Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Change-is-brewing-at-coffee-business-3591034.php
Matthew Edge, of Berne, is trying to make a change in New York politics with his "Occupy Democracy Project". The Occupy Democracy Project "...focuses on campaign finance reform and clean elections".
The group, originally named The New York Democracy Project, was started at SUNY New Paltz as a collection of students including Edge and his wife, Andrea, to "educate the public about the electoral process and how to achieve fair and balanced elections". The group wants to break up the big corporations that support politicians and can sway the way they feel on certain topics. Also, the group wanted to ensure equal public funds for any candidate that wants to run for office to level the playing field and eliminate those corporations entirely.
After college, the project was handed almost completely to Edge, as the others' priorities changed. This caused some temporary tough times for Edge and his wife. Edge needed a way to finance the project so he decided to start his own coffee business. He built his own roaster for the beans and buys all of the beans fair trade from poor and developing countries. The profits from the sales of coffee beans (at $13.00 per pound) go back to the project. Edge has a range of flavor and roasts, each named with political references such as "...Wake Up Wall Street, Clean Bean Peace Machine, Democracy Joe and...Occupy Your Cup". These names, and the project were influenced by the Occupy movements, which Edge participated in. He discovered that many of those people shared his views on politics and even gave "...the extra help he needed to keep The Occupy Democracy Project going". They helped him so much, the Edge changed the name from the New York Democracy Project to the Occupy Democracy Project.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Number 9
#9. Why do veterans deserve respect?
I think that veterans deserve respect because they have put their lives on the line to protect their country and their fellow citizens. Veterans, unlike the rest of the populace have had to leave behind their families and homes, not sure if they'll return, or necessarily when. These men and women have given so much for their country and for the protection of others, that it should be a given for them to receive respect. The fact that they are brave enough to go into a field like this alone should warrant a deep respect from those who receive the benefits of their job, such as the freedoms we have in our country or the protection from our antagonists in places like the Middle East. Veterans have seen the worst of humans and watched people they've grown close to die. Veterans deserve our respect because they've risked their lives to protect ours.
I think that veterans deserve respect because they have put their lives on the line to protect their country and their fellow citizens. Veterans, unlike the rest of the populace have had to leave behind their families and homes, not sure if they'll return, or necessarily when. These men and women have given so much for their country and for the protection of others, that it should be a given for them to receive respect. The fact that they are brave enough to go into a field like this alone should warrant a deep respect from those who receive the benefits of their job, such as the freedoms we have in our country or the protection from our antagonists in places like the Middle East. Veterans have seen the worst of humans and watched people they've grown close to die. Veterans deserve our respect because they've risked their lives to protect ours.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
What is Crippling Us?
Between Gatto and Bradbury, they both tell that society is purely using school as a way to control people. In Gatto's writing he cites other authors and draws a parallel to the Prussian system of education, "an education system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life,to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens- all in order to render the populace 'manageable'". This point is echoed in Fahrenheit 451. On page 60, Montag's captain, Beatty, is explaining how they manage to keep people in line, keep them from thinking for themselves; " You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle".
Gatto provides examples from other writers and thinkers who also trace back our system of education to Prussia. Gatto cites authors such as H.L. Mencken and James Bryant Conant. One man in particular whom Gatto quotes is Alexander Inglis. Gatto lists Inglis' six functions of our schooling system; the adjustive or adaptive function, the integrating function, the differentiating function, the selective function, and the propaedeutic function. One of the six functions that I found very interesting was the first function, adjusting or adaptive. In the explanation of the function, Gatto writes, "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgement completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things".
As for Bradbury, he uses the characters of Beatty and Clarisse to explain the society in which Montag is living. Clarisse gives Montag her view of the schooling system telling him how the students do little learning and rarely ask questions. Beatty allows for the reader for gain a better insight as to why and how this occurred. After burning a woman along with her house, Beatty visits Montag and describes the evolution of society which led to the state is in during the book. This evolution is caused mostly by the twentieth century, when everything becomes faster, including books, which were extremely shortened. This led to a decline in schooling, " School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored...Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"
Both of these images of society appear to be real, at least to me. I feel as though Inglis' six functions are an accurate depiction of the public schooling system, especially the adjusting or adaptive function because if you compare the topics that we learn in school to what we could be learning, it is confounding as to why we're stuck in a rut re-learning the same things year after year, which few people use in their lives after graduating anyway. Just ask any high schooler if their parents can help them with their home work...most likely they can't, and thetas because the topics learned in school have little to no relevance in everyday life. With Bradbury's argument, you can see the same decline in education now as Captain Beatty explained to Montag. Not that school has been shortened, but compared even thirty years ago when my parents went to school, discipline has been relaxed greatly in schools. Also, the use and mechanics of English have been consistently neglected, especially in the lower levels of education, meaning children have little to no concept of how to correctly put a sentence together, and if they can, they have no idea why, or the parts of a sentence. For spelling, a heavy reliance on technology such as spell check reduces the need to actually know how to spell words, since if you can sound to out, the computer will probably figure out what you're trying to say, and fix it. This decline in education and the use of public education to control the masses is setting society up to become similar to that of Fahrenheit 451.
