Facts and Opinions

I took a look at this article (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/in-praise-of-art-forgeries.html) and I sorted out some facts and opinions.

Fact:

”In the last decade, reported revenues from the Chinese auction market have expanded ninefold, now higher than those of its American counterpart.” this is a fact because the writer KNOWS this.

”IN Queens, a guy working in his garage churned out “Pollocks” and “Rothkos” that fooled the experts, sold for millions of dollars and helped destroy the Knoedler & Company gallery, as we learned in recent months.” this is a fact because this really happened.

 

Opinion:

“We may also want to bless forgers for helping to tame our absurd art market. If speculators eventually are scared off by the danger of being stuck with fakes, prices may fall,” this is an opinion because it is why the writer THINKS about forgers.

“Our current market, geared toward the ultra-wealthy” this is an opinion because it’s what the writer thinks about the market.

which one was hardest to identify? I think the quote “Our current market, geared toward the ultra-wealthy” was most difficult to identify. This quote is pretty much true, or factual but it isn’t completely true, making it an opinion.

In conclusion the ratio of facts and opinions is pretty balanced which says to me that the article isn’t all speculation or opinion. It could even make the article taken more seriously because of the numerous facts.

 

Canada in WWII – Canada Prepares for War Assignment

How was the way Canada joined WWII different from WWI. Canada took up arms in WWII because Germany declared war on Britain. This is very similar to how Canada joined the first world war but this time in WWII Canada actually had a choice to join, in WWI Canada was forced to join. The BCATP or British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, was a way for Canada to contribute to the war without actually fighting. Canadians would train pilots from the British empire, and the pilots would go into war, but not actual Canadians. CD Howe was the head of the department of munitions, he was responsible for regulating production of munitions and weapons. Canada was reluctant in joining the war because of their lack of a military and the fact that they are in a depression. The comic below perfectly sums up Canada’s attitude towards WWII. Why should Canada join a war when we cannot even defend ourselves, as represented by the measly defenders defending a massive net that represents Canada.  

WWI Political Cartoon Analysis

This cartoon shows how WWI started in a nutshell. figure A represents Serbia, B is Austria, C is Russia, D is Germany, E is Britain and F is America.

A terrorist group from Serbia known as the “Black Hand” was trying to assassinate the Duke, after a failed attempt leaving many of the Duke’s men injured, the duke decided to visit his men at the hospital. On the way there the Duke was assassinated. Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia mobilized troops to defend Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia for being against Austria, Britain wanted to defend Russia and or Serbia, America only joined the fight 1 year before it ended to help Britain.

Serbia is depicted as a child due to the scale of their military compared the other more significant forces such as Germany and Russia. The title is ironic because the cartoon shows countries going to war and the title is “The Chain Of Friendship”, which is verbal irony because it is sarcastic. Sarcasm by definition is meant to hurt another individual and irony is used to convey a message, this cartoon is ironic because it does not hurt anybody and it convert a message on how wars start.

Poverty cycle

Cycle:

Poverty cycle of country with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS

Baby born with HIV -> extremely poor health -> gets impregnated or impregnates another woman -> dies prematurely due to AIDS -> partner likely infected with HIV/AIDS and is passed on to offspring. 

Solution(s):

When a baby is born with aids it can be treated before the age of one to slow down the effects of the illness, this won’t fully eradicate aids from the patient as there is no full cure. 

Another solution to cut the cycle is to educate the people with HIV to not have kids so their kids don’t get aids.

Cycle: 

Child born into poverty -> child is malnourished -> attends a public school with extremely poor quality of education -> forced to work at a young age because of poor education and the fact they have no food -> child works for close to nothing for the rest of their life because they have no choice until death -> could possible have kids of their own to work for them on a farm (rare)

Solution(s):

We can cut the cycle by providing a quality education so the kids can grow up and not work for super cheap. A harsh reality is that people who live in poverty should not create a family they can not support or they will likely starve. 

Cycle:

Women born into inequality -> no education -> married by 12 -> pregnant by 15 -> turns to prostitution for income. 

Solution(s): 

The simplest solution is to educate people to treat women equally like we do in developed countries. If women are treated equally they will receive an education and will have a chance to have a good job in the future. Unfortunately women born into places where they have less rights than men have almost no chance to be something other than a housewife. 

Japan Population Pyramid

The dependency rate of Japan is 47.01 percent, I would consider this quite high because almost half of the country depends on the other half of the country, when there are more people depending on people than people who can be depended on there are problems. By examining the pyramid we can see that when the work force becomes old or dependent, the younger generation will have to be depended on by the old work force and the new younger generation, This is a problem. there may be more old dependent people than working people in the future which is really bad. To increase the work force Japan can let in working immigrants that can be depended on, or Japan can take a different route that includes technology and automation. Instead of actual people working and becoming the ones depended on, Japan can just have robots making up some of the work force so that the balance between dependent and independent people balance out.

