The RCL Blog of Owen Hall – Owen's RCL Blog

Paul Takac. Extra. Extra! Extra!!!

This wednesday I went to Willard to join in on a student town hall meeting with Paul Takac. He is running for state representative of the district that is encompassing Penn State. He did a great job showing how students votes now actually mattered as they barely had before. This district was previously not a battleground territory, but very blue. But now that it has been redistricted and carries a lot of northern farmland, it is very even and students’ votes can actually have an impact. I came in wanting to ask questions about his educational policies. However, he seemed to already be very passionate about educational reform and especially a restructuring of funding and thus my questions were answered before I asked them. It was very interesting to hear his responses to Igor’s questions about Ukraine. It’s cool that he raised a family around Penn State and had a thorough understanding of the area. It impressed me that he seemed to remember everyone’s names after only hearing everyone say there’s once in a circle, but I guess that’s a common politician skill, to remember a million names for five minutes and forget. I asked one question and got absolutely schooled. I asked a question about a specific issue with funding with the public education system. I thought that a lot of funding was decided by public test scores like the PSSAs. He told me that this is not true and that in fact a lot of funding is needed to be done at a local level without support and is typically done by property taxes. I think this is worse in fact though because it means that kids in poorer neighborhoods, where home values are low, will never get an opportunity for a great education because the funding to their school is severely held back. He also was talking about how there is so much funding available but the government just won’t touch it, which is sad. I thought that it was very interesting that he said he owed his political story to you for convincing him to run for some local position.

It was super cool to get to talk to him after the presentation and just ask a somewhat fun, but political question. I asked him, Who was your favorite president? He answered that it was FDR because of all that he accomplished in his office and how so much of what we rely on today, like many parks and national monuments, were built under his presidency’s New Deal which in part tried to bring the US out of the Depression by bringing work through large projects to a great many people. His answer was very in depth and I very much enjoyed it. He then asked it back to me and I felt my answer was very inadequate compared to his.

Overall, Paul Takac’s presentation was very informative and professional. I feel that he did embody his political campaign slogan of putting people first and empowering individuals, ensuring opportunities, and elevating communities.

Malagasy Morsels

We return to Africa to learn about the food of their biggest island, Madagascar. The cuisine of this area is known as the Malagasy diet. The are was first settled in the early first millennia by Austronesian seafarers who came over in canoes and brought with them what they could from home. This included rice, plantains, taro, and water yam among other foods like common fruits from home like bananas. The slash and burned new rainforest upon arrival in order to make room for farmland.

Trapping and hunting game was very prominent and often included some peculiar animals such as lizards, hedgehogs, tenrecs, tortoises, wild boars, insects, larvae, and lemurs. And some birds. Big Birds. Early Madagascans would occasionally eat the eggs and flesh of the Aepyornis maximus, a giant bird native to Madagascar. The monstrosities weighed from 730–1,200 lbs, towered 3 meters in the air, and had eggs with up to a meter in circumference. Unfortunately, it is very likely that human actions, such as clear cutting rainforest and overhunting, brought these giant rat-like birds to extinction.

Skeletons of various ratites - ResearchGat — Skeletons of various ratites – ResearchGate

In about the 11th century, cattle were introduced to the island. Because they were so valuable, they were rarely eaten, but their milk was. Some escaped to the highlands and it is legend that the highlanders did not realize they were edible for over five hundred years. In the 17th century, a vessel took some rice from Madagascar to the Americas which helped form the bases of the plantation industry. An interesting food is the prickly pear cactus, which was brought from the new world to a French settlement on the island. If you consume six or more of the fruits you become dehydrated, but cladodes of the plant could hydrate cattle. In the 18th century, population boomed, but so did famines. King Andrianampoinimerina united the nation and with slaves and forced labor created a systematic rice industry that produced ample surpluses every year.

After French rule and independence, we can finally cover modern Madagascaran cuisine. Rice is still a staple and is typically served at every meal. The rice is accompanied with something when served and this is known as laoka. There is a great variety in one what this can be made of, including Bambara groundnuts with pork, beef or fish, shredded cassava leaves with peanuts, beef or pork, and various types of seafood.

Street food is also very popular in Madagascar. A range of bread products served are known as mofo. The most popular is mofo gasy, which is sweetened rice flour poured into greased circular molds and cooked over charcoal.

Mofo gasy orMadagascar Yeasted Pancakes - Cook's Hideout — Mofo gasy or Madagascar Yeasted Pancakes – Cook’s Hideout

To wash it down, the people of Madagascar will drink a beverage made from adding hot water to the burnt rice that is left stuck to the pot after cooking. After a meal, fresh sugarcane is often chewed on as a desert. Koban-dravina is another desert that is made from grinding together peanuts and brown sugar, then enveloping the mixture in a sweet rice flour paste to produce a cylindrical product.

