All About Lead

1. Lead is extracted from ores dug from under-ground mines.
The top producer of lead is Australia, followed by the United States, China, and Canada.
2. In 1989, the Missouri Legislature passed House Bill 321, which was known as the Metallic Minerals Waste Management Act to regulate the waste produced from metals mining.
3. The concerns that humans are dealing with are that Lead if its inhaled or ingested then it can affect humans on a bad level. Lead is hard to get rid of and when it is thrown out in electronics, it causes a real health concern in the wild.
4. In Adults, Lead poisoning can have poor muscle coordination, nerve damage to the sense organs and nerves controlling the body, increased blood pressure, hearing and vision impairment, reproductive problems, and retarded fetal development.

E-waste

Judging from the lecture on Monday, I believe that the social justice implication of e-waste is that of most of the people who fully understand the subject.  Most people (including myself) don't really know what happens to our cell phones, computers and televisions when we are done with them.  All we know is that we want them gone, and we would like to make money off of them if possible.  Generally, people don't look into where the company they give their old electronics to take them to be "recycled".  Some companies are reliable and do the right thing with them and recycle them properly, however it is often cheaper and more profitable for companies to dump them on the shores of worse-off countries.  What I think the social justice implication of e-waste is that we should educate others on what happens when one gets rid of their old cell phone, and encourage the proper disposal and recycling of these electronics. 

"The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas"

     Social Justice can be defined in many ways, and can mean a lot of different things.  For example, Wikipedia states that "a socially just society is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, understands and values human rights, and recognizes the dignity of every human being" (Wikipedia 9-5-12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice).  Conserveapedia defines social justice as "a term describing the redistribution of wealth for the common good of all" (Conserveapedia 9-5-12  http://www.conservapedia.com/Social_justice).  Both of these definitions have the same basic principles: equality and well being for the good of all who live in that society.  Other sources, such as Dictionary.com define social justice as "the distribution of advantages and disadvantages in a society" (Dictionary.com 9-5-12 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+justice).  Answers.com defines it as "The distribution of the benefits and the hardships in society" (Answers.com 9-5-12 http://www.answers.com/topic/social-justice) These definitions focuses not only on the well being of the people, but more so that the advantages and disadvantages are shared among the community.  The last source I went to was BusinessDictionary.com.  They defined social justice as "   The fair and proper administration of laws conforming to the natural law that all persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion, etc., are to be treated equally and without prejudice" (BusinessDictionary.com 9-5-12 http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/social-justice.html).  This definition branches into the political side of things by discussing that the laws should be socially just.  I personally feel that social justice is best defined by Answers.com.  A socially just society doesn't necessarily mean that all of the citizens are rich, happy and powerful, but rather that they are all equally rich, happy and powerful together, or poor, sad and powerless together.  No one group of people is better off than another in a socially just society.  The definition of social justice can mean so many things, in so many ways, but all of the definitions come down to the same basic theme: equality for all.

I believe that in the story "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas" everybody was selfish.  Although some people decided to walk away from the town when they learned about the suffering child, nobody was willing to actually help the suffering child.  This is not an example of a socially just society because not everybody was happy.  The child was in pain and being treated horribly so that the rest of the town could be happy, and because everyone was not equally happy or suffering this society was not socially just.

I believe that this story relates perfectly to everyday life.  Sometimes (most of the time) we are not willing to sacrifice some of our own happiness to help the less fortunate people in our town.  Also, it doesn't only have to be happiness that we wont sacrifice.  It could be money, or time, or even just prayers.  Sometimes we are too absorbed in our own lives to realize the difference we could make in someone elses'.

A Little Bit About Me

Hello, my name is Grace Noall, I am originally from Concord Township, Ohio (near Mentor).  The email address that you can reach me at is gnoall16@jcu.edu.  Some unique things about me are I absolutely love sports! All of them, another unique, and semi-weird thing about me is that my two favorite bands are Green Day and One Direction. I told you it was weird!

The best way for me to learn is interactively.  I find it so much easier to learn how things work when I can be submerged into the information.  Also, I am quite shy so it is hard for me to speak out in class when I have a question.

I think the most important technological invention is the Internet.  Nowadays, people rely so much on the Internet for such a vast amount of things from getting information to socializing.  It has made, in my opinion, the greatest impact on the world today.  Some technological things I find essential to my life are my phone and my computer. This might sound terrible, but I think it would be extremely difficult to live without these objects in this time period.  I like to consider myself to be quite technologically savvy, but there is no way I could have ever invented Facebook! I'll rate myself a 5 on the technologically advanced scale.

A couple questions I have about the class are how will the use of social networking be incorporated into the class, and how will social networking be incorporated into service?