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I was working at the gym. Not working out of course, I was hired to manage the front desk on weekends. Saturdays were busy, group fitness classes, kids daycare, lots of people wanting to buy memberships - I liked it that way. Sundays were tolerable. Not nearly as many members came in on Sundays... I blame the churches.
But today was different. It was the first day of spring, the birds were chirping and the air was crisp. I was feeling optimistic.
The day started off slow as per usual, the usual crowd shuffling in. The members here were thoughtful. They always greeted me with a smile, asked about my family, and occaisonally they'd even bring me coffee. I loved seeing their familiar faces.
On this brisk April morning, a new face wondered into the gym. Only he was no stranger to me. Thomas Waight. Thomas used to attend my high school, only he was much older. I could see him as he approached the front door. He possessed broad shoulders, a thick beard and piercing blue eyes. Being much younger, he wouldn't know who I was. My plan was to smile and give a general greeting. "Welcome to GoodLife!" something like that?
As he approached the door, I was rendered speachless. His presence proved more intimidating than I suspected.
"Lilly Ray."
I chocked on my own tongue.
What came out of my mouth next shocked me...
[["Do I know you?"]]
[["uasfankhljsdhjad"]]
[["Thomas Waight, what brings you to my neck of the woods?"]]What was I thinking? We're probably Facebook friends... I quickly recovered. "Didn't recognize you with the beard there!"
He chuckled. "I've been growing this guy out for the past few months. You like?"
I paused. What does one say to this?
[[Not really my style]]
[[You look great]]How embarassing... I mine as well climb under the desk. But he was a good conversationalist. "It's Thom from high school!" This was obvious. He was wearing an old Baxter High football jacket. He caught me glancing.
"You like?" he asked.
I paused. What does one say to this?
[[Not really my style]]
[[You look great]]I didn't know where the burst of confidence came from, but I'd ride with it. "I nearly didn't recognize you in uniform," he teased, pointing at my red shirt. " And I nearly didn't recognize you with that beard there!"
He chuckled. "I've been growing this guy out for the past few months. You like?"
I paused. What does one say to this?
[[Not really my style]]
[[You look great]]I decided to play hard to get.
We talked about his recent trip to Europe and his plans for the fall. He asked me how I was enjoying working at the gym... I lied. Before I knew it, 20 minutes had past. For once I was grateful Sundays were so slow.
"I don't mean to steal you away from your workout" I exclaimed.
"I don't mean to steal you away from your job" he replied.
He took a deep inhale, as if to add one more thing, but the phone interrupts, ringing abruptly.
What was he going to say? The curiousity pained me...
I decided:
[[not to pick up the phone]]
[[to pick up the phone]]A little forward, but I suppose everyone appreciates flattery.
We talked about his recent trip to Europe and his plans for the fall. He asked me how I was enjoying working at the gym... I lied. Before I knew it, 20 minutes had past. For once I was grateful Sundays were so slow.
"I don't mean to steal you away from your workout" I exclaimed.
"I don't mean to steal you away from your job" he replied.
He took a deep inhale, as if to add one more thing, but the phone interrupts, ringing abruptly.
What was he going to say? The curiousity pained me...
I decided:
[[not to pick up the phone]]
[[to pick up the phone]]*ring* *ring*
Thomas smiled.
"What do you say we catch up when you're done work and don't have phones to answer. We could go to the park?" he asked. It is a lovely day, I thought to myself...
I responded:
[["Why not!"]]
[["I don't think that's such a good idea..."]]"It's a great day at GoodLife! Canada's most admired corporate culture! Lilly speaking, how may I help you?"
Ugh. What a mouth full. He must be thinking I'm anal. A simple "hello" would have sufficed...
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile, waiving as he preceeded into the gym. Butterflies filled my chest. I took a deep breathe.
a) [[Today, I would stay later and work out]]
b) [[I had plenty of school work to attend to, I would be leaving shortly]]Hello! Welcome to the Dana Porter Library.
My name is Alexa.
I am here to help select the proper media for you.
What are you looking for?
[[fiction]]
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What category are you looking for?
[[educational]]
[[war poems]]
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[[Communications]][[‘To Kill a Mockingbird’]]
[[Shakespeare]]
[["Malala"]]
[["The Value of Being Disturbed"]]
[["Great Gatsby"]]
[["Handmaids Tail vs 1984]]
[["The Exhausted West"]]
[["The Boy Who Left Home to Get the Shivers"]]
[["A Complicated Kindness"]]
[["Summary of Danesi Chapter Five - Texts"]][[Acrostic]]
[[Sensory]]
[[Rhyming]]
[[Free Flow]] Pride
pOwer
apPreciation
desPair
heroIsm
admirE
poppieSW ounded lay in the field headless, stomach less, limbless
A ll the soldiers respect those who sacrificed their lives for our country
R esting in peace
[["Poppies"]]
[["Acrostic, War"]][["Fear"]]FEAR
It smells like a thick black layer of smoke, suffocating.
It tastes like the tear of your loved one, salinated.
It sounds like a bomb blasting in the distance, deafening.
It looks like a faint memory of your childhood, blinding.
It feels like the wind knocking you behind the knees, dehabilitating.
FEAR[[A Soldier's Wife]]
[[What The Veterans Sacrificed]]
[[What We Gained]]
[[The Horrors of War]]
[[The Painter]]A Soldier’s Wife
I hate to watch each time you leave,
And to be away from you, how I grieve.
I know it’s your duty and so you will go,
But once your gone I will miss you so.
And I know you’ll come back as soon as you can,
But for right now you’ll deploy like an honorable man.
And I understand why you chose to risk your life,
For that’s a soldiers job, and I am a soldiers wife.
[["Corruption In Veronna"]]CORRUPTION IN VERONA!
Heated argument between Capulets and Montagues Result in Two Deaths!
Around 12:46 yesterday, a riot broke out on the streets of Verona. Between crude gestures and vial comments amidst a gang of Capulets and Montagues, a heated argument flared into a fight amongst Mercrutio (a good friend of Romeo Montague) and Tybalt Capulet. The fight soon got out of hand, dangerous and risky. In the end, Tybalt killed Mercrutio. Romeo, having seen his good friend slain, was angry and frustrated with Tybalt. Romeo and Tybalt both drew their swords and began to fight. After a lengthy battle came the death of Tybalt Capulet.
According to eyewitness Benvolio Montague, it was Tybalt whom came up to Romeo asking for a fight. When Romeo declined, Mercrutio stepped in and accepted the challenge. Whilst the two were battling, Romeo went in the middle attempting to break it up. However, Tybalt managed to hit Mercrutio from under Romeo’s arm, fatally injuring him. Romeo devastated by his friend’s death, engaged in Tybalt’s violence slaying him for revenge.
This particular event has shown the citizens of Verona that the kmatter but involves all residents of Verona, like Mercrutio who is nor a Capulet nor a Montague. According to witnesses, after being stabbed he said “A plague o' both your houses!” to express is discontent with the two families. Romeo has not been given the death penalty for murder but he has not escaped without charges. Romeo has been banished from Verona. At the scene of the crime the Prince of Verona stated “For that offence, immediately we do exile him hence." Also adding, “Let Romeo hence in haste, else, when he’s found, that hour is his last.” As it stands now Romeo’s whereabouts are unknown fore according to Benvolio “As Tybalt fell, did Romeo turn and fly.” Some say the lesson to be learned is that two wrongs don’t make a right. Whatever the moral, these are certainly not the first or last lives to be lost due to the ongoing quarrels between the Capulets and Montagues.
[[Linear]]
[[Non-Linear]] Double-click this passage to edit it.[["Thomas"]][["South Africa"]]
[["Leaders"]]
[["Immigrant Profiles"]]
[["War"]] [["Sun City"]]
[["Apartheidtheid"]]
[["Planning Issues in Cape Town, South Africa Planning interventions to improve the economy as well as living conditions"]][[What was apartheid?]]
[[How did it start?]]
[[Living Under Apartheid]]
[[Ending Apartheid]]
[[Population Based On Segregation]]
[[Economy]][[Who]]
[[What]]
[[Where]]
[[When]]
[[Why]]
[[How]]
[[The Concept of Apartheid]]
[[Overview of Apartheid]]
[[Nelson Mandela’s Role in Apartheid]]
[[Sun City]]Apartheid was a system in place in South Africa that separated people based on their race and skin color. There were laws that forced white people and black people to live and work apart from each other. Even though there were less white people than black people, apartheid laws allowed white people to rule the country and enforce the laws. Apartheid became law after the National Party won the election in 1948. They declared certain areas as white only and other areas as black only. Many people protested apartheid from the start, but they were labeled communists and put into jail.Living under apartheid was not fair to black people. They were forced to live in certain areas and were not allowed to vote or travel in "white" areas without papers. Black people and white people were not allowed to marry each other. Many blacks, Asians, and other people of color were forced out of their homes and into regulated areas called "homelands."
The government also took over the schools and forced the segregation of white and black students. Signs were put up in many areas declaring these areas for "white persons only." Black people who broke the laws were punished or put into jail. With the help of international pressure, passionate South African, and global leaders like Nelson Mandela, Apartheid finally came to an end in the early 1990s. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and a year later South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk repealed the remaining apartheid laws and called for a new constitution. In 1994, a new election was held in which people of all color could vote. The ANC won the election and Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.As we’ve learned about 44 million people live in South Africa. Blacks make up almost 80 % of the population. They belong to different ethnic groups and speak different languages. The largest tribes, the Zulu and Xhosa, have lived in South Africa for the longest time. About half of them live in cities and the other half on small farms in the countryside. Many blacks still work for white people in gold and diamond mines but many are poor and have no jobs.
South Africa has three minorities. The Whites make up about 10% of the population. Apart from the English speaking population there are also the descendants Dutch, German and French settlers, who are called Afrikaners. Almost all whites live in the big cities. Many Afrikaners control the farms in the countryside.
9% of the population is Coloreds, people of mixed race. Many work as servants and hold jobs in factories. Asians, which make up about 2% of the population, are the fourth largest group. Most of them are descendants of settlers who came from India to work on large farms and plantations in the last part of the 19th century.
95 percent of all South Africans live in the eastern half of the country and along the southern coast. The northern and western part of the country is very sparsely populated because it is too dry.South Africa is the richest country in Africa. Although it has only 4 % of Africa’s area it produces about 25% of the continents goods and services. However it is mostly the white population that has built up most of the country’s wealth. They owned the major companies for a long time. Today, years after the end of apartheid, Whites still control most of the economy but Blacks are getting better jobs and earning more
than some years ago.
South Africa’s economy is based on mining and industry. It is the world’s biggest gold producer. Centre of production is the Witwatersrand in the north of the country. About 40% of all the gold that has ever been mined on earth comes from this region. Diamonds, coal and copper are other valuable raw materials. Factories in South Africa produce cars, chemicals, iron and steel and machines.
Although South Africa does not have so much good farming land the country can export many products, including corn, wheat, sugar cane, and citrus fruits. Great wines are produced in the southern regions, which have a Mediterranean climate. Farmers raise sheep, cattle and pigs for meat and other products.
South Africa should create more jobs and provide more opportunity.
• And opportunity should be equal for all.
• Being Africa’s #1 country for producing goods… South Africa has more potential and more room for economic prosperity than any other African country.
• They just need to expand and create more jobs to become even more economically stable.
• Providing economic opportunities will also encourage domestic travelling--- therefore dispersing and intermingling the different groups in South Africa.
• SOUTH AFRICA NEEDS TO CONTINUE TO PROMOTE INTEGRATION!Victims: Black South Africans Offenders: White AfricansA policy and system of segregations and discriminationSouth Africa1948-1994• The National Party came to power (white minority)
• Wanted to maintain power by enforcing segregationBy using the power of law and violence against the black majorityDouble-click this passage to edit it.After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation under a system of legislation that it called apartheid. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) would be forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities, and contact between the two groups would be limited. Despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa, its laws remained in effect for the better part of 50 years. In 1991, the government of President F.W. de Klerk began to repeal most of the legislation that provided the basis for apartheid.Nelson Mandela was a South African activist and former South African president (1918-2013) he helped bring apartheid to an end. As a member of the African National Congress party beginning in the 1940s, he was a leader of both peaceful protests and armed resistance against the white minority’s oppressive regime in a racially divided South Africa. His actions landed him in prison for nearly three decades and made him the face of the antiapartheid movement both within his country and internationally. Released in 1990, he participated in the eradication of apartheid and in 1994 became the first black president of South Africa, forming a multiethnic government to oversee the country’s transition. After retiring from politics in 1999, he remained a devoted champion for peace and social justice in his own nation and around the world until his death in 2013 at the age of 95.“Sun City” Performed by: Artists United Against Apartheid
The black African majority became very frustrated and began demanding change. As a way to voice their opinion they took to the streets in protest in hope for a rebellion. The government responded violently and began killing innocent people. Stevie Van Zandt (guitar player for Bruce Springsteen’s band, the E Street Band) witnessed this happen when he travelled to South Africa to study Apartheid. He was outraged by the way the government was treating their people and decided he needed to inform the general public (seeing as there was no internet in the 80’s).
Stevie Van Zandt decided to bring together some of the world’s most recognized and influential music artists to perform a song expressing their feelings on Apartheid. This included artists such as Bob Dylan, Hall & Oates, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Run-DMC, Ringo Starr, Herbie Hanckock, Afrika Bambaataa, George Clinton, Bonnie Raitt, Gil-Scott Heron, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Cliff, Keith Richards, Miles Davis, Pat Benetar and more. The main focus of Stevie’s song was Sun City; a luxury casino resort that would overpay popular musicians to perform at their hotel, so more people would travel there and support South Africa. The song titled “Sun City” served as an economic boycott for South Africa and was also considered the anthem for the ‘Anti-Apartheid Revolution’.
The song was not only a major success but a hit as well! Thanks to ‘Sun City’, over 97% of artists refused offers to perform in South Africa, the general public became more informed and active about the situation and sure enough eventually with the help of the global community, the citizens of South Africa and political leaders like Nelson Mandela, Apartheid ended in 1994.[[Macbeth]][[Macbeth Act 3 Analysis]][[Character Development]]
[[Key Plot Events]]
[[Literary Devices]]
[[Connections to Themes]]
[[Important Quotations]]Macbeth: Macbeth was originally introduced as a war hero. He is seen as “golden” in the eyes of many other characters. But in Act III, Macbeth evolves into a far more ‘stereotypical villain’. Macbeth begins to engage in more criminal activity, each evil deed dissolving more of his human characteristics. We see that in Act III Macbeth also become more ambitious, he begins to take the reins and assert his dominance over his wife, as well as disregard and challenge the prophet of Fate and Fortune.
Lady Macbeth: Lady Macbeth is a powerful character. Unlike Macbeth, she lacks all humanity. She pushes Macbeth further and further, taunting Macbeth for his lack of courage and manliness. She hits an all time evil in Act III before she seems to have pushed herself too far and become mentally deranged, only a mere shadow of her former ruthless self.
Banquo: In Act III, Banquo voices his suspicion that Macbeth has killed Duncan in order to fulfill the witches' prophesies. He muses that perhaps the witches' vision for his own future will also be realized, but pushes the thought from his mind. This shows that perhaps even Banquo has a little bit of that inhumane ‘Macbeth quality’.1) Macbeth hosting his coronation banquet.
Macbeth specially invites Banquo to be present at the banquet as the chief guest and the latter promises that he would not fail. Macbeth then speaks his mind in a soliloquy that reveals as to why he wants to get rid of Banquo. The banquet later exposes Macbeth's villainy in the assembly of all Scottish nobles.
2) Macbeth talking to two murderers and finalizing the killing of Banquo and his son, Fleance.
As we see how Macbeth finds out two men to antagonize them against Banquo, we understand that Macbeth can now work out his evil designs by himself and in a very cleverly manipulating manner.
3) The murderers killing Banquo with Fleance escaping.
As the rain of blows on Banquo's head dispatch him to death, we see how Macbeth enhances his own doom. Banquo shall have to keep his promise of attending the banquet in the form of a ghost born of Macbeth's own terror-stricken mind, since Fleance has escaped.
4) The appearance and re-appearance of the ghost of Banquo at the banquet.
Banquo's ghost appears and disappears twice in the banquet scene. Dead Banquo thus proves to be more potent a threat to Macbeth than the living Banquo. The ghost forces Macbeth to betray his crime and prepares his way to doom as Macbeth resolves to meet the witches to know 'by the worst means, the worst'.• “And play the humble host”- Act III, Scene 4 (ALLITERATION)
• “And we will require her welcome” - Act III, Scene 4 (ALLITERATION)
• “For my heart speaks they are welcome”- Act III, Scene 4 (PERSONIFICATION)
• “Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect, Whole as the marble, founded as the rock.”- Act III, Scene 4 (SIMILE)
• “There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled.”-Act III, Scene 4 (METAPHOR)
• Banquo says, "Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird women promised, and, I fear, Thou play'dst most foully for't “ (FORESHAWODING)
• Macbeth says, "I wish your horses swift and sure of foot; And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell." (VERBAL IRONY)
• Macbeth says, "In the affliction of these terrible dreams” (DEATH/SLEEP IMAGERY)Ambition→ Act 3 Scene 1: Macbeth determines to kill Banquo in order to prevent his children succeeding to Scotland's throne.
Kingship→ Act 3 Scene 6: Lennox and another lord discuss life under Macbeth's rule.
Fate→ when Banquo questions Macbeth’s role in the King’s murder and how that will effect his own outcome in the prophesy
Appearance and reality→ when Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost
Nature/ The Natural World→
''Tis unnatural,/ Even like the deed that's done.'- Act III, Scene 4
'And his gash'd stabs looked like a breach in nature' Act III, Scene 1
Light and darkness (representing innocence and evil)→ Come, seeling night,/ Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day'- Act III Scene 21. Thou hast it now-King, Cawdor, Glamis, all as the Weird Women promised, and I fear thou played'st most foully for 't. -Banquo Act 3 Scene 1
(This relates to "Fair is foul, and foul is fair".)
2. We here our bloody cousins are bestowed in England and Ireland, not confessing their cruel parricide, fillling their hearers with strange invention. -Macbeth Act 3 Scene 1
3. To be thus in nothing, but to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo stick deep, and in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be feared. -Macbeth Act 3 Scene 1
4. There is none but he whose being I do fear; and under him my genius is rebuked, as it is said Mark Antony's was by Caesar. -Macbeth Act 3 Scene 1
5. And bade them speak to him. Then, prophet-like, they hailed him father to a line of kings. Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown and put a barren scepter in my grip, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, no son of mine succeeding. -Macbeth Act 3 Scene 1
6. If 't be so, for Banquo's issue have I filed my mind; For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered, put rancors in the vessel of my peace only for them, and mine eternal jewel given to the common enemy of man to make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings. Rather than so, come fate into the list, and champion me to th' utterance. -Macbeth Act 3 Scene 1[["Capital Punishment"]]
[["Gun Violence"]]
[["Roger Case"]]
[["David Greene, The Complainant v.St. Matthew’s School, The Respondent"]]
[[Introduction]]
[[1. Morality]]
[[2. Constitutionality]]
[[3. Deterrence]]
[[4. Retribution]]
[[5. Irrevocable Mistakes]]
[[6. Cost of Death vs. Life in Prison]]
[[7. Race]]
[[8. Income Level]]
[[9. Attorney Quality]]
[[10. Physicians at Executions]]
[[Conclusion]]We are speaking for the affirmative.
It is an absolute pleasure for the opportunity to be here today, debating in favor of capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty.
I would like to begin by defining capital punishment as government sanctioned punishment by death. The sentence is referred to as a death sentence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences, such as treason or first-degree murder."The crimes of rape, torture, treason, kidnapping, murder, larceny, and perjury pivot on a moral code that escapes apodictic [indisputably true] proof by expert testimony or otherwise. But communities would plunge into anarchy if they could not act on moral assumptions less certain than that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Abolitionists may contend that the death penalty is inherently immoral because governments should never take human life, no matter what the provocation. But that is an article of faith, not of fact. The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense.""Simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of 'objectively intolerable risk of harm' [quoting the opinion of the Court from Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U. S. 825, 842, 846 (1994)] that qualifies as cruel and unusual... Kentucky has adopted a method of execution believed to be the most humane available, one it shares with 35 other States... Kentucky's decision to adhere to its protocol cannot be viewed as probative of the wanton infliction of pain under the Eighth Amendment... Throughout our history, whenever a method of execution has been challenged in this Court as cruel and unusual, the Court has rejected the challenge. Our society has nonetheless steadily moved to more humane methods of carrying out capital punishment."
***Baze v. Rees"Common sense, lately bolstered by statistics, tells us that the death penalty will deter murder... People fear nothing more than death. Therefore, nothing will deter a criminal more than the fear of death... life in prison is less feared. Murderers clearly prefer it to execution -- otherwise, they would not try to be sentenced to life in prison instead of death... Therefore, a life sentence must be less deterrent than a death sentence. And we must execute murderers as long as it is merely possible that their execution protects citizens from future murder.""Society is justly ordered when each person receives what is due to him. Crime disturbs this just order, for the criminal takes from people their lives, peace, liberties, and worldly goods in order to give himself undeserved benefits. Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done. This is retribution, not to be confused with revenge, which is guided by a different motive. In retribution the spur is the virtue of indignation, which answers injury with injury for public good... Retribution is the primary purpose of just punishment as such... [R]ehabilitation, protection, and deterrence have a lesser status in punishment than retribution.""...No system of justice can produce results which are 100% certain all the time. Mistakes will be made in any system which relies upon human testimony for proof. We should be vigilant to uncover and avoid such mistakes. Our system of justice rightfully demands a higher standard for death penalty cases. However, the risk of making a mistake with the extraordinary due process applied in death penalty cases is very small, and there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976... The inevitability of a mistake should not serve as grounds to eliminate the death penalty any more than the risk of having a fatal wreck should make automobiles illegal...""Many opponents present, as fact, that the cost of the death penalty is so expensive (at least $2 million per case?), that we must choose life without parole ('LWOP') at a cost of $1 million for 50 years. Predictably, these pronouncements may be entirely false. JFA [Justice for All] estimates that LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million-$3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases. There is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent LWOP cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, equivalent LWOP cases are much more expensive... than death penalty cases. Opponents ludicrously claim that the death penalty costs, over time, 3-10 times more than LWOP.""[T]he fact that blacks and Hispanics are charged with capital crimes out of proportion to their numbers in the general population may simply mean that blacks and Hispanics commit capital crimes out of proportion to their numbers. Capital criminals don’t look like America... No one is surprised to find more men than women in this class. Nor is it a shock to find that this group contains more twenty-year-olds than septuagenarians. And if — as the left tirelessly maintains — poverty breeds crime, and if — as it tiresomely maintains — the poor are disproportionately minority, then it must follow — as the left entirely denies — that minorities will be 'overrepresented' among criminals.""The next urban legend is that of the threadbare but plucky public defender fighting against all odds against a team of sleek, heavily-funded prosecutors with limitless resources. The reality in the 21st century is startlingly different... the past few decades have seen the establishment of public defender systems that in many cases rival some of the best lawyers retained privately... Many giant silk-stocking law firms in large cities across America not only provide pro-bono counsel in capital cases, but also offer partnerships to lawyers whose sole job is to promote indigent capital defense.""Defense attorneys... routinely file all manner of motions and objections to protect their clients from conviction. Attorneys know their trial tactics will be thoroughly scrutinized on appeal, so every effort is made to avoid error, ensuring yet another level of protection for the defendant. They [death penalty opponents]... have painted a picture of incompetent defense lawyers, sleeping throughout the trial, or innocent men being executed. Their accusations receive wide media coverage, resulting in a near-daily onslaught on the death penalty. Yet, through all the hysteria, jurors continue to perform their responsibilities and return death sentences.""Accepting capital punishment in principle means accepting it in practice, whether by the hand of a physician or anyone else... If one finds the practice too brutal, one must either reject it in principle or seek to mitigate its brutality. If one chooses the latter option, then the participation of physicians seems more humane than delegating the deed to prison wardens, for by condoning the participation of untrained people who could inflict needless suffering that we physicians might have prevented, we are just as responsible as if we had inflicted the suffering ourselves. The AMA [American Medical Association] position should be changed either to permit physician participation or to advocate the abolition of capital punishment. The hypocritical attitude of 'My hands are clean — let the spectacle proceed' only leads to needless human suffering."Now let me end by asking you all this… Were you happy the day you heard Osama Bin Laden was killed? Did you cheer? He could have easily been captured and brought back to North America and put in prison. But no, he was given the death penalty. [[The Life Lessons of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird']] Life is not perfect. Sometime we succeed and sometime we fail. But, the good thing is we can learn from our mistakes. In Ms. Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, there are many valuable life lessons. These lessons can teach us how to be a considerate person and live a better life with others. The main three lessons are do not judge someone based on rumours, take pride in what you believe in and keep fighting, even when the odds are against you.
