Ne paruski?

Yesterday, I read an interesting article in the Kleine Zeitung, written by Alexander Widner for his column "Letters from New York". In the article, he talks about his experiences with American Russians.

First of all, Widner describes the residential neighbourhood Sheepshead Bay in southern Brooklyn where the common language is Russian instead of English and the cyrillic alphabet is as common as the latin one. If somebody asks you a question in Russian and you don't understand it people will be astonished. Ne paruski? That's what you're asked if you don't know Russian there.

Sheepshead Bay is a Russian settlement area. The last spate of immigrants arrived in the 90's, predominantly Russian Jews and many many old people. They are no longer dreaming of starting a new life, they don't think about the American Dream. Welfare check, free housing, food from the Kosher Food Network of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. No life in luxury but still they emmigrated? Why?

"It's no life in affluence but it's secure. And it hasn't always been. I wanted, at least once in my life, live unmolested, without all this anti-Semitic crap that is still alive in Russia."

That's what a 70 year old woman said, in very broken English. She lives in the ghetto and can't leave it. Not because she's forced to stay but because she couldn't communicate and cope with the life outside Little Odessa.

A young man joins the conversation of Alexander Widner and the old lady. He says that he had actually planned to stay in Vienna but got abused because of his skullcap after three days. That's when he realised that he had to continue his journey. He says that there's no big distance between being abused and being beaten up and so he went to the USA. His family stayed in Vienna. They now have a big house, a lot of money and an enterprise that works out really well. But that's not what he wanted. He only wanted to live as a Jew, in peace.
He now can live his life in peace with a wife, two children and a job. It is very important to him that English is the first language for his children and Russian only the second one because he wants to make a life outside Little Odessa possible for them.

By the way: Just arround the corner there are two adjacent buildings: A mosque and a Jewish school. "No, there have never been incidents due to the coexistence. Why should there be?" says Esther, a teacher at the Jewish school.

Yes... Why should there be?

High School at Home - A different path

Today, I read an interesting Newsweek article that I will briefly summarize. After that, I will write what I think about homeschooling.

In the United States, more and more parents prefer to educate their teenagers at home. In 2001, more than a million students in the USA were being home schooled, which means that there has been an increase of 29% in two years. But it is not only the parents who are increasingly attracted by it, there are also many teenagers who don’t like going to school but don’t want to drop out either and who therefore suggest home schooling to their parents.

Opinions on the topic vary since just like with everything there are advantages and disadvantages.

Critics argue that an important part of teenager’s social life takes place in the school they attend and that they learn for life there. In school, they have to learn how to cope with many different people and they learn a lot concerning social interaction. In their opinion, homeschooled children can easily bet isolated and have a hard time making friends.
Another point of critique for opponents is that teenagers, when being homeschooled, miss out on formative events like the prom or graduation.

Supporters argue that being homeschooled makes the life of teenagers a lot easier. At home, they are save from the violence in schools that is constantly increasing, and peer pressure can be avoided more easily as well. They also have a clear refutation to the isolation argument: Isolation is not a question of homeschooling but a question of parenting. Advocates argue that the majority of parents do get out with their kids and do a lot with them.
Prom and graduation is also no valuable argument in their eyes. They don’t miss out on that because homeschooling groups organise such events as well by inviting the whole community, awarding diplomas and holding speeches.

In my opinion, homeschooling really is not a good thing to do. I strongly think that the teenagers miss out on a lot of experiences that they would have if they were in a normal high school. Of course, school is annoying for every student, but the social component definitely has to be considered. In high school, I met many of my present-day best friends and I often think back to the time there. All those school trips are really something I wouldn’t like to miss, and although I complained a lot about school, I loved going there. On graduation day, I was really sad that school was over!
Another point I am a bit worried about is the standard of education. Of course, the different states have regulations concerning homeschooling, but who is able to control what the children are actually being taught? Evolutionist parents will never tell their children about Darwin, and so the children won’t have the chance to make their own opinion on the topic. And that’s what I consider very problematic. Parents only teach what they want their children to know, and thereby they could be deprived of a lot of knowledge.

On the other hand, I think that homeschooling is a good opportunity for children or teenagers that are bullied in school and just can’t stand that any longer.

Still I think that homeschooling shouldn’t be chosen as an easy way out because homeschooled children will lack a lot of experience and beautiful memories later on.

Culture Shock

Today, I had another look at the first progress test, in order to get some kind of idea what today's questions will be like, or maybe Charmed-like, a vision of the future...

But nothing happend, bad luck Birgit!

