10 Ways The World Could End

The TED talk that I watched was one regarding the end of the world. Stephen Petranek speaks of 10 ways the world could end, through his research I'm assuming. From the beginning it seemed as if he was a bit naive and did not have as much experience in this subject as he should. He points out 10 ways the world could end, one by one.

Number 10 involves "Losing the will to survive" He talks about depression, stating that the World Health Organization estimates that 1 out 5 people are critically depressed. I don't really see how this would play out in being the cause of the end of the world. Number 9 involves Aliens invading Earth and sucking up our water on earth for hydrogen or something of that nature. Number 8 is the Eco System collapsing and the fact that our oceans, rain forests and such are all in great danger and need attention. Number 7 would be a particle accelerator mishap. Number 6 is a bio tech disaster.

Number 5 suggests a reversal of the earth's magnetic field. He states this takes place evey few hundred thousand years, the north pole goes to the south and vise versa, but as this happens, our magnetic field weakens and particles in space can come crashing down on us and cause havoc-And we are over due 480,000 years for this event to take place. Number 4 highlights giant solar flares hitting earth, which are outbursts from the sun. Number 3 highlights a global epidemic. Number 2 suggests getting sucked into a black hole, which are in space and do just that. A black hole only needs to get a billion miles away and we will be done. Finally, number 1 involves a really big asteroid heading for earth.

These are all basically gateways for my question on my paper. He definitely stays away from the religious aspects on the end of days but does not really follow through on his information provided. He suggests ways to prevent all these events, from starting to expand life on Mars to replenishing our Eco systems, but he just didn't seem that passionate about the subject.

Unwritten

I ted that I watched was on activism in Africa and the impact that the people of Africa could make by telling their stories and standing up for themselves. One thing that the lady who is given the talk says that really caught my eye was that we need to focus on things that can be done and not the bad image that the media displays This does not directly relate to my paper but it brings up the human condition and what that is and how humans decide their own destiny. I believe that activism is very important that is why I choose to look at this. The question that I ask in my paper is do human decide their own destiny or is it written for us by some divine power. What this piece discusses is social class and how we are so preoccupied by social class that we do not give other people chances because we believe that they are somehow not worth the privilege of choosing their own destiny because of their social class in money that they have. I believe that we choose our own destiny. As evidence the speaker grow up and poor town. Than later went to Harvard. If she would had let someone else decide what she was going to do with her life she would have never went to Harvard. She would have not had the opportunities that she had if she did not choose to live outside the boundaries that other people set for her.

Unwritten

I ted that I watched was on activism in Africa and the impact that the people of Africa could make by telling their stories and standing up for themselves. One thing that the lady who is given the talk says that really caught my eye was that we need to focus on things that can be done and not the bad image that the media displays This does not directly relate to my paper but it brings up the human condition and what that is and how humans decide their own destiny. I believe that activism is very important that is why I choose to look at this. The question that I ask in my paper is do human decide their own destiny or is it written for us by some divine power. What this piece discusses is social class and how we are so preoccupied by social class that we do not give other people chances because we believe that they are somehow not worth the privilege of choosing their own destiny because of their social class in money that they have. I believe that we choose our own destiny. As evidence the speaker grow up and poor town. Than later went to Harvard. If she would had let someone else decide what she was going to do with her life she would have never went to Harvard. She would have not had the opportunities that she had if she did not choose to live outside the boundaries that other people set for her.

What's the worst that could happen?

I watched the the TEDtalk - Tim Ferriss : Smash fear, learn anything. This talk focused around what my research paper will be about, fear, but this talk is more say about how to fight the fear and not about what fear is. Smash fear, learn anything started off with Tim showing a photo of himself - young and wanting to be mr strong and the Incredible Hulk, telling a story of how he would run into his family room tear up the couch and run out. Being mr tuff until age seven he says, when at camp he dove into an inter-tube and a bully kept him underwater. Creating his fear of swimming and realizing he was not the Incredible Hulk he once thought he was. His stories don't keep going, he fast-forwards to his age now (31)  and how he has re looked at swimming, looking at all the in's and out's. And he tried to concur his fear; first by just swimming a lap, and then getting to a point where he swam out into open ocean and back and when he stepped out he had that Incredible Hulk feeling back. 

Taking apart fear and making it into just questions and facts and knowledge to then not be afraid is the whole point. Fear is a natural part of our bodies, we are born with fear in us just like organs. First forget about what your doing, like in swimming, kicking, forget that your are kicking, forget about anything that you do while swimming. But what if you're not afraid to swim but your afraid of not knowing all the knowledge the world has (like language). Gaining a system that you know and learned your original language with. His final concurred fear was performance, or dancing is what he uses. He put himself into a situation where he was going to watch dancers, but then was pulled in. After being humiliated by his partner, he just went into it and then broke down each dancer he could find and each way of dance he was taught, even though it was all tango dance it was taught to him in different ways of different instructors in their own way. 

Yes, I didn't really get what the three topics he was fear-full of to speak of and talk about how he fought them. But then I got it, these are pretty common fears for people - water, knowledge, and performance.

So forgetting, comparing, and just throwing himself into something made the fear go away. Cause what is really the worst thing that could happen?

1918 flu.

The TED talks I watched was What can We Learn from the 1918 flu pandemic? The reason on why I wanted to watch this one was due to the obvious situation with Swine Flu. This was filmed in february 2007, but posted this april. H5N1 flu is what she refers to as bird flu. So far at that time, everyone had been exposed to it besides the americas. Why were people worried then as they are now? They have a slow vaccine production, a maximum capacity of 260 million doses at that time. She mentioned a great idea if we shut down air ports is counter productive, due to the fact that all masks are made in china and how will we provide vaccines without the planes. What is the government doing about this? well they reacted more towards the anthrax situations and the USA total for bioterrorism preparedness of $888,771,465 and Infectious Diseases is compared at $78,625,037, a grand difference. Not only that, but just 15 states are certified to give out vaccines. How important is masking? What kind of masks are available? How effective are the masks? Tons of people would use masks during the SARS pandemic, but still people would remove their masks, and get the disease then by their hands, however I think the swine flu is only transmittable by airborne. The 1918 flu the pandemic lasted 18 months circumnavigating the world three times, in the absence of commercial air travel, I thought this section was most interesting. The first wave they had health care workers, however it had taken such a toll there was barely any left to help during the second wave. In the end nearly 700,000 americans died, the highest death rate was 100% to pregnant women and their fetuses, the second highest death rate was among men and women, ages 15-40 years.

Robot Warfare

I don’t like to publicize the fact that I really dislike the government. With my taste in music and everything it makes me feel like too much of a cliche. After Obama was elected I was really trying to give the government a chance. But either he is just an image that the same, old as dirt, evil republicans are using so we think America is hip & aware, or he’s just as bad as the rest of them. I pray it’s not the latter. Briefly for once, I was able to proudly say ‘I don’t hate our government.’ But of course, they’ve managed to give me another reason to think they are completely and utterly stupid. Technology is amazing, but past helping obtain music I don’t want to pay for, making sure I’m spelling this blog right, and getting in touch with my friends; I think we’d be better off without it. In fact, I think technology will eventually be the end of us.

