Syrian Civil War

Last summer, while on a trip with the Eisenhower Institute’s Inside the Middle East program. I stood at the Israeli edge of the Golan Heights and heard a bomb explode across the border in Syria. We had spent the day within several miles of the war-ravaged nation with all remaining quiet until that moment, and while none of us wanted to admit it, we had the smallest hope that we might catch a glimpse of the conflict. However, when the sound of the detonation roared across the hills, excitement was replaced by a sense of fear and grief. I had lived a year in Gettysburg, yet I had never felt so close to a battlefield.

— Annika Jensen (age 18)

Currently in the world, Syria has been fighting a civil war for about six years now. Syria currently has a population of 17.8 million (estimated). Syria was once one of the world’s leading tourist destinations in the Middle East with its culture and history such as it's Ancient City of Aleppo, Dead Cities, and its old cities of Damascus and Bosra. Due to the civil war happening right now, tourist numbers fell by a shocking number of 98%. With that amount of tourist decline, it has brought a tremendous amount of decline with money with about $6 billion in losses.

The Syrian Civil War started as a peaceful protest that civilians acted on demanding the Syrian Government to meet their demands such as lack of freedom and economical issues.

After 15 boys were arrested and tortured for writing graffiti supporting the “Arab Spring” (series of anti-government protests, demonstrations, and armed rebellions that occurred across the Middle East). One of the boys was brutally tortured and died from his punishments. After this event occurred, The Syrian Government and President Bashar al-Assad acted on the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and arresting and prisoning more. This brought defectors/traitors from the military to form the rebel group “Free Syrian Army” with the goal of overthrowing the  government. From this point, Syria has just began its civil war. The civil war brought many rebel groups to help overthrow the government such as ISIL/ISIS.

 As the war continues to grow, territory is being changed. As of August 2016, The government of Syria only holds 35% of Syria (66% of population) while ISIS controls 35% of Syria as well. 12% is controlled by other rebel groups and 18% is held by the Kurds (Islamic people living in parts of Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Western Iran, and Eastern Syria.

The results of the Civil War has brought 450,000 deaths with 50,000 being children and 4.81 million Syrians fleeing the country and 6.3 million people are displaced internally (someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her country’s borders. They are often referred as refugees, although they do not fall within the current legal definition of a refugee).

At this rate, the war should end with a peace treaty between the Syrian Government and the rebel forces. The amount of casualties and people fleeing has created more problems for other countries as they could or could not have the refugees stay there. Therefore, a diplomatic peace treaty would be the right way to end this civil war as we once did in the United States (The Civil War between the North and South) and rebuild the country.

As of December 22, 2016 - Syria’s state-run media has announced government forces has taken full control of Aleppo, ending more than four years of rebel rule there.

Book Talk

The Nazi Hunters

By Neal Bascomb
Genre: Historical Nonfiction 

The Nazi Hunters is like about experiencing (little) of a case file that leads back in the May 19, 1944 with one of the Nazi's SS (Protection Squadron) Senior Storm Command Leader Adolf Eichmann, a man responsible for the order of killing millions of Jews in the concentration camps. Adolf succeed in avoiding the authorities to name him a war criminal resulting in a severe punishment. Adolf fled to Buenos Aires, Argentina moving place after place with another name being Ricardo Klement. However, his past finally caught up to him.

One of the main characters in the book is of course Adolf Eichmann. Adolf Eichmann was a man in his early thirties before he fled to Argentina. Had 4 sons named Ricardo Francisco Eichmann, Klaus Eichmann, Dieter Helmut Eichmann, and Horst Adolf Eichmann. Another main character is Sylvia Hermann. A girl who was once a girlfriend to one of Adolf's sons. The picture of her is only black and white so you could only tell she had a black hair color.

Adolf Eichmann was facing the struggle of leaving his home to avoid being caught by the authorities and being punished. He had to leave his family behind however he found a way to get them to travel to him.  The mood of this novel is disturbing due to knowing the fact that Adolf Eichmann killed millions of Jews without hesitation. The theme of this novel would be Justice due to the amount of funds and years of effort used to capture this war criminal to make him pay for what he has done.

I would rate this novel a 4/5 since it's intriguing to keep on reading since most chapters finish off at a cliffhanger. Another reason why is that the book makes the story actually feel like a case file with its dates, pictures, and background images.

Investigative Journalism

On December 7, 2016,  A citizen who was in their teens from the Berwyn township was appearing to have a heart attack. The time that the heart attack occurred was around 3:20-3:30 PM near the train tracks by Janura Park. The adolescent dropped to the ground holding his hand to his heart and couldn't move as if he was unconscious. The individual appeared to be in high school and most likely from Morton West High School. Three Police SUV arrived at the scene to support the teen with others around him with aid.