But at least I thought about the Culture Shock topic again, remembered an article I once read and here you are, the five stages of Culture Shock!

The first stage is called Honeymoon. You arrive in a new country, everything is new and you are very excited about everything.

Soon after that stage of enthusiasm follows stage two: Rejection. You get used to things and realize that you will have to live and work in this place from now on. You recognize many differences to your home country and they really start annoying you. Troubles add up and you develop hostility towards your host country.

This leads to the third step called Regression: You start to withdraw, start to avoid the local people, and as a consequence, they’ll start avoiding you as well.

After that, things start to get easier again, in a stage called Acceptance: You realise that no way of living is better or worse, but that they are just different, and you start to develop affection for your new home.

Subsequently, you enter the stage of Re-entry. You realise that you have to go home again. And returning isn’t easy either because things change, there is also some kind of re-entry shock.

In the end, the author concludes that you can’t prevent culture-shock from happening, but that you can shorten the process by realizing that you neither have to reject your own, nor the new culture.

Two approaches to illegal immigration

Saturday, rain, nothing on the TV, so why not use the time and do some reading? I started with Under the Tuscan Sun, and I like it better with every page. What I like most is the fact that I don't have to have a dictionary next to me all the time, which happened to be the case when reading JWI. BUT: I fell asleep... Frances Mayes' talking about the Italian siesta led to my personal siesta...

So when I woke up, face on the book, book and face crinkled, I decided to try something else. Next stop: Here on Earth. I listened to a radio show about language and class which was really interesting, and at first, I wanted to write about it in my blog. But since there are a lot of dialects to listen to, it wouldn't have made sense, so just listen to it yourself. But I have to warn you, you might get jealous. One of Jean Feraca's guest is able to speak 26 ( in words: twenty-six) languages fluently!!!!!!

The second program I listened to was called "Why the world loves soccer and we don't". But to my disappointment, Jean Feraca wasn't able to solve this mistery...

So I decided to turn to reading again, I read a few articles, and I want to tell you about one I found quite interesting. A Newsweek article titled

Two approaches to illegal immigration

In the article, 2 communties and two ways of facing the influx of illegal immigrants.

In suburban New York, everything is done to get rid of them. Suffolk County Police have orders to bear down on illegal workers by targeting their employers with traffic fines (no, this is NOT a joke). A Suffolk County Executive is of the opinion that all labor laws have to be enforced, but since this is not enough (in his eyes), new laws will be introduced as well. One of these new laws will require employers with county business to prove all workers are legal. Workers who are there illegaly will be arrested immediately, and federal officers will be stationed there to deport arrested illegal aliens.

New Haven, Connecticut, does just the opposite. The City Hall sponsors tax filing centers where no questions are asked concerning who is there legally. Many say that New Haven is becoming a so called sanctuary city because it wants to help undocumented residents get city services or bank accounts by introducing a municipal ID card. The mayor of the city says that it is important to engage everyone who lives in the community positively, that "New Haven's goal is to be a safe, civil place where people are able to fulfill their ambitions".

I don't want to comment on this since this is a very diverse topic and this issue is definitely a hard one for politics all over the world.

Should schools conduct random drug tests?

Last week the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced that it will be holding four meetings to decide whether there will be random student drug testing in public middle and high-schools. This program has already been introduced in nearly 1000 schools and requires students to do a drug-test if they wish to participate in competitive extracurricular activities like athletics.
Schools have been doing it voluntarily since the 1990’s, but when the Supreme Court stepped in it became more formalized. Once grants from the Department of Education were available, guidelines were developed.

How then does the whole procedure work?
First, a child is chosen at random and asked to go to the nurse’s office where it has to deposit a urine sample. This sample is then tested for cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and steroids. If students test positive, the school will remove them from their extracurricular activities for the rest of the year, and sometimes even for the rest of their school career. Some schools provide counselling, but this always depends on the school’s financial situation.

Of course, opinions on this topic differ.
Proponents like to talk about one statistic in particular. The U.S. military has been doing such tests for 20 years, and the results are phenomenal. In the beginning, 27% of the tested were positive, and in the course of less than a decade there has been a steep decline. Now, only 1.5 % of the tested are positive, and this number has been steady for years.
Opponents are not sure about the moral correctness of applying a military program to school children. Soldiers are very different from high-school students and therefore should also be treated differently. Critics back up their argument with a statistic as well. Researchers compared 94 000 students in 900 schools with and without drug-testing programs. The result? There was no difference in drug-abuse among students from the two sets of schools.
Another argument against such programs is the message that is being delivered to the young people. Shouldn’t we believe them when they tell us that they don’t do drugs rather than test them? Many have concerns that testing can weaken the relationships, widen the generation-gap, hinder open communication and stop students from participating in extracurricular activities. This last point is especially problematic, since these activities help students to feel integrated and connected.
Finally, there is the question of privacy. Does random drug-testing violate the student’s rights to privacy? In this case, the proponents are the ones with the stronger argument. Of course, privacy is very important for adolescents. But if children are doing something illegal that can harm them, the more important value has be to protect them.
And that’s what opponents and proponents agree on.

