Broadcast of Final Feature

Did you know, that there are 27 million slaves in the world today? That’s right, slavery did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation, in fact, there are more slaves in the world today than any other time in history.

Some students at San Jose State University have become aware of this injustice and want to make a difference to make their world, a better place. They formed the SJSU Response Coalition, a student-led movement fighting human trafficking. This handful of students has already been active on its campus by raising awareness.

The coalition put on a Human Trafficking Awareness Week which included a series of events to raise awareness on human trafficking and fundraisers to help free women and children from trafficking in Cambodia. Over, the course of the week, the Coalition managed to distribute more than 10,000 fliers and raise over 2,000 dollars.

The SJSU Response Coalition is expected to remain active next semesters in finding new creative ways to raise awareness and put an end to this injustice.

Copy Edit The World #2

The Image displayed above, is from a car I saw on my way to campus. The car is for a company that does cleaning services in houses. There were stickers on the car explaining who they are and what they do. The second line of text on the back window said: "WE ALSO DO WINDOW"

It said window instead of windows. It makes it sound like they will only clean one window.

The above excerpt, is from New Life Covenant's church weekly newsletter. This is from one of their November newsletters. Under their needs for the community, the word Perseverance is misspelled. It says: PerseverEnce.

This excerpt is from a Spartan Daily article on the swine flue. First, a new paragraph is started in the middle of a sentence. Second, the number 126 is spelled out, which according to the AP style should be written numerically.

This excerpt is from another Spartan Daily article on "UIC Night", an event put on by several christian organizations in the ballroom. The spells out the name of the speaker in two different ways. The correct way is Keivan.

This Excerpt is from the same article as the last one. The article misspelled the name of the event night. The night is called "UIC Night". UIC being an acronym for Unity in Christ, not United in Christ.

IMHO Part Deux: Black Friday

I read an article in the Spartan Daily today on Black Friday shopping. The article was an opinion piece. The author talks about her home of New Hampshire, where sales taxes do not exist, and seatbelts aren’t required. Of course, New Hampshire is no exception to the Black Friday rage.

I have gone Black Friday shopping once. It was two years ago. I actually slept outside the store to get a digital camera. I will never do it again.  In my humble opinion, Black Friday is the craziest day of the year. Every year, someone gets hurt in the stampedes (or killed) to save 50 bucks. It is incredible what money does to people.

This year I looked through the ads by Target, Best Buys, and the rest. I wanted to see what the deals were. From what I observed, all the stores had descent discounts on a select few products. The rest only had 10 percent off. I even went to Guitar center to see their deals, and I saw this keyboard that they said were selling for half price. I had seen this keyboard five months ago for the exact same price, with no special sale going on.

In my opinion, Black Friday is a big joke. It is a tactic to lure people into the store, with an illusion of saving money. When in fact you do not save money when you go to a store. Ever. Yet Black Friday seems to make people crazy. The author of the article said that “It was like Great America sponsored a free ticket giveaway. Except there were no amusement park rides. The only thing awaiting the customers was a weary cashier and growing debt.”

I must say, America has perfected the art of marketing. Marketers seem to know exactly how to place an ad, and exactly how to price an item in order to get maximum return. And on top of all that, the stores get major publicity by news channels for the incredible turn out that they get every year.

I think I’ll do most of my shopping online. I get deals just as good (if not better) without getting hurt.

(Word Count: 361)

Fish Out of Water

Last week I was invited to an event by Community Bible Study called sharing of the bread. Community Bible Study is a Christian organization at San Jose State that is 100 percent African-American. The group has about 10 members.

I grew up in church and have gone my whole life, so the bible study part of the night was not much of a culture shock to me. What made me a “Fish Out of Water”, was that I was the only white boy in the room. For the first 30 minutes, I was also the only guy in the room. There was some awkwardness at first, but I did my best to make myself comfortable and engage in small talk. Humor is a great way to break the ice, so I did my best to give my share of it, and laugh at the jokes of others.

The event was not much different from their regular Bible Study. The only difference was that there was pizza (a food item that will cross all cultural barriers). The night was then lead by the reverend from their church. (whom I sadly forgot the name of). The reverend preached on being Thankful for not only what has been given to us, but also for what should’ve happened to us and didn’t.

I grew up in church. I am used to being preached at. This time was a little different than what I had experienced. The reverend expected his audience to respond back with an Amen, a MmmHHmmm, or a Yes Lord! I never really felt uncomfortable with everything, in fact I enjoyed the experience. I liked the interactivity and the interpersonal aspect of the sermon.

I was a little humored by the fact that this was an “event” that they put on, but was really just they’re regular meeting with pizza. But I appreciated being invited and getting a taste of African-American church culture.

(Word count: 321)

Word of the Week #10

Chastened

Source: The Bible, Psalm 118:18

Sentence: The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

Dictionary Definition: verb [ trans. ] (usu. be chastened)

(of a reproof or misfortune) have a restraining or moderating effect on
Use in Sentence: I have been chastened to my seat and keyboard, by an overload of homework

Japanese Internment

The japanese internment, was the forced relocation of roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans, and Japanese living in the United states. They were relocated to "War Relocation Camps" shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Empire. America was threatened. Pearl Harbor was only the first step to getting to the west coast. It wasn't until soon after that the internment camps were set in place.

The internment of the Japanese population in America did not just start with Pearl Harbor. With an increasing immigrant population in the United States (specifically the west coast), discrimination against "mongolians", or people of asian descent grew more and more. Laws forbidding marriage between Americans and immigrants were even set in place. So it wasn't just the attacks on Pearl Harbor that caused the internment. It was a history of discrimination that made America set them apart. The attacks on Pearl Harbor installed fear, and fear led to the camps. It was argued that people of Japanese descent were loyal subject of the Japanese emperor. It is why they would then be set apart in internment camps.

Ruth Asawa was placed in an internment camp with her family when she was 16 years old. Asawa was born in Norwalk, California, and lived in the region her whole life, until her father was taken away by the FBI to be placed into a camp. It wasn't long after than her and her family were taken in as well. For 6 months, they lived in a horse stable. During that time, Asawa studied art, painting, and drawing with professional artists who were also interned. After the internment, Asawa and her family were send to Arkansas, where she became the art editor for her high school's yearbook.

Today, Ruth Asawa is very well known for her wire sculptures, public art, and activism. She is referred to as the fountain woman in San Francisco, where many of her fountain sculptures stand.

3,000 Japanese were living in the Santa Clara area during the internment. Most were taken to an internment camp in Wyoming. All were asked to dispose of their property and only take a limited amount of belongings with them.  All of the Japanese businesses in the area were closed down. Our very own campus of San Jose State was a reporting station for families in order to be transfered to their camps.

The San Jose Japanese internment memorial is a mural sculpture by Ruth Asawa. It pictures the internment camps in every detail. It shows every step of the internment. From the waiting in line to be registered, to the every day life of internment. There are images of people dying, people working, people wandering. All of the faces in the image show an expression of sadness or anger. You can feel the grief of the artist by just looking at the faces.

Seeing images like this reminds me of the holocaust. Our country was in Europe fighting what seems to be very similar to what the Nazis were doing. It was a discriminatory act against mankind.

(word count: 510)

word of the week #9

Morose

Source: The Talking Horse and Other Tales, By Antsey F.

Sentence: Quite lately--yesterday or the day before--his mother had spoken to him, gently but very seriously, about what she called the morose and savage fits which would bring misery upon him if he did not set himself earnestly to overcome them

Dictionary Definition: adjective, sullen and ill-tempered.

Use in a Sentence: Lonely, and morose, the Simon had no one to go to...