Dennis BlUgggg

Human Rights Timeline

2009-03-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

The order of the concepts is Social Contract Theory, American Constitution, French Revolution, and then United Nation. The idea that influenced Social Contract Theory was democracy, freedom, and freedom of speech, and influenced American Constitution was liberty and the pursue of happiness. Declaration of right influenced the French Revolution. This also challenged the divine right at that time. United National was influenced because of the idea of world peace. This became the declaration of human right.

China is now slowly catching up with history, they are now standing up for themselves. They are learning and slowing understanding how things are changing as they get civilized. Not everyone is equal, but China is slowly catching up.

Reflection on Teaching Civic Responsibility

2009-02-18T19:41:00.001-08:00

In our Global Ethics class, we read an article called ”Educating the ‘Good’ Citizen: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals” written by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahn. This article talks about what a good citizen should be and should do, and how should the ideas be taught through democratic education. The author classified citizenships into three categories: Personally Responsible Citizen, Participatory Citizen, and Justice-oriented Citizen. And then, they listed out some conflicts that appear when students try to pursue these visions.

First, personally responsible citizens act responsibly in their community, work and pay taxes, obey laws, recycle, give blood, and volunteer to lend a hand in times of crisis. Second, participatory citizens are the active members of community organizations or improvement efforts. They organize community efforts to care for those in need, promote economic development, or clean up environment, know how government agencies work, and also know strategies for accomplishing collective tasks. Third, justice-oriented citizens critically assess social, political, and economic structures to see beyond surface causes, seek out and addresses areas of injustices, and know about social movements and how to effect systemic change. These three visions are all trying to solve social problems and improve society, but just in the different ways.

“Democracy requires oppressed groups to develop political determination, that is, to organize and mobilize in order to achieve their own objectives. Education can make possible such a democracy.” This is a quote that most of my classmates found out important in this article. Democracy is an agreement for everyone. Where we can start is education. If people do not know what democracy is, then it is hard to improve the society, or to solve social problems.

I think doing community service is definitely one of the most important actions to solve the society problem and improve society. Helping each other can let all the people feel being loved.

The Stimulus Plan: How to Spend $787 Billion

2009-02-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Congress passed this plan a while ago. Our teacher wants us to write about three parts of the bill that we feel actively support progressive ideals like renewable energy, changes in American education for the better, and job creation for sustainable jobs. Here are the three parts that I think are more important.

1. Education and Job Training; Aid to States. Help states prevent cuts to essential services like education.
2. Tax Cuts for Businesses; Energy. Expand tax incentives for renewable energy facilities.
3. Unemployment. Extend and increase unemployment compensation.

Education is the most important first step if we want to change the world. Educating the next generations carefully can let them learn from our mistakes, and innovate new technology.
The other part, using tax credit for wind energy and other renewable energy could reduce the gasoline needs and carbon dioxide productions. Last thing, extending unemployment benefits program could save more people from this exhausted economic crisis, and stimulate the people to consume more products. This will help the companies to produce more, and provide more jobs. I think all of the plans are good. I hope these will help our society and Earth become a better place to live.

How HIS could have less of a carbon footprint & reaction to Friedman's article

2009-02-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

I have heard of solar panels car a long time ago. The purpose of this is to save energy and avoid pollution on earth. But this is not really helping. Because, the amount of the energy we need to use is beyond the energy that solar panels could create. I really think this will not solve the global warming issue. The only way to solve it is to reduce the amount of energy that human need. For example, a lot of rich people only care about the size of their car. They want their cars to be really fancy. The cars are heavier, and require a lot of gasoline. This will also produce a huge a mount of carbon dioxide.
I think thinking to lessen the “footprint” will just cause more problems, because people might think it is ok to waste a lot of energy, since there are ways to produce more energy. For another example, people think buying carbon credits after they took an airplane will strengthen the life of the earth, so they might also think it is ok to take many times of airplane as they want, because there are always carbon credits to buy afterward. It is kind of encouraging people in a negative way. This phenomenon will eventually require more scientists to work harder to think of more ways to produce more energy. I think changing people mind at first place, and use the energy that is necessary are what going to solve the global issues.
Since we already created a load of carbon footprint, we still need to clean it up. Rich people cannot just pay the money and expect everything is solved. I think they need to plan trees and ride bicycles more. Sharing taxi and taking city bus can also reduce carbon dioxide. People should sweat some, so they will remember how painful it is the earth is suffering!