Koba (sweer) - wikimedia — Koba (sweet) – wikimedia

Somali Snacks

Today, we travel to Africa in order to explore the cuisine of Somalia from the past to the present. Somalia’s prime location on the horn of Africa has let them have advantageous trade. Somalia has the longest coastline on the entire continent. With such a strategic location and geography, everyone wanted the land. In the 8th century, the Muslims were the first to take advantage of the coast and grew prosperous from it. However, the rest of the world noticed and many countries, especially Europeans, took interest in the land. In the 1880s, during the height of imperialism, Somalia was divided up into pieces between the French, British and Italians.

All these cultures brought Somali cuisine to a great level of diversity. Arabic traders introduced rice, garlic, and spices and the Indians, samosas and paratha. With it’s Islamic roots, the country largely on halal meets like goat and lamb. Bread is a staple, as it is in neighboring regions, and there are several variations, including anjero, a spongy yeasted bread, similar to that of the larger, tangier Ethiopian injera.

For breakfast, they have their own pancake like dish known as canjeero, which is always eaten with a cup of tea. Somalians are big tea drinkers. Milk is a staple in many Somalian’s diets. Some men who travel with the camel herds may drink up to nine liters a day. Despite endless coasts, Somalians generally do not eat fish. People see fisherman and those who eat fish in low regards compared to the rest of society. Lunch is considered to be the biggest dish of the day where a rice or pasta dish is served, with Italian influence. This meal needs to be extra large because usually the dinner is not eaten until after 9 pm.

Traditional Somali Cnjeero - YouTube — Traditional Somali Canjeero – YouTube

They still have globally popular dishes like spaghetti and rice. However, these dishes have a special spice, xawaash. This isn’t a single spice, but an amalgamation of spices which varies by region but can include cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, turmeric and black pepper. At the side of meals a banana is served and it is meant to be mixed in and eaten with the dish. Speaking of bananas, in the 1920s, plantations were created across the country to produce bananas. These became so effective that they provided the majority of bananas to the middle east and Europe. However, in the 1990s, civil war broke out and drought and flooding brought this industry to it’s end.

In northern Somalia, Ethiopia has great influence on the dishes of the land. In particular, Doro Wat is very popular, a dish made up of Chicken stew with hard-boiled eggs.

Doro Wot - Tsiona Foods — Doro Wot – Tsiona Foods

Gashaato is a very popular desert that is made from coconut, sugar and oil, which is spiced with cardamom. It is very popular and often served at weddings or other occasions.

After meals, Somalians burn Frankincense in order to perfume their home. After only 10 minutes of burning, the whole house smells of it for hours.

Draft of Civic Brief thing

The Ineffectiveness of Punishment

A young man, not knowing the consequences, is the middle man in the sale of 2 grams of cocaine in Mississippi. He’s only helping with the sale to help support his brother as they were raised without parents or anyone to look up to. He is caught and sentenced to life without parole. He will never leave prison. He has no chance to redeem himself. Scenarios like this are not an irregularity. As of 2015, the US had over two million citizens held in prison. There are only about ten million people incarcerated world wide, so this means that the US has 20% of the global prisoner population despite only making up 0.4% of the population.1 In the nearly 50 years since the start of the War on Drugs, the prison population in the United States has increased nearly 600% while the population has only increased by 51%.2 Furthermore, US prisons are utterly ineffective as 70% of US inmates will be arrested within five years of their freedom.3 America’s obsession on appearing tough on crime has decimated countless lives. The US prison system is crowded and ineffective; fortunately, we can work to fix it by implementing educational programs and severe reductions on punishment.

Prisons in America are overfilled and fail horrendously at their goals. There is likely a significant racial bias when it comes to arrests and imprisonments. It is said that one in three African American boys will be arrested during their life and one in six Latino boys compared to one in seventeen white boys who will be arrested in their life. Worse still, is that many of those who are arrested and freed face restrictions when returned to the regular world with nearly 50,000 federal, state, and local restrictions preventing them from acclimating back into the world. The US also leads the list with the most minors imprisoned out of any country in the world. The use of minimum sentences keeps these prisons full for a long time. Half of those imprisoned in the US are due to drug related offenses and nearly three quarters of those people are faced with a minimum sentence. 2 US prisons are not described very romantically and people are described as living in separation from outside society and all media create a contrast from the prison world to the rest of the world. They are made subject to degrading treatment, inhumane conditions, and abusive interactions. The prisons make little effort to rehabilitate the prisoners and focus primarily on punishment. 3