One of the most important lessons in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was not to judge people based on the rumours you hear. In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ the Finch’s neighbors like Miss Stephanie Crawford tell Scout and Jem of Boo Radley’s alleged past. She tells them he stabbed his father’s leg, then was imprisoned in the courthouse basement. Until he was sent home; where he still remains hidden inside. Everyone in Maycomb believes that Boo is a convict and a monster. Jem tells Dill: “Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained─ if you ate an animal raw you could never wash the blood off.” At the end of the story, it is revealed that Boo was the one who left presents for Scout and Jem in the tree, he also put a blanket around Scout the night of the fire, in addition to saving the children from Mr. Ewell. Through these acts Scout and Jem see the true kindness of Boo. Boo is like a mockingbird (so is Tom Robinson) as both of them have never done anything to harm anyone.
Another important lesson touched on in this book is to take pride in what you believe in. This lesson was well captured by Mrs. Dubose. Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict trying to break an addiction. Morphine had helped lessen her pain, but she did not want to die an addict in order to keep her pride. Jem’s reading helped Mrs. Dubose battle the craving, because it was a distraction, assisting her to take her mind off the morphine. In the book Atticus says, “I wanted you to see something about her- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.” With the help of their father Scout and Jem begin to see Mrs. Dubose as a courageous and prideful fighter
Through Mrs. Dubose, and other characters Ms. Lee shares with us the importance of the last lesson. Keep fighting, even when the odds of winning are low. In court, Atticus was asked to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who was accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Mr. Finch accepted the challenge. He was determined to win the case, despite the knowledge he would most likely lose, because the whole town was prejudices towards African Americans. People in town made cruel remarks as the Finch’s walked by and members of their family criticized Atticus for his decision and Scout and Jem got teased at school, but Atticus told his children to keep their heads up. Atticus said, “It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” Through his decision to defend Tom Robinson, Atticus teaches Scout and Jem the real meaning of bravery.
In conclusion, Scout shared a very enriching and exciting part of her life with us. Through her we’ve been able to observe her life and the lives of other characters, study their successes and learn from the failures. From these successes and failures, Ms. Harper Lee has provided us life lessons put into the context of real situations, making the true identity of Boo Radley and the lesson of false judgment vivid. She has made the courage and determination of Mrs. Dubose and the lesson of taking pride in what you believe in inspiring. And finally, Ms. Harper Lee has made the true bravery of Atticus Finch and the lesson of continuing to fight even when the odds are low, undoubtedly unforgettable. [[Fraud]][[What is Fraud?]]
[[Who does Fraud effect?]]
[[Advice…]]Fraud is a type of criminal activity, defined as:
• 'abuse of position, or false representation, or prejudicing someone's rights for personal gain'.
• Put simply, fraud is an act of deception intended for personal gain or to cause a loss to another party.
The general criminal offence of fraud can include:
• deception whereby someone knowingly makes false representation
• or they fail to disclose information
• or they abuse a position.
• Thousands of Canadians of all ages and from all walks of life are defrauded each year.
• There is no typical fraud victim in Canada.
• Fraud targets Canadians of all ages and from all walks of life.1. “If you want to be safe from the criminals, you have to think like one.”
• develop professional-looking marketing materials
• provide believable answers for your tough questions
• impersonate government agencies, legitimate businesses, websites, charities, and causes
• pretend to be your ordinary supplier
• hide the true details in the fine print
• prey on areas of vulnerability, including those needing help with loans or finding employment
• ask for fees in advance of promised services
• threaten legal action to collect on alleged contracts
• falsely claim affiliation with reliable sources, such as legitimate news sites to support their products or services
• exchange victim lists with other fraudsters
2. Keep in mind that wiring money is like sending cash: once it’s gone,
you can’t get it back. Con artists often insist that people wire money, especially overseas, because it’s nearly impossible to reverse the transaction or trace the money.
3. Don’t send money to someone you don’t know. That includes an online
merchant you’ve never heard of — or an online love interest who asks for money or favours. It’s best to do business with sites you know and trust.
4. Don’t respond to messages that ask for your personal or financial
information, whether the message comes as an email, a phone call, a text message, or an ad. The crooks behind these messages are trying to trick you into giving up your personal information. If you get a message and are concerned about your account status, call the number on your credit or debit card — or your statement — and check it out.
5. Don’t play a foreign lottery. First, it’s easy to be tempted by messages that boast enticing odds in a foreign lottery, or messages that claim you’ve already won. Inevitably, you’ll be asked to pay “taxes,” “fees,” or “customs duties” to collect your prize. If you send money, you won’t get it back, regardless of the promises. Second, it’s illegal to play foreign lotteries.
6. Read your bills and monthly statements regularly — on paper and
online. Scammers steal account information and then run up charges or commit crimes in your name. Dishonest merchants sometimes bill you for monthly “membership fees” and other goods or services you didn’t authorize. If you see charges you don’t recognize or didn’t okay, contact your bank, card issuer, or other creditor immediately.
7. In the wake of a natural disaster or another crisis, give to established
charities rather than one that seems to have sprung up overnight. Pop-up charities probably don’t have the infrastructure to get help to the affected areas or people, and they could be collecting the money to finance illegal activity.
8. Talk to your doctor before buying health products or signing up for medical treatments. Buy prescription drugs only from licensed pharmacies. Otherwise, you could end up with products that are fake or expired.
9. Remember there’s no such thing as a sure thing. If someone contacts you promoting low-risk, high-return investment opportunities, stay away. When you hear pitches that insist you act now, guarantees of big profits, promises of little or no financial risk, or demands that you send cash immediately, report them.
[[Letters]]
[[Stories]][["Handmaids Tail Theme"]]
[["Letter as a Pirate"]]
[["Hindenburg Theme"]]Dear Luke,
Not a day goes by that I don’t immerse myself in the light of our memories together. I think back to the days before Gilead. I dream of you, our daughter, our time we spent together. I teleport myself back to the hours upon hours I wasted away in my library, indulging in the books that cease to exist anymore. I like reliving our journey together, I think back to the day we met, when you were not yet divorced and still married to someone else. I relive our Saturday afternoons we spent as a family, laughing and frolicking around. I’ve replayed these memories so many times in my head that I’ve begun to question there validly. Above all, I relive that dreaded afternoon on Canada’s boarders. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to go back to that day so I could make amends… so that I could have you here, by my side.
For you see, Gilead’s become even worse than you or I could have ever imagined. The society is deadly, dystopic and venomous. I kow live in a world where hangings are a usual thing, people have lost their sanity and handmaid’s are slave to men… and I am a handmaid. The way I see it, true love is extinct - a blast from the past. I’ve heard people claim that there is a bond between a handmaid and their baby but this connection isn’t love… it can’t be. To me, these babies don’t represent miracles! They represent everything that is wrong with society, they represent organized rape, oppression, and reification of the human body. No such love could ever be founded off such a morally faltered foundation.
The kind of love we shared together is now forbidden in Gilead. Our memories together ‘taint’ my mind; they contrast with the regimented, passionless state of this new society.
I do not fall false conscious to my surroundings. I am aware of the propaganda and rewiring of man that is happening all around me. The brainwashing does not fall on puddy ears. Some days I wish it did… some days I wish I absorbed the political toxins. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier. I wouldn’t have to pretend and constantly be covering my tracks.
I don’t want this baby, I need this baby… and I am desperate. If I don’t get pregnant soon it’s going to by my fault- I am the handmaid. What if I had someone else’s child but told the commander it was his own? (I must remind myself not to be writing such controversial thoughts). Although I will be setting a flame to this letter, a paper trail is too nerve-racking.
On days like today, when your scent is fresh and your image clear in my mind, I write to you - it calms me down. Where are you? And where is my baby. I am confident she’s out there somewhere, and I’m going to do everything it takes to find her. Mark my words, my little girl will be mine again.
I miss you my darling. Now into the fire with all of this…
[[poetry]]
[[dance]][[Composition Analysis]][["Gravity"]]
[["S"]]“Gravity”
Choreographed by: Mia Michaels
Performed by: Kayla and Kupono (SYTYCD)
[[UNITY]]
[[SEQUENCE]]
[[REPITITION]]
[[PROPORTION]]
[[VARIETY]]The theme of addiction in “Gravity” is blatantly clear. Kayla’s costume appears ripped and tattered; and her hair is wet and messy, symbolizing her struggle and the current journey she is on. Kupono on the other hand is dressed very masculine, uniformly and severely. He is the addiction and the dark makeup under his eyes paints a clear and intense picture. He also possesses a piece of Kayla’s costume, which he wears upon his waist. This symbolizes a part of her that lies with and is controlled by her addiction to ‘him’ and what he represents.
The music also represents unity in the piece because of its undeniably powerful lyrics.
“Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long.” These lyrics tell us that Kayla has commenced the beginning of the addiction cycle again. Her character is quite obviously suffering from addiction.
“Set me free,
Leave me be.
I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.
But you're on to me and all over me.”
These lyrics speak loudly to me because they express Kayla’s distaste for the addiction she has, but also express that she is well aware that she holds no power, or hope.
Actions speak more than words, and this fact is very apparent in this dance. Kupono uses his strength to control Kayla. And Kayla’s quality of movement is very vulnerable giving Kupono the ability to manipulate her actions. “Gravity” shows the cycle of addiction. The dance begins with Kayla running towards her ‘poison’ because she has broken and given in. Kupono is smirking because he knows that she always comes back. Kayla’s movements are very weak in the beginning because the sense of hopelessness is fresh. Throughout the dance she becomes stronger and stronger. The climax is when she changes her mind and decides to fight the addiction. This is evident when she starts ripping Kupono’s hands off her body. The dance finishes where it started… Kayla has accepted her fate once again and she is gives into the addiction.
The exact moment that Kayla begins to fight the addiction is 39 seconds into the dance. Directly after Kupono “suffocates” her, she begins ripping his hands off her body and the music builds immensely. Her fight is symbolized by lots of kicking and ‘fist fight-like’ actions.
It is at 1:12 that Kayla loses her battle yet again- this is symbolized by Kayla failing to reach up. Kupono compresses and controls her so that she is unable to physically grasp her goals. The lyrics also express this nicely, “The one thing that I still know it that you’re keeping me down.”One of the most symbolic moments in the dance was the ending. Kupono finished in the same pose that he started the dance with (a strong stance, and an open arm). This conclusion is powerful because the reputation of the pose represents the vicious cycle of addiction. No matter how hard Kayla fought, the addiction was too powerful, and as a result her cycle of trying to fight then eventually giving in to her temptations, repeated once again. This was communicated through the use of Kupono’s repeated pose.
To add to the concluding image, the dance finishes to the lyrics “Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long.” (The same lyrics the dance commenced with) These lyrics symbolize Kayla repeating the addiction cycle once again.Mia Michaels uses proximity to tell Kayla’s story of addiction. In the beginning Kayla is far from Kupono but quickly runs towards him to demonstrate her need and lust for what he represents. When she relies on him, he sticks to her like glue, controlling her every move. When Kayla decides that she no longer wants this reliance on Kupono she begins to distance herself from him. In the end, attraction takes over and Kayla gives in, and as a result she stops fighting Kupono’s presence and they are close again.[[Time]]
[[Space]]
[[Body]]
[[Energy]]
[[Relationship]] When Kayla begins to fight against her addiction again, her movements go from slow and weightless, to frantic, strong and desperate. This is a nice touch that really helps communicate Kayla’s emotions with the audience.I quite appreciate where Kupono tends to dance in comparison to Kayla. He often stands behind her, controlling her, as if he were her driving force.The most powerful actions throughout the whole dance is when Kupono covers Kayla’s mouth in attempt to suffer her, and make her weaker, forcing Kayla to succumb to his powers. As this action is repeated it really communicates her struggle against the cycle of addiction and the constant pain it causes her. Attack became sharp and sudden when Kayla began her rebellion
• Kayla’s weight was ‘uncontrolled’ at the beginning in her moments of eliminated control.
• Lack of resiliency in the beginning, no energy
• Quality of movement transition from loose and collapsed to strong, tight and desperate, then back again to loose and collapsed In the beginning Kayla is far from Kupono but quickly runs towards him to demonstrate her need and lust for what he represents.
• Tries to distance herself because she knows the addiction is bad for her
• Can’t help it→ similarly to magnetic attraction, the 2 dancers find themselves close again[[Bowling for Columbine Review & Reflection on Gun Violence]]In the documentary ‘Bowling for Columbine’ Michael Moore ridicules the toxic love affair between America and their weaponry. The documentary was inspired by the shooting at Columbine high school in Jefferson County, Colorado, now known as the Columbine Massacre. On April 20th, 1999, (coincidentally Adolf Hitler’s birthday), 18-year-olds Dylan Klebold, and Eric Harris stormed into their high school with 4 guns, 7 knives, 293 homemade bombs, 188 rounds of ammunition and a very calculated plan of assault. That day they killed 13 people and injured another 24 until finally turning the guns on themselves. After analyzing the Columbine Massacre and making a note of multiple other shootings, Michael Moore poses the ultimate question, “What’s responsible for the mass gun shootings in the US?”
Throughout the documentary, Michael Moore dispelled a number of common beliefs as to why America is so violent. With a vicious history he presumes there could be a connection between the violence the US was brought up on, and the overbearing number of mass shootings. Moore then compares the history of the United States to events like the Holocaust in Germany and the fact that Britain ruled the world through violence for 300 years - but both countries have considerably less casualties at the hand of fire arms. He compares the United States to other countries including Canada, Japan and Australia. Moore equates their violent media consumption, statistics on races that are perpetrating these shootings and the number of guns in a country. He makes light of the fact that Canada has approximately 10 million families and 7 million guns (a higher ratio than the United States) and only a quarter of a fraction of the deaths due to firearms. After much investigation, Moore was determined that he found his answer: the media and the government.
One of the most insightful comments in the film is made by Marilyn Manson. He elaborates on the idea that there are businesses and politicians in the United States that capitalize on fear. There is this prominent campaign that determines instilling fear in order to consume is the best way of selling a product. The media instills fear through advertisements "If you have bad breath people won't talk to you, if you have zits, girls won't like you." And immediately after these commercials are over, the news presents nothing but tragedy after tragedy. Murder rates have been steadily going down in the US, but the number of murders shown on the news has increased by 600%.
The national news alongside the government has made Americans so fearful and numb to violence that if it weren't guns defending them, it would be something else. The only way to eliminate deaths due to guns is to eliminate guns themselves. Although incredibly unlikely due to the mass amount of gun enthusiasts and NRA supporters, the only possible way that a mass extinction of guns could occur is if the people wanted it and they fought for it - this can be related to the textbook (Peacemakers) in chapter 2, Fewer Arms, Less Conflict. Douglas Rouche talks about the Arms Trade Treaty, he articulates that "The role of civil society was crucial... If it had not been for civil society, we would not have had an arms treaty; I'm entirely convinced of that. Nongovernmental organizations not only originated the idea but campaigned for the treaty, bringing 1 million names petition to the UN secretary-general." He continues to talk about how "powerful the pressure of civil society is" and he couldn't be more right.
The textbook also touches on how in this "new climate of fear, the gun industry thrives." The government plays a huge role in instilling and promoting fear because not only does it boost the economy, but politicians are controlled by the billionaires of the United States including Lockheed Martin, the world's number one producer of guns. The textbook makes note of the fact that "cyberwarfare is already here and space weapons will be ready in a couple of generations." Just the thought terrifies me. How is America supposed to increase gun regulations when the most fearful and powerful nuclear weapons are just around the corner?
This fear needs to be distilled. According to the text and the Seville Statement of Violence, "human beings are not genetically programed for war. There is no inherent biological component of our nature that produces violence." Fear produces violence. It is without a doubt that there is "evil in the world, which all too often manifests itself as violence" but we have made progress. There is less violence now than there's been in decades. We have lessened violence through efforts of the International Criminal Court, internationally sponsored peacekeeping operations, the help of the UN, to name a few.
Perhaps the answer is as simple as the Nobel Peace Prize laurietes once said "Respect all life; reject violence; share with others; listen to understand; perserve the planet; rediscover solidarity."
[["Malala"]]
[[Nelson Mandela’s Role in Apartheid]]
[["The Life, Legacy & Influence of Isabella D’Este"]]
[["Biography of Henri Fantin-Latour"]]Malala is the Bravest Girl in the World
As Malala Yousafzai lay in her hospital bed, recovering from gunshot wounds to her head and neck, the story of her attempted assassination spread around the world. The only things this fourteen year-old girl wanted was a normal life and an education, and she refused to hide her dreams. But she nearly paid the consequences for those simple dreams with her life because she lives in a part of Pakistan where the Taliban are once again seeking control. The Taliban assassins had approached as Malala boarded her school bus. They called her name to make sure they were shooting the right girl, and opened fire at point blank range. Malala and another classmate were critically injured. The shooters justified their actions by distorting the Muslim Koran to repress all women, especially keeping girls away from education. But some observers believe that the Taliban was afraid of Malala because Malala was not afraid of them.
Malala has been called the bravest girl in the world because she kept going to that school despite the death threats that kept coming under her family's door. She refused to stop her blog about life under the Taliban that she established for the British Broadcasting Company. Perhaps one of Malala's deepest "offenses" against the Taliban was appearing on camera in an international documentary film. Malala was awarded Pakistan's prestigious National Peace Prize, and Pakistani police offered her family protection, but Malala's father thought the very presence of the police would remove the last bit of normal in Malala's life. Her family agreed Malala's strongest shield would come from continuing to speak out.
As Malala lay in a hospital, a respirator breathing for her, the Taliban issued a statement saying she still deserved to die and vowed to finish her off. She'd been transferred to Great Britain for more sophisticated medical care, but also to be surrounded by round the clock security. Back home, the local Taliban had shut down about two hundred schools. Three months after her shooting, two suspects were arrested, but it is unclear what happened to them after that.
Malala's very body defied the Taliban with her recovery. Her doctors estimated that her brain will likely return back to normal. Determined, Malala was also able to stand up five months after the shooting. These returning abilities will slowly aim her back toward her simple original goals of that normal life and going to school. Movie star Angelina Jolie started a campaign called "I Am Malala" to spread awareness of her oppression around the globe. The campaign makes clear what a lucky gift safe education is, and that anyone could be a target like Malala. This lovely young teenager was nearly murdered merely for demanding something girls in other countries take for granted.
But when all is said and done, there is only one Matala Yousafzai. She now wants to be a politician when she grows up. She has vowed to return home to Pakistan. She will have spent nearly a year of her short life recovering from severe wounds. She already knows great pain, breathing tubes, operating rooms, fighting her way back to speech and mobility. She knows how it feels to be targeted by deep irrational hatred. She has defied death threats that are already renewed. Malala Yousafzai is brave, strong, defiant, admirable and amazing. With her notoriety has come offers of education in safer countries. It is hard not to hope she will take an offer so Malala can live to remain the world's bravest girl, to keep her candle lit and stack the odds that the Taliban doesn't get another shot at snuffing her out.
To my dearest mother, father, and my loving brother Evan,
It feels like decades since I have seen you last. I truly miss you. I am thinking of coming down to the annual Christmas festivities this year. It would be wonderful to see everybody again.
I would like to let you know that I dropped out of Speech Communication and have set off in a new direction as a pirate. I hope you agree with my decision. This life has been much more satisfying. Living on a ship is extravagant! It is like living the life I have always dreamed of, although it is a tremendous amount of work. I wake up early in the morning to scrub the deck, our captain gives us a stern talk about how we are pirates and we must watch our backs. He warns us that there are many dangers in the seas ahead. It may sound scary but it is truly not. It is quite satisfying actually, other than the fact we have to sleep in a harsh, coarse hammock on the lower deck. After a great afternoon of sailing across the ocean, it is time to eat supper. We keep a cage of chickens onboard that we exchange for weapons at the trading markets.
I have been aboard the ship for about 4 fortnights and I have already fought other pirates, exchanged weapons, discovered gold coins and have had epic sword fights! It is really thrilling to be in the middle of a pirate fight sometimes, it’s a sense of energy and a shot of adrenaline.
Any who, I hope you encourage me to continue to lead this life that I am living since I am having the time of the century. I will check with the rest of me lads on board if they are willing to stop in port so I could come visit you during the holidays. I can’t wait to see everyone; I miss you very much,
Love yours truly,
Olivia[["Melina & Ottavio Ciccarelli"]]
[["A Journey Through Conflict"]]
[["Malala"]] Melina and Ottavio are immigrants to Canada, Melina from Santo Padre, Italy and Ottavio from Arpino, Italy. They were married in Italy on November 24th,1958. The very next day, Ottavio moved to Canada to find work and be with his brothers who were already employed and settled in Canada. Looking for a better life, Ottavio took a plane to Canada and endured a 17-hour flight because they had to make 3 stops. Melina waited a year before joining her new husband in Canada. She waited because she wasn’t ready to leave Italy, and was without the legal forms she required. On November 29th, 1959 Melina boarded a boat that would take her to Canada. With her came Ottavio’s sister Berta and her two kids Maggie and Anna. The boat ride was 9 ½ days long. They were forced to travel by boat because they had many personal belongings. The boat ride was long and the weather at sea was tempestuous. Many passengers were getting sick and sadly two people did not survive the voyage. Melina recalls thinking she was going to die herself while traveling over the rough and choppy waters. Exhausted and sick to their stomachs the Italian immigrants finally arrived in Canada. For both Ottavio and Melina, moving to Canada was a culture shock. They weren’t used to city life, they found everything about life in the city very small; the houses, the buildings, and the land. It was a busier more congested lifestyle than what they were use to living. Being immigrants without the knowledge of English, employment was difficult. Ottavio was only earning 95 cents an hour because of his immigrant status. They had to pick worms at night to earn extra money. They earned $12.00 a basket. Melina got a job sewing clothes at a fancy boutique store, making twice as much money as Ottavio. Being a wedding dress seamstress was an ideal occupation for Melina because she enjoyed it, and also because she didn’t have to speak to people and it kept her busy. In the beginning, Melina cried everyday, she was sad she left her homeland. None of her family travelled to Canada from Italy with her, therefore she missed them all terribly. In her eyes Italy was so far more beautiful and completely different from Canada. In Italy everyone in her village lived on farms. She says she wouldn’t go back and relive those first few years even if she was offered a million dollars. In the beginning, she liked nothing about Canada. Interestingly, Melina never thought she’d ever get her license because she wasn’t used to how organized the roads were with streetlights and street signs. In addition to the steering being on the opposite side of the car, driving in Italy was very relaxed and incredibly disorganized. Also, she never thought they’d have enough money to own their own house. But with immense amounts of hard work, adaptation and learning a little bit of English, Melina and Ottavio now have much more financial success than they need. They bought Italian food and spoke only Italian for the longest time. The circle they surrounded themselves in, was predominantly Italian. This allowed them to keep their culture and traditions.
