Sunday, October 12, 2008
Help fight hunger!!!
Link for the game:
http://www.freerice.com/index.php
About their cause:
http://www.freerice.com/about.html
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Another Great, Meaningful Song!
(You can hear the song on youtube at this link)
(Lyrics from this site)
Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
Shes lost in peaceful dreams
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark
And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart
(chorus)
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That shes my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes
'Cause Ive lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret
That my true feelings for them never were revealed
So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance
Where there's no second chance to tell her how I feel
*chorus*
So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Being Free...
In America I am financially free. I may not have the millions that everyone dreams they could have but I have the choices and the resources available to me that I can utilize to create my life. Financially, my life is what I make it.
In America I am free to think and to say, with the proper tones, whatever it is that I want to say. It is my choice if I want my religion, family or any other external influence to have a say in how to run my life. Because of the utmost respect that I have for my family and religion, I allow them to have a say in how my life runs however, any decision I make is mine and although I listen to what everyone has to say, no one, in America, has the power to make my decisions for me.
Many foreigners really do have the wrong idea of how Americans really are. They let the few Girls Gone Wild tapes, racy teen movies, and tabloid headlines represent the entire American population. Of the many lessons that I have learned so far (and hopefully I will be blessed to never stop learning) is that one should never let a stereotype of an individual tarnish the way that you view them. If I applied the stereotypes that I knew of every culture to each person that I met, then I would have a very limited circle of friends and an even smaller scope of knowledge. Let's take the French for example. The main stereotype for them is that they smell terrible and have terrible politics. But who doesn't? I can't think of one country in the entire world that doesn't have at least one person with a foul body odor nor can I think of one country whose politics can't be criticized. The whole idea is to not let a silly stereotype keep you from seeing the good in everything.
In America, as long as I respect my government, my family, and my religious institution, I can do, say, and be what I want.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
My Hindi Phrases
Thursday, April 24, 2008
My Case Study on Argentina & Effects of Peronism
Argentina :
A Case Study on Peronism
Without change, how can there be progress? As seen so many times in the history of Latin America populist caudillo governments are slow to accept change. With the constant cries from both the laborers for reform and from the elite for maintenance of the status quo, it is difficult for these leaders to significantly develop their nations. However, Argentina , today displays itself in the top three for Human Development Index of all Latin American countries (World Bank). Although Argentina ’s development process has been significantly more successful than most other Latin American countries, their success has been subdued due to the infamous effects of political instability, populism and caudillismo.
Political History of Argentina
In order to have a successful nation there are two key elements that must be established in order to maintain a stable nation. One is the question of political rule. The people must decide whether or not they want a leader who can be democratic or authoritarian. Under the category of choosing a preferential type of government also falls the question of centralization. This is a subcategory that must be established as well. The second key element is the preferred economic system. In an ideal world a leader will take time to gather relevant information as to how to go about modernizing and improving their country.
As the first leaders of
Nevertheless, Lee states that although these men provided a good basis for establishing the young
In addition, the immigrant population brought forth a middle class. In traditional
Through this manner of governing, a deep gap was created, setting the stage for a social uprising. Additionally, it is within the nature of the economic system that modernization occurs whether initiated by a government itself or through the involuntary method of globalization. Samuel Huntington developed a theory known as the “gap hypothesis” (Adelman, 244). This idea essentially states that as modernization occurs, standards and expectations increase without the consideration as to whether or not the system in question is able to meet the higher demands. Thus, a gap is created pending disaster and the possibility of unrest is heightened when governments do not reform to meet demands.
This is exactly the case with
Consequently, it was not the government who “dealt with” bridging the gap, rather it was a political party that would begin to ensure the needs of the laborers. In 1916, the Radical Party came to power (Lee, 562). This party was the representative of the middle and lower classes. Lee articulates that as a result of the rise of the Radical party the inert approach of the elite “began for the first time to develop defensive attitudes toward social change and development” (Lee, 562-3).
Henceforth, Lee’s titled article, Argentine Political Instability: A Crisis of Simultaneous Quest for Authority and Equality, comes to fruition. Although lower and middle classes had legitimate representation in government, a tell-tale sign of a growing democracy, “Argentine governments [still] tended to cater to the needs of only…the upper class” (Lee, 563).
