Antiwar.com Reflection

 Before this class, I had never heard of ANTIWAR.COM, most likely because I had never seen it advertised on social media or brought up on major news channels. Another possibility is that the government does not want people to know about this site since it loves war because it makes them money, and the site is anti-war. 

    Furthermore, the government does not encourage news channels or social media apps to spread topics that go against what they are in support of. These platforms benefit more when a political party favors them because the voters of that political party are going to want to follow those leaders, and the more viewers these media platforms get, the more their ratings go up, and they make more money. 

    I did find the website hard to read, not because of spelling but because of the layout and format of the site. Everything on the main page is smushed to gather, it is hard for my eyes to find a place to start reading, and the words are all in red. I am assuming the writers chose red because they want the reader to understand that the information is essential to urgent, but the key details get lost when all the words are in "urgent" red. 

    Another thing is that the website's table of contents has the smallest font size out of all the site's information. As a reader, if I find a site hard to navigate, then I do not see a point in reading further because it is time wasted when I could have been reading.  

    

EOTO Peer Reflection

    During the EOTO timeline presentations, the Carrier Pigeon was the historical technology that stuck out to me. I had heard of the Carrier Pigeon and seen it presented in movies but still did not know the history behind them. I learned that in 1896 the first airmail that used pigeons was founded in New England, United States. 

    The Presenter, Bri, mainly focused on Carrier Pigeons throughout the time of World War One. She went into detail about a Carrier Pigeon's life: to train a pigeon took, on average, six weeks, and less than ten percent survived during the war. During World War One, the intelligence service greatly benefited from the use of these birds. They were dispatched to stay in touch with resistance groups throughout Europe. 

    The Presenter then ended her part of the presentation by discussing a famous Carrier Pigeon, Cher Ami, and her story during the war. This pigeon was known for delivering a message during the 1918 Meuse-Argonne attack, despite suffering severe injuries. He was awarded the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery and the Croix de Guerre for his service. Eventually, the usage of carrier pigeons was discontinued due to the development and growth of technology.

  

The Typewriter

 

    The typewriter does not have one singular date of origin. It has four main dates: 1714, 1866, 1873, and 1874. Even though 1714 is the earliest date on record of discussion of the typewriter, it was not when the first typewriter was invented. Henry Mill, an Englishman, came up with the concept of the typewriter and submitted a patent for, in his words, "the artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another." 

    Although the concept of the typewriter was in 1714, it was not until 1866 that the first practical working typewriter was invented. Building that typewriter was a team effort by C. L. Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel Soule. It took several years of different experimental methods before the first Sholes and Glidden typewriter was made in 1873 (pictured on the right). 

    Jessica Justinger states that the 1873 model "was a drastically improved model from their first attempts and, in many ways, is similar to today's typewriters." She goes on further to inform how "Sholes sold the rights to Densmore, who in turn approached Philo Remington, the maker of Remington rifles, to help produce and market the new device. The first "Sholes & Glidden Type Writer" was offered for sale to the public in 1874, but was not a commercial success until several years later when the Remington engineers made some improvements to the keyboard." The keyboard itself only had two rows, instead of the five rows we have today, which was more challenging for people to use effectively. 

    The typewriter has had many positive impacts on historical events. For example, it gave women the opportunity to have jobs that paid them besides teaching. A small amount of background information: back then, women were only allowed to get jobs as teachers. Typewriting was seen as a feminine job, making more jobs available for women since there were a limited number of teaching jobs, plus it paid more, motivating women to work. 

    Livia Gershon phrased this era of history as "an era when companies were beginning to hire women for clerical tasks, and Hubert noted that the new technology was a particular boon for female employment. He pointed out that typing generally paid as much or more as teaching, the main professional job open to women at the time."

 This led to more jobs for women besides teaching and typing, like restaurant positions that favored women workers. 

    Believe it or not, Shole's keyboard format is the one we still use today, the QWERTY keyboard, which got its name because those letters are the first ones we see on the keyboard if you look left to right. Rebecca Justinger explains that "the placement of the keys was a specific choice on Sholes' part so as not to jam the moving parts of his machine. In his very first model, Sholes placed the keys in two rows, in alphabetical order." 

