Mark Smith's "Animacules and Other Little Subjects"

I love little things. Kitties, cell phones, and not to mention those little animal shaped rubber bands that everybody is wearing now (I currently have two cows, an elephant, a hedgehog, a dolphin, and a lion). Smith's undying love for his favorite little creatures doesn't surprise me. He's obsessed with them kind of like how I'm obsessed with cats. I can't stand being away from my two at home while I'm at school so I LOVE that Hofstra has cats on campus... and if I said I haven't been to the pet store just to see the kitties (and puppies) I would for sure be lying.

Smith portrays his love for little things with the words he uses to describe them. "She is a diamond chip." (259) "Living dazzle." (260) "Perched like birds and unfolding like flowers." (261) Also, just the mere fact that Smith has a hard time explaining his love for the animacules and putting it into words reveals his absolute passion for these little creatures.

Benjamin Phelan "How We Evolve"

Human evolution... did it or will it ever happen? I'm not sure. I agree with Phelan's thought that it probably won't because we pretty much put a halt on survival of the fittest. Humans cure the sick, save the dying, and mating is no longer something that males fight over. In fact, mating has almost gone out of control because in my opinion, the world is veryy close to becoming overpopulated.

Phelan's idea of "self-inflicted extinction" is also probably as close to true as possible. Humans are literally destroying the planet. With the emissions of greenhouse gasses, oil spills that flood habitats, deforestation and as a result, global warming, it looks like planet Earth is doomed. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but definitely sometime. However, some efforts have and are being made to prevent the further increasing demise of the planet because as intelligent beings, "we are aware of evolution, which changes our relationship to it."

Broome's Ethics of Climate Change

Climate change is not only a scientific issue, it's also and ethical one. Should we attempt to save the planet now or live today because we'll be gone tomorrow no matter what? Economists and environmentalists are faced with the decision... who is more important? People today or people tomorrow? There is no "should," because who would make that decision? But as John Broome puts it "you should not do something for your own benefit if it harms another person."

Broome argues that no matter how it is distributed, whatever can be done to increase the overall well-being of people in the future should be done. I don't know if this is really going to happen though. I think the selfishness of citizens today will out-weight their concern for the generations to come.

WARNING: this post may contain foul language.

SO pissed.

1. way too much homework/projects/papers to catch up on I'm literally pulling my hair out.

2. it's really shitty out today

3. I want to be in Denver and away from stupid people

4. my roomate pisses me off because she NEVER talks to me, it's like living with a ghost

5. fuck the guy that poured spoiled milk on one of the couches in our common room

6. this is a big one. I have a friend from home that I've literally grown up with. we were born on the same day, in the same hospital, our mothers were in the same room, and they put us right next to each other. everything I ever did, she copied, or rather, her mother copied. I took dance classes, Stephanie took dance classes. I started playing the piano, Stephanie started playing the piano. I started wearing clothes from a certain store, you know Steph was at that store the next day. so why does this bother me? because she was better at EVERYTHING. she was the valedictorian of my high school, she's going to school for dance and she plays like 8 instruments.

ugh, and she's THAT type of person. you know, the one that only likes you when 1. there's nobody "cooler" around 2. she has to (in front of family and mutual close friends) 3. you kiss her ass. doesn't she sound great? ever since we both went our separate ways to college she literally never talks to me... unless it's to tell me about another of her great accomplishments (which I congratulate her on), to brag about something good that happened to her (not very often), or if it's our birthday.

... there's so much more I could go on and on about but I need to get ready.

Danceworks show tonight @ 8... will put me in a better mood :)

how do I feel?

blogging.... is actually pretty cool. I had heard of it before this class but I never experienced it first-hand. It's like writing a journal for other people to see, which is an interesting concept. The thing I don't like is having to blog about things I wish I didn't have to blog about. I like blogging about things I like & you can probably tell what I liked and what I didn't like based on my responses.

food miles?

I think that posting the CO2 emissions on products is actually kind of stupid because Specter is right - you might actually produce more greenhouse gasses preparing the food than it took to get them into the store. I can see how some people would think it would be useful though. Definitely we are in an era of "creative destruction". As I've said in a previous blog post, generations today want what they want when they want it, and we don't care how it comes or what it took to get it there... hence why our planet is going down the tube.

Do I personally feel responsible? Yes and no I guess. I want all the things that normal people want and what does it take? Cutting down forests, harmful chemicals and ruining wild life. I hate that life today demands this sort of destruction. I also think that global warming was eventually bound to happen sometime, it has in the past... humans just sped up the process probably by thousands of years, awesome job, humanity.

"Do wecreate what we observe through the act of our observations?” (230)

ehh, about that. this is such an age-old question.

I think that everything in the world is there to begin with, whether or not we see it or know it's there and that everything has different qualities. People call things what they want to and, for some things, it is common knowledge. Like Roebke said, a blue couch is always blue, but what is blue? what makes something blue? Something is blue because humans say it is, simple as that.

Roebke lost me about three pages into his article. Although I liked physics when I took it in high school, most of what he said was way over my head and was uninteresting. This is Roebke's biggest weakness in his article because who wants to read what they don't understand?