Bless Me, Ultima: Chapters 8-12

Well after reading up to the halfway point in this book, I have come to a few simple conclusions. The Spanish is now easier to skip over and pretend it does not exist in life, and Toni will sadly not be a wizard priest but merely a Ultima 2.0. He went to save his uncle AND saw the Golden Carp? Too much coincidence for my taste. The Golden Carp event dimly reminded me of the movies and the books with "The Chosen One" type of character. You know, Harry, Frodo, those tough persistent hero characters who overcome obstacles to fight evil. Rather than a good versus evil fight to the death, this story seems to strongly suggest a tone of doing good, in any way that you can do it best. Ultima, to me anywho, is a witch , but she always wants to help others. Toni can see that, and it is causing him to question his faith which in the past had been so unquestionably embedded in his mind. Regardless, Toni is definitely more of his mother's child than his fathers. He seemed almost frightened for his two brothers that left home, as if something terrible was going to happen to them.

Besides the now non-existent Spanish, I really like the way Anaya writes. It has a nice flow and sound. The story is also enjoyable, even if it is a little predictable on what will happen. My hope is that there will be some sort of twist, along the lines of Ultima turning out to be a witch hunter and his mother is the imprint of evil. Or something fun like that.

Bless Me, Ultima: Chapters 1-7

This book is just making me sad. I feel like it has so much potential to be a really great book for me but there is one thing that is driving me crazy. The Spanish. I take Spanish and (kind of) understand it, so I don't really have to look up any of the words but it is just killing this book for me. I want it to be in one language. That's all I want. Just one. It is a very simple request. The editors of this book are also lazy because the Spanish words aren't italicized, which I'm pretty sure is against the laws of proper formatting. So take that Rudolfo Anaya. Maybe he is just bitter because of his awful name and wants to torture us all with a poorly edited multilingual book. I would like to tell Rudolfo there are plenty of unfortunate names out there, and their owners don't lash out at the rest of society and he is a terrible person for being so cruel.
Now that I've gotten that bit over with, I must admit that I do in fact enjoy this book. So far. I think the element of magic and happy spirituality in the story a nice change of pace. My personal prediction? Tony is going to end up as a wizard priest. I think he will end up as a Luna man, like his mother wants, because he constantly has spoken about how much he loves God and how devoted he is to Him. God is mentioned at least once a chapter. But Tony also is fascinated with Ultima and how she heals people and awestruck by her power. He will want to learn her ways and become a wizard priest to please everyone. Except his father. But it seems that his father already has three rough and wild blooded sons, so I think it's only fair that his mother should get one wizard priest. It would be selfish and evil of the father to hog all the sons. Tony was also a little freaked out when Lupito was shot right in front of him, so I do not know if a wild blooded life of what sounds like murder and cowboy police work would be the line of work that would play into his strong suits. Then again, he's only six. So I guess there is time for change in his dislike of watching men get shot. We shall see. I am excited to see where this book goes.

The Aging Parent

The reason I read this article is because I can sort of relate to it in a sense. My father just had surgery a week before Thanksgiving. Nothing of too much concern, it was planned and went so smoothly that the doctors sent him home a day earlier than expected. Everything was fine, that is, until the operation sight started to bruise and bleed the day after Thanksgiving. So how did I spend my Black Friday? No, not shopping, but at the ER. From 2pm-11pm I was there with my father, waiting, demanding and hoping for some medical attention at the insanely overcrowded hospital. The article I read was about how the Baby Boomer generation is now imposing on their golden aged childrens' lives. Yes, I am not a 60 year old, but I can understand why the children might feel selfish in taking care of their parent. Did I want to spend my Friday night in the hospital? No. But out of concern for my parent I stayed there. And I would do it again next Friday night if that's what had to happen. Just like the Baby Boomer's children are forcing them to make tough choices that are affecting their lives greatly, whether that means taking the parent or parents into your own home, or financially straining oneself to get the parent some outside help.

This article had an interesting point of view, as it was written from a 87 year old woman who faces the same problem that the others of her generation are. Funnily enough, the article remains unbiased, and presents the sides of both the adult children and their parents. There's a lot of pathos in this article, as many people can relate to having concern for their parents at some point in their lives. There was also some logos in the form of statistics. When speaking about the adult child's responsibility to their parents now as compared to a century ago the author stated "Then, life expectancy at birth was just over 48 years; today, it’s close to 80. Then, so few lived to 65 that there is no record of life expectancy at that age. Today, if we make it to 65, we can expect to live another 20 years. And one-third of those over 65 need some help in managing their daily lives; by the time they reach 85 (the fastest-growing segment of our population today), that number jumps to well over one-half." This explains why this issue is becoming unique to modern day society, and as we live longer, it seems our responsibility to others grows as well.

