Animalcules

I think Smith is so satisfied with these microscopic animals because he is the type of person who enjoys the little things. Everyone nowadays seems to be concerned about the bigger things that are happening like the article we read about quantum physics or the universe or the stars and galaxies. The infinite possibilities of life on other planets besides our own. Smith takes a smaller view on life. There is more in that little pickle jar than there is in space, plus, it's a lot easier to see.

Smith takes these small animalcules and serves them up on a life-sized platter. He takes microscopic amoebas and paramecium and turns them into real-life, macroscopic animals. The paramecium feeding on bacteria become grazing cows in a pasture and also somehow hunters in the African savanna running around w/ poison spears (idk where that comparison came from). The amoebas become oozing lava. To Smith, these simple forms of life are actually very complex. The way they feed, move, and reproduce are just as complicated as what we consider a normal-sized animal. Just because they are small, doesn't mean they are irrelivant.

"Self-inflicted instinction" ≠ Self-inflicted extinction

Most of Phelan's article is dedicated to the explanation of natural selection and the constant evolution of humans. It is not until the very end where he gives us a clue about his feelings of anguish. Bruce Lahn believes our intelligence is continuously building up and building up with the natural selection process eventually to the point where we can exceed it. We can actually overcome natural selection with the technology that gives us the power of genetic manipulation and gene manufacturing. Phelan introduces his worries when he brings in Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich believes this growing intelligence is a cost not a benefit (in the words of John Broome). A number of times in the past century humans have had close encounters with extinction and have only been saved by "dumb luck." Ehrlich apparently doesn't give a shit about our speedy evolution rate because he believes we're just going to all die out in the next five generations. How optimistic.
I agree with Ehrlich's statement but not to the extent of the sad conclusion he has for the human race. I do think however, that we are moving too fast for evolution to keep up. The constant global temperature is changing which is causing a whole bunch of other things to change. This is all happening so fast that it is impossible for even one trait to adapt to the changes (of course climate change had to be mentioned at some point in this article). I think Phelan's fears are very legitimate. We have evolved so much that we have overcome evolution and now it can't keep up.

Blogging

Personally I don't really mind blogging. I feel like in everyone's posts they say how annoying it is and how much they hate it. I think blogging as a form of homework is a great idea. All these other comp teachers are handing out 20-30 page readings and a paper a week. Would you rather have that or blogging honestly? I much rather blog. Anyone is gunna complain about homework but when you look at the bigger picture, we have it pretty good. All we have to do is blog every night about about what we read. Write down our ideas. We don't even have to write properly I don't have to capitalize or spell right or use punctuation. It's better than writing a formal paper and having to hand it in and have it count as a quiz grade. How much better can it get right now? No homework would be nice but that's not exactly an option. I also like blogging because other people's posts usually help me out when I'm confused about what we're supposed to be writing. All I have to do is read someone's blog and I'll get a better idea of what I'm supposed to be writing about. Anyway those are my thoughts for the most part.

Broome

Global warming has been turned into climate change and climate change has now been turned into ethics. Broome has mad climate change into an ethical matter. He basically says people know what they should be doing about climate change but they do the opposite regardless. People are selfish and only do what benefits them and not others or the environment. Broome really gets into economics when he brings in discount rates. He uses discount rates to support another claim he makes. People care more about the present than the future. In other words, the present is discounted more than the future (brings me back to economics class =/). Another reason for the higher discount rate for the present is because of the costs involved in fixing climate change. People will have to give up all sorts of luxuries to help save the planet and because they only care about what is going on in the present, this will most likely not happen.
Broome continues the battle of ethics with prioritariainism vs. utilitarianism. Both these approaches have different discount rates for the future which makes their ethical views completely different. Broome's example for this matter is the question hes poses about the death of a 10-year old child. He asks does it matter more if a child dies now or in the future? Or does it not matter? I think Stern's prioritarianism approach works best. We should start doing things now to help our future because the benefits outweigh the costs of what we have to give up.

Just Add Water stuff

Observations
- "Thanks for coming, would you like a receipt with that? Don't forget to take a mint!"
- guy in toll booth
- old car
- Trona
- mountains, California
- everything is dry
- Selma is scary
- pet turtle
- Ray is awkward
- Rite-valu
- gross twinkie recipe
- grandma is in a coma

Need to Know
What was in the tin container Ray was looking at in the car?
Why is it ok for Ray to take his son to Betsy's?
Is the lemon mirangue really that good?
How does Dirk run the whole town? Where are the police?
Is Ray's neighbor glued to his lawn chair or is he actually able get up?
Did Nora dress up for Ray because she knows something happened with him and Charlene?
Is Uncle Mark's ability to get Charlene out of the house symbolic for anything?

