Nepal earthquake: Death toll passes 4,000 as nation struggles to cope

The death toll from Saturday’s earthquake in Nepal has risen.  Reporters have confirmed that a total of 3,218 people in Nepal dead. Other countries in Asia, such as China and India have reported deaths of 20 from China and 56 from India. Nepal has not had a natural disaster this bad since 80 years ago. The Nepali government predicts that the death toll will continue to increase as Nepali Police officials receive information of the deteriorated countryside that makes up the majority land of Nepal.

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Numerous citizens of Nepal have been helping one another by searching for family members and pulling people out of rubble due to the lack of international rescue teams . Although there has been success in finding survivors from the earthquake, the majority that have been found have been dead bodies. A total of 6,525 people were reported injured on Monday and reports are increasing of more injured people today. Many survivors have  gathered around any open space they can find whether it is a field, empty private compound, or empty roadside lot. Families continue to sleep in the outside in the streets during the cold night.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/26/asia/nepal-earthquake/

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An Aftershock occurred Sunday setting off an avalanche on Mount Everest, killing 17 people. Of those 17 people, 3 of them were Americans. The Americans that were reported dead were Google executive, Dan Fredinburg, Eve Girawong of New Jersey, and Tom Taplin who was a filmmaker from Santa Monica, California.  To make matters even worse, the hospitals are overflowing with injured victims in Nepal, so many of the injured have not been treated. Nepal is in deep trouble and it  is up to other countries around the world to step up  and help because their country cannot do it alone.

The critical 72 hours after Nepal earthquake

On April 25, 2015, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world. The earthquake killed more than 1,800 people and destroyed the majority of the country’s infrastructure. It damaged buildings significantly, which included treasured landmarks. The epicenter of the earthquake took place near  town called, Pokhara, which is a popular place where foreigners hike . This is not the first time that Nepal has experienced a natural disaster. The common naturals disasters that have occurred there have been avalanches and landslides in the mountain terrain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9QfhXNvHA

It is very crucial in the next 72 hours for rescue teams to save as many people as possible that are entangled in the rubble as well as diagnose their injuries. According to Garret Ingoglia, vice president of emergency programs at the AmeriCares, the chance of finding survivors after three days is very unlikely. The main causes of death and leading injuries include, crush injuries, blunt trauma, and infected wounds. Estimates of one million people in Kathmandu do not have anywhere to go because their homes were destroyed during the earthquake. Now people are sleeping outside as a last resort. The Nepali government has requested aid from countries, such as the United States, India, and China, with heavy-duty equipment and helicopters.  The toughest regions for rescue teams to save victims will be areas in the mountains and the Everest Region. These regions are difficult to reach and accessing phones and services with data will also be hard .

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/25/asia/nepal-earthquake-challenges/index.html

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Overall the whole earthquake situation is very devastating. Now it is up to America and other international countries' aid to help save victims. Hopefully rescue teams will be able to save more people than they did in the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

Ku Klux Klan Documentary

Before watching the documentary of the Ku Klux Klan, I had limited knowledge of the organization. I knew the organization hated African Americans and were against integration. What I did not know though was that the group also discriminated against Jew and Catholics. I assumed that if they were not black, than the group was ok with any person. I also did not know that the group was originally established after the civil war to scare and intimidate the freed slaves. Based on the information from given from the documentary, they wore the white sheets over their head to represent dead confederate soldiers who rose from the dead.

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According to the documentary, the K.K.K was not a violent  organization until they saw African Americans become doctors, lawyers, and run for political positions. The whites that wanted to join the K.K.K. were poor and had nothing going for them in their lives. Rich whites looked down on them, so the possibility of blacks moving up in society was just unacceptable to these racist whites. I was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, so when I found out that the Gran Dragon of the K.K.K, Bob Jones , was from Salisbury, North Carolina, I was stunned. He was one of the most successful Klan leaders that lead a chapter of 10,000 members. The Klan organization was at it’s high with four million members nationwide in the early 1960’s.

As timed passed, U.S. individuals began to see the hate and racism of the Klan and how much of a threat they were to society. The F.B.I eventually got involved and began to take down different Klan organizations around the country. President Lydon B. Johnson even gave the Klan a warning telling their members to quite while they can before they face the consequences. Today there are still some racist Klan members in small towns, however America is more race conscientious, so the Klan will never rise in numbers like it did in the past.

The March

The March on Washington, was a documentary voiced over by famous  and Oscar award winning actor, Denzel Washington, that discusses Dr. Martin Luther King’s supporters quest to Washington D.C and the famous speeches and protests he gave and lead.  The movie gave  background of Dr. King’s supporters, other civil rights activists, the significance of the march, the role that young people played in that time, and Dr. King’s powerful speeches

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One aspect that stuck more than others to me in the movie was the importance of the college students. I did not realize that the young people played a crucial role in carrying out protests, participating in the marches, and advocating for Dr. King, until I watched the movie. I have the utmost respect for the college students who protested by sitting at all white only lunch counters. I know personally that I would have not been able to keep it together like the college students did with food being thrown on them, being spit on, hit and kicked constantly by racists, and the “n” word hurled at them. With out them the progress of America would not be where it is today.

It’s amazing to me the impact that Dr. King had on not only black citizens of the U.S. but also white Hollywood celebrities.  I did not realize that apart of the hundreds of thousands of people that went to see Dr. King speak, celebrities such as Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Charlton Hester went to support Dr. Kings in Washington, D.C. I have heard Dr. Kings speech several of times, but when I heard it in that movie it was as if I could actually feel the magnitude of the words that Dr. King was saying. Overall the movie as a whole was effective and sent a powerful message not only to Africans Americans, but people of all ethnicities around the world.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke Moot Court

Today in the moot court my group and I debated the Bakke v Regents of the University of California that took place in the year 1978. In the Bakke v Regents of the University of California, 35 year old Allan Bakke sued University of California at Davis Medical School for having a minority program that reserved 16 out of 100 spots for minorities.  Bakke had applied to 12 Medical schools and had been denied from all them even though he had significantly higher MCAT scores than the minorities in the minority program and  had a 3.5 grade point average.  After being denied a second time from the University of California at Davis Medical School, Bakke decided to go to court and sue the school for violating Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fourteenth Amendment   equal protection clause.

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During the moot court the legal team representing Bakke used these documents to justify that the minority program’s use of quotas was unconstitutional. They also argued that Bakke had a higher GPA and significantly higher MCAT scores than the minorities. My team argued that the majority of students in the program were white and in this period of time there was a need for minority doctors since 2.1 percent of the U.S.’s population had black doctors at the time. We also argued that the program was established for disadvantage minorities. We stated how Bakke was indeed not disadvantaged since he had a stable job and a home of his own. After debating for 20 minutes, the judge ruled in Bakke’s favor for having more valid documents and making better arguments.