The article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/the_no_win_situation_of_caring_for_mom_and_dad/

One Author's Real Life Horror Story

The title of this article "How my book became part of the “satanic sex stabbing”" caught my attention immediately. I was originally thinking about the type of horrible book would a person have to write to be involved in such an ordeal, but by the end of the article I just felt terribly for the author. His book The Werewolf’s Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten looks really funny. The author himself says the book is a "humorous self-help book for werewolves". What happened is that two women lured a man to their apartment in promise of "...a kinky, possibly Satanic, threesome." He was then "...stabbed and slashed..." by the women 300 times. Fun story right? Well for Ritch Duncan, the co-author of The Werewolf's Guide... it gets even better when his book is found at the scene of the crime, and all the media outlets who ran the story mentioned the book. However, they said nothing about it being a humor book, and made it sound like it was a legitimate guide for Werewolves and the book pushed these girls along to do such a strange thing.The article explains this situation and then it turns more or less into a rant about what's wrong with the media of today. He was angered that nobody running the story took the time to actually look at what his book is about, and I can't blame him. The media today is like nothing of the past. They seem to have no respect for a person's privacy, and thrive on running negative stories that speak only of tragedy. It seems to be that you cannot turn on a 5 o'clock news on a regular day of the week and hear anything pleasant. It's always, "In a car accident today..." or "When this convenience store was robbed...." and best of all "Three perished today when.....". It's twisted that our society focuses so much on the negative parts of life. I don't watch the news anymore because of this. I just don't want to hear it.

The author used some logos and pathos in writing this article. He used a nice combination of these rhetoric devices in the last few lines of the article, saying "
Was this the story of two cold-blooded, evil satanists whose ritual of sex, blood and murder was thwarted by police? Or was it a case of two relatively harmless wannabe wiccans who hadn’t mastered the concept of a safe word? Likely, the truth lies somewhere in between. But if we don’t know the answer to that question, it is worth asking: How good was this story? Was it worth the treatment those young women received as story after story about them filled with lies and half-truths spread all over the world? Because that’s what these ghastly novelty articles look like to me — a grievous wounding, by hundreds of little cuts." One can only speculate on these moral things. The man who the women cut up is not pressing charges, and it was allegedly a consensual occurrence from all parties. Were these women actually bad and the press brought this to our attention or did the press make them bad?  

The article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/27/how_my_book_became_part_of_the_satanic_sex_stabbing/singleton/

Internet Censorship in the US?

The article at hand here talks about a new bill that would allow the government to crack down on the industry of illegal sharing of music and movies. It's called the Stop Online Piracy Act. And to me it sounds dangerous. Basically what the act will do is allow the government to force search engines to block websites it deems as infringing upon copyrighted material. The idea is that this will boost the economy because if all the illegal downloading is put to rest, people will be forced to purchase movies and music if they want to listen to or watch it. But I think that this is a widely open bill that could allow the government to censor the Internet. While I may or may not download illegal music, I don't really think it's right. I mean, when one does such a thing, in a way it's like stealing something. You are taking away someone's well earned money somewhere. But when movie tickets are generally close to $10, and the price of a popular song on iTunes has gone up to $1.29, it is easy to understand why someone might go for the illegal downloading path. It seriously adds up, especially with music. However, just because people are desperate, does not mean that the government should turn into a crazy overpowered machine. The article quoted Eric Schmidt of Google and he said the bill “would require ISPs to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked." When did the US want to turn into China?

The author has a very general target audience, as anyone who is opposed to censorship would read this. The article also gave a lot of background info on the proposed law, as if to inform people who would not know about it. There was also quite the amount of logos in there. A decent amount of statistics was put into the article. The author also made a nice point by saying "In a tweet this week, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote, “Need to find a better solution than #SOPA #DontBreakTheInternet.” Her nemesis, Darrell Issa, Republican from California and chair of the House Oversight Committee, retweeted Pelosi’s note, appending commentary of his own: “If even we can agree..."" Clearly if two very opposite people can agree that this bill is a bad idea, we can assume that it can only lead to bad things.

