There are numerous benefits of cardio or cardiovascular exercises. Cardio precisely deals with any movements that increases the heart up and increases blood circulation during an exercise activity. Some people love cardio and others hate it. Yet, Cardio is one of the most important types of exercises that a person can do. Many people use cardio as a means to burn off excess calories. People can increase fat loss by using cardio, because calories burned versus calories consumed is a great way of determining an exercise result. One benefit of cardio is that it can improve heart. The human heart is a muscle. The heart can get stronger and we must work it as a means to make it strong. If someone fails to work his or her heart, then it can weaken over time (which can lead into numerous negative health effects). Getting the human heart pumping at a faster rate on a regular basis can keep you in shape and be healthy. So, our heart muscle must be worked. Cardio can increase metabolism. The more intense the cardio session, the higher the metabolic rate will come in. Intense interval sprint or HIIT can increase the metabolism too. Metabolism can increase with EPOC or (Excess Post exercise Oxygen consumption). Cardio also changes the hormonal profile in the human body a lot. Cardio releases “feel good” hormones that can help ease symptoms of depression and fatigue. It can release hormones that decrease the appetite. Studies show that people who do regular cardio exercise often have a much more positive outlook on life simply because they are getting the stress relief benefits from these hormones. Cardio can improve the recovery ability of the human body. In other words, lower or moderate forms of cardio can decrease the recovery time. This can reduce DOMS or the delayed onset of muscle soreness and bring more oxygen rich blood to the muscle tissue improving in the repair and rebuilding process. This means that a person can get back into the gym quicker and work the muscles again. A person needs to have sufficient rest and a overloading of stimulus in order for muscle mass to grow. Additional new muscle can be added in working more a muscle along with recovery being achieved. Cardio can manage diabetes too. When cardio comes about, the muscles can have an increased power to use glucose. Those who exercise regularly tend to have better control of their blood sugars and don’t have as many blood sugar swings as those who don’t. Those with diabetes have great sensitivity to blood sugar levels. Other benefits of cardio include stronger lungs, increased bone density, reduced risk of heart disease and other types of cancers, more confidence, and better sleep. Cardio is diverse. It can be walking, riding a bike, using a treadmill, doing an organized sport, etc. Being patient, mixing exercises up, and focusing on improving the human body are great pieces of advice as well to take when using cardio. Not to mention that cardio can improve the human brain in memory, intellect, etc. "Cardiovascular health is more important than any other single factor in preserving and improving learning and memory," says Thomas Crook, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and memory researcher. "You're working out your brain at the same time as your heart." Cardio gives chemicals to the brain that develop memory, problem solving, and decision making. "Exercise improves attention, memory, accuracy, and how quickly you process information, all of which helps you make smarter decisions," says Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D., an associate professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A study in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory found that people learned vocabulary words 20 percent faster after intense exercise than after low-intensity activity. Those who did more-demanding exercise had a bigger spike in their brains' levels of BDNF, dopamine, and epinephrine afterward. So the more you challenge your body, the more your gray matter benefits. The important thing is for a person to do an activity that gets them moving and their heart rate up.
In America, homelessness is a huge problem. We saw more awareness about this issue back in the 1980’s and now (near 2015); we still should address this important issue. There are over 3500 people homeless in Santa Cruz alone. There are over one million homeless children in public schools. Many homeless people are turned away from shelters, so some have no other choice but to sleep in cars or under culverts. Many people have no other option, but to do their laundry in religious locations and some homeless people have tragically died. On any given night, there are over 600,000 homeless people in America according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some live in short term transitional housing. Slightly over a third of the homeless in America live in cars, under bridges, or some other way living unsheltered. One quarter of the homeless are children. Over 57,000 veterans are homeless each night. More than 90 percent of homeless women are victims of severe physical or sexual abuse. The lack of affordable housing is one major cause of homelessness according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. HUD has seen its budget slashed by over 50 percent in recent decades. This has caused the loss of 10,000 units of subsidized low income housing each and every year. There are fewer places for poor people to rent than before. One eighth of the nation’s supply of low income housing has been permanently lost since 2001. That is why the U.S. needs at least 7 million more affordable apartments for low income families and as a result, millions of families spend more than half their monthly income on rent. Over five million homes have been foreclosed on since 2008. Some resort to search for affordable rental property. Public rental assistance assists only one out of our extremely low income households. Those who do not receive help are on multi-year waiting lists. For example, Charlotte just opened up their applications for public HOUSING ASSISTANCE for the first time in 14 years and over 10,000 people applied. One in five homeless human beings suffers from untreated severe mental illness. About 6 person of the general population suffer severe mental illness while 20-25 percent of the homeless suffer it according to government studies. That is why funding mental health services are so critical. We know that cities are increasingly making homelessness a crime. Many cities make it a crime for people to sleep anywhere in public, make it illegal to sleep in a car, make it illegal to sit or lay down in particular public places, etc. This criminalizes homelessness. Things must change.
