The American Constitution

In class last week, we had an American visitor who taught us about the American Constitution. Her name is Lee-Ann Potter and she is from Maryland. Originally, she is the director of education and volunteer programs at the United States national archives in Washington, D.C. This year, she has moved to Norway with her family to serve as a Roving Scholar of American Studies.

Her way of teaching was inspiring and efficient. First, she introduced herself and the theme. Then she wanted us to talk with each other about why America has a constitution and what it contains. Later she showed us pictures concerning the Constitution. The photo I have included in my blog entry is actually the preamble of the American Consitituion made by license plates. It was a different and fun way to learn about politics.

The preamble goes like this:
We the People of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Milk

Milk is a biographical movie about an American gay activist named Harvey Milk. He was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Milk is in a relationship with a man named Smith. They are tired of the discrimination of homosexual individuals in the United States and decide to to something about it. They move to San Fransisco, in hopes of finding larger acceptance of their relationship. Milk and Smith start a camera shop called Castro Camera, where they also arrange meetings with the gay people in their neighborhood. Milk decides to engage in the politics and starts a campaign to become a city supervisor. After two failed campaigns, Smith no longer endure Milk's devition to politics and breaks up with him. After the fourth year of campaigning, Milk wins a seat in the San Fransisco Board of Supervisors. This was a great step towards equality between the homosexual and heterosexual part of the American population.

British Politics

I was a absent in my English class last week, due to a visit to Spain with my Spanish class. Therefore this blog entry comes a little late. In class last week, the others were given a text about the election in Britain. After reading the text, they were to write a blog entry about the British System of Government.

The prime minister is the leader of the strongest party. He or she rules the government in Britain. The parliament has the second biggest role, which consists of making the laws, passing the national budget and keeping an eye on the government. There must be a general election at least every five years. The parliament is splitted up in two parts; the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Commons has a much bigger role and more power than the House of Lords. There are 646 representatives called Members of Parliament, often shorted down to MPs. Each one of them represents one constituency. Britain is divided into 646 parliamentary constituencies. They vary in size, but most have an electorate between 60.000 and 75.000 people. The electorate is all the people who can vote. The House of Lords, however, is not elected by the people.

The Cuban missile crisis

The Cuban missile crisis was the closest the world has come to a nuclear war. After the World War II, the United States and the Soviet union were building up arms to show the world which nation that was the most powerful. The arms race included nuclear weapons. It was lead by the American president John F. Kennedy and the Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev. This period of time is known as the Cold War.

In 1962, America lead the arms race and had missiles powerful enough to strike Soviet from American ground. They did not know that Soviet had placed intermediate-range missiles in Cuba, aimed towards the United States. Soviet cooperated with the present dictator in Cuba, Fidel Castro. The United States had failed to invade Cuba in 1961 and Castro felt a second attack was inevitable. Consequently, he approved of Khrushchev's plan to place missiles on the island.

On October 15, 1962, reconnaissance photographs revealed that Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba. This was the start of the crisis for the United States. After seven days of surveillance, Kennedy concluded to impose a naval quarantine around Cuba. Kennedy announced the discovery of the missiles to the public, and his decision to quarantine the island. He demanded that Soviet removed all of their missile installations from Cuba. He also declared that a missile launch from Cuba would be seen as an attack towards America. The tension began to build.

On the 27th of October, a U-2 missile was shot down over Cuba. Consequently, Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy demanding the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey, in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. Finally, tensions began to ease the 28th of October when Khrushchev announced that Soviet would dismantle the installations in Cuba if the US would not invade Cuba. Further negotiations were held to implement the October 28th agreement, including a United States demand that Soviet light bombers should be removed from Cuba, and specifying the exact form and conditions of United States assurances not to invade Cuba.

Lions for Lambs

In our last English class, we saw an American drama film called Lions for Lambs. The film drew connections between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter and a California college professor. The movie is telling three different stories at the same time that are somehow connected to each other. Jasper Irving, a Republican senator, is launching the government's new military strategy to the journalist Janine Roth. He hopes that she will sell the public on the strategy. Meanwhile, a professor named Malley is trying to convince one of his promising students, Todd, to keep up with the schoolwork and set higher ambitions in life. He had the similar talk to two former students who also had become apathetic about their schoolwork. After the talk, they decided to enlist themselves to serve the U.S. in the Iraq war.

Meanwhile the professor chats with Todd, his former students are engaging in the exact military strategy that the senator are discussing with the journalist. The mission went terribly wrong, and his former students ended up in enemy territory. Throughout the movie, the senator and the journalist discusses the military strategy, professor Malley chats with Todd about his goals in life and the two U.S. soldiers desperately wait for rescue. The movie ends with both of them getting murdered by the enemy Taliban.

Professor Malley asks Todd to get involved. I believe he means that Todd needs a wake-up-call to understand that with his talents, he ought to try to use them. Malley is frustrated due to the fact that the special individuals who have the ability to make things change do not use their abilities. Todd seems very critical towards how the political system is working in America. At the same time, he shows no desire of getting involved with it. In my opinion, taking Todd's critical eye on the government's decisions into consideration, he could have involved himself in the politics by joining a political organization.

Snowboarding

In Norway we have many different winter sports due to our cold, snowy weather in the winter months. One of the popular activities is snowboarding. This sport has increased its popularity since the 1980's and are now one of the leading winter sports. You can practice snowboard in down-hill slopes or off-pist down snowy mountain sides . The first alternative is the most common here in Norway. It's also pretty common to create "sessions" where you bring a couple of friends and a photo camera, and slide down stairs, building tops, etc.

Snowboarding has been dominated by men since the very beginning, but in the last couple of years more females have started to arrive the scene. I have put in a picture of me and a group of girls called the Powderpuffs from a snowboard camp in Geilo two years ago.

The reason I chose to talk about snowboarding is because I was member of the BSK snowboarding team with the head quarter in Kirkerudbakken, Norway from the age of 13 to the age of 17. I love the sport because after you have learned the basic skills, you can learn to perform different tricks on both boxes and slides and when you are jumping. It's very fun to experience progression in this sport

Here is a video of two of the riders from Kirkerudbakken, Aleksander Østreng and Ståle Sandbech, who now are competing at an international level. Take a look!

The Nobel peace price for 2009 is rewarded to: Barack Obama!

Today in class we wrote a note to the president of the United States, Barack Obama. He is soon to visit Norway due to his reception of the Nobel peace prize. Here is me and Camilla's greeting

Dear Mr. President.

Your position in the United States comes with a lot of money. We believe that you have done the right thing by donating the peace prize money to charity. We hope that you choose a charity fund that is associated with working for peace since the prize was given to you due to your actions toward gaining peace between the United States and the middle east.

We truly hope that you will take a visit to our high school, Sandvika VGS, on your trip to Norway for receiving the Nobel peace prize. The reason you should visit us, is because our school is one of the leading IT schools in Norway. We have recently been chosen by Microsoft as one of 30 Pathfinder schools in the world. There are many great and interesting students at our school that have involved themselves in your election. The students here at Sandvika are eager to learn more about how the political system works in the United States.

Best regards, Camilla and Karoline