The Article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/congress_seeks_to_tame_the_internet/singleton/?mobile.html

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The reason I chose this book in the first place was because I had been meaning to read Wilde's only novel ever since I read The Importance of Being Earnest freshman year and loved it. I was not disappointed by the novel in any way. It was masterfully written, the characters were splendid in a devilish sense and the protagonist the most captivating of them all. The protagonist's name is Dorian Gray, and the whole novel centers around a portrait done of Dorian, which ages instead of him. The portrait is what Dorian considers to be a visual expression of his soul, and as the story goes on and he ages the portrait becomes hideous, wrinkled and aged, with the bearings of his many "sins" engraved in the portrait.
The biggest theme in this story and also what made it so enjoyable were the philosophical musings of Wilde through the dialogue of the characters. Wilde used the character Lord Henry Wotton to express his ideas that "All art is quite useless." (Wilde 2) and the thought that beauty is the most important thing beyond anything else. "'Beauty is a form of Genius-is higher, indeed than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight,or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned.'" (Wilde 24) Dorian's life is fuled by this thought, as all he cares about is the finer things in life, and how pleased he is by his youthfulness even when he goes into his late 30s. The relationship between all of the main male characters especially between Dorian and Basil Hallward, the man who painted the portrait, and Dorian and Lord Wotton subtly expresses the sexuality of Wilde. There is no explicit expression of homosexuality in the book, but at the time the book was written, it would have pushed the scandal of this book to a catacalystic point for Wilde.
I can see why this story would have been such a controversial one in the time when  it was written in 1891. The main characters are all kind of terrible people. Dorian commits murder, blackmail, and cares nothing for things beyond physical beauty. Anyone reading this would expect it to be a moral tale, and I won't say what happened in the end for fear of ruining the story, but I don't think he was punished in a proper way enough for the audience reading about his "sins".
I would recommend this book to anyone, as it was a great and fun read. It was a great way for Wilde to express his ideals without laying them out in boring terms. It's a shame he died because of his sexuality when he had so much more to offer the literary world.

The Funniest (and most Absurd) Gift I've Ever Seen

So I was on Salon.com, as usual, and I saw the most ridiculous article title ever
"A $5,200 present for Beyonce's baby". My first thought? Why would a baby need something that's $5,200?? Then I clicked on the link, and saw that the gift was a crystal encrusted bathtub. And I laughed. Then it had a link to the website that sold the tubs, and had some sample pictures of the baby-sized bathtub, and this is the way the company thought it most practical to advertise it with:

 Then I laughed some more. According to the bathtub company's website, not only is this bathtub perfect for "pampering your precious bundle of love from head to tiny toe...", it's also great for "...the pampered pet or filling with ice and chilling your beverages." The possibilities in the various ways to use this miniature bathtub are practically endless here people! Best luck to B and Jay with raising this precious bundle of love while dealing with the repercussions of spoiling her rotten, even when she will not care what her bathtub looks like.

The original article here.
In case you wish to purchase a bathtub/puppy bed/ice chiller.

20...21...22....Where Will it End Duggars?

I am going to go on a little rant about these people called the Duggar family. For those of you who do not know, the Duggars are a semi-famous family, and not famous for anything great, but they are famous because they have 19 kids, and one on the way. The family announced on Good Morning America last week that they are expecting their 20th child. Duggar family, why do feel that having 20 children is a necessary and healthy thing to do? Let me explain why I am so against this, and it's not just because I've been told that I'm "bad with kids". First off, think of all your other kids. Do you think that you honestly have enough time and patience to give each individual the attention and help that they all need while having to worry about 19 other people? No, I don't care how much you love your kids, there simply isn't enough time in the day to spend with each one. Secondly, there's this little thing called the world is over populated enough without you deciding that you need 20 children. The author of the article pointed out that the family is well off enough to provide for their family without any sort of outside help, but that shouldn't mean that you get to make a family as big as the mother's uterus will provide. Thirdly, Mother Duggar is 45. Most doctors agree that a pregnancy at 45 is a high risk to health, and during her last pregnancy, Michelle delivered the baby prematurely and Mother also caught preeclampsia. So what makes them think that because they don't believe in birth control of any sort, that they should put both Michelle and the baby at a high medical risk after the last borderline disaster pregnancy. They need to stop getting so excited all the time, or figure out that one of "God's miracles" might just kill someone.

