Resources for Essay

In responce to Leisy, i found some good stuff on womens rights. If you go to Americanprogress.org you will find plenty of articles on womens rights. Also if you google 'statistics on women working' the first link will take you to the U.S department of Labor, Womens bureau site which has good facts. I dont have much on children yet and if anyone has good links for those sites it would be great. Thanks

Paper due Thursday

I was wondering if anybody has found a source that has good statistics on Women's and Children's rights...
I Kind of found one it looks like it has a lot...but i am not very good at browsing around the website. So if anyone finds anything good please let me know! THanks
and here is mine...
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/asp/user/list.asp-ParentID=60.htm

Athletic Program Cuts in Public Schools In New York

I remember that in class we had a discussion about how horrible the quality of facilities are in New York City public school. This discussion developed into one about the different oppurtunities that one can get by either going to a public school or a private school, and so I followed this up by looking up articles on this and came across this article in the New York Times on the struggling athletic programs in the New York city public schools. This I thought was a good example of how public schools are actually struggling to offer extracirriculars, and something should be done to change this. This is the link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7D91131F936A25752C0A96F958260

Diversity in Public Schools

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E6DD113AF930A25752C0A96E9C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

My article talked about a problem within New Lebenon Elementary school, a public school in Byram, CT. There is an issue with this school in specific becuase the state requires there to be a certain amount of diversity within every school of that district. Becuase new lebanon elementary has 52 percent minority, there is possibility that it could turn into a Magnet school, where kids of majority would enter the school and kids already in new lebanon elementary of minority would leave. This however could be a major violation as the Supreme court ruled that schools on the west coast could not fix schools based on race. I found this to be an interesting conflict and am not sure whether that distric should diversify the school or not.

WIC Fact Sheet

Here is your homework for Monday - thanks to Leisy for the reminder to post it.

You should bring a print or electronic copy of this document to class.

GC

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/stossel/story?id=1500338

Really good article. Its the one i talked about in class which relates to education and competition in pubic schools and more choice for parents of where to send their kids regardless of district etc. f you want we can make this just a start up post if anyone else wants to post their articles from today...

On the Legality of Prostitution (hey, am I blogging right now?)

For the purposes of making a point, I feel that prostitution should be legalized. This has quickly become a hot topic on the blog (I never knew there was so much drama on the world wide web.) I would firstly like to address the dialogue regarding the children of prostitutes. While sentiments of protecting the children of prostitutes from one day becoming prostitutes does seem noble, Beau and company, the reality of the matter is that keeping prostitution illegal is an ineffective means of achieving this. The naivety attached to this also implies that we wouldn't want the children of prostitutes becoming prostitutes. Now this is fine to say at current, when one can't legally be a ho, but were legalization to occur we would have to shed our preconcieved notions of the sex trade and begin to view prostitution as a legitimate profession, as it would in fact be legitimate. We would have to part ways with the stigma of prostitution that we are so culturally bestowed and transcend our prudent, medieval sexual ideology.(how do I post this, exactly?-- there will be more to come)

Answer to Will's Post

In answer to your question Will, I believe that in order to legitimize and clean up prostitution it is necessary to have those prostitutes that are already infected with STD's be unable to continue working in the profession. In order to do this the government should make all prostitutes go through a screening process before they are allowed to continue to work. This is how our country can insure a safer and legitimate profession.

Legalizing Prostitution

I agree with Beau's point of view and further. I think one of the greatest issues with legalizing prostitution, besides the health problems and the lack of morals, would be the issue of human trafficking. The Netherlands "promotes itself as the champion of anti-trafficking policies and programs, yet cynically has removed every legal impediment to pimping, procurement and brothels. In the year 2000, the Dutch Ministry of Justice argued for a legal quota of foreign "sex workers," because the Dutch prostitution market demands a variety of "bodies" (Dutting, 2001: 16)." (http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/issues/prostitution_legalizing.html). I think that one of the main ideas of legalizing prostitution would be to make the prostitutes seem more legitimate in this world, instead of dehumanizing themselves. However, by legalizing prostitution we know that trafficking uneducated and poor women would occur, which is an incredible level of dehumanization. Again (I made this point in class), while there would be legal prostitutes who would most likely serve the middle/upper class because the prices would most likely be increased, there would still be the presence of prostitutes that would serve the lower classes. Also, what about all the prostitutes who are already infected with STI's, what happens to them?

Syllabus

Is there any way we can get a copy of the syllabus on the blog and maybe some links like the one to the Fagan Article? That would be really helpful I think...

Prostitution

Since thursdays class discussion on Legalizing prostitution i have thought alot about if legalizing prostitution woudl really solve anything. I tryed to connect human rights to our discussion and realized that Prostitution is not just a violation of human rights for that women, but that womens child as well. I dont know the statistics but i bet a prostitutes kid is more likely to become one. THe home enviorment for the daughter of a prostitute cannot be good and i bet that they will be pressured to become a prostitute one day. Prostitution violates the daughters of prostitutes as well as prostitutes themselves.

In Class Article

I have been thinking a lot about the article. I do agree with you Devin, that it is not immoral. I think a lot of it comes down to safety. India has a much lower medical safety level than the States does. I read another article about it and a lot of women are "hiring" surrogate mothers from India because they simply cannot afford the price of it in the US.

I suppose it comes down to a freedom of choice. How far people will go and to what risks they will take to have children.

Surrogate Mother Article

I just wanted to start a thread about this article:

I think that this system, though it has its flaws, is a really interesting solution to a number of problems. I do NOT find it immoral, it is a way to provide, as the article said, much needed extra income for such things as better housing and education. It also opens up more options for parents who cannot have their own children, so really I dont see much of a problem as long as it is done properly. If the paperwork is signed, the medical care is good, especially psycological for the mother, and everyone is ok with it then it could give some really great opportunities to a number of people. so basically im for it.

Ok so the latest update on the speaker:
-We have bumped mrs meigs forward a week so Dut Leek Deng can give the chapel talk that night, it wont be very long at all but it will hopfully get people interested who can come that night to talk to him. So the plan is that earlier in the week we will show the movie and then he will arrive that night in time to give the talk, he will then come to formal dinner and afterwards we will chill, maybe in school house lobby for all of those who want to talk to him and if we get its arranged have food and treats. Then he is going to spend the night and drive back in the morning, with a nice big roll of all the cash we have raised.
-Fundraising will start just about now and anyone who want to help or who has any idea please reply to this post! we need to raise alot, as we have to send him money in advanced to rent a car and drive here.
so everything so far is going well, and hopefully it will get even better