Gender Social Experiment

2009-02-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Today, we had H.I.S cross dressing day, which guys have to dress like girls, and vice versa. We also went to 7-11 during Global Ethics class in our outfit, and we took pictures with the beetlenuts girls. All the passersby stared at us unusually. It felt really awkward and uncomfortable for guys to wear in female clothes. Physically, female clothes are smaller. In ethically, male do not like to do activities that girls do, such as playing dolls and doing makeups. In some religions, gender binary blurred is also known as desecrate. Cross dressing is more difficult for a guys over the girls. It is because male are inborn with aggression. Males compete for social rank and mate. Girls dress like guys do not really matter that much than guys dress like girs. The society is more used to to see girls do what guys do. I personally think cross dressing could be healthy, it is because only one day of the year when people can do crazy things. I think it was really fun today!

Ideas for Innovation

2009-02-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

The article discuss nine ideas to innovate the world, which are:
1. Spur greater parental involvement.
2. Make schools smaller.
3. Utilize community service to foster civic engagement.
4. Teach civics effectively in schools.
5. Fund extracurricular activities.
6. Model a high school on a community.
7. Create opportunities for meaningful youth contribution.
8. Establish mentoring programs that work.
9. Ask youth for solutions.

I found out this article is quite interesting. Yes, I also believe that education is the first step to innovate the society. Parents really should spend time on what the students are doing at school. Most of the parents, even if they have time, they choose to rest from work instead of watching what kids are learning. Making schools smaller is basically also strengthening the education system. Every little kids is the leader of the future; some might be the political leader, some might be the pop culture leader.
I agree with the articles. Children even have to solve problems that the adults left out, such as global warming. Encouraging people to do community service can make the society more united. People can learn a lot from service people. I agree with that supporting more extracurricular activities can generate more ideas for innovation, because it makes the students to reach outside of the school, and to make connections. What Mr. Truchon, our math teacher does in our class is one of the most successful teaching model. We have a lot of peer to peer teaching, which I think is very constructive for students to learn!
I think our school has a lot of chances and time for students to contribute something. I think a lot of people in our school is very creative, because of these opportunities. I think one of the most important thing is every team needs a leader, especially an adult. Students all need an adult to guide and to be encourages. This is a reason why I really love my former basketball coach and baseball coach. They are all really good leaders, and give us a lot of positive feed backs.
The last point, asking kids for the answers, is the most powerful incentive for more ideas of innovation. This is why the world has a lot of conferences where they gather all the kids around the world to talk about some global issues. What we act will lead to what children will act in the future, so we need to teach them properly!

The Overwhelming Globalization

2009-01-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

The world has become globalize. Globalization is the transformation of local to global. The purpose is to unify the world into a single society. It is the integration of economic, political and social cultures, and diffusion of modernization throughout the direct investment, capital flows, migration, and technology.

I think the three positive impacts of globalization are: promotion of modernization, reduction of unemployment rate, and doctrine of new technology for developing countries. On the other hand, the three negative impacts are wide disparity between rich and poor, rise of crime rate, and the eradication of local culture.

China is the best example of globalization. About 20 years ago, China was still really undeveloped. The production China had was mainly agriculture. Their military defense was not strong either. But after China opened foreign relationships, their traditional society promoted their economic growth throughout the multinational corporations, such as NIKE. The multinational corporations not only expand and market themselves, but also promote the international economic market. As the involvement of multinational corporations increases, it gives more jobs to people. It reduces the unemployment rate efficiently in those developing countries, such as Indonesia and China. Globalization also allows developing countries to contact and learn new technology, the ipod popularity around the world. They can have better communication systems, and also let the world network better, spread ideas broadly, such as the idea of the spiritual leader of Tibetan people: Dalai Lama.

