Bernie Sanders Interview (NPR)

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=454702147&m=454829104

The link above will lead you to an interview I enjoyed hearing this morning due to the hopeful words of democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders. He just wants to talk about the "real issues" in the United States, and that's a good attitude to have for a possible future leader of our country.

Grocery Shopping Nightmare in Venezuela

Venezuelan citizens are outraged about the current laws surrounding grocery shopping. Yes, grocery shopping... There is a grocery shopping system in Venezuela which allows citizens to grocery shop a maximum of once every four days, the day depending on a number on each person's ID card. Not only are there restrictions on when and where these people can buy their food, but there is a massive food shortage in Venezuela. Grocery store shelves are empty people are hungry for change.


Empty shelves like these are a common sight amongst grocery stores across Venezuela.

Venezuela is known for being rich in oil, but low oil prices across the globe and high levels of inflation has made Venezuela one of the worst countries economically, according to NPR.org. In fact, the government has seized giving economic statistics. The statics available are from independent economists who report that inflation is north of 100% annually (according to the Wall Street Journal). The people of Venezuela grocery shop in fear. Fear of thieves snatching the little food they are able to purchase. Fear that they won't be able to gather enough food for their families. This issue is a contributing issue to that of the hunger crisis which effects too many countries across the world.

On planet Earth, nearly 842 million people are suffering from hunger. That's about 3 times more than the entire population of the United States. An unfathomable amount to most people. Hunger kills more people each year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. Hunger kills more than 5 million children each year. Considering the amount of food that goes to waste in the United States alone, hunger shouldn't be as large of a tragic problem as it is.

In the USA, 30-40% of food the entire food supply goes to waste. This results in more than 20 pounds of food wasted per American each month. For some reason, the United States has its own hunger crisis. with these statistics in mind, there is no reason for anyone in the United States to not have enough to eat. How can we change this issue for the better? In order to avoid food waste as much as we can, we must become smarter in regard to grocery shopping. A large percentage of food purchased by Americans goes to waste whilst cleaning out our pantries and cabinets. If an amount of the food we throw away was never purchased in the first place, would it go to waste? The answer lies with the management of your local grocery store. Find out if your grocery store donates food after its "sell by" date. If not, you can still make a change by switching to a grocery store that does donate food or suggesting that they should do so. A suggestion never hurt anyone. If this issue is something you find passion in, volunteer. Local food banks and food pantries won't turn away extra help and some are in need of it. In order to fight world hunger, we have to start in our own backyard.

US Presidential Elections Polls Update

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary
The link above shows the poll chart of the 2016 National Republican Primary. The third Republican debate took place last night and after hearing what each candidate involved had to say, these are the results. The two candidates dominating these polls are Donald Trump (at 32.5%) and Ben Carson (at 21.8%), the next candidate is Marco Rubio (at only 8.4%) These are interesting numbers considering that Carson was actually ahead of Trump earlier this week, but he didn't have much to say last night.

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary
This link refers to the current poll chart of the democratic candidates. Hilary Clinton is the dominant candidate, receiving 55.4% of votes, which continues to rise as the race continues. Bernie Sanders is at 26.4%, which is the lowest he has polled in at in awhile and Martin O'Malley only received 1.6% of votes.

Yet Another Case of Police Brutality in the United States (Part 1)

http://nyti.ms/1H7unYA
video: A police officer at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina flips a seemingly unarmed and calm student out of her chair by her neck and drags her across a classroom floor.

This repulsive video has gone viral across the globe this week and is reopening the conversation about police brutality in the United States, a conversation that seems to go on and on. This 16 year-old student was allegedly on her cell phone during her math class and the teacher called the police officer assigned to Spring Valley High School after refusing to leave the classroom. When this student didn't respond to the police officer's commands, she was violently flipped and dragged out of the classroom... for using her cellphone. Many claim that this event could have been avoided if the student had put her phone away and responded to the commands of the teacher and the officer, but there are no means of justification in this situation. The only event I can imagine in which the police officer's actions would have been considered acceptable is if the student was armed with a gun. Students should never be handled physically in a public school environment and this student was. For what cause? A CELLPHONE. The ends do not in any way justify the means here. This event calls for a conversation to be had about racial mistreatment amongst police officers and black people (which is a conversation that really took off about a year ago with the Michael Brown case and many other cases following); as well as a conversation about the general mistreatment of students by teachers and adults with authority and the rights teenagers do or don't have in the United States.

Two snapshots displaying the student's desk being flipped  from the video recorded by another student present at the time of the event.

These are very important conversations to be had. Although there has been a massive light shined on this issue by the media over the past year, it continues to happen again and again. Why is this? How many people have to suffer the unjust circumstances of police brutality until it finally isn't an issue anymore? Nobody should be flipped in a school desk by their neck and dragged across a room for having using a cellphone. A police officer should not be called into a classroom for mild student misconduct, such as cellphone use. This is a mind boggling situation. Rules against cellphones in schools are understandable, since they can be a distraction, but a mere distraction for one girl in math class does not in any way permit the calling of a police officer, regardless of how the cell phone was being used. As of now, the police officer involved (nicknamed "the slam" and "the hulk" by the student body of Spring Valley High for past instances of overly physical interactions with students) was rightfully fired. We will wait and see how this effects the unfortunately common situation of police brutality in the united states.