The article I read was on the side of the Duggars. The author clearly sympathized with them, although she did make one crack at them saying "God, unfortunately, could not be reached for comment" when talking about how Michelle was happy about God giving them another child. So perhaps the author doesn't necessarily agree with them, but does think that people should leave them alone. The author also used pathos at the end of the article, saying "I have a friend expecting a baby she already knows has a heart condition and Down syndrome. She told me the other day, “People keep saying, ‘Maybe the doctors are wrong. Maybe there will be a miracle.’ Why can’t they understand that maybe this baby is the miracle, just as he is?” The Duggars are similarly holding steadfast to their belief that miracles don’t look the same to every set of eyes. And they see baby 20 as just as much of a blessing as No. 1 . The Duggars’ blessings aren’t yours or mine." While I think that it is convenient that the author doesn't mention how old her friend is, or if she has an excessive amount of children, so that's kind of irrelevant, she does make a nice point that these people just really love kids.

Andy Rooney

I grew up with Andy Rooney in my living room on Sunday nights, and I always was excited for his segments as I heard the tick-toc of the “60 Mintues” stopwatch. No, I never really understood as a little kid what he was saying or why it mattered, but I was always perplexed by his eyebrows, and his scratchy voice. Today, as I hear about his death, a pang of jealously runs through me. No, not because he is dead, but he essentially got to complain about everything for a living. I wish I could do that. I think I would be really spectacular at it. His death is a sad one though. Sunday nights won't be the same without the sound of his whining scratchy voice rattling on about airplane travel. But before this, Rooney had a long career of great journalism. For that I resepect him. He, as the article about him mentioned, openly opposed the Iraqi War when nobody else would. He also opposed the War in Vietnam, and held his integrity by leaving CBS when they wouldn't allow him to air it and going to PBS to do so, and then winning an award for it. And here I was thinking he was just a cranky old guy with some seriously awesome eyebrows.

The author of this article was honest and respectful, giving plain information about Rooney's life, although there were a few choice adjectives to describe him, including “cranky”, “angry”, and “blunt”. Rooney himself even called his personality “vindictive”, so I think he knew what he was. 

The Article:

http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/11/05/former_60_minutes_commentator_andy_rooney_dies/singleton/

And You Think You're Paranoid...

The title of this article is what attracted me to it. It really grabbed mine, and I'm sure that it would catch a lot of other people's attention. It's scary to think about the government asserting it's power in such a frivolous manner. I'm not saying that they shouldn't look out for potential Terrorists, but perhaps they should interview the person or do a better investigation of the suspect before they decide to do life altering things such as draining a person's bank account. The author, Jones, could have been evicted from her apartment, and been starving to death in the street from a month without any sort of income.

And the fact that she couldn't even find herself on the list of potential terrorists is also scary. It makes you think that the list could be fake, or exaggerated.

The author was hysterical throughout the whole article, remaining humongous about a very serious situation that happened to her. It brought a different type of perspective to the article. It made me laugh, many, many, many, times. For example: “Oh what? I wondered. OFAC. It rhymes with Oh-Tack, but you’ve got to watch how you pronounce it. Speak carelessly and the name sounds like just what you might say upon learning that you’ve been sucked into the ultimate top-secret bureaucratic sinkhole. It turns out, the bank informs me, that OFAC is a division of the U.S. Treasury Department that “reviews” transactions.” and also “Heidi [her landlord] is a Buddhist. I’m an atheist. Almost everybody on the list seems to be Muslim, including really dangerous-sounding guys like “Ahmed the Egyptian.” But I guess that to a truly committed and well-paid terrorist hunter, we must all look alike.” She has a great style of making things funny to make a point. The audience intended is a broad one, as she backs up everything with information to tell everyone whats going on. She uses short, sarcastic phrases to make the story, which is rather lengthy, move along at a nice pace. I think the main purpose of the article was really to inform the public about her experience with the overly paranoid government.

The Article:

http://www.www.99.salon.com/2011/11/03/when_the_government_decided_i_was_a_terrorist/singleton/

A Continuation of the Week of the Classic Author

Dickens wrote one of my favorite books, Great Expectations, and this is why I read the article. It was interesting to read about his personal life, especially about how his relationships with women may have effected his writings. I agree with the author that his young female heroines seemed to be rather one dimensional, while the older women had some grit to them. I never knew that he was a philanthropist in a sense, he opened a shelter for women in need. It's funny to me that he tried to help the very thing he never understood, mostly people try to forget about what they do not understand.

