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Woolman Semester Email Update
– February 21, 2009
Dear Friends,
This was going to be a relatively brief update
because things have gotten busy around here
at the Woolman Semester, but I could not stop
writing. We leave for Mexico this Wednesday,
and more projects are underway. I want to give
you a sense of how our classes are going and
tell you a little about our upcoming trip.
As I said in my first update, we have been
studying water and water rights in our Environmental
Science class. I mentioned that I was doing
a two-week research project that looked at how
the city of Los Angeles gets its water. A portion
of LA's water supply comes from rivers that
feed Mono Lake – a lake that is over 200
miles northeast of LA. This practice began in
1941 when the Los Angeles Department of Water
and Power (LADWP) built a 233-mile aqueduct
to carry water from these rivers to LA. By 1962,
the water level of Mono Lake had dropped twenty-five
vertical feet, and the salt content of the lake
doubled. This had devastating ramifications
for wildlife in the Mono Basin. Incidentally,
though, the falling water level exposed massive
deposits of limestone. These "Tufa towers"
increased tourism in the area and were a boom
to the economy. The LADWP continues to take
water from the Mono Basin today. In 1994, environmental
restrictions were imposed which limited the
amount of water LADWP could extract and instituted
long-term restoration goals. As a result of
the regulations, the water level has been rising
and ecosystems have been regenerating.
We presented our research to the entire community
on Wednesday. Other groups talked about how
dams on the local Yuba River are restricting
salmon migration, contamination of the Mississippi
River, the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer
in the Midwest, the Three Gorges Dam in China,
and the Saddam River in Iraq.
In Peace Studies (English), we are continuing
to look at nonviolence. A week ago, we watched
A Force More Powerful – a documentary
about nonviolent movements in India, South Africa,
Denmark, and Nashville. This weekend, we are
each writing creative nonfiction stories about
a nonviolent struggle. I am writing about the
protests that occurred during the 2008 Republican
National Convention in St. Paul. While it may
not be classified as a mass movement, nonviolent
tactics were used. My protagonist is a young
photojournalist who goes to St. Paul to cover
the protests. He has never participated in peaceful
resistance before and gets involved in the anti-war
community. I have to write more tomorrow; it
is due Monday.
World Issues continues to be a class focused
on economics. After we had our crash course
in capitalism that I wrote about in my first
update, we looked at the nineteenth century
rubber trade in the Congo. We based our discussions
on the book, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story
of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
This week, we studied modern day consumerism.
On Thursday, we all went to Kmart to look at
that part of our culture. Of course, we did
not find any products that were made in the
United States. I noticed that a majority of
the merchandise was made "for the Kmart
Corporation." This shows how much dominance
Kmart has on the market. We had to answer the
question: how many of the products in Kmart
are necessities? I argued that very few are
essential for survival. We also looked at product
placement and other advertising techniques.
As part of the World Issues curriculum, we
are going to Mexico for a ten-day learning trip.
We will look at issues of immigration and border
crossing as well as labor conditions in Mexico.
I will write more about the trip in my next
update.
The day after we return from Mexico, I fly
back to Philadelphia for my vacation. It will
be great to see people back home. I hope you
are all well.
Love,
Carl
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