:: The 4th Era ::

Unit 1 Geography: Its nature and Perspectives

This article is about how Canada switched its census from being mandatory to voluntary, and how this has had many negative effects. By not having a mandatory census, Canada has saved the national government money, but in truth has really lost a lot. It is much harder to have accurate demographics for city planning, research purposes, and business marketing. Researchers are unable to tell the distribution of racial equality in neighborhoods, the demographics of neighborhoods, and are completley unable to track immagration. There is a voluntary census in place, but this produces much lower quality results, and is expensive to obtain this data.

This relates to the theme of how information such as census data is used, and through this article you are able to tell how important something like the census is to providing data for so many different oraganizations/people. 

As much as Americans hate the Census, this article proves that it is an important governmental instrument. There are many in this nation that would probably desire a similar proposal. They should read this article before ever speaking on the subject again. A Census is nessacary  to tell us about ourselves. How can a government formulate a public policy, if it does not know who lives within its borders?

Demographics seemingly started with age as a metric many years ago and have evolved into marketing tools, political footballs, and ways to combat everything from obesity to social security. Africa is clearly the youngest and probably for a very morbid reason; AIDS and Ebola among other diseases have taken their toll on the sexually active and thus have reduced the average age of their population.

Germany seems to be the place to go for a job as the labor shortage will mean higher wages for the folks who are left. Japan has another issue; a healthy aging population that will strain the government's ability to financially take care of them.

I wonder if the unevenness of Europe is an indication of the two World wars that were fought mostly on the turf. Did some countries lose more than others? If more soldiers, presumably of baby making age, perished did this affect the countries ability to keep pace with the Germany's and Spain's of Europe?

Diet seems to play a large part as well as the Mediterranean is well represented in terms of age. Does their healthy diet of fish, nuts, legumes and olive oil make a difference?

I could spend all day postulating, but I'll leave some of the findings for you to discover...

The median age of a population call be a quite telling statistic--almost a surrogate for a population pyramid.  I post this with a special attention to Sub-Saharan Africa; the youngest 15 countries in the world are all in Africa, one of the major demographic realities confronting African economies and politics.  Here is a map with the median age of U.S. counties.

Tag: population, demographic transition model, population pyramids.

Can we all agree that a 522 year apology is outdated? Honestly, Karavani, a citizen of Israel who benefits from the new policy, summarized my reaction to this when he stated, “I don't think that anybody owes me anything — definitely [not] if it happened 500 years ago.” The people involved in this situation are dead five times over at least. I think it is time to move on and if you can’t, then you have bigger issues in your life. Personally, it would make more sense for the government to remember past mistakes and learn from them by applying knowledge of discrimination to any issues of discrimination that is currently happening in the country.

I kept wondering if giving citizenship so many years later would actually be seen as a justice apology. The citizens aren’t being recognized as Jews. Plus the expense being incurred to even take the test sounds unpleasant given some of the complaints mentioned in the article. I didn’t realize that a large amount of the Israel population would actually leave for Europe. Upon realizing this, I found the trend to be amazing in a world where increased immigration is normally seen in a negative light for the nation who is welcoming the immigrants. Never did I realize that a member of Israel would view it as “a European way — to destroy this country.” I do doubt that was there intent as there are far more effective way to destroy a nation. Yet, when someone is losing a large amount of their population (some of whom speak an almost dead language) I can see how the statement was made. I guess this member of the Israeli population would be considered a person against globalization in this instance.

Leaving Israel isn’t a bad decision though. Given the instability in Israel, I think it is great that more immigrants can go someplace else. Furthermore, I think it provides a fantastic opportunity to people, like Karavani, who want better jobs. While it might be sad to see such drastic change for Levy, people can study like his cousin and keep their heritage. The world is a bigger place now that is easily traversed. I think people needed to realize there is no longer one absolute location to live and that isn’t the end of the world. It is just a new way of life.   

Summary- After almost 550 years, Spain is finally allowing decedents of expelled Jew citizenship. In 1492 Jews were forced to convert, be killed, or flee Spain. A law now grants the Jews descendants citizenship under a draft law by the Spanish Government. 

Insight- As explorers of religion in this unit, we ask out selves: Why were the Jews expelled and now let back in so long after? The expulsion was caused by the Spanish Inquisition, a goal to maintain catholic orthodox in spanish kingdoms forcing all Jews out. They are finally let back in after Spain realized  that there is now no reason to keep other people out.

Unit 3:

Spain debating whether or not they are going to let Jewish people apply to be Spanish citizens.