The author wrote this article for anyone who is interested in Dickens beyond his writings. Anyone who does not enjoy his works probably would have skipped over this one. The author makes no outside references to anything, she solely focuses on Dickens. The author also seems to enjoy him very much, as she opened the article with “(n)o writer better mastered the novel’s delicate calculus of art and entertainment than Charles Dickens.” She constantly praises him throughout the text, even when talking about his faults, she mentions something positive about him right after them. The purpose of the article was to talk about a new book about Dickens, but the author seemed to use it more as an opportunity to talk about her love for Dickens the man.

The Article:

http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/10/30/charles_dickens_the_secret_life_of_a_literary_giant/

Outside Reading

For my Outside Reading, I shall be exploring the literary work of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

To Be or Not to Be...Written by Shakespeare??

Shakespeare was an amazing playwright, who wrote some of the best known and most inspiring plays that we still read and act out today. If he actually wrote them. Or at least, that's the latest conspiracy going on. There's this new movie coming out, called Anonymous, which basically tells the story about who truly wrote all the plays and poetry that William Shakespeare is accredited with. Skeptical? As am I. As is the author of this article, who got an early screening of the movie. I think that it is a silly thing to accuse Shakespeare, a long dead man, of not writing all of the literature with his name stamped on it. Don't we have better things to worry about these days, rather then try to figure out who wrote some really great literature. The point of such old classics is that they are actually here, and survived history.

Not that it isn't important who wrote it, but why go looking for trouble? Wouldn't someone of the Earl of Oxford who in the movie, writes all the plays and such but doesn't put his name on them because they were scandalous at the time, want the royalties and have said something right after his death? Someone would have known and tried to get something out of it for themselves. With a huge scandal like that, there is money to be made for someone.

The author of this movie review clearly did not enjoy the movie itself, let alone the topic. She called it hard to follow, saying that you cannot explain Elizabethan politics properly in a blockbuster movie. Other then that, the author also seemed to disagree with the movie topic, blatantly calling it a “conspiracy”. She even uses a bit of logos in it, saying that there were “50 plus” people who have been favored to write the things Shakespeare has gotten the credit for. The logic there is solid, being that if that many people have been said to have done it, how can we truly have any real idea of the history? As the author put it “The problem with history is that sometimes it just doesn’t play, and as a great man once observed, the play’s the thing.”

The article:

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/26/was_shakespeare_really_shakespeare/singleton/

Occupy Hollywood!

What attracted me to this article you all ask? Oh, well, that is, uh, perhaps the large picture of Johnny Depp right under the title. I love Johnny Depp. I am a Johnny Depp junkie. Pirates? Awesome, except for the fourth one, which was indeed pushing it. What's Eating Gilbert Grape? I bet you have never heard of it, but it's something you should see. Nightmare on Elm Street? Yes, he was in that. I think he was actually Freddy's first victim. And I am anxiously awaiting my chance to go see the Rum Diary. Also, the dude was Jack Kahuna Laguna in Spongebob. I can't hate him after that one, even if he is a overpaid movie actor who is very much apart of the 1%. This article was not about Johnny Depp specifically, but rather how the movie industry also needs reform. I think that makes sense, but honestly we as citizens chose to go spend our money on those type of things. I think that's different then needing to use a bank to hold all your money in or big corporations with a huge wealth distribution problem. Johnny Depp and most Hollywood actors, and sports players are all over payed. But isn't Hollywood all about being over the top and extravagance?

The author aimed this article at everyone reading anything about the real OWS. There is some logos in there, with many statistics stating exactly how much people are over payed in Hollywood. To support this hypothetical boycott, the author implies some serious pathos by saying “If we put the price of a movie ticket toward helping someone in need? You can text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10, right from your phone. What if we gave that ticket price to Donors Choose, to help a school fund a dream project or get needed supplies? What if, instead of spending an hour watching “NCIS,” for which Mark Harmon will earn $13 million this year, we spent that hour working with the local outpost of Habitant for Humanity?” This makes a lot of sense to me, but will that stop me from dragging my sister along to see The Rum Diary this weekend? Sorry, but no way.

The article:

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/its_time_to_occupy_hollywood/singleton/

A Smarter Car?