Melina and Ottavio are currently living in Ancaster, Ontario. And have been happily married for over 60 years. They have 5 grown children and have been blessed with 11 grandchildren. Both Melina and Ottavio were very quick to point out that in the end, coming to Canada was in fact an excellent opportunity. They both expressed they had absolutely no regrets.
[["What is Black?"]]
[["Why We Must Remember"]]
[["I am Poem"]]
[["The City of Bones"]]
[["Masks"]]What Is Black?
Black is an empty mind,
Black makes things hard to find.
Black is the sound of a gun,
Black is the death of a father’s son.
Black is the colour of evil,
Sometimes it’s the colour of people.
Black is the opposite of calm,
Black is the battle of the Somme.
Black is the colour of the night sky,
Black is a big, dark lie.
Black is the trenches infested with bacteria,
Black is the fatal disease diphtheria.
Black is t he colour of hell,
Black is a horrible, terrible smell.
Black is an invasion of the enemy,
Black is a fight you are losing helplessly.
Black can be the colour of a room,
Black is the colour of doom.
Black is the sound of a piercing scream,
Black is a nightmare invading your dream.
Black is the colour of a wolf at night,
Black is the colour of a terrible fright.
Black is war, deadly and scary,
Black is a soldier who left the girl he planned to marry.
Black is the shadow of your past,
But no fear… fore black shall never last.
His friends, his cousins, his mother and me,
This is what my soldier sacrificed when he went to fight across the sea.
His sons, his daughters his brothers too,
He sacrificed his life for his country, for me and you.
It is the veterans that we must thank for what they have done,
Fight for our freedoms, our values, our fun.
They fought for your mother, your father, your best friend,
And for what they sacrificed the list never ends.
Our rights, our freedoms, our privileges, our land,
A country’s new friendship by lending a hand.
Respect, gratitude, courage and pride,
Although we still mourn for those that have died.
The blasting of bombs boom in my ears.
The tremendous sound of treacherous tears.
The dying, the deadly, the dead and the dreading.
Sorrow and sadness, diseases spreading.
The horrendous, hell-like horrors of war.
Terrifying damage you can never restore.
Their past is our future.
Their errors our goals
Their wars are our battles.
Their conflicts our solutions.
They are the answers to our questions.
But what shall we do if we don’t remember?
Where will we be by next December?
To take interest, to study, to go back in time.
To not remember mine as well be a crime.
I am supportive and kind
I wonder how I can help my community
I hear the cries of my neighbours
I see their struggles drowning their hope
I want my community to get involved
I am supportive and kind
I pretend to understand the stress and desolation of those in need
I feel that together we can make a difference
I worry about our neighbours suffering
It upsets me when children are homeless
I am supportive and kind
I understand that we can’t help everyone- at least not today
I say positive thoughts to encourage and motivate
I dream of a world where everyone has equal resources
I try to raise awareness about poverty in London
I hope that one day there will be no stigma on mental illness
I am supportive and kind
I am Olivia CullenI climbed to the mountaintops
Over looking my city of dirt
My tears fall to the west nonstop
Creating a mud slide from all of my hurt
To the east I throw rocks named anger and hate
And a landslide covers my city of bones
Into the north I scream against the wind
But my voice is taken by the harsh whistle of the breeze
To the south is a cliff
Surrounded by rocks forming daggers
I consider jumping
But first I examine my options
Soon there will be nothing left
Just a desolate land of sorrows
The temples will be dark and silent
And the life here will be empty and hollow
I take a breath…. And jump.
Born to a painter and loved by a Russian mother
Since 1841, he moved from one place to another
At extravagant schools he worked with Lecoq
Not knowing the skills he was soon to unlock
By memory he painted to find his visual language
Through this he found French landscapes dissolved all his anguish
A copycat he was- duplicating all classics
Although lacking imagination, they were truly fantastic
Degas, Whistler, Morisot and Monet too
Sculptors or painters, they all loved you
When impressionism came you fled from the current
Fore sticking to your style is what you had learnt
Traditional and conservative an artist you were
From roses to peonies vous adoriez les fleurs
You wed a painter, one much like yourself
Like a timid reader you stuck to your shelf
You left us all so you could live in Buré
Your passion, your paintings, you left them to stray
“Tic tock tic” and “swoosh!” flew the time
Before we knew it you had died from Lyme
Thank you for sharing your masterpieces with us
You’ve left us with knowledge and lovely art to discuss
[[UNRESISTABLE]]
[[WITHOUT GRAVITY]]
[[QUEENS]]
[[XYLOPHONES]]
[[CANDYTUFTS]]
[[PASSIONATNESS]]
[[ZEBRAS]]
[[KITTY CATS]]Sway from side to side
Fore when the music takes you
You cannot resist So light on her toe,
Balances with no problem
There is no gravityQualities that shine quartz
Quarrels with shock
Quiveringly
Very different
Played by one and loved by all
Very unique soundPurple, colourful
Elegant, radiant, swaying
Beautiful, blooming, delightful, exquisite
CandytuftsExcitable, warm
Enthusiastic, fun, ever-lasting
Joyous, cheerful, powerful, delightful
PassionatnessBlack, white
Stripped, distinct, exquisite
Friendly, different, special, shy
Zebras
Creative, curious
Playful, pleasant, polite
Fun-loving, graceful, cute, adorable
Kitty catsIt is my expert opinion that the spelunking explorers are found not guilty. I believe this to be a case of justifiable homicide as there was no malicious or criminal intent exhibited . This was displayed between the communications conducted between the explorers, local law enforcement officers as well as the religious figureheads in order to gain their expertise. The murder of Roger may be seen as self-defense as he was killed in order to protect the greater majority. The explorers were placed in a position of panic and desperation and therefore, their mental state of mind was compromised. It is known that when people are trapped in situations such as this, they are subject to anxiety, post dramatic stress disorder, flashbacks, panic attacks, fear of suffocation, claustrophobia and many other mind-altering states. In addition to the justification of this case, it was indeed Roger who conceptualized the cannibalistic scheme and was originally convincing the other explorers it was the most premium option. In this case, natural law takes precedence. The explorers were forced into an unsafe environment, and due to unfortunate circumstances, animal instincts took over for the sake of their survival. It is human instinct to fight for life and existence. It is in natural law that we find the answer to this case. The explorers are not guilty. We cannot condemn these voyagers for their human instincts and drive to survive. This tragic experience has, without a doubt, scarred the victims of the landslide and as a result, I believe that it should be necessary for the remaining explorers to participate in professional therapy for their well being, as well as the well being of those around them.Masks
They mask the walls like the smiles on faces
They serve as a distraction or an easy conversation
They make the chapel blush with radiance
They secrete the stench with a mist of fragrance
My body stands, my hands shake and I speak mechanically
My ears are numbed from the sounds of grieving
“Hush, hush”
Is it you I hold?
I didn’t recognize your roaring laugh or your sparkling eyes
Your skin is replaced by ice
Why can’t thy mask the touch as well?
“Shhhh”
I part and say my goodbyes to the unfamiliar friend
Reminiscing the time we spent together
I select my masks and I exit the chapel
Tears welling in my eyes
“Clank”
It is frigid outside
Though the white gloves protect our fingers
Frost shields the grass leading to you
My arms conceal my mother in comfort
I’m frantically looking for something to grab onto
Something physical, feasible, flower!
“Pluck”
I place my masks upon your casket
And weep my last farewell
They mask your crate
They mask our fate
Each and everyone a piece of
“The Germans showed no mercy as they brutally slaughtered my uncle, I shielded my eyes in my mother’s apron but the screams still pierced my ears.” My Nonna recalls the day her uncle was murdered in cold blood before her very eyes as if it were yesterday. World War II was a violent and cruel armed conflict. It was in this identity-driven war where realizations of unity and peace were found.
At the mere age of six my Nonna, Melina Ciccarelli, along with many others was a victim of World War II. My Nonna and her family lived in a small settlement village, a short walk away from the Vatican City. “Many days,” she tells me, “Many days the German’s would invade our village, killing whom they please and harassing the women. “Where is your comrade, comrade?” they would ask. And we were all instructed to return their questions with “Kaputt! Kaputt!” translating ‘dead’ in German.”
My Nonna’s family owned and operated the farm for the village, thus the Germans decided not to kill her family, but rather allow them to work so they could take whatever food they produced. Melina and her family were given rations and could take no more than what they were given. “The rations were so small, my family and I were often left starving,” she recalls. One day my Nonna’s uncle, Ottavio, had taken a piece of prosciutto intending to hide it under a mattress to share with the family. One of the German soldiers caught him and accused him of stealing from the German Army. As punishment, he was captured by the German soldiers and dragged into the center of the town where he was tied to a tree and brutally tortured. The German soldiers brutally beat him and wrenched out each of my great uncle’s eyeballs, one at a time. They continued to torture him by playing target practice. “They took turns shooting at his eyes, then at his limbs, then finally his heart.” How is one supposed to act civil when someone is murdering your loved ones? It takes someone with a lot of self -control and self-identification to search deep inside them and act in a peaceful manner.
Identity was a major contributor to the conflict within the war. Ethnicity between opposing countries reinforced the divide and nationalism have been considered one of the main causes of World War II. But it was also the identity that brought people together – the identities of religion and humanity. Despite the murders, bombings, raids and stealing my Nonna says the war taught her not to jump to conclusions about “the enemy”. The war helped her realize she was a peacemaker. Since this time, peacemaking has become one of her most valued life lessons, and she speaks about it often. She learned that it wasn’t herself who was at war and that there is such a thing as good ‘bad guys’. My Nonna began seeing people as humans and fellow Christians, rather than simply “the enemy”.
Some days German’s would pass by Melina and her brothers and sisters playing in the fields. They felt bad for the circumstances in which my family was living, so they would often sneak gifts like boxes of oranges to my Nonna to share with her family in hopes to aid with the hunger. “I would sometimes pick bundles of flowers from the fields and give them to Germans as a kind gesture.” This was her ‘six-year-old attempt’ at making peace.
My Nonna’s open mind and kind heart should not be confused for naivety; for it is her true demeanor. My Nonna carried this peaceful mindset with her all through life and to this day. She implemented peaceful methods of parenting on her family and as a result, has affected the way I’ve grown up for the positive. This is surprising knowing the harsh and violent parenting she received growing up. The story of my Nonna runs many parallels to the upbringing of Elena and Lila, from My Brilliant Friend. The troubled neighbourhood where Lila and Elena grow up leaves them exposed to violence from a young age, similar to my Nonna. Like many Italian women at that time, Lila and Elena also became personally subject to violence, such as physical abuse from their families (Lila's father threw her out of the window, breaking her arm). As they get older, threats of violence take on a sexual element; and it is apparent to the audience that they are at risk of being raped or assaulted. My Nonna, like many women at this time, also shared these fears and horrific experiences that Lila and Elena express in My Brilliant Friend.
To me, the miraculous part of this story is that despite the violence and the torment my family continued to look to peace. My Nonna more than anyone had every right to see the world as volatile and cruel like Lila and Elena describe it, but as a devout Christian and follower of Christ, she turned to forgiveness. Each one of my family members experienced peace after the war in a different way. Many simply enjoyed the tranquility of being able to sleep with lights on, my Nonna practiced peace through kind deeds, and my great-grandfather received reconciliation through land, money, and attention from Benito Mussolini after the Italian government’s grave error lead him into crashing his plane and quadrant into the snowy mountains.
My Nonna and my family hold no grudges against their enemies of World War II. They look to something bigger than extreme nationalists and world domination – they strive for world peace. And what mankind has failed to realize is that “peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding.” That is how my family came to the end of the journey through conflict. My family found peace through understanding.
[[Journals]]
[[Reflections]][[Beauty In the Eye of the Beholder]]
[[Can I Have a Venti, No foam, Raw Sugar, Injustice Latte?]]
[[Injustice In Justice]]
[[Pepsi Matters, A Movement]]
This journal has been written in regards to the article, “The York mural controversy: when art and politics collide” written by Konrad Yakabuski, a columnist for The Globe and Mail. The articles state that in the winter of 2016 Paul Bronfman, a key contributor to York University’s Cinema & Arts program, vowed to discontinue his support and donations due to a controversial mural painted inside York University. The mural “depicts a rock-holding Palestinian eyeing a bulldozer clearing the way for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.” (Yakabuski) Even after demanding for the mural to be taken down, York denied it’s removal expressing that “Freedom of expression is one of York’s guiding principles.” Unfortunately, York University had already been criticized for being “a hub of anti-Israel activism and many Jewish students have expressed that they face increasing hostility at York.” (Yakabuski) On top of this, York University heads the nation in highest number of Jewish undergraduates (according to a 2015 ranking by Hillel International), leading the mural to take on an “increasingly suffocating anti-Israel orthodoxy that reigns at York and other Canadian schools.” (Yakabuski)
This is not the first time a piece of art has caused severe controversy. In the reading, “The Value of Being Disturbed,” Judith Butler writes on the “Holy Virgin Mary”, artwork by Chris Ofili that offended the Catholic community. Similar to how the York University donor Paul Bronfman vowed to remove his support, the mayor of New York City also threatened to remove public funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. A key connecting thread in all of this is the act of putting up the art itself and more importantly, keeping it up. What does it take to keep up these controversial pieces? If certain pictures cannot be shown in public, or cause problems when they do, it is usually because what is meant by the public is predicated upon the exclusion of certain forms and kinds of representation. The denunciation articulates for us an ideal about the public that is sustained precisely through a certain exclusionary activity. The quote that I find particularly intriguing is one of Chris Ofili. When describing the driving forces behind his work he says, "I'm interested in ideas of beauty. Elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object, a different sort of beauty. I want to bring the beauty and decorativeness of the paintings together with the apparent concept of ugliness with shit and try to make them exist in that twilight zone ... you know that they're there, but you can't really ever feel totally comfortable with it." Perhaps this beauty can also be found in the York mural, but just like Konrad Yakabuski stated in his article, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
The takeaway in relation to both the York mural as well as the “Holy Virgin Mary,” is that if you are imperfect and everyone is imperfect then it’s important to think about our own shit (both figuratively and literally). We rest our identities and our relationships with other people in ways that perpetuate racism, religious intolerance
and violence and if we don’t talk about the ‘shit’ that we’re in we’ll never move past this ‘shit’ that we’re in. I believe this injustice reinforces, legitimates, and reproduces anglocentrism, essentialism, and liberalism. It reproduces liberalism in way of York’s response (by articulating that “freedom of expression is one of York’s guiding principles” and condoning all forms of free speech, even if it is at the cost of other community members.) I would also argue that York’s response also reinforces anglocentrism. Is it ironic that the board who denied the removal of this mural primarily consisted of non-Jewish white men?
While this article describes an injustice targeting the Jewish students, staff, alumni and affiliates of the York University community, there are undeniable hindrances of bias against the Jewish people. This is clear to me when Konrad states his opinion that it is “entirely legitimate to criticize Israel’s defiant construction of Jewish settlements” where in reality, “straight forward” is the last way one would describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Banks, and yet the terms "apartheid," "racism" and "war crimes" are scattered in this article. Konrad Yakabuski also makes a point of quoting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (someone who has been reprimanded by the UN for unfair anti-semitic comments in the past) when he calls the Jewish settlements "an affront to the Palestinian people and the international community”. (Blum) This is the man that in keeping with his farewell address, equated Israel with the terrorist organization that runs Gaza. In researching Konrad Yakabuski, I discovered he’s an extremely active member in the Lutheran church - a church founded by the anti-semitic, excommunicated, Martin Luther. Luther, founder of the Lutheran church, while held in high esteem for his “bold
proclamation and clear articulation of the teachings of Scripture, there were countless statements made by Luther which express a negative and hostile attitude toward the Jews.” (Lutheran Church) So in my opinion, while the article brings an interesting narrative and controversial issue to the forefront, it is hindered with bias background information and not enough insight into the injustice itself.
Works Cited
Blum, Ruthie. “Ban Ki-Moon's Last Hypocritical Hurrah.” The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com, Jpost Inc, 25 Dec. 2016, www.jpost.com/Opinion/Ban-Ki-moons-last-hypocritical-hurrah-476511.
Butler, Judith. “The Value of Being Disturbed.” Theory & Event, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 Jan. 2000, muse.jhu.edu/article/32568.
The Lutheran Church. “Luther and the Jews.” Lutheran Reformation, lutheranreformation.org/history/luther-and-the-jews/.
Yakabuski, Konrad. “The York Mural Controversy: When Art and Politics Collide.” The Globe and Mail, Phillip Crawley, 25 Mar. 2017, www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-york-mural-controversy-when-art-and-politics-collide/article28421446/.
This journal is a reflective piece written on an article entitled “If you were surprised to hear about two black men arrested at Starbucks, you haven’t been paying attention.” This article was written by Eternity Martis, an award-winning journalist. Her work, namely on race and gender has been featured in Vice, Salon, Hazlitt, TVO.org, The Walrus, The Huffington Post, and many more. The article describes an incident that occured in Philadelphia, early April of 2018. Two black men were arrested at a Starbucks for doing what is a common practice in Starbucks’ worldwide… sitting down without ordering anything. Eternity reports that the men “refused to leave after being denied use of the bathroombecause they hadn't bought anything”. (Martis, E) Yet many people go to Starbucks simply to use the bathroom, and many people sit there without buying anything. And they don't get arrested for it? Eternity proves this by listing countless instances in which this is a common occurrence. This is the environment that Starbucks has created for itself.” (Martis, E) The Starbucks we know (and love?) encourages this kind of “make yourself at home” environment. It welcomes you to stay! It offers free Wi-Fi and places to charge your devices. The brand is focused on bringing people together, the mission statement even reads: "To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time." (Starbucks Inc.) While the neighbourhood where the men
were arrested - Rittenhouse Square, one of the wealthiest and whitest areas of Philadelphia - Starbucks is not particularly unique in being a white and middle-class space: in fact, most public spaces can be characterized this way. Part of the reason I love this article so much is because of the way Eternity incorporates the perspective of coloured people entering what she refers to as “a white space.” She describes, depicts and elaborates on the ways that “people of colour are under constant, intense monitoring while in these white spaces.” (Martis, E) The incident at Starbucks was a “testament to what happens when black bodies enter a white space.” Eternity reports that “Immediately, the men were deemed suspicious for doing something that employees know dozens of people do at their store each day.” A solid affirmation of anglocentrism.
I was specifically caught by particular quote Eternity leaves us with: “Black and brown bodies, once they enter in white spaces, are often and immediately perceived as a threat to the perfectly established whiteness — the normalness — of the area.” (Martis, E) Normalness? This is exactly what Richard Dyer was referring to in “The Matter of Whiteness. This issue of “white people” being just “people” and everyone else is racialized in relation to them, especially when only 11.5% of the total world population (approx. 7.6 billion) is “white.” (CWP) And I agree with Dyer when he says “whiteness needs to be made strange.” (Dyer, 12) Richard Dyer explains to us that “white” is considered the basis of humanity and order to put an end to “white spaces” it needs to be understood that “white” is not the norm, let alone the majority. “White people have power and believe that they think, feel and act like
and for all people; white people, unable to see their particularity, cannot take account of other people’s; white people create the dominant images of the world and don’t quite see what they thus construct.” (Dyer, 10) “The old illusory unified identities of class, gender, race, sexuality are breaking up; someone may be black and gay and middle class and female; we may be bi-, poly or non-sexual, of mixed race, indeterminate gender and heaven knows what class.” (Dyer, 11) And the fact that we’re living in a non “unified identity” generation proves that eventually white people will no longer be able to maintain this grasp on humanity. Eventually they will be forced to see that they are white and white is not the norm. Numbers will make it “strange.” At least that’s my prediction.
Works Cited
Current World Population. (n.d.). Retrieved from __http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
Dyer, R. (n.d.). Whiteness: The Power of Invisibility.
Martis, E. (2018, April 12). If you were surprised two black men were arrested at __Starbucks, you haven't been paying attention: Opinion | CBC News. Retrieved __from http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/starbucks-arrest-1.4630635
Starbucks Inc. (n.d.). Mission Statement. Retrieved from https://www.starbucks.ca/about-us/company-information/mission-statement
This journal entry has been written in response to an article entitled “Confederate Statues Come Down in Memphis” written by Emanuella Grinberg and Nicole Chavez, December 21st of 2017. The article focuses on an injustice against the Tennessee government, but in my eyes the true injustice struck against the people of Memphis. Grinberg and Chavez tell us of that city helpers worked through the night to move two Confederate statues from parks in Memphis, Tennessee, after city officials privatized the park by selling the land to a non profit organizations for a mere $1,000. The sale allowed the statues' removal. This was made possible due to a new city law passed to sanction the process. “Crowds gathered outside Health Sciences Park as cranes lifted the equestrian statue of Civil War general and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest from its pedestal. About 1.5 miles away, a similar operation was underway at the statue of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis in Memphis Park.” (Grinberg, E., Chavez, N.) What adds to this controversy is that the City of Memphis had asked the Tennessee government months prior for permission to remove the statues. The city’s request was denied… by 9 white congressmen and 1 white governor. (TSG) While the mayor of the city admits the strategic planning was intentional, he assures that the process was entirely legal. While I agree in obeying the law, as well as the spirit of the law, I must argue that the
people of Memphis (a predominantly black community) have also suffered an injustice. To have a statue celebrating the life of a Klu Klux Klan member residing in their city is what I consider a disgrace as well as a reaffirming symbol of systemic racism.
I think this is a real life example of what Demott is explaining to us in “Put on a Happy Face: Masking the Differences between Blacks and Whites.” DeMott argues that media conceals racial political issues by creating a fantasy in which racism can be cleansed from culture through relationships and bonds formed between black and white individuals, or rather privileged individuals and minorities. In this case, I see 9 privileged, upper class, white, congressmen formulating this fake relationship with a black mayor, encouraging his leadership, claiming they all play for the same team (the team of the people) and yet ultimately those congressmen are determining the fate of a black mayor and his predominantly black city because it threatens their whiteness, their power. What those confederate statues stand for is dominance and a reminder of the past - a reminder of who’s really in charge. This fake relationship between municipal and state government that is depicts, is precisely what Demott describes. This suggests that by “focusing on generic, trivial and/or fictional commonalities between races, privileged and oppressed, in order to generate unity and a new shared experience, systemic racism can be eliminated.” (Demott, B) But Demott is right, there is serious flaw in this logic of method for equality lies in these main points…
Invalidates the legitimacy of structures and systemic racism
Removes the conscious and deliberate actions of one group against another
Implies that a history of problems was a sequence of coincidences, and not a result of will
Reinforces the power of the privileged
Amends the guilt of the role of whites
Releases their responsibilities towards a solution
Reproduces issues of minorities (anglocentrism, essentialism, liberalism)
Conceals issues taking affect
(Demott, B.)
What I derive from this is that despite the mayor being in a high position of power, and despite the preconceived “friendship” between the mayor and congress, the upper class white don’t want to forget about the past seeing as it highly pertains to their upper class status and power. Those congressmen don’t want to come to a genuine solution for equality if it was handed to them in their laps and that is proven in their actions.
Sources have updated the case, and the Tennessee government is now withdrawing a quarter of a million dollars from the City of Memphis as punishment. Are we upset? Yes. Are we surprised? No.
Works Cited
Demott, B. (n.d.). Put on a Happy Face: Masking the Differences between Blacks and Whites.