I chose a talk by P.W. Singer, about robots in the military and the future of war itself. It doesn’t have anything to do with my paper, but it’s much more interesting. In sixteen minutes I learned that the government already-as in right now-have robots working a long side U.S. soldiers. I also learned that the people controlling these robots are people our age sitting in cubical like rooms, covered head to toe in video monitors, controlling them with what I swear is a Playstation controller covered in camouflage. These people, don’t even have to leave the country! They control them from the states, spend so much time doing so during a given day, and make it home in time for dinner. Whoever controls these drones, has no idea of what they are actually doing. Sure, they know they are killing people, but unless they’re there, in person, taking that life themselves; they won’t feel the consequences in the same way, if at all.

What’s even creepier is the picture of an AT-ST from Star Wars along side a photo of an actual robot made in Japan, and they look almost identical, it’s called a Land Walker; google them and see for yourself. Sure, science fiction is cool, but we seem to forget the consequences of all this technology. It’s easy to kill someone if you send a robot to do it. It’s easy to wage a war when you know there will be no human casualties, at least on your side. We will lose all sense of responsibility and before you know it nations will be waging wars for irrational reasons. Sure it saves lives, but at what cost?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war.html

Super Theory of Super Everything

I watched “Emily Levine’s Theory of Everything”.
I enjoyed her discussion in the beginning of the talk about Americans and their hatred of knowledge. “We respect the head, but are very anti-intellectual.” She was also right-on about the theatre games, their purposes. In most improv games, as I well know, the number one rule is never say never. One must always accept another’s reality and try to improve it as well as they can. We all seem to live in a world of our own realities, a point I wish to impress in my paper.
Why are we all so anti-knowledge? What’s the point of the apathy if we all need to know in the end where we’re going and what we’re doing? It’s not helping anything. I think polls are a load of baloney, though. It is true, whenever studies find people who don’t know about what they’re asking, it’s always two percent who don’t know the answer to the question. I guess they’re giving us leeway. It’s still dumb.
It made me wonder, though: what would really happen if we all tried to do as the theatre folk do and better everyone else’s reality? Would the outcome not be the same as it is right now? No one reality would still exist, and there would still be a lot of conflict over what was right… except there’d be bigger groups of people fighting. There’d really be no difference between a selfish motive and a selfless one. Selflessness barely even exists today. I wonder how that would be.

Blog Post #12: TED Talks

For this week's post I would like for you to watch one of the TED Talks and respond to it in 250 words or more. There are many to choose from. Try to find one that may be loosely related to your final paper. If you can't, then at least find something that you are interested in.

Please comment on one other blog post.

Zoos!

I listened to the radiolab - "ZOOS". 

The radiolab started off talking about how before in Roman history animals were killed by the hundreds for entertainment and then today, they're wanted to be saved and watched and looked at.

In the 1970s the way of the zoo was changed by one man. He became the zoo director and started the way a zoo was and how it is now. Gorillas used to be in small concrete cages, no entertainment just food and there poop. Dian Fosie (the gorilla lady as you might know her, she wrote down everything about monkeys and studied them for her life) she was called into Seattle to make Gorillas more at home. No one knew about what these changes would have on the gorillas. After 5 years, the 16 feet of new location made - and the gorillas took to it and they were just natural, feeling and acting like they're in the wild. For animals that are meat eaters, most zoo's don't really feed them that meat. But the Toldedo Zoo feeds them meat and full animals, one of the zoo's that does this on a monthly bases. The tigers attacked the already dead animals and use there actual ways of attacking. The song Walking in The Zoo changed how the zoo was called, it was called the Zoological Gardens until the song was released in the 70s. In order to find out if an animal is happy (in a cage) there brains are looked at. The more "bushier" there brains are, the more activity they get in your brain - means the more complex and happier they are. The active cage means and active animal.

It is stated that an active animal in a good cage, is happy. Zoo's aren't bad, because the animals aren't unhappy - there happy. 

harrrr Harr

The episode that I picked was Laughter from February 22, 2008. The reason why I picked this episode is because for my BIG question I want to figure out what exactly is happiness? Therefore, I thought that this episode would go into the scientific aspects of laughter, which also goes hand and hand into happiness. In this case, this episode went into different aspects of the laughter. It started off as to when do you actually have your first laughter, and according to this episode the 40th day your existence is when you an experience your first laughter. I thought this was very interesting because I figured laughter was based upon your humor, but in reality that’s very far from. Not only did I learn about this, but also I learned that laughter has been evolved over time. The beginning of this episode went into depth on the idea of evolution. It has recorded an experiment with chimpanzees. That actually the way chimpanzees make certain noises, is just like “HA HA” except without the h’s, and increasing or decreasing the volume of the A sounding. This just struck me as interesting, that how could the way people laugh be transfered down generations. Which odd enough, my mom has always told me I would laugh like her aunt when she was young, which I just thought was bizarre. The episode went into depth on the sounding of each laugh, and the different types of pitches. I enjoyed the scientific field of laughter from this episode.

Whining Relieves Stress...NOT.

The episode I chose about stress was very interesting. I was astonished at the techniques they used to basically figure out how we get stressed and what we can do to stop it. I was interested in this episode because I myself deal with stress and anxiety so it was neat to see what they did. The theory of if u hear your stress sound, a sound that sounds like a whine, then you would most likely slow down and calm yourself down. Hey, no more prescribed pills from the doctors! Now that we are able to understand stress then there’s no need for anything else because when we understand something which we are struggling with then we know how it works and what we can do to control it. Easy as pumpkin pie? Umm, no! Of course, we will still get stressed because duh, we are human; however, we will know the terrible whine noise and hate it because it’s so annoying and we will calm ourselves down before we have terrible nightmares with that noise. Just kidding, but that would make of a good story. Stress is something that will forever more surround us, but neurologist, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, shows otherwise. You can still live a healthy non stressful non anxious life while knowing that you have a 10 page paper due next week. Sheesh, that’s why procrastination is so bad. Luckily stress doesn’t have to consume you. Just know how it works.

Cracking me Up

The radio lab that I listened to was about laughter. They were saying that Aresto believed that People had the unique ability to laugh and that no other creatures could laugh. That did a test on rats that showed that they were actually laughing. The second part of the show that I listened to was the part about the people who use to come in and laugh on the sitcoms. I thought it was so interesting that they had people come in to the studio and laugh for the sitcoms. I never knew that this started from the show the nanny. It’s funny that laughing can change so much about your day and what you are feeling. I decided that I wanted to do this on laughter because I was feeling a little bad. I thought that listening to this. They said that people laugh that . It is crazy that they say that laughter is a way to say safe. They say that when a women is with a man that she does not know. She tends to laugh louder so she would feel safe. Saying that laughter is used as some kind of defense. The second men that come on the show about his father where he was drunk and crazy than he said something funny that made his father laugh and made him go directly from anger to a state of something calm. They had the concept that laughter causes laughter . I believe that this is true I had a camp counselor who had the craziest laugh I ever heard in my life that would make me laugh so hard.