The reason for these failures is a history of a desire to be “tough on crime” with a total disregard of the prosecuted’s lives. Back in the founding of the country, much focus was put on fair trials and protecting those who had been convicted. Even in the 1800s, a French sociologist, Alexis de Tocqueville, came to the US to study prisons and was amazed by the prisons working to make conditions better and more livable, something he had never seen in europe. The US continued to do pretty well with not filling up the prisons until the 70s. The US government at this time felt the need to fight a new war, so politicians from both parties with Nixon leading the charge started the fundamentally flawed War on Drugs. They began the rhetoric that we needed to be tough on crime. While Nixon started the work of the war on drugs, Reagan took it all the way. He entered office with a little over 300,000 in prison and left to see a population of over 600,000. These numbers were disproportionately from communities of color. Even at the state level, prison rates boomed. It wasn’t only the federal government pushing this. In 25 years, from 1978, Texas quadrupled its prison count. 4 But things got worse. The democratic party wanted to be the party that was harsher on crime, but the republican party would not have this, so there was a constant war on pushing tougher and tougher laws to “fight crime” This led to Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, which bloated prisons beyond what anyone had before. The Bill allowed states to pass even harsher laws to appear tough-on-crime. And, in that year, every state had passed a minimum sentence law. It encouraged police to send more people to prison and for them to stay for a longer period of time. This set a strong precedent and in 1996, the democratic party showed off the effects of the law and how “tough on crime” they were. They pridefully showed off how they arrested more people than ever before. They even taunted that they expanded to sixty more crimes that receive the death penalty and encouraged the trying of young people as adults. But rest assured, this is not a partisan issue, Republicans had also been fighting to fill prisons and appear tough on crime. In fact, Barack Obama, a Democrat, has been at the forefront of decreasing prison populations as for the first time they had started to decrease under his term.Interestingly enough a 1994 Gallup survey revealed that 58% of African Americans supported the bill, while only 49% of white Americans supported it. This was largely due to the Crack epidemic that these communities wanted to see an end to.5 The four decades of “tough on crime” laws built up a system that arrested a great many people while doing little to make these people change how they act. Two things determine how many people are in prison at any given time.These are the number of people arrested and sentenced every year and the length of every sentence. Both of these factors have become very high in the united states through our work to be tough on crime. It has even become harder to avoid a sentence as bail and other ways to end a sentence have become far more difficult to achieve, which is especially preventative to the poor as they have no chance of paying off.

Back in 1984, there was debate in many cases about disparity in different sentences for seemingly similar crimes. Thus, the U.S. Sentencing Commission was created which set standards for sentence lengths. However, this simply pulled up many sentence lengths to match some longer ones and continued to contribute to the lengthier prison sentences of the United States. Mandatory sentences fill prisons for a very long time. For example, if you sell 2 grams of cocaine in Mississippi, you are required to serve life without parole. And, it is important to note that none of these laws have had any effect on drug use as it had remained stable for the 40 years in which the war on drugs mainly occurred (1970s-2010). Drug sentences make up a staggering 55-60% of those incarcerated to federal prison. In the 1990s, there was another fear, the rise in violent crimes. A number of famous cases developed in many people’s mind that those who commited violent crimes could not be reformed and should be separated from society for the rest of their life.This produced the “Three-strikes” laws which would give those who commit two or three offenses a life in prison. However, the crimes that fell under this law were not simply violent crimes, but also oft covered other crimes. The ACLU covers some ridiculous examples that were part of the three strikes policy:

“siphoning gasoline from an 18-wheeler, shoplifting three belts, breaking into a parked car and stealing a woman’s bagged lunch, attempting to cash a stolen check, acting as a go between in the sale of $10 of marijuana, or possessing a bottle cap smeared with heroin residue.” 6

In 1984, the federal government abolished parole and 16 other states were soon to follow. This made it impossible for many people to leave prison early on “good behavior”.

After reaching such a low point, America needs to make some significant changes to its crime and punishment system in order to become a better country. We need to eliminate minimum sentences for nearly any crime. A system needs to be implemented that can evaluate prisoners and find if they are reformed early and let them free. Those who do not prove themselves to be a threat should not be held in prison. In order to be let back into the world these people should prove that they are a safe person and that they have improved themselves in prison in other ways such as learning new skills. Incarceration should no longer be a punishment for low level and non-violent crimes. Often punishment is not the solution to offenders of things like drug violations due to addiction. Prison will not help them but drug treatments programs are far more likely to. The purpose of prisons should not be to ruin someone’s life and make them regret it, but to make them a better person. 7 An idea to make prisons more improving of these people’s lives rather than being simply punishment, is to allow for more opportunities for learning to occur in the prisons. College students could be encouraged to go to prisons in order to teach things that they are experienced in and many of these prisoners never got to learn, sometimes even basic math and English. In one area, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a similar approach has been implemented quite effectively. The classroom inside the prison does not feel like a prison, except for the uniforms that the prisoners are wearing. Many of the inmates described the classroom as an oasis in the prison. It feels like an escape and is a place for these people to improve themselves. These prison classrooms did once exist widely, for in the 90s there were many more of these programs, but fell apart after the crime bill and budget cuts for those types of programs. Government support is needed to keep these programs afloat that are often just as important as the prisons themselves.8