Grinberg, E., Chavez, N., & CNN. (2017, December 21). Confederate Statues Come Down in Memphis. Retrieved from __http://www.nwahomepage.com/news/confederate-statues-come-down-in-memphis__-1/885514294
__Tennessee State Government (n.d.). Elected Officials. Retrieved from __https://www.tn.gov/government/elected-officials.htmlOn April 7th, 2017 The Hollywood Reporter released an article written by Miriam Bale entitled “The Real Problem Surrounding Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi Ad.” This article (surprise, surprise) is in concern to the incredibly poorly thought out Pepsi advertisement that was so inappropriate, it was released and removed all in the span of 1 day. This 2.5 minute campaign begins with Kendall posing as a model in a scandalously glamourous costume. She catches the eye of an attractive musician walking towards a multiracial protest outside. The protest incorporates banners featuring love, hearts and peace signs, she is inspired to take off her blonde wig (hand it off to a black woman), wipe off her lipstick and join the protestors as ‘just another normal protester’. The commercial ends with Kendall ending a stand-off with a police officer by handing him a can of Pepsi. “As he takes it and smiles at her, the crowd cheers. Jenner has saved the day! She has reminded the world that differences don’t matter when Pepsi is involved! Who needs hatred and tension when you have carbonated sugar!” (Bale, M) I can’t even begin to fathom who allowed this commercial to be aired worldwide. The protest was clearly a mimic of the Black Lives Matter protests. The song that was used was "Lions" by Skip Marley (Bob Marley’s grandson), which has repeated lines about "a new generation" and "the movement” (clearly in reference to BLM). (Bale, M.) To make matters worse,
Cullen 2
when Kendall Jenner single-handedly ends police brutality by handing the police officer a Pepsi, “it’s clear that this image is inspired by a photo of a specific black woman, Ieshia Evans, bravely standing up to police in riot gear at a BLM protest in Baton Rouge last July. The core of the ad is this image that is not just borrowed but stolen from Twitter, from memes, from IEvans, and from the lost lives of all those for whom BLM protesters were in the streets.” (Bale, M.)
This ad sparked absolute outrage in a matter of minutes. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, even took to social media saying “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.” I believe this matter of injustice against all those who fight for racial justice is a good mirroring of Lisa Nakamura’s message in “Where Do You Want to Go Today?: Cyberspace Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality.” Lisa identifies that race and ethnicity is represented differently on the web, and in media. The visual image of diversity (old, young, black, white, deaf, etc) are displayed and celebrated, as spectacles of difference that the narrative simultaneously tries to erase. To access a larger target audience Lisa writes that “ads tend to have international or multicultural flavour” and that is exactly what Pepsi was playing with. I would argue that Kendall was subject to racial tourism - playing the role of a black woman in a clouded but deliberate message. In fact, I would argue that every actor who participated in that ad was subject to racial tourism, as they were all representing protesters in the Black Lives Matter protests. They attempted to create a pro diversity campaign but failed because they underminded the seriousness of a world issue. The underminded the struggle of racism. The fact that
Pepsi thought they could get away with such an ad (or worse, didn’t realize the repercussions of their message) legitimates anglocentrism. Don’t drink Pepsi.
Works Cited
Bale, M. (2017, April 07). Critic's Notebook: The Real Problem With Kendall Jenner's Pepsi Ad. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/critics-notebook-real-problem-kendall-jenners-pepsi-ad-991932
Nakamura, L. (2002). Cybertypes. New York: Routledge.
On May 18th, 1471, the Ferrara family brought into the world their first of five children, little did they know she would grow and flourish to be one of the most renowned women of the Italian Renaissance. Isabella was the favoured child of this noble family and was always encouraged to “obtain an in-depth humanistic education”(Patzer, Mirella Sichirollo). She appeared to take this advice very seriously as she became a scholar in many languages including Latin as well as Greek. Isabella was well gifted in languages, astrology, political topics, and history, as well as more artistic subjects such as singing, dancing, and even learned how to play a variety of different instruments. Isabella was considered extremely fortunate as her parents taught both their sons and daughters equally with the same standard of education. “By the age of sixteen she was capable of debating politics with ambassadors.”(Johnson Lewis, Jone)
At the mere age of six, Isabella was arranged to be married to Francesco Gonzaga, an avid art supporter and military hero. In 1490, when Isabella reached the age of 15, the two were married. In many ways, this marriage was unlike many traditional marriages in the Renaissance. Isabella maintained power and prestige throughout marriage, was very appreciated and was even granted the ability to make decisions. While they grew to love each other from a young age, unfortunately (and like many marriages in this time) a mistress was present. Isabella’s husband had an affair with Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and wife of Isabella’s younger brother. The affair began soon after Lucrezia joined the family and brought great dismay to what was once a happy marriage. The affair between the two was heated, intense and much more sexual than sentimental.(Jays, David) The affair ended when Francesco contracted syphilis and had to end sexual relations with Lucrezia.
Isabella’s education, intelligence and status allowed her to make many advances in her life. “She ruled over Mantua while her husband, Francesco Gonzaga, was away at battle, and by the use of art and culture, she helped Mantua gain more status in Italy.”(George, Lauren) Isabella proved strong leadership skills consistently throughout her life. She served as a guide, role model and leader to her people.
Isabella was extremely dedicated to her city. Throughout her life, she provided to the city of Mantua and served as a role model and leader to the people. Isabella was so capable, in 1527, she helped “restore the people and peace of Mantua after they had struggled with famine and illness.”(George, Lauren) Isabella D'Este was a strong woman of the Renaissance who took on a role of leadership. When Isabella returned to Mantua she transformed the city to a centre of culture - she turned her home to a museum of the arts containing many of her collected art pieces, while also founding a school for young girls. After accomplishing so much in Mantua, Isabella recommenced her political leadership and ruled her own city state: Solarolo. She remained in Solarolo until her death in February of 1539. She was in the Church of Francesco, beside her husband in Mantua.
On top of Isabella’s legendary political feats she was a crucial arts activist in her time. She owned countless large collection of paintings, statues, bronzes and antiques. Isabella consistently expanded her collection of art for her gallery and more than 12,000 of her letters to different artists as well as agents, are still intact today (Oxford University Press) Many famous works were originally commissioned to Isabella’s studiolo including work like The Battle Between Love and Chastity, Reign of Comus (Lorenzo Costa), Allegory of Isabella d'Este's Coronation, Triumph of the Virtues and Parnassus (Mantegna) She was in contact with eminent artists of her time and many of which actually created portraits of her including the famed Leonardo De Vinci.
Having been deemed “The First Lady of the world” by a diplomat and having had Pope Leo ask her to treat him with “as much friendliness as you would a brother” one could say Isabella D'Este has most definitely made a legacy for herself. Her success as a women makes her one of the most notable people in the Italian Renaissance. Her leadership, passion for the arts, scholarly dedication, trendsetting capabilities and achievement as a political figure is unforgettable, especially in a time period dominated by males. It is important to study women like Isabella because it is thanks to women like her that the female gender has made the advances it has. By looking at the history of this woman, it becomes clear that without figures such as these, who paved the way for others to go out and achieve what they want, the female gender would not be as equal to men as they are today. [[Scenario #1]]
[[Scenario #2]]
[[Scenario #3]]
[[Scenario #4]]You are a director working on "Marat Sade" for Soulpepper Theatre. Your lead actor also happens to be the producer of the production. The actor is continually late, arriving at the theatre well past the half hour and occasionally with alcohol on her breath.
There are a few of issues with this scenario. The first being that there is an actress who seems to deem that she is above all else and can disregard scheduling. This attitude can be toxic in a theatre atmosphere as “there are no small roles, just small actors” and she seems to have it in her that we are on her time when in reality this show is entirely a team effort. The second issue is the fact that she is continually late. This behaviour inevitably affects the quality of the performance due to less rehearsal time. Furthermore, any decisions that have to be run by her from a producer’s standpoint cannot be confirmed until she arrives. This can create many setbacks which is detrimental to a production. Lastly, the alcohol on her breath shows irresponsibility. She is showing everyone that she prioritizes having a good time over creating a good show. The only people that need to be directly involved in this scenario are myself and the producer.
My first step in this would be arranging a meeting with the actress (confirming the meeting time multiple times so it is clear that this meeting is of serious priority). I would start by reaching out to her in a serious, yet friendly tone to see if she’s alright. I would ask her if the alcohol was from recreational use as opposed to substance abuse. I would want to eliminate any possibility of alcohol abuse by attempting to talk to her about what is going on in her personal life outside of the production. If I sense any stress or something that could be troubling her, I would ask her if she is using alcohol to cope. This is a sensitive topic, but if she opens up about it, the other issues may be easier to deal with. If not, I would discuss with her next steps for the production (most likely the production taking place without her) and programs and resources she might want to make use of.
If alcohol abuse is not present, I would then ask her to try to limit her alcohol intake the night before a rehearsal. I would explain why her drinking is not benefiting her or the production.
There is a good chance that her lateness may be the result of a hangover caused by heavy partying the night before. However, it is nearly always a bad idea to dive into assumptions, Knowing this, I would ask her what her reasoning for constantly being late. If she cannot present a valid reason, I would explain to her how her tardiness affects the production negatively. If her punctuality does not improve, my last step would be to offer to pick her up before rehearsal for a few days to create some accountability. I intend my tone to be serious but kind throughout the duration of this conversation.You are at the bar in a booth. Behind you in another booth are Bob and Cynthia, two actors in the play on which you are working. You know that Bob is HIV positive (because he told you so in confidence on the 1st day of rehearsal) and that he is dating someone. You overhear Cynthia say, “Bob, I find you very attractive. Do you want to go back to my place?” Bob says yes. What do you do?
In this scenario we have three main issues. Starting with the first issue that needs to be addressed… do I or do I not get involved. Due to the fact that this does not necessarily involve me, but could end up with someone getting hurt for life, I would make the decision to get involved. Secondly, we have the issue of infidelity. Bob has a partner but he is still making a conscious decision to go home with someone else. Lastly, the health concern that Bob is HIV positive and is likely going to sleep with Cynthia which means that Cynthia has a high chance of contracting HIV regardless of whether they take precautionary measures.
My intervention would start immediately and go as follows:
Approach them both as if I saw them across the room and wanted to say “hello”
Pull Bob aside, saying you’d like to briefly talk to him privately or grab a quick drink at the bar with him. I would maintain a calm, cool and collected exterior so Cynthia wouldn’t be too suspicious and Bob could play it off.
Ask Bob if he is aware of the implications of his actions. Reminding him of both his diagnosis and his girlfriend.
Pray and hope for a serious and well thought out response from Bob. There is a decent chance that Bob may react negatively to my forewarning…
In the case that Bob reacts negatively (dismissing both his diagnosis and girlfriend) I feel like I would have no choice but to casually drop hints in a conversation with Cynthia before they leave the bar.
I just think to myself and wonder, “if this was me, would I want to know?” And the answer is 10 million percent yes, so I would take every measure in order to tell Cynthia. It is what I believe to be fair and ethical. As a stage Manager of a production you witness the director belittling and picking on one actor in particular during the rehearsal process. It is apparent to all cast members that this director does not like this actor. Though the actor involved does not say anything to you, another cast member comes to you saying that they feel uncomfortable in these rehearsals. What do you do?
I have absolutely zero tolerance for bullying. In this situation I would begin my approaching the director, informing them that I noticed the bullying that was happening and while the victim hadn’t approached me about it, other cast members have stating they feel extremely uncomfortable. It is important that I don’t disclose which cast member complained and that it wasn’t the actor who was being bullied - I don’t want to make their situation any worse. I would exclaim that bullying is simply unacceptable and I won’t stand for it. I do need to maintain a good relationship with the director so I would communicate these in a very unaccsuing tone. I would use lines like, “I would hate to hear this happens regularly” and “I hope I caught you in a one time occurance”.
After confronting the bully I would have a discussion with the whole cast, saying I’ve noticed some bullying amongst the cast. I would then differentiate between bullying and friendly banter to reinforce a firm boundary. I would also touch on the fact that we are a team and we’re all in this together. I would also touch on the fact that bystanders are bullies as well. Although I am aware that there is a hierarchy in the cast, we are all human and no one deserves to be treated with any level of disrespect. On the dinner break prior to a performance, you witness one of the props crew dealing pot to an actor. What do you do?
I have a zero drug policy for my life and as a rule of thumb in society as well. If I was in a management position, I would rain down on these two cast members as this behaviour is simply not acceptable or legal (yet). While the scenario specifies this occured over a dinner break, it does not specify where. If it occurred in the venue, frankly,I would threaten to fire both of them and leave them off with a strong warning. If the scenario occurred in public I would warn them not to bring it anywhere near the theatre and that the consumption of this pot must not occur in the venue or during rehearsal time. I would warn them both that showing up to work high would result in them being fired, no ifs and or buts.
While I realize the legalization of marijuana is up and coming in the close future, it is illicit as of present. I would remind the cast members of this, reminding them how hard they’ve been working and that they’d hate to blow it over drugs.
I would approach the cast members and mention that I witnessed the drug deal. I would reassure the actor that I would not report them to any superiors as long as the pot was not being used in any way, shape, or form on the premises, and especially not before or during the performances.
From there, I would speak to the props crew member alone and ask them to stop bringing drugs onto the premises, especially if their intent is to distribute them. I would also reassure them that I would not be reporting them for this instance, but that I would not hesitate to bring it up to our superiors if it continued. I would explain to both of the parties that the approach I am taking is for their benefit, because I would hate to see them face any negative consequences due to their careless behaviour. I would give them the opportunity to avoid punishment, and help the rest of the production out by keeping drugs away from the venue.
After this incident I would keep a close eye on both crew members ensuring that they’re not continuing down that path. This scenario also doesn’t specify what my leadership role is in this situation. If I were a fellow cast/crew member I would maintain this stance. If I were the woman in charge I would maintain my approach but incorporate much more formality (...and threaten their jobs).
The piece begins by sharing that Jim Lehrer had a show that involved the conflict that arose due to the nature of a piece of artwork at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999/2000. The piece of art depicted the virgin Mary who is covered in elephant dung and small vaginal icons. Due to the religious nature of the painting, a lot of people took offence to it and because of the outrage, the New York mayor at the time, Giuliani withheld 7 million dollars that was given to the museum to cover its costs. Furthermore, there was an issue over the fact that the gallery is meant to be open and accessible to all, but a section was closed off from children. This also caused problems as the museum is supposed to act as an educational site.
The mayor spoke on the negative interpretations associated with the work of art and how Christians and Catholics may be offended by it, Giuliani himself being a practicing Catholic. One issue with the work of art and the gallery itself is that it is paid for by the taxpayer dollars, and thus why would one be willingly okay to pay for something that they find offensive. Another issue with the artwork and the gallery was the use of hate speech… in other words, speech that negatively affects minorities.
Butler says, Christianity and Catholicism are the majority religions in the United States which is why the argument that they must be protected in the same way and under the same laws used to protect religious minorities was flawed. The mayor argues that the artwork can be displayed, but in a private gallery opposed to one that is paid for by the public. The problem with this is that it means that only art that follows traditional cultural and religious values are warranted. The consumers also have a right to know what they are paying for, in this case the consumers are the taxpayers, many of who were upset at the artwork presented. Butler states that this is an example of consumer fraud on the art exhibits behalf and that the mayor's office is working as an advocate for consumer rights.
Finally, one must understand that different expressions mean different things in different cultures. The elephant dung is considered a holy substance in certain African religions and thus what one finds offensive to themselves, another might find endearing. It’s these different meanings that make art what it is today, we must jump from cultural frames in order to truly understand and appreciate works of art. Art is supposed to cross over these ideas and make the viewer think, nothing is as straightforward as it seems. Elephant dung is seen as a holy substance
Ofili claims that the vaginal icons were used in order to symbolize birth, but he claims that we don’t want to talk about birth and therefore he is actually bringing together different notions of sacredness by depicting the Virgin Mary the way he is. But why so many!? You’d think 1 would be enough… It could be argued that the duplication of the icon represents fetishization.
Part of the reason people are so disturbed by this image is because it is a common Christian culture understanding to believe that the Virgin Mary is white, not large and brown. The ideal of her being is that she is rooted in purity, purity of her whiteness, purity of her virginity. And we have discussed at great lengths the importance of that symbolism. In the reading, Butler questions whether the intention of the picture is for shock value or whether it is only shocking to those with certain preconceived cultural beliefs that are threatened by the picture. But we now pose the question: can Christians really be outraged by a non-white mother Mary? Professor Perrin posed a similar question last class in concern to western VS african cohabitation and marriage tradition… he asked us “How long can the Western tradition continue to insist that their recent tradition is universal for all?” This directly relates to Christianity being taken up by the other and this is what Judith Butler reflects on. There are thousands of Christian mission trips going to Africa every year in attempts to bring communities to Christ and as a result regions of states together. Christianity is now growing faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world. Should Christians be upset if local cultures are taking the stories of the bible and displaying the men and women as people that look like them? We can attempt to understand this through racial crossing, which follows the tendencies of being able to more easily recognizing a face that one is most familiar with. There are no verses in the bible that depict Mary’s whiteness or Jesus’s earthly body - only depictions of a heavenly body “shining as the sun.” (as cited in revelations)
Butler discusses how Ofili wants us to recognize our discomfort, and reflect on that. Why are we made so brutally discomforted by this image? What does this say about society? What does this say about the religious community? If certain pictures cannot be shown in public, or cause problems when they do, it is usually because what is meant by the public is predicted upon the exclusion of certain forms and kinds of representation. The denunciation articulates for us an ideal about the public that is sustained precisely through a certain exclusionary activity. Based on what we’ve learned in this course about sexuality and it’s origins through a Christian lens, it makes sense as to why we are made so uncomfortable. It’s a source of vulnerability, it can be a starting point of judgement, it’s a source of intimacy, surrounded by purity codes, old laws, new laws, challenged by power dynamics, gender roles, driven by fantasies, marked as personal points of discovery and yet it’s all around us. In media, in art… in our everyday conversation. We are given this quote by Ofili in the reading…
“I’m interested in ideas of beauty. Elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object, a different sort of beauty. I want to bring the beauty and decorativeness of the paintings together with the apparent concept of ugliness with shit and try to make them exist in that twilight zone… you know that they’re there, but you can’t really ever feel totally comfortable with it.”
I think the takeaway here is to acknowledge the discomfort, reflect and discuss. It’s important to talk about the dung! We rest our identities and our relationships with other people in ways that perpetuate racism, sexism, sexual discrimination… sexual violence. If we don’t talk about the “dung" that we’re in, we’ll never move past it. I think this class has been a wonderful stepping stone in that journey.
[[Quizzes]][["My Thoughts On Conscription"]]In my opinion, Robert Borden was wrong to impose conscription. I understand that he didn’t want the men who had already volunteered to serve over seas, to die in vain. But he went about helping them in the wrong way and broke his promise of not imposing conscription in the making. His first mistake was promising that Canada would supply an army of approximately ½ a million. In this case I believe its quality over quantity. When a person is forced into doing something, they are less likely to take pride in that task. It has been said that a volunteer is worth 10 pressed men, and that other soldiers can trust and feel more comfortable putting their lives in the hands of other volunteers. And for me personally, I don’t believe in war, so for a government to FORCE others to participate in war is simply immoral. Even if I were to put myself into Mr. Borden’s shoes in that time period, conscription would still not be my choice of help. Rather, I would come up with new ways of encouraging young men to WANT to join, promote Canada and patriotism. When you think about it, even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights didn’t come into play until December 10th, 1948, Conscription alone violates articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 15 and 25, proving that conscription was clearly a dissolute thing to impose. Many thousands of people in Canada were opposed to the war in the first place. Why should these people be compelled to fight for a cause in which they do not believe? We are not Britain, and the fact that they chose to participate in WWI hardly makes it a good idea for us to join and support them. In a way to force conscription and engage in war is to approve human suffering. Those who approve of violence exploit people and are in my opinion not leaders. To force men to arms with many promises, to ask them to give up their lives for war, is the most vicious type of oppression. This is black and white, not grey. [[Section 1: Introduction]]
[[Section 2: Evidence]]The following introduction outlines, the case, the respondent(s) and identifies the protected area under which the complaint falls within the scope of the Ontario Human Rights Code.
1 a) Ontario's Human Rights Code, the first in Canada, was enacted in 1962.
The Code prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected ground in a protected social area. Protected grounds include ethnic origin, ancestry and race. The respondent, David Greene did not get the luxury of these rights during his stay at St. Matthew’s School - in fact, his rights were seriously violated. The Ontario Human Rights Code of Prohibited Behaviour clearly states that Harassment, Poisoned Environment and Constructive Discrimination are unacceptable violations to a person’s human rights. Unfortunately, the respondent David Greene was subject to these cruel, unjust actions. This section pertains to details to evidence, upon which the complaint is based, including events and witnesses.
[[2 a) Harassment]]
[[b) Poisoned Environment]]
[[c) Constructive Discrimination]]Harassment is a form of discrimination. It involves any unwanted physical or verbal behaviour that offends or humiliates you. Generally, harassment is a behaviour that persists over time. Serious one-time incidents can also sometimes be considered harassment.
Harassment occurs when someone:
• Makes unwelcome remarks or jokes about your race, religion, sex, age, disability or any other of the 11 grounds of discrimination
• Threatens or intimidates you.
• Makes unwelcome physical contact with you, such as touching, patting, pinching or punching, which can also be considered assault.
Harassment was assumed in many situations throughout David’s attendance at St. Matthew’s. One of the most noteable violations took place in the shower, when Charlie Dillon told a an antisemetic joke, knowing full well David was Jewish, then finished by saying “What's the matter, David? Don't Jews have a sense of humor? It turns out our golden boy here is a lying, back-stabbing kike.” We have many witnesses attesting to the truth of this story including Charlie Dillon, Chris Reece, Rip Van Kelt, among others.
Once again, David was harassed by peers with the use of a sign hung over his bed. Painted on the sign was the depiction of a swastika with the caption “Go Home Jew”. Approximately 15 boys including Charlie Dillon and Chris Reece we present to witness this horrific scene.A poisoned environment is created by comments or conduct that ridicule or insult a person or group protected under the Code. It violates their right to equal treatment with respect to services, goods and facilities, accommodation and employment. It is also produced when such actions or comments are not directed specifically at individuals. For example, insulting jokes, slurs or cartoons about gays and lesbians or racial groups, or pin-up photos that demean women, all contribute to a poisoned environment for members of those groups.
An elite example of the boys creating a poisoned environment for Mr. greene would be with their crude comments in the dinning hall. In the dining hall the boys would heckle, one of the conversations translating:
“Dillon. Dillon! Here he comes.”
“A Jew!”
“Excuse me, there's no salt on this table. I need salt for my fruit.”
“Someone's not doing his menial job.”
“It's so hard to find decent help!”
“Can't you move any faster?”
Charlie Dillon, Chesty Smith, Richard ‘McGoo’ Collins and others were all present to witness this dreadful bullying.
Constructive discrimination occurs when a seemingly neutral requirement has a discriminatory effect (or adverse impact) when applied to a group protected under the Code.
A quintecential example of Constructive Discrimination against David Greene would be when he was forced to play football and not practice his religious customs on Rosh Hashanah.
"What are you doing here, Greene?"
"Praying, sir."
"I imagine your God allows prayer during daylight."
"I couldn't get away before."
"It's Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year."
"I know what Rosh Hashanah is."
"And it ends at sunset if I recall the custom."
"Technically. But it wouldn't go over too well if I said I couldn't play."
"My scholarship depends on football."
"Yes. I saw the game."Wealth in the Great Gatsby
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald sheds light on a variety of themes — justice, power, greed, betrayal, love, the American dream, and many others. Of all the themes, none is as well developed as that of the social and economic structure. The Great Gatsby is regarded as an excellent and classic novel, offering a brilliant incite into American life in the 1920’s. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct groups. By creating distinct social classes — old money, new money, and no money — Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the elitism running throughout every branch of society.