China also provides some of the best examples of negative impacts of globalization. There is a big disparity between the rich and the poor in China. The gap is so wide that poor people do not even have chance to become rich. Urban city has all the advanced technology to network well. But on the rural sides, people have lack of transportation and network to get into the city. Even in such an urbanized city, there are still lots of homeless people, begging for food and money.

The crime rate has also risen as the world globalizes, such as Internet fraud, and inappropriate pictures and films distribution. There is also more and more telephone fraud from China. Prostitution has also turned into big business with the growth of tourism, such as the prostitution organizations in Macau, and the entertainment business, such as strip club.

Multiculturalism has supplanted the local culture. This reduces cultural diversity. For example, Hollywood movies play most of the time on televisions channels and movie theaters than local movies. The whole world is all watching Hollywood movies. There are also less people wanting to dress and eat traditionally; everyone is following the same pop-culture.

There are negative and positive impacts of globalization. People need to keep the positive impacts; modernization, reduction of unemployment rate, and doctrine of new technology. Multinational corporations also need to find ways to reduce the disparity between rich and poor, drop crime rate, and keep the local culture. “Multinational corporations symbolized what is wrong with globalization,” implied by the author of the book Making Globalization Work, Joseph E. Stiglitz.

Reflective Blog on Movie, End of Suburbia.

2008-12-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

Last week Friday, we watched a movie called "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream" during Global Ethics. After I watched this movie, I really had no ideas of what the movie was talking about, but I kind of got the ideas of the suburbanization and oil crisis. As global warming is going worse, people start finding some ridiculous solutions, such as moving to the countryside, places without polluted air, and buying hydrogen cars, vehicles without oil, etc.

I am shock by these facts, because my parents just bought a house in Jhudong, Hsinchu's countryside three years ago. My parents are always complaining about spending too much money on gasoline, because it is far to go everywhere from our house. Whenever we are out of town, we always have to go to RT- Mart, and buy a lot of food and daily necessaries. It is beautiful here, but it also brings a lot of inconveniences. We also have a Nissan SUV, so it needs more gasoline than that of small cars.

What is happening in the US is actually exactly what is happening in Taiwan. Taiwan's first car corporation started in 1988, called the Formosa Automobile Corporation. During that time, the price of gasoline was really cheap, so everyone wants to fill the gasoline fully. But, during the world gasoline crisis, this car company has closed. And now, the price of gasoline has declined again. People who have cars might just add more and more gasoline during this time, because they never realized there is one-day gasoline is going to run out.

Taiwan is also doing these "Suburbanism" advertising. There are more and more people who want to live on the countryside, but changing the way we live cannot change the fact that natural resources are running out. I also think this is not a sustainable life, because one day if we ran out of gasoline, there is probably not many ways to travel.

What Do Organic Food & Financial-Collapsed Company Have In Common?

2008-12-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

Our senior students read an excerpt called Big Organic, from chapter nine of the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma written by Michael Pollan. Our task is to make connections with a movie we watched last week, Enron- The smartest Guys in the Room. As I first read this excerpt, I really do not know how simple organic food have relationships with a financial-collapsed company. I realized what our Global Ethics class exhibition currently is- Corporation.

I started thinking that everything we study must have to do with money. The reason why it is really hard to maintain a sustainable business is because it does not earn much money, and it is too small. Originally, organic food companies were good; they started off small, worked with only small farm, but when corporation involved, they produced as much as they can, and do whatever they can do to get the economic benefits. They now have the same as the purpose of Enron. For example, Earthbound Farm started off really small with small washing lettuce in the living room, but it industrialized in the end, and became the business type like Enron.