It is imperative to search for what causes many people to commit crimes that lead them to go to prison. We need to provide more social programs that promote the well being of those who are in danger of getting in trouble with the law. “I realized that we’re not just locking up bad kids, we’re locking up hurt kids. It completely changed the course of my career,” said Bradley, a Fordham Professor. Emotional, social, psychological, and moral support need to be provided to kids who grow up in these conditions so they never face the hardships that lead them to committing crimes. We must diminish our society’s deposition towards poor people in order to keep them in society. Prisons have been used as a way to get these poor people who we often despise off the streets.9 On the opposite end of the spectrum of minimum sentences is maximum sentences. We need to implement maximum sentences. Sentences as long as 20 or 30 years are known to not rehabilitate prisoners more than prisoners with shorter sentences, but in fact increase recidivism. Adding maximum sentences for many crimes will help get people out of prisons quickly and help prisons focus on their main purpose, to make better people out of the prison, not to punish them for acting the way they do.10

Conclusion

“Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Total.” Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Total | World Prison Brief. Accessed March 28, 2022. https://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total.
“Federal Drug Mandatory Minimum Penalties.” ussc. United States Sentencing Commission, 2017. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/backgrounders/RG-drug-mm.pdf.
Gramlich, John. “America’s Incarceration Rate Falls to Lowest Level since 1995.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, August 18, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/16/americas-incarceration-rate-lowest-since-1995/.
Grawert, Ames, Hernandez D. Stroud, Carlton Miller, and Andrew Cohen. “The History of Mass Incarceration.” Brennan Center for Justice, March 22, 2022. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/history-mass-incarceration.
Ofer, Udi. “How the 1994 Crime Bill Fed the Mass Incarceration Crisis.” American Civil Liberties Union. American Civil Liberties Union, June 4, 2019. https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-mass-incarceration-crisis.
“Overcrowding and Overuse of Imprisonment in … – OHCHR | Home.” ohchr. ACLU. Accessed March 29, 2022. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/RuleOfLaw/OverIncarceration/ACLU.pdf.
“Solutions.” American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU. Accessed March 29, 2022. https://www.aclu.org/other/solutions.
Barsky, Neil. “How to Fix Our Prisons? Let the Public inside.” The Marshall Project. The Marshall Project, December 17, 2019. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/12/17/how-to-fix-our-prisons-let-the-public-inside.
News, Fordham. “Fixing America’s Prison Problem.” Fordham Newsroom, August 12, 2019. https://news.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/fixing-americas-prison-problem/.
Cullen, James. “Four Things We Can Do to End Mass Incarceration.” Brennan Center for Justice, December 19, 2016. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/four-things-we-can-do-end-mass-incarceration.

Chinese Cuisine

Today, we travel to ancient China to discover their cuisine. There is not much information available on Neolithic cuisine, but some noodles were found! 4000 year old noodles were found in 2005. They were made of foxtail and broomcorn millet and are the oldest noodles ever discovered.

Oldest Noodles Unearthed in China - BBC — Oldest Noodles Unearthed in China – BBC News

China’s history has been largely dominated by a series of dynasties which have determined some of the foods that were eaten over this time. The Han dynasty’s rapid expansion caused the introduction of a great variety of land to the empire and with it a variety of consumables and an ever changing diet. Different land provided different food and thus different dishes from place to place. Further diversity in diet came about from invading steppe nomads, European missionaries, and Japanese traders. The food, though varying much throughout, could be separated into two regions, northern and southern food. Northern China was first introduced to dairy products like yogurt, milk, and Kumis (a fermented milk product coming from a mare or a donkey). Rice was used in the south and came about during the tang dynasty when an invasion caused people to move south. In China, food was seen as medicine, so great care was taken into putting it together and special dedication was given to it. Rich and powerful people had an appetite for food from far away that was very difficult to acquire.

The Qing Dynasty, the final dynasty of China, had a high imperial kitchen where the greatest cooks would all cook for the emperor and his constituents. They were kept here and thus their skill could not be shared to the rest of the nation or people. After the end of Qing Dynasty in 1912, these cooks were now free to start their own restaurants and thus from that sprung up a number of restaurants that serve food that was previously restricted to only the emperor and his court. Unfortunately, with the end of the Qing Dynasty came the communist revolution which resulted in massive food shortages across the country. Through much of this period there was little advancement in the culinary arts.