The first and most prominent group Fitzgerald attacks is, of course, the rich. In The Great Gatsby, the rich seem to be unified by their money. However, Fitzgerald reveals this is not the case. In the novel, Fitzgerald presents two distinct types of wealthy people. First, there are people like the Buchanans and Jordan Baker who were born into wealth. Their families have had money for many generations, hence they are "old money." As portrayed in the novel, the "old money" people don't have to work, “they rarely, if ever, even speak about business arrangements and they spend their time amusing themselves with whatever takes their fancy”. Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and the distinct social class they represent are perhaps the story's most elitist group, imposing distinctions on the other people of wealth (like Gatsby) based not so much on how much money one has, but where that money came from and when it was acquired. For the "old money" people, the fact that Gatsby has only just recently acquired his money is reason enough to dislike him. In their way of thinking, he can't possibly have the same refinement, sensibility, and taste they have. Not only does he work for a living, but he comes from a low-class background which, in their opinion, means he cannot possibly be like them.
In many ways, the social elite are right. The "new money" people cannot be like them, and in many ways that works in their favor — those in society's highest rank are not nice people at all. They are judgmental and superficial, failing to look at the essence of the people around them (and themselves, too). The people with newly acquired wealth though, aren't necessarily much better. Think of Gatsby's partygoers. They attend his parties, drink his alcohol, and eat his food, never once taking the time to even meet their host. On top of that, many of them did not even wait to receive an invitation. When Gatsby dies, all the people who attended his parties week after week, mysteriously became busy elsewhere, abandoning Gatsby when he could no longer do anything for them. One would like to think the newly wealthy would be more sensitive to the world around them, seeing as it was only recently that they were without money and most doors were closed to them. As Fitzgerald shows, however, their concerns are largely living for the moment, steeped in partying and other forms of excess.
Just as he did with people of money, Fitzgerald uses the people with no money to convey a strong message. Nick, although he comes from a family with a bit of wealth, doesn't have nearly the stance of Gatsby or Tom. In the end, though, he shows himself to be an honorable and principled man, which is more than Tom exhibits. Myrtle, though, is another story. She comes from the middle class. She is trapped, along with many others in the valley of ashes. In fact, her desire to move up the social hierarchy leads her to her affair with Tom and she is particularly pleased with the arrangement.
What she doesn't realize however is that Tom and his friends will never accept her into their circle. It is interesting to see that Tom picks lower-class women to sleep with. For him, their powerlessness makes his own position that much more superior. For him, being with women who aspire to his class makes him feel better about himself. Myrtle is no more than a toy to Tom and to those he represents.
Fitzgerald has a keen eye and in The Great Gatsby presents a harsh picture of the world he sees around him. The 1920s marked a time of great post-war economic growth, and Fitzgerald captures the turmoil of the society well. Although of course Fitzgerald could have no way of foreseeing the stock market crash of 1929, the world he presents in The Great Gatsby seems clearly to be headed for disaster. They have skewed worldviews, mistakenly believing their survival lies in the social hierarchy. They wrongly place their faith in superficial external means, such as money and materialism, while neglecting to nurture the compassion and sensitivity that in fact separate humans from animals.
[["GMO's: A Cry for Help"]]
[["Planning Issues in Cape Town, South Africa Planning interventions to improve the economy as well as living conditions"]]
It’s October of 2010, Haiti has just suffered a treacherous earthquake, bodies are plentiful but food is scarce. In order to help the Haitian people commence rebuilding, the leading biotech company, Monsanto, offered Haitian farmers 475 tons of seeds. Well isn’t that nice. Except why did 10,000 Haitians take to the streets in protest and commit to burning all of Monsanto’s seeds? This is because inside those seeds lies the dangerous mystery of GMOs.
GMOs are organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. There are two types of GMOs: pesticide producers and herbicide resisters. Pesticide producers fend off insects by excreting pesticides lethal to bugs. Herbicide resisters allow crops to grow immune to weed killer. But it’s not as positively innovative as it sounds.
The main objective of biotech company, Monsanto, is to make money, not to protect life and the environment. These hybrid seeds are poisonous and are destroying life and land. The Haitians believe Monsanto is going against God and destroying His creations. “You can’t replant with Monsanto seeds, we replant what we grow the year before, that is what God called us to do.” But it’s not just Haiti; Spain, Germany, Munich, South Africa, Mexico, India and Italy have all experienced serious protest against genetically modified food. They’re fighting for something Canadians hadn’t even realized they lost. Against tradition, farmers can’t continue to harvest seeds because Monsanto has patented their seeds – they have patented nature.
Monsanto alone has sued hundreds of farmers for this kind of patent infringement, and threatened thousands of others with lawsuits in attempts to get those farmers to also purchase their seeds. But many of these farmers are not intentionally buying Monsanto’s hybrid seeds originally. GMO seeds and pollen can easily contaminate non-GMO farms. Insects and wind can carry modified pollen for miles, spreading it to non-GMO crops. Their DNA is altered giving them GMO traits like roundup resistance. The farmers with contaminated fields are now growing GMOs illegally in violation of the chemical company’s patent.
Over 80% of processed food is genetically modified, but due to contamination ‘all natural’ foods and organic foods also contain some GMO content. A staggering 85% percent of corn grown in Canada is genetically modified, including 91% of soy, 88% percent of cotton, 98% of canola and 90% of sugar beats. Thanks to companies like Monsanto there are millions of acres of GMOs in Canada and over 420 million acres of GMOs worldwide, making contamination inevitable.
As a result of GMOs yields increased 50% over the past 10 years. In 1860 farmers made up 50% of the workforce. But the rise of industrial agriculture rapidly replaced humans with oil and machines. Today, farmers make up less than 4% of the workforce. Many of the farmers using GMOs are situated in countries where GMO labeling is not required. With 98% of agriculture using GMOs in countries that don’t require GMO labeling, the government is leaving its people in the dark.
The biotech Industry spent 547.5 million dollars lobbying US Congress from 1999-2009. Over 300 former congressional and white house staff members are now employed by biotech firms as lobbyists. A government’s main objective is economic stability therefore governments are almost always behind the industry. The Gates Foundation has purchased over 500,000 Monsanto Shares and is continuing with their investments in the biotech industry. Walmart and Monsanto have also partnered to sell GMO sweet corn to the public. The government is so supportive of biotech companies that they fail to reveal Monsanto corn is actually a registered pesticide itself. The majority of corn people are eating is so heavily modified that its pesticide levels concur government regulations. And yet, the corn is still produced, traded and consumed.
Producing these hybrid seeds has made way for over 500 new pesticide resistant insects, while roundup ready crops allowed for the creation of roundup resistant weeds. Companies such as Monsanto insure their agriculture technology will advance so farmers can use new additional pesticides to treat breakthrough pests and improve their crops.
More pesticides in food will do much harm to healthcare around the world. All of these pesticides are negatively affecting human health. Scientists agree that GMOs can create new allergies, make non-toxic foods toxic, lower immune response and seriously lower nutritional content. Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini from the University of Caen conducted a study to test the affects of GMOs on human health. Dr. Séralini fed rats genetically modified food in order to correlate the data to humans. The study mimicked a 3 month study Monsanto did years prior to prove the safety of GMOs. Dr. Séralini found consuming GMOs were accompanied by severe health risks. The livers, kidneys and digestive tracks of the rats were seriously compromised. The first symptoms occurred after the 3-month mark, ironically just after the Monsanto study terminated. Major tumors were found in 20-50% of the rats after only one year, and after 24 months, 50-80% of female rats had 3-4 major tumors. Pituitary glands in females were the second most affected, while estrogen levels almost doubled in males with highest roundup treatment dose. It is has been proven that 1 rat year is approximately equivalent to 30 human years. Dr. Séralini and other scientist suspect GMOs are playing a vibrant role in the sudden spike in breast cancer. Dr. Séralini said he would release his raw data if Monsanto would do the same, Monsanto refused.
With such serious stakes on the line: the destruction of sacred building blocks for human life, organics on the verge of extinction, the dismantling of the farming industry, governments not protecting their citizens by pushing for GMO labeling and human health being severely compromised, the discussion of biotechnology gets louder and louder. More research studies will be performed, educating people on the issues at hand, but intervention must occur with companies like Monsanto who threaten the very livelihood of mankind.
[[Introduction: Issues]]
[[THE COST OF DIVERGENT DEVELOPMENT: THE RIPPLE EFFECT]]
[[1. HOUSING]]
[[2. CRIME]]
[[3. DESENTRIALIZED CBD]]
[[4. TRAFFIC]]
[[5. MAINTENANCE]]
[[A FUTURE STRATEGIC PLANNING APPROACH]]According to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, South Africa is amongst a large group of developing nations. Despite achieving substantial growth in the past decade, South Africa lies still among the world’s developing countries. The need for development in South Africa is well exhibited in Cape Town, one of the three capital cities. Cape Town specifically, faces many development challenges competing for priority and attention. With a tragic and triumphant past of Apartheid, the city’s urban planning is based upon racial segregation. My interest in Cape Town is due in large part to my desire to participate in a service trip there in the future. An additional interest stems from my curiosity of a community so largely separated by colour and the implication it has on living together productively and peacefully. It saddens me at how the inability to share space harmoniously continues to plague their ability to coexist effectively. Despite widespread agreement on the need for change in the media, consistent policies, strategic plans and programs have not been developed or implemented. Personally, I believe the largest problem to be the fact that it’s a city struggling with divergent development and the ripple effects. That includes housing, crime, a decentralized Central Business District, traffic congestion and the expense of maintenance. Now living in a post-Apartheid era, the city’s problems need to be analyzed and pointed in a new direction in order to experience development. The gap between Cape Town’s affluent neighbourhoods and affluent sectors needs to be addressed. Planning interventions to improve the economy as well as living conditions require changes in infrastructure and services to meet the basic needs and reduce historic inequalities. Improved housing is required on a large scale. Crime due to divided and dire living conditions needs financial and political support. Delivery to reorganize and integrate its Central Business District (CBD) needs to focus on recentralizing and preserving the importance of the downtown core. Traffic congestion requires immediate and long term planning. And, the maintenance and it’s cost, needs a strategic plan in place to make it both cost effective and sustainable.
Local government in Cape Town have undergone a difficult period of transition, which has lessened its effectiveness and efficiency, including its ability to formulate and implement planning policies. Therefore, there has been no serious attempt on the part of public authorities to address the ongoing urban spatial division and polarization of development. Public sector investment in infrastructure and services has begun to address the historical imbalances across the city and to shift selected budgets towards the southeast. However, that investment has been geared overwhelmingly towards household consumption rather than encouraging productive activity that will boost jobs and incomes. New schools, clinics, libraries, community centers and recreation facilities also tend to have been planned and built independently of each other, resulting in a dispersed spatial pattern. They have not been used to reinforce specific nodes of activity and create places with a critical mass of related amenities.
One response to the social and economic problems of South Africa has been that they should be addressed sectorally, i.e. that separate policies are needed to address the housing, crime, Central Business District, traffic congestion and maintenance. Fragmented, sprawling patterns of urban development and high levels of income segregation impose major costs or externalities on individuals and society more generally they include capital and operating costs for public services, costs for consumers and workers, costs for the environment and economy, and social and political costs. The Apartheid era caused racially based residential segregation, which in turn led to separate townships, the northeast having a predominantly white population with the southeast having a black majority. The southeast was built as dormitory suburbs with inferior housing, infrastructure, and facilities. As a result, a more divided pattern of low-density, car-oriented development in and around the prosperous regions. Likewise extending areas for middle to high-wage housing, quite a bit of which is being constructed inside selectively gated groups and surrounded by high walls. In low-income housing projects and public investment, essential services are centered around the Cape Flats, where the cost of land is most reduced. Therefore, the overall pattern of advancement over the city can be described as polarized or divergent. The majority of informal housing (backyard and free standing shacks) is also in the southeast.
These factors have contributed to an extremely weak or even non-existent housing market in large parts of Cape Town because of the low disposable incomes, uncertainty over property rights, social instability and lending restrictions by the financial institutions. Due to a very significant upwards slope in house value and a general deficiency of leased settlement make upward mobility troublesome for individuals wanting to move to better neighbourhoods as their wages improve. Many of those who have invested in home ownership are locked into areas with sparse facilities and poor access to opportunities. The trends in major private property development reflect a combination of market forces and institutional practices (growth feeds upon itself).There is growing evidence in other parts of the world that the ongoing segregation and concentration of lower income people into particular parts of the city (i.e. social and spatial exclusion) exacerbates levels of crime in these areas (Borja and Castells 1997:82). A recent study in American cities found that spatial segregation was the most significant factor of all the variables which accounted for the homicide rate in black urban areas (Borja and Castells, 1997). High crime rates lock poorer areas into a downward spiral of insecurity, low private investment, low property values, greater poverty, and deprivation.
This dynamic was revealed in graphic detail in a recent commission of inquiry into conflict on the Cape Flats (Moosa, 1998). It showed how high unemployment and poverty generate intense competition for limited resources such as land, shelter, and fuel. The pressures are intensified by the inflow of new rural migrants with even fewer resources and formal skills. Local gatekeepers (or 'warlords') take advantage of peoples' insecurity and the weak governance of the area. They allocate sites and other scarce resources in return for financial payments, loyalty, and favours. The rivalry between them means an ongoing struggle for territory and power, which periodically breaks out into conflict and violence. This causes injury, trauma and social dislocation among innocent bystanders. The police are far too stretched to cope, leading to their demoralization and implication in crime. The emergence of new democratic leaders and institutions committed to providing formal housing and public services represents a direct threat to the income and power of the traditional gatekeepers. So they exploit grievances and tensions within the community to undermine their authority and to sabotage public development projects. Power struggles to delay progress and adds to ordinary people's frustration, creating a climate of confusion, mistrust, and intolerance. Any lack of consultation on the part of public bodies causes disproportionate suspicion and criticism. Criminal elements exploit the situation to commit acts of theft and violence against government officials and property, so municipal staff become apprehensive and demotivated, and delivery is delayed. The vicious circle of crime, insecurity and poor housing within the community hinders progress, undermines confidence and damages the prospects of attracting private investment and generating a development momentum.
The economic geography of the city is changing to a more dispersed and decentralized structure. A net shift in office and retail activities is occurring from the city core to suburban centers and new office and retail parks along the major freeways. Multi-purpose 'mega-projects' such as Century City 1 are also being developed on under-used land in selected decentralized locations. They threaten the Central Business District and older suburban centers because they combine office, retail, residential and leisure uses in a controlled, high amenity environment. Meanwhile, the functions of the city center are shifting towards tourism and entertainment activities, with retailing geared more towards lower income consumers. The decentralization of industrial and commercial activity complicates the city's monocentric structure but does nothing to alter the stark contrasts between rich and poor areas. The vast majority of private sector investment and job growth is occurring in or close to prosperous suburbs in the north and west of the city. These expanding employment centers are also less well served by the commuter rail and bus network than the Central Business District.
Buildings in the core of the city are less desired. They’re older, less likely to meet city requirements and modern work purposes. They’re also unfashionable for businesses to “boost their image,” as the desired globalized trend is a very modern appearance. Businesses would rather occupy their own space as opposed to renting space downtown for reasons including traffic congestion, lack of parking and litter. All of these factors contribute to the social and physical character of the downtown core. The low-density, fragmented nature of housing development on much of the Cape Flats, and northward to Atlantis, makes the provision of efficient public transport difficult, as consumer thresholds can be too low to provide a frequent and effective service. The recent Moving Ahead transport study of the Cape Metropolitan Council (CMC, 1999) identified the pattern of metropolitan land-use as one of the obstacles to providing a good public transport service at all times of the day. The cost of subsidizing public transport to move large numbers of poor people from peripheral residential areas to jobs in more central industrial and commercial areas is particularly important. The Cape Town CBD and northern and southern suburbs contain 80 percent of all formal jobs in the city, but only 37 percent of the population, so a huge daily movement of commuters is necessary.
One of the most serious impacts of divergent urban growth is the amount of money individual consumers have to spend on travel. A burden of high transportation costs is placed on the poorest households, which erodes their already inadequate disposable incomes. At worst it traps them within their residential areas, with little alternative other than the informal sector as a source of livelihood. International standards suggest that the cost of commuting to work should not consume more than 2,5 percent to 5 percent of an individual's income (Clark and Naude, 1986). Currently, the cost of public transport for residents of the Cape Flats amounts to between 8 percent (third class rail) and 15 percent (subsidized bus) of the average annual income (Clark and Crous, 2000). As new low-income housing continues to be situated in peripheral locations, and as formal jobs continue to concentrate in the wealthier northern metropolitan area, so commuting distances are increasing.
One-way trip lengths have reached an average of 16 km, on a par with renowned car dependent First World cities such as Los Angeles (15,3 km) (CMC, 1999).
The time spent commuting also has a big impact on daily living by reducing the time available to participate in family life, supervise children or attend night school. These travel patterns and associated subsidies generate problems of their own. For example, there is intense competition for passengers between minibus taxis and the national bus operator on the few very busy transport axes across the city. For five months during 2000, this developed into sporadic gunshot attacks on buses, which caused seven people to lose their lives, more than 60 serious injuries, and brought havoc to the lives of commuters. The wider economic costs for the city included lost production, lost tourism resources and lost investment in the climate of uncertainty and fear. The attention of national and local politicians, officials and police was also diverted into crisis management and away from longer-term policy solutions.
Dispersed urban growth makes the capital costs of providing public utilities more expensive. Frank's (1989) review of ‘studies that attempted to estimate the capital costs’ concluded that this form of development increased the cost of infrastructure by between 40 and 400 percent. Servicing low density, higher-income suburbs is costly because the greater distances between dwellings necessitate longer pipes and cables and more concrete. Higher income residents rarely pay the full cost, so public authorities effectively subsidize them. In the case of large-scale, low-income developments, usually near or beyond the metropolitan edge, either separate, additional processing facilities are necessary (e.g. new sewage treatment works or electricity substations) or very long pipes, and cables are required to link them to existing facilities, both at considerable cost.
Road congestion at particular times of the day slows the movement of commercial traffic and increases distribution costs. Lengthy commutes for workers reduces their productivity and punctuality. High transport costs reduce consumer spending and hence the level of consumption demand and associated jobs. These costs make the city less competitive as a business location compared with better functioning cities elsewhere. The excessive distances, low levels of threshold and expansive spaces of dispersed urban development generate unnecessarily high operating costs for road-based public services (e.g. solid waste collection) and maintaining public open spaces. Many neglected, overgrown public open spaces have become havens for criminal activity on the Cape Flats. It is also common to see schools abandoning large areas of sports grounds and playing fields, as they can no longer afford to maintain them.
Sprawling development generates major environmental externalities.
It makes inefficient use of land, a non-renewable resource, through the consumption of excessive quantities that may have value for agriculture, minerals, aquifer recharge potential, and biodiversity. Dispersed urban growth in Cape Town has consumed large amounts of valuable agricultural land: between 1993 and 1998, 2,4 hectares of agricultural land were lost per day to urban development (B Gasson, pers corn). Dispersed patterns of urban growth generating large volumes of traffic also have a Divergent Development in SA Cities 127 significant effect on pollution. Levels of photochemical smog have risen sharply in Cape Town in recent years. This primarily affects the respiratory system, causing emphysema, asthma, chronic bronchitis, and cancer. Pollution and congestion also damage the image, amenities and natural qualities of the city, which are among its major assets in competing for inward investment and tourism. Also, dispersed, divided cities are high energy consumers and vulnerable to the supply of oil, which is both non-renewable and unpredictable in its cost.
An important opportunity for a fresh start has been created with the rationalization of local government and the formation of a single Unicity authority. The Cape Town Unicity has greater power and resources than the local government has ever had to address the inefficiencies and inequities caused by the present spatial structure of the city. It can transcend institutional fragmentation and territorial rivalry by establishing a more coherent, spatially informed development strategy for the city. It is important that this is not a narrowly defined, control-oriented spatial plan limited to land-use considerations, but rather a broader strategy aimed at promoting redistribution and poverty alleviation, facilitating economic growth and development, and improving environmental quality. Since the urban planning in South Africa originates from Apartheid the only way to redistribute is through a community. A loving community needs to be created that encourages and fosters relationships between “both sides.” A framework needs to be provided and a definite plan set in place. A plan, that outlines, illustrates and encompasses long-term goals combined with issues of immediate attention/problems. Social and economic opportunities need to be created, and funding needs to be reallocated. It has already been proven that the geography of neighbourhoods and cities determine the oppourtunities at hand, and the ability to make/improve an income. The strategy should begin to target different sources of funding and integrating mainstream sectoral budgets so that the resources are used to their very best effects.
Planning needs to help position the city into wider national and international economic relationships and balance this with meeting local needs for service delivery and creating liveable environments. Important spatial principles include achieving better access to housing, employment oppourtunities and public facilities, overcoming spatial segregation and therefore improving the presence of crime, and lastly preserving the CBD while lessening the cost of maintenance. Some aspects of this vision require planning at the city scale, including city-wide infrastructure, and public transport, and thinking about the economy of the country as a whole. Transformation projects are ideally located in between better-off and poorer areas of the city to help knit them together but are also linked into city-wide movement routes to maximize accessibility. They are initiated by the public sector but after that managed by a partnership including the private sector. The approach recognizes that equity does not mean making all parts of the city the same and the acknowledgment of cultural diversity and multicultural planning is an important value. Transformation projects such as these will require continual strong political backing. Up until now, Apartheid, the integration has proved more complex and controversial than anticipated in the 1990’s. Cape Town faces great pressure to reshape its divergent development, but with collaboration, agreement, education and reallocated finances, effective development can be achieved, making the long-term outlook optimistic.
To my dearest children Connie and Matthew and my wonderful Husband John,
I hope this message reaches you well. I am sure you’ve read in the newspaper that the Hindenburg went down in flames May 6th, 1937. It was lit on fire just as we were landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey. How it caught on fire I have not been notified, I think they are trying to keep it quiet. The Hindenburg had just left Frankfurt on May 3rd, 1937. I believe there were about 97 of us, 36 passengers and 61 officers, crew members and trainees. If you have not already gathered I was one of the 26 passengers… that was my flight. We left Frankfurt at about 7:16 PM then flew over Cologne, crossed the Netherlands before following the English Channel past the chalky cliffs of Beach Head in southern England, and then heading out over the Atlantic shortly the next day. Hindenburg approached the field at Lakehurst from the southwest shortly after 7:00 PM, at an altitude of approximately 600 feet. The ship flew south from New York and arrived at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey at around 4:15 PM, but the poor weather conditions at the field concerned the Hindenburg’s commander, Captain Max Pruss, and also Lakehurst’s commanding officer, Charles Rosendahl, who sent a message to the ship recommending a delay in landing until conditions improved. Captain Pruss departed the Lakehurst area and took his ship over the beaches and coast of New Jersey to wait out the storm. By 6:00 PM conditions had improved; at 6:12 Rosendahl sent Pruss a message relaying temperature, pressure, visibility, and winds which Rosendahl considered “suitable for landing.” At 6:22 Rosendahl radioed Pruss “Recommend landing now,” and at 7:08 Rosendahl sent a message to the ship strongly recommending the “earliest possible landing.” A few minutes after the landing lines were dropped, R.H. Ward, in charge of the port bow landing party, noticed what he described as a wave-like fluttering of the outer cover on the port side, between frames 62 and 77, which contained gas cell number 5 . At 7:25 PM, the first visible external flames appeared. The fire proceeded further down and then it got air. The flame became very bright and the fire rose up to the side, more to the starboard side, as I remember seeing it, and I saw that with the flame aluminum parts and fabric parts were thrown up. In that same moment all the cells between 3 and 6 were on fire. At that time parts of girders, aluminum and fabric parts started to tumble down from the top. The whole thing only lasted a fraction of a second. The fire spread so quickly — consuming the ship in less than a minute — that survival was largely a matter of where one happened to be located when the fire broke out. Thirty-six people died that day, one of them being Marilyn a lady in which became my friend over the long voyage. I am now at St. Barnabas, a hospital located about 4 kilometers away from the disaster. The doctors said I was fine but I have minor head trauma. Hopefully I will be home in about 2 week’s time. I love you all very much and I just want you to know I am perfectly fine. Please don’t worry about me, I will see you very soon.
