Blog #15

Four Cited for Overcoming the Odds
By Merri Rosenberg

Being a teenager seems hard enough we would think. In this article it shows us how teenagers who have come from poverty or have physical and emotional disabilities overcoming tons of odds. A 13 year old girl Jody had a spine disorder that restricts her to her wheel chair but she still goes to school every day and goes to all the dances and hangs out with her friends like any normal girl. Ailena, a senior, has to juggle her school work with her job because her mother struggled with substance abuse while she was at a young age and she had lived in a homeless shelter. Now she lives with a roommate in an apartment paying her rent and for her clothes and her school supplies. I feel that these people definitely overcame odds of their problems.

Rosenberg, Merri. "Four Cited for Overcoming the Odds." New York Times 11 Jun 2000 8 Mar 2009 .

Blog #14

The Movie: The Notebook

This movie is a tragic love story about Noah and Allie. They were separated by Allie’s mother who believed that Allie could do much better. Allie’s mother then made them leave their summer home, where Allie met Noah, so that Allie could go to school and she could get away from Noah. Noah, who was a construction worker, felt horrible that Allie’s mother made them leave so he wrote to her every day for a year. He never had any replies and eventually he gave up. While they were dating Noah had brought Allie to a old broken down house that he said he would one day buy and fix up, there he promised Allie that he would make specific accommodations for the rebuild of the house. Noah and his friend, Fin, one day heard a radio announcement looking for men to be soldiers, so they end up going to war. During a bombing Fin dies while Noah is with. While Noah was at war Allie was a nurse for the wounded soldiers. When she took care of them she would think to herself that they were all Noah. While Allie was a nurse she met Lon, who was a rich man who was injured in the war. Her parents approved and she thought she was in love again. Lon and Allie eventually became engaged but all she could think about was Noah. In the news paper one day she sees an article about Noah; he had come back from the war and built their dream house. Allie takes a vacation and goes to visit Noah where they reconnect but she feels like she is obligated to go with Lon. After 2 days with Noah her mother comes to visit her and tells her the only reason that she thought that Allie shouldn’t be with Noah was because she had been in love with someone her father had not approved of and they had tried to run away but they were caught and were not able to be together anymore. Allie chooses Noah. Long after this Noah and Allie are in a nursing home because Allie had dementia and Noah had had multiple heart attacks. Noah and Allies kids come and visit to confront their dad about how he should give up on trying to have their mom to remember their past. Noah says that he would never leave Allies side because she is he love and life. I thought this movie was a good example of love because they seem to be truly in love.

Blog #13

Just War — or a Just War
By Jimmy Carter

This article talks about the opinion on the war in Iraq. It clarifies that a just war is only started if all other nonviolent options have been exhausted. I agree with this. Without trying to settle things civilly I don’t think you can really settle anything at all. Also Carter describes how the war in Iraq could be argued not to fit into the definition of a just war because the government didn’t try any other solutions. Also to fit the criteria the violence should be equivalent to the injury suffered. I don’t completely agree with this. I believe in the saying “Do onto others as they would do onto you” but I also believe in the saying “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. There is also debate over if we withdraw our troops from Iraq if there will be a complete democracy that will continue and if some people will feel the need to revolt against us.

Carter, Jimmy. "Just War -- or a Just War." New York Times 09 Mar 2003 8 Mar 2009
.

Blog #12

A Survival Imperative for Space colonization
By John Tierney

This article is about how a scientist who is also a teacher at Princeton has predicted how long the earth should survive and how we need to start a colony on mars in the next 46 years to be able to survive the next time something happens to the earth. The whole point of this overly long article is that with science it is weird that we have not colonized on any other worlds since it is a common thing. I don’t believe that anyone can really predict when the earth will end based on this that have supposedly happened in the past. To me this seems to be a lot of work and studying for nothing that will really help what we should be trying to figure out with our own government and the earth at this current moment.

Tierney, John. "A Survival Imperative for Space Colonization." New York Times 17 Jul 2007 8 Mar 2009 .

Blog #11

Forest Loss in Sumatra Becomes a Global Issue
By Peter Gelling

In Sumatra there are projects going on to create palm-oil plantations in the middle of forests. They are deforesting (I didn’t think this was a word) in an area where the Riau Province is currently. A local scientist says that because of the deforesting the carbon monoxide gas that is in the air is getting higher as companies cut down more and more trees to make these palm-oil plantations. Palm-oil is now being used as an alternate in gas so the demand for it is becoming greater so they continue deforest the island. The people of the Riau province used to be able to go shrimp fishing in a nearby river and would earn up to 100 dollars but ever since the deforestation has been going on the shrimp are scarce and they are lucky to earn 5 dollars. It is said that what the deforesters are doing is helping the environment but it ends up that this in Sumatra is 20% of the worlds green house. I think that it is not necessary to cut down all the trees for demand because I am sure that there are others open places that can have a factory or plantation that will be able to produce the palm-oil as well.

Gelling , Peter. "Forest Loss in Sumatra Becomes a Global Issue." New York Times 06 Dec 2007 8 Mar 2009 .

Blog #10

Parents Sue to Allow Religious Holiday Messages in Public Schools
By Emanuella Grinberg

If a young boy at school were to hand you a candy cane shaped pen with a Christmas story on it would you feel that they are offending your religion or trying to convince you to join theirs? I don’t think so but in this article it describes a lawsuit that started by a few actions by students and school officials. A boy Jonathan was this boy handing out the pens, his family thought that he should be able to do this to show his religion to others in the spirit of the schools upcoming holiday party. The pens were taken away by the school officials because it was against the district policy because they didn’t want to seem that they were supporting one religion over the others. According to the article there have been many other cases like Jonathans. I think that the lawsuit is pointless because even though we have freedom of speech it is over the fact that a kid can’t hand out a pens at school. I think that we should be able to freely express our religion but this is just an inconvenience to the school and the families’ time. Last year we almost had a lawsuit against our middle school over a logo on a t shirt that was said to be obscene but now I think it was an interesting experience but some of the people just wanted to get out of class. Overall I think that the lawsuit was not worth it but you should be able to have religious freedom of speech.

Grinberg, Emanuella. "Parents Sue to allow religious holiday messages in public schools." CNN Court TV 27 Dec 2004 4 Mar 2009 .

Blog #9

Bollywood Confidential
By Suketu Mehta

The author of this article, Suketu Mehta, is inspired his whole life by Bollywood movies. He expresses his many likes and dislikes of how Americans interpret the Bollywood movies but also includes that not only people from India have a strange liking to these movies but they have dubbed many versions of movies in different dozens of different languages for places like Spain and France. I think that from what I have heard and the Bollywood light movie we watched in class, Bride & Prejudice, that they seem to be great movies. I really like that they have singing and dancing that seems very random but also in our musicals and Broadway shows we randomly sing as well so I really can’t judge them just for that. Also I like the suspense specifically in Bride & Prejudice because they cannot kiss so I feel like I should be yelling at the screen “KISS ALREADY!”

Mehta, Suketu . "Bollywood Confidential." New York Times 14 Nov 2004 1 Mar 2009

.