The staples of Chinese cuisine today is Rice, Wheat, and Noodles. Soybean products are also very popular. They also held many unique vegetables (which have since been introduced around the world) including baby corn, bok choy, snow peas, Chinese eggplant, Chinese broccoli, and straw mushrooms. Common ingredients added to dishes in order to enhance flavor include dried Chinese mushrooms, dried baby shrimp, dried tangerine peel, and dried Sichuan chilies. Before meals, cold dishes are served, like salad and pickles or even jellyfish or bean curds.

Popular dishes in China include Peking roasted Duck, Kung Pao Chicken, Dim Sum, and Ma Po Tofu. Peking roasted Duck is a dish containing very thin duck skin which is often combined with other things. Kung Pao Chicken contains diced chicken, dried chili, cucumber, and fried peanuts. Dim Sum is a large dish containing a great number of smaller dishes. Ma Po Tofu is made up of beancurd along with some minced meat in a spicy sauce.

Peking Roasted Duck - China — Peking Roasted Duck – China Highlights

The Issue Brief Introduction

The Ineffectiveness of Punishment

As of 2015, the US had over two million citizens held in prison. There are only about ten million people incarcerated world wide, so this means that the US has 20% of the global prisoner population despite only making up 0.4% of the population.1 In the nearly 50 years since the start of the War on Drugs, the prison population in the United States has increased nearly 600% while the population has only increased by 51%.2 Furthermore, US prisons are utterly ineffective as 70% of US inmates will be arrested within five years of their freedom.3 America’s obsession on appearing tough on crime has decimated countless lives. Rapid change is necessary in order to ensure a safe future. The US prison system is crowded and ineffective; fortunately, we can work to fix it by implementing educational programs and severe reductions on punishment.

“Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Total.” Highest to Lowest – Prison Population Total | World Prison Brief. Accessed March 28, 2022. https://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total.
“Federal Drug Mandatory Minimum Penalties.” ussc. United States Sentencing Commission, 2017. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/backgrounders/RG-drug-mm.pdf.
Gramlich, John. “America’s Incarceration Rate Falls to Lowest Level since 1995.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, August 18, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/16/americas-incarceration-rate-lowest-since-1995/.

Irish Ingredients

Welcome back to this food blog! Today we are traveling west across Europe to the wonderful country of Ireland where we will explore the history of their splendid food.

Ireland has been populated for a very long time, so there is much history to cover. During the prehistoric era, their diet can only be guessed based on what they left behind. Many broken shells were found in ways that seemed to show that they were broken and eaten by humans. This fits the fact that the coastal town of Sligeach translates to “Abounding shells”. Because of it’s geography, ancient Ireland had much biodiversity with fungi, roots, leaves, stems, flowers, nuts, seeds, berries, and fruits. Pieces of stone have also been found that indicate that they were used as tools. In the Neolithic era, cereals began to be used, especially emmer wheat, barley, beef, pig, and goat. Aquatic food also became more popular. An ancient sort of waxy butter has been found that is referred to as Bog Butter.

Bog Butter – Wikimedia

In Gaelic Ireland, there were significant advancements in the complexities of their diets. Porridge is made from oats, barley, or wheat. Frumenty was a popular food that was made of cracked wheat mixed with heated milk with sometimes the addition of egg yolks. This meal was awesome because it nutritious and could be stored for a long time. For their meats, the Irish ate primarily variety meats, salted beef, and stew. The Irish had an advantage in their milk supply as grass could grow well 10 months a year and there was not a period when cows needed to be stored inside in order to survive.

The Irish loved all of their dairy product like milk and butter, but there was one unusual product, cow blood. When mixed with milk and butter, cow blood was very popular. But even more popular, and still enjoyed to this day by many Irishman is Black Pudding which is made of cow blood, grain, and some seasoning. Common Irish vegetables included onions, chives, cabbage, celery, wild garlic, and leeks.

Black pudding: is it really a superfood? | The Independent | The Independent

Black Pudding – the Independent

The Irish loved their drink, especially fermented milk, beer, and whiskey, which they actually invented. Nobles would drink out of a Meadair, or a drinking horn, which displayed their higher status.

In more recent years, with globalization and mass trade, Ireland has been able to greatly expand their pallets and experience many more foods from throughout the world. Fish and Chips have been incredibly popular, ever since their introduction in 1880s by an Italian immigrant from San Donato Val di Comino.

Let’s bring up the elephant in the room. Potatoes. By the year 1840, nearly half of Ireland’s people had diets exclusively dependent on potatoes. Colcannon, potatoes mashed with kale or other things is a popular potato based food in Ireland. Boxty is another popular potato dish, which is basically potato pancakes. They even had their own version of mash potatoes known as champ. But the national food of Ireland is also a potato based dish, the Irish stew.

Colcannon Potatoes Recipe: How to Make It

Colcannon Potatoes – A taste of Home

Civic Issues III: What can we do?