With ever lasting love,
MomThe Domino Effect
The novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood and 1984 by George Orwell are both works of irony-satire, examining themes of conformity, where the stories’ protagonists use their prior knowledge of their society to realize the extent to which their civilization is imperfect, in each case causing the protagonists to rebel. This cause and effect results in questionable conclusions for both protagonists. These two dystopic novels not only mirror one another’s domino effect, but also share very similar characteristics of irony-satire, demonstrating conformity, causing the flashback of prior knowledge, and therefore resulting in acts of rebellion.
The novel 1984 is absolutely swimming with exemplars of irony-satire. The use of irony in George Orwell’s 1984 is the basis of the novel’s effective psychological manipulation both within and outside the confines of its pages. The society of Oceania is rooted in irony. The party maintains control with the ironic use of doublethink: the ability to think two completely contradictory thoughts at the same time, believing both to be true. The irony in 1984 by is embodied in the party's slogan: War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength. The party's idealized hero is called Big Brother, yet the party has managed to eliminate familial love. In addition, the Ministry of Truth fabricates lies; the Ministry of Love specializes in torture; the Ministry of Plenty causes shortages; and the Ministry of Peace wages war. Another classic example of irony in 1984 would be the use of 'Victory' items. Victory items include things such as coffee, gin, and cigarettes that do not live up to the victorious title; they are substandard and poorly made. This idea of ‘Victory’ items are used by the Party to convince the people of Oceania that these items are indeed victorious and special. An obvious example of situational irony is how Winston secretly lusts and despises Julia. Fatefully, it's on Junior Anti-Sex League hikes that Julia discovers hiding places to take her paramours. Despite Julia having engaged in countless affairs, throughout the book, “The emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League was wound several times around the waist of her overalls” (Orwell, 12). In the novel, readers are lead to believe that Winston will play the role of archetypal dystopian hero, ironically enough, Winston believes from the beginning that he is destined to die, "Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same" (Orwell 21).
Similarly in 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale is also overflowing with irony. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are treated horribly, but not only by men. Women occupy the upper strands of society, and are equally capable of venality and dictatorial excesses (the character Serena Joy embodies this phenomenon), although men remain the ultimate power. Atwood’s novel is a satire in the sense that it depicts its subject matter in an ironic and exaggerated manner. Moira, Offred’s friend and a radical lesbian feminist, succumbs to the fate to which she has apparently been condemned. Moira now inhabits a house of ill repute, appreciating that it is not without its benefits: “Don’t worry about me… Anyway, look at it this way: it’s not so bad, there’s lots of women around. Butch paradise, you might call it” (Atwood, 139). The Handmaid’s Tale tells a serious story, but it is satire in every sense of the word. Both authors satirize the societies to emphasize their need for total and utter control.
The key to absolute control is conformity. Gilead has attempted to remove the individuality of its citizens in many ways. Everyone is classified into a rigid hierarchy, with different uniforms in specific colours to denote their role within the state organization. Without a choice of clothing, the differences in individual appearances are minimized. Many women are also stripped of their names. Every woman must be under the control of a male. In the novel, Offred often reminds us: “My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden.” She adds, “I tell myself it doesn't matter... but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter.” (Atwood, 37). For women, individual power is even more restricted, as they are no longer allowed to work in professions. “Some of the women at Jezebel's were once ‘a sociologist... a lawyer… in business, an executive position” (Atwood, 249). Women “cannot have bank accounts, or hold property any more”(Atwood, 128).
Conformity is demonstrated in Oceania very similarly as it is in Gilead. Everyone in Oceania wear a uniform (conformity at its most basic). Another example of conformity would be everyone’s thoughts. No one is allowed to have their own thoughts, and if they decide to think for themselves, punishment is a definite consequence. Hate week is an additional example of conformity. Everyone is compelled to participate in hate week, regardless of whether they want to. The people of Oceania are not permitted to have personal relationships and marriages are forbidden. The rules are harsh to encourage assimilation and the Party plays on the fear of the unknown - Room 101 and the Ministry of Love - to force people into conformity. For people who were born into this society, life may not appear so unfortunate (this is all they ever knew). However, for people like Winston who have memories of the time before the Party, it is a difficult and a nearly impossible adjustment.
Winston is very much aware that Oceania has spiraled downward since his adolescents. Early in the book, the reader learns that Winston is constantly struggling to remember his past, and that he often fails. “It was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of brightly-lit tableaux, occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible.” (Orwell, 3). However, there are flashbacks throughout. Winston dreams of his mother and sister, neither of whom he really remembers. They are staring at him from what seems to be an underground, or even underwater place, and he is overwhelmed by the feeling that their lives had been "sacrificed to his own"(Orwell, 24). This sequence illustrates what has been lost since the rise of the totalitarian state: “The thing that now suddenly struck Winston was that his mother's death...was tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy...belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still privacy, love, and friendship...” (Orwell, 25). "When he came back his mother had disappeared. This was already becoming normal at that time" (Orwell 163). This quote appears when Winston was remembering how his mother had disappeared. This is significant because it is precisely when both Winston and the reader comprehend what actually happened to his mother. Another flashback is used to suggest what has happened to cause the rise of Big Brother. Winston recalls his father hauling him down a flight of stairs to a Tube station, which served as a bomb shelter. "Since that time," Winston remembers, "war had been literally continuous." (Orwell, 16). Flashbacks are thus used to demonstrate Winston's yearning for humanity, to show what the totalitarian state has taken from people, and to provide background for the events portrayed in the novel. Winston’s knowledge of the prior society is what causes him to realize how imperfect his world is, and ultimately ignites a rage of rebellion inside of him.
Like Winston, Offred also holds a great deal of knowledge as to how society was conducted before totalitarian regimes took over. Visuals often initiate flashbacks for Offred. She recounts women wearing short skirts, and now “they seem undress” (Atwood 28) to her. And that she too “use to dress like that” (Atwood 28). To her, “that was freedom”(Atwood, 28). Additional visuals of places also instigate flashbacks, reminding Offred of the years before Gilead. She remembers a specific building, and recalls how she “used to be able to walk freely there, when it was a university” (Atwood, 166). One of the most iconic flashbacks is of Luke. In this particular flashback Offred reveals her hatred towards the society of Gilead. “I'll take care of it, said Luke. And because he said 'it' instead of 'her,' I knew he meant 'kill.' That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an 'it,' where none was before. That's one of the things they do. They force you to kill within yourself.” (Atwood, 192-193). These flashbacks are paramount in her building lust for rebellion.
Offred takes small pleasures from rebelling in minute ways. For example, she enjoys taking small digs at the men who have power over her. One day, for instance, she makes eye contact with a Guardian when she's out shopping, even though Guardians are strictly forbidden from looking at Handmaids. “It's an event, a small defiance of rule, so small as to be undetectable, but such moments are the rewards I hold out for myself, like the candy I hoarded, as a child, at the back of a drawer” (Orwell, 47). Her world has become tiny and her identity stolen from her, but she still clings to small elements of what make her herself, such "hoarding" just as she did when she was little. Offred frequently contemplates stealing things. She envisions stealing from the Commander's household as a way to take back her power. One of her most frequent fantasy objects is a weapon. But she's not reckless, either; she rejects even stealing a daffodil from Serena Joy's flower arrangement. The closest she comes to theft is sneaking pats of butter from her plate to use as lotion, or hiding the match that could have lit her single cigarette. Throughout the novel, Offred’s flashbacks continue. As a result, her hunger for rebellion grows. She begins to engage in larger acts of disobedience, which include having sexual relations with Nick (and quite often too). She also participates in a secret relationship with the commander where she commits a series of crimes, including reading and playing forbidden games. Offred reveals that she is indeed resistant friendly, so much so that she entrusts in Nick and gets into the black car with men who are either there to arrest her for treason or to smuggle her to safety. Whether this is the end or a new beginning, there is no way of knowing” Offred has given herself “over into the hands of strangers, and can't be helped” (Atwood, 309).
Identical to A Handmaid’s Tale, all of Winston’s rebellion in 1984 closes in a classic untelling dystopian ending. Winston's initial defiancy comes in the form of his diary. At the time of him (illegally) purchasing the diary, “he was not conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession. (Orwell, 13). Winston’s diary then sets him on a trajectory to all out rebellion against the Party. Winston constantly committed thought crime through his journal – even when Winston didn’t do it intentionally. Once “His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, he began printing in large neat capitals:
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER”
(Orwell, 36-37). The diary allows him a place to unleash all his rebellious thoughts, giving him the confidence to fall in love with Julia. This in turn leads him to become concerned with grand-scale, organized resistance to the Party’s rule. It all culminates with him joining the Brotherhood. All of these acts of rebellion caused by the domino effect of his initial reminiscing of earlier times, prior to the Party takeover.
Irony satire allows us to see into the minds of the authors, Atwood and Orwell. Northrop Frye states in the book The Educated Imagination that: "The effect of irony is to enable us to see over the head of a situation - we have irony in a play for example, when we know more about what's going on than the characters do - and so to detach us, at least in imagination, from the world we'd prefer not to be involved with" (Frye 31). The worlds the protagonists live in are dictated by totalitariast governments, that enforce conformity to gain control. Clearly, because of Winston and Offred’s hatred towards their imperfect worlds, they experience flashbacks to the worlds they deem perfect. This sense of yearning for what they used to have ignites a fury and lust for rebellion launching our protagonists to a questionable ‘happy ever after’.
“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone – to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone…” (Orwell, 40) from the age of handmaid’s, conformity and “uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – greetings!” (Orwell, 41).
[["What kind of leadership makes a positive contribution to the building of peace?"]]Something I often ask myself is what ability do I have to effect change? There are many people including myself, who want to be part of something bigger than ourselves but we shy away and behave so passively with our fate, often saying someone else can take the lead. I have wondered if it’s because getting along with people peacefully is both easy and hard. I question how difficult it would be to be a leader in peaceful movement in today’s society with so many outlets of information and expectations and the accountability that would come along with such tall orders. Such thoughts beg the question, what kind of leadership makes a positive contribution to the buildings of peace? “Today’s issues on peace are complicated, and there’s no perfect formula for getting good leadership… having said that, doesn’t it come down to all lives matter? I believe, highlighting the empowerment of women and the importance of education, positive political leadership with global thinking, and using media for the purpose of informing from a fact perspective as opposed to instilling fear, is perhaps the most important kinds of leadership. As we continue to grow as a nation, and the population grows worldwide, it is imperative for all citizens to not only consider but to engage in more peaceful management and leadership. “Research shows that involving women in peace building increases the probability that violence will end by 24%.” Despite this fact, it is clear that we still have a long way to go in bringing women to the peace-building table. There are 1.4 million people living in poverty worldwide, and 70% of them are women and girls. On top of that, 900 million adults are unable to read and write. It is staggering to think that two-thirds are women. Half the world’s population are women. An important thing to consider in the positive contributions to peaceful leadership is the power and presence of women and that “you can’t disempower more than ½ the population of the world and expect balance and sustainable peace.” What becomes evident is continuing to empower women through education is the key to success to make a contribution to building conditions of peace. This should be as basic as teaching peace-building skills at a young school age, but it’s not being done and in the case of women, often they’re being pulled out of school to take care of their family, providing water (which in some cases takes all day to collect). There are girls living in poverty that don’t have access to feminine hygiene products. This leads them to be “pulled out of school for 180 days per year on average”. These girls stay in isolation during their cycle and only return to the classroom when their cycle is finished. Focusing on education and keeping women in school to learn would assist in development. Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala, said it best: “Extremists have shown what frightens them most, a girl with a book.” Women empowerment is essential for sustainable development and peace. The wrong treatment of women prevents them from being able to play a full role in society. Women bring different perspectives to great conversation. In most societies and economies, women’s unpaid work (and nature services) are not accounted for and therefore are not valued properly in our economic, political or social systems. It has been said, “…women are the glue that holds society together.” And yet, it is evident that we continue to struggle for credibility and access to our rights and freedoms. If we can continue to recognize the importance of education and to empower women to use their voices, giving them the ability to have intelligent and meaningful discussions, we are unlocking all sorts of potential to our future, and the result will be a more balanced and peaceful society.
The women’s march, gay parades, political protests and peace movements captivate an audience of billions thanks to media. Media can attract worldwide attention and shine the light on conflict around the world. Media enables people to be educated on these conflicts so that they can make a change. Media is a critical tool of free speech, but can also be misused for propaganda. National news broadcasters air tragedy after tragedy to maintain a large and engaged audience. Homicide rates have decreased globally, but the number of news broadcasts in regards to murders has increased by 600%. People get scared and as a result can become Islamophobic or go out to purchase guns. Media is driven by this campaign that determines ‘instilling fear to consume is the most efficient way of selling products.’ Is it any surprise that the government controls the news and billionaires (such as Lockheed Martin, the number 1 producer of guns) controls the government? How are we to
find peace when the media is instilling us with fear, and we can’t trust our own political leaders? Information is power and media is essential when working towards peace and democracy, but when used as propaganda, instead of revealing truths, the media is used to “cover things up and by this, curtail people’s rights and freedoms to information.”
There is an extraordinary difference between the way a peace-oriented leader and a leader with no regards for peace reflect on the media. In the words of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “I think it’s important to underline the importance that the media has in public discourse and public life.” On the other end of the spectrum President of the United States, Donald Trump regards the media as “the lowest form of life” and “the lowest form of humanity.” These statements reflect their political leadership styles as well. Trump’s sole concern is “America first. Americanism, not globalism…” It’s this divisive perspective that led America to the idea of a travel ban. Prioritizing peace-making initiatives, Justin Trudeau announced to the world, in reaction to the travel ban, “We’re Canadian, and we’re here to help. To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. Welcome to Canada.” Trump lacks a sense of global thinking to make peace. “I’m all for taking care of people, but he needs to do it in conjunction with global awareness.” It is with the help of global citizens that world peace can be achieved. “Great social movements created the pressure on governments that forced them to act.” When we talk about effective leadership contribution in peace “the most important role in civil society is to inform policymakers and help them get the best information.” When society is reporting to their political leaders, transforming leadership of “seeking to release human potential” occurs. Transactional leadership on the other hand often offers empty promises (like low taxes for votes) – but end up disappointing people and crushing expectations. “Without the crucial role of civil society, politicians are held hostage to broken promises or heavy hitters who provide financial backing.” Civil society should play a role in partnership and policymakers and create the political space for them to pass laws and regulations and must do so respectfully, making it possible for politicians, who are worried about losing their seats in the next election.
“Governments deal chiefly with the management of ongoing problems and fresh crisis, not projecting long-term vision. Leadership beyond government is vital.” The leadership of women and honest, positive media is desperately needed to move forward to create momentum towards peace. Raising questions about problems and issues in the world pertaining to peace requires us to “develop the institutions and mechanisms needed to support human security for all” including the education system worldwide, mechanisms in conducting media and marketing, and the role people take in their political systems. Peaceful “(leadership) can elevate us and provide for social change that satisfies the deep and authentic desire of people everywhere.”
A World Split Apart
It’s 1978, and the world has been split. As a result of the Cold war two powers have been created. With the constant evolution of Western world thinking, communist Russia is left misunderstood. The Western world sets out to make colonies and in turn begins “despising any possible values in the conquered peoples' approach to life.” Solzhenitsyn determines this is how the Western world formed its ideologies. The superiority never faded, and Western ideologies maintained prominent in the world “out of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, and out of the mistake of measuring them all with a Western yardstick.” This shaped the way countries developed. Solzhenitsyn determines that theories claim Soviet Russia and the West will never merge together, that one cannot converge to another without violence and vice versa. Because Solzhenitsyn fled Soviet Russia he decides to focus discussion more towards the audience that he has gained in America.
Following ideas surrounding the pursuit of happiness, Solzhenitsyn then introduces the idea of welfare aspiration. That “every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee, in theory, the achievement of happiness.” He focuses on the fact that children are being raised to believe that materials and wealth equivocate to success and that achieving these tangible ‘things’ can result in independence from state pressures. But no line has been drawn as to how far you should go in order to achieve this ‘success’ – how much should be risked. Alexander Solzhenitsyn warns Western civilization of the horrors to come revolving around wealth and greed. America was founded on noble ideals, including the pursuit of happiness. Wealth has become such that many citizens can get an unimaginable amount of material wealth, but as he noted: “The constant desire to have still more things and a still better life, and the struggle to obtain them imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to conceal such feelings. Active and tense competition permeates all human thoughts without opening a way to free spiritual development.”
Analyzing “A World Split Apart” proves the content controversial and the message important. The language is choppy at points as a result of the Russian to English translation. The emotion in this piece of literature is clear. Solzhenitsyn purposely instils a sense of fear so the message is received and remembered he scolds us that “we are stepping away from God by stepping towards wealth” and success. Jesus did not condemn wealth, he feared its effects on the rich man, and he wanted it, like all of God’s good things, to be used rightly. A society which pursued wealth for its own sake and which makes money an end in itself is not a good one. But these are not the ends for which man is made, and so even if he reaches them, he is dissatisfied and his spirit unsatisfied. So it is that even in the richest society the world has ever known, even the rich lack what is needed to heal them. We can reject God and make gods of ourselves, but Solzhenitsyn did not see that as bringing us what we needed.
He saw a society in which “destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence and society misuses liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror.”
It is hard to see that forty years later, things aren’t any better; here, as elsewhere, Solzhenitsyn prophesied correctly. He identified the reasons for this very well. “Without any censorship, in the West, fashionable trends of thought are carefully separated from those that are not fashionable. Nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally, your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day.”
[[Dreams vs Reality]]Have you ever woken from a dream so vivid that you were astonished to realize it was only a dream? Is it possible that the reality that we believe to be true is not actually what it seems? The topic of dreams vs. reality has been discussed for centuries. Most notably by Rene Descartes, the famous French philosopher who questioned existence down to its very core. This concept may seem familiar as it has been the basis for countless Hollywood blockbuster films such as The Matrix. This paper will argue that reality and dreams are distinguishable from each other and that the argument that we could be living our whole life in an alternate universe of any sort is invalid. The main rationality contending to why this is believed to be true is the highly unlikely claim to allege that everything that considered to be true is, in fact, false. Therefore, it would require a tremendous amount of evidence to be convinced otherwise which is not available. Evidence presented on the contrary by Rene Descartes, and will also look at a more modern take on this inquisition from the work of David J. Chalmers in his analysis of The Matrix film.
The topic of dreams vs. reality is an example of a skeptical hypothesis which is “a hypothesis that cannot be ruled out, and one that would falsify most beliefs if it were true.”(The Matrix as metaphysics David Chalmers) For example, if one were to find out that their math professor was not a math teacher, then they would question whether anything they learned in their math class was true. If their math teacher taught them well and they learned all of the right formulas and procedures it would plant a seed of doubt into everything they learned in the semester. When looking at the skeptical hypothesis that the world is not truly an objective reality but a just dream or another sort of alternate reality it calls into question every aspect of life itself. From the little concepts like work or school to the great concepts like love, relationships and the whole notion of existence. Pondering this hypothesis can drive one to madness considering, in the view of some prominent philosophers, the foundation of everything the human race holds to be right could in fact be quite the opposite. Without this foundational knowledge there is nothing that can be definitively know as absolute truth.
The most appropriate example of a skeptical philosopher is Rene Descartes. In his Book, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes delves into the issue of distrust of his senses stating “All that up to the present time I have accepted as most genuine and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it proves to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to anything by which we have once been deceived.”(meditations 1) Descartes is saying one should not trust something that has misled them in the past, therefore they cannot trust their senses to paint the full and complete picture of anything because it’s have failed them before. It can be argued that the basis of all knowledge can only be verified by senses, if someone does not trust their senses there is no way to check whether anything is true. All that is known about reality is from the taste of chocolate to the colours of trees to the strain theory is based on the senses.
One of his most notable examples of the haze between an objective reality and a subjective dream state comes early in Meditations 1 when Descartes says “For example, there is the fact that I am here, seated by the fire, attired in a dressing gown, having this paper in my hands and other similar matters. And how could I deny that these hands and this body are mine, were it not perhaps that I compare myself to certain persons, devoid of sense… they think they are kings when they are really poor… but they are mad, and I should not be any less insane were I to follow examples so extravagant. (meditations 1) Primarily Descartes comes to a conclusion through this statement and through following examples in his text that he would be ignorant to believe in his current state of reality, as humble as it is because others are living in an extravagant illusion. All that he can be certain of is that he thinks, therefore he is. By having the ability to think, it proves that he is something. “What?”, you may ask - even he does not come to that conclusion.
Although it is believed to be important that people are skeptical of their surroundings and the abundance of information in-taken over a lifetime, it is even more important not to fall into a state of paranoia in the ideas of life and existence. Our senses may have the ability to deceive us, through optical illusion, even sense trickery. For example, if one had thought to have heard a gunshot - but it was truly just a firework. For the most part, humans can logically work through the dreams that are set before them. If a sense fails, there are four other senses and rationality to fall back on. Rarely do senses completely pull the wool over eyes, leaving someone utterly fooled. Senses are relied on to approach most, if not every task taken on throughout life. If one was truly to distrust their senses, then there is no way they could operate on a daily basis. This is the most fundamental principle of Descartes argument to disagree with and without that first important stipulation, the rest of his argument begins to take on water. Contradicting opinions are supported from another angle by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who had a rebuttal to the argument that one can, in fact, tell the difference between reality and dream. Hobbes argued that the absurdity encountered in a dream is the reason that people can say that dreams are completely different than reality and that they cannot fathom that they are in a dream whilst awake. “Though sleeping individuals are too wrapped up in the absurdity of their dreams to be able to distinguish their states, a person who is awake can tell, simply because the absurdity is no longer there during wakefulness.”( http://www.iep.utm.edu/dreaming/#SH1b) Famous philosopher John Locke also offered a rebuttal to the argument of Descartes that people cannot tell the difference between a dream and being awake arguing that “we cannot have physical pain in dreams as we do in waking life.”( http://www.iep.utm.edu/dreaming/#SH1b) The next example is based on the film The Matrix. In this movie, the main character lives his life in the year 1999 as a software developer and computer hacker but is discovered to be the chosen one. He is extracted from the life that he knows and wakes up in a dystopian reality nearly 2000 years later where he had been asleep for his entire life and realizes that his life was a falsehood controlled by machines that have taken over the world. This draws an interesting parallel to the Descartes book because Descartes proposes rather that an “evil genius” is the one who is in control of this elaborate charade. This film, although not the same, is very similar to the dream idea, that existence is not exactly what is perceived. The situation presented in the matrix is a populace that has been sedated and inputted into a computer simulation so that these machines can derive energy from the humans that they keep captive. The hypothesis that the film appears to be based on is called "The Brain in a vat" which is essentially the present day incarnation of the age-old question posed by Descartes. The Matrix is the world that the brains in vats believe that they live in when in reality they are being controlled by others. This situation is slightly harder to diffuse due to the fact that rather than a sort of mythological creature or divine power controlling the human race, it could be fellow man who has simply used advancements of technology to submerge society into a state that cannot be broken free of because of the mass ignorance of the situation.