 This attack would have been caused by a buildup in one or more of your coronary arteries, causing it to be blocked. According to the American Heart Association, it states “ A heart attack occurs when the blood flow that brings oxygen to the heart muscle is severely reduced or cut off completely. This happens because coronary arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood flow can slowly become narrow from a buildup of fat, cholesterol and other substances that together are called plague.” This explains why all of a sudden the teen was facing a heart attack due to the probability of having his coronary arteries becoming clogged with plague (similar to having a clogged/blocked shower drain).

Nonfiction Responses

The nonfiction book I am currently reading is The Muscular System written by Dr. Alvin Silverstein, Virginia Silverstein, and Robert Silverstein. Currently, I am in the second section discussing about the  skeletal muscles of humans. Skeletal muscles are muscles that work with bones of the skeleton. The section is all about our (us humans) muscular and how they work. Overall, there are about 640- 850 muscles in the human body. There are three types of muscles called skeletal, visceral, and cardiac.

A passage that intrigues me would certainly have to be this, " Your entire skeleton is covered with muscles. The combined weight of your muscles is about three times as much as that of your bones. In fact, muscles weigh more than any other type of tissue in the body. Skeletal muscles allow you to move your arms, legs, hand, and other body parts. Skeletal muscles surround the mouth cavity and form most of the tongue. They surround the body cavities and separate the chest and abdomen. Skeletal muscles attached to the outer layer of the eyeball move the eyes". The reason why I choose this passage since it gives many facts about the skeletal muscles. Before reading this book, I thought that the human body only had 100 muscles that were for the most important parts of the body.

After reading this book, I've learned many important things about the muscular system. For sure I wouldn't forget about the part about the Achilles Tendon. This particular tendon is the most strongest tendon out of all of them in the human body. If it were to be torn, you couldn't run and barely walk.
This book has taught me things that I haven't even known about yet.

Tendon-  a flexible but inelastic cord of strong fibrous collagen tissue attaching a muscle to a bone.

I have commented on 

Jorge's blog

Jason's blog

Gratitude

I am grateful for my family who have given me hope throughout the hard ships. They have inspired me to complete challenges that I once thought were impossible. They showed me the ways of life and how it works. My aunt and brother showed me what potential I have and what I can do to reach it. My parents and grandparents who have given me courage and faith. They have all cared me for me and I've seen what impact I made in their lives. I am lucky to have a family like mine since they're one of a kind.

My brother, Jesus has shown me what potential I have inside of me. Through tough times and conflicts between one another, he has shown me that we're still family. Like he says, we're the opposite of one another. We have our strengths and weaknesses opposite. How we act/behave in public and how we think.

My aunt, Erica has also shown me what potential I have in store. Without her, I would've been different since she taught me how to behave correctly and think differently. She shown me how one event has potential to affect other events (The Butterfly Effect). The way of how to think properly and use it in my advantage. She shown me how to read and talk complex words when I was still little.

I have commented on Joey A's blog.

Article of the Week Impressions

Today, while walking around through our gallery walk, I've learned many new things. One of them is learning about the Ebola virus. The Ebola virus has mutated to the point where it's more effective at contracting itself on primates (humans). Scientists/researchers believe that this sudden mutation might've been a genetic that caused this. I've also learned more about planet 9. Researchers believe that Planet 9 is far beyond Pluto and could be affecting orbits of our planets in the solar system. 

While walking and reading the work of other students in the gallery. I've noticed news that I've never heard happened. One of them is about New Zealand's earthquake that killed many people. On Monday, November 14, 2016, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 triggered/erupted and caused a lot of damages in homes, businesses, as well as killing people. Most of the people that were injured, wound, or killed were hurt by the aftershocks. 

Election Reflection

I was quite surprised that Donald Trump won the election instead of Hillary Clinton. Clinton won the popular vote with the American people however Trump won with the electoral vote. But then again, both nominees have a lot of hate towards them with their opinions like Trump's opinion on what to do with the immigration problem and Clinton's email scandals that were "deleted".  In my own opinion, I felt that we needed a different nominee for both parties (Democratic and Republican) since this year's nominees for president weren't really good.

Currently, I'm becoming more interested in the subject of politics since I would want to know how the system works to use it later on in a different election.  Honestly, I still remember as if 2012 was just a month ago easily and now 2016 is coming to end. In my opinion,  learning politics would be good to do since you would understand the political system better and learn how our government works.

Voting in an election is also something that's been in my mind for awhile. The idea of voting for someone to lead/govern us is fascinating already enough, making the idea wander in my mind. Since I won't be voting for a new president in 2020 (I'd be 17 by 2020), I'd probably prepare myself after the election of 2020. What I don't understand is that muilple parties are now involved in the presidential election. It'd be better to decide on voting between two parties instead of muilple since a lot of American citizens don't even know about them.