."
"President Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday during the Civil War, and the feast has since become an American tradition. Yet the story of the Wampanoag and the pilgrims who first broke bread is not commonly known." http://wp.me/P2dv5Z-1lR
"In some ways, all 2D maps of Earth are interrupted at some point, even if it’s just along the antimeridian at 180°. Interruptions are often in areas of less interest e.g. oceans for a land-focused map."
No screenshot could do justice to this animation. It transforms a map of the world from one map projection to another, and in the 5 second interval it 'spins the globe' to give you a sense of the the spatial distortions inherent in all projections. This is but one of the many visualizations fromJason Davies mapping project.
"In just a few generations, we have tightly restricted American kids' freedom to roam, play, and become self-sufficient. The percentage of children walking and bicycling to school has plummeted from almost 50 percent in 1969 to about 13 percent today. Although distance from school is often cited as the main barrier to walking and bicycling, many families still drive when schools are close to home. According to the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, driving accounts for about half of school trips between 1/4- and 1/2-mile long — which in most cases shouldn't take kids much more than 10 minutes to walk."
"It’s a good time to reflect on what truly inspires us. What gives us, as individuals, our own sense of independence? And how can we apply that sense of joyful independence to help us engage more actively and participate more readily in the world—to make it a better place, even? Cultivating a better geographical and cultural appreciation for the world, in the next generation as well as in our own, is a pretty good place to start."
"There's no question that among the world's wealthy nations, the U.S. stands out when it comes to circumcision. The WHO estimates that the overall male circumcision rate in the states is somewhere between 76 and 92 percent. Most Western European countries, by contrast, have rates less than 20 percent. But even these numbers mask considerable regional variation within countries."
A map projection is used to portray all or part of the round Earth on a flat surface. This cannot be done without some distortion. Every projection has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. There is no "best" projection. The mapmaker must select the one best suited to the needs, reducing distortion of the most important features. Mapmakers and mathematicians have devised almost limitless ways to project the image of the globe onto paper. Scientists at the U. S. Geological Survey have designed projections for their specific needs—such as the Space Oblique Mercator, which allows mapping from satellites with little or no distortion. This document gives the key properties, characteristics, and preferred uses of many historically important projections and of those frequently used by mapmakers today.
This article explains and talks about 18 specific map projections. It gives a lot of detail about all of them, and describes the disadvantages and uses for all of them.
I thought that this was interesting because I learned more about map projections, and actually how people use them.
Avis aux parents irresponsables qui refusent la vaccination!!! Seth Dixon's insight:
<< I had measles back in 1977, when I was too young to be vaccinated during an outbreak in the Southern California region. My father-in-law still lives with the effects of Polio that he contracted when he was a toddler, right around the time of Jonas Salk's great discovery that lead to the Polio vaccine. I care about this issue because the effects are personal--but for too many, they've never known the realities of a world before vaccines. We collectively have forgotten WHY life expectancy and have steadily gone up over the decades at the same time that infant mortality rates have dropped. It's in large part because the nightmarish diseases of yesteryear have been eliminated, if we collectively are all immunized. Unfortunately, this is the discouraging truth (for now): anti-vaxxers are nearly impossible to convince. I hope this current measles outbreak is the tipping point for their to be enough public sentiment to lead to change. >>
"Shots Before School. It's the Rule." This slogan is posted on our school website and many other places, but there are exemptions from the rule. 19 states will allow exemptions for philosophical or religious reasons. 48 states and Washington D.C. will allow only religious exemptions. Only 2 states will not allow any exemptions at all.
America is founded on principles of religious freedom and the ability to choose for yourself. It makes sense that the majority of states would allow some sort of exemption for religion. What is really interesting is that the only 2 states with a no exemption policy are Mississippi and West Virginia. The states that allow philosophical exemptions are usually clustered in groups and spread their beliefs and rules to one another. Example: The Bible Belt
I would say. Just imagine three mega cities like Rio de Janeiro, population 11,960,000 then Buenos Aires with a population of 13,530,000 and finally Sao Paulo with the Southern Hemisphere's largest metropolitan area with a population of 19,920,000 with 2 more Mega cities to be added by 2025.
I cannot believed the size of Brazil is at this scale because we don't hear a lot about it as being a world power. It shows that even though the country is this big, most of the land is uninhabitable due to the forests and geography of the land. In addition, from history class one cannot imagine a small country like Portugal controlled a big country as Brazil from the colonial times. Seeing this map with all these European countries inside of it with some space leftover, one can see the massive size of this South American country.
This link to show me a picture of Europe fitting in Brazil is astounding! I never realized how large this country was until it was put together like a puzzle for me. For a single country to be that large that you would be able to fit an entire continent inside is absurd. That really goes to show that looks can be deceiving.