When we talk about business, we need marketing people. Organic products and Enron all have really persuasive marketing group. Corporations need marketing people in order to package their figure, control the media, exaggerate their good, and twist consumers' minds. For example, organic company's marketing people will tell loads of benefits of buying organic food, and by doing that, the company earns so much more money than those of regular company. They tell a good story, same as Enron telling people that their company is going to be fine and earn money.

As I think of corporation and money, I think of greed. These companies all have lots of people who are behind scenes, and helping to make more and more money. As this phenomenon happening, organic food is going to be the next economic impact!

Internship at NIKE.

2008-11-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

Nike is a very good place to work. People there are mostly really friendly. Their dressings for work are very casual. Shirley, the director of finance and administration is the person who we interview with, and got accepted. She is a really nice person, looking after us like mother and sons! John is the mentor I work with. He is like the director of the footwear-testing laboratory. Judy taught me all the materials that were use in shoes manufacture. Finny taught me how to type a data entry report, which is most likely what I will be doing through out the year. The other four cool and humorous ladies teach me how to do footwear-testing all the time. Betty is Angus’ mentor. She was also the lady who took us to the factory last time. I think that was the most powerful experience I had. The shoes manufacturing process actually looks very complicated, and it takes a lot of workers to make a pair of shoes. A worker might have to do the same step for years, such as packaging the shoes. It has been a tiring month, but I think the experiences I have are valuable.

Foxies In The Room

2008-11-24T06:39:00.000-08:00

After I watched this movie, I was really shocked by the facts. I have heard lots of companies collapse, and people can not get their money back. But, I did not know that there are these kinds of things happened behind each financial collapsed company. Enron- The smartest Guys in the Room, This movie really shows the greed and hubris of people. One same moral between Enron’s movie and Ishmael is that people eventually hurt themselves by getting more and more power. Peter Parker’s uncle, the main character from Spider-man, Ben once told him: "With great power, comes great responsibility." As Enron got more and more power, they did not handle well with responsibility and ethics. Those managers and CEOs do not care the others at all. This ties back to the book Ishmael, the competition and survival fits ideas by human. People want to be at the top to take control of everything. I think once people got on the top, they would do whatever they can keep themselves away from falling. One of the parts from the movie that really shocks me was the psychological test where one person is acting to be electrified and another person is adding up the voltage without knowing it is fake. This just shows that Enron’s Company already lost their ethics when they were lying to people. The founder of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling is serving a 24-year, 4-month prison with the conviction in 2006 of many crimes as the financial collapse of Enron. Kenneth Lay is dead by the heart attack in July 5, 2006, just about three and a half months before sentence. I think one of the misinterpretations they had which let to their financial collapse is- “Market will correct itself.” They are too arrogant and over confident with curability they might have. They did not want ask people for, because they feel it might look bad. Enron cares too much about the look. They did not want to be frank, because they think it might damage their reputation, even though it is just temporally. One thing I really think all the company should follow is King Car Company. It is a Taiwanese drink company. When the contaminate milk powder events exposed in China, King Car Company was the first one who acclaim that they imported milk powder from China, so they took back every milk powder products they sold, and apologize to the people. Now, the consumers would more likely to buy their products, because they are really honest and sincere, and they stopped using the contaminated milk powder. They might loose some money and reputation, but these are just temporally; they will be really successful in the future. Honesty is the most important thing in corporation!

William McDonough and Mr. Hawken are friends.

2008-10-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

We read an article from last class, The Opportunity of Insignificance,which was written by Hawken from his book. It explains what are the six things that build up the sustainable businesses, I think one of factors relates to the Tedtalk which William McDonough gave is "Create objects of durability and long-term utility whose ultimate use or disposition will not be harmful to future generations."
In the begining of his speech, he askes "how can we secure local society, creat world peace and save the environment?" Later on, he thinks that, in order to do this, people have to design green architectures, and we still have growth, free energy from sunlight, and metabolism. He thought of a very amazing idea, building the New Chinese City, which with green roofs that people can farm on the roof, fresh water and fresh air. This new city will be built for 400 million people in 12 years. It is very good. This city will have the durability and long-term utility for farming and will not harm the future generation and enviroment.
"Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power- economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed." - William M

Spanish Song Reflection (2paragraghs=10 sentences)

2008-10-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

Yo escribi cuatro frases y cambie los líricos. Arregle los liricos. Yo escribi la canción en cuatro dias. Yo creo que el tiempo era muy corto. El sketch era mi idea.

