Shift Happens

Social change refers to any substantial changes over time in behavior patterns and cultural values and norms. It is the facts, sometimes unpleasant facts that we cannot stop.it is look like a baby that we love the most and that baby must grew and one day will move outside the house. Watching the video makes person sad in one side and happy in the other side. It makes you happy when you see how technology is growing in the world is going forward. Also it makes you sad because it one age does not support that grew. For instance I am happy because I am student and probably I will get better future, but when you see all what you learned will outdated even before I graduate.

Stopping or reducing the bad side of the story is in the hand of educational system. Educational system must prepare students for future. We might ask; how I should predict what kind of change will happen in future? The answer is let us looking into human’s dream. Human always think of all possible changes and we must integrate those possible changes into our school system to be studied.

A change in information processing and availability is the best happened in human’s life. I would like to tell one story to show how great those changes are. Last year we had a group project as a last assignment. The professor asked five students to write one research papers. I divided the project among us via email and each student was doing his/ her portion. One of student was communicating with me all the time at the end she told me that she is visiting her relatives and sending me her papers from Pakistan. This is a small example how great it is the changes happened in information processing. There might have some drawbacks but the benefits are exceeding those drawbacks.

There are many ideas that we have studied throughout the class that can help to better understand the fact in that video. For example; globalization, changing culture, and mobilization are the best to describe the facts in that video. Globalization made information flow easier among nations and ideas can be exchanged faster among people.  Globalization made people adopt new culture and learn new life patterns.

Life in city vs. rural area

Living in small city in Iraq and moving to Virginia in United States is similar to moving from rural city in American to Virginia. The differences between the two put me in cultural shock for almost six months. Talking about differences does not mean only in size but in every aspects of the life. The most important differences I would like to discuss in the paper is; in term of social, health, and economic.

I bought my in Virginia in April 2008, and I live there since then, but until this moment I do not know even the name of the person who lives next door. One week ago there are couples living in the house on the right hand sight of my house, passed by my house while I was working in the front yard and they told me “HI”. That was the first time someone greeting me at that neighborhood. Compared with where I lived, I knew every single family and their kids not only in our block but also three blocks away from my house in each direction. If someone in the neighborhood was getting sick, other people went and visit him and they share happy and sad moments together.

Since 2005 when first time I come to American until this moment, I have been hospitalized 6 times, and I must visit family doctor every six month. I left Iraq and I am 35 years old, I never went to hospital, I never been ill. Many times I argue with my friends about this particular subject. Simply in the United State food and drink is processed nothing is natural, while in Iraq I remember the guy we used to by vegetables from him, he own that farm and he was selling everything from his farm, they were natural. Another point about health was, we never had transportation, and we used to walk that was a good sport. In the US we do not walk, use our car to go even for short distances.

The last point I would like to talk about is economic. Many times my friends asking me if I missed my old life, honestly I say: NO. Economic was very bad in small cities, we was living excluding every kind of entertainments from our life to survive. People in small city, keep one job and stick with it until they retire because finding another job is really hard. There is more prosperity in big city and it is easy to find a new job.

There are many differences between life in rural area and big cities. It is hard to say which one is better, because each has it is own flavor. However, we can compare the two in term of social, health, and economically.

Who wields the power in our democracy?

       This is very tricky question, First in the assignment consist of two different words: weilds and wields. I am not sure which one is the target! I assume wield is the correct word. In democracy system one person cannot wield power because it will turn the democracy into dictatorship just like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That guy used to say “whatever I write on piece of paper, it is low.” However, as Max Webber mentioned millions of people cannot meet to make a political decisions, there must be certain people whom are experts and been elected by people to make those decisions, those people together wield power. Even those people they cannot make arbitrary decision because there is a balance of power and low to stop them.     

        The elected group of people make up political parties and they make what they believe is right, count. In the United States there are two groups or political powers they run the show. Any decision has to pass congress which consist of 100 members and parliament which has 435 members. This how the democracy system works, they do not allow person has a super power.   

       Many of us remember that the President Bill Clinton represented in the court because he was accused scandal. Even though he was a President of the country, he did not have that power to do what he wants. So, since everyone has to follow the low, no one actually wields the power.   

          I strongly believe that Pluralist theory is the most effective for few reasons. First, citizens cannot have direct influence on any political decision. Politic is very complicated matter, it is require a lot of expertise, people common people must not allow to influence any political decisions. Another great point is, no one wields power in the country because presence of interest group limits the centralization of power in the hand of government official.

Classmates, Professor: I would like to invite you to see a short clip degree to show you to what degree people do not understand politic in this country:

                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVz4VweMqFE

Wal-Mart

       Every currency has two faces. I have read many article about this particular subject, I came up with this conclusion; we must accept the side effect of every new evolution. This is multidimensional aspect; it is not about local TV manufacturing plant in Ohio and South China boomtown of Shenzhen or Chastity Ferguson and Kelly Gray in Las Vegas, it is about in what part Wal-Mart might be good or bad to our society. Let us examine some evidence together;

     Wal-Mart brings low quality products from China and dumps it into the market in cheap price that attract attention of the consumers. In return local businesses and companies in the United States shut down because they were not able to sell their products. Another point is unethical work environment of Wal-Mart providers in China and in the U.S. had brought a lot of attention. In your text book there is a story of a woman named Li who gets paid $65 a month to work for 55 hours a week. Also I would like to invite you to watch this movie to see unethical work environment here in the U.S. Please click the link below;

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_k1VHJLI0w&feature=related

          I strongly believe there another side of Wal-Mart too. 3,600 stores cross the country with millions of employee. I don’t believe those employees are from China or from another country. Wal-Mart serves 100 millions customers every day, it collects billions of dollars from tax payers which goes back to pay the salary of other citizens. For the purpose of this class I went to local Wal-Mart to examine one thing, how many of product they show is from the U.S. Not all the products they have are from China, there are other products are local and help those local manufactures to sell their products.

