The Invention of the Pencil

 In 1795, Nicholas-Jacques Conte, a scientist in the army, invented the pencil for Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot. At the time in France, graphite stopped getting imported, so he asked Conte to make a pencil that did not rely on imports. The word pencil comes from Latin for “little tail .”It was called this to resemble the fine brush for painting using camel hair. Before the modern pencil was invented, people used lumps of lead. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Jan van Eyck would use a silverpoint drawing technique involving various types of metalpoint.

Graphite was first discovered in North England accidentally by Edward Acheson. It looked like coal, yet would not burn, and It was very soft. It was so soft that it needed something to hold it. The first wooden holder was born and could efficiently fit the graphite. The first pencil factory opened in 1832, named Banks, Son & Co; now it is called Derwent Cumberland Pencil Company.

Making a pencil first required “roasting a mixture of water, clay, and graphite in a kiln at 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit before encasing the resulting soft solid in a wooden surround. The shape of that surround can be square, polygonal, or round, depending on the pencil’s intended use. The hardness or softness of the final pencil ‘lead’ can be determined by adjusting the relative fractions of clay and graphite in the roasting mixture”. People loved the pencil because you did not have to have any worries as you did with a quill pen. It did not spill ink and was a lot clearer and darker. One of the significant advances is that it was erasable; even though the eraser was not added to pencils until 1858, you could erase the graphite with bread crumbs!

The pencil changed the world and how we communicate in many different ways. It gave ordinary people the ability to write, helping bring about the Renaissance; they could now have the ability to write down and come up with new ideas. Some other ways are that people can directly send letters to anyone they want, which is much cheaper than other options. It solved many problems for the everyday person so they could not do what only the rich could. Quill pens were hard to make because the feathers were from different birds. The ink was hard to make and unavailable for some people. The pencil made it easy for anyone to come up with new ideas, and with the pencil came a lot of new inventions because more people could brainstorm ideas and write anything down on a piece of paper.

However, the pencil created a huge negative environmental impact on the country. Pencils have a significant role in the cutting down of trees. Eighty-two thousand trees are cut down yearly to make 14 billion traditional wooden pencils. That might not seem like a lot to you, but think about that every year, along with people cutting down trees for paper, firewood, etc. Another environmental impact pencils have all the factories pencils are being made at. They have so much pollution contributing to the world, along with the trucks and machines needed for making the modern pencil. Even though this was later in the decade, the eraser materials are very non-environment friendly and challenging to make again. 

Overall, the pencil was one of the greatest inventions bringing so many new inventions along with it. If we did not have the pencil as early as we did, the world would be a very different place. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. There are Eight Values of Free Expression: Marketplace of Ideas, Participation in Self-Government, Stable Change, Individual Self-Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promote Tolerance, Promote Innovation, and finally, Protect Dissent. 

While reading the article, Promoting Innovation was crucial for me because we would not be who we are today without it. It makes everyone feel allowed to be different and express themselves freely. It gives people the initiative to succeed in their personal goals. These share everyone's different values in life and can help people find new interests/talents every day. It allows you to explore whatever gives your interest freely. One of the most important values I came across was to Protect Dissent. America would not be the same at all without it because there would be no one that would be allowed to stand against the Government or higher authority. If different minority groups did not ever go against the rule, we would still have no rights for African Americans, Women, LGBT+, etc. There would never be any protest for “unpopular” views or going against what people thought were the norms at the time, “it is your patriotic duty to criticize the government.” Criticizing the Government is not a bad thing. It is what makes us the country we are.

Some values that connect with me are Individual Self-Fulfillment. This helps people, especially me, be true to themselves and not be afraid of who they are. You can be of any religion, sex, or sexual orientation, and you can still express yourself however you want to. If you are not the “norm,” you still have the same rights as everyone, when it was not like this. If we did not have this value, we would not have the essential human diversity or free speech we have today. Something else that is personal to me is Stable Change. This primary value allows you to change something safely and effectively. It states that citizens should be able to speak their minds, or they can resort to things like violence. It is a benefit for the Government to hear such complaints so that they can try to fix the problem before it turns into something bigger. One of the values that resonated with me was Promote Tolerance. Reading “A more tolerant society is a better society” made me think about how that is true in many ways. Things become a lot easier when people do what they are supposed to and do not resist or fight back. On the other hand, that also leaves little room for diversity and the uniqueness of everyone and their opinions. I agree that freedom of speech teaches us many different lessons and is needed for a prosperous and functional society.

Something happening in the real world that connects to the Individual Self-Fulfillment theory is TikTok. There are a lot of famous people on TikTok that are famous for doing very controversial things. They only want to attract specific audience groups, yet it still works because TikTok is excellent at knowing your target audience. If we did not have Individual Self-Fulfillment, these famous TikTokers could not freely explore their own identity or freedom of speech. Another example corresponds to the Stable Change value. People publicly talk badly about the Government, the president, Congress, etc., which would never be allowed in another country. In America, people are allowed to complain and want to change aspects of the Government. It helps the Government here, but that could even be illegal in other places.

Overall, it was very informative to learn about these values as I already use them daily, just didn't know I got that freedom that other do not have.

