Check out your professor’s salary…
From 2008
http://www.paladium.net/usa-farMaryland600UniversityOfMarylandUMD-salaries-Sep2008A.php
looks like Freeman is making over 400k!
Open Mic Night
Last Thursday night I went to open mic night at the Sportzone for “Best Cover.”
Some people were good, others were bad, but I can’t say anything because I am just awful at singing.
My favorites were obviously my friend, Madeleine, covering Lana Del Ray’s “Video Games,” a cover of an Etta James song, and a performance by the Jazz Group Maitre D.
Great job everyone! I believe next Thursday is for Best original song.
Thank You for the Support.
Thanks to all of the loving support from my followers and fans, I will be returning to this blog for yet another semester at UMBC. Unfortunately, between the 18 credits I am taking, I have the worst schedule but I will try to make it to as many interesting events as I can.
Events coming up:
Yoga at the Women’s Center @ 6PM
BUS TRIP TO JAWS (off campus)- March 1 @ 10. $3
Norouz (Persian New Year)- March 2, 2012, UC Ballroom @ 7PM
fun! (the band)- March 4, 2012, UC Ballroom @ 8PM (SOMEONE GIVE ME 10 DOLLARS SO I CAN GO!)
seb Root Beer Float Social- March 5, 2012, Upper Flat Tuesdays @ 4PM (hopefully I can go even if I am not 21…)
Alright that is it for now. Please Email me (link at bottom) if you know of any events I should go to.
Happy Thanksgiving
Sorry for being MIA lately- the semester is winding down and I have had a lot of school work due.
Upcoming Events:
11.30.11- Sweeten Up Your Network- 6:30 at the 7th floor of the Library
11.31.11- Laramie Project- 7pm at the UMBC Theatre, this showing is FREE
And that’s about it, if you guys have any suggestions, please let me know. The semester is finally winding down!
I would also like to thank my new followers—
please spread the word about my blog and feel free to leave suggestions!
My first experience at the women’s center
Let me tell you - I was not expecting to walk into a paradise of couches, tea and the complete absence of fluorescent lighting. Wow. People of UMBC- there is a little oasis of happiness in the Women’s Center and I encourage all of you to check it out. It’s by the Yum Shoppe in the Commons.
I went there to watch a film for my cultural anthropology class (yeah, I’m trying to get that extra credit, don’t judge me). The movie was called Lioness. One of my friends, who shall remain nameless, said it was incredibly boring and that I could save time by googling it. But, I decided to head over with my sandwich from the Admin building (in case you’re wondering- it was roast beef on whole wheat with tomatoes, onion, and lettuce and a pickle on the side…) Watching a movie? And eating a sandwich? What a great way to spend time between classes!
Good news ladies! We got the right to vote! We don’t get drafted! And we don’t have to fight in combat during wars!
These may all seem like wonderful things, but the truth is, if women are not allowed in combat, they cannot train for combat. This means that when women are deployed to war-torn areas, like Iraq, they are left almost defenseless against the inevitable attack by insurgents. They lack the knowledge that the men of the Army or Marines would receive.
Lioness is about five women who were trained as mechanics, supply clerks, etc. for the Army. They were deployed to Iraq where they started searching and comforting Iraqi women. Eventually, they started serving under the Marines. During this time, there was a spike in insurgency (meaning RPG’s and IED’s were going off daily). Again- because women are not allowed to fight in combat, they were not trained. They had no idea how to maneuver a tank, or use other weapons to protect themselves. Still, they did their jobs. Unfortunately, they were given little to no recognition by the media or the government because no one wants to recognize the fact that women are actively engaging in combat.
Like many soldiers, they are now all dealing with the horrors of war. The rest of the story focused on how they are adjusting to their lives separate from the Army.
My reaction: I was disappointed with the men that were interviewed for this documentary. The men seemed to avoid the questions and blame. The fact is- women were directly involved in combat under their leadership. Someone needs to take some kind of responsibility here. They either need to make sure that women aren’t in combat zones and do the jobs they were originally trained for, OR actually train them to defend themselves. War is never predictable or safe. It’s silly for our military to think that women deployed to Iraq will be completely safe from combat.
Second, I urge everyone to read further about this problem of women in combat or to watch this movie. Call your local representative and voice your opinion so that women can be trained PROPERLY in order to protect themselves and our country. They need the knowledge and right now, the government is not giving it to them. As recently as March of this year, there have been talks in Washington to end this policy. Do your part and voice your opinion!
The library.
Yes, this is a campus-wide event. Everyone is invited, whether you have a test tomorrow or in a week. If you’re not here tonight, you probably should be!
“I never think commies will be honest”
I attended the speech by Harry Wu, a Chinese dissident. (You can even wiki him here!) He was sentenced at the ripe old age of 23 to a life sentence at a labor camp. Upon his release, he became a human rights activist.
He talked about a variety of issues in China such as the current one child policy. If a woman becomes pregnant a second time, the government will force her to have an abortion. If she flees China, the government will detain her family until she returns. If she returns, she will be sterilized.
Next he talked about the prison labor camps he spent 19 years of his life in. Just as a gulag is known around the world as a gulag, Wu has pushed for the word “Laogai” to be synonymous with Chinese forced labor camps. Eventually, the Oxford dictionary defined it and listed it in their version. SInce then, it has been adopted by other dictionaries.
These labor camps have two main objectives. They serve to “reform” political prisoners through hard labor. This hard labor produces a LOT of products the USA is familiar with. If you’re celebrating Christmas this year, chances are- those lights may have been produced by prison labor. If you’re driving a car, chances are- those brake pads may have been produced by prison labor. Prisoners do not have to get paid regular wages. Therefore, cheap labor = cheap prices for the rest of the world. And the rest of the world takes advantage of this fact. Around 314 known businesses are currently linked to Laogai camps. The problem is, corporations sign papers that distance themselves from knowing where these products are coming from, so they can claim innocence in the case of an investigation. The other problem is that all of these products go through the Chinese National Trading Company. This means that they don’t have to answer to anyone because they’re the government.
In addition to what other people may call “slave labor,” Laogai camps apparently are the source of organs used for transplants. Wu walked into a hospital in China inquiring about an organ transplant. He was told that for $30,000 cash, he could get a new [insert organ here]. It is estimated that 95% of organ transplants come from executed prisoners. But no one knows that because when asked, the government doesn’t have to answer to anyone.
The most fascinating part of this presentation was Mr. Wu himself. HIs family was completely destroyed by Communist China, he spent 19 years in prison, and then came to America with forty bucks in his pocket. He became an activist after the Senate asked him questions about his prison sentence in China. After that, he started investigating through the Laogai Research Foundation. He even opened up a museum in Washington D.C. called the Laogai Museum. And lastly, he has a pink Razr phone (just thought I would put that in there).
If you are interested in his research or museum, check out www.laogai.org and their museum blog (http://laogaimuseum.org/).
FACTS:
1000 Laogai Camps in operation
3-5 Million people in these camps currently
40-50 million people have been jailed in these camps
5000 people, approximately, have been executed in 2009 alone.
For those Lucky Souls….
Who don’t have class until 5:15 everyday like I do, then you can attend what is sure to be a fascinating lecture about how human evolution and religion can coexist.
If you’re interested, it is being held by the Secular Student Alliance in the Bio Sciences Basement (room 004) on Thursday at 3.
W.E.B. Lecture by Dr. Carla Peterson
I went to this event last week at the UC Ballroom on Wednesday at 7. I had to write a response paper to it, so to save myself some time and effort… I’m just going to copy and paste.
and i quote….myself…..
I cannot really tell you too much about James McCune Smith other than the fact that he believed that the races could mix. It was, at this point, that I left. No, I did not have class or somewhere more important to be. I feel comfortable admitting this fact now, after I read similar editorial about the event in the Retriever Weekly (yes, this is the second time I wrote this reaction paper). The author shared my sentiments that the lecture went around in circles. I kept expecting that all of these facts and ideas would be reconciled at some point, but to my knowledge, they never were. I still do not quite understand how Crummell switched his views and how they fit cohesively into Dubois’s Maybe it is because I left early, but I am confident enough to say I am not the only person that left that lecture utterly confused. It was like the speaker was simply reading notes from her thesis paper, which would have been fine… had they been in order. Her presentation was scattered and not cohesive, and ultimately caused me to leave prematurely.