Let us go back to the initial question; is Wal-Mart good for American society?

     To answer that question we must look in to the case from varies angels and see all its detentions. I think the good sides of Wal-Mart exceed the bad part of it and for many reasons. First, Wal-Mart might kill some local jobs, but also provides more. Second, Wal-Mart pays higher rate of salary than other jobs do. Third, Wal-Mart makes life continue more smoothly because it helps people to save money. That’s my humble opinion and I am not saying I am correct.

There is a very good debate on Wal-Mart I would like to share it with my classmate, please click on the link below;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4clILPy2So&feature=relmfu  

Second Shift

Second shift is generally referred to the tasks that supposedly designated or belong to women after work hours.  Well, this topic is very controversy if we talk about the United State.  According what I see on the ground, today there is no job designated only for either one  and the check list that comes with this assignment both man and woman share responsibility to make the family run smoothly. However, there are some certain jobs that require muscle power such as cutting grass, man is expected to take care of those kind of chores while woman take care of some chores that require smooth touch such as finding a Christmas cards.

In the past, however, our society was male dominated society and woman use to work side by side with man after long work-hours, there were more chores was waiting for him at home. That era is over, for now in many cases man takes care of many chores at home like doing laundry and packing lunch back for kids even doing babysitting.  Matter of fact if I talk about myself, I cook more than my fiancé cooks, and I clean the house more than she cleans the house, above all, I work and she not. In many cases, I have friends whom are retired and the wife work, they do everything in the house and the wife makes money for the family. The notion second shift is not the way has been described and there is little of exaggeration.

In the Middle East and other man dominated countries that notion is more pervasive. Women usually have all hard chores and man take the one is less boring. I remember when I grew up my mother was contributing in family earning also she was taking care of most of the home chores; cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, washing cloth, and many other things. This practice is still going on in many mail dominated countries and the main reason behind that is lack of proper education and custom and tradition.

Brief History of Religion

To better understanding religion and belief system, history is a great resource. With my humble general knowledge and satisfactory English language, I write this brief about history of religion. I hope you like it. Also, the link below provides a lot of knowledge about the same subject.

Many years ago, before the era of hunting and gathering, human were thought to make since about the unpredictable thing that occurred around them. Some were believed the fire might be that power because it eats and burns everything around itself, some thought women who gives the birth and bring a new person and new life, and some thought it might be some kind of animals because they live for long time and they are powerful every group and according it is surrounding environment chose one to worshiped and made it God. Human approached those figures to ask for blessing and victory, but there were no low-kind roles that had been generated by those Gods.

 After the era of hunting and gathering, human were engaged in many conflicts over food and water sources. Human needed role and regulation to organize them, Hammurabi in the Babylonian empire was the first who devised the first set of written lows to be followed. Many followed Hammurabi’s steps and generated lows for their society to follow, although some of those low creators claimed deity but they were dying or overthrew by power of other human beings. Years after humanity found itself with many Gods and shapes that control their life. One God for travels other for wars another for good harvest and many of others for anything else.     

Humanity needed a powerful, divine, and absolute God who cannot be defeated or died over the time. According to Karen Armstrong’s book “the History of God,” Judaism was the first monotheistic religion in the history.  The monotheistic never been replaced, but had went some modification years after through Christianity and Islam. The purpose of religion in all different stages of life was only reform and obedience.  However, with revelation humanity and progress of human thoughts, religion was not able to satisfy people’s need and people did not see themselves any more as subject of obedient.

In 18^th century, the age of Enlightenment in Europe reduced the burden of religion on people for the first time in the history.  During the French revolution the journalist Jean-Paul Marat used the word “democratic” in one of articles. Political parties appeared on the surface after that to (replace or work side by side) religion.

Unfortunately my knowledge is not adequate to say political parties to replace or to work side by side religion to serve human’s need. In many discussions seating with people with PHDs, I asked that question to get the correct answer, but everyone gave me his or her opinion with no evidence. So I don’t know if it was to replace the religion or to work with religion.    

Class mate, Professor: this link below will provide a lot of information about the history of God. It is one and half hour documentary and it is great thing for your own use.

 http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/a-history-of-god

Secular World

         Secularization is the movement that encourages the society to adopt ideas based on scientific-approved factors not based on spiritual factors.  According to the book, secularization is evaluated according to three dimensions; the membership of the church, the influence of the church on the state, and religiosity. All these are good dimensions to relay on to look into new secular world. However, I can add one more dimension to show that secularization is pervasive and religion is heading to diminishing.  A close look into religion today and compared with 18^th century’s religion there are many modification and facilitation. For instance in the Catholic faith man and woman were not allowed to sleep on one bed only for making child, it was considered to be sin. Now, the same faith has changed it is approach and allow, what considered to be sin, happen with church’s approval.  One might ask, why church has changed it is approach? The answer is simple, to keep people under the flag of religion!!!!

          Secularization is very obvious in industrialized countries. However, because the religion had penetrated deep into society in early ages, the effect of religion will remain for longer time. Look at our dollar bills; you will see the “in one God we trust”. This is small sentence does not mean that we have spiritual system in the country, but it is only remnants of history no more. Secularization is more obvious and advance very quickly more than another area.

         The movement of secularization is slower in Middle East and Islamic countries than we seen in the industrialized countries and the other part of the world. The reason behind that is because religion in Middle East plays the role of weapon, and it has been used by many religious groups to reach their goal. For instance, as we all might follow news there is a mass of change happening in the Middle East what they called “Arab Spring.” All revelations happening at this moment in Arab Spring, religion has the upper hand and it is the motive that pushes people to fight against their governments.