Kottasova Bias Statement

Angst! Peur! Miedo! Страх! Fear! Regardless of what language it is said in, fear carries the same meaning. As some may say, fear is what can be seen throughout the United States of America as President Trump takes his first days in the White House. This fear has come from the idea that the social transformation Barack Obama has begun since his first day in office, eight years ago, may be coming to an end. Disregarding what may happen next in politics, fear has helped to expose the problems that today’s society has related to human rights. It can be seen in today’s news that; this exposure has motivated people to join arms and push for change. Jaswinder Bolina is one of those people. In his article “Writing Like a White Guy” Bolina dives

The Kremlin does not take kindly to any who would question its authority, whether through speech, essays, or social media. In fact, all protests except those authorized by the government are illegal. Another example of their censorship is visible in 2015 when the Kremlin attempted to disconnect Russia’s internet from that of the rest of the world in order to close the country from outside influences (Soldatov 396). The reason for such adamancy on the subject of censorship is due to the fact that Russian authorities have reimplemented their repressive tactics towards opponents since Vladimir Putin’s presidential reelection in 2012 (Gel’den 7). The Kremlin bases its success off of the extent of control it can exert. Thus, the breeding ground of ideas that is the internet is dangerous to their objectives. While it is impossible to completely shut the country off from external influences at the moment, Russia is definitely capable of stifling domestic opposition; especially that of the people

Ryan, criticized Trump’s remarks on Thursday. The group of Republicans listed many reasons that “Mr. Putin amounts to an adversary of the United States, not a potential ally.” Ryan said he disagreed with Trump's characterization of Putin, and instead called the Russian leader "an aggressor that does not share our interests" and someone who "is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries." It is clear that Hillary as well as other Republicans don’t agree with Mr. Trump. Where this opposition comes from is clear as most Americans have a negative opinion of Mr. Putin. A May NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that “59 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Putin, while just 8 percent held a favorable view.” But Trump’s views may be related to the 2013 agreement to collect and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons that Mr. Putin arranged, which averted the potential American-led airstrikes that Mr. Obama had threatened. Angela E. Stent, a professor at Georgetown University, said, “I think [Trump] genuinely admires Putin as a strongman who gets things done.” Mr. Trump emphasized in a different interview with NBC on Wednesday that he “did not necessarily endorse the political system Mr. Putin has erected,” but brought up questioning about “the United States being a divided country because of comparatively weak leadership.” Trump not only embraces his relationship

It is reasonable to argue that, over the last century or so, the United States has made great strides in addressing issues of injustice. Feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and activism from gay men and women have transformed laws and greatly changed the ways in which these populations were once perceived as inferior. There are still major conflicts regarding race relations, just as issues remain with other minorities and women's rights. At the same time, there has been remarkable progress, indicating a nation more aware of its ethical obligation to treat all equally. To some extent, this same awareness goes to the disabled. Unfortunately, this is a population still very much victimized by bias, and because

Robert Cottrell is reviewing Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman, who is also the co-author of Khrushchev's Cold War, a work investigated in the summer assignment. Cottrell has worked for The Economist and Financial Times as Moscow bureau chief and has written a plethora of reviews on the topic of Russia; he also hosts the website The Browser where he reviews and recommends books to a general audience. Adeptly summarizing and analyzing the main points of Taubman's book, he makes a few points which are contrary to some of the other sources analyzed in the summer, such as saying that the public effect of the 20th congress speech was not noticeable and that Khrushchev's negotiations over the Cuban Missile crisis were "panicky" (FOOTNOTE).

Kennan also believes that Russia's blatant hostility was part of the USSR feeling threatened, and attempting to secure itself as a nation, through expanding its borders, and increasing its security to the point that the people do not control the security services, the security services control them, and it would be fairly difficult to change such a core part of Russian culture, especially due to the numerous literature and works supporting

While observing Mr. Heath, I have learned many new ways to teach future students inside and outside of the classroom. A teacher is an extremely important role model in a child's life, this is because a teacher is one of first adults that a child meets and learns to trust. By understanding this teachers can see why Anti-Bias Instruction is crucial to a safe learning environment for children.

After 3 weeks of keeping a journal of my bias’s I have found I can now reflect on the process. I must say I am somewhat surprised with the outcome. I have found new bias’s I never knew I had or never took the time to think that I had. I also reflected on biases that I knew I had. When it comes down to it, everyone has biases about something. So saying that you do not have a bias or denying would just be a lie.