In my previous two blogs, I have spoken extensively of how America has an issue with crowded and ineffective prisons. Now, we must try to come up with a solution to these issues. To summarize the major issues: America has the largest prisoner per capita population in the world, an incredibly high return rate, and a history of a desire to appear tough on crime.

We need to eliminate minimum sentences for nearly any crime. A system needs to be implemented that can evaluate prisoners and find if they are reformed early and let them free. Those who do not prove themselves to be a threat should not be held in prison. In order to be let back into the world these people should prove that they are a safe person and that they have improved themselves in prison in other ways such as learning new skills. Incarceration should no longer be a punishment for low level and non-violent crimes.

Often punishment is not the solution to offenders of things like drug violations due to addiction. Prison will not help them but drug treatments programs are far more likely to. The purpose of prisons should not be to ruin someone’s life and make them regret it, but to make them a better person. (1)

An idea to make prisons more improving of these people’s lives rather than being simply punishment, is to allow for more opportunities for learning to occur in the prisons. College students could be encouraged to go to prisons in order to teach things that they are experienced in and many of these prisoners never got to learn, sometimes even basic math and English. Many students would benefit greatly from applying what they have learned to teaching in a unique setting, and they could be encouraged with credits for doing it. In one area, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a similar approach has been implemented quite effectively. The classroom inside the prison does not feel like a prison, except for the uniforms that the prisoners are wearing. Many of the inmates described the classroom as an oasis in the prison. It feels like an escape and is a place for these people to improve themselves.

Students behind ba mix with those from 'outside' - USA Today — Students behind bars mix with those from ‘outside’ – USA Today

So why don’t more of these classrooms exist in an effort to improve these prisoners. Well, in the 90s there were many more of these programs, but after the crime bill and budget cuts for those types of programs. Government support is needed to keep these programs afloat that are often just as important as the prisons themselves.

A major issue with how our prisons function is the separation between the prison world and “the real world”. Prisons should not be designed in a way that there is a severe transition when leaving them. Allowing people to enter prisons (with safety measures in place of course) and share the happenings of the world and display new skills will help improve the prisoners connection to the outside world. Unfortunately, the transition will still exist, so a way to mitigate this is to have more gradual release from prison with the ending of the sentence being a more part of the world and giving limited freedoms. (2)

Another important thing is that prisoners need to feel that there is love in the world. They need to want to come back into the world and feel welcomed and cared about. The idea that while people are in prison and afterwards, they have limited voting rights is horrendous. All prisoners who are American Citizens should be given the right to vote because excluding them is excluding a very purposeful and specific part of the population. Doing this is to miss a significant opinion of the US. Also, not allowing prisoners to vote further separates them from the general population makes them feel that they are not cared about. (3)

On the opposite end of the spectrum of minimum sentences is maximum sentences. We need to implement maximum sentences. Sentences as long as 20 or 30 years are known to not rehabilitate prisoners more than prisoners with shorter sentences, but in fact increase recidivism. Adding maximum sentences for many crimes will help get people out of prisons quickly and help prisons focus on their main purpose, to make better people out of the prison, not to punish them for acting the way they do.(4)

We also need better programs to ensure that people returning from prisons can find jobs, housing, and healthcare, all things that lead to a life away from crime. Many of the things that I have mentioned will come with significant costs to the American people. The solutions to this problem that I have mentioned are all expensive. Fortunately, the prison system in the US at its current state is incredibly expensive with its size. Thus, some of the money that would be gained from cutting prison populations could be used for better rehabilitation for those who are still in prison. Obviously, the money cannot just float over from one sector to another. But it’s the idea that the US is willing to spend so much money on prison, they should be willing to spend just as much or less on helping people who are in prison instead of using fear as a tactic.

(1) https://www.aclu.org/other/solutions

(2) https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/12/17/how-to-fix-our-prisons-let-the-public-inside

(3) https://news.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/fixing-americas-prison-problem/

(4) https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/four-things-we-can-do-end-mass-incarceration

Ukrainian Comestibles

In light of recent events, I have decided to travel out to eastern Europe to investigate their cuisines. Most of the modern Ukrainian cuisines were developed in the 1800s. Being a relatively new country, I will focus more heavily on modern dishes rather than the history of the very old. The national dish of Ukraine is borscht, which is a sour soup made of red beet roots. The land has rich dark soil which allows for the beats to be grown plentifully. Originally, borscht was made from the pickled stems of common hogweed. To produce the modern sour flavor, the beet juice is fermented.

Ukrainian Borsch - — Ukrainian Borsch – Ukraine Trek

Second to borscht in popularity is varenyky and holubtsi. Varenyky is a dish very similar to pierogi with the filling sometimes being replaced with something sweeter for a desert. A holubtsi is a cabbage roll. Both of these dishes are incredibly popular in Ukraine and are considered national favorites. Banush, a cornmeal stew, is also very popular. Kutia is a staple christmas dish containing poppy seeds, wheat, nuts, honey, and delicacies.