Creationism: A Museum for Middle America

Believe it or not, but in late May, a Creation Museum will open its gates in Petersburg, Kentucky. The project was brought into being by Ken Ham, a former high-school biology and zoology teacher who felt he wouldn't be consistent if he taught evolution while believing in the literal truth of the Bible. So one he and his students visited a natural-history museum in which evolution was presented as a fact, he came up with the plan of opening a Creation Museum.

Creationists believe in the Garden of Eden, they think that the world is 6000 years old, that God created man and animals simultaneously and that the flood wiped out every living creature that wasn't inside Noah's ark.
The museum focuses on Genesis, the first book of the Bible and actually offers a lot to see. There is a special effects theater ( when the flood comes, seats start to shake and water squirts around), the story of the Bible is told through videos, voice-overs, models and mural paintings, there is a gargantuan replica of Noah's Ark and even a planetarium. The costs? $26 million...

Jason Lisle, who is in charge of the planetarium, has a very interesting point of view: "Science comes out of a Biblical worldview. We don't try to prove the Bible from outside evidence. We accept the Bible as presupposition."

Ham often asks evolutionists how they can gain knowledge from the past if they hadn't been there, and if people ask him the same question, he answers: "Man by himself couldn't have written such a consistent, non-contradictory book."

The museum expects 250 000 visitors in the first year, and if we consider that last year a poll found out that 58% of the interviewed support the idea of teaching creationism along with evolution in schools, this is likely to happen.

Interracial Marriage in the USA

Today, I read a quite interesting Newsweek article about interracial marriages in the USA.

June 12th: Loving vs. Virginia. Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred, his black wife, got married in 1958, in Washington D.C. BUT: In Virginia there was a statute barring whites from marrying non-whites ( maybe this finally is a politically correct word ;)). So on June 12th, the Supreme Court ruled that Virginia couldn't criminalize this marriage, the statute was knocked down, and with it many similar statutes in other US States.

And what once seemed so radical is commonplace now. Nice to hear, isn't it?

According to the census bureau, there were 65 000 interracial marriages in 1970, and the number amounted to 422 000 in 2005. In 2005 there were 59 million married couples, 7% of them interracial.

The result of this tendency, and the fact that immigrants from all over the world are coming to America, is a 21st century America that is more diverse than ever.

“The racial divide in the U.S. is a fundamental divide. ... but when you have the ’other’ in your own family, it’s hard to think of them as ’other’ anymore. We see a blurring of the old lines, and that has to be a good thing, because the lines were artificial in the first place.”

Sounds great, doesn't it? But of course, there will always be people who are against such relationships...

What I considered rather shocking was the fact that a university in South Carolina didn't drop it's ban on interracial dating until the year 2000. Can you imagine that? How can anybody expect today's young people to be open-minded and tolerant if things like that happen in universities???

Not shocked enough? Well, I've got something else for you! When Alabama wanted to remove it's ban on interracial marriage in 2001, 40% of the people were against it.

Considering all this, it's no wonder that multiracial families are often confronted with problems, if not to say hate. Taunts, crossburnings and threats happen from time to time, not too often. The problems biracial families are having are more nuanced. Kids that are being asked what they are doing here, black adults that can hardly find any white friends. And sadly enough, not even the families accept the decision of their, lets say kids, to marry somebody from another race. And it's not only the whites that don't accept a black person in their families, it also happend vice versa.

Lets face the facts: Racism is, and always will be, a big issue in a meltingpot like the USA, and also everywhere else.

But it's good to know that there are people who face the challenge and just do what their hearts tell them :)

Oh I'm such a romantic soul... :)

"It was almost impossible to believe, and too much to bear."

January 1979:
Brenda Spencer, 17, is given a rifle as a present for christmas, goes to school and starts shooting around. 15 injured, 2 dead.
Why? She said she didn't like Mondays...

March 1987:
Nathan Ferris, 12, kills a boy who was making fun of him and kills himself after that. He told a friend of his not to go to school that day, which shows that he planned to shoot somebody, but nobody tried to prevent it from happening.
Why? He was getting sick of being teased all the time...