Sperm, Sperm, Sperm, Egg, Bacon, Sausage and Sperm... sort of.

So I, in my typically dirty fashion, listened to the RadioLab show about Sperm. What are sperm, why are there so many, what’s up with paternity and why are men necessary, all that jazz.
Now, in true crazy feminist fashion, I SHOULD jump on the juicy tidbits about the sudden lack of “need” for men and extort those to no end. However, I’d like to focus on the basic facts I learned which were less about sperm and more about its relation to female organisms which it, er, eventually inhabits, which is pretty darn interesting.
Apparently, females in various species are more promiscuous than men. How crazy is that? The examples given were mostly birds, including ducks. In olden times before science, people (mostly men—ooh, those men) believed that a female of any species, really, who copulated more than once had something wrong with her, was mentally deficient or—and this they didn’t say out loud but they totally thought it—was a whore. In fact, it was proved in the 1970’s that all these slightly misogynistic conceptions (okay, so I didn’t stray TOO far from feminism) were incredibly wrong.
What fascinated me the most out of everything I learned from this show was the anatomy of a duck’s vagina. They didn’t really stay for too long on the subject, but when I heard it, I was struck. Apparently, a duck’s vagina has a regular canal-type thing to channel sperm, but only the sperm it wants—it has an off-ramp for unwanted sperm! A little road leading off to the edge of a figurative cliff for unwilling sperm receipt. It’s generally used for rape, because ducks seem to get raped. (Surprisingly, I read something about that once.) Ducks have evolved over time to be able to channel semen in either direction, as well as just developing the canals. How amazing is that?
What if female humans had a similar structure? Granted, it wouldn’t stop rape from happening, but it would definitely bring a sort of peace of mind (in a sense, because no one has peace of mind about rape) to a woman who was afraid she would get pregnant due to rape. The only downside is that a pro-choicer’s argument would become moot. Still, we can think of other things to cover for that, just imagine, though! Evolution is truly amazing.

Sleep...

The episode I choose to listen to dealt with sleep and simply the question: Why do we sleep? I personally think our bodies need rest and time to regroup and in a way "charge" and get ready for another day. In relation to other things, rest is needed to function right. Take a computer for instance, if left on all the time the computer might run a little bit slow at times, but if you "shut down" the computer frequently after using it, it will run smoother when running again-although the comparison of humans to computers is a stretch of thought I do not want to get into.

The episode highlights different views on sleep and why we do it. Dolphins can stay under water for only a few minutes and have to come up to breath "air", because their not fish, but they still manage to get all the sleep they need. Half of the dolphins brain is asleep. Their brain is literally split and half of it is asleep. Ducks, on the other hand, have the ability to sleep with one eye open, in look out for predators. All of this was new to me and quite interesting.

Sleep is characterized differently by investigators throughout the episode. Most say that sleep is in fact a "cleaner upper" and basically filters out all the things in your brain or memories that occurred throughout the day that you don't need.

A portion of the episode deals with "dreams" and simply why and how do we dream. The view that caught my attention is what scientist Matt Wilson said. In summary he pointed out that dreams are things that happened throughout the day, week, month, year, life that are in a way relived but creatively changed by you, considering all the options you have in your dreams. It's a bit complicated but interesting.

Imagine if we did not have "sleep", Would everything in the world be figured out? Would we have already found the meaning to life? It's a bit complicated but I sure love to sleep and it's 3:30am so I think it's about that time, thank god I don't have class tomorrow.

What makes us who we are?

I picked an episode called “Who Am I?”, which is what my essay is intended to be about. People used to believe the self lies in the heart. Neurologists believe the self is created by constant firing of neurons. Both are wrong. Not only can people recognize themselves; but chimpanzees can recognize themselves too. A guy named Julian Keynon did an experiment where he mixed his own image with an image of Bill Clinton with some cheap photo editing software, fifty-fifty. He showed the image to many different people, and they all noticed Bill Clinton, and when he looked at it, he saw more of himself. He then did the same experiment with his patients, mixing their image fifty-fifty with an image of Bill Clinton. The same results occurred. Then Julian used an drug on said patient to put half their brain asleep, and then have then look at the image again. When the right hemisphere of the brain was asleep, the patient would fail to see themselves in the image. When the right hemisphere of the brain was awake, they would always see themselves in the image. So, whatever or however we are self-aware, it takes place in the right half of our brains. After that, they go on to tell the story of a woman who had a brain aneurism, called “The Day My Mother’s Head Exploded.” The title had already won me over. Her daughter asked her where she was while she was unconscious, and apparently she was in Vietnam, as a little old man, farming vegetables. After she underwent surgery she was unconscious for three months, then in a hospital room for another two. The weird part is that she had all these different personality traits, like she was a completely different person, almost the opposite of who she was before. Apparently “we are all just a car crash or a slip away from being a different person.” At least that’s what a neuropsychologist said. It kind of makes you think twice about a lot of things.

Blog Post #11: Radio Lab

For this post I want you to listen to an episode of Radio Lab and discuss what you learned in 250 words or more. There are five seasons and many episodes to choose from so explore the site and find one you might be interested in. Try not to repeat an episode that someone else has already written about. You can also download their free podcast off of itunes, but make sure you write about a full hour long episode.

I hope that these might help you in your final essay. They often try to understand big questions.

Remember to post a comment on a classmates blog. As usual, these are due on Friday.

all out war on illegal guns (Kevin Riley)

If i was president, i would try to take care of a problem that just cant seem to be fixed. where the hell were the other president's brains when this situation needed to be handled? GUNS, GUNS, GUNS. I kno that there are some crazed gun lover's out there (they would be the ones i stip first of the weapons), but even they would agree that gun toting in america is becoming way too common wherever we go. My anger would be toward how easy it is for children to access weapons of human destruction, therefore, i'd have an in- country war against them. i dont get me wrong, i understand that guns are around for protection (against terrorist and for families) but people are using them as solutions for too many petty ass, personal disputes. in my neighborhood, children are skilled gunsman, or so it may seem. they should'nt be, because i, as president, would never send them into warfare. the only people that would be able to have a hold on guns would be war veterans, police officers, and a small circle of people who went through tough testings (due to me) in order to recieve gun liscences. i would ban the guns from being in a household where children live,the gunowners would need to find a safe facility to place their weapons other than a house with kids. hopefully the crazed gun lovers would see my point, and this might also prevent me fom being assasinated, and perhaps i may go on to be the greatest president of all time, ha ha (OBAMA WATCH OUT!!!!)