The electric car has always seemed to be, at least to me, the automobile of the future. With gas prices painfully high, and the whole fumes into the atmosphere issue, electric cars seem more and more appealing. This article was about a guy who made a documentary called “Who Killed the Electric Car?” in 2006, and the same man has a new documentary entitled “The Revenge of the Electric Car” which is playing in select hipster theaters right now. The article has three main players in the war to create the best electric car, Chevy's Volt, Nissan's Leaf, and the new company Tesla Motors car. I would like to ask, where is the Toyota Prius in all of this? Wasn't that the hip electric car that started it all a while back, and doesn't Toyota have around four different types of Prius' for sale these days, including one to rival a SmartCar in lack of size? I think he should have definitely mentioned those folks.

The author was mostly informative during this article. He stated a lot of facts, and gave the good and bad side to the electric car. The article is meant for a wide audience, as there is a lot of background information on the car companies and their CEO's and what direction he thinks the companies are headed in. He also companies the two documentaries made, and presents the information in an unbiased way. But he does make a sort of peculiar remark - “My 7-year-old son, who knows more about this issue than I do, forcefully disagrees with Paine on that one.” I thought was an odd thing to say. It sort of made the author sound like he didn't really know what he was talking about. It was a strange thing to put in there.

The article:

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/revenge_of_the_electric_car_why_the_automakers_went_green/singleton/

Cohen, the dirty Hippie

The only reason I finished reading this article was because my Father made this silly little chuckling noise when he saw the focus of this article's name , which is Richard Cohen, at the top of the headline and mubled something about not reading anything by him. So I had to read something by this Cohen man because my Dad didn't want me to, because that's how it works. And I sort of regret it but it also made me laugh because he was so silly. Here, read one, I dare you.

The purpose of this article was to talk about Richard Cohen and a sort of realization he had about the government. The author has some clear, blatantly stated opinions on the guy, saying “Richard Cohen, the universe’s worst opinion columnist...” and also “I wouldn’t expect a man who’s had a political column at Washington primary newspaper for 35 years to actually know anything at all about what he writes about, ever.” This article was aimed at people who knew Cohen's writing and shared the same opinion about him, as proved by the snarky, sarcastic tone of much of the artivle. Clearly the author was mostly just mocking Cohen the whole time, and I found it absolutely hysterical.
The article:

http://www.www.99.salon.com/2011/10/11/richard_cohen_is_a_dirty_hippie_now/singleton/

Thinking Rationally About Religion

       Religion is a very delicate subject to talk about, and I think it takes a lot for people to openly express their opinions on it, as no matter what they believe, someone out there is going to disagree with it. So I have a plethora of respect for anyone who is going to write about it, and I applaud this author. As an atheist myself, I thought the author made a very good point about religion. Apparently the author is in some sort of written on-line magazine fight with another guy, and this article was his rebuttal to the other debtor's thoughts. The other guy, whos name is Richard Dawkins, said that all people who are religious are “non-thinkers”. Personally, I find this to be condescending, ignorant and just plain ludicrous. Sure a few have gone crazy with religious power, take Hitler for example, and yes I laugh at how silly I think people are when they talk about how they think God will see them through something- side story, my cousin said that to me the day I took my driver's license road test and I laughed in her face while receiving a nasty look from my aunt. But may people have been able to think scientifically and rationally while also remaining religious (the author mentioned Al Gore in the article to make this point).

        The author's main point in writing this was to disagree with Dawkins. His main point was that religion is not a bad thing unless it starts to hurt people. Obviously this text was written with a big biased in mind, and it could even be an attempt to convince people of his side of the argument. The audience in mind was probably anyone with any sort of opinion on religion, so that is a large portion of the population. The thesis was the very last sentence of the article, “We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways. To that end, I believe that we should make room for both spiritual atheists and thinking believers.” Respect of other's belief's seems to be the best way to handle religion these days.

The article:

http://life.salon.com/2011/10/10/atheists_believers_respect/singleton/#comments

Jones is Jonesing

This article was of particular fascination to me. The Jim Jones murders/mass suicides have always been interesting to me, as with any sort of cult like society. I find psychology extremely intriguing, and I can easily see myself becoming a psychiatrist someday. This article provided me with a lot of information I did not know about the People's Temple and their leader. For example, I thought Jones was always crazy and wanted to lead a cult, but according to this article, Jones took a drug train ride that helped him get to Crazyville. Another thing that stuck out to me- “They would become the largest number of American civilians to die in a single, non-natural disaster until 9/11, yet Jonestown is less well-known than, say, the Manson Family murders to many people born since 1980”. I agree with the latter half of that statement and the former was new, somber information to me. Why is this so little remembered in our times?

