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?

Writing Center

I love going to the Writing Center, I go pretty much every time I have a paper to write. I go before I've even started the paper with some ideas and they help me outline my work. Before writing the Twelfth Night paper, I met with Scott (the Shakespearian... lucky me!!). Scott was SOO helpful because he let me in on things Shakespeare had hidden in his writing that I would have never been able to deconstruct otherwise. & according to him, I'm not half bad at decoding Shakespeare.

Need to know about "Just Add Water"

?????????

1. Is there some significance to the turtle? I feel like the turtle and Ray have some kind of similarity.

2. Why in the world would Ray take his son to Betsy's?

3. What's in the tin??

4. Ray's life sucks so bad, why is he so calm?

5. Do Ray and Nora get together?

6. Is Charlene's affair what makes her so odd?

Recall:

The scene where Ray drops off Edward reminds me of the movie, "Billy Madison" when Billy goes back to school.

What is a writer? Am I a writer?

A writer is someone who can express their ideas and thoughts clearly and put them in words. These crafts people are like artists, they literally paint with their words for the reader. They distort, confuse and intrigue their audience with their talents. In some cases, I think I am a writer but it depends on the subject I am writing about. If I enjoy and am interested in what I am writing, I may take on the role of an actual writer.

Language is a Slippery Vehicle.

Language is a slippery vehicle because it manipulates and is manipulated. Language is a roller coaster ride, twisting and turning through a sea of meaning and perception. It is a slippery vehicle because it takes the reader on a confusing, crooked, and clumsy journey.

Hass's poem, "The Problem of Describing Trees" is a perfect example of language as a slippery vehicle. In this poem, Robert Hass explains that there are limits to describing what the tree is doing because nature is a beautiful thing and there really are no words that depict the beauty it enchants. Hass also gives the tree human qualities when he says "Dance with me, dancer. Oh, I will." He leaves it up to the reader to interpret his words.

Rodney Jones says exactly what he means in the first stanza of his poem, "Hubris at Zunzal," "No image like the image of language." He cannot be more right because you can show someone a single picture and they can turn it into 1000 words, but, what's more important, the picture or the words that describe it? In my opinion, the words are the most important because they are powerful and moving and can be manipulated.

Faustian Economics - Wendell Berry

I think it sad (but true... and actually pretty hilarious) what Berry says at the end of his second paragraph, "Perhaps by devoting more and more of our already abused cropland to fuel production we will at last cure ourselves of obesity and become fashionably skeletal, hungry but - thank God! - still driving." This is surprisingly possible because of the way we (humans) use our already depleting natural resources. Berry's quote paints a frightening image that could one day be the present time and way of life on earth.

"The life of this world is small to those who think it is, and the desire to enlarge it makes it smaller, and can reduce it finally to nothing."

- This opinion of Berry's is also scarily accurate. Most humans do not think that they are jailed by any type of limit because freedom is a right that everybody has. Limitlessness, Wendell says, is a godlike quality, which no living human possesses. At this point in time, thinking in such a way is inevitably dangerous because limits define our lives. Berry is right, we only get one chance at life, one world to live in. We have to make the best of it while we can.

The story of the elderly farmer who decided to "crop share" with a younger farmer is the perfect depiction of our world today. The idea that, "you have a bad year, I have a bad year... you have a good year, I have a good year" relates to the condition of our planet. This relationship between the farmers is an example of community economics, which is based on the sharing of fate. In our world, we can't control the actions of others along with the consequences of those actions. We can't change what others do to destroy our earth but we can try to prevent the consequences from becoming too great by acting now.

Waste & Greed

Waste. Greed. Selfishness. Insanity. Obesity. Consumption. Oblivion. Profit. Destruction. Spending. Foolishness. Disturbing. Corrupt. Abused. Limitless. Delusional. Monstrous. Unrestrained. Exhaustion. Claustrophobia. Desire. Efficiency. Responsibility. Spoiled. Embarrassing. Technology. Fantasy. Wealth. Hell. Inhumane.

"Fear of Writing" -Derrida

Derrida's fear of writing is not apparent at all while he is writing. In fact, he feels as though he absolutely needs to say what he has to say, like there is a sort of urgency that provokes his writing. I think that Derrida should fear what he is writing (although unconsciously) because they're his words and if people don't like them, they don't have to read what he has to say. I don't think I have ever feared what I write, that's pretty extreme. Then again, I haven't really written something with much power or importance so I can't say for sure that it's not possible. I think the opinions of others are what causes this unconscious fear that Derrida experiences in his sleep. His subconscious reveals how he should feel about what he is writing, but Derrida's personality and love for what he writes overpowers this hidden feeling. I think Derrida believes that words have the power to move, inspire, motivate, consume and change the minds of people.