It is not unlikely that one day scientists and engineers could come up with a computer simulation that immerses people to the point that they cannot tell the difference between reality and simulated reality. How then does one know if they were born in a simulated reality or if they are just plugged into a machine in reality? David J. Chalmers uses the film The Matrix as a jumping off point for his three-part hypothesis that he calls The Metaphysical Hypothesis stating “First, physical processes are fundamentally computational. Second, our cognitive systems are separate from physical processes, but interact with these processes. Third, physical reality was created by beings outside physical space-time.”(The matrix as metaphysics) Chalmers goes into great detail on each part of his three-part hypothesis but the best way to explain the first part of his hypothesis in the words of Edward Friedkin that “the universe is at the bottom some sort of computer.” Next is the deduction that “our cognitive systems are separate from physical processes” this is a type of dualistic thinking that minds are separate from our bodily function and feeds commands to the body but is not physically part of the process. The last point is that our world was created by something outside physical space and time. Therefore, it was created by some God or higher power.
There is an objection held to the second and third portion of this hypothesis, many don’t agree with the first portion but do not have the level of understanding in physics to refute the argument. The reason for objection to the second part of this hypothesis is that Chalmers is arguing that dualism is a possibility when it is believed that it is an entirely unscientific assumption. There is no way to prove whether there is a non-physical portion of your body that is in control of your physical being. Since it cannot be determined whether this exists, Chalmers is opening up science to all sorts of interpretations. There are proven psychological theories and phenomena that are based purely on the fact that the brain is the control room for everything in the body from bodily function to emotion. If one was to say that the mind is separate from the body, then the skeptic hypothesis would apply to everything known about the brain and body. Lastly, disagreement lies within Chalmers final portion of his hypothesis, “physical reality was created by beings outside physical space-time” because there is also no evidence of this claim either. For thousands and thousands of years, people have been trying to prove that their God created the world that we live in now and no one has been able to provide sure evidence of that fact. One could object and say that no one has been able to prove that there is a God either but that is akin to saying that no aliens are living beneath the crust of Jupiter. Although, it is very well possible that there could, in fact, be aliens living beneath the crust of Jupiter just because we do not know does not mean that we should jump to the conclusion that it could be. There is far more evidence that there is no higher power that has created the world, than proof of the opposite.
Lastly, a proposal to the argument against the general theory. Humans could be living in an alternate reality rather than the reality that they are accustomed to. To be convinced of something there must be evidence to the contrary that overturns the presupposed actuality. The reality is not like a criminal trial; one cannot overturn everything that existence is based upon by planting a hypothetical seed of doubt. Chalmers and Descartes offered thought to provoke anecdotes, but the escalation to the macro-scale requires hard empirically based evidence to support that people are in fact brains in a vat, in a dream state or any other sort of alternate reality. These philosophers are not necessarily arguing that people are one hundred percent inside an alternate reality but it is believed that the rhetoric that stokes paranoia, roots as deeply as ‘the bare basics of existence are dangerous’. Philosophy is all about the big questions and inquisition into the most basic foundations that are hold to be true. It is conceded that this is an entertaining topic that makes way for engaging discussion, but at the end of the day, this argument has just as much merit as the Bigfoot conspiracy and whether aliens have landed on Earth.
[[Free Trade Debate]][[Adverse Working Conditions]]
[[Environmental Damage]]
[[Job Loss]]
[[Union Opposition]]
[[Differences Among Economists]]As underdeveloped countries attempt to cut costs to gain a price advantage, many workers in these countries face low pay, substandard working conditions and even forced labor and abusive child labor. This “race to the bottom,” as critics call this drive to cut costs at the expense of human rights, is a key target of protests aimed at the WTO. Yet the WTO states it does not consider a manufacturer’s treatment of workers reason for countries to bar importation of that manufacturer's products. The WTO notes developing countries insist any attempt to include working conditions in trade agreements is meant to end their cost advantage in the world market.According to critics, the increase of corporate farms in developing countries increases pesticide and energy use, and host countries ignore costly environmental standards. The Global Development and Environmental Institute, however, finds the environmental impact mixed. In some countries, for instance, replacing native crops with coffee and cocoa trees reduces erosion. The WTO is criticized for not allowing barriers to imports based on inadequate environmental standards in countries where goods are produced. Yet the WTO points to its ruling in the 1990s allowing a U.S. ban on shrimp imports because the fishing methods threatened endangered sea turtles outside U.S. borders. The extent to which environmental standards should be considered in free trade is an ongoing debate within the WTO.
Related Reading: Free Trade Vs. ProtectionismFree trade agreements draw protests from the U.S. public due to feared job loss to foreign countries with cheaper labor. Yet proponents of free trade say new agreements improve the economy on all sides. There is no clear picture of whether free trade significantly affects U.S. employment levels, given all the economic forces that affect job rates. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues free trade deals with countries like Korea and Colombia aren’t “job creation measures.” Proponents of free trade contend that even if the economies of developing nations improve under free trade, those economies are still too small to have any real effect on the U.S. economy and job market.Unions have strongly criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico and Canada as critically harmful to workers and the U.S. economy. The AFL-CIO argues NAFTA has harmed consumers and workers in all three countries, contributing to a loss of jobs and drop in income while strengthening the clout of multinational corporations. The unions contend that the increased capital mobility facilitated by free trade has hurt the environment and weakened government regulation.The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in New York, reports that many economists agree NAFTA has caused some overall improvement in U.S. jobs, but with painful side effects. Free trade can cause turbulence in sectors of a domestic economy, such as long-established manufacturing segments already vulnerable to global competition. According to Edward Alden, a senior fellow at CFR, wages have not kept pace with productivity of labor, and income inequality has increased--trends hastened to some extent by free trade.
[[Initial Reaction:]]
[[Analysis and Interpretation: ]]
[[Consideration of Cultural Context:]]
[[Expression of Aesthetic Judgment:]]
a) Overall I thought the dance was a huge success. The dance itself was executed to perfection but more importantly the concept, creativity and symbolism was terrific. It’s dances like these that inspire others to come up with meaningful dances themselves. These dances shape the world of dance and reminds everyone how powerful wordless art is.
b) The only thing I could see improving is, when the dancers break out of the frame, I would have liked to see them take over all the space on the stage and move around more
c) Watching this dance reminded me that the concept of a dance doesn’t need to be 100% apparent. It’s nice to give the audience a little bit of freedom to interpret the dance the way that makes it most meaningful to them. As a result of this, the dance will have a greater, lasting impact on their heart and mind. I also realized the power of instrumental music and how words are not necessary and sometimes unwanted. I think the dance would not have been pulled off if the dancers had used a lyrical song.
Small angular movements, stayed stationary in the beginning, lots of suspension in their movements, “togetherness”, music is saddening, movements are sharp but fluid (meaningful! The dancers move with purpose!), dancers move with purpose, “looking for something”→ a window of time perhaps? , 2 dancers (1 boy/1 girl), picture frame-like prop, prop represents a different dimension, picture coming to life? , emotional connection between the 2 dancers, presence of love is subtle (but there!), intertwining, LOTS of abstract lifts, lengthy dance, repetitive movements, prop→ suspended, unhooked 1 side, then the other, allowed them to move horizontally through the frame; 1 light→ grew brighter throughout the dance, constant build throughout the piece[[a]]
[[b]]
[[c]]
[[d]]
[[e]]
[[f]][[a)]]
[[b)]]
[[c)]]Double-click this passage to edit it.Social/political/historical events that involve
• Segregation or division (Apartheid)
• War (the story behind a victim of war)
• Cancer (similar to the story I shared earlier)
• Marriage
• The loss of a loved oneOccupation, loss, death, illness, exclusion, achievement, failureI think this dance is so timeless, it allows you to look at many different situations from many different lenses, including the lens of time. It is up to the audience how they choose to interpret the specific situation.Elements/Principles:
Body→ torso (contractions and torsion), legs (suspended)
Action→ “hit and suspend”, stretch, bend, twist, turn, rise, fall, swing, rock, tip, slide, walk, hop, run, jump, leap, roll, crawl, chainé turns
Space →
Size: small and narrow→ wide and big
Level: High / medium / low
Place: on the spot (personal space in the beginning), through the space (and the frame) upstage/downstage
Direction: forward/backward sideways diagonal right/left
Orientation: facing (360 degrees)
Pathway: curved/straight, zigzag, random
Relationships: in front, beside, behind, over, under, intertwined, alone, connected, near, in proximity to frame
Time→ free rhythm; breath, open score, sensed time, cued, etc.
Energy/Dynamics→
Attack:
sharp/smooth sudden/sustained
Weight:
Strength: push, horizontal, impacted
Lightness: resist the down, initiate up
Resiliency: rebound, even up and down
Flow:
free, bound balanced neutral
Quality:
flowing tight loose sharp swinging swaying suspended collapsed smooth Precisely what they were trying to communicate: “Behind every picture or painting there is a story, memory, concept or a free abstract idea...
Choreographic duet "Framed" presents the image that becomes alive.
From the outside the picture looks nice, calm in harmony, but there is also struggle and tries of reaching outside of the square frame.
There is a deeper meaning to the presented form.
We all live in a society, a system of rules, bureaucracy, traditions, education is it possible to step out of this system?
Or is the frame a sort off a comfort zone and we are just afraid of stepping out of it and breath in the live with full lungs.”
I think they created this dance to inspire people to not just “go through the motions” of life, but live by moments. The dance tells us there’s more to life-more to every story- than what may appear. Yes, both the ideas and the theme communicate what I believe and have experienced. There is a student at the university who everyone ‘pictured’ as quiet and depressed. What people didn’t know is that she has cancer. She was very comfortable with people not knowing about her illness. Unfortunately a few weeks ago, word got out that she was living with cancer. As a result, she was forced out of her “frame of comfort” and into the light where people began to sympathize and treat her differently. This is a classic example of how everyone has his or her own story beyond the cover (or exterior persona). The music compliments the dance perfectly. The violin provides a background for long fluid movements and the piano inflections allow for sharp accents in the choreography. The costuming is also perfect because it’s simplistic. I appreciate how the male dancer’s shirt has an abstract design to match the dance. The picture frame prop is “the icing on the cake!”. It is the perfect symbol to represent the “picture of society”. I also like how the frame is unhooked one side at a time, allowing the dancers more artistic freedom.In my opinion the dancers were definitely trained. Their level of technique, performance and quality of movement was phenomenal. All of their lines were completed and movements were never cut off, toes were pointed, and their ability to extend and suspend was flawless. Henri Fantin-Latour was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour in Grenoble, Isère on January 14th, 1836. His father, Theodore Fantin-Latour was a French portrait painter and a drawing teacher, his mother was Russian. As a young boy, Henri received drawing lessons from his father, seeing as he was an artist himself. His father later became an inspiration for his chosen career path. In 1841, his family moved to Paris.
Henri attended a variety art schools in France. In 1850 he entered the Ecole de Dessin, where he studied with Lecoq de Boisbaudran. Lecoq was known for his innovative method, which emphasized memorization. His students were instructed to visit the Louvre, where they were to carefully study a painting in order to reproduce it from memory later, in the studio. This exercise was intended to help the student to discover his own visual language. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in 1854 he devoted much time to copying the works of the old masters in the Musée du Louvre.
Henri met Degas in the Louvre in 1855, Manet in 1857, Berthe Morisot in 1858 and in 1859 Henri Fantin-Latour became friends with Whistler. That very year, Whistler invited Henri to visit London, where through Alphonse Legros and the amateur engraver Edwin Edwards he became associated with the artistic milieu of the English capital. In 1864, Henri was exhibited at the Royal Academy. In London Fantin was especially popular for his flower pieces.
Fantin-Latour was friends with many artists who were shifting to impressionism, including Whistler and Manet. Against the new trend, Fantin’s work remained conservative. He rejected their theories and never took part in their exhibitions. Fantin was best known for his flower paintings, still-lifes and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. In addition to his realistic paintings, Fantin-Latour created imaginative lithographs inspired by the music of some of the great classical composers. Fantin's many lithographs and paintings inspired by their imaginative themes reveal his romantic passion for Wagner, Berlioz and Schumann. These works strongly influenced later symbolist painters, such as Odilon Redon. His work also strongly influenced the symbolist movement of the late 19th Century.
In 1875, at age 39 Henri Fantin-Latour married a fellow painter, Victoria Dubourg. After they married he spent his summers on the country estate of his wife's family at Buré, Orne in Lower Normandy. It was here that he died of lyme disease on August 25th, 1904. He was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France.
There are currently sixty-one museums, galleries and schools that hold works by Henri, including Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University Art Museums, Honolulu Museum of Art, Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, Netherlands), Manchester City Art Gallery (UK), Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Canada and Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam).
Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors of all time. Eighteen years after Fantin-Latour passed, Marcel mentions Henri Fantin-Latour in his most famous book, ‘In Search of Lost Time’. In the book, Marcel compliments Henri’s flower paintings. Marcel admits that he is quite fond of Henri’s work.
We continue to this day and age to recognize Henri’s work. The painting "A basket of roses" was used as the cover of New Order's album Power, Corruption & Lies by Peter Saville in 1983. Henri’s first major UK gallery exhibition in 40 years took place at the Bowes Museum in April 2011. People will forever cherish Henri’s work.
A Compare and Contrast of The Boy Who Left Home to Get the Shivers by Edwardes, M and Taylor, E.
The Boy Who Left Home to Get the Shivers is a telling fable of fear, bravery and confidence. The Boy Who Left Home to Get the Shivers reading and movie are different as the book leaves room for imagination and has a slightly varying story line, while The Boy Who Left Home to Get the Shivers movie incorporates enriching details including the protagonist escaping due to luck.
In some aspects readings that lack immense details can be exciting for a reader because the reader has the freedom to tailor details to their personal preference. The book does not inform the reader as to what characters look like or set much of a visual illustration of the environment in which the story is set. Although this allows the audience to use their imagination, in this case it can be difficult because the story is super-natural and fictional. A reader can’t relate the ghosts of the castle to a visual of a ghost they’ve seen in real life. In that sense, the movie is helpful in cementing the storyline and pulling the reader in beyond the third wall, making the story feel a little more real.
Both the book and movie have slightly varying story lines. The fear of bad omens is significantly more apparent in the movie. The level of detail as well as the scripts between both the movie and book also vary. An example of a difference in storylines is the end result of how the boy does indeed contract the shivers. In the book it is result of illness as opposed to the movie in which it is fear of the future instilled by his wife. One of the most prominent differences in the story line is that in the movie, the protagonist escapes the castle due to sheer luck as opposed to the reading in which he escapes due to wit and pure lack of fear. Examples of this would be the swinging axe he dodged because of a sneeze.
Overall, despite the positive and negative differentiations between both the reading and movie, the movie reigns superior. The movie provides fulfilling details and imagery vital for the audience to dive into the storyline. The movie also incorporates an improved storyline. This is likely due to the fact that the movie was produced in 1984 and the story was written in 1905, almost 80 years prior. [["Armand Mattelart"]]
[["Photography"]]Armand Mattelart is a professor of information and communication science. He is the author of The Invention of Communication. I have chosen to interpret the text Introduction: Flow, Bond, Space and Measure; Epilogue: New Organic Totalities? In this text, I personally found his writing style to be both historical and philosophical. At times, it was wordy and confusing while trying to illustrate the historical significance of communication. The structure of his writing style is articulate and thought provoking. It provides a lengthy chronological account that maps out the history behind communication. Mattelart’s main thesis unveils “Each historical period and each type of society has the communicational configuration that it deserves. With different levels, whether economic, social, technical, or mental, and its different scales (local, national, regional or international), this configuration produces a hegemonic concept of communication. ” Mattelart determines that “communication is organized around four parallel histories with numerous junctions and crossing pathways.” Key concepts include 1) “the domestication of flows and of society and movement” , 2) “the issue of the place occupied by communication in the conception and creation of a universal social bond” , 3) history interested in space and lastly, 4) the unveiling of the individual who can be calculated, “man-as-measure.” Mattelart points out that the perception of communication needs to follow a different historical schedule than our present day ideal that mass media is the primary form of communication. He suggests that communication needs to be understood from a wider lens, “…encompassing the multiple circuits of exchange and circulation of goods, people, and messages.” His understanding is seen from the angle of life science, circulation of goods, industry and travel as opposed to a more contemporary vision on language itself, communication through art and modern day mass media.
Throughout his explanation of his four historical pillars he admits to dispel the belief that modern day communication revolves around media. Mattelart uses ‘Flow’ to describe mobility. Flow is the desire to have information mobile across different continents. ***ability to FaceTime someone across the world instantaneously. Mattelart is able to define connections as the second pillar, ‘Bonds’. The printing press is a great example to follow Mattelart’s definition as it allows us to replicate mass text for purpose of distribution as opposed to illuminated texts. Language became solidified by the capability to reproduce mass text as it laid a framework for language and it was easily accessible. The third pillar, ‘Space’, stands true to the modern definition. Mattelart knew space was a crucial step in communication. Throughout history we have been able to minimize space through the inventions of cars and trains. These inventions shrunk space and time. It allowed the mobility of letters, as well as people easier. The final pillar of measure is slightly more complex than the others. Measure poses the question “how does communication invent norms and why do we have a need to fit these norms.” Communication created comparison and the invention of cinema played a vital role in this platform. Mattelart explained his four pillars using facts of the past and theories of historical context over the centuries. Although written in 1996, Mattelart wrote a timeless piece using the true beginnings of ‘modern communication’ making the significance of his theories forever relevant. His theories have contributed to the history of communication by providing historical dissection that is both applicable and pertinent. “The reappropriation of this machinelike world is all the more crucial in that “communication” is on the verge of becoming in our societies, a fetishistic object of speculation for demagogues and demiurges. Here is yet another reason to enable communication to escape this amnesiac universe by breathing into it a dose of history, so as to imagine differently.” Armand’s text is relevant to our study of communication because it raises the question that communication is perhaps not confined to the way we see it only in present day.
The text is pertinent to the study of communication because Mattelart provides theoretical knowledge that centres around the notion that communication itself is a system of “thought, power and a mode of government.” Currently, we are as a society, quite consumed and view our mode of communication through social media necessary and continuous, but in fact to some degree it can be seen as speechless communication. We must then turn to measure, how this has become the new norm – why do we feel the pressure to conform to this “norm”? Mattelart insights, from the beginning of time, communication has been the way in which we organize society. “Almost all animals communicate among themselves. Communication thus appears as a very general phenomenon of the living world. It forms the “cement” of the social bond: the more the means of communication are precise and rigorous, the better society will perform.” I now am in question over my view on speechless communicating. This ‘machinelike world’ has made way for new means of communication: texting, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, FaceTiming, Twitter – these are all “more means of communication”. According to Mattelart, society should “perform better” but he doesn’t take into consideration the eminence of communication – what happened to quality over quantity? I can understand how this instantaneous connection to people’s personal lives can bring communities together, social circles become smaller and perhaps what was once six degrees of separation is now five. We are doing what Mattelart knew us to do – we are shrinking space and time, creating new measures, creating fluidity of information, making more connections and redefining the limitations of place. But, there are unforeseen flaws that need to be taken into consideration. Not only is the quality of communication lessened, it sets a new norm. Abbreviations, memes and emojiis are stealing the spotlight from the poetry of words; we are creating limitations (to 114 characters). We have feared that with these new means of communication, our traditional methods might one day become extinct. There’s no going back. Mattelart tells us “These constantly expanding means of communication are indispensable for the maintenance of equilibrium and harmony in the human group. They ensure the unity of mankind.” What I know to be true is that I feel slightly conflicted on how much my communication exists in the social media world. My obsession with current day communication outlets is overused, glorified and the content - sensationalized. While it integrates my friends, family and society as a whole, it is too valued. I rely on the audio/visual taking away from me the ability to communicate face to face in real time with words far too often. There is more miscommunication when you’re connecting through social media because you can’t control how the other person will perceive it. It is clear that it has not been used in a way that it was originally intended to be. To some degree, it’s taken over and sometimes being misused and overused. Too much of a good thing can do the opposite.
A Picture Perfect Life
Humanity, argues Susan Sontag in "In Plato's Cave" in her collection of essays "On Photography", is still in Plato's cave. Photography changes are conditions of imprisonment and create a kind of "ethics of vision" and the feeling that we can contain the whole world in our heads.
Collecting photographs, Sontag Argues, is in a sense collecting to world. Photographs are artefacts, which create and condense the environment that we perceive to be modern. She argues that photographing something is gaining ownership of it and creating a kind of, knowledge-like, relation to the world. Photography creates a miniature representation of parts (always just parts) of the visible world that anyone can obtain as his own. Photographs are a kind of proof, a testimony, and for this reason they are so important for bureaucracy and are an instrument of control with the capacity to convict and equate.
But Photography for Sontag is always an interpretation of the world and this interpretation, be it on the side of the photographer or the person viewing the photograph, is always ruled by conventions, ideology and the zeitgeist. Photographers always, inevitably, impose their own preferences on their product merely by choosing where they point their camera and how they point it.
Sontag says the man has developed dependence on photography for the sake of the mere ability to experience something that has meaning. By converting the experience into an image photography gives shape, and time, to the transient experience. In other words, we need the camera in order to realize and substantiate our experiences.
A photograph is an event, which lingers to, in principal, eternity. It is a way of participating in an event without being a part of it. Sontag sees the camera and a kind of sublimated weapon, and the act of photographing as symbolic shooting, or even raping. Sontag compare photography with rape because in photography we see people in a manner unavailable to themselves and we gain knowledge of them which can never be theirs, and thus photography reifies people into objects which can be subjected to symbolic ownership.
Photography for Sontag is also a form of nostalgia, an attempt to connect with a passing reality and to gain custody of it. Photography grant meaning to the moment, and as Sontag argues, a photographed moment is a privileged moment which was chosen for cultural reasons. Photography turns a moment into an event, because an event is something that is worth photographing, but it ideology, which decides what's worth the film. But though photography captures a moment and gives it meaning, its power is not constant. Repetition of images, be it horror or pornography, takes the edge off their affective capacities and the event becomes less real.
In concluding "In Plato's Cave" Sontag notes how photography separates history into unrelated fractures, a collection of anecdotes. But we are now all addicted to approving and ratifying reality through photography. Today, everything exists in order to be photographed.
[["Dropping the Atomic Bombs on Japan: An Act of Utmost Compassion"]]It’s 1945 and Nazi Germany has surrendered; World War II is coming to an end and the Manhattan Project has completed its goal- to create the world’s first atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project was successfully carried out in extreme secrecy. The project had nearly 40 laboratories and factories, which employed approximately 200,000 people. Among these employees were some of the greatest scientists that have ever lived. Included in this team were Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, J. Robert Openheimer, and Harold Urey. The flight team that would deliver and drop the bomb would be the Enola Gay. On August 6th, 1945 the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and on August 9th the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Tens of thousands were killed and yet dropping these bombs were not only justified and very useful, but were considered to be “an act of utmost compassion”. With the dropping of the bombs the war came to an end sooner and spared more lives. It also gave the United States an advantage in post-war negotiations and it illustrated to the world the dangers and consequences of nuclear warfare.
In 1946, the Manhattan Engineer District published a study that concluded that 66,000 people were killed at Hiroshima out of a population of 255,000. Of that number, 45,000 died on the first day and 19,000 during the next four months. On top of that, almost 1,000 survivors were estimated to die from radiation-induced cancers and leukemia in the next decade. In Nagasaki just under 70,000 were killed. The alternative option to force Japan to surrender was an 80 day ground invasion of mainland Japan by the American and Canadian forces, which would have killed up to 100 million Japanese citizens. American leaders felt that the atomic bombs were the most effective method of ending the war with minimal Japanese and American fatalities. It was said “One is equally dead whether you are killed by a bullet or an atomic bomb, approximately 100 million people killed by bullets, one at a time, over months, is much worse than about 200,000 people killed in a flash of a second by atomic bombs.” It was also planned that the two targeted cities would have been firebombed away anyway.