The author recognized with her statement about Jonestown being “less well-known” by presenting a background information on the People's Temple and Jim Jones himself. The author was clearly writing for a very general audience. The article was unbiased and informative (the article was actually written in relation to a book about Jonestown) until the author took a stance on the topic in her final paragraph saying “It all began back when Jim Jones told himself that for the sake of social justice, it would be OK to fake a few “miracles.” Each new act of deception or bullying simply amplified that leeway a little more, infecting the whole community. For Jones, the power to do good mutated into power for its own sake. Jonestown is the darkest reminder of how, when the ends are allowed to justify the means, the means become an end in themselves.” I think she has a very valid point there.

The article:

http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/10/10/a_thousand_lives_what_really_happened_in_jonestown/singleton/

Finishing School Journal Entry

The most useless thing I've ever learned is anything beyond the basic fundamentals of Algebra I, and bits of Algebra II. And everything I've learned in Pre-Calculus thus far has made me think many times a day "What's the point of this?" I mean, if you're planning on being a mathematician, then by all means you should definitely be learning it all. But I have no intentions whatsoever of doing anything during my life that would involve such complicated and unpleasant equations. So why, dare I ask, must I learn it? So I sit every day 6th period learning about minutes and degrees and seconds and radians and degrees and wasting my time when I could be doing something more productive. Perhaps sleeping, for I consider that a better use of my time. In Europe, the upper schools have students focus on areas that they plan on using in their careers after they graduate. I don't see why we shouldn't adopt this system as well. It would better plan people for college and help them finish it earlier. And then I wouldn't have to do math anymore. Everyone wins!

The NYPD Sponsered by JPMorgan Chase?

        The title of this article is what attracted me to it, out of fright and disgust. The fact that the police force would accept private donations from companies that are in the midst of being widely protested against is just plain scary. No, JPMorgan Chase did not give a gift made entirely of monetary currency, but they sent the NYPD expensive technology, such as patrol car laptops. As a pro-OCW lawyer being interviewed for the article put it, “(t)his gift is especially disturbing to us because it creates the appearance that there is an entrenched dynamic of the police protecting corporate interests rather than protecting the First Amendment rights of the people...” From what I gather, besides a better distribution of wealth among large companies, OWS also hopes to halt political corruption through the means of private donations by the leaders of large companies such as JPMorgan Chase. Isn't that the same thing that's happening with the donations to the NYPD? “Here's some money, now during any protests against us, act accordingly” is what that says to me. It is indeed, disturbing.

      The author of this article seemed to agree with what I was thinking. The article was written for those who have been following the movement, as the author did not really explain much about the basis of OWS.The author even furthered the conspiracy by stating “Keep in mind that’s just a single year’s worth of donations. As a private non-profit, the New York City Police Foundation does not have to release detailed donor information, so we don’t know of the the full scope of Wall Street money flowing into the NYPD.” This made the author's opinion quite clear in my mind; that stuff like this needs to end. 

Here's the article: 

http://news.salon.com/2011/10/07/the_nypd_now_sponsored_by_wall_street/singleton/

 

Procrastination

     If you say you've never procrastinated something, anyone else would call you a lair. Everybody procrastinates sometimes, the ones who make a habit of it are the ones with the real troubles. This very minute I could be called a procrastinator, with my second blog entry that's due Sunday still not done on Sunday night at about 9:00, with Spanish and a bit of Physics homework still to go. Sigh. Well, I guess there's now a Theory of Procrastination by a Professor at Stanford. It states that there's two kinds of procrastinators, effective ones and useless ones. Effective ones spend their procrastinating time doing things that also have to get done but are apparently more enjoyable. Useless ones just do things like surf the interwebs. I think that's a irrelevant Theory really, because either way you aren't getting what you should be getting done over with, which leads to stress, and stress leads to a shorter life span. Effective or not, I think procrastination is what it is, that is to say a very bad habit which seems to be unbreakable.

         The author has a good idea about who her target audience is, which is her fellow procrastinators. I think the main purpose of this article is not really to make putting stuff off okay, but to make those "effective procrastinators" feel a bit better about themselves. The author gives the man who wrote the Theory of Structured Procrastination ethos by saying "...listen to Perry, after all he won a prize. And even though he was procrastinating his hardest, he still manages to be a professor of Philosophy at Stanford."