Me gustan los compañeros con quien yo trabaje. Yo toqué el piano. Kevin toco la guitarra. Cante la canción. Coco nos ayudo con la canción. Me gusta la clase de español y profesora Fortune!!!

Waste Not Blog

2008-10-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

An article, called Waste Not, which from the book Natural Capitalism, talks about how much natural resources people are using unnecessarily, such as Lithium for soft drink cans. It also talks about how many high educated people do underemployed jobs, such as doctor drives taxi, and how much money people are spending, such as car accidents charge health care costs, people can not go to their jobs, property damage, and judicial service costs. Human civilization is growing with a wasting system. "People are using too many resources to make too few people more productive", a quote from the book Natural Capitalism implies how people are wasting resources. These will not only damage the environment, but also decline the global economics effect.
I think there are lots of ways to connect the concepts of this article to my senior project- building a green business model. For example, I will trace back to all the products that I am going to sell, in order to make sure that there are no extra resources wasted during manufacture. I also have to be aware of not using any of the cheap labors. I will have to confirm that everything is made in Taiwan, because Taiwan's Labor Bureau has a better policy to avoid labors get low-paid. In the end, we will please people who have their own unique strength to do what they can do, such as Jim is good at making statistic, so we will ask him to help us account the money, and Eugene is good at drawing, so we will ask him to help us design some shirts. Everyone has their own special talents, so we can help them to let other people hear their voice. We are going to use the least nature resources to make the best and most efficient green business model!

It's Business!

2008-09-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

The inqury question I want to be able to answer over the year is "Can a business model be not harmful for the enviroments?". I think as the greenhouse effect gets worse and worse, business people should be the first group of people to stand out and resist the global warming. Business men have like the strongest power in the world; most of the richest people are business men. They have the most money, lands, and rights, then why not spend some to help the earth? Have those rich people ever think about how and why the air has been polluted when they are smoking a 50 USD cigar? I think greed for money is one of the human nature. People always want more and more money, and it never satisfies themself. As people gain money, they forgot about other things which revolve around them, such as enviroments and ethics. So, I want to build a business model that does not harm the enviroments, and still be ethical. I am going to plant trees or small plants depends how much carbon dioxide I made while runing a business. If my model really runs, I will donate all the profits that I make to the World Vision Organization, save some people who are suffering.

Silicon Lambs Blog

2008-09-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

After I read the article about health and environmental impacts at Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, I realized that there is dark side behind every big industrial companies. Working in Science park is the job that a lot of the people want. Before science park was built, Hsinchu was just a place with lots of cemetery. I remember once my teacher told me why choose Hsinchu City to build Science Park, was because Hsinchu was the only city that has two of the best universities in Asia. After the Science Park was built, the economy starts rising up rapidly, but also the pollution as well. Before Hsinchu Gieant, one of the biggest marts in taiwan, was built, that was a place where Science Park dumped most of the heavy metal wasteproducts. I used to live in Hsinchu Science Park. This article makes me think of where I used to live. I saw the orange water down in the ditch, or sometimes green water with bubbles on top. They also dumped these chemicals in to the rivers; these also caused the oysters were seriously polluted. Taiwan's electricity generating, steel-making, and plastic producing are companies they emit most of the carbondioxide. Hsinchu Science Park makes a lot of people become rich in a few years, but the pollution problems it makes will take decades to be solved. I have research that Taichung's Science Park is also having more contamination as Hsinchu. I think this really will contaminate Taiwan's air, water, and soil. These things really shock me, I think I would like to become a business man or a electronic engineer, helping to solve the problems when I grow up. I want to be able to change something in Science Park. One another thing, I really wonder that does become a rich must to pollute the Earth? May be, I will find this out when I grow up, if it was true, I will prove it wrong! Yes, "I" Can!!