Big Foot

I thought Specter's idea about sky miles was pretty interesting. It's amazing how big of an impact the travel distance of the food products we consume has our carbon footprint. Specter's idea to cut down on "food miles" would dtrastically reduce people's carbon footprint. He suggests buying local foods instead of buying the same products that are being shipped from thousands of miles away. "Each glass of orange juice, for exmaple, contains the equivalent of two glasses of petrol once the transport costs are included." John Elkngton's claim has an ominous yet hopeful prediction. He believes that in order for things to get better, things first have to get worse. What he means by this is that many companies that depend on fossil fuels will most likely disappear. THings like that need to change before moving into a more environmentally friendly era. Once these changes disappear, or "destruct" we will be on our way to a more earth friendly life.
I think everyone on earth, me included, is responsible for global warming. Everyone contributes whether they like it or not. My family for example has 4 cars and a wood burning stove that we use for heat... which most likely causes a huge carbon footprint. Even though there are all different sized carbon footprints, everyone still has one. Even cows contribute to global warming because of the methane in their farts =). I also think that since everyone is contributing to this world-wide problem, people can start contributing to stopping the problem. THere are so many small things you can do to lower your carbon foot print. Properly insluating doors and windows, buying more fuel efficient cars, and buying food produced locally are all ways people can lower their carbon footprints.

CALCULATE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT
--> Carbon Footpring Calculator!! <--

Writing Center

My freshman year I have been to the Writing Center a total of about 5 times even though not all the visits were "official." I definitely found the Writing Center useful because to me, any help at all is beneficial to my writing. Since I procrastinate like most people, I would go the day before a paper is due to look for help. Outlining and starting my papers is usually where I have the most trouble anyway. Once I get started, I'm fine. I went for the Twelfth Night paper because I was really confused with what exactly I was supposed to be writing about. My tutor was some type of drama major (I don't know what kind exactly) so he actually had prior knowledge to the play since Twelfth Night was the play Hofstra was doing. That was really helpful because I didn't have to explain the whole plot of the play. He helped me figure out which sonnet worked best with my thesis and also helped decipher the Shakespearean language that I always find so complicated. After that, he helped me tie the sonnet together with a character from the play. I was able to use that as support for my argument.

I didn't exactly change anything in my essays. When I went to the Writing Center, I went for help to start my paper so all I really had was the assignment paper.

Quantum physics? I signed up for the wrong course.

Roebke's article gave me a huge headache because of the amount of thinking it forced me to do. My physics class in high school barely touched on quantum physics, and now it's being thrown at me like a huge rock in my writing studies course...weird.

From the small amount of information I actually understood, I think Roebke does believe that "we create what we observe through the act of our observations," and so do I. At one point in the article he mentions that the human body is a barely adequate measuring tool, which is very true in a number of ways. Our eyes can only see a very limited amount of light waves on the electromagnetic spectrum. The limited amount of light we are able to pick up is called visible light (ROYGBIV). X-rays, ultraviolet rays, infrared, and radio waves are all impossible to be seen with the naked human eye. Even though these waves are invisible to us, they are still there.
Just like our inability to see light waves we cannot see Roebke's constantly moving atoms. Why? Because it all happens too fast and all at once. His article is basically saying in very complicated terms that there is a lot more out there that we don't know about or can even imagine. Our bodies however, are not physically capable of experiencing them. The reality we perceive is really just a thin paper backdrop, which, when ripped down reveals infinite possibilities.

I think Roebke's complicated writing could be both a strength and a weakness depending on how you look at it. It has already been determined from last class that no one really has a clue about quantum physics. Since most of us lack both knowledge and interest on the subject, we are ready to believe anything Roebke writes with confidence. In reality Roebke could actually know nothing about quantum physics and is just a really good liar (this probably isn't the case otherwise it wouldn't be published in a book and we wouldn't be reading about it). This would be a strength on Roebke's part. The reader's inexperience on the subject of quantum physics strengthens his argument. There is no room for questioning because we are just trying to figure out what it is he wrote in the first place. This is also a weakness from the reader's perspective. What good is reading something that is too complicated to understand? Why even bother trying to figure out an argument if you are not up to par with the level of thinking in the article?