The article: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/2011/10/02/ignobel-prize-winner-the-power-of-effective-procrastination/

When Prosecution Becomes Persecution

       We've all seen it. A new episode of some version of Law and Order (my favourite being SVU), the criminal is brought into justice and has their first meeting with the prosecution. The hot shot lawyer stands up above the sitting criminal, lays down the severity of the crimes committed, and ominously describes the amount of time the wrong doer will be serving in jail for their offenses. Then the prosecutor sits down and stares the suspect in the eye and offers them the golden ticket-- a plea bargain. Say you're guilty and you'll serve a fraction of the time you normally would if you go through a trial and get a guilty sentence. Works almost every time right? Well, this isn't just another one of Hollywood's exaggerations and glorification of the life of a crime fighter. Plea bargains happen a lot, perhaps more than they should. It prevents a criminal from going through their rights as an American citizen, the right to a trail and a sentence by a jury of their peers. It can also give someone a significantly shorter  jail time than they deserve. However, it can also save money on trials and paperwork.

In the article, the author is very clear about his opinion on plea bargains, stating that Prosecutor's "...objective—which, in theory, should be justice," has changed so that their "...goal(s) (are) simply convictions, whether just or not." He thinks that the bargin is just an escape from jail time. The author then offers an example of how Prosecutors make bargains seem like a better option for criminals to get their convictions without a possibility of loosing. The case in question focused on a low level player in and organized crime case, and he opted for a traditional court trial, while his bosses went for a bargain. The man was found gulity, and the prosecutors on the case suggested an absurd amount of jail time for him, while his bosses got a fraction of that. The prosectuors clearly wanted to make an example of this man and encourage bargains, and the author agreed with this thought stating, "Let’s do the math: prosecutors were recommending a sentence for a marginal figure in the scandal of eight to ten times that given to its ringleaders. Why was he “not entitled” to a more lenient sentence? For one reason: he insisted on his right to trial by jury." After reading this I think that if Prosecutors are going to abuse the Plea Bargain, maybe they shouldn't be able to give them out without approval by some other unbiased third party. But the thing that got me was what the author stated in his final thoughts "Far more troubling are those cases where an innocent person enters into a guilty plea rather than risk a longer sentence after trial."

The article: http://harpers.org/archive/2011/09/hbc-90008255

Are Today's Youth Really a Lost Generation?

    This article caught my eye because I am a part of today's youth and I was hoping that I was not thought of as lost by another person. But from further reading of the story, it became clear that the author was making a reference to the Lost Generation that came out of the Great Depression during the 1920's. I think the parallels between the two generations are sort of uncanny. I also completely agree with the author that there is not many ways a person in today's society can do anything significant with their lives without a higher education. Education is of great value to a person in Generations X, Y, and the Millennials.

   The author uses a lot of statistics to get their point across, that is that, education pays off more than anything else you can do to make quick money. There's even a lovely chart entitled "College Compared to Alternative Investments" at the end of the story. He also gives out neat and inarguable percentages like "The number of young Americans living with their parents, nearly 6 million, has increased by 25 percent in the last three years" to prove his point about how education is important. The author gets their point across clearly and "conclude[s] [the] column about poverty and income with a "stay in school" mantra", and it hopefully convinced people to listen to that same mantra.

The article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/are-todays-youth-really-a-lost-generation/245524/

Facebook's Enraging Status Update

      What immediately caught my attention about this article was obviously the relevance to my life it has. Facebook's new format is indeed, in my opinion, sincerely annoying and unnecessary. I was interested to see what a person beyond my scope of the world thought about the new changes made to the widely used sight, and the author was rather blunt about his thoughts. I enjoyed the article and I found it to be well written with a nice touch of humour. The best line in the article was without a doubt "Is that where your sister will post the picture of the lewd nun?"

    The author certainly knew what a broad spectrum of audience he was addressing, as it seems everyone is on facebook in some form these days. The use of diction clearly potrays the author's thoughts on how he feels about the changes. Words like "...beyond irritating...", "...immediately annoyed..." and better yet a bold use of italics in "Facebook had changed its user interface, again." The author's ethos was strong, as they used the appeal of what everyone else thought as evidence for their main argument. Due to so many people most likely agreeing with the author, the article seems to almost be a well written rant about the new interface. It's unlikely that anyone would disagree with them though, because even with the new changes, we still haven't gotten that long asked for "Dislike" button.


Here's the article:http://www.salon.com/technology/facebook/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/09/21/facebook_annoys_users