Cat's Cradle- THE END!!! ya~~

2008-06-04T09:47:00.001-07:00

We finally finished the book of Cat's Cradle today. The ending was like every one dies but the narrator and his fellow; and this is how the narrator keeps writing the book. I personally do not really like the ending of the book, because there are already lots of story which ending up with everyone dies, which is very ridiculous. It is like the ending of Romeo and Juliet; they both die. I would like the story to start with sad, and then end up with happy. I love happy endings!!

Who-What-Where-When-Why

2008-05-28T05:26:00.000-07:00

The tittle of the article I have read is called " South Africa Weighs Refugee Camps". Basically, the article was talking about how South Africa government is going to place their refugees safely.
Who: (1)Yusuf Hassan, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
(2)Muriel Cornelis, a representative in Johannesburg of the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders.
(3)President Thabo Mbeki.
&
(4)All of the South African homeless people.

What: South African government is going to build a camp for refugees, for looking after them, or else they might be killed in the attacks.

Where: South Africa

When: N/A

Why: because The government and UN want to place their refugees in safe.

Cellphone Policy

2008-05-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, I think cellphone should basically be banned in the school. But, in some special uses should not be banned, for examples, taking pictures, listening to music, recording messages( sound and video). Sending texts and talking on cellphone during class should definitely being banned, unless, is an emergency that you must to call your parents to come to school, such as being sick, forgetting to bring essential documents( passwords, and ID cards.) I think one way to avoid cellphones were abused in school is to confiscate the cellphones once the teachers find out students are using in a improper way.

The original article you can read it from : Techlearning

Writing A Story Improvision

2008-05-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

I wrote a very story in the last 20 minutes remaining of our Language Arts class today. The story was about putting your perspective of a eighth grader presenting his/her work during our all school gathering.

"Sigh, I felt so dead and sleepy on that day, very tired. And, we had a huge presentation which had to be presented in front of all students and faculties. I'm a person who easily to get nervous. As I was sitting next to the projector, waiting for my turn, my legs started to shake, and all of my veins started to swell. My heart pumped faster than faster as the second passed by. My stomach started feeling down; want to go to bathroom. My armpits started to sweat like a water faucet is unable to turn off.

My classmates had gone, it was my turn. I felt like a judge has adjudicated death penalty to me; and I'm walking on the way to guillotine. I stood there, dozen of the kids were starring at me. I really did not know what to do. I took a deep breathe, and said "Good Morning Everyone..." , Jeeeeez, I could feel my crotch was sweating; it was really hot, even though the thermometer on the air condition show 26 degree. I still felt like having a heatstroke. I think I really had to go to bathroom, but I do not think I really need to, it must be my mind effect. I took a deep breathe again. I started off my presentation. Suddenly, I did not feel nervous anymore. I did not even try to count the students and teachers down there; I treated them as only one or two people were sitting there.

Finally, my presentation was over. I felt like I could finally drop the big rock inside my heart, like the ankle chains had been unlocked by the polices. I started to think, why would I feel that nervous? Did people think I was a joke?.. I did not know. But, I was sure I do not need to do it anymore!"

As I was writing this story, I was thinking I must to clearly describe the nervousness occur in them. I put my self in their shoes. I tried to think of some moments when I was very nervous like almost urinate in my pants, such as facing the exam or big people, playing basketball or baseball as in competitions, and performing drama or music in public. But, I know how it feels after you pass through the all nervous, like dropping a big rock from your heart.