Many traditional dishes were based on the workings of peasant farmers. Grain was plentiful, so these peasants produced a variety of wheat and grain foods as well as staple vegetables such as potato, cabbages, mushrooms and beetroots. Beyond just the earth, the whole country is plentiful in food and thus meals come with a breadth of food groups including carbohydrates, fats, protein, fruits and vegetables. Ukrainians eat healthy. Paska is a traditional rich pastry where designs are sometimes added to the top.

Being a relatively new country, a portion of Ukrainian cuisine has ties to that of German, Hungarian, Turkish and Tatar cuisine. Uniquely, the food is famous for being cooked in two steps. First they are fried or boiled, and then stewed or baked. Some say that this is the most distinctive feature of Ukrainian cuisine.

Ukrainians will drink Horilka, an alcoholic beverage unique to the country. Historically, Horilka has gotten stronger in recent years, increasing from it’s traditional 40 proof to 8 proof, today. An interesting version of this drink is pertsivka, which is the base drink combined with chili peppers. Horilka is oft homemade and can be made from a great variety of different items. When this is produced at home the drink is known as samohon which literally means “self-run”, “self-steered”. Behind this, beer, wine, and mead are also all very popular. Non-alcoholic drinks served are often fruit based like Kompot, made from fruits in water, or Uzvar, made from dried fruits.

Despite pork being avoided entirely by the nearby Turks for religious regions, pork was extremely popular among the Ukrainians. Pork fat is especially popular and is served with many things including cooked and added to varenyky. Kruchenyky or Zavyvantsi are rolls typically made of pork and stuffed with mushrooms, onions, eggs, cheese, sauerkraut, and carrots. Although, they will also just eat pork alone like in roast pork. Ukraine has an interesting cuisine with many influences and seen as a staple of eastern European food.

Extra! Civil Rights Essay Reflection

Upon viewing the options for extra credit this semester, I found the civil rights rhetoric essay as something particularly interesting. It recommended a website that had a list of some speeches and letters that were critical to my movement. What caught my eye was a speech I was very familiar with, Martin Luther King’s “How Long, Not Long” speech. Last semester I wrote an essay on it for CAS 137H. I found it particularly impactful and important. I know that whenever most people think of a speech by MLK, they only think of the “I have a dream” speech or the letter from Birmingham Jail. The directions for this contest emphasize that the submissions should be something that is not well known enough in your opinion. Thus, I found that this was a perfect opportunity for me to re-dive into this very important speech. I took my old essay and reworked it to include my new understandings. I will cover what I had learned in both my original writing of my essay and the “second pass”.

The “How Long, Not Long” speech takes place at the end of an incredibly tiring march from Selma to Montgomery. The speech was incredibly important, but the situation surrounding it made it very difficult for MLK to effectively give it. Everyone was very tired from the march and many were losing faith in the movement and felt that they had been marching and fighting for civil rights for such a long time, that they will never be able to achieve what they had been working for so long to achieve. Additionally, Rosa Parks gave a speech right before MLK was due to give his that was incredibly quiet and did not create the necessary support that the people needed to have their spirits lifted. Fortunately, MLK takes all of these constraints to use very effectively and uses everything to his advantage. He knows that the people are struggling and impatient to the end, so he tells them that it will not be long many times in the speech. Through the speech, MLK has one line that I feel is incredibly powerful. He says that “the only normalcy that we will settle for” is that which everyone is treated the same. The old thought of normalcy was that in which white and black people were treated differently. His speech addressed the doubts held by the audience and gave them the hope they needed to continue the movement. He knew his audience because he was one of them. He was a prime part of the fight and saw that sometimes it felt stagnant and was not moving forward.

I think that it was very important for me to learn about this speech because it helped me better understand how long and brutal the movement was. I now have a better view and understanding of MLK’s work that is no longer restricted to my understanding of only a couple points in his life. I also didn’t understand before how interconnected the movement was. For some reason, I always imagined before that it was a few famous people with groups of followers, but seeing that they worked together helps me understand the importance of the movement and all that was done.’

Submission screenshot with entire essay (if email address is too small, it’s
civilrightsrhetoriccontest@gmail.com):

Mlk

Submitted essay:

Many of MLK’s notable speeches revolve around this dream of justice and equality in the future (made especially popular by the “I Have a Dream speech”). However, there was a struggle and doubt when this dream had been sought after for so long and seemed no closer to being grasped. After 54 miles of marching from Selma to Montgomery, much of Martin Luther King Jr’s company was burnt and tired from the sun and long road. They knew the dream, but it seemed so unachievable. King had the great challenge of encouraging them to continue fighting. Martin Luther King Jr’s “How Long, Not Long” speech took advantage of the restraints of a slow civil rights movement for an effective speech by consoling the people’s hardships and built hope for a peaceful path to equality despite the journey seeming unending.