 

The Founding Era & the Idea of America

I have always needed clarification about how the Supreme Court operates, but watching these videos and articles has helped me understand it much more. I had a lot of incorrect information about the Supreme Court and thought they only worked sometimes. The most important takeaway about the Supreme Court is that they are all overqualified and make hard decisions every day. I learned that one of the most critical pieces of information about the Supreme Court is that they take in thousands of petitions each year to make decisions on. If the Justice disagrees, there could be eighty pages of notes just for one case. The video taught me that Presidents elect Chief Justices. I did not know that anyone could send in a petition, which could be for anything involving the law. I learned that before Warren's pro-civil rights decisions, they denied citizenship to enslaved African Americans in 1857, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and kept state segregation laws in 1896 (Plessy v. Ferguson). There was a ruling called Engel v. Vitale, and it was about leading prayer over the school's loudspeaker. I never thought about simple petitions like that and how many had to come through the Supreme Court that feels regular to us today. Another interesting fact I learned from that article was that there used to be five to ten seats on the Supreme Court, but in 1869 there was a set number of nine. I learned about William Howard Taft and how he was the only person to serve as President and Supreme Chief Justice. I didn't even know that you could do that.

Something surprising to me in the article and video was that United States v. Windsor, which means that the government can not deny benefits to same-sex couples, came before Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized all same-sex marriage in the United States. That means that just because a couple was the same sex, people would deny them the same rights as everyone else; I can not even think of a world like that, even though I know minority groups have been discriminated against since the beginning of The United States of America. Another thing that surprised me about the Supreme Court is that Roe v. Wade (1973), which ruled that women have a right to an abortion during the first two trimesters, was overturned in June 2022. Even though I already knew this, it still surprises me, and I can not believe that we want backward women's rights. Lastly, the video taught me that there is no "inside story" to a court. Everything is open to the public. Many people, including me, think that the court hides secrets or does secret things behind the scenes, but in the video, I learned that everything they have to do is printed to the press.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about the Supreme Court because I needed to be educated on it. I learned many things, from the basics to more complicated things, that most Americans need to learn. It gave me a broad overview of the inner workings of the Supreme Court.

Privacy, Online & Off

One example of how privacy can affect me is through the unauthorized use or sharing of personal information. For instance, If I sign up for an online service or make a purchase online and provide my email address and other personal information, that company can now sell my information to other companies to get money. They can get to know what you like and more about you so they can target you. If that company sells your information to third parties without your consent, you will receive unwanted spam emails or targeted ads. This is how companies can quickly get your data by making you sign up for a discount or another attractive deal to make you give them personal information. Your personal information can be used for identity theft, financial fraud, and other unknown purposes. I am significantly affected by this because I have often given my personal information to unreliable companies. I have learned my lesson more than once, but it still is hard to know when companies are just trying to use you for personal information or if they need that information. Ever since I have been a victim of one of these situations, I have been using a strong enough passcode for all my devices and have made sure to use a spam email if I ever need to put my email in for anything.

The Government should regulate the use of surveillance technology. Governments can regulate surveillance technology to prevent unwanted sites and protect people’s privacy. This includes controlling the use of CCTV cameras, facial recognition technology, and many other forms of surveillance. Even though the Government tries to “regulate” technology, I think it would be impossible to regulate all technology. That is why it is so important for more people to find out about online safety and what you should and should not do. 

One of the biggest things the Government should be doing is encouraging transparency. Governments can enable or even make companies more transparent about how they use your data and where it goes. Some people do not even know their personal data is being used. Companies should have to tell customers about their usage practices by requiring them to say to people their policies. The Government needs to develop a system that protects the people but helps the companies as well. 

My Top Five News Sources

Over time generations have found new ways to find information quicker and quicker. As people rely more heavily on technology than anything, news has become more digital than ever. I have never had to wait for the news; I could always find out anything I wanted in the world with a simple search. Below are my top five most used and favorite news sources. 

CNN is one of my favorite and most used news sources. It is very easy for me to look back on their website to find news about that day that I missed on the news channel. Watching the daily news is difficult for me, so I love that they post everything on their website and are up to the most recent dates. It is the news source that I use for world news and what is happening today that could majorly affect me.

YouTube is of the top three apps I use daily. I love being able to watch videos about everything and anything that I would want. Youtube is easy for me to watch and not get distracted like I can with reading. They have such a wide variety of content that I could never stop learning new information. I also enjoy it for more casual news like the new cooking styles etc.

The New York Times is a website that I love using about once a week to find out everything that interests me. While it does have world and breaking news, I love using it for its health, sports, style, food, travel, and even real estate. I love a news source that can give me more information than just world news or politics. I know that is reliable information, and I enjoy finding better ways to do things daily.

TikTok is a social media platform that I use daily. Social media is not a reliable way to get accurate information, yet I learn a lot daily just by scrolling through videos. They are usually funny or something fun for me to do, not usually something that is meaningful, yet I still care to learn this new information. It helps me know what my friends are talking about and the current news in the social media world.

Word of Mouth is one of the easiest and fastest ways I learn news daily. I always find out new information when I talk with friends or family. Usually, if something big happens in the world, I will hear first from my family. My grandma watches the news all day, so I get a text in the family group chat anytime big happens. My friends and I are always talking about our world of social media and what is the most happening thing.