Worst President Ever?

There's a reason why I'm not president. Simply put, I'm reckless and don't take anything seriously. Being put in the highest position of power in this country would be hilarious to me, and I would abuse it like no other. So I have a free pass to change anything in the country? What will I do? Will I solve our homeless epidemic, the financial crisis, our immigration issues, or our health care? Not at all.

I would change our national anthem.....to "We Fly High" by Jim Jones. Yes, you read right. I want to be "Ballin" if I'm going to be president. Why would I do something so ridiculous and utterly idiotic??? Because I can. Simply because I can. I would be so drunk with power that I would want to show the American public just how absurd I could get with it. I'd love nothing more than to step out of Air Force One on the runway and hear Jim Jones' voice yelling out "Ballin" as I made my way to a podium. THAT right there is true power.

Single handily, my aim would be to piss off the American public and have as much fun as I possibly could while in office. Now, I'm sure something so drastic may lead to some sort action being taken to remove me from office, but even so. I know I couldn't be impeached, I would had to have done something illegal in order for that to happen.

The mere thought of taking something as sacred as the Star Spangled Banner and making a complete mockery of it has me gleaming with joy. Not to mention, that even if you hate rap, this song is so ridiculously awesome and nihilistic that you can't help but get into it.

I would too, don't doubt it.

The one thing that came to mind..

If I was president and had the power and the chance to have one miraculously thing change and improve, it will be quite simply "More jobs". Whether you have a college education or not, jobs should be available to anyone who strives to work not just to support their self but also their family. Of course if you have an education than you will be making more than someone who doesn't, but some people just do not like school, they do not enjoy being there, they do not enjoy waking up at a certain time and traveling a certain distance and staying there for a certain time working, but not making money doing so. Although most people who go to school know that being there is actually making more money for the future, but still, school is just not for everybody. I admit that school is not for me, but I am there, I am here, because I know if you want to make good money, you need an education. Nowadays you need an education to get a steady job, you need experience, you need a connection (a relative or a friend). I have friends who are applying and hoping to land a job here and there but there is just no luck by where they are staying by and they need a job more than I do. I work at Walgreen's and it took me almost roughly a year to land that job through, of course, a connect. If everyone had decent jobs; can afford decent homes, apartments, and also afford a family and a normal life, than maybe this country will be a lot better off. There will always be some sort of competition in this world, but the competitive nature in finding a job and to live healthy and support a family should maybe be a little less competitive than other things. If I was president, if you really wanted to work, you would be able to, no doubt about it. If it would be possible to squeeze an extra small thing in there as far as miraculous things changing over night, I would also raise the minimum wage by two dollars. I think a lot more people would be happier and happiness is what people strive for so, why not.

Some other people's views:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pq_3OheqzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4q9UARi-dE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udwTkU1QKPc

more cash!

If I was president and could change anything I wanted, I think one of the first things I would change is to increase minimum wage. I know there are probably errors or something that would reflect on this, but I am only just a college art student, not an economist, even those who are economist aren’t doing the best job right now, hah. I think if the minimum wage was at least $10.00 an hour it would solve a few issues. I know there are some states like Indiana that have minimum wages of like 5.45 or 6.00 dollars an hour or something, which to me, is so unbearable. The job I have now, has started me off at 9.00 dollars an hour, and I believe this has been able to made me manage more than a person who only make 6.00 dollars an hour. The fact of making 9.00 dollars an hour, I can now afford rent to live in my own apartment, groceries, school supplies, and personal expenses. Not only do I think it will give people more of an opportunity to manage their own lives, but it may help the economy. I figure, if you are making more money, you can afford basic needs and also personal expenses and leisure way. Therefore, if people have more money to spend then they would go out more, thus making businesses more active.

Media's Middle Finger

Media is our life, and to have some uptight conservative idiots attempt to control that is just downright wrong. Perhaps the most annoying thing that could come about government-controled media is that it’s never always just and often blown out of proportion. If I were president, I would have all media control handed over to the distributers and stop the governments unnecessary intervention in the media world. Mainly this is an issue with me because one aspect of media had gotten unnecessary controversy in recent years: Video Games. New media is always the one to endure prejudice from the conservatives. This always leads to propaganda such as video games causing violence in children, which is unfounded and in most cases, quite the opposite. I’m a game developer, or soon will be, and I have no aspirations to make family friendly games. I’ve always been one to cast the proverbial middle finger in the face of social norms and conservative ideas. So in my future, I will have to endure that unjust controversy while peddle my mature-rated games to the public masses. Some of you might feel that the government has the right idea, but in the end, they don’t. I was fortunate enough to sit in on a U.S. representatives session a few years back on a trip to D.C. where the politicians were talking about the danger of video games to children. And what made me made the most mad is when they accused the game industry, who too was at the session, of tragic and violent events with young people, mainly Columbine. Video Games as a whole is a form of art to me, and with all new forms of art, it’s judge in ignorance instead of in understanding. So in since the government fails to understand media as a whole, they should have no power over it. And as a president, that would be a plan I would enact instantly.

Sweet XD

well if i have this magical power to change America just like that i would definitely start with our education. everyone would get an education. whether they have money or not. no one deserves to be left out in the rain. second i would create more shelters and force the homeless to live in them till they get jobs and homes of their own( they only stay in these shelters if they attend school. they have to by law attend schooling and pass. if they do fail they can go back on the streets but hey at least i tried). third i would make more affordable housing not just for the homeless to be able to afford but for the extremely poor. im sick of seeing smart children getting shot by gangs just because they can not afford better housing. so that means i would also get rid of gangs, etc... i would stabilize these child's lives and give them a family they don't have, which is (maybe) a reason why they joined a gang in the first place. i would also fix our economy a bit, increase our police force (only until everything is stabilized and all that real violence (not like movie, game violence) is gone). i would befriend all the countries to prevent wars, minimize my military just a bit to show i mean peace when i say i want peace. everyone would get some form of health care so if they end up getting really sick they don't have to worry about not being able to afford the medicine they need. i would create more jobs by making America make more of our own things since most, is not all the stuff we have has been imported. of course other countries don't need to panic and think their going to lose business cause we'll still chill with them and take their business. than i would demolish buildings and places we don't need to create parks and wildlife reserves. there will be trees on every block if my life depends on it! so if i demolish all the crappy buildings in bad neighborhoods, i can make parks and wildlife reserves there and build nicer homes for the people from there somewhere else. bad neighborhoods will be a thing of the past...i hope. so after i make sure that all the people are happy, healthy, educated, more mentally stable (because i will issue better care in nursing homes and mental facilities. beat a mentally disabled person, or your elder you go to jail. if some kids think it would be hilarious to beat up a mental person i will personally make sure they go to jail.) of course i'll take years for all the crap in our little American world to go away, but after it calms down a bit (because there will always be crime in the world), i can reduce jail sizes, and reduce the need of police. oh and i would definitely instill some morals into the media. i have no problem with the whole sex sells thing. i understand that they got to make money too and that's how they make it, but i would definitely stop people like Lindsey Lohan, Olsen twins, Paris Hilton, etc... from appearing on TV again. a lot of kids look up to them. i have no problem with them being pretty or rich, i have a problem with them being anorexic, acting extremely irresponsibbly and rude in public, etc... making it seem like if you want to be liked and popular you have to look and act like them. id rather an overweight girl want to lose weight because she wants to (or health reasons) rather than because everyone makes fun of her. also i will definetly make sure that everyone excercise more, and that all schools serve healthier lunches. i will make healthier food more accesible and junk food harder to get. make everyone alittle more fit. well thats all i can think of right now. i realize there are many flaws but i dont really care. apparently i have the power to change everything as soon as i think it so there are no holes in my plans.

