Hong Kong McDonald's

In the article “McDonald’s in Hong Kong: Consumerism, Dietary Change, and the Rise of a Children’s Culture,” James L. Watson discusses the booming success of McDonald’s in Hong Kong along with his experience visiting one. I have personally visited a McDonald’s in Hong Kong before and in many other countries as well. I have made it a goal of mine to visit a McDonald’s in as many countries as possible and plan to visit them in other countries moving forward. I will continue to do so just because I find it very interesting to experience the many differences and/or similarities to the McDonald’s restaurants in the United States.

I was curious to read this article because when I visited the McDonald’s in Hong Kong, I found it rather fascinating how different the experience was versus how it has been for me in the United States. Hong Kong’s McDonald’s restaurants are chock full of surprises. First off, I found it strange that the children in Hong Kong choose to have their birthday parties at McDonald’s. Even though children from the United States also have their birthday parties at McDonald’s, it shocked me because I thought that they would follow more traditional ways of celebrating. In addition, their menu includes some very interesting selections like soy milk, Thai chicken wings, and macaroni and cheese toasties. I was also fascinated by the service that was provided. I was not expecting an employee to personally deliver my food to me and also take my plate when I was finished. It made me feel somewhat guilty. I know wages are low in Hong Kong so it also made me feel the need to tip the employee since it was obviously the reason they were doing it. Most of the McDonald’s restaurants are open 24 hours a day and are always full of people, even when it is 5:00 am, which is when I happened to visit. There are even children doing their homework and homeless old men catching up on their sleep. On the other hand, just like in the United States, I didn’t see any recycling bins which is the one thing that didn’t surprise me. I plan to visit at least one McDonald’s in every other country I travel to going forward so that I can experience how culturally different they are from the ones in the United States.

Read the article here: http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/mcdonaldsinhk.pdf

Ida Husted Harper

Ida Husted Harper was a well-known journalist and advocate for women’s rights during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the United States women’s suffrage movement was occurring. Ida wrote for countless newspapers all over the United States about various articles on women’s issues.

Ida Harper was born on February 18th, 1851 in a small town located in the state of Indiana called Fairfield. Ida lived in Fairfield for approximately ten years until she and her family packed their bags and moved to the city of Muncie, Indiana. After Ida graduated from high school at the age of 17, she decided to attend college at Indiana University. That is until she dropped out to become a teacher and also a high school principal in Peru, Indiana. Not too long after, Ida got married to a man named Thomas Winans Harper and relocated to Terre Haute, Indiana where they gave birth to a girl named Winnifred Harper. Later on, Winnifred also became a writer. Since Ida’s husband was not only an attorney but also a politician, he had many strong connections in the city of Terre Haute, connections that allowed Ida to write woman’s columns for the Terre Haute Daily News. Even though she did so without Thomas’ approval. In 1887, Ida began to focus on women’s voting rights and even helped create a women’s suffrage society in Indiana. Ida’s impressive and brilliant writing skills helped her become the Secretary of the women’s suffrage society.

A few years later, Ida and her husband realized they were unhappily married and eventually got a divorce. But this didn’t slow Ida down. She immediately moved to Indianapolis with her daughter and got a job working for the Indianapolis News. A few more years went by and Ida was still writing columns for newspapers. Ida and her daughter then set foot on a journey to the state of beautiful California where Ida began taking classes at Stanford University. In 1896, Ida committed her time to be a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association where she spent a lot of time working with Susan B. Anthony, a women’s rights crusader. While Ida served as the press relations leader for their campaign towards a state suffrage amendment, her and Anthony became close friends. Anthony eventually asked Ida to move to Rochester, New York to become her official biographer after seeing how well she did with the campaign. Ida then left California and headed to New York where she lived with Anthony and wrote and published three volumes about Susan B. Anthony’s life and work. Ida stayed persistent with her activism in the suffrage movement and later died on March 14th, 1931 in Washington, D.C. from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 80.


