Blog #12

Last Blog

Overall I really enjoyed blogging. I would always hear people talking about blogging and I would think to my self “what’s all the hype about”. Now that I have done it I understand. I can equate it to an online diary. If anyone has written in a diary they can understand the personal feelings an individual invests in a diary. It holds all a persons thoughts, dreams or passions about anything and everything. Blogging is a way you can express yourself and feel as if you are having a conversation with someone in cyberspace.




It wasn’t frustrating at all except for the commenting part. If I had to go somewhere for the weekend I would sometimes write my blog on Thursday or Friday. At that time virtually no one had there blog written yet so I could not comment on anyone’s blog and as everyone knows that knocks off ten points from your grade. So my suggestion would be to next time having a dead line for the blogs and then a separate deadline for the comments. This would give everyone a chance to make their comments.




I thought writing 250 words every week was going to be hard but it turns out I would always go over that amount. It was a very reasonable task. The topic matter was something I felt strongly about so it did not bother me and I wasn’t at a lack for words. I am a sucker for a cause. I have to say I would take blogging over three to four papers aside from our research paper for the class. It just flowed and it didn’t feel as if I was writing, it was more like talking. When I first started writing the blogs I treated them as if I was writing a technical paper like I was expected to do for other classes. After a while I got the hang of blogging and it became easy because it was as if I was having a discussion between me and my fellow students not just writing down facts with my opinion scattered in between in a paper.


Commenting did help especially when we had to comment about each others research papers, plus it gives a different perspective on your thoughts or confirmation of your thoughts. That is what I feel is most important about blogging, the interaction with other people. This is how it differs from a diary. A diary is only meant for your eyes, its private but bloging is meant for you and anyone who wants to read it. If it didn’t have this aspect about it people could just write in a journal or diary. Why have a blog?



I will definitely continue blogging about many other issues whether it is minor or major so keep checking out my blog. Signing off for now but catch you all later.

Blog # 10

Hello Nayelly,


I was looking over your research paper and I can say that it is very informative on the facts of the issue about the Colorado Rivers. I was unaware of this issue as I am sure many people are so that was good because you made me aware of it. I am glad you chose a topic that isn’t so publicly covered by media because it shows people about the amount of other problems out there in this country.




One of the things I enjoyed reading was the interview between the reporter and the young boy from Colorado who made it a point to take on the role of advocate for the endangered species of fish being affected by the rivers depletion of water and the new dams being built blocking the migration of fish. It engaged me even more to get a personal point of view by an individual who is witnessing the negative effects of this issue, especially such a young person like this boy who took a pro active approach. That’s impressive. This was on the third and fourth pages. I don’t know if you made up this character but if you did it was a great touch because it is convincing and original.





There are a couple of suggestions I have for your research paper. I would like to hear more of your personal feeling on this issue being expressed in the paper somehow; something that shows me your opinion on the issue. Maybe you can express some type of person experience you had that was similar to the issue you are talking about or just express why you feel so strongly about this issue. Maybe it can be because you have a compassion for animals or maybe because your strong belief in how everything natural and living in this world is important and we as human beings have a responsibility to be aware of that and stop negative things like this from happening. Or maybe just the fact that the people of Colorado are suffering in some way and it is disturbing you for reasons which you can state.





The second suggestion is that I would like to know more on the negative repercussions of how the people of Colorado are being affected from the problems with the Rivers. You touch slightly on this and I don’t know if you were working on adding more about it but it does give it a human perspective and not just how it is negatively affecting the fish which is just as important. If you are going to mention how this problem is affecting both beings than try to equally tell both stories. Last Which I am sure we all have to do is fix some of the spelling and grammar.


I did not find anything confusing but there was in the first and second page a bit of repetitiveness when it came to the explanation of why the Rivers were in danger. You kept talking about how there was a lack of sufficient water and you said it in about two paragraphs when you could off said it in one. There is great information in the research paper but I don’t know what authority you got the information from because you do not mention it.



Other than that I feel that all your facts are on point. Maybe you should add a few important comments from an authority or specialist point of view. I also feel the main idea is well thought out and is basically there but you need to tweak it a little bit and you got an A paper.



Hello Fidel,


Your paper is intelligently written and touches on a subject which I find to be extremely important, Environmental Racism. It is amazing all the injustice Haitians had to endure throughout history which incidentally is not the only country who has suffered under the dominant race’s tyranny.



I loved the way your voice came out in the paper. You definitely expressed your passionate opinion about the way the Haitians have been treated unfairly throughout time and how the course of their destruction was a product of European and Western dominance and exploitation. I am assuming your thesis statement is “Economically, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and ranked among the most undeveloped of the world. But, more disastrous is the fact that Haiti is now almost completely deforested and eroded”.




What I found to be extremely interesting was when you stated that, “After the invasion of 1915 the United States established complete political control of Haiti with the convention Haitiano-Americaine. However, the final drop that spilled the water occurred in 1918 with the introduction of a new constitution in Haiti under the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. But this measure was opposed by even the Haitian elite. Americans then proceeded to dissolve “the parliament and put the question to plebiscite” (Farmer 92). Upon arriving at voting stations people were given white ballots that said: yes. Interestingly enough 99.9% of Haitians approved the new constitution”. This really got me infuriated and got me very emotionally involved in the paper.