If I Were President

I can’t stand politics. It gives me a headache. If I was appointed president, I’d flee the country, fake my own death, anything to avoid such a horrible job. Say I was president, and I could change anything, it’d be the economy. I imagine sitting in the oval office and on the desk there’d be a little red button. Once I press it, the little red button would automatically fix everything. It’d magically balance the flow of money so that everyone had enough, so that newspapers wouldn’t be bankrupt, and the price of cigarettes would stop going up. That or maybe the red button would eliminate currency entirely. I know, I know that’s impossible; but at least that way money wouldn’t be a problem. But money will always be a problem, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to come up with better ideas to fix the economy than the people in power now. We’re always so quick to judge the president. Everyone forgets all the red tape and people the president has to go through just to get anything done. If I was president I wouldn’t know what to do, and I’d probably end up running the country into the ground.

Who Needs an Education With No Money?

If I was president of the United States I would do one thing that would benefit struggling families as well as students; the cost of education. Personally, I believe the cost to go to school and achieve an education is too high especially for people nowadays. I mean, sure, we have scholarships, grants and loans; however, compare that to the actual price for schools, books, living arrangements and if you’re living at home then it’s the cost of traveling. Either way, it is overly expensive. I would certainly cut the cost where it is manageable AND reasonable for the many students trying to attend school and achieve a decent education. In a time as this many people are struggling and plenty of them are dropping out of college because of the expensive pricing. You see it and hear it everywhere. Such and such person dropped out and decided to get a fulltime job. But even seeking work is difficult, so where do we stand? It seems as though it is more expensive paying for school than actually gaining a career and working in the field you want to work in. This is where my dreams of becoming president and cutting down the cost of education comes in...

I will change.....

Mariela Quintuna
Chet Gresham
W&R I
April 16, 2009

I will change…

If I were to be the next President of the United States and had a one chance to change in this world, I will change the law of immigration by not letting the illegal people going through that process and just forgive them for coming in illegally and give them a certificate that they are forgiven and that they can work with no worries. I would like to change that because there are a lot of illegal immigrants that are suffering in poor jobs that pay like $8.50 an hour and they work for twelve hours. And then there is a bunch of tax deductions that is taken out of the paycheck. You see illegal immigrants as if we were from outer space or something just because we don’t speak the English language and we have a poor house and a poor job.
I will change the way this immigration law is coming to be about. I will change the way that the board of immigration will decide on forgiving them. I will have them to just forgive the illegal immigrants and let them have peace in their lives. If all illegal immigrants were legally documented, they will be so happy that they are going through life with no more worries and that they can be placed in a better position in their company or school or wherever. I mean, if you look at it, the majority of us are the ones that are cleaning the washrooms, mopping, washing cars, fixing your cars, doing construction and painting.
Everybody here in the United States needs a chance to live their lives freely and no more worries about getting caught. I mean, that is the reason that they came here, to pursue the American Dream. I will give them a chance in giving their families a better life here in the U.S and whatever country that they are from.

Change

As president, what would I do..Well I'd like to change a lot of things about America. But for this you say I can only change one, snap my fingers and its done. I thought-thought some more-and thought even more. 

I came up with up.

The change of one thing would be the relationship between person and medical-healthcare world and school board. Today children receive 24 vaccines by the time they are 2, and 36 by the age of 5. This overwhelming amount of toxicants causes children to develop allergies, nutritional deficiencies, autoimmune diseases, and disabilities. Todays children also don't have a choice, well in true most parents are not educated or aware. Children don't need the vaccines they are given at birth or the ones through out there elementary school years and on. And schools are teamed up with the medical-healthcare world by saying they won't allow a child into school without vaccines. When in fact, children can be allowed in school with letters of "religion exemption". But not all family write these letters because of religion, some know the harmful effects of vaccines through their own child or themselves. 

Yes, this didn't explain what I would change really. Let me try and simplify it- not having medical and healthcare be pushed on people and families, and not having schools going into person health matters as to what is needed. This may break rules because "illness maybe passed" or what not, and uptight parents may cause a fit. But in an overall outcome my personal option is that it will help the youth and then the adult. 

Of course you can read this how you want, you may see it as just my option, a bunch of maybe facts, or just a bunch of nonsense. And also you may not understand what I am "changing". And I apologize but I answered it how I felt and true-fully what I would change asap.

The pursuit of happiness

If I could make one thing happen I would make sure that everyone in this country could get free health care. If I was the president I would do this because there are so many people in this country that die every day because they do not have enough money. I don’t believe that any one should die because they can’t afford health insurance. It is said how many people in America just learn to deal with their pain or adnore the warning signs of health problems because they know they cannot afforded health insurances. If there was a universal health care system people would not have to worry about this. I think that it would also help to solve a lot of the country’s problems. People would be happier because they are not sick. Children would not have to suffer because their parents are sick and can’t get better. Every time I think about this I think about the movie sicko where so many people just had to adsept t the fact that they were going to die because they care that they worked for all their life will not pay for them to get better. I think it is sad and crazy that the supposedly greatest country in the world could treat its people like this. People should not have to break their backs all their lives to pay for death. IF I was president I would make sure that everyone had the life liberty and Pursuit of happiness that they were first promised when this country first started.

The U.S. Needs FREE HEALTH CARE!!!!

If I were the next President of the United States, it would very difficult for me to figure out what to use my free pass on. There are so many issues that the country faces right now and the elimination of any one of them would help tremendously. If I absolutely had to pick one, I would go all the way with Universal Health Care. The current President is on the right track in terms of wanting to start by making health care affordable to anyone that wants it, but there are a few flaws in his plan. He relies on the current health care system to make his plan work. I believe that health care should be, to put it simply, FREE!!! The concept of free health care isn't unheard of. This type of system works in countries like Germany, Switzerland, and France. The drawback, because there's always a drawback, is that taxes would go up significantly. I understand that people in this country get really freaked out by higher taxes, but when that money is going towards something that people can understand, tax payers are able to accept it. On the same point, most middle class families that freak out about higher taxes do so because the cost of health care is so high that they simply can't afford to pay for both. If health care were free, much of the personal debt that individuals and families incur would go away and the cost of living would likely go down as well.