The rhetorical situation surrounding King’s speech was constraining but allowed for a powerful opportunity to help encourage the marchers. Through marching to the State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, the people experienced many hardships such as the scorching sun and sleeping in the mud. Many people who were followers of King questioned whether or not it was worth it to continue non-violent protesting. For ten years they had been fighting for equality in Montgomery; to many of them this fight seemed unending. Thus, this speech came in perfect timing and with an apt title. Preceding King’s speech, Rosa Parks gave an ineffective speech that was hardly audible. Her speech was not what the audience needed to build hope and optimism. Thus, King’s position became even more important and the people needed the strength that King held. King acknowledged the length of the struggle, “there are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. But we must keep going.” He uses repetition to emphasize that he understands the struggles and hopes of the people. Key among these is the phrase also seen in the title of the speech: “how long? not long because…” He emphasizes that he understands the frustration in how long it’s taking and appeals to them by answering why the struggle will end soon. Repetition allows him to magnify the fact that he knows what the people are feeling and further builds ethos through relation. It also allows him to answer it differently every time, so the audience feels that the claim that it will not be long is backed up well. The primary audience of the speech were those who followed King for his long march towards the capitol. They are tired, but they trusted King’s ideas before and continue to be open to his movement. King only needs to keep them optimistic, which he does by telling them that it will not be long until their strife is over.

Because of the constraints around King’s speech, he needed to properly read the audience to fully bring across his message. These people had marched a great distance and were tired of how hard the fight for civil rights and equality has been. They didn’t expect to have been fighting the same fight as ten years ago. King knows the struggle, so he spends a large portion of the beginning of the speech reflecting on the past. He talks of the struggles they have faced and the progress they have made. The speech proceeds to cover the present and the possibilities of the future. Ethos is further built between the audience and King as they see that he is aware of how hard the journey has been. He quotes Sister Pollard in his speech, saying “our feet are tired, but our souls are rested.” This means that the journey is hard and tiring but the reward is unmatchable going all the way to be good for the soul. He reiterates the idea that most people expect them to give up, so they cannot let their hope diminish. His audience is almost entirely those who marched with him which gives him some advantage as they think similarly. The speech is not to convince the audience that equality is needed but rather the fight for it is worth the effort and can be achieved soon. He can have far more empathy for the feelings present in the audience because he is in the fight too, and he has experienced what they have, the pain of discrimination and the hope for the world to change. They also all are in the march, so they have the will to do something, meaning that King only needs to convince them to continue the fight.

The constraints and audience allow for a perfect opportunity for King to deliver his message. This Kairos can make the message very powerful but also makes it difficult to mention some things. For example, the marchers are so tired that King would be mistaken to mention that the march could take longer. In fact, he focuses on how soon the struggle will end because he knows this is what the audience wants to hear and will make them continue to work toward a common goal. There was another constraint around his speech: he was the last in a list of speakers. He was closing the protest, so he was the panel’s last chance to excite the audience and bring about a feeling of hopefulness. Rosa Parks’ speech did not do this very well and her well-mannered and quiet speech was not what was needed to give the desired feelings to the audience. Thus, King’s bold and loud voice that was near a shout helped do what Parks could not, motivate the audience to continue. They were tired, so he needed to bring energy.
In order to effectively get his message across, King had to show that he had an effective understanding of the commonplaces surrounding the situation to bring across his ideology. An examination of the speech’s most frequently used words gives a better idea of what he wanted to emphasize. Many times he mentions: “let us march on”. Clearly, the march to Montgomery is over, but the force of the march and its meaning must continue. They should not permit a lack of progress or regressing to thence they came. They have made progress and will continue to do so. “Let us march on” challenges the commonplace of equality being out of reach and the movement being of no avail. If they keep marching and keep moving forward, progress will be made. He repeats this focus on the word normalcy. To many, the word has two views associated with it: The idea that normalcy is white and black people being treated differently as things had been America for centuries before or the normalcy of everyone being treated the same. Thus, King specifies by calling it “the only normalcy that we will settle for.” He is pushing away the commonplace of normalcy being injustice and wants what people consider normalcy to be justice and equality.

The “How Long, Not Long” speech faced an audience losing faith in the movement, but still effectively maintained support for the peaceful path to equality and justice. The rhetorical situation gave Martin Luther King Jr a worn audience but provided the kairos for his speech to relate to the audience on a deep level and tell why they were going to win the fight. He needed to address the commonplaces held by many and bring together those that supported his ideology. Movements are not just started and won, they need to be maintained and those pushing for them need to be adaptable in their approach as the journey progresses. The world will always be improvable, so the skill to keep a movement alive will be vital for eternity.