Before I even read the article, my first thought went to the Linneaus classification. That really damaged history with this one chart. I think people still think of Africans and blacks(very dark blacks) as dirty or unintelligent. Which is horrible and couldn't be further from the truth. Misinforming the public is criminal. News media and social media need to be careful and educate properly. I've been asked from a customs offical, "Have you been to Africa in the past 6 months?" Which is a very blanket question because Africa is a continent. There were areas that were not hit with Ebola.
Those who deny the continued influence of racism in our society are blinding themselves to the truth. Contemporary influences of the racism that plagued the preceding centuries are still found in most major media depictions of Africa. The Ebola epidemic has served to highlight the bigotry that plagues Western media, as the assumption that all of Africa is diseased and dirty is continuously perpetuated (when, in reality, Ebola only affected a very small part of the continent). Africa is presented as "other," a backwards continent that is in desperate need of Western help and guidance- in what was is that different from the European colonizers who also viewed their actions as benevolent attempts to "civilize" the uncivilized? That mindset has not left Western circles, and yet we continue to pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves for suddenly being so tolerant. The insensitivity of Western audiences to the concerns of black individuals both at home and in Africa related to the prevalence of racism highlights how determined mainstream media is to deny the existence of a problem. Until we recognize the Eurocentrism that continues to plague our media and make the necessary moves to correct the practice, harmful depictions of Africa will continue to loom large in Western media and in the opinions of many Europeans and Americans alike.
Africa has long been treated by the western media as a dark , brutish, uncivilized place. Africa is a place were people starve and murder each other in large numbers. There is so much more to Africa than the picture I just described. The problem is, many people just do not accept the existence of a culturally complex Africa. That narrative would destroy the traditional darker narrative of the past 500 years. A narrative grounded in the beliefs that blacks are inherently inferior beings. During the Ebola crises, the calls to cut off travel to Africa were quick and demanding. Had the crises been in England, would those same calls have been so loud? I think we all can guess the answer to that question. Much progress has been made, but we still need to change our cultural depiction of Africa.
"To become a Japanese citizen, a foreigner must display 'good conduct', among other things. The rules do not specify what that means, and make no mention of living wafu (Japanese-style). But for one candidate, at least, it involved officials looking in his fridge and inspecting his children’s toys to see if he was Japanese enough (he was). Bureaucratic discretion is the main reason why it is hard to get Japanese nationality. The ministry of justice, which handles the process, says officials may visit applicants’ homes and talk to their neighbors."
Interesting to see how the Japanese handle citizenship differently than most of world and America. Japan is mostly a homogeneous culture and from seeing there citizenship laws one can tell why. A foreigner must live there for 10 years and display "good conduct" which no one really knows what it is and also prove to be Japanese enough in culture. It will be interesting to see how this continues today in a world that keeps becoming more and more global. All over the news we see constant backlash about countries that do not want to accept more immigrants or give certain rights to citizens, however you never really hear of the Japanese. The Japanese have many cultures that they can keep alive with mostly a homogeneous population and most likely helps cause less violence and less arguments among its politics. Imagine if here in America they searched your house to see if you were American enough? I think that might be headline news by the night.
If you want to move and live in Japan and attain a citizenship be ready to give up your current citizenship and go on one heck of a rollercoaster. Japan is one of the toughest places to get a citizenship. For one you have to live there for at least 10 years. Then the government can and will come to your home to inspect it from the types of pens you have there to the kid of pictures you hang on your wall. The main thing is the Japanese government wants you to really adapt to their culture. Very few are naturalized, out of 12446 that applied only 9400 were accepted. But the good news is, is it is free compared to 550 in the US and 1200 in the U.k.
See staff at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo try traditional Norwegian Christmas dishes. Se ansatte på den amerikanske ambassaden i Oslo smake på norsk julemat.
"The position [that belief in God is essential to morality] is highly prevalent, if not universal, in Africa and the Middle East. At least three-quarters in all six countries surveyed in Africa say that faith in God is essential to morality. People in richer nations tend to place less emphasis on the need to believe in God to have good values than people in poorer countries do."
It would make sense that Indonesia is one of the most religious countries in the world being that it has the highest Muslim population. Also, I never thought of Europe as being religious countries which is why I am not surprised that 70% of Europe does not believe that the belief in God needs to be moral. Another reason why I am not surprised is because they are more popular for their ethnic groups such as the french group, italian group and german group. Also, they don't have focused religions. For example, Buddhism was originated in Nepal and worshipped mostly in China, Hinduism was originated in India, Jewish was originated in Israel and Islam was originated in Saudi Arabia and it's practiced mostly in Indonesia and Pakistan. That explains why most parts of Asia (at least southern Asia) has practices specific religions.
