Writing Practice~ Focus on "Voice"

Task : describing how to open the laptop, power up and open Safari.

"To be honored, to stand in front, and speak with all of you, It is my pleasure. Half centuries ago, when there were no internet, no one even knows how to use a computer. But now, things have change. In the modern Technological Era, I have a dream. I hope all of you go to buy a Taiwanese laptop. I have a dream. I hope all of you use your left arm to open the screen of the laptop. I have a dream. I hope all of you raise up your right index finger with me, point at the sun, then push the power bottom on the laptop. I have the dream. I hope you'll have tolerance and patience waiting for the turn-on process with me. I have a dream. I hope your mouse is movable then,click on the Safari image on the desktop. I think we could do this. We must to be together. We must to unite. I hope my dream will come true someday! "

Can you guess whose voice is it???
= )
Answer is down here: Martin Luther King Jr.
please high light the words...

Sacrisfice

We finished watching a movie called "Grizzly Man" last Friday. The movie was about a guy tried to become a grizzly. In the beginning of this movie, where he talks to the foxes and the grizzlies, I think this guy is crazy. It is my first time to see a guy could be that enthusiastic at animals. However, after watching the whole thing, I started thinking this guy is a hero. In the book of Ishmael, it tells people that the man of destiny is to educate. I think this guy named Timothy has done his destiny. He sacrificed himself for bear. He is dead physically, but not mentally. There is a scene where his ex-girlfriend wore his watch; it represents that his soul is still with us, he still reminds us do not kill grizzlies. His death aware people that grizzlies are also like human being; we got to stop hunting them. He finished his destiny of man; protecting animal. So, what's your destiny of man?

Reading Practice~ Focusing on "Voice"

Practice number one- I read a story called "The Alien Encounter". It was written by Kirby Belle. I found out the ending of the story was a little bit confusing, but the beginning was very interesting; it grabbed my attention. By reading the first paragraph, I am able to figure out the author must be very romantic, because he used a lot of adjectives to describe the sights. For example, “The Street was bathed in a ghostly light." However, from the ending, the author sounded a little rush. In general, the story was exciting, can not hold to read the ending. The author's mind must be very fantastic and creative.

Practice number two- I was laughing when I read this story called "The Lady By The Pond". It was written by Robert Copple. I think this author would probably be a teenager. I was so fascinated in the middle where he described how the woman looked like, and I also can feel the same way as author when the woman disappeared. I like this story. It reflects how boys are like when they got a cruse on a girl in the first sight!

Pola Bear

We watched the movie called "Arctic Tale" last class. The movie was really funny and cute. The director used humor and cute animals to tell a serious story to children. It is a stunned lesson to educate our next generation and aware ourselves. This Arctic movie makes me think about the global warming; the masterwork made by us. We are deforesting, over-emitting CO2, polluting water and air. The Arctic land is getting smaller. The most funny scene was the walruses were letting out gases. But the point of the scene was trying to show that the land is decreasing, walruses can only crowded together. The ice land is getting thicker than thicker, so the walruses are easier to run away from the polar bears. It is really interesting to watch the little polar bear, Nanu with his mother adventure in the melting Arctic. IPPC said after 30 years, the north is going to be a ocean, the polar bears will also be gone. By that time, the sea level will increase 7 meter high. Many things on earth will also disappeared in our hands. If we can control the emission of CO2 right now, at least we can extend more time to find a better solution. So, let's ride bicycles!!

Why Do We Blog?

These are notes I took from the article of Why Do We Blog?
These are the four reasons I agree

Reason 1. Let your voice to be heard.

Reason 2. Making connections around the world. Socialized!!

Reason 3. "But blog writing is like going off for a walk with no predetermined finish time or route, sometimes the walk is through the fields, sometimes along the streets." It's easier than writing, because you can type without thinking, very free.

Reason 4. It's faster and easier to get feedbacks from the readers. It might be corrections of grammar errors. And sharing ideas, the way of thinking. Punditry!!!

Movie Review from "Fast Food Nation"

We finished watching a movie called Fast Food Nation. This movie describes a dark side of how McDonald's has became one of the world biggest cooperation. It how the cows were killed by the men. This film has also made me refuse to eat beef, but then I realized that we are also animals like tigers and crocodiles. Man also needs to kill animals for food in order to survive. The world has changed, nobody really thinks like that anymore. Man kill animals for money; and money will never been fulfilled. So the more people kill, the more money people make. This phenomenon will never end until the end of the world.

Expeditionary Questions

1. Do we have an ethical responsibility toward animals?

Yes, I think we do have an ethical responsibility toward animals. Human is a species in the animal kingdom. So, how come human could have the responsibility toward themselves but not animals. The behaviors of animals are really close to human being's. They also have intelligence quotient, just like us. These two examples can explain why we should have an ethical responsibility toward animals. Human are animals, we evolved from them. However, we should have, but we are not having an ethical responsibility toward animals. If we had, then we would not catch the animals in the cage and eat them. We will become vegetarians!

2. Do animals have emotions? Give examples if possible.

Yes, I do believe animals have emotions. From the long-term research of Jane Goodalls, she finds out that chimpanzees have identical emotions as human have. They cry, love, hug, kiss and scratch each others' back. In the film called Extinct, the gorillas ran out and tried to save the old man. That is emotion! I used to hear cats crying in my backyard. They cried loudly and sadly. One day, I brought a fish can for one of the cats, and it smiled to me. I was impressive. And then, it started singing to me in front of my house.

