GPHC 2018-2019

Peace through Justice: An American Justice System of Imprisonment   4 South Carolina Officers, One K-9 Shot in Shootout, OJ Simpson: Guilty or Not? In a South Carolina shootout, an officer was shot and fought for his life. This occurred following a domestic violence call. After openly firing at four officers and a police dog, Christian Thomas McCall (47) was taken into custody. In pain and agony, McCall was wounded during the shootout and was rushed to the hospital. Christian was also previously arrested for assaulting an officer. Waiting to be prosecuted, Christian will most definitely be spending the rest of his life imprisoned. A horrific event, but a great display of peace through justice.“Peace is the absence of violence and conflict, sometimes underpinned by a level of deeper equity and harmony”(3, Murphy). Prosecuting someone, incarcerating them and stripping them from their freedom sounds inhumane, but taking the lives of others is also strongly considered inhumane...

The article I read was, " Does Your Language Influence How You Think?" Within the article the author talks about two points of view. Firstly they introduce the idea that language does not change your opinions or thoughts, it just changes the way you group things or recognize them. The second argument, the one I agree with, is that language does, in fact, impact you opinions and ways of thinking. The example used in the article was that people who have a highly gendered language have a harder time believing that there might be more than 2 genders or that people don't necessarily have to fit into one of the two genders. The reason that I agree more with the second argument is because language is also a big part of a persons culture. A persons culture is a big part of what shapes them into who they are and what they believe in. Some cultures have more conservative beliefs and therefore their languages, religions, and practices play into the more conservative views of gender....

Cole Barger Mr. Roddy GPHC 9 December 2018 French Protesters Against Climate Change The protests in France started very recently when the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and his government announced an increase on taxes. This increase would be to try and lower greenhouse gases. They do this by increasing the tax on fuel to try and get fewer people on the road. This outraged the general public because they didn't like the fact that they would have to pay more for a daily necessity. One individual even noted that elite people like President Macron won't be affected by the economic hit, while the working class will. Which I think is a very good point, especially when you look at the numbers of who contributes the most to climate change. We can also start making changes to our agriculture and industrious sectors who waste the most water and are 2 out of the 3 major contributors to climate change. Or, at least do something that won't immediately effect the working an...

After looking at the website, "23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better," it is nice to see how the world is improving in many ways. Some of these graphs showed: a longer life expectancy, less people dying, less hunger, less disease, less violent crimes, more access to the internet, and more education. These statistics could be a result of globalization, since the more advanced countries are sharing their modern technologies and way of life with less developed countries. As good as this information seems to be, however, it seems possible that many of these "optimistic" statistics could cause negative things to happen to this world, along with everything that is seen a positive. For instance, at first glance it seems great that people are living longer, and less people are dying, but after thinking about that for a while, this could in fact be one of the major downfalls that this world could possibly suffer from. As more and more people l...

Cole Barger Mr. Roddy GPHC 9 December 2018 Peace in Canada Peace is not something unknown to Canada, as it was ranked the 8th most peaceful country in the world in 2011. This ranking was done by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international group that researched levels of peace among countries. They are ranked number 12 in the human development index. With just 1.7 homicides out of 100,000 and a .926 human development index, it is not surprising that they would be a more peaceful country. They also only spend 1.2% of their GDP on their military budget. These are some of the factors as to why Canada is a peaceful country, but something really interesting I found was the Canadian Peace Initiative. The Canadian Peace Initiative is trying to establish a Department of Peace in Canada. The goal of the Department of Peace would be to form a new infrastructure that would create a culture of peace and non-violence. This wouldn't only be in Canada, but also throughout ...

Right now, Paris is on lock-down. Entire areas of the city are off limits to vehicles, and pedestrians have to go through checkpoints with searches. Teargas canisters line the streets, and protesters wearing yellow jackets are clashing with the police, thanks to some of the worst French riots in a long time. While the country is no stranger to protests and riots, they rarely reach this scale, as over 125,000 demonstrators are marching in the country. What started as a protest against new fuel taxes by lower-middle class people in rural France has evolved dramatically. The protesters are extremely diverse, and contain everything from students to anarchists to fascists, but they all have one thing in common: they're furious with the French President Macron. This isn't helped by the fact that Macron's popularity rates have fallen drastically before the fuel tax was even proposed, due to his attempts to create economic policies. They are currently sitting around the 20s. For co...

Syrian Peace Process                Syria's current president Bashar al-Assad took over the country in July of 2000, following the death of his father Hafez al-Assad who ruled from March 1971 to June 2000. Following the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, in early 2011 pro-democracy demonstrations took place in several cities in Syria calling for president Assad to end emergency law and step down, so that free elections could take place.                At first Assad tried to give the citizens some of what they wanted, but not everything.  Assad ended emergency law which had given Syrian police broad powers to arrest and detain citizens and he released many political prisoners. But when this did not satisfy the peoples' demands Assad turned back to violence against his people to retain power. Police fired guns at peaceful protesters, and cities which rose up against the government were ...