November 1995:
Jamie Rouse, 17, goes to school and shoots two teachers in the head. He tries to kill his football coach as well, but a female student crossed his path and was shot instead. Really shocking: He smiled when he was aiming at the coach. Even more shocking: He told his friends about each detail of his cruel plan, but again, nobody acted.

February 1996:
Barry Loukaitis, 14, dresses up like a gunslinger from the Wild West, goes to school, and shoots three people. He even took hostages, and he was one of the few who didn't kill himself, he didn't have the chance to because a teacher rushed in and put an end to the whole, terrible scenario.
Why? Mood swings... And a classmates of his claimed that Barry Loukaitis thought it would be FUN...

February 1997:
Evan Ramsey, 16, kills a student and the headmaster. He also talked to his friends about the plans, but did they care? No.
Why? He couldn't stand being teased any longer...

October 1997:
Luke Woodham, who admired Adolf Hitler, first stabbed his mother, then went to school where he shot his former girlfriend and another girl, wounded seven other stundents. When he wanted to get his second gun, he could be disarmed.
Why? "I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society: Push us and we will push back."

March 1998:
Two boys, aged 11 and 13, gun down 15 people; five die. One of the boys set off the firealarm, and when the people left the school and were outside, the boys began to shoot.

These are just a few examples of violence in American schools, because people tend to only talk about the Columbine shooting, but this proves that this by far wasn't the only shooting and for sure won't be the last when things don't start to change immediately.
Today I had a look at various American newspapers, looked at the headlines, read a few articles about Mondays shooting at the Virginia tech. The sad outcome: 33 dead, 15 injured. The most terrible shooting in the history of the USA.
One can't even imagine what it must have been like to hear the shots, not to know whether he will get you as well, not to know what he will do next, not to know why the shooter does such a terrible thing.

I did a little research on shootings in American schools, and I realised that many, many of these murders happened because kids or teenagers were teased and bullied in school and couldn't stand it any longer.
A year ago, I also read a book on this topic, "Give a boy a gun" by Todd Strasser. It was shocking to read, because you realise that things like this just happen. They could actually happen any time.

A question comes to my mind: Why doesn't this happen in Austria? What is so different here? In my opinion it's the gun policies, but as we all know, Americans love their guns, even when things like this happen. But would could you expect? Even president Bush defends the gun policies. Guns don't kill people, people do. True, definitely true. But if all those kids had no guns, there wouldn't be so many dead, and that's a fact.

I would like to finish with two quotes from people who were at the Virginia Tech when the shooting took place, or who had friends there.

"It's one of those senseless things that yoz can't explain, why someone would do that."

"It was clear when we were leaving that there were a lot of people hurt or killed."

Easter Holidays!!!!!! Yippie :)

Since Easter-holidays just started and I’m thinking about the crapulence, that goes along with Easter, all the time, I decided to do a little research on how Americans celebrate Easter and compare the results with what Austrians do on Easter-Saturday and Easter-Sunday.

Austria	USA
Traditionally, Austrians eat lots of ham during Eastertime. Along with it, eggs, horseradish and special Easter-bread are served. Family gatherings are very characteristic for Easter-Saturday and Easter-Sunday as well.	Of course, there is a special meal for Easter, containing ham, unlike Austria. Baked ham, potatoes and vegetables is what American families traditionally eat on Easter-Sunday. Hot cross buns (sweetened cinnamon yeast buns with a cross on them) are a speciality. The meals are eaten on Easter-Sunday when families meet to celebrate together.
Kids love Easter because of the presents and the egg hunt game I’ll talk about lateron.	Apart from getting presents, there’s another feature that makes children like Easter: the egg roll game on the lawn of the White House. TheEgg Roll itself is a race, where children run in parallel lanes, pushing an eggthrough the grass with a long-handled spoon.
Many, many Austrians go to church early in the morning to attend the sunrise services.	Sunrise services are held in the US as well.
Austrian kids love the egg hunting game, they look for painted eggs that the Easter Bunny hid for them in the garden.	Painted Easter-eggs seem to belong to Easter in many places around the world, and so does the Easter egg hunt game. Children believe that the Easter Bunny hid the eggs for them during night.
The Easter Fire is a tradition in Austria. It used to be a religious thing, a fire was lit in front of the church, and people lit their Easter Candles in it, carried it into the dark church. Austrians still do it, but young people use the opportunity to get drunk ;) Often there are large Easter Fires with music and alcohol, commonly on Easter-Saturday.	It is an American tradition to conduct special Easter parades. Men and women dress up in colourful costumes, carryEaster candles, etc.