Gatto provides examples from other writers and thinkers who also trace back our system of education to Prussia. Gatto cites authors such as H.L. Mencken and James Bryant Conant. One man in particular whom Gatto quotes is Alexander Inglis. Gatto lists Inglis' six functions of our schooling system; the adjustive or adaptive function, the integrating function, the differentiating function, the selective function, and the propaedeutic function. One of the six functions that I found very interesting was the first function, adjusting or adaptive. In the explanation of the function, Gatto writes, "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgement completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things".
As for Bradbury, he uses the characters of Beatty and Clarisse to explain the society in which Montag is living. Clarisse gives Montag her view of the schooling system telling him how the students do little learning and rarely ask questions. Beatty allows for the reader for gain a better insight as to why and how this occurred. After burning a woman along with her house, Beatty visits Montag and describes the evolution of society which led to the state is in during the book. This evolution is caused mostly by the twentieth century, when everything becomes faster, including books, which were extremely shortened. This led to a decline in schooling, " School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored...Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"
Both of these images of society appear to be real, at least to me. I feel as though Inglis' six functions are an accurate depiction of the public schooling system, especially the adjusting or adaptive function because if you compare the topics that we learn in school to what we could be learning, it is confounding as to why we're stuck in a rut re-learning the same things year after year, which few people use in their lives after graduating anyway. Just ask any high schooler if their parents can help them with their home work...most likely they can't, and thetas because the topics learned in school have little to no relevance in everyday life. With Bradbury's argument, you can see the same decline in education now as Captain Beatty explained to Montag. Not that school has been shortened, but compared even thirty years ago when my parents went to school, discipline has been relaxed greatly in schools. Also, the use and mechanics of English have been consistently neglected, especially in the lower levels of education, meaning children have little to no concept of how to correctly put a sentence together, and if they can, they have no idea why, or the parts of a sentence. For spelling, a heavy reliance on technology such as spell check reduces the need to actually know how to spell words, since if you can sound to out, the computer will probably figure out what you're trying to say, and fix it. This decline in education and the use of public education to control the masses is setting society up to become similar to that of Fahrenheit 451.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tried and True
http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/post/17477297690/my-28-most-tried-and-true-writing-prompts
If I were forced to spend my life in a library, a museum, or a zoo, I would pick the library. First of all, a library always has something to read, especially large libraries. A zoo, while they're fun for a day or two, never really changes. There are always the same gorillas and tigers and assorted birds and bears, but libraries are always changing as they receive new books, and while I'm a fast reader, I would probably never be able to read all of the books in a library if they were on an endless supply. Also, libraries are generally quiet (which I like), but they also can host activities for the community. Plus, while museums are fun and I love history, they don't update and change as quickly as libraries do, so like the zoo, they become boring once you've seen everything once or twice. If I really had to choose to spend the rest of my life in one of these three places, I would choose the library in a heartbeat.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
TU Tuesday- Commencement Speech
Information Texts: Literary Non-fiction - Includes the subgenres of exposition, argument, and functional text in the form of personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts (including digital sources) written for a broad audience
http://speakingfrog.com/?p=516
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/press/cost04/EducationPays2004.pdf
In his commencement speech for Carnegie Mellon, Bill Cosby began by asking the graduates why the considered themselves nerds, "I don't know why you want to accept yourselves as being that, because you have continued on where non-nerds stopped." I think that education is an extremely important part of society today. Not only because there is so much to learn, but because everyday jobs are increasing the qualifications necessary to work in that particular job. "And they quit. All the non-nerds did that-- they said I'm tired, why do I have to know this?...I think that's very, very brave, considering how many friends you lost," said Cosby on the same subject. As an American high schooler, I see a lot of my peers (especially in the few regents classes I take) that have the potential to be in advanced classes and perform better in general, but don't because they don't feel like it. I also must agree that sometimes, the classes you take and how hard you work, or the effort you put in, affects the friends you have. I have lost, or become more distant with some people because we've gone on different paths educationally.