Bruffee

Bruffee believes strongly in his theory of "collaborative learning." He believes that the way to knowledge and a better understanding of things is to communicate with other people. On page 6 he states "Human thought is consummately social: social in its origins, social in its functions, social in its form, social in its applications." He believes the best way to learn is through conversation. He provides an example with the medical students diagnosing a patient. Instead of the head doctor asking each individual to diagnose the patient, she asked them to form a group diagnosis. The medical students learned quicker and easier through the group method. We also do collaborative learning in class all the time. We get into groups to discuss readings, papers, Twelfth Night, and various other assignments. Most of the time we are all working together and each bringing our own unique knowledge to the table.
I liked how Bruffee used the "blind leading the blind" argument to actually support his thesis about knowledge. If knowledge is something you can see, then it is the blind leading the blind. However, to Bruffee, knowledge is not something to be seen, it's something to be spoken or heard. It is not learned by sight but by conversation. I find it interesting that he believes collaborative learning isn't only the best way to learn, but the best way to teach. He brings in the example of the peer tutors and tutees. Both the tutor and the tutee need to bring their own specific knowledge in order to help each other. I think the whole article is fairly interesting because of the way he sees knowledge. It is better to learn in groups than to learn individually.

Waste

Waste is only eating the white meat on the chicken and leaving all the dark meat. You only want the white meat because it looks pretty and tastes delicious. The dark meat however, doesn't look that appetizing. Even though the dark parts are greyish-brown, there is not wrong with it. It's perfectly fine and probably tastes almost exactly the same. In fact, it probably has more flavor than the white meat. So instead of being able to get two meals out of a the chicken, you can only get one. All the dark meat, or so called "waste," is left behind to rot. Just because something isn't aesthetically pleasing, or not as good, doesn't mean it should be ignored or not used. This is waste in a sense. Save the dark meat!

Trees & Coconut Rum

In Robert Hass' poem, I believe he does struggle with the limits of language. In one part in the poem he mentions the "limits to saying." He uses the different types of trees as examples of this. The aspen is "doing something in the wind." Something can be anything. The tree's actions in the poem are limited because of the limit on words used to describe it. In reality, the motion of the trees is unlimited.

Like Hass, Rodney Jones also struggles with making meaning. In the poem the speaker has this solid idea, this coconut filled with milk and rum. It's there in his hands. As he slowly dumps its contents into the ocean, his once solid idea disappears. There is nothing left to hold on to or even describe. The idea is lost and there is no getting it back. There is no longer anything to make meaning out of.

Faustian Economics

This guy uses the words "limitlessness" and "limitless" way too many times its annoying. I couldn't even concentrate on reading because every other word was limitlessness or limitless. Anywayyy...

Berry clearly doesn't think too highly of the lifestyle of Americans. He gives numerous examples of how Americans waste almost everything and the only thing they care about is themselves. He pretty much starts off the article with "the real names of global warming are Waste and Greed." He gets his opinion right out there so there is absolutely NO confusion on what he believes. One of the examples he uses to support his claim of waste and greed is the remaining resources of coal. Americans are not yet considering new methods for fuel because the current coal supply is enough to last another 100 years. Americans seem to be fine with this and Berry asks "why?" Humans have been alive for thousands of years so why are we content with only another 100? It is because there is too much of a profit to be made on coal. Why would you stop something if its making you a millionaire? That is how people see it, not that sooner or later we aren't going to have any more coal so we better find an alternative now.
Berry goes on to argue that humans have a sense of limitlessness. Even though all humans have this feeling, it is not true. Berry states that people have to realize that everything actually does have a limit. We don't get more coal, we don't get another planet to harvest, and we don't get more time added onto our lives. This is what people need to realize and embrace. He then goes on to talk about how artists, not scientists are the ones who understand limits. They work in bounds in which no matter how big a painting or work of art, it is always confined to a frame or border. He believes we need to look to the arts, not science in order to understand our limits.

Derrida

I thought the video on Derrida was very interesting. What he was saying seemed kind of backwards at first but it actually did make sense. He said that when he was awake, he was more unconscious than when he was asleep. His mind was so busy with writing and expressing himself that he had no time to think about the consequences or effects of what he was writing. When he was about to go to sleep, and his mind wasn't busy, he was thinking about the effects of his writing. I think his fears are legitimate and it's probably what a lot of authors think about when they criticize other people's work or ideas.
I have personally never experienced anxiety about the power of what I write. I have experienced anxiety while writing, but never about the power. The reason for this is probably because the things I write aren't really that powerful. I don't think I have anything to be anxious about in the paper I just wrote about OCD for psychology. It's not what I would call powerful and I'm not really worried about how it affects other people since the only person who will read it is my psych teacher.
I think there are a number of things that could motivate such a fear. For example, lets pretend Derrida was an American citizen in the 1960's. Maybe he decided to write an article criticizing the American government and the way they do things. He would instantly be considered a communist and probably shunned by most of America. Sometimes when a majority is criticized or spoken out against, it can have bad consequences for the person speaking out.
I think Derrida does have respect for the power of the written word. He knows that certain things he writes may have the power to upset or even infuriate people. The battle with his subconscious shows his awareness of this.