Another reason the United States deployed the bombs was to impress the Soviet Union with the their military strength. This would give the United States the upper hand in post-war diplomatic relations. At the Tehran Conference, November 1943, Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan once Nazi Germany was defeated. The invasion began on August 9, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 9th. The use of atomic bombs made the Soviet Union feel threatened that the United States would use the Atomic bomb to control the rest of the world.
The atomic bombs were the first practice of nuclear weapons in war. The use of these bombs clearly showed the world just how deadly nuclear warfare can be. Only a few years after the ‘A-Bombs’ were dropped, professors, scientists, government officials and world organizations began researching the outcomes of what would happen if the world were to engage in a nuclear war. The U.S. Congress's Office of Technology (OTA) published The Effects of War in 1979, which predicted the horrendous effects of a nuclear strike between the Soviet Union and the United States. The results were horrendous. A full-scale nuclear war refers to an all-out nuclear attack designed to completely destroy the target country. That targeted country would not be able to maintain the conflict, as their militaries would be annihilated, their industries devastated, and their populations almost completely wiped out. The most extreme case examined by the OTA was a full-scale nuclear war. Immediate deaths in the United States could range from 70 million to 160 million (35 to 80 percent of the population) . Many more would die from injuries. OTA predicted that cancer-related deaths and psychological trauma would lead to an increase in deaths unprecedented in the other cases. Although the Soviet Union no longer exists, the threat of a nuclear war still lingers. It has also been examined that if a full-scale nuclear war was to break out, enough smoke would be produced and released into the atmosphere that our planet would experience a nuclear winter. Because of the use of the Atomic Bombs the world is now fully aware of the destruction nuclear weapons are capable of and the devastating consequences.
It is clear that the use of Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were most effective in ending the war. As a result it was considered that the United States displayed an act of utmost compassion by choosing this method of attack that ultimately in the end prevented an even greater Japanese death toll. The bombs were also justified because it exhibited to Japan and the Soviet Union that the United States was in no way to be taken as anything less than serious. It gave the United States the upper hand in post-war diplomatic relations. Lastly the bombs were useful because they opened a door to new research and discoveries about nuclear warfare.
A Testament of Faith
A Historical/Biographical Essay on A Complicated Kindness
By: Miriam Toews
The resemblance between the upbringing of authour, Miriam Toews and her main character in A Complicated Kindness, is remarkably similar. Miriam Toews was born in Steinbach, Manitoba coincidently only a few miles away from East Village, Manitoba, where the novel, A Complicated Kindness, takes place. Miriam made East Village unmistakably similar to her hometown so that she could share her story and thoughts about her strict religious upbringing. In the Mennonite villages they grew up in you must do, say, and act as you’re told, or be excommunicated (regardless of age). Nomi, like Toews, was terrified of growing up in a “one-horse, behind the times town”(Toews pg.34), where she already knew how her life would end up. Both females were “already anticipating failure” (pg. 2) ready to take their place on “the assembly line of death”(pg. 2). The town both Miriam and Toews grew up in is somewhat like a pioneer town that schools and tourist visit. In fact, tourists come from far and wide to see the people of East Village live as they do. Tourists would gather at the crosswalk to watch and observe the Mennonites at work. “The crosswalk was a new concept in town. It was feared and loathed.”(pg. 37) There are also many places where the teenager’s hang out, to be teenagers, away from all of the watchful, judgmental eyes. These places are described in great detail and are significant pieces of the novel’s setting. “I met Travis five months ago at a New Year’s Eve party at Suicide Hill. Good Mennonites don’t technically celebrate the arrival of yet another year of being imprisoned in this world. It’s a frustrating night for them. But we weren’t good Mennonites.” (pg.29) Like Nomi, Toews “would drink, drug herself, and just go into her fantasy world to get the feeling of being in a perfect family” (pg. 76) Toews revealed that when Naomi travels to the outer, less inhabited parts of town to escape, relax, smoke a joint and smoke her sweet caps, it is her way of reminiscing about her teenage rebellion. Miriam claimed in an interview in 2004 that, like Nomi, she used to “hangout at the old lagoon behind the sewage plant, the dump, the “blue field”, Suicide Hill, and many other places that are essential to the novel’s setting”(Toews, Miriam. Personal interview. 4th July 2004.) This novel would not be as powerful, without it’s detailed setting description.
Miriam enriches the novel with the deep understanding and connection to her characters. Growing up, Miriam experienced many of the same battles Nomi is faced with throughout the novel. This coming of age novel reflects on the struggles of being a teenager growing up in a small, oppressive town while dealing with normal teenage struggles like drugs, sex, love, being accepted, boyfriends and figuring herself out as a person. The Mennonites’ world is described with lots of confusion. Rules, boundaries and explanations are either not clear, or do not exist, as Meno Simons (who invented the religion, and who Nomi speaks of (and curses) regularly throughout the novel,) “was not one for explanations” (Toews pg. 68). It’s fascinating because at the end of the novel Nomi still hasn’t figure Meno Simons out. “I thought about Menno Simons and what kind of childhood he must have had to want to lead people into a barren place to wait out the Rapture and block out the world and make them really believe that looking straight through a person like she wasn’t there, a person they’d loved like crazy all their lives, was the right thing to do.” (pg. 319) This is important to note because like Miriam Toews, even in the end she doesn’t fully understand the religion. It shows connection to speculative fiction in the sense that both girls know the world they’re living in is imperfect. They believe there is a part to their religion that is unjust and hypocritical. Both Nomi and Toews were conflicted and wondered if is “wrong to trust in a beautiful lie even if it helps you get through life.”(pg. 225)
Other than Miriam herself, the personalities of the characters in the novel do not mirror those of her actual relationships. The only outer connection was to Lids, her terminally ill friend; she too is not based off a fictional being. Despite the lack of non-fictional characters, Miriam does make many references to events that occurred in her life. The most prominent one would be the suicide of her father. “Having to choose between the church and my mother would kill my father,” (pg. 322) Like Nomi, Miriam was very loyal to her father and this relationship is mirrored throughout the novel between Nomi and her father.
In her teenage years Miriam claims she too was a rebellious teenager. Like Nomi she wanted out and nothing to do with the Mennonite faith. Once Miriam left her village she was hit with a moment of clarity, and she finally realized it wasn’t all awful, she just needed balance. She recreated this moment when Nomi left her village: “I closed my eyes and that’s when the odd thing happened. I started to see things in my town clearly, the pits, the fire on the water… the picnic table at Sunset Diner, and Sheridan Klippenstein and everything, everything in town, the whole of East Village, and it didn’t seem so awful to me any more in that instant that I knew I’d probably never see it again except for every time I closed my eyes. (p. 319)
Overall, the novel is deeply related to the authour’s life. As a result, of Miriam’s ability to make personal connections to her characters and their emotions, she better illustrate an accurate image of the village and what it means to be a Mennonite.
[[PART I]]
[[PART II]]Extravert, Authentic Orange, ENFP, “Campaigner”, laissez-faire, a 7 on the spectrum... but what does it all mean? Luckily in my research of personality tests, all of my responses had common denominators and cross-over results.These results were confirmed by my own self-awareness of my personality, in turn providing personal validity of the tests for myself.
A good leader must know their management style to be a truly optimal leader. By understanding your leadership style, you gather a deeper understanding of your strengths and weaknesses - something that essential for personal improvement and problem resolution.
My management style is primarily democratic (more so than autocratic and laissez-faire). I have experienced an autocratic quality in myself in 3 scenarios: when decisions need to be made, when the decision benefits the greater majority and when I have personal ethical conflict with the decisions at hand. I think adaptability is one of my greatest strengths and in that I can read a scenario and determine what leadership style the situation requires. For example, I am a camp counsellor every summer at Camp Crossroads. When managing children and young adults I find it’s best to have more of an autocratic approach. I find I earn more respect from children when maintaining a fun and bubbly personality while also having a definite schedule and control over decision making.
Furthermore, I believe that my management style complements my leadership style. I have been involved in leadership positions since elementary school. I was the student parliament prime minister in my senior year of high school, and I continue to seek leadership opportunities now. I consider my leadership style to be transformational. The reason why I believe that this leadership style best represents me is because I have a high degree of emotional intelligence as evidenced by the emotional intelligence assessment from class. I am able to communicate well with the people, and I lead with the utmost integrity. I feel fully comfortable sharing and working towards my visions, and setting goals that will get my team and I there. I truly enjoy being in a leadership role, because it allows me to practice my communication skills and I believe that I can confidently lead a team with authenticity and integrity.
In the Personality Dimensions Workshop it was revealed that I am a ‘Resourceful Orange’. Of the four temperaments, “the Orange temperament is probably the one that stands out the most” (quote from Personality Dimensions Inc.) People with this temperament tend to be spontaneous, but they are also able to come to a conclusions faster than people with other temperaments. The symbol for Orange is the exclamation point reflecting their high energy, spontaneity and excitement - and that most definitely reflects me - high energy and spontaneous! Something that stuck with me is that I was told “Oranges like to have impact on people. They want recognition for how well they perform which can be very graceful and impressive.” While I see it as both a positive and a negative, this could not reign more true. I am impact driven and I don’t enjoy being a forgotten face. I am always one to go above and beyond (and often times it is too much) but it has set me aside from the rest of the crowd many times.
When it comes to stress and conflict resolution, my temperament tends to play a big role in the way that things are dealt with. People that fall under the resourceful orange temperament perform well under pressure. A perfect example of this occured last summer. I watched a boy fall out of a window, 2 stories down, onto a dock below. The boy fell on his neck. Nearly everyone stood still, but the resourceful orange in me sprung to life. I ran down the stairs, delegating adults to call 9-1-1 and grab towels. Meanwhile, I checked the boys vitals. This ability to perform under pressure is most definitely indicative of my authentic orange tendencies. I thrive in high pressure situations that might put too much on stress on people with other temperaments.
I despise conflict in a working atmosphere and I’m a strong believer in “teamwork makes the dream work”. What I’ve gathered about myself is that I am extremely empathetic and always approach conflicts with an open mind. I believe in fully placing yourself into somebody else’s shoes before judging someone’s opinion or actions. One of my most important beliefs is seeking to understand before seeking to counter-argue. I do my best to live by that mauntra. As for conflicts that don’t involve me, but are affecting the performance of a team I am apart of, I take on the role of a mediator. I listen to both sides of the conflict and suggest a decision that I believe would benefit both parties.
When it comes to time management, I am a strong believer in delegation but I hardly ever exercise it and that is something I am working to improve on. I also heavily rely on my calendar. I am someone who remembers by writing, so I make sure to write everything in my agenda (otherwise it doesn’t happen). I’m someone who believes in transactional management. If I were a manager I would want to give my employees constructive criticism and give them positive affirmation. In the case of my dad, he’s a man of few words but he’s incredibly honest, intentional and authentic. I know that when he commends me it is most earned and when he slaps me on the wrists’ it feels so much worse. I believe that those transactional qualities makes for an effective leader.
This assignment was a great form of reflection on all that I’ve learned throughout my self research and the discovery opportunities the course provided me. Through this I discovered that it is okay to be spontaneous and impact driven.It may sound too optimistic, but I’ve always wanted to be an approachable yet respected manager. I want to be the manager that always knows the right and ethical call to make; the manager who knows how to connect with all their employees. I also admire managers that possess a lot of patience, something I’m worried I may need more of. In addition, the type of manager that I want to be is one that is able to comfortable give feedback and criticism to their team members. To me, a good leader is one that is confident enough in their ability to lead that they are able to aid in the development of the people they are leading. Feedback is crucial for personal development, and a good leader is able to provide that feedback without hesitation. I’ve worked for the managers that the employees say dreadful things about, and I want to be able to learn from their mistakes and the role models around me in order to be the best leader and manager I can.
While I’ve never had a boss I strive to be like, I have had fellow coworkers go above and beyond their duties; showing new hires the tips and tricks, making everyone feel welcome when they come to work, and even inviting conversation outside of work hours (which I realize can also be a bad thing, but I admire the idea of getting to know the people you work with beyond a professional level if you so choose - at least that’s an opportunity available). I respect these people because they’re authentic blues - people who value relationships, and being someone who believes that God made us for each other, those relationships are critical to personal/company growth and the enjoyment of life.
My main goal for 2018 in concern to my management/leadership style is to have more patience. It has been said that “great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance” (Samuel Jackson). I think many of my weaknesses are tied into my issue of lack of patience. I struggle in the fight between immediate gratification and delayed gratification. I believe changing my mind set from ‘delayed gratification’ to ‘long-term success’ will help remind me of the hopeful good-fortunes to come.
My favourite quality in myself is my versatility and capability to be well-rounded. I believe that there are very few situations someone could place me in and I would feel uncomfortable. I possess confidence, strong communication skills, and a very broad (yet very random) set of skills that make transitions more seamless. As I get older, I don’t want to get lost in what’s comfortable. I want to constantly be expanding my comfort level and continuing to explore possibilities in me that I have yet to explore now. By doing this I stay well-rounded, capable of grasping any opportunity that comes my way.
A very minor example of this would be proven in analyzing who in which I spend my time with. Between socializing with friends, being a coordinator for the leaders of Orientation, nannying children, attending church, being the social convenur for my university or communicating with business professionals, I practice different styles of communication weekly, meeting new personalities and playing different leadership roles. Recognizing these strengths and weaknesses are crucial to being a strong and effective leader. By knowing your strengths, you know what you’re bringing to a team. By knowing your weaknesses, you know where you need to improve and it is when it comes to your weaknesses that you must dig the deepest.Summary of Danesi Chapter Five - Texts
Chapter five of Danesi’s book “The Quest for Meaning” focuses on addressing large signs, also known as texts; examples of texts include equations, books, music, and conversation. According to Danesi, texts communicate a message or meaning through the use of lots of small signifiers. When we process small signifiers one by one (like we do when we read words and sentences in a novel to understand the whole story), we process linearly or discursively. When we process small signifiers all at once (as we do when we analyze the colours, lines, and texture of a painting as a whole), the process is holistic or presentational. There may be some texts, such as comics, that make use of both processes to communicate their overall meaning.
Textuality is a term referring to how we create and comprehend textual messages. Subtextuality and intertextuality are two ways in which texts can communicate meaning through connotation. Subtextuality, such as sarcasm, inserts an additional meaning to the text without explicit reference to it. Intertextuality, on the other hand, draws connections to other external texts. Some other important concepts surrounding textuality are paratextuality, which includes items associated with the text that are not the text, such as epilogues, footnotes, or a title plate under a painting. Architextuality sets out a textual prototype, such as the typical plot arch we expect to see when reading a story. Hypotextuality is a text based on another text, but has made changes to it, such as with an SNL spoof. Lastly, Hypertextuality is a text within a text that helps provide further explanation, such as a flashback in a TV show, elucidating a present moment.
When semiotics was first beginning, components of texts were broken down into an addresser who conveys a message, the message itself, and addressee whom the message is directed towards, a context, a mode of contact between the addresser and addressee (such as Facebook message or in person), and a code (such as sign language or English). The communicative functions texts include emotive (something the addresser wants to convey), conative (the effect the message has or is meant to have), referential (conveying information), poetic (meaning through poetic or iconic phrasing), phatic (establishing social relations), and metalingual (when the message refers to the code that’s being used). Today semiotics has grown to focus more on how texts interact with each other and affect culture. Many texts are a reflection of human history, thought, and progress, and as such, musicals, narratives, and paintings help to build up our understanding of culture.
Today a commonly studied text is the narrative, as many semioticians believe they share the same building blocks, also called actants, as everyday discourse and dialogue. Of particular interest is the myth, as their structure and content are often alluded to or mimicked in texts today. Myths help us to explain things (eg. relating Aphrodite to beauty and love), and they help us understand opposition like love versus hate, good versus evil, and God versus the devil.
Another important type of text is the visual text. Visual texts use points, lines, and shapes to communicate their message. Colour, value, and texture each further add to these texts through the associations the viewer has with them (which are often cultural). We use visual texts in everything from flags, to charts, to diagrams, to paintings. They are particularly helpful in communicating and explaining ideas and concepts.
Some interesting questions to consider in regards to texts are: How much sway do authors have over the interpretation of their work? What are common myths we use today? What visual texts are important to your culture?
[[Chapter 2]] [[Chapter 2]] [[Chapter 2]][[Chapter 2]] Double-click this passage to edit it.[[Which Celebrity Are You?]]HELLO. MY NAME IS MADAME FLORENCE. I HAVE A GIFT. TODAY I WILL UNCOVER YOUR SPIRITUAL CELEBRITY MATCH...
LET US BEGIN...
I am a [[cat person]]
I am a [[dog person]]
I am a [[fish person]]
I am a [[no pet person]]In an ideal world... I would have
[[1 cat]]
[[2 cats]]
[[3+ cats]]In an ideal world... I would have
[[1 dog]]
[[2 dogs]]
[[3+ dogs]]In an ideal world... I would have
[[1 fish]]
[[2 fish]]
[[10+ fish]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your favourite kind of fish is a:
[[gold fish]]
[[siamese fighting fish]]
[[starfish]]Your favourite kind of fish is a:
[[gold fish]]
[[siamese fighting fish]]
[[starfish]]Your favourite kind of fish is a:
[[gold fish]]
[[siamese fighting fish]]
[[starfish]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]Your favourite kind of dog is a:
[[golden retreiver]]
[[pug]]
[[poodle]]Your favourite kind of dog is a:
[[golden retreiver]]
[[pug]]
[[poodle]]Your favourite kind of dog is a:
[[golden retreiver]]
[[pug]]
[[poodle]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]Your favourite kind of cat is a:
[[calico cat]]
[[siamese cat]]
[[any kind of kitten!]]Your favourite kind of cat is a:
[[calico cat]]
[[siamese cat]]
[[any kind of kitten!]]Your favourite kind of cat is a:
[[calico cat]]
[[siamese cat]]
[[any kind of kitten!]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]You're on a Hollywood set. What is your job?
[[lead actor/actress]]
[[stunt double]]
[[director]]
[[cinematographer]]
[[sound crew]]As a lead, you prefer playing in:
[[action movies]]
[[romantic comedies]]
[[horror movies]]
[[melodrama]]
[[musical]]As an stunt double, you prefer playing in:
[[action movies]]
[[romantic comedies]]
[[horror movies]]
[[melodrama]]
[[musical]]As a director, you prefer directing in:
[[action movies]]
[[romantic comedies]]
[[horror movies]]
[[melodrama]]
[[musical]]As an cinematographer, you prefer working on:
[[action movies]]
[[romantic comedies]]
[[horror movies]]
[[melodrama]]
[[musical]]As part of the sound crew, you prefer working on:
[[action movies]]
[[romantic comedies]]
[[horror movies]]
[[melodrama]]
[[musical]][[Die Hard]]
[[Guardians of the Galaxy]]
[[Jurassic Park]]
[[Casino Royale]]
[[The Matrix]]Your favourite rom-com movie is:
[[Pretty Woman]]
[[When Harry Met Sally]]
[[Clueless]]
[[The Princess Bride]]
[[Forgetting Sarah Marshall]]Your favourite horror movie is:
[[The Exorcist]]
[[A Nightmare on Elm Street]]
[[Scream]]
[[Cabin in the Woods]]
[[Paranormal Activity]]
[[It]]Your favourite melodrama movie is:
[[Gone with the Wind]]
[[Wuthering Heights]]
[[Pride & Prejudice]]
[[Breakfast at Tiffany's]]
[[A Star Is Born]]Your favourite musical is:
[[Singin' in the Rain]]
[[The Sound of Music]]
[[The Wizard of Oz]]
[[Grease]]
[[La La Land]]e to edit it.What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]What's your favourite decade of music?
[[50's]]
[[60's]]
[[70's]]
[[80's]]
[[90's]]
[[00's]]
[[10's]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 50's, I would pick:
[[Jailhouse Rock]]
[[Don't Be Cruel]]
[[Great Balls of Fire]]
[[Peggy Sue]]
[[Tutti Frutti]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 60's, I would pick:
[[(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction]]
[[Hey Jude]]
[[I'm A Believer]]
[[Good Vibrations]]
[[My Girl]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 70's, I would pick:
[[Dancing Queen]]
[[Stayin' Alive]]
[[We Are the Champions]]
[[I Will Survive]]
[[Stairway to Heaven]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 80's, I would pick:
[[Take On Me]]
[[Sweet Child O'Mine]]
[[Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go]]
[[Beat It]]
[[I Wanna Dance With Somebody]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 90's, I would pick:
[[Baby One More Time]]
[[Smells Like Teen Spirit]]
[[I Will Always Love You]]
[[Wonderwall]]
[[Gangsta's Paradise]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 00's, I would pick:
[[Bye Bye Bye]]
[[I Gotta Feeling]]
[[Hey Ya!]]
[[Viva La Vida]]
[[Single Ladies]]If I had to choose 1 song from the 10's, I would pick:
[[Call Me Maybe]]
[[Someone Like You]]
[[Despacito]]
[[All of Me]]
[[Uptown Funk]]Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]]Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your friends would say you are...
[[sweet & thoughtful]]
[[always honest]]
[[the crazy one]]
[[the responsible one]]
[[the stylish one]]
[[the sporty one]]
[[FUNNY BEYOND BELIEF]] Your best friend is sad, how do you cheer them up?
[[throw a surprise party]]
[[write a thoughtful letter]]
[[send flowers]]
[[invite them for dinner]]
[[make 'em laugh!]]Which TV show would you most likely watch?
[[Judge Judy]]
[[Suits]]
[[Chilling Adventures of Sabrina]]
[[This is Us]]It's Saturday night, what are your plans?
[[A rock concert]]
[[Karaoke with friends]]
[[Board game night!]]
[[Truth or dare...]]
[[Dancing the night away!]]Your friend dares you to go sky-diving with her, what is your response?
[["Absolutely not! It's dangerous!]]
[["Hmmm... I'll think about it"]]
[["What would your mother say?"]]
[["As long as you pay for it!"]]Who's style is most like yours?
[[Bruno Mars]]
[[Lady Gaga]]
[[Rachel Mcadams]]
[[Marilyn Manson]]
[[Kylie Jenner]]Would you rather...
[[play frisbee in the park]]
[[attend an NBA basketball game]]
[[play pond hockey with some friends]]
[[dance your socks off]]
or
[[hit the gym]]How would you describe your sense of humour?
[[Unintentional]]
[[Dry]]
[[Sassy]]
[[Inappropriate]]
[[Non-Existent]]YOU ARE KIM KARDASHIAN!
YOU ARE AMANDA SEYFRIED!
YOU ARE JULIA ROBERTS!YOU ARE OPRAH WINFREY!YOU ARE PHARREL!YOU ARE MADONNA!
YOU ARE DREW BARRYMORE!
YOU ARE AVRIL LAVIGNE!
YOU ARE ARIANNA GRANDE!
YOU ARE TOM BRADY!
YOU ARE DRAKE!YOU ARE MITCH MARNER!
YOU ARE DUSTY BUTTON!YOU ARE THE ROCK!
YOU ARE DANIEL RADCLIFFE!
YOU ARE BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH!
YOU ARE JENNIFER LAWRENCE!YOU ARE PETE DAVIDSON!
YOU ARE ADAM SANDLER!
YOU ARE QUEEN LATIFAH!
YOU ARE ANNE HATHAWAY!YOU ARE VICTORIA BECKHAM!YOU ARE NATALIE PORTMAN!YOU ARE RUSSEL BRAND!YOU ARE MERYL STREEP!
YOU ARE PAUL RUDD!
YOU ARE JAMES FRANCO!YOU ARE JENNIFER LOPEZ!YOU ARE COURTNEY COX!YOU ARE REESE WITHERSPOON!
YOU ARE JULIE BOWEN!YOU ARE JONAH HILL!YOU ARE ELLEN DEGENERES!