Colorado, Snow in the Middle of Summer

Snow on Road Side

Temperature in this summer, May 2018, is quite warm, especially in the southern states of USA (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas). Hot with 36 C (97 F) degree is a common weather in these states. People just wear simple shirt, and many have sunbathed on the beaches along the gulf coast and Florida. 

Temperature in Colorado is around 15 C (59 F) degree when we visited on the third week of May 2018, and even lower at mountain areas. We need a thin jacket or sweater to encounter unprecedented “cold” temperature. As inhabitants of warmer regions, 15 C feels like at the end of winter. 

Snow on the mountains

As we travel from Texas, we observed snow covered mountains along the way to Denver, a capital of Colorado, bigger city with 682,545 population as of 2015. In addition to permanent snow on the Rocky Mountains, actually, Colorado has other landscapes of river canyon, arid desert and forest.   

There are four well known national parks in Colorado, they are Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Rocky Mountain. Uniqueness of  Rocky Mountain due to its diverse and wonderous scenery: snowy peaks, lakes, streams, evergreen forest and amazing of wildlife. 

A tourist is ready playing ski.

Colorado provides plentiful outdoor activities include wildlife viewing, cross country skiing, camping, auto touring, snowshoeing, fishing, stargazing, mild climbing hiking, horseback riding and kayaking. There are many other options for tourist relate activities which will be a truly meaning experience.

77.7 million tourists poured to Colorado with spending of $19.1 billion in 2015. It was contributed around $1.13 billion to state and local taxes revenue. It is estimated about 7% increase per-year. However, as reported by Blevins (2016), Colorado Tourism office spent $$19 million for promotion to attract domestic and international tourists.

Reference

Blevins, J. (2016, July 20). “Colorado breaks tourism record with 77.7 million visitors spending $19.1 billion.” Denver Post. Retrieved from https://www.denverpost.com/2016/07/20/record-colorado-tourism-2015/

Classical Architecture in American Buildings

Old Louisiana Governor Mansion (Hannon, 2015)  

What we called as classical architectures are actually derived from ancient Greek and Roman concepts of building. As suggested by Cartwright (2015) that classical architectures are then developed by Vitruvius. His designs and ideas were published in book with title “De architectura.” Vitruvius has a full name,  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, was Roman with the profession as an architect, civil engineer and military engineer that lived in 1^st century BC.

In modern times or after 1900s, many architectures mimic and copy the past centuries architectures for satisfying the artful desires of private and public communities. Lewis (2016) mentioned that architects produced customized buildings for the financially and socially elites from the 19^th century until the 20^th century. Governments and churches usually copy classical styles, while academic buildings mimic Gothic architectures.

In Louisiana (USA), many classical architecture buildings were built in the modern era, around 1929 -1930. Old Louisiana Governor Mansion (please see above figure) is characterized by identifying features such as columns or pillars stand up straight in front of the entrance. Since the building has columns, that why I think the architect(s) chose to copy the classical style.

The Old Louisiana Governor Mansion is a resemblance of a white house in Washington DC, why it is often called as Louisiana's White House. The clear messages the building conveys that whoever lived in the governor's mansion is ready to live in the White House in the future.

Finally, the building function as a house for Louisiana governor. Until 1962, there were 9 governors lived in the mansion. Currently, the building function as a historic house museum, and as a venue for special events of Louisiana communities. 

References

Cartwright, M. 2015. Vitruvius. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/Vitruvius/

Hannon, RA. 2015. About the Old Governor’s Mansion. Retrived from

http://fhl.org/ogm/old-governors-mansion

Lewis, D. 2016. Modern Architecture: Lost Horizon. Retrieved from

http://www.lovemsmod.com/listing/modern-architecture-lost-horizon-by-david-lewis/

Prejudice and Discrimination in the Society

We found Prejudice and Discrimination anywhere

  (https://getrevising.co.uk/resources/prejudice-and-discrimination)

As many people believed that minority always to be victim of prejudice in American society. However, surprisingly, as reported by “The Week” (2017) magazine that majority, white people feel the society prejudiced against them, and even discriminated to them. This finding is based on survey to 3 thousand respondents across America, where 55% white people believed prejudice will be found in their daily live.

Then, in education, 11% white feel negatively to enroll for education at higher level. If we look at income, the lower to middle class of white believed that they faced discrimination in applying for job, promotion and salary. The white also believe it is difficult to get government help compared to African-American.

However, the survey finding other racial group believed their group not better than white people. 92 percent African-American believe their group face discrimination and prejudice against them in every day live in America.

At the same time, far-right movement, included white nationalist groups proposed “White Lives Matter” movement. Civil rights monitor as part of the Southern Poverty Law Center classified neo-Nazi movement, white nationalist (white supremacy) and some other far-right groups as hate groups. These groups prejudiced to minorities groups, include refugee. These hate group rallies against refugees in Tennessee. In fact, refugees are very small portion of population only in Tennessee.  

Moreover, prejudice is a kind of un-favor behaviors or opinion to other groups (races) without reasons, while discrimination is prejudice treatment to other groups based on their color, race, sex or religious. McIntyre (2011, p.245-248) described that prejudice is based on not true information (in-accurate knowledge) and false arguments from one groups to other group of communities.

Discrimination is prejudice in action. Prejudice is not always manifest into discrimination.  Author give an example the different between prejudice and discrimination. Mr. “A” and Mr. “B” both factory managers, and both dislike Jew without reasons. Although Mr. “A” dislike Jew, but Mr. “A” accept Jew as workers at his factory. Thus, Mr. “A” is prejudice only to Jew. Then, by contrast, Mr. “B” creates regulations in order to reject Jew to work at his factory. This is called as prejudice and discrimination.

Finally, from above summary that what long time ago believed that minority only faced prejudice and discrimination is “not always true” anymore. The majority believed that they get prejudice and discrimination in modern America society as well. 

References.

McIntyre, L. J. (2011). The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology 5th ed.,

New York: McGraw-Hill.  (ISBN 978-0-07-340440-0).

The Week. (2017). Majority of US whites believe they face racial prejudice. Retrieved from

http://www.theweek.co.uk/89258/majority-of-us-whites-believe-they-face-racial-prejudice