Inequity or Security Enforcement

Discrimination or safety concern? That's the question that Trump's travel ban faces. This year, the African Trade Summit in Southern California (a three day conference) had no Africans. Due to Trump's travel ban, no one could get US visas to attend the meeting. Every year, the University of California struggles with getting attendees to the meeting, but this year was different. According to thehuffingtonpost.com and theguardian.com 100% of the planned guests were unable to come. We are talking about at least 100 people. Of course, Africa has struggled before Trump's presidency with visas, but it just got real. Their is no doubt in my mind that this is a discrimination issue.

Bias towards African countries are not eliminated yet. I understand wanting to think so, but it just simply isn't so. We're are not discussing allowing terrorists in, we're discussing allowing college graduates into a TRADE MEETING for AFRICA. In other words, this isn't TRULY a safety concern here, this is just blatantly unfair. What do you think about this ban and it's effects around the world?

"The Ghost and The Darkness" (A story about the man-eaters of Tsavo)

Some people are quite interested in lions, those same people know how dangerous they can be. Our story takes place in 1898, Africa, Tsavo River. At that time two male lions, nicknamed “The Ghost and the Darkness”, hunted British men that were building a bridge over the Tsavo River. Men are slower and weaker than the lion's natural prey, and made for easy meals over the nine months of construction. This is rather surprising, as in this region, male lions do not like to share power. After killing an estimated 35 to 140 people, workers began to go on strike. In effect John Henry Patterson, one of the people working on the bridge killed both lions and turned them into rugs. As of today, death by lion attack in that same area is common. How many people do you died because of “The Ghost and The Darkness”?

Lions Deserve To Run Not Have Their head On Your Wall.

Hunting for a trophy is an awful. It’s very disgusting, hunting endangered species is just awful. If a whole continent’s  lion population is 25,000, this means that there are about 3,000 adult trophy males in Africa. Then estimate 40% occur in strictly protected areas. Which leads to a “huntable” total of 1,800 male lions. Trophy harvests have averaged 665 exports per year. A new awful threat, that has recently went on the media’s attention is the trade in lion bones. In other words I honestly don't think that people should do this. What do you think?

The Gigantic groups of Giants

On the coast of South Africa there has been an unusual occurrence. Groups of up to 200 whales have been spotted, three years in a row. Now it may not seem like a big deal, but when you compare it to the 1-4 groups it is gigantic. Officials say it is for fish hunting purposes, due to the "abundance of fish". In my opinion it is a little creepy. Animals know a lot that humans don't, so what if parts of the ocean were getting destroyed? The population has been increasing from the population that fell 200,000 whales last century. As you can see this is a strange but wonderful occurrence, and I would love to see it. Would you?

CNN

Hunting Black Rhinos should not be acceptable!

There was a controversial auction regarding the endangered Black Rhino. The auction was in Africa on a Saturday morning. The auction was for a permit to hunt only one Black Rhino, for $350,000. This has been controversial whether or not Corey Knowlton-the hunter-should have been allowed this permit. In my opinion, I do not think that should have been acceptable, and they should have not had that auction at all. The Black Rhino is an another endangered species in Africa, to be able to hunt such a creature should not be acceptable.


 I got this information from this site:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140113-dallas-safari-club-rhino-permit-auction/

D    Do you think that paying that much money should be able to permit hunting ONE Black Rhino?

D

The CUTEST and SMALLEST fox in the world!

Do you like cute animals? Do you like foxes? If you do, then the African fennec fox is the critter that will interest you. It is the smallest of all the world's foxes and weighs only up to three point five pounds, but has gargantuan six inch ears. In the wild, they live in deserts. I have held one once and it was extremely fluffy!

Now you may be thinking: "Adorable! where can I get one?" but these cuddly creatures can be quite hard to take care of. They can run as fast as 20-30 miles per hour, as fast as a truck, so once they manage to escape, it will be seriously hard to catch them. They also mark their territory by urinating, causing a big cleanup.              

VIDEO TO WATCH A FENNEC FOX PLAYING!

 Do think you would like to have a fennec fox as a pet?

Blog Episode IV: A New Hope

So it's time now to jog on over to Africa. From the Middle East it will be pretty simple; just zip on through the Gaza Strip and we will arrive in Egypt in time to watch the sun set over the non-existent nose of the Sphinx. Before going though, it is always nice to know a little about where you are headed. I will say that I try to pay attention to the news as much as I can, but I am especially interested in stories that concern the region we are or will soon be studying. That is why this story about the Rhino hunt grabbed my attention. I do understand that the auction raised a ton of money that is slated to be used for protection and conservation of the remaining rhinos, but c'mon, really? There are so few of these magnificent beasts alive today. To me, shooting even one is a serious crime upon our collective conscience. But that's just my opinion. And it only covers one particular story. The great continent of Africa is home to so many of the world's amazing creatures, people and stories. Like the Mountain Gorilla (Just how freaked would you be between the seven and eight-minute mark??). It will be terrible when none remain. Or the recent passing of Nelson Mandela. What a great man! Heck, even a 13 year old from Kenya can make world headlines and earn himself a college scholarship. Help us all to peak our interests in this next adventure.

Your task? Simple. Learn more about any of these stories I have shared with you and give us your take. OR BETTER YET, search the web for a different story from Africa that is interesting to you, and share it with all of us here in a clever way.

Grading rules are as follows:Titled, Spelling-Error-Free POSTS must show that you have researched and found something interesting about Africa (5 points) and of course...must contain 75+ words and a hyperlink and/or video (2 points) and end with a question (1 point). But wait...THAT ONLY ADDS UP TO 8 POINTS!!! What else do you need to do to get that elusive 10/10? Transition! There is a post in Google Classroom of a list of transition words and/or phrases. Insert a minimum of TWO TRANSITIONS to make your writing more, shall we say...enjoyable to read? Please underline your two transitions to show me that you know how to use them.
Spelling-Error-Free COMMENTS must be the first or second comment made to a post and 50+ words of course (5 points), and once again should clearly show that you have looked up information from the post and added it as part of your response (5 points).