We know history too. For many centuries, the slave trade and the Maafa was part of the capitalistic system in Europe and America. The Maafa deprived Africa of millions of human beings and it fermented predatory wars that disrupted the economics of Africa. This caused more Europeans to scramble for the resources of Africa via the Berlin Conference and other immoral actions. The criminal imperialists used the most brutal exploitation of local labor and the wealth of Africa was sent into Western profits. Africans resisted this immoral treatment. They fought heroically for their independence. By the 1960’s, most of Africa gained national independence. Also, we have to realize that even today; we see the political domination of the West in many African regions. Giant corporations still exploit the trade in African commodities. Debt repayment schemes (including the debt reduction schemes of the structural adjustment programs promoted by Western political leaders, the IMF, and the World Bank. Historically, the IMF and the World Bank have been involved in huge corruption) in Africa did not solve poverty concretely. Imperialism readily set up the irrational, arbitrary African boundaries today (because many of these boundaries cross ethnicities and other landscapes without respect to the peoples in Africa). In essence, the working class and the poor must have a role in the development of their own self-determination. Also, we live in a class struggle. Africa should be free without it being dominated by the IMF and transnationals. The peoples of Africa have every right to defeat imperialism and neo-colonialism. We see that Western imperial power, not black Africans, and are responsible for many of the issues in Africa. People need to know that African independence of numerous nations was caused by strikes, by protests, by real social movements, and by struggle. The civil liberties and human rights of African peoples must be protected too. On another note, there is another excellent African musician. Her name is Simphiwe Dana. She is a Xhosa singer and song writer in South Africa. She does an unique combination of Jazz, Afro-soul, rap, and traditional music. She is very vocal on political issues in South Africa. I wish her the best.
1918 was the year of the end of WWI. During this time, two waves of influenza spread globally. That epidemic ended in 1919. These waves killed more people than the war did. On January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson declared his 14 points as the path to permanent world peace. The deal was that WWI was extremely destructive and it was a war that was not witnessed before his human history during that time. So, many people wanted to establish a policy, a program, and an organization to end all wars in general. On March 21, 1918, the Germans launched its first of five offensives. This was done before American troops were in the trenches. The German advance was stopped in late June. The Red Baron or Baron von Richtofen was killed in an air dog fight on April 22, 1918. The German advance was stooped near Amiens by British and Australian troops by April 25. German shells land on Paris in May 23, 1918. American forces stop the Germans on the banks of the Marne near Paris at Chateau-Thierry on May 31, 1918. German troops were being shipped from the Eastern to Western Front to desert in large numbers from their transport trains in July. Former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, children, and members of his entourage were murdered by the Bolsheviks on July 16-17, 1918. President Wilson agrees to co-operate with Allies in sending volunteer troops to Russia. The Allied counter offensives finally on Somme push the Germany army back and into retreat by August 8, 1918. Allied forces break through German fortifications at the Hindenburg line on September. Then, the German sailors had done mutiny at port when they are asked to sail and fight a hopeless naval battle (on October 28). The Turks sign the armistice on October 30. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates on November 9 and a new German republic is founded the next day. At eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the war ends as Germany and the Allies sign an armistice. American soldiers and others celebrate the end of the war. The Paris Peace Conference comes afterwards on January 18, 1919. Wilson comes to Europe. Delegates from 27 nations were assigned to 52 commissions, which held 1,646 sessions to prepare reports, with the help of many experts, on topics ranging from prisoners of war, to undersea cables, to international aviation, to responsibility for the war. Their recommendations in the conference transform into the Treaty of Versailles. The major powers (of France, Britain Italy, the U.S., and Japan) ruled the conference. Other treaties came ending by 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne. Japan proposed a provision in the Covenant of the League of Nations to advance racial equality among nations, but it was rejected. The League of Nations was weakened and it was not strong because of many reasons. The conference divided up territories and punished Germany with huge reparations. The problems with the League of Nations, fascism rising globally, etc. set the stage for WWII.