After talking about his first big show as a comedian, Cosby offered excellent advice to the graduates, "I don't care what you do, when you are good then you bring you out." I think that this is important. I tend to second guess my abilities a lot, and it is sometimes hard for me to show these. I think that because I am a fairly shy and quiet person, particularly around people I am not comfortable with, it makes it even harder for me to show that I am good at something. Cosby offered some more advice when he said, "But you can't be proud and you can't carry it out unless you are sure of yourself and prepared." I think that getting an education is the best preparation you can receive in today's society. Education sets you up to live a better life. According to College Board's, Education Pays, in 2003 a study comparing average full-time year-round workers with a four year college degree and average full-time year-round workers with a high school diploma showed that those with a four year degree "...earned $49,900, 62 percent more than the $30,800 earned by the...worker with only a high school diploma." And the numbers continue to increase with the more education you get. An education can have a huge and lasting impact on your life.
http://speakingfrog.com/?p=516
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/press/cost04/EducationPays2004.pdf
In his commencement speech for Carnegie Mellon, Bill Cosby began by asking the graduates why the considered themselves nerds, "I don't know why you want to accept yourselves as being that, because you have continued on where non-nerds stopped." I think that education is an extremely important part of society today. Not only because there is so much to learn, but because everyday jobs are increasing the qualifications necessary to work in that particular job. "And they quit. All the non-nerds did that-- they said I'm tired, why do I have to know this?...I think that's very, very brave, considering how many friends you lost," said Cosby on the same subject. As an American high schooler, I see a lot of my peers (especially in the few regents classes I take) that have the potential to be in advanced classes and perform better in general, but don't because they don't feel like it. I also must agree that sometimes, the classes you take and how hard you work, or the effort you put in, affects the friends you have. I have lost, or become more distant with some people because we've gone on different paths educationally.
After talking about his first big show as a comedian, Cosby offered excellent advice to the graduates, "I don't care what you do, when you are good then you bring you out." I think that this is important. I tend to second guess my abilities a lot, and it is sometimes hard for me to show these. I think that because I am a fairly shy and quiet person, particularly around people I am not comfortable with, it makes it even harder for me to show that I am good at something. Cosby offered some more advice when he said, "But you can't be proud and you can't carry it out unless you are sure of yourself and prepared." I think that getting an education is the best preparation you can receive in today's society. Education sets you up to live a better life. According to College Board's, Education Pays, in 2003 a study comparing average full-time year-round workers with a four year college degree and average full-time year-round workers with a high school diploma showed that those with a four year degree "...earned $49,900, 62 percent more than the $30,800 earned by the...worker with only a high school diploma." And the numbers continue to increase with the more education you get. An education can have a huge and lasting impact on your life.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
#34 What I Spend Money On
Being a teenager that doesn't have a job, I don't really have that much money. However, when I do acquire money, I tend to spend it on the same things. First, since I like most types of music and am constantly finding new songs and artists that I like, I tend to buy iTunes cards. Sometimes, if I only have about twenty-five dollars, that is the only thing I buy. When I have more money I like to shop for clothes. I go to my favorite stores first, especially if I saw something in the catalog or online that I really liked, if I can't find anything there (which is EXTREMELY rare) I might actually put the money away in the bank.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Love to Know Slideshow
The Gift of Time
Many people often complain there isn't enough time in the day to get everything accomplished. If you were able to add an extra hour to the day, what would you do?
If I were able to add an extra hour on to the day, I would spend more time doing things that I enjoy, without missing the much sleep. I would definitely read more, especially during the school year, when I tend to have little time outside of school and homework. Also, I would probably spend more time doing things that I need to, but tend to put off, like practicing my clarinet. In addition I would sleep more on the weekends, since I would have the time to finish homework and projects. However, even though sometimes an hour can seem like a long time, I feel like I would still want more time added on to the day to do everything that I wanted to do.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Philosophy
Materialism: Materialism, or historical materialism, is the idea that reality is only material and that, "There are no Gods or supernatural phenomenon. Ideas, dreams, etc. are all part of material reality". This theory was introduced by Friedrich Engles, but Karl Marx joined in on the research portion. Marx's theory stated that people must make anything they need, such as food, and reproduce themselves in ways that get them what they want. "For example, through practical everyday life wage- laborers reproduce themselves physically, i.e. work to earn money in order to buy food, shelter and clothing they need to survive". I don't really agree with this theory, I think that there are definitely things that are beyond what you can physically see or feel, (or explain) and this theory doesn't explain those things. I think that if everything is material and nothing is left to mystery, then what is the point of living, when, according to this theory, we are only here to work for what we can't live without and that's it.
http://www.marxmail.org/faq/historical_materialism.htm
http://www.marxmail.org/faq/historical_materialism.htm
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
TU Tuesday- Classified
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to analyze what the text says explicitly and, then, what that infers about the subject as a whole.