Movie Review from "The Gods Must Be Crazy"

Today we watched a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy. I watched this movie a few years ago. Today was the second time I watched it. I discovered a new perspective. I found out that a book entitled Ishmael has a lot of connections to the movie. In the movie, they show how different our lives are from those of the bushmen. In a bushmen’s life, there is no hatred, jealousy, anger or violence. They do not really need to worry about anything. They hunt what they need to eat. They follow the "laws". It is same as what the Leavers do in Ishmael. The Takers drive vehicle from place to place, and then work with a fulltime schedule But Leavers just wake up everyday and do whatever they want, without stress or a schedule. There's one scene that shows the terrorists breaking into a conference and killing people. If you tie this into the book, it can be explained that Takers are killing the competitors in order to get to the top and conquer the world. I think these are the insights I gained from the second time watching the movie!

ISHMAEL REVIEW

In the last class we discussed about the four laws that Ishmael mentioned four rules in our world. The first one would be exterminating our competitors. Like what Jack said in class, in the animal world, every animal have their won competitors, the survival fits, they only kill their competitors when they need to, but what human are doing is we just eliminate, overkill our them, the enemies. We also destroy the competitors’ food to make room for our won, like birds eat the fruits on the trees, but we’re chopping the trees down to build another new apartment. We’re also stopping the competitors to get their food by like taking or destroying their food. I like the quote on the last few pages, “In the wild, the lion kills a gazelle and eats it. It doesn’t kill a second gazelle to save for tomorrow. The deer eats the grass that’s there. It doesn’t cut the grass down and save it for the winter. But these Takers do.” This explained how we are deforesting and massacring the world, the ecological environment.

Jane GOODall

Jane Goodall, she spends more than 40 years on studying in ethology. She found out that human do not have much differences from chimpanzees. Human behavior and animals’ behavior are almost the same. Chimpanzees also have love, feelings, and sensations. The main difference is we have to ability to communicate with sophisticated spoken language but, we are overusing our power and destroying the planet. We have been trying to protect and to recover the human culture diversity, but we do not respect the primitive culture, instead of disrespect, we are destroying it. This is kind of related to what E.O. Wilson was try to say, we only know a little of knowledge, we don’t even know what the consequences are. There are still a lot of things for us to explore. Human will probably be the only primate on this planet eventually. We should respect and protect plants, animals, and everything on this planet.

The second thing she talked about was we were surrounding by the media since when we were born. This is exactly same as what Ishmael was saying in the novel. Media creates the anger, hatred, love, happiness, sadness, and these could cause violence. The violence would lead people to destroy our planet. We have to stop express our anger in destroying this planet. We can’t over kill the animals.

The last thing is the Roots and Shoots. It is like the union of teaching people to save the world. This also connects to Ishmael. In the beginning, narrator was looking for “teacher”, because teacher teaches things, they enlighten and aware people. People should start teaching kids even from Pre-K that everyone has a role to play and to change the world. We polluted the river, and then we restore the nature back. I like what Jane Goodall said in the end, she said the hope is not in the politicians, it’s in children and our hand, we are the one who make the difference, we can even change the world over night.

Movie Review from "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price”

We watched a video called “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price”. I understand how Walmart works in the US. Walmart is the biggest company of the world; they have the highest revenue in the world. But it has become a big effect to the America. They sell cheap products inexpensive, and decrease cost price, but the quality itself goes down. But people rather to buy cheap products than go to the actual store with higher price and quality. So then, Walmart decrease the American marts competitive strength which make other small shops closed. That also cause people who used to work in their own shops have to be the employees in Walmart, but they get as tiny paid as the prices in Walmart.The massive mart has also destroyed the community. It holds a big area to build their parking lot. After the mart was built, the noises, pollution, crimes start appearing around the place.

Walmart using labors from the Third World, such as China, Honduras, and Indonesia. They paid those labors badly, but sell the products with high price to increase their profit. I kind of have sympathy for those labors. These cheap labors live in a humid, hot, small, crowded, messy dormitory.

This effect could explain as Takers and Leaver. Leavers are like those labors and communities which don’t want Walmart in. They loose their rights; work as surviving. But those Takers, which are the Walmart people, they gaining more than what they need; they are taking properties or rights from the leavers. I think Walmart is just the example of the effects. I believe, there tons of the marts are doing the same thing as Walmart around the world. This is unavoidable business moral. But sometimes we just have to take a step back either to accept or reject.

Wise Choice

Welcome to my first blog entry. This year, we're going to be focus on our first expedition, "What choices have let to our current global situation?" The key word for this question is choices. Choices is the cause and current global situation is the result. We face many different choices in our life; they could change our life or others entirely. I remember one day after, I played basketball with a 9th grade kid. He took out a pack of cigarette and asked me if I want to smoke with him. I decided not, because if I smoke with that guy, I probably would become a gangster who skipping classes all the time. My chose to be a good kid and being educated, so then I can also educate people. It is like what narrator did in the book Ishmael eventually. A lot of people love jewelries, especially diamonds. But they probably do not know how much blood and sweat were taken. People might have fought over for the diamonds they sell in the jewelry shop. When we buying things, we must think how the things they were made, for example if we keep buying this kinds of diamonds then we are encouraging people bleed. It also brings up more pollution, even though it reduces the population in a bad way. We must choose things we buy and decisions we make wisely.

Welcome

Welcome come to my Global Ethics blog. This is a blog where I show what I have learnt from our Global Ethics class.