2015 Recorded as Hottest Year in all of World History

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that this past September had been the hottest September ever recorded last Wednesday (October 15th). They also discovered that the span of time between January and September had been the hottest period in History. This record breaking heat is due to a strong El Niño weather pattern, a process in which the ocean releases copious amounts of hot air into the atmosphere. The last time this issue arose (1997-1998), the temperatures weren't nearly as high.  El Niño is also known to complete change weather patterns and cause massive natural disasters. These conditions include drought (such as the one occurring in California), flooding dispersed over large areas, and annual weather patterns to completely shift.

video : http://nyti.ms/1qJCsfI

The ever lasting causes of greenhouse warming combined with the horrendous effects of El Niño are already contributing to global changes. Forest fires in Indonesia, elongated drought in Australia and Ethiopia, and the food crisis emergency across the entire continent of Africa. Greenhouse emissions have not solved itself, and it's important to pay attention to this crisis that has been and will continue to affect the United States as well as the entire world around us.


source -- NY Times

Controversy Strikes Over Pope Francis' Visit with Kim Davis

Kim Davis, the despicable Kentucky county clerk who denies marriage licenses to same-sex couples remains in the headlines. To the surprise of many, Pope Francis, the first pope to openly show support towards the marriage of same-sex couples met with Davis during his visit to the United States. According to Davis' lawyer who was allegedly present at the time of the meeting, the pope gave Davis rosaries and told her to "stay strong." This leads us to wonder if the pope, whom many advocates of LGBT+ rights and Catholics of the LGBT+ community have been in favor of, is putting on an act. Does he really support this community? What would his motive be to lie about this issue that is important to so many people across the globe. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi expresses that he "cannot deny that the meeting took place, but I have no comments to add." The situation at hand would be less controversial if the pope and his staff would have come out about this meeting sooner, or perhaps never put on a façade of support towards this issue and community in the first place. This may not be the case, although this is how it looks right now. Clarification regarding this meeting will hopefully be released soon, but until then its difficult to show any loyalty toward this pope, for associating with someone like Davis, someone with so much disregard for an entire community of people's rights. Is Pope Francis a hypocrite? We'll hopefully find out in the near future when more information on this meeting, which for now appears to be despicable.

Pope Francis (Left), Kim Davis (Right)
Times Article - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/us/county-clerk-kim-davis-who-denied-gay-couples-visited-pope.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

NPR Article - http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/30/444671535/kim-davis-and-pope-francis-reportedly-had-a-private-meeting-in-dc

New Doors Open for Syrian Refugees in Germany

Friedland Germany, a small town of 5,000 has been experiencing a decline in population has been occurring over the past few decades due to the abolition of over 2,000 jobs after West Germany and Germany reunited in 1990. The upside of 3,000 people (mostly young) have left Friedland in search of work elsewhere. Wilfried Block, 58, has been the mayor of Friedland since 1992 and proclaims that the "once gray, industrial town is now green and pleasant. But we've failed to keep people from leaving." Block now expresses interest in refugees in need of a place to live, hoping they can help fill the void of many empty homes and apartments throughout the town. This looks to be a win-win situation for both the Town of Friedland and many refugees who seek a place to live.

Wilfried Block, mayor of Friedland

source - NPR.org

Racial Barriers Amongst Students in South Africa

In a country such as South Africa, where the percentage of black citizens (76.4%) is far greater than the percentage of white citizens (9.1%), its hard to imagine that many black South Africans aren't granted the same educational opportunities as white South Africans. Unfortunately, this is true. At the University of Cape Town, students are experiencing this first hand. An article written by Norimitsu Onishi for The New York Times we hear the story of  Ramabina Mahapa, a 23 year old student. Mahapa is from a village of only black South Africans and graduated first in his high school class. He expresses that it was only when he began attending the University of Cape Town that he noticed his the color of his skin and how it reflected the level of education he had received up to that point. Black South African students occupy only 24% of the entire student body and only 5% of the university's faculty is black. Black students ranked at the bottom of all test scores and 1 in 15 of all students who own cars on campus are black. Rallies and protests are taking place so the cries of students to decolonize the campus will be heard.


Lindokuhle Patiwe, student at The University of Cape Town, grew up in a poor township outside Cape Town. [ Credit Joao Silva/The New York Times ]

Original Times Article - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/world/africa/student-protests-in-south-africa-highlight-dissatisfaction-with-pace-of-change.html?ref=world&_r=0

       

First Blog Post

The topic of global issues (involving the environment, politics, human rights, etc.) interests me because I've always found importance in seeking information about the world around us. In such a privileged part of the world, we (as young Americans) can easily lose our grasp of the bigger picture and the challenges that are effecting nature, economics, and humanity. This blog will explore current events and controversy throughout the planet. In order to be precieved as people who care about the issues taking place in the world, we must be up to date on these issues. This blog will be an outlet for anyone who shares my interest for issues surrounding humankind .