Even in the 900’s A.D., Nubia and Ethiopia existed. By 979 A.D., we see the rise and fall of the Seljuq Empire. This empire was made up of Muslim Turks from Central Asia who came into Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Turkish sultans became the sultanate of Rum. The Ayyubid sultanate grew in size. The Ayyubids were Turkish people. The Seljuq conquests even spread into the Arabian Peninsula. There was the Kingdom of Georgia and the Empire of Khwarazm Shah in Iran. Oman and Yemen existed too. The Seljuq placed strict conditions on Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. Later, European Christians lead a number of “Crusades” to not only fight Muslims, but to conquer the Middle East in an imperialist fashion. The Europeans temporarily set up a number of Christian states in Syria. This influenced the modern day Christian populations in Syria and Lebanon. The Khwarazm Shah was made up of Turks too. These Turks came from Central Asia. They migrated via invasions for the next two centuries. In the 1230’s, the Mongols ruled much of the Middle East. The Mongols conquered Iran and Iraq. By 1258 A.D, they captured Baghdad and killed the last of the Caliphs. They were only stopped by the slave soldiers of the Mamluq Turks. These Turks controlled Egypt, Syria, and western Arabia. They ousted the last Crusades strongholds on the Syrian coast. The Mongols introduced firearms in the region and the Mamluq armies used them. Genghis Khan created the Mongol empire and his descendants ruled it too. Il-Khans were Mongols who converted to Islam. The Black Death struck the region in the 1340’s. Timur ruled much of the Middle East too. His empire shrank back to Iran. The Black Sheep Turks ruled Iran too. The Ottoman Empire grew and by 1453, the Ottoman captured the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire lasted for centuries. They brought some peace and stability in the region. Still, it used its armies to conquer Syria in 1516, Egypt in 1517 and western Arabia (like Hejaz and Yemen). They ruled Iraq in 1534. Architecture, cultural growth, economic growth developed in the prime of the Ottoman Empire. The Safavid Empire was in Iran. During the 1700’s, the Ottoman Empire maintained its power. Arabic people formed emirates and the Saudi Kingdom. Western interests are more involved in the region too. Nations like Yemen, Oman, and Persia existed by the 1700’s. By the 1800’s, the Ottoman Empire declined. Egypt became independent of the Ottomans. Syria and Iraq once were independent and then became under the control of the Ottomans. Bahrain, Kuwait, and other areas of the Middle East developed. Persia has grown. By the 1900’s, Egypt is under British economic control. The Ottoman Empire is crushed by WWI. Britain, France, and other European powers split up the Middle East in their own images without considerations of the aspirations of the people. Soon, Iraq, Ian, Lebanon, and other nations become independent after WWII. In 1948, Britain left Palestine. The British played both the Jewish and Arabic peoples against each other. This caused tensions. Jewish and Arabic peoples continue to fight to this very day. Both sides claim each side is unfair. Israel declared independence in 1948 and conflicts existed. Both sides have made errors and mistakes. The oil industry in the Middle East has grown considerately. In the 21st century, the Middle East has been dominated with the issues of terrorism, oil, Israel/Palestinian matters, wars, trade, and other geopolitical affairs. These issues have been very complex with not only Israeli and Palestinian divisions. There are Sunni and Shia divisions (there are Kurds in the region as well) too.
By Timothy
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