Blame it on... Not Me?

All right. If I were the president of the United States, what would I do? To be honest, I would completely relinquish the title and its responsibilities. I’m much more of a sit back, relax, go with the flow kind of gal. I’d prefer to watch someone else make the mistakes, thank you.
Actually, the concept of that is quite interesting. I’d rather not be the president, because I could easily be turned into just a figurehead, not a person with actual power. My power could be taken away from me.
What I would do is I would be the man behind the mask, the person steering the impressive ship: the puppetmaster of the president.
Now, I know that sounds pretty evil, I must agree. However, I think of it this way: who’d you rather blame, the smart guy or the dumb guy? I’m pretty smart if I do say so myself, but should I happen to make a mistake, as grave or indifferent as it may be, I’d rather not take the fall. A pretty face can say the words I’d tell them to, and even though I myself subscribe to a policy of “don’t shoot the messenger”, I’m not so sure the rest of America does as well.
I would just change the rules of ethics so that it would be okay for people in high places (such as myself) to choose a person to take the fall for his or her self. I know that if I had someone to take the blame for all the bad stuff I’ve done, my life would certainly be easier. It’d be like bringing the caste system of India to the US. Since some people pretty much do that anyway, why not make it an official tradition of this fine nation?
Don’t like this? Don’t point your fingers at me, let someone else take the blame for asking the question… hmm…

(mmm, satire.)

Blog Post #10: What Would You Change?

For this post I want you to imagine yourself as the next President of the United States. In this imaginary world you have one free pass to change anything you want in the US and it will miraculously happen. In 250 words or more tell us what you would change and why.

Due next Friday. Remember to comment on at least one of your classmates posts.

Brian Lesteberg

An amazing photo by Brian Lesteberg called Hoof Track With Blood, 2003, struck home for me. This photograph brought me many memories about past experiences and about different wanting to achieve and striving for the better, but in the end failing and giving up. I was touched personally by it. It got me to research Brian Lesteberg a little more.
Brian received his BFA in the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis. He has won several awards and grants such as his recent in 2007 where he was a finalist for The Santa Fe Prize for photography. He also won two other awards in 2006. The MCAD/ Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists as well as the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. His work is to be known as a connection to childhood and youth experiences. He is able to relate in such form to the many people who are dealing with a similar situation or feeling in expression through art. Brian has worked with clients from the Fortune Magazine and The New York Times Magazine.

His website can be found at http://www.brianlesteberg.com/ where he posts upcoming events and upcoming works that he may include in the future.

New York Streets 1938 - 1990's

Helen Levitt was an American Photographer, well known for her street photography of New York neighborhoods, where she grew up in Brooklyn. Helen dropped out of high school and self taught herself photography while working for a commercial photographer. Her work began in the 1930’s and 1940’s of urban kids playing, or ordinary people doing everyday activities on the streets. Levitt used interesting techniques that are no longer in use today. In the 1960’s and 1980’s she began using vintage dye-transfers for her color photography. This would super-saturate her colors, creating a very unique and interesting appeal to her photographs. However, many of these photographs were unable to ever been shown due to a burglary at Levitt’s apartment, where all her work of two years were stolen. Ironically, nothing else was taken except her work. She went out again, and began taking more photographs, this time more successful. her work began being displayed in famous museums like the New York Museum of Modern Art. This was one of the first exhibitions in the world where color photography was taken seriously, rather than being only for commercial use. Levitt continued on with her work in creating a series of different books. She continued to use her interesting techniques with dye transfers, and creating bodies of work over seventy years. Unfortunately this great and found breaking artists has passed away this past year, March 29th 2009. Even so, her work continues to inspire many artist with her unmistakeable street photography.

Makes you think

My plan was to find a painting that depicted the renaissance style. its one of my favorite time periods for art. it would depict a royal woman or man, because it would be a portrait. or it would depict a knight slaying a dragon, or maybe even something religious that would make you stop and feel pain even if you weren't religious. this was the plan. than i stumbled across a beautiful yet semi-revolting painting of a cows head and cows tongue. even though it was kind of gross it drew you in with its colors and realism. i loved it and decided to do my paper about that. so the painters name was Gustave Caillebotte. so this guy loved painting real, in the moment things. sometimes i wonder if he just saw something he liked (like a certain moment) and took a piture of it in his head, and than put it down on paper. all of his paintings are about (in my opinion) in the moment things. he painted people washing floors, he painted people looking outside, even people just walking down the street on a rainy day. and the way he peinted it made them all look so real sometimes i wondered if the people in the paintings would just decide one day to just step out of the painting and out the museum doors. even when he painted something dark, or dreary he still managed to make the painting itself look soft. even the picture of the cows head and tongue, the colors were soft and your eyes eased into the painting. same thing with "paris street, rainy day" (something like that) it was a dreary scene because it was raining but the colors were soft and inviting nontheless. i really liked his work. so simple and yet so interestinbg to look at.

i agree with the hunting person. i dont know how us having guns makes it fair to hunt animals. my dad likes to uhnt and when i told him he should not do it unless he plans to use the whole body he told me he has to hunt to keep the deer population down. i retorted with a "we wouldnt have to keep the deer population down if we just stopped killing the predators who ate them". i hate hunting. so many rare animals have been wiped out and will be wiped out because of mans need to feel superior. i think if you're going to hunt make it a fair game. go in their with what you were born with and lets see how you hunt. if youre going to use a gun i say those bucks should be allowed to have lasers attached to their antlers. make it a fair fight. if we ever have to do a paper about paintings again, i think i would seriously consider doing one about hunting or just wildlife in general since i love it so much.

Hunting

I decided to do some research about hunting in general, being the subject of the two paintings I'm writing about. I’ve never liked it, but never known much about it either, let a lone given it a chance. According to Wikipedia, hunting is the pursuit of living animals for food or trade. While trapping, and fishing aren’t hunting but entirely different things. The Roman Catholic church is against hunting, but just because it’s noisy. Hinduism doesn’t really take sides on hunting, being generally agnostic towards it all. Buddhism is against hunting because part of Buddhism is the respect for all sentient life. In North America, hunting is divided into different categories: Big game, small game, predators, furbearer, upland game bird, and waterfowl. If you care about nature you’d be happy to know the United States bans and limits the use of lead ammunition, so that hunting is environmentally friendly. Some hunters like to call themselves Conservationists, saying they’re helping the wildlife.Then there is a code of ethics called Fair Chase. “Fair Chase, as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, is the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.”(http://www.boone-crockett.org) I’m still a little confused on how guns aren’t considered an unfair advantage. I learned a little more about the “sport,” but I guess hunting just isn’t for everyone.

