Ben and Celeste

January 5, 2011

Conflict in Ivory Coast

On October 31, 2010, Alassane Ouattara challenged Laurent Gbagbo for the Presidency of Ivory Coast. This election was very close and ended with a run-off that was held on November 28, 2010. The runoff was very close, and in the end the country’s top elections officer declared that the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, had lost his power to Alassane Ouattara. Gbagbo, mad at losing his presidency, refused to give up his power. As a result of Gbagbo’s reaction to the election and his anger, the people of Ivory Coast are taking sides and causing violence in the streets. The natives there are scared that they will witness and be a part of a second civil war.

The day after the news of Ouattara’s win, the head of the Constitutional Council, a close ally of Gbagbo, threw out the vote totals from parts of the north (the base of Ouattara’s support) and claimed that Gbagbo was the winner, causing both men to claim presidency.

Then another sign of Gbagbo’s anger over his 45% to 55% loss to Ouattara was when he then closed the borders down and blocked all foreign television stations. The next night 8 people who supported Ouattara were shot and killed by automatic-weapon-toting gunmen at an opposition party headquarters.

The former president still has support over the army and is brushing aside threats to leave office from neighboring countries, which are expected to have to go to using military force if Gbagbo doesn’t leave soon. Ouattara is now barricaded in a hotel with the help of the United Nations peacekeeping troops, angered by Gbagbo’s stubbornness.

Since most of the citizens are not armed, they have cleverly decided to bang their pots and pans together to make it sound like gunshots. One lady named Edwige Tonete, who is so scared to even step outside of her house, talked to CNN about these recent days in Abidjan. Edwige Tonete is just old enough to remember the last recent civil war in Ivory Coast, which took place in 1958. She told the CNN reporters, “I don’t want to live like we did.” Tonete speaks for all Ivorian people when she says that, those that lived through the last civil war and those that were either not born or not old enough to recall it. Without saying anything specific about the conditions during the last civil war, it was clear from Tonete’s tone and the fear in her voice that no one would want to live through something as frightening as a civil war.

Not surprisingly at all, the United States and a few other countries have stepped up in this situation of horror in Ivory Coast. They have recruited a large number of soldiers to help with a United Nations peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast. Another thing that the U.S has done alongside the U.N, the European Union, the African Union, and some West African states is create a group called ECOWAS, Economic Community Of West African States, which has gotten together with the electoral commission to peacefully convince to Gbagbo and his supporters that Alassane Ouattara is the winner of the election, and that Ouattara is now the President of Ivory Coast.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122305481.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/world/africa/04ivory.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=ivory%20coast&st=cse

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-30/world/ivory.coast.impact_1_ivory-coast-laurent-gbagbo-abidjan?_s=PM:WORLD

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/world/africa/03ivory.html?_r=2

Maus

1. What do cats represents in the book?
The Nazis
2. What is the main theme of the book?
Oppression and Family
3. What does the son learn a lot about in the book?
The history of his family
4. How does this book relate to RCG?
It is about the Jews and other groups who were oppressed during that time period
5. What animal were the Jews portrayed as in the book?
Rats
6. Why were the Jews portrayed as rats and the Nazis as cats?
The Jews were rats because cats chase rats and eat them, just like the Nazis are killing the Jews
7. Why do you think it is important to learn about this period in time?
So that history doesn't repeat itself
8. What happened to the father's family?
They were killed, some in concentration camps and some were just killed
9. Who is one example of a non-Jew that helped the Jews?
The person in the black market that he stayed with
10. Why did the laws keep getting harder and harder for the Jews?
So that it would get harder for them to survive

A very big theme in this book is Oppression. In RCG we always talk about how to deal with the oppression. In Maus the Jews have to deal with it and they can't do anything about it. Can someone tell me how you think the Jews are handling this situation? Right, so the Jews can't really do anything about it except for hide and try to make it out alive. Does anyone else have something to say about how people during the Holocaust were oppressed? Yes, they oppressed by not being able to leave their homes, and by all of the laws that were made that pretty much made it impossible for them to do anything.

Another main them is Family. This book talks a lot about it and it comes across as very important. The only way that they are able to survive is by sacrificing themselves for the family to survive. Does anyone relate to that? How family is so important to him. At one point in the story though he says that family is not important just money and food. But, it obviously was, because still the family worked together to protect each other.