In the novel, 1984 by George Orwell the corrupt fictional government of Oceania closely resembles the real life government of Russia, whose unscrupulous actions have been condemned for over 120 years. Much like Big Brother from the novel 1984, Russian President Vladimir Putin controls the news that his citizens are allowed to view. Every piece of information released in Russia is carefully selected and monitored by the government, dubbed the Kremlin (Shuster, and McDonald-gibson). For the last 10 years that Putin has been in power, the Russian government has faced many ups and downs.

Sofia Petrovna had admired Natasha and understandably so because she had been an extremely hard worker, politically aware, loyal to the party, and “never let a day go by without reading Pravda from beginning to end” (Chukovskaya 24). Sofia Petrovna sympathized for Natasha and her situation, which led her to question the party’s logic with accepting members. She sought Kolya’s advice regarding the situation, still he simply regarded the “injustice” Sofia Petrovna felt as a “class concept” and that the “vigilance” used in selecting members was “essential” to the function of the party (Chukovskaya 24). After receiving Kolya’s remarks, she had realized he was right since Natasha had “come from a bourgeois, landowning family,” which was not the ideal of the party (Chukovskaya 24). An essential ideology of the party was that people should be cautious of the bourgeois, therefore it was understandable, in citizens’ eyes, to deny them from Komsomol and other party organizations. Sofia Petrovna comforted Natasha in saying that she would be accepted in a few years, but Natasha did not reply and left with a “volume of Kolya’s Lenin” to take notes as he had advised (Chukovskaya 25). Sofia Petrovna’s consoling was only due to her naïve belief that Natasha had a chance after the class struggle ended, and it was just courtesy so Natasha would not stop applying to be in the party or

In Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?, Karen Dawisha relates Russian President Vladmir Putin’s rise to power. She overarchingly claims that Putin is an authoritarian leader who has obstructed and even reverted Russia’s path of democratization, citing, amongst many factors that enabled his ascension, his “interlocking web of personal connections in which he was the linchpin” (100), money-laundering to tax havens and personal projects, and the complicity of the West. With copious research, journalistic interviews, legal documents, and even sporadic informational diagrams, it is evident why her book is so popular amongst scholars and history enthusiasts. Unfortunately however, in spite of the grand yet oftentimes substantiated claims she generates, a more subtle yet noteworthy assumption is made: that the state is a protector, as Olson proffered. She employs this theoretical underpinning from the beginning, though is not representative of Putin’s actual authoritarian regime.

The concept I most related to in Chapter 4 was positivity and negativity biases and how they affect perception. Positivity bias is all about paying attention to someone or somethings more favorable aspects, and negativity bias is when you focus more heavily on the unfavorable qualities. So many factors can alter our perception of the people and events that occur in our lives, but having a bias influences you to favor or more strongly dislike someone or something without paying attention to other qualities they possess. Positivity bias is most present in relationships, especially in what is considered the “honeymoon” phase, where everything is happy and neither person can do no wrong in the relationship. Negativity biases can often be found in politics, where each political party so strongly dislikes the other that they can’t ever seem to agree or see past their hatred for the others political affiliation. In order to more effectively communicate, however, people should try and put their biases to the side and communicate in an objective manner.

Russian political culture is a culture that has an emphasis on power and security. However, both of these ideas have their

Few contemporary authors have had as profound an effect on their genre, society, political debate, or literature in general as Robert Heinlein. Science fiction novelist Ken Macleod suggests that the world was having a dialogue with Heinlein, unfortunately, one of the unintentional ramifications of dialogue is misunderstanding, one cause of this is reader bias (Macleod et al. 231). Bias is most corrosive to readers’ understanding when brought to their initial reading, consequently, they should avoid it for at least three reasons; first, it causes a work or author to be regarded in many contradicting ways; second, it creates an atmosphere in which faulty arguments are made; and third, it results in significant elements of the story being ignored. One caveat, readers should not construe this in such a way as to imply that the arguments presented here are merely about the book itself, so much as being about the overall scope of it in relation to Heinlein and the bias levied for or against the book and him. Of additional consideration is the impact those biases had on the overall message as well as the meaning of the work itself and to further extrapolate this into how bias affects other works.

Russia’s Return as a Superpower. There are concerns that Russia may once again “reassert itself militarily” (Wood 7). After the original fall of communism in 1991, Russia seemed to be on a path to democracy. Currently the notion of a democratic Russia seems to be fading as Russia “has been centralizing more and more power in the Kremlin” (Putin 2). Regional governors, who were once elected by the people, are now being appointed by Moscow.