EMOJIS

     
     One of the most interesting presentations from the EOTO projects was the history of the emoji. I had never thought about how the emoji has gotten to be the emoji of today.

     The first emoji was sent in 1982 by Scott Fahlman. Mr. Fahlman used his creativity to combine the parenthesis with the colon to create :) to symbolize happiness and send it via email. 

     This move to expand emojis continued later with Japanese designer Shigitaka Kurita. In 1999, Kurita wanted an easier way to communicate, so he used visuals to create the first emoticon keyboard. Kurita is considered to be the "father of emojis."  

     Emojis picked up again in 2009 when Apple engineers Yasu Kida and Peter Edberg created the 625 emojis for Apple. Apple then wanted its own keyboard so, in 2011, it added an official keyboard to its phones. Over the past eight years, Apple has steadily been adding more and more emojis, from the gay pride flag to including many more races and ethnicities. 

     Eventually, Fred Benenson translated the whole Moby Dick book to Emoji Dick. Also, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City holds the original emoji collection.

     Today, almost everyone knows what an emoji is. Many businesses are using them to connect with their customers. Who knows what new emojis we will have in the future? The only limit is our imagination.

MAD WORLD REMIX OF MOBY VIDEO

     Of the people from age 18 to 44, 80% check our cell phones once we wake up and 44% sleep next to our phones. This age group averages spending 15 hours a week on our cellular devises. This video depicts one of our main problems in today's society: our digital "addiction." 

     The film, "Mad World Remix of Moby Video," begins with a conglomeration of adult cell phone addicts glued to their phones, bumping into and ignoring the main character, a small boy who seems to be the only person without a cell phone. The adults fall into holes and run into each other because they don't look up long enough to know where they are going. The young boy zig zags through stampedes of people and cowers in people's shadows. 

     Two scenes in the film stood out more than the others. The first was when the whole family sits at the dinner table. They all have cellphone, including a baby. When I was younger (starting at about age 12), I would always have my phone with me. I would bring it wherever I was to play games and talk with friends. I remember my father always yelling at me and my brother to put our phones away. After seven years, I can say the digital addiction has taken hold of my Dad--at least some of the time. Family meals should times to converse, and when you really listen. You shouldn't have any cellular phone out at those times--as difficult as that may be.

     The second scene was when the woman used her phone to make the photo of her turn from sad and ugly into happy and beautiful. Today, especially with Instagram, everyone is trying to impress everyone else by how they look rather than making what is inside more beautiful. Women have a beauty standard and men have strength standards based on what society has decided are the most desirable traits. Our digital addiction is reenforcing these stereotypes and is keeping us focused on what's perfect, and not what is good and healthy.

HOW FAR IS AMERICAN WILLING TO GO TO GET ACCESS TO CHINESE MARKETS?

     
      On October 12, 2019, The New York Times contained an article named "Politics and Sports Shouldn't Mix? They've Always Mixed." It's a story about how, over the past week, the National Basketball Association has been caught in a pickle. The general manager of the Houston Rockets sent out a tweet expressing support for the protestors in Hong Kong. The Chinese government was offended about this statement and threatened to make it harder for the NBA to promote basketball in the land of 1.4 billion potential customers. The head of the NBA released two statements, one in English and one in Mandarin Chinese. The problem was that the Mandarin statement was a lot more apologetic than the English. Some people criticized the NBA, saying the Houston general manager had every right to express his thought. Other people said supported the NBA by saying you can't ignore getting access to country with the biggest population in the world. 

     This is just the latest in the debate about how far is America willing to go to get access to Chinese markets. The American Conservative website posted an October 4, 2019 article by Pat Buchanan (who ran twice for the Republican presidential nomination) titled, "American Blunder: Throwing Open Our Markets to China," which argued that America has made three big mistakes in the past 60 years--one being that America has been too eager to do business with China. Buchanan wrote, "The third (mistake) was to throw open America's markets to Chinese goods on favorable terms, which led to the enrichment and empowerment of a regime whose long-term threat to U.S. interests and values is as great as was that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War" (Buchanan para 19). My sense is that Buchanan would strongly disagree with the NBA apologizing to the Chinese government and people in order to keep those markets open. 

     On the other hand, antiwar.com posted an article that took an opposite position. In a July 2, 2019 article by Doug Bandow, titled, "Blame America Too for Our Ruptured Relations With the Chinese," Bandow admitted that China had made many mistakes such as having aggressive threats towards other countries and keeping too much control over its society. However, Bandow wrote that the United States had made mistakes too in our relationship with China. He expressed a strong desire to have largely open markets between the US and China, writing, "Trade benefits both parties and is best kept free rather than excessively managed. Washington must decide what issues are broadly essential to our commercial relationship, especially given legitimate security concerns." I anticipate that Bandow would understand and agree with the NBA's wish to sell more satellite packages and jerseys to pro basketball fans in China, even if that meant dealing with a government that was being strongly protested in Hong Kong.