Frida Kahlo, Paloma Negra.

Frida Kahlo is a painter with great pain inside her. That, I believe, is evident from most of her works. Not only is the piece I chose of hers (Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940) evidence of that, many of her self portraits have her depicted as crying or bleeding. Consider her painting, “The Two Fridas”. She paints two versions of herself, one in a traditional wedding gown, dripping blood, with her heart cut out, with her heart carried in the breast of her other self, holding what looks to be a small picture of her husband, Diego Rivera.
Her pieces are all deeply personal. Many derived their subjects from her miscarriages, her operations, her body (mutilated in a trolley accident when she was 19 in Mexico), and her marriage. To look at them is as if the viewer is reading a journal, viewing an account of her life and trials.
She often painted self portraits in which a monkey is wrapped around her neck or on or looking over her shoulder. In Mexican culture, the monkey is a symbol of lust, but she portrayed them as protective symbols, as evidenced by their places in the portraits. I find that so curious. She was infamous for her many affairs with men and women, such as Leon Trotsky, a Russian revolutionary, and Chavela Vargas, a famous Hispanic singer, and was married to Diego Rivera, a known womanizer. I wonder, does the inclusion of the monkey in her self-portraits, known for its lustful connotations in Mexico and portrayed as a protector by her side, looking over her, mean that she is protected by her lust? Is her heart protected from the pain her body could not be, surrounding herself by lovers? I don’t know, and unfortunately I’ll never be able to ask. To me, it just adds to the mystery of her work, and another angle to her pain.




(all info collected from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo)

Pop Culture enough for you?

I was only able to find information on one of the artists / artwork I choose. The piece was "Jean-Paul" and the artist was Mathieu Levesque. He is a montreal based artist with a UQAM graduate degree in visual arts and art history. His art is iconographic and composed with floating parcels, details, marks, words, lines, and characters. In a majority of his artwork he uses characters that are familiar with pop culture such as Marge Simpson, Snoopy, The Hulk, Spider-man, The Power Rangers, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Bambi, and countless celebrities. The painting "Jean-Paul" has Bambi, South Park, and an animated snowflake in it. It is park of his large series, none of the paintings are grouped into sections because each are connected to the previous and next.

Boy & Girl

Boy and Girl/ Leo and Carmen (from the series of The Hunt

Blind (From the series Young Blood)

By Erika Larsen 2004

Erika Larsen is a New York photographer that took pictures for a magazine back in 2003. She then joined Redux Pictures and wanted to do long term stories. She has a BFA in photographic illustration of 1997 and an MFA in computer graphics and animation of 1999 from Rochester Institute of Technology. The picture that I chose by her is the Boy and Girl and Leo & Carmen. It is from the series of Young Blood she took pictures of them hunting. There were pictures of little kids that look like that they were 9 or 10 years old slaughtering the animals. I compared this picture with the Leo and Carmen because this picture is two adults hunting. So I thought that this will represent the little kids as adults when they grow up. Larsen also has a picture of a hand of a woman with the animals blood all over and she is wearing her wedding ring. So I guess she was trying to capture the bond that she has with hunting and that she also married someone who is a hunter and she also married hunting. You can check out more hunting pictures by her at www.erikalarsenphoto.com .

As FAr as i can tell

I was not able to find anything on the person’s piece that I did. Judging on the piece that she did I can tell that she is a girl because her piece is really pink and pretty I like to look at pieces like this because they make me smile? I think she really wanted to relate the hunting culture to that experience of a little girl. I is like a trap for unicorns. Unicorns are things that little girls would hunt and it is away that a small child would express them selves about something like this. When you think of hunting you mostly think of men and bloody hands. All types of missed up stuff but this makes you think of a insert little girl that is just using her imagination to play make believe. I think that maybe in her childhood she had some experience with hunting and this is the way she expresses her self with this art. I know from reading the information that was posted on the exhibit that she used all sorts of different marital for this project. You know to portray how it would look if it was actually made by an small child.

Blog Post: Research

Please write 250 words detailing some background on the piece of art you chose. Do some research on the artist, the work or works, similar artists, similar themes in the work, the same art form, etc...

Your post is due by Friday and be sure to comment on someone elses blog!

Remember, if you use this information or any information from an outside source you must cite it in your essay. Also, if you use researched information it must be relevant to the work you are discussing. In your essays you should not give a long biographical background of the artist if you do not use that information to help analyze the particular work you have chosen.

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REMEMBER we have no class on Friday (4/10). You need to send me a Word Doc of your 2nd draft to cogresha at gmail.com and complete the blog by Friday. I will give you feedback on your paper and give you your overall grade so far. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them.

The Friday (4/17) after this your final paper will be due along with another blog post and a reading response to Inheritance of Tools by Sanders.

Round Tears

i was on the train a few days ago on my way from school. it was actually a great day. the sun was shining and for once not in my eyes, i actually managed to grab a seat and i did not have to sit next to anyone at all (because with my luck i always get the guy who smells like cigarettes and beer, or the girl who talks way too loudly on her cell phone), i had just downloaded some new songs that i had wanted for a while onto my i pod which was actually working for once. it was just a great day. and than i saw her. just a few feet in front of me. a very round women, with round eyes, and a round face. and what was rolling down her very large and round face? very large and round tears. she was crying. blatantly in front of a full car of people, crying. standing there with her face facing the doors as tears streamed down her ever so puffy red face. i could not help but pity her. i did not know her and yet i wanted to comfort her. i myself have never displayed any emotion besides happiness in front of people, and that can be very difficult if you are very depressed. so what could have made her cry this much in front of so many people? in my opinion she was not very attractive physically. as i have said before she was very round and very large. her jeans looked like they were clinging to her buttocks for dear life as she stood there waiting for the train to let her go. her jacket was only halfway zipped as if she did not have the strength to zip it up the rest of the way. she was fiddling with the zipper as she was crying. why? it comforted her? but why was she crying? maybe she was alone, i know the feeling. the feeling of loneliness. the feeling that no one truly loves you...that you're not good enough to love someone back. maybe she felt lonely?...maybe she had no money. i too know that feeling. that feeling of inadequacy when your friends want to go to your home and you are too embarrassed of the impoverish state its in. to not be able to afford to go to the movies because that would mean not eating for a good two to three days...yeah..maybe shes broke...or maybe her life just does not seem so worth it? maybe she has decided that she will never have someone to hold her, she will always be in depth, she'll never be able to bring her loved ones that have moved on back, and that she will always be rejected in the media. for one split second as i thought she was crying, i felt close to her. i felt like i understood why she was shedding those salty tears. i felt like i knew her pain and what she was going through and if i could just talk to her i could make her share her pain....so she wouldn't feel so alone....so she wouldn't feel so broke....and so she wouldn't feel so inadequate....but i didn't. i watched her walk get off the train slowly, as if it was her way of saying, "please someone help me"..."anyone please tell me im not alone...". but no one got up...and no one said a word....no one even looked at her. they took the spot she left behind her as she walked off the train..maybe her last walk off the train?..maybe her last walk...her last tears...her last cries for help.