Work of Ida Husted Harper:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15220/15220-h/15220-h.htm

Political Cartoon

Political cartoons are meant to be funny and ironic but at the same time informative and somewhat persuasive. The main purpose of a political cartoon is to make the person viewing it reflect upon the political issue being presented. They are also created in hopes of swaying people towards the illustrator’s views. Although I haven’t created my political cartoon yet, I have already planned out how I will design it. I have learned a lot about the negative effects of plastic on our marine life and the strong impact it has on tourism and economies in various countries. Numerous efforts from many different countries are being taken in order to protect the Earth’s marine life but human pollution is tough to fight. The garbage we currently produce, especially plastic, is not only ending up in our oceans but also into the stomachs of fish. Fish that we consume! According to many scientists and their findings, most of the seafood sold in markets have been found to have a disturbing amount of plastic inside of them.

Deciding what to create for my political cartoon came quick and easy for me. I wanted to make my cartoon fun and interesting to look at while also allowing the people viewing it to understand what is being shown. Therefore, I would draw a fish and place it on top of a dinner table with a clear view of the inside of its stomach, and inside of its stomach, would be plastic garbage like water bottles and straws. I would draw this for my political cartoon because I want viewers to receive the message that pollution in our oceans has become a global crisis. I think this cartoon idea would be effective and also ironic because it shows people that our pollution is effecting ourselves first-hand, which causes viewers to look deeper into the issue of pollution and be more aware of their actions. There are many seafood eaters out there, including myself, and if we continue pollution at the rates they are we could eventually have more plastic in our oceans than we do fish! So how can we phase the consumption of plastic out of our lifestyles? There are many ways we can reduce consumption but some include spreading the word, quit drinking bottled water, shop with reusable shopping bags, and recycle properly.

Julian Assange's Innocence

A whistleblower is anybody who reveals illegal or unethical information or activities that occur within a company or government, and they have been around for quite some time now. The United States government has had a long history of disliking whistleblowers and have dealt with them through many forms of unfair punishment, mainly because they don’t appreciate when the truth is revealed to the public. In some cases, articles are written about these whistleblowers being heroes, but many others deem them as traitors. Recently, a whistleblower case regarding a journalist and editor from Australia named Julian Assange has been up for strong debate. In 2006, Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, a website that was created with the purpose of gathering and sharing confidential information to the public. In 2010, WiKiLeaks came to international attention when they published United States documents about the war in Iraq. In 2012, Sweden had tried to charge Assange with rape, so he immediately sought refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange was also afraid that the United States would try to put him in jail. Little did he know, the U.S. government was spying on him during his time at the embassy and had even placed cameras and microphones in his bathroom. Seven years passed and Assange was still in hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy. That is until he was arrested for skipping bail and is now currently being held in a British maximum-security prison.

There has been a rising concern that this punishment is too extreme for Assange’s whistleblowing acts and personally I agree. The prison holds some of the most dangerous and ruthless criminals. He has little to no contact with anyone and is forcefully confined for 23 hours a day. Doctors have even begun to worry about Assange’s health, saying he is close to death. In my opinion, Julian Assange is a victim and is going through an ugly form of torture for just doing his job and speaking the truth. The United States government has no right to put Assange through such harsh treatment when he hasn’t even been charged with anything. I think Assange’s whistleblowing acts was him being ethical and don’t understand why the first amendment doesn’t protect him against this. As a U.S. citizen, I feel that I have the right to know when illegal or unjust activities are occurring and Assange helped people discover the truth and allowed the world to focus on important issues. These days, being active in politics is important because it is how we fight for what we want and have a voice and freedom of speech. I am baffled by the fact that whistleblowers release stories about wrongdoings, corruption, and crime but the people who do all of those injustices are given zero punishment while the journalists/whistleblowers get punished. How do the U.S. laws still apply to Assange if he wasn’t even an American citizen? It isn’t fair that the U.S. government had enough power to reach into another country, pull him out and place him in prison. They interfered with another country’s government.

Julian Assange arrested at Ecuadorian embassy:https://youtu.be/8oqJiNzJQ_E