It was in an essay by Jose Lucero where the stated that “uprisings and revolutions provoked nightmares in the criollo elite imagination of subaltern sectors waiting like volcanoes to erupt” (Lucero, 30). Better said, the mounting unrest was similar to waiting on a volcano to erupt, the great time there is for the pressure to accumulate the more fury there is to be release when everything falls apart.
Yet, in every tragic story, there is a hero who comes to pull everything together again. Juán Perón rose up as a populist leader with new and vibrant ideas to reform
Due to the earlier immigration ideas of Alberdi and Sarmiento, an excess immigrant population had been formed in
Peronism
Perón, through his healthy and numerous relations with various labor parties and workers (unionized and not), became such an appealing leader to the lower and middle class especially with his promises of “state jobs and upward social mobility” (Ciria, 22). Ciria also states that Perón’s appeal for every other citizen was a “[fostering] of nationalism,
Once in power, Perón created the Peronist Party, or the Partido Peronista (PP), which consequently incorporated all of his supporters under one umbrella party (23). Everyone else that he did not have under his party, Perón’s wife at the time-Evita-slowly but surely included them into their national movement.
To add to his popularity, Perón and his wife always followed a policy of direct communication with their followers. It was in this manner that his charisma was able to be seen by Argentineans’ living inside and outside of the major cities (24).
Nevertheless Perón, who enjoyed success in the political arena, failed to adequately address the needs of the economy. Everything looked fine at the beginning, foreign investors were plentiful, light industry was coming to realization, and gross national product (GNP) was on the rise (24). However, as the years moved along, little else was done to embrace free trade and even less was done to keep foreign investors in the country. Perón engaged in spending money everywhere else, such as in the army, as opposed to improving infrastructure. Investors began to back out when
In September 1955, Juan Perón was overthrown through a military golpe de estado due to his unfavorable actions with the Argentine economy. After a short military rule, elections were held in 1957 and all Peronist affiliated parties were forbidden to run. Even again, in 1963 these parties were banned from participating (25).
Peronism Reformed
Despite the banishment of the PP, the various bureaucratic authoritarian regimes (BAU), of which there were many, and through the many general elections held, it is seen that not one group came to power without exhibiting some form of the Peronist ideals. For example, Frondizi was able to win a majority vote by appealing to the Peronists by means of promising “to restore legality for the party, recognize the workers’ confederation, and re-implement some nationalist programs” from the era (26).
The elite were more than overjoyed while Perón was in exile, as they regularly describe Peronismo as the hecho maldito (James, 276). The more that the PP was repressed, the harder it fought to rise, though not always under the Peronist name. Many new parties were created during this time frame that were still Peronist by nature but for the sake of political participation were not the same names (James, 273).
New party names include: the Revolutionary Peronist Youth, Revolutionary Peronist Movement, and others. More importantly than the new names, were the new unions and groups that were formed. One social combative union was the Huerta grande under Frondizi, which increased workers’ living standards (277-8) while another new PP was called the Partido Justicialista (Corradi, 14). Guerilla groups formed, mostly by youth, called Juventud Universitaria Peronista and Juventud Argentina por la Emancipación Nacional (JAEN)(James, 282-3). Many of the youth groups, although rooted in Peronism, actually dispelled Peronist ideals in a way since much of the younger generation concentrated more on getting heard than actually developing an Argentine identity (Ciria, 29).
Peronism Today
Nevertheless, Peronism leaves its mark, even today in everyday Argentinean politics. The current president of
Conclusion
In the actual Argentine Politics, Peronism is still seen in two different lights. Though there are still those that swear by it, there are others who believe that Peronism, at the end of the day, is just a populist method of governing. However insignificant or significant it may be today, Peronism undoubtedly had many lasting effects in the politics of the region. Peronistic ideals reached even as far as
References
Adelman, Jeremy. Reflections on Argentine Labour and the Rise of Perón. Bulletin of Latin American Research. Vol 11, No 3 (Sept, 1992) pg. 243-259. www.jstor.org/stable/3338863
Arcenaux, C.L. Institutional Design, Military Rule, and Regime Transition in Agentina (1976-1983): An Extension of the Remmer Thesis. Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol 16, No 3 (1997) pp 327-350. www.jstor.org/stable3338946
Brennan, James P. Review of Peronism without Perón: Unions, Parties, and Democracy in
Ciria, Alberto. Peronism Yesterday and Today. Latin American Perspectives. Vol 1, No 3 (Autumn, 1974) pp 21-41. www.jstor.org/stable/2633118.