public shame

After eight hours of work with an hour of commute behind me and ahead of me, the last thing I want to do is interact with anyone on the red line bound to harrison from howard. I put on my headphones, and at times start falling asleep, except the days like Saturdays. There is nothing I hate more than holidays that are just excuses to drink. The worst experiences I’ve ever had on the train was St. Patrick’s day after work.
Two girls with three guys completely drunk. These two girls were walking up and down the entire train, falling down. I’ve never heard quite such loud human beings in my life. Not even my tiny ipod’s headphones could over power their voices. Finally, they take a seat.. and start taking photos. This is something I don’t understand. Is it cool to be on the train? Is that what all the cool kids on facebook do? Do they think they actually look attractive? Completely plastered on public transportation. I look at these girls, and I feel they have no self esteem of themselves. I would feel sympathetic for the other guys that were with them, if they weren’t pigs. These kids must have everything taken cared for them. Their parents most likely pay every little penny for their expenses. It’s middle of the week, and they think the world revolves around them and drinking. These kids are so inconsiderate they wont even realize what fools they are making of themselves.

Honestly, I didn’t like this blog post, but I tried. sorry.

She's about 23 (Kevin Riley)

She's About 23 years of age. Hell yea she got kids, they loud ass on the Train sittin next to me. Damn I hate the Train. She's a Black woman. She used to be pretty when she was 16 or 17, but too many barbcuces made her ass a lil heavy. She on the phone probably talkin to her cousin about some bullshit. She used to go to SIU in Carbondale, but she got kicked out because the financial aid aint kick in. She was on academic probation anyways. She did about 12 semesters. she had her first baby in her junior year of high school with this dude that was hustlin on her block. He aint marry her tho, they broke up in her senior year. She graduated from Prosser High School on the westside. She had her other baby when she was down at Southern (SIU), wit one of them dudes that used to go there wit her. her major was accounting but that shit aint work out. now she work at KFC and smell like original recipe.Damn she makin me hungry as hell. She stay wit her mama, thats where she on her way to. She keep lookin at me out the corner of her eye like she interested, but i am not. I hope they hurry up and get they ass off the train.

Gothic Peacekeeper

I was sitting on the bus minding my one business, mainly because it’s better that way with all the odd people who come in and out of them. But on this particular day there was a guy sitting on the other side of the bus from me dressed in classic Emo fashion. He wore all black, had numerous piercings, chains hanging virtually from everywhere, and an outrageous hairstyle. I noticed that he was writing on sheets of paper and whispering to himself. I ignored it after a while, because it wasn’t my business. A few minutes later, he goes into to this small, quiet rage and throws his pen down on the ground and rips up his sheet of paper, and looks outside the window as the bus goes along. I’m at this point thinking to myself that there’s something seriously wrong with this guy if he’s dressed like this and throwing into a fit. As I focused my attention away from this, he takes out a new sheet of paper and begins writing while verbally speaking out what he’s recording down on the paper. Even though he’s whispering to himself, it would be easy to listen to what he’s saying if it wasn’t for the group of girls talking to each other extremely loudly behind me. After a short while, the girls leave and the bus becomes unsurprisingly quiet. At this point I have completely forgotten about the Emo guy until I hear his whispering. I couldn’t full make it out over the sound of the outside background noise, but what I heard was what was surprising. I heard some words like peace, life, love, and nature. Now I thinking to myself that someone dressed the way he is writing of positive and hippy like things is highly unusual, but I can’t help but think about the side of people we never see. I begin thinking of how people where masks to hide themselves from the eyes of society, and wonder why did that guy hide his inner most thoughts behind a contradictory masks.

The Street Musician

It is Thursday afternoon. I was heading back home from Columbia College. I take the blue line and then the red line to school and the opposite to get back home. The subway to me is a journey itself, that I tend to look forward to every morning when I awake to go to school. I mostly never see the same faces on the subway, which is odd considering the fact that Monday through Friday I am generally at the train at the same time every single day. I got my backpack, my headphones, my ears, my eyes, my nose and hopefully the availability of an open seat where I can sit back and feel the relaxing vibrations of the bumpy train ride. The only familiar faces that I see are what are called the Street Musicians. Singers, rappers, guitar players, drum players, etc. Today after I got off the red line and was waiting for the blue line there was this lady who was playing the guitar and singing with both ease and talent. She was probably the best street musician I had seen in a long time. I always take off my headphones to hear what the musician has to offer and I often put them back on. I rarely keep them off but today I put them back in my backpack and listened, hoping the train would take longer then usual.

She was dressed as if she was in 1979 with dark brown pants, dark brown shoes, blue jacket with a dark brown shirt underneath. She had her hair in a ponytail. She was around her 50s and had been playing the guitar since she was a little girl. She too went to Columbia College but dropped out after one semester because she was not doing well in her classes and did not have the money to waste on bad grades with the inconsistent confidence in herself. She had lived with her mom her whole life, never met her father and was an only child. After she dropped out of College, she worked as a cashier and had done so for over 25 years. However she arguably made more money as a street musician which she has also been doing for over 25 years. She has many friends, close family and two kids who are currently in College. She is single and lives in a two bedroom apartment. She retired from being a cashier but not from being a street musician, although she does not perform for money any more, she does it to feel close to the city she was once a part of. She played “Let it Be” by the Beatles and played it better than I had heard anyone else play it (except of course for the Beatles themselves). I watched and then looked in my wallet for a dollar or two to spare but did not find anything. I did not feel bad because she wasn't doing it for the money and was doing it just to touch her city and see the expressions on numerous faces when they hear her.
Or at least I assumed.

The Middle

A woman sat next to me on the train home. I would prefer not to set next to anyone, however the average commuter is lucky enough to find a seat at all, let a lone an entire seat to themselves on a Friday afternoon. She was middle aged, middle height, middle weight; she was the middle. She looked completely average, a nice person; just average. For me, my day was over. She on other hand, looked like she was salvaging the little free time she had in her day to relax. I could picture her getting home, only to have to cook dinner, clean, run errands, who knows. She looked like she’d been in a hurry all day long. I imagine she woke up early, perhaps before the sun was even out; getting herself and her children ready for the day, before catching the train. The train ride there was probably spent making sure she was ready for what lies ahead of her, walking through the morning chill to her average job, and the menial tasks that await her there. She looked like this was the first time she had today to stop and catch her breath, and possibly the only. She, as well as most of the people on the train; looked tired, and glad that the week was finally over. The weekend probably isn’t much different for her. She looked like a mother, she looked like a commuter, she looked busy. It made me wonder: in her middle life, where, what, whom was her sanctuary, her peace? What was the glue that held her together?