     So, in the end, will America play ball with China, or will we cancel the game?

FAKEBOOK

     

     Author Matt Binder wrote an article on Mashable entitled, "Facebook has a gaping loophole in its fight against fake news." Throughout the article, Binder examined how Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook company have tried to cut down the news that is "false" on its platform. However, people are still getting a lot of false news on Facebook, which shows Zuckerberg and his team have more work to do. 

     Some precautions Facebook took in 2017 including announcing "it was ending the ability for users to edit link previews" (Binder para. 8). Facebook thought this action would help deal with the fake news issue. Still, there have been links to glitches where you can still edit link previews. Binder provided a great example of fake news on Facebook when "Howard Schultz dropped out of the presidential race." Continuing to describe how Facebook took its time in shutting down this post contributed to many people not trusting Facebook to be a reliable source of information.

     I believe one major takeaway from this situation is that the inability to keep false statements off of Facebook and other platforms make peoples confirmation biases stronger. Too many people just look for information that will validate what they already believe. It's important for us to hear the truth, even if that information undermines what we have believed. This is a hard issue to deal with, but Facebook and other platforms are not doing enough to solve the problem.

SUPREME COURT

     On February 1, 1790, the U.S. Supreme Court's first session took place in New York City in the Royal Exchange Building. Since then, more than a hundred justices have served on this court. 
The main purpose of the Supreme Court in the Federal government is to create checks and balances. If the federal judiciary believes the other branches of government are breaking the law or violating the U.S. Constitution, these judges can exercise "judicial review". The main event that established judicial review (and what is considered to be one of the most famous Supreme Court cases) was Marbury v. Madison. 
     
     In this case, William Marbury wanted the federal court to issue a Writ of Mandamus, also known as a court order. Marbury wanted Secretary of State Madison to be required to file Marbury's commission to be a judge, as directed when John Adams was President. John Marshall, who was Chief Justice, wrote the court's opinion on February 24, 1803, that while the law stating Marbury should get his commission was illegal, the Federal Courts could decide if the other branches of government violate The Constitution.Until this decision, it was not clear whether the Supreme Court (and other federal courts) had this power.

     Another famous court Supreme Court cases was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. According to the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." 

     In the 1890's the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson that there could be racial discrimination so long as the facilities were "separate but equal." In the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case, attorney Thurgood Marshall argued that separate facilities were always unequal. Chief Justice Warren wrote in a unanimous opinion that the Plessy case was wrong and denying people the right to use facilities because of their race violated the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. So, the Brown vs Board of Education cause overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson and opened the way for later challenges to discrimination based on the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. 

FIRST AMENDMENT

     The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." But when speech promotes violence or is "extreme," can we pull the plug on it?

     In the past year, 21 mass deadly shootings have occurred in America, averaging one shooting every 15 days. At least three of these shootings, like the one in El Paso, have been linked to the website, 8chan. 

     8chan was set up in 2013 as a message board dedicated to "extreme free speech." Users create discussion pages or "boards" for hundreds of people to offer comments. Although 8chan, itself, doesn't violate any laws, some people believe the content on this website is too much. Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, stated, "8chan is almost like a bulletin board where the worst offenders go to share their terrible ideas. It's become a sounding board where people share ideas, and where these kinds of ideologies are amplified and expanded on, and ultimately, people are radicalized as a result."


     At the moment, some people believe that 8chan may have fueled the hatred that led to some of these mass shootings. They want to block 8chan's online presence. The problem is that this website isn't directly inciting violence, but it is encouraging "extreme speech" and that may include words that could lead others to commit violent actions. A hard question is: does 8chan (or any other website) have the right to attract people who will incite other people to violence? Stated another way: does 8chan have the right to create and maintain a website where the baseline of violent ideas and actions start and grow? However, how do we draw the line of where "creating a baseline of violent ideas or actions" begins?

At the moment, some people believe that 8chan may have fueled the hatred that led to some of these mass shootings. They want to block 8chan's online presence. The problem is that this website isn't directly inciting violence, but it is encouraging "extreme speech" and that may include words that could lead others to commit violent actions. A hard question is: does 8chan (or any other website) have the right to attract people who will incite other people to violence? Stated another way: does 8chan have the right to create and maintain a website where the baseline of violent ideas and actions start and grow? However, how do we draw the line of where "creating a baseline of violent ideas or actions" begins?