Corradi, Juan.
DeRouen, Karl and
Eaton, Karl. Can Politicians Control Bureaucrats? Applying Theories of Politica Control to
James, Daniel. The Peronist Left, 1955-1975. Journal of Latin American Studies. Vol 8, No 2 (Nov, 1976) pp 273-296. www.jstor.org/stable/156528.
Lee, Manwoo. Argentine Political Instability: A Crisis of Simultaneous Quest for Authority and Equality. Journal of Inter-American Studies, Vol 11, No 4 (Oct, 1969). Pp 558-570. www.jstor.org.
Lucero, Jose. Locating the "Indian Problem": Community, Nationality, and Contradiction in Ecuadorian Indigenous Politics. Latin American Perspectives, Vol 30, No 1. (Jan, 2003) pp 23-48. www.jstor.org.
Munck, Ronaldo. Democratization and Demilitarization in
Sax, David. The Power Behind Peronism. Foreign Policy, No 144 (Sept-Oct, 2004) pp 86-87.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
New Semester
1. Register/sign up for my OPI, Wisconsin exam, and exit interview
2. Apply for graduation...ya it's a little late and my name won't be in the program...but I get to walk! :D
3. Organize my Adopt-a-Spot project for MUN
4. Register for MUN to do community service during ODU's first annual International Festival!
5. Finish the agenda for my officer meeting Thursday
6. Present my merit system to Prof. Fornella
7. Tutor
8. Create a course outline to tutor one child in elementary school
9. Work (City of Norfolk and Blockbuster)
10. Almost forgot...Homework! Which includes buying the books that BOTH of my university bookstores are out of. :(
11. Keep tweaking my resume and sending it off to a million different places.
12. Talk to some military recruiters!
And the highlight!!!...
Talk with मेरा जान!
So ya, note to self...Find and hire a secretary!!! :D lol
Monday, January 7, 2008
My weekend!!!
I saw two movies this weekend...The Great Debaters and National Treasure:Book of Secrets. They were very nice.
I also has a very soul searching discussion with a very good friend about one of the few words in the world that excites me and scares me at the same time: शादी . Ya...the other word, or should I say phrase, that can give me the same feeling is: children. That's a lot to discuss and think about.
On the one hand, I can't wait to share experiences with the love of my life but on the other, I think that it is such a difficult concept to fathom. Especially since I am 20. Who can say that they are truly prepared, at 20 years old, to have kids? I can see getting married, but kids? Even thinking 4-5 years from now, I just don't see myself with kids. I know it's odd since I work with kids every day at work, and I think i'm pretty good at it. But with those kids, at the end of the day, they go home to their own parents. I don't know if I can give up my style of living for a child. Heaven knows having a husband will be just about the same...lol. Just kidding :D
I just feel that there is so much that I can do. As I am graduating this spring/summer, I am very confused as to what I want to do with my future. I would love to go to school and get my MA in translation or something, but on the other hand I would also love to work for some agency like the State Department or something. Even though I'm not an expert in international relations, I think I can do a pretty good job at it.
Oh my gosh, that got me thinking about Model UN. As president of the society, I have a hard task in front of me for the upcoming semester. I need to get my proposal for a MUN merit system approved by Professor Fornella and somehow figure out how to "bring the spirit of the UN back into MUN". Ya...a lot of work.
So I have decided that I will aid my research with a trip to the UN in NY! This weekend I will be in Jersey to visit Siva (and to go to Canal st. for another purse!) and I will also visit the Guggenheim Museum. I can't wait!
Until next time!!!