A Ton of Crap (100 page)

FILIPINO

The Written Language
In 1593, the Spanish came to the Philippines and established colonial rule. Prior to this time, Tagalog was written in Baybayin, a form of writing known as an abugida, a system consisting of fourteen consonants and only three vowels. When the Spanish took control of the land, the Latin alphabet was introduced, and Tagalog was written using a total of thirty-two letters. When Tagalog became the national language, the alphabet changed yet again, to a system known as Abakada, which consisted of twenty letters. In 1987, the alphabet was again changed to be able to incorporate the Spanish and English influences in Filipino. This new alphabet consisted of twenty-eight letters.

THE BABY BOOMERS AND THE SIXTIES

Civil Rights Movement
One of the most significant things to come out of the 1960s was the civil rights movement, which peaked from 1955 to 1965. Though African Americans had fought for nearly a century for equal rights, and there had been some progress, it was during this time that the most substantial accomplishments were made. In 1954,
Brown v. Board of Education
made segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Among some of the most critical events that occurred during this time period was the entry of the first African American student into the University of Mississippi; the work of Martin Luther King Jr.; the protests in Birmingham, Alabama; the March on Washington; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

NONFICTION

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
Fast food is part of our everyday life. If we are not eating it, then we are seeing it on television, or our children are playing with toys from fast-food restaurants. Eric Schlosser’s
Fast Food Nation
examines the ever-growing industry of fast food in the United States. Schlosser goes into great detail, from the creation to the marketing of fast food, and provides plenty of interesting information on a wide variety of topics. Besides simply taking a look at what the food is made of, Schlosser looks at the industry. He discusses, for example, how fast-food companies have moved their operations to anti-union states, like Kansas, Iowa, Texas, and Nebraska, to take advantage of low wages that would not be allowed in areas like New York or Chicago.

FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM

Ernst Kummer
Ernst Kummer was the next to make a major breakthrough in Fermat’s last theorem. Kummer lived from 1810 to 1893 in Germany. Kummer introduced the idea of “ideal” numbers, and his work with this concept would provide great insights into the theorem. In 1843, Kummer realized that attempts made at proving Fermat’s theorem didn’t work because the factorization of integers could not continue on to different rings of complex numbers. Kummer claimed that ideal numbers needed to be used. This concept was critical to understanding Fermat’s last theorem, ring theory, and abstract algebra.

PHOTOSYNTHESIS

Light Reactions
There are two stages to photosynthesis. They are the light-
dependent process (also known as light reactions) and the light-independent process (or dark reactions). Light reactions are the processes that occur in the chloroplasts and thylakoids in which light energy is absorbed by the chlorophyll and converted into chemical energy. During this process, water is split and oxygen is released. Light reactions have two photosystems (photosystem I and photosystem II) which harvest the light. The chlorophyll in photosystem I is the stronger absorber of the light. The two products to come out of light reactions are ATP and NADPH2.

FILIPINO

Influence of Outsiders
The Spanish controlled the Philippines from 1593 until 1898. From 1898 until 1946, the Philippines was controlled by the United States. The Spanish imposed their religion, political ideologies, language, alphabet, and social and economic institutions on the people of the Philippines. As a result of the Spanish conquest, it is estimated that 40 percent of the Filipino language is comprised of either Spanish words or words derived from Spanish, and until 1987, Spanish was one of the official languages of the country. As the Americans controlled the Philippines, English was also introduced as an official language.

THE BABY BOOMERS AND THE SIXTIES

Feminism
In the 1960s, a second wave of feminism swept the nation. In 1963, Betty Friedan published a book called
The Feminine Mystique
that became wildly popular. The book criticized the constricted roles women took as mother and housekeeper. Feminists began looking at the treatment of women in relation to sex, history, and education. Feminist organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) advocated for equal opportunity in the workplace and the right to an abortion (which would pave the way for
Roe v. Wade
).

NONFICTION

The Education of Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams
is a very interesting book. Henry Adams, the great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, wrote the book himself; however, it is written in the third person. The book describes Adams’s early life growing up in Boston, and events in his life such as his introduction to the world of the South and the horrors of slavery. Adams goes into detail about his education at Harvard, and as he discusses his life, he discusses the realization that his formal education did not prepare him for the world at large.

FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM