HW 33: Iraqi Teens work to help their families

The podcast i chose to watch was, "Iraqi Teens Work To Help Their Families," which the main issue was that in Iraq most teens are having to take time out of their schedule to learn and get an education so they can work for their families. In the podcast children are also stating their direct experiences with having to work with their families. Some such jobs they had were helping their uncle around the house or even having their fathers with carpentry or painting chairs. One child on the podcast was attending college and he was born with a birth defect although his habitat has led him sitting on the computer all day. This video made me open my eyes to also see what it is like to work all day instead of going to school and getting an education. With terrorism in the world i believe that the kids would be able to go to school where they should be every day rather then working to raise money for their families.

HW 32: Shopping For School Supplies

On Saturday October 1st Riverbend went out with her cousion, his wife and her brother to go school shopping for his two daughters. Since the conditions in Iraq were so drastic and the war started her kids werent able to set outside the house unless it was to visit a relative. In Iraq there arent huge shopping plaza's or malls so they has to travel to the middle of Baghdad to find a shopping area. They went to a stationary shop that sold everything from toys to desk sets. Riverbend and S. had to search all over the store for just the right designed notebooks for the kids. When the children go to school they now have to ba guarded by other kids fathers and bring their own chairs to sit in durning the school day. I feel so bad to be put in that situation and dont know how the children are able to preform in those conditions.

HW 31: Responding to Riverbend

After reading August 31-September 16 one thing that caught my eye and made me want to do more research on and find out what it was really about was SCIRI (Riverbend, page 43) I never heard of this term and it attracted me to find out what it was really all about. When i typed SCIRI in on wikipedia.com the results of the definition was Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

(http://209.85.165.104/searchq=cache:LXx3WB05rIgJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciri+sciri&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us) The SCIRI is one of Iraq's largest political parties. In May 2007 the name of the political party has been changed to Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council; they removed the word "Revolution" from it because " they thought it was seen as a reference to overthrowing the secular Ba'athist government. The political party was found in 1982 after the Iran-Iraq war. The political party finally joined the United Iraqi Alliance list for the general election on January 30, 2005.

HW 30: Citizenship Symposium

I also attended a third citizenship symposium and it was on Tuesday November 6 at 7:00-10:00. It was the documentary and discussion of June Cross and film called Secret Daughter. June Cross was a filmmaker and journalist. She grew up her whole life living with a close friend to his mothers who took her under their wings. Junes mother was ashamed that her daughter was going to be a different race then her and she got everyone to believe that June was not her daughter and she was adopted. Junes life was very hard because she had to grow up in the world in which she wasn't able to live with her real mother and she had no idea to whom her biological father was until she was in her early 20's when she went out on her own to find her father. June's film and speaker was a very touching topic that really grabbed my attention and it was also one that i really enjoyed and it made me want to follow the film and what she had to say.

HW 30: Symposium 2

The second citizenship symposium I attended was Who are The Citizen Journalists? The main speaker was Tom Lantos who is the only surivor of Holocaust who served in the US congress. Tom came to the US when he was at the age 19 and it was right after WWII. And in 2006 he became the head chair memeber of the foregin committee. In Lanots' speech a main topic was, 'American did not teach men the idea of freedom she taught them how to practice it." Another main issue he focused on was why reputation is so much less important now then it was just a few years ago. Tom has so much hope for the US to grow and become better every day.He mentationed having two rules for the upcoming president of the United States, First they must bring our country together domestically, and also they must rebuild the statue, respect, and prestige for the United States internationally. I thought his speech was very intersting and one that i gained knowledge from.

HW 30: Citizenship Symposium

The Symposium I attended on Tuesday was titled 'What Kind of DemocracyDo We Want?' The introduction speaker was Keene States Provost Emile Netzhammer in which he talked about citizenship and he strives for everyone to get to the polls and participate in their elections to get their voice heard. The first main speaker was Nancy Tobi and she talked about Citizens Gone Wild. Taking control of our democracy. The two parts of our democracy are Citizen oversight and free and open elections. In New Hampshire there are two approved means of counting votes and they are Hand counting and debold. Debold being the more popular at 81 % and hand counting with 18%, we are striving for more votes to be hand counted. Nacny stated that we people have the rights to abolish or change the government elections or revolutions. And one quote that i found very interesting was, "The people who cast the votes don't decide the election, the people who count the votes do."

HW 28: Open letters to Riverbend

Dear Riverbend,

For my ITW A Blog Of One's Own writing class we are required to read your book Baghdad Burning. Although I don't really follow the war and everything that happends day by day but the book made me open my eyes and really see what is going with the war. With your book and blog is makes it easier for everyone in the US to actually to see what is going on there and how in Iraq everyone deals with this issue. After reading Baghdad Burning and seeing how many people have lost their lives because of their serious tradegdy I cannot express my sadness for the world you live in and expereinces you must encounter on a daily basis. I can't get over the fact like Americana troops just enter houses to raid them kills me because its almost like you have to watch every move and techniqually cant be living free. The war has caused such a dilemma between us when there really shouldn't be a problem and I hope that very soon this war will be at an end and we will finally be living the free life again.

From,

Lori