Summary- This figure explains the relationship between regions and their morality based on a God. It is evident what in North America is is almost a 50 50 tie between between believing in god is essential for morality. Only is Europe does God seem less important than the rest of the world. There are other countries such as Chile, Argentina, or Australia that have these same beliefs, but for the most part, most countries see a believe in God as an essential to morality.
Insight- In unit 3 we study the distributions of many things, religion included. Why do so many poorer countries have a stronger faith in God than wealthier ones? It may be because if their ethnic backgrounds, but I think there is more to it. I think when a country is poorer, more people reach out to their God for help. I also think that in wealthier countries there are distractions from religion such as video games and other mass produced technologies that get in the way of people researching their faith.
Unit 3: This article shows the relationship between regions and their morality based on a God. It is evident what in North America is is almost a 50 50 tie between between believing in god is essential for morality. There are other countries such as Chile, Argentina, or Australia that have these same beliefs, but for the most part, most countries see a believe in God as an essential to morality.
"As you may know, Google Maps uses the Mercator projection. So do other Web mapping services, such as Bing Maps and MapQuest. Over the years I’ve encountered antipathy toward the use of the Web Mercator from map projection people. I know of two distinct schools of opposition. One school, consisting of cartographic folks and map aficionados, thinks the Mercator projection is 'bad': The projection misrepresents relative sizes across the globe and cannot even show the poles, they are so inflated. The other school, consisting of geodesy folks, thinks mapping services have corrupted the Mercator projection, whether by using the wrong formulæ for it or by using the wrong coordinate system for it."
This article talks about the difficulty Muslims face during Ramadan when they are outside the middle east, specifically when they are in Sweden north of the arctic circle. This article follows a few different Muslims who have chosen different ways of fasting when sun up and sun down are not a good time table to go by. Some follow the times of their homes in the middle east, while some follow the time of Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden. The article also talked about one person who goes off of Istanbul's time because Turkey is the closest Muslim country to Sweden. Some of these people fear that they will not satisfy their god when fasting like this but others believe they have to do what they have to do.
"It's difficult to comprehend the ridiculous amounts of water that have fallen in such a short time in a state that, until recently, had been in the grip of a historic drought. But one place to start would be to look at reservoir levels in the state. In the past 30 days, Texas reservoirs have gone from being 73 percent full to 82 percent full, according to data maintained by the Texas Water Development board. All told, about 8 million acre-feet of water have flowed into the state's reservoirs."
How we view each other is often incredibly rash. This cartoon displays this very well. Other cultures often seems as alien as other species. However if one looks closely they can find many similarities in their cultures. This misunderstanding of culture has been at the root of many disputes and the understanding of culture has been the road to understanding and peace. Unit 3 Culture
This picture definitely sums up almost all the wars in history, how one side is right, and one side is wrong, but according to the two sides the enemy is the one who is evil.
This is great because we are taught historically what our side sees. For instance, when Britain was fighting us they saw us a rebelious bunch, and we saw them as tyrannical. Now this is where we need to see we need a fair
As part of geography education we are required to teach students about different map projections and the rationale for these. This little video puts it quite well.
This is an engaging and funny clip! It is a great resource that could be used in a lessons introduction! for myself i love finding funny little clips that relate to a topic to play at the start of a lesson and then explain to the students what the topic is! Great resource i will be saving for later
"If ever there was a demonstration of the power of science, it is the course of the fight billed 'Mankind v AIDS'. Until 1981 the disease (though already established in parts of Africa) was unknown to science. Within a decade it passed from being seen as primarily a threat to gay men, and then to promiscuous heterosexuals, to being a plague that might do to some parts of Africa what the Black Death did to medieval Europe. But now, though 1.6m people a year still die of it, that number is on a downward trajectory, and AIDS rarely makes the headlines any more. How was this achieved? The answer has two parts: sound science and international co-operation."
Over the last quarter century, the medical technology has ever so changed. Simple tests and modernized medications can help slow the progress of the HIV infection. The tests can tell if someone has advanced AIDS or early stages of the HIV virus itself. However, over the last year and a half, the epidemic has been placed on the back burner with the Ebola epidemic that has and still occurring. The fact that Ebola spread as rapidly as it did, shows that any virus or disease can spread extremely quick if someone comes in contact with bodily fluids of another human and can be contracted pretty quickly.
this is a media issue all over the world. focusing on one part of a story and not revealing the rest. people can focus on how bad things are or they can focus on the advancements and how much better things are than how they were and how they continue to get better, especially in regards to medical care in africa. their level of care is still just awful but is obviously steadily improving. especially in south africa.
"Watch along with Expedition 38 crew members Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio as they look at various cities across the globe from the vantage point of the cupola on board the International Space Station."
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