There was only one complaint and that was the really long paragraphs which are the third paragraph to the sixth paragraph and take up about 2 ½ pages. It is about the atrocious history of the Haitians not to say it was not important but I feel you went into it a little to far in depth when you could have given a round about idea of the invasions and exploitation of Haitians with less text. It became a bit tedious. Other than that I adored your paper.




The paper was clear as a whistle with its points and not boring at all. It did not have a fictional character which I think would be nice to hit home with your already passionate and emotional paper. The draft states the sources and I do not think you need to go to the writing center you just need to fix a couple of parts that go on to long about the history and add a personal story to the paper through a fictional character.

I am floored by my topic


Everything that I have become aware of this semester in this class has been great but at the same time disturbing. The way human beings abuse this earth is atrocious and I can’t help to feel like a contributor at times. But for some reason when I see how corporation not only abuses the earth but also people at the same time it makes me even more frustrated.


My paper as you all know is about environmental racism and it specifically focuses on the high cases of asthma among children in Harlem that some believe to be the cause of the overload of pollution coming from the MTA’s bus depots located there. The more research I do about this issue the more and more I get disgusted. Public officials neglecting the issue, wealthy CEO’s who become richer and don’t care how and the ignorance involved with the repercussions of this environmental problem.


I come back to my senses after a while but I can’t help but to get mad. If people don’t get frustrated or mad a times they become content and compliant, so we need to get mad to get things done. On the flip side there are a lot of good people forming pro active organizations to try and stop problems like these from going on. I can’t help to wonder though what would happen if we didn’t have people who were willing to take the time and effort to dedicate themselves to causes that help other people; then what would these individuals who are suffering and can’t help themselves do? That’s why we need to spread the word so that more people could become involved.



Here is a link to an organization called WE ACT that is helping the asthma issue in Harlem, just in case you would like to find out more about this problem:

http://www.weact.org/

Hope everyone’s paper is going well.

Blog # 8

My topic has finally been narrowed down. I will focus on the connection between the high cases of asthma amongst children in Harlem New York and the high level of air pollution due to the concentration of bus depots in the area. I found it amazing that there have been many articles written about the extraordinarily high cases of asthma in Harlem but very few have made the correlation between that and the air pollution in the area because of the bus depots. What is even more amazing is that certain doctors have called these cases of asthma a mystery. A mystery, are they kidding? Aren’t they supposed to be knowledgeable about the causes of these medical conditions? I think this is a no brainier. This topic is some what personal for me because there is a large number of minorities that live in Harlem and they are suffering the effects of environmental racism. I can relate because I grew up in an area of Queens called Astoria which is predominantly Greek but the area of Astoria I lived in was very close to Astoria projects and it had a large minority population including myself and my family. It was also located next to Con Edison’s biggest power plant in all of the tri-state area. This plant had toxic waste coming in and out of its facility on a regular basis and it also had a waste dumping ground for these toxic materials on the premises. This caused health issues for the residents in the area especially the children and it was never directly linked to the plant even until this day despite the fact that community officials were constantly trying to fight the plants permits from being renewed every time it was time to renew it because they stated that it was compromising to the residents health. I was lucky enough not to be affected by the pollution or at least till this day I have not suffered any physical affects that I am aware of. I can not say the same for my children who were also raised in the area for the first half of their infancy and toddler years who developed infant asthma which I believe was partly due to the toxins in the area caused by the plant. I wish I would have been aware of the possibilities of the affects the plant’s toxic exposure might have on people in the neighborhood because maybe I could have prevented my children’s early health issues. This is the reasons I am writing about this topic because I feel that people who are unable to defend themselves from injustices such as environmental racism due to ignorance should have help and the proper information to educate themselves on these issues so they can prevent it from going on any further. Just as I wrote in my last blog I want my paper to be able to be used as a reference for students researching the topic. I would also like the reader to be able to use my paper as they would a web site or a pamphlet which is to get direct simple answers to questions they have on the issue, assuming they were even aware of the issue. I plan to find sources that hint at or directly make a connection between the cases of asthma in Harlem and the air pollution. I hope to get this information from environmental organizations and civil rights groups in the area of New York. I will also look for sources that state the opposing view to here the other side of the story, something tells me a lot of those sources will be written or linked to industry itself. Some of the sources I already found are articles such as “Where the air leaves Them Breathless” By Laura Rivera in The City Weekly Desk; Neighborhood Report which I found in Lexis Nexsis. Another article is “Elevated Asthma and Indoor Environmental Exposures Among Puerto Rican Children of East Harlem” by Sally Findley PhD and Colleges Which I found in Lexis Nexsis. My thesis is going to be: The overwhelming pollution from the bus depots located in Harlem are causing the record braking numbers of asthma amongst children in the area which is the product of environmental racism.