    She continues to discuss how "the early letters were placed on the ends of rods called 'typebars.' If two typebars that were located next to each other were used in succession, they would clash with each other." Sholes discovered that the typewriter was significantly less likely to jam if he used the most frequent letter pairs and ensured that their typebars were not adjacent.

The History & Workings of the U.S. Supreme Court

 

    

    What I learned about the Supreme Court that I did not know before was how each Supreme Court Justice is given a case to look over to see if it is constitutionally fair, and if it is not, then they would take it to the other Supreme Court Justices. I initially thought all the Supreme Court Justices looked over every case together to prevent any biased opinions. However, now I see that all the Justices are non-biased, logical thinkers. 

    The most important thing I took away from the videos is that the Supreme Court does not hide any information from the American people. They see no benefit in trying to cover anything up or mislead people for their benefit. I found that necessary because there is always news about companies lying or public figures lying about information to better their image in the media. For the Supreme court to not do that is refreshing and puts my mind at ease, knowing that not all people in power are money and power-hungry but care about the American people.

    What I found to be surprising is how much they respect one another. Political leaders bash each other to make themselves look better and more qualified for a job. In contrast, the Supreme Court leaders work as a team and want to make every case they have been given to be fair with the constitutional guidelines. 

    The video changed how I think about the Supreme Court with the Supreme Court Justices. Before, I did not know much about the Supreme Court, nor was I interested in learning about it. I assumed the Supreme Court Leaders were like politicians and did not care about the cases they were given but more about their paychecks. They put themselves aside to serve the American people better and bring fairness to court. I now respect them as they do each other because I would find it hard not to bring my opinions into my decision-making. 

Eight Values of Free Expression: Protect Dissent

    Dissent is "a strong disagreement or dissatisfaction with a decision or opinion, especially one supported by most people or by people in authority." as defined by Collins Dictionary. This is demonstrated most of the time during a political protests by protesters. As citizens, we are not going to agree with everything done or said by people in power because every person's living "situation" or way of life is not the same as every person, and the government can not always make decisions that favor one set of people. 

   

    However, that has not stopped them before. Democratic leaders are going to make decisions that favor people who are a part of the democratic party/vote for democratic decisions. The same goes for republicans. For example, teachers normally vote democratic because "democrats will fight to significantly increase pay and benefits for all educators, in order to help recruit, retain, and reward high-quality teachers and support professionals, and will continue to support measures to help teachers pay for out-of-pocket classroom expenses," as stated by David Griffith. 

    While republicans think that when it comes to teachers, they "should be protected against frivolous lawsuits and should be able to take reasonable actions to maintain discipline and order in the classroom", David Griffith wrote. Therefore, if you were a teacher, it is a no-brainer which side you would vote for because you want the policies and decisions that improve your salary and working environment. 

    

    Moreover, to dissent, we need to let the government know when we do not agree with their decisions. Granted, the government does not want people to disagree with them, but free speech is our constitutional right. This relates to Steven Shiffrin debating "that dissent should be promoted because it lies at the heart of a core American value: free speech." 

    Americans seem to only remember that they value free speech and that it is their right when the media shoves the decisions they disagree with down their throats. Steven Shiffrin is known to test the limits of free speech by bringing up things like "flag burning, cigarette advertising, racist speech, and subsidizing the arts" because he is trying to show people that there is more to freedom of speech than people realize, especially what is allowed under this right. 

    Furthermore, is proving that by giving "a dissent-based approach reveals weaknesses in the approaches to free speech taken by postmodernism, Republicanism, deliberative democratic theory, outsider jurisprudence, and liberal theory." If people did begin to look beyond the famous that people in power put on to better themselves, then clearer choices would be made when deciding what is best for our country. 

    

    When Biden announced that he would be giving student loan forgiveness, most people did not think of what actions would be needed for this to happen but instead took the "click bait" and hoped for the best. 

    Logically, for this to happen, taxes would be increased on those who have already paid off because it would not come out of the government's pockets; they are already "$31 trillion (and growing) gross federal debt", according to PGPF. People began protesting because not everyone would qualify for the forgiveness because of their salary, amount in student loans, or if they had already paid off their debt. It is good that people are voicing their dissatisfaction with the decision, but most people only know about it since it was advertised on the media, rather than watching the news or doing their own news research.