Pressure groups, petitions and civil disobiedience

Sean Hruswicki
January 7th 2018
Social Studies 11
Mr. Chan

Pros and Cons of Methods of Change

What are the advantages and disadvantages of petitions, civil disobedience and pressure groups / lobbyists? Petitions are a great way of inducing change in whatever you want but, they do have some disadvantages, especially before the Internet was a thing. You need 10% of registered voters to sign your petition just for the government to acknowledge its existence and read it but, before the Internet was a thing you needed to actually go to people and they needed to physically sign it. This would be extremely difficult and time consuming. The Internet makes petitions much more efficient. The fact that people can sign petitions online can make certain petitions gain a huge amount of signatures in a short period of time. The only disadvantage to this is that people who don’t have access to the Internet can’t sign the petition and they won’t be able to make an impact in a movement they are passionate about. In the petition to extinguish GST over 150,000 of the signings were invalid, which is a disadvantage because it is almost impossible for your signature to be invalid if you were to sing a piece of paper.

The disadvantages of pressure groups / lobbyists are that lobbyists are probably only there for the money and can be super expensive, but they are a great way to pay for change. In the example of the pressure group full of CEOs, pushing for NAFTA, the CEOs were only wanting NAFTA for one reason, to make money. NAFTA was supposed to create jobs but it actually decreased the amount of jobs, but increased the amount of money the 1% were making drastically. Pressure groups and lobbyists can be abused by very rich people but it is very affective and are great when used for making good change. Pressure groups in general, formed by average people tend to not work out so well because they cannot afford lobbyists.

Civil disobedience has the greatest disadvantage of all, which is the fact that you are breaking a law. This can lead to you going to jail for a short or long amount of time. For example in the case of Viola Desmond she went to jail after refusing to leave a movie theatre when asked by police. An advantage of civil disobedience is that is makes a bigger deal than just speaking your mind. If you break the law to make a point there will be a process of you going to court, or possibly making the papers, it creates a lot of attention around the issue.

 

Nuclear Power Debate

Sean Hruswicki
14 January 2018
Physics 11
Ms. Jackson

Why Nuclear Energy Is Great

When you hear the words “nuclear energy”, you don’t usually think of clean, efficient energy, but rather dangerous and hazardous to the environment. Nuclear energy is very misunderstood by the general public or people who have not done some research on it themselves. Nuclear energy is actually one of the most environmentally friendly sources of energy, it isn’t as clean as wind or solar energy though, but it is significantly more efficient. The production of nuclear energy doesn’t emit any greenhouse gasses, which is the main culprit for global warming. Greenhouse gasses absorb certain frequencies of infrared eradication and scatter them back to the surface of the earth, heating it. Greenhouse gasses prevent heat from escaping the earth, keeping it warm, which can lead to the melting of the ice caps, which will lead to dangerously high sea levels. A nuclear power plant actually emits fewer radioactive materials into the environment that a traditional coal burning facility. It is estimated that nuclear energy has saved 1.84 million lives by not releasing countless pollutants. Nuclear power is more efficient than other sources of power. It is estimated that nuclear energy has a 91% efficiency rate. Actually building a nuclear power plant will cost a lot more than a power station that generates the other types of energy, but nuclear energy itself is cheap. In 2007 the cost of nuclear generated electricity was 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour, the cost for coal for 2.4 cents, 6.7 cents for natural gas, and 10.2 cents for oil. Nuclear energy has an enormous capacity. One kg of 4% enriched fuel grade uranium released the same energy as almost 100 tons of coal or 60 tons of oil. Each year the US saves $12 billion dollars on energy costs because of nuclear power. Nuclear power plants save a lot of money that could be used on great things such as hospitals, education, and making sure people are fed. One in five households and businesses receive power from nuclear power plants in the US. 13% of the worlds energy comes from nuclear power plants, even though there are only 449 of them in 30 countries, as of April 2017 there are 60 new nuclear power plants under construction in 15 countries. Nuclear power is extremely powerful so there must be some serious downsides when handled incorrectly. What about the safety of nuclear energy? Nuclear energy is used in massive bombs used to blow up entire cities so it must be super dangerous right? Accidents in nuclear power plants are far more harmful than accidents in other power stations but the risk of an accident is low and declining. A repetition of the famous 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which displaced over 300,000 people, is virtually impossible. Hopefully after taking in all this information you are now informed on why nuclear power is not the terrible thing you may or may not have thought it was. I believe that nuclear power will be the main energy source in the future because of how great it is.

The Magic of Light

Sean Hruswicki

Physics 11

 

The video below looks just like magic, how can something just change by itself right in front of our eyes? Well, with some understanding of waves we can explain this phenomenon. The big idea, or sole reason to this so called magic is refraction. When you look at the glass the light rays bend around the center of the glass, causing the light rays to intercept each other between the glass and the arrow, or piece of paper, creating a focal point, the light that was on the right side is now on the left and vice versa, this causes the arrow to appear to be inverted, which makes it appear to be backwards. Anytime light light goes through one medium into another, it refracts. In conclusion this is in fact not magic, but can be straight forwardly explained using wave physics.