Do's and Don'ts

2008-05-01T05:42:00.000-07:00

I read about a paragraph about how to write a fiction techniques now. I've learnt that tell more about summary than a scene, because it is condensed and given readers more highlighted ideas. It becomes easier to let the ideas to get across. And also, it will look more organized. I think after I read these precious tips about writing a fiction. I think I can write a general simple fiction with the tips I've just learnt. I was in Creative Writing class when I was in sophomore. I wrote two fictional stories, but I didn't really use these techniques, therefore, I think I would improve so much after this project. If anyone who would like to read my story, please go see H.I.S LITERARY MAGAZINE 2007!! Thank you all :)

Reflections on Students 2.0

2008-04-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

I read a blog entry called "Should an 18 Year Old Really Know What They’re Going to Do For the Rest of Their Life?" It's a blog entry about a girl when she was choosing her career and major as she applying into college. I think it is very true that we must to start thinking our career as we are becoming an adult. I'm turning to 18 this August. It is a unavoidable fact. I've started to think of my career when I was 16. I want to be a businessman in my future; dressing in the suit with ties on Wall Street, New York.

The second I read was called "The Well of Inspiration" It talks about how the inspiration is important to her as a writer. When her inspiration came on her writing, she was able to prove everyone that she could make her goal.

Newton to Dr. Hoenikkers

2008-04-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

My dad is a geek. He doesn’t even know what outside of the world looks like. He concentrates on his works more than anything else. He spends more time desk than on his dinner table. One day, I brought him to beach. He does not want to go. He still wants to keep working on his new research. I persuade him for like the whole morning. He finally came out with me. On the way, our car dies. We both went off the car to fix. I opened the engine lids, trying to fix it. But my dad yelled at me. “No,” he yelled at me “Let me fix it! You do not know anything about fixing a car. You’re just a kid!” He spent another hour of fixing the car, and drove it to the beach. Eventually, we arrive the beach.

"Cat's Cradle" Reading Circle- Part 1

2008-04-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

Today was my first time to read a book as in "literal circle". I've never done this; dividing jobs for each person to read a book. It was actually quite fun. My job was to do research on the vocabularies. There was one word, "Nobel Prize", grabbed my attention after the reading circle. Mr. Carpenter brought up a idea said The reason why Nobel established this prize is because he felt regretful after the invention of gun powder. This is very similar to the Manhattan's Project, because people who were participated, actually also felt regretful after bombing Hiroshima. There was also another foreshadowing on the first page. The narrator called himself "Jonah". It is a Christian name. I haven't really finished researching on the name, and making connections. But I will update it as soon as I find out. :)

Change The World

2008-04-14T05:56:00.000-07:00

When I was little, I've been thinking about being famous when I grow up. There are many different ways to be famous, for example, being a singer, criminal, politician, rich guy, actor, professional player and also model. But, the way I think to be famous in the future-- is to help someone. Have you seen the movie called "Pay It Forward" ? That is what I actually want to do in the future! There is a really famous and rich guy in Taiwan. His spent his first half life on earning money, and after his year of 50, he started to spend his money on some foundation, such as cancer foundation, etc. To be famous is because you want people to notice more about you; it is easier to spread love and ideas through the media, like giving lessons to people. What I want to do in the future in order to change the world, is to become a rich man first. Basically, this is why I'm going to be a business man, because it is easier to earn big money. After I quit my jobs, I am going to help people around the world, to let people who never love people or being loved by people to love each other. There are a lot of people who die every minute because they do not get loved. There are also thousands of people who were born with love but never satisfied it. I want to let all the people around the world to understand how good is it of being loved. We must to cherish it; it is precious. Because only love could let people put down their weapons, tolerating each other, and creating the world peace. Love people who are around you, and let the all hatred become love.

Tibet

2008-04-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

Tibet Protest Timeline
A timeline of Tibetan protests-CNN.com

Writing Practice~ Focus on "Voice"

2008-03-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

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"

2008-03-16T05:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-03-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

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"

2008-03-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

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"

2008-03-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

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”

2008-03-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-02T17:12:00.001-08:00

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