Also, another big part of the book is also related to family but it is his ancestry. The son learns a lot about his family history and his ancestors, which made him a lot more family orientated. Throughout the book the father would tell him stories about how his ancestors would stand up for each other and help each other out. That also made him want to become more family orientated. Do any of you guys feel like you should become more family orientated? Lastly, the son starts going over to his fathers house and spending more time with him.

Numbers, By The. "Airport Screening: Would Profiling Work? - The Week." The Week Magazine:

Political News and Cartoons, Current Events and Entertainment Online. Web. 30 Nov. 2010.

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The new full body scans and full body pat downs are not going over to well with travelers. Some are taking

it so far as to compare it to Racial and Religious profiling. A lot of Muslims are arguing that they are the

only ones being searched. Some top security officers are saying that not only is profiling mean it is also

useless. They said that it won't detect diverse terrorists, because Muslims are the only ones being searched.

Numbers, By The. "Is Obama's Federal Pay Freeze a 'gimmick'? - The Week." The Week Magazine: Political News and Cartoons, Current Events and Entertainment Online. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. .

Obama has announced that for the next two years anyone who works for the federal government will not get any raises. The good thing about this is that their salary cannot drop either. Even though he has announced this Congress still has to approve it, and if it does go through it won't save a lot of money. Some people are saying that this was a bad move and "won't win him any political points."

China's towering inferno

"Apple's Beatles Announcement: A Letdown? - The Week." The Week Magazine: Political News and Cartoons, Current Events and Entertainment Online. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. .

In downtown Shanghai, China on Monday 53 people were killed and 70 injured in a monstrous fire destroyed a 28 floor apartment building. The fire is thought to have started by "flammable nylon and bamboo scaffolding" outside of the building and took about 4 hours for firefighters to get it under control

Apple's Beatles announcement: A letdown?

"Apple's Beatles Announcement: A Letdown? - The Week." The Week Magazine: Political News and Cartoons, Current Events and Entertainment Online. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. .

Starting on Tuesday Apple said that it would start selling Beatles MP3's. This ended a 20 year long legal case about whether they could sell the music or not. After this they made their home page on apple.com all about the Beatles. Was all of the hype leading up to this day a big let down? That is the main question people are asking.

Obama's settlement stand: The end of Mideast peace talks?

• It is Important that I did this article for two reasons. The first one is that it is a very big topic right now in the world. The second one is that I am Jewish and and Israel is my homeland. The second one is more important to me, because if my homeland is not safe and that is the only place I can be safe than I don't feel safe.

• President Obama says that he is worried about the decision Israel made to start building the 1000 new homes in East Jerusalem. Obama, who right now is on his nine day trip through Asia, insists that the talks he started in September through Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas should keep going. Obama’s disapproval of Israel is a signal that the peace treaty between Israel and Palestine has failed again.

Donorboy by Brendan Halpin

Some of the main themes in Donorboy are grief, trust, acceptance, and the definition of family. The author is discussing both Rosalind’s and Sean’s loss of their mothers at young ages, their ability to learn to trust and accept each other and other people, and how to be a person that you can like.

Through the e-mails and texts Rosalind, the main character of the book, learns to accept Sean and her new situation and maybe most importantly she learns about love and family. Throughout the novel, many situations show Rosalind opening up and trusting Sean and herself. While this progression was slow throughout the book, one situation really causes Rosalind to change. Rosalind finds herself in a terrible situation with drugs at a friends house and sends Sean a secret text that he was able to understand and come rescue her.

The book had many interesting sections but a few stood out to me. The first one is in a journal entry that Rosalind wrote in her diary where she calls herself lucky even though most people would not find her situation to be good luck. Next, there was an e-mail from Sean to Rosalind where he talks about many things including their great weekend in Philadelphia and how proud her mothers would have been of her. Lastly, at the end of the book Rosalind runs away so as not to experience Christmas day without her moms and Sean tracks her down in New York City and it is clear to Rosalind how much Sean loves her.

Rosalind doesn’t like the person that she becomes after her mothers die. This easily relates to my life in the junior high in the past year and a half (mostly last year though). Last year I was new and I didn’t like the person that I became. I was a suck-up and it got to be so bad I wrote my speech about it this year. I was a big suck-up especially toward all of the 8^th graders who I really wanted to like me as a friend. I have also witnessed some seventh graders this year sucking up to me and to other 8^th graders.

I enjoyed Brendan Halpin’s Donorboy very much. The author developed the character really well and it was easy for me to read because it was written in e-mail style. I would definitely recommend it for next year’s reading bowl. It was a great book.