Gorgeous strapless gown with some detail, and side rouching. Fitted through bodice and slight flare below the hips. Not a mermaid gown. Never worn. Size 4. Asking $500. Relocating and don't want to bring it. Located in Delmar.
http://timesunion.kaango.com/ad-wedding-gown-never-worn/20561581
THIS STORY IS FICTIONAL
The Past
The past is always something I struggle with. I've never really been good at the whole "forgive and forget" saying that some people live by. Maybe it was the fact that nothing truly bad has-had- ever happened to me, and I just focused in on the other things that I thought were the end of the world and refused to let them go. Like when Heather Fogs and I wore the same dress to our Junior prom. I was so upset that it took me until out 10 year reunion to even consider the idea that I really shouldn't be upset at her.
But this was different. I'd never had anyone do something to me that hurt me inside so much. For a week straight after what my friends now refer to as "The Incident", I sat in my house and refused to leave or talk to anyone. I'd cried until I couldn't cry anymore. My friends were okay with this at first, but after day five, they were starting to get annoyed. I'm not sure they really understood what he'd meant to me and to lose him so quickly, to lose him because he wanted someone else, a few days of recovery just wasn't going to cut it.
I was hesitant to put up the ad for my dress, the "gorgeous strapless gown with some detail, and side rouching", but after a while I couldn't stand to wake up and look at it every morning, just hanging in my closet along with my everyday clothes. I tried moving it to the garage at one point, but it still reminded me of him; Leo. I had decided to let go of him, but as soon as I wrote the words "never worn", I lost it.
It was my idea really, to go. I just could't stand to be in my house, I just felt as though I was trapped memories that just kept replaying though my mind. Especially the one I wish I'd forget, from the night of "the Incident". No one was happy when I shared my plans two weeks ago at our monthly girl's night out. Actually, most of them were angry with me, telling me that I hand't given myself enough time to get over him, but I knew that I had to go. I was tired of being "Located in Delmar" and wanted to just be done and gone already.
The next night I finally typed up my listing for the dress; "Relocating and don't want to bring it", I'd rather just leave it in the past with him.
Gorgeous strapless gown with some detail, and side rouching. Fitted through bodice and slight flare below the hips. Not a mermaid gown. Never worn. Size 4. Asking $500. Relocating and don't want to bring it. Located in Delmar.
http://timesunion.kaango.com/ad-wedding-gown-never-worn/20561581
THIS STORY IS FICTIONAL
The Past
The past is always something I struggle with. I've never really been good at the whole "forgive and forget" saying that some people live by. Maybe it was the fact that nothing truly bad has-had- ever happened to me, and I just focused in on the other things that I thought were the end of the world and refused to let them go. Like when Heather Fogs and I wore the same dress to our Junior prom. I was so upset that it took me until out 10 year reunion to even consider the idea that I really shouldn't be upset at her.
But this was different. I'd never had anyone do something to me that hurt me inside so much. For a week straight after what my friends now refer to as "The Incident", I sat in my house and refused to leave or talk to anyone. I'd cried until I couldn't cry anymore. My friends were okay with this at first, but after day five, they were starting to get annoyed. I'm not sure they really understood what he'd meant to me and to lose him so quickly, to lose him because he wanted someone else, a few days of recovery just wasn't going to cut it.
I was hesitant to put up the ad for my dress, the "gorgeous strapless gown with some detail, and side rouching", but after a while I couldn't stand to wake up and look at it every morning, just hanging in my closet along with my everyday clothes. I tried moving it to the garage at one point, but it still reminded me of him; Leo. I had decided to let go of him, but as soon as I wrote the words "never worn", I lost it.
It was my idea really, to go. I just could't stand to be in my house, I just felt as though I was trapped memories that just kept replaying though my mind. Especially the one I wish I'd forget, from the night of "the Incident". No one was happy when I shared my plans two weeks ago at our monthly girl's night out. Actually, most of them were angry with me, telling me that I hand't given myself enough time to get over him, but I knew that I had to go. I was tired of being "Located in Delmar" and wanted to just be done and gone already.
The next night I finally typed up my listing for the dress; "Relocating and don't want to bring it", I'd rather just leave it in the past with him.
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