Reality TV

I am getting really tired of all the reality shows on TV. I use to like watching shows like the hills and the bachelor and so on, but now it seems like none of these shows are real and that people go on them just to make money and be famous. It is all drama and people acting stupid, so they get attention. It is like a 2 year old trying to get attention. Also, there seems to be a lot of people who exploit their children such as John and Kate and there is another family who had sextuplets that are also getting a reality show. It is amazing that John and Kate are getting a divorce and John is going to be with his new girlfriend, but they are still going to have a show. It is bad enough to have your parents go through a divorce, but to drag your kids (who are the only reason they are famous) through it on TV, shows that money is more important to them than family. You can argue that their reality TV show is a cause to their divorce.

Thanks

I just want to say thank you to everyboby in my class before this blog is closed.
This class is my frist English writing class in my college course.
before I take this class, I took some ESL writing class which were totally different from this class.
I learned many things from this class.
Espacially, peer reviewing is very helphul for me.
I learned how to organize paragraphs from my peers' paper.
I am glad to to have you.

anyway, thanks again and have a nice summer.

"They just don't know any better"

I read an article today about children themselves talking about their lives and families and, of course, they did not have anything bad to say. As I thought about it, I thought of all of the other things I had read talking about the adverse affects that gay parenting has on kids. Usually these negative articles/books/etc. come from people who are A) not gay B) do not know anyone who is gay and/or C) have not been raised in a home headed by a homosexual couple. It made me realize that no matter how hard someone tries to fight for/against an issue, he or she really doesn't have a strong point unless they have experience and ethos to back it up.

So, my question is: Is it the children of gay parents who simply "don't know anything better," or is it the people who don't understand who have something more to learn? This same question can be applied to pretty much any of our topics. There's always a different perspective that we can't understand unless we try to experience it ourselves and see things their way by jumping in head first.

is college a waste?

im sure all you at one time or another have thought about what am i doing in college? is this gonna get me anywhere, i think most people go to college to get a good job but that doesnt always happen. Some people say college is a great thing, the higher education you have the higher salary you will earn if you get a job it will also protect you financially and ensure that you keep the job. But i know others say college is a waste of time, not only that but its cost riduculous amounts of money, not only that but if you do graduate you'll end up paying the loans back for the rest of your life and earning probably a low wage, but think about it in the end college vs no college, the goal is to get a good job right? Now days its about the people you know, how motivated and determined you are and how goal oriented you are as an individual. But you can never say if college is a waste of time or money its what you do with your education and the knowledge you learn.

capital punishment

I am writing about capital punishment for my classical argument.
I think it is a really controversal issue, and I always believed it should be abolished for some reasons.
However, while I was researching about why people support capital punishment and why capital punishment should be abolished, to be honest, I was confused which side I should be on for a moment because I thought about the victims and their families' and friends' suffering. Who will compensate for their suffering? They can never forget the incident that happened to them. When I imagined how hard it will be for them, I asked myself a question, "Am I wrong? and is capital punishment only way to punish murderers for victims?"
But later I made the decision that capital punishment still needs to be stopped. I thought that even though the murderer kills someone, it seems like a contradiction to kill the murderer for killing. Does anyone understand what I'm saying? I think its kind of hypocritical.

A little off topic, but I think this is ridiculous

This has nothing to do with English or probably any of our papers, but I just thought this is ridiculous. I am working on my paper or I would properly express my hatred for PETA but take a look and give some comments.

"Where'd all the good people go?"

I was able to attend several journalism conferences within the last couple years and we talked a lot about how today the news is not so noble as it once was. The days of great reporters unearthing crime are over. Today news reporters have a bad rep. because they are usually biased and sometimes they get a little too nosy. Even news sources that claim to be unbiased still are put on by a certain group of people which makes it biased in the end anyway.

I've been thinking a lot about this as I have written my article on gay marriage and how it affects children. Every source I go to is, of course, bias. I find myself wondering how am I to pick out the real from the exaggerated, or the things that were hand selected out of a pool of information. For instance, one pro-same sex marriage book says that children of lesbians do just as well as they do in a single parent home, others simply say they do just as well as children with "heterosexual parents." Does that mean single heterosexual parents? Why can't they just come out and say it? Needless to say, that's been a source of frustration for me as I've written my paper.

Even MORE questions (answer any you choose):
Isn't honesty supposed to build your side up? That's why people loved the reporters of long ago- they were honest. How are you supposed to distinguish fact from fiction when it is so hard to find a piece of solid, unbiased information? Each piece of "information" is incomplete because it only shows one "angle." More importantly, how are you supposed to write an honest essay with the biased facts you do find? Are you being just as bad as the lying reporters by using information that might be corrupted (it's not your fault, you got the information from somewhere else, right?) or does using "facts" or "statistics" from each extreme strengthen your paper?

Lastly, is it really possible to have unbiased, written info considering everyone (the people who come up with the information) has his or her own personal convictions?

Just something to chew on... meanwhile, I challenge our class to write the most honest papers we possibly can given the most biased information in the world yet.

Children During Divorce

I have found that a great deal of study has been given to knowing more about the impact of divorce on children, while researching for my paper, is divorce always detrimental to children? While there is growing agreement among researchers and practitioners about the effects of divorce, there is still a lot we don't know and can never be 100 percent sure of. We have not reached a point that we know the exact impact of divorce on a specific child. What we do know is that the impact will vary with each child depending the child's age, gender, maturity, psychological health and whether or not other supportive adults are able to be a regular part of their lives. Divorce continues to waiver between 50 and 60% of all marriages. Unfortunately, many divorces also involve children and i want to know what the outcome come from the children. And what i seem to find the most about divorce is the biggest problems that divorce imposes on children is the decision of whom to live with. Usually parents divorce when children are small and the children have no say in where they go, so how does which parent living with effect the child growing up. Since the child cannot choose, this leads to custody battles that end in split custody or joint custody. Whatever the choice may be between the two types of custody, either will prove detrimental to the child. However, there are some generalizations that apply in nearly every situation. and i was wondering if anyone as had any experiences being involved or knowledge in divorce and what effects on the children growing up has done.

For Monday

For Monday, please make sure you have all of your research done, or at least that you have five sources. I would like you to bring a Works Cited page to class with you. Please format it correctly and include all five sources (or more, if you have more). You should also begin to write your paper over the weekend if you have not done so already. On Monday I will be going over MLA issues, and I will teach you some things about incorporating research into your paper. It is an important day, so don't miss. Please keep up with all the readings on the syllabus, but as far as the Short Assignments are concerned, just work on getting that Works Cited page done.

Have a great weekend.

Short Assignment

A lot of you left class on Wednesday before I had a chance to explain the assignments on the syllabus. There are two assignments listed for tomorrow. The first is to write a page of your paper and incorporate a block quote, and the second is to begin a Works Cited page. Don't worry about doing the first assignment, but I do want you to begin a Works Cited page. I asked for three sources by tomorrow, and this should not be difficult since you found two of them on Wednesday. Again, I want this to be a proper Works Cited page, formatted correctly. I am not going to collect them, but I am going to come around and check them. Please refer to your syllabus and DK Handbook for further details. And please remember that we are back in the library tomorrow, not in the classroom.

Thanks,
Daniel

Roe V. Wade

So to try to get some interesting going again I want to hear the class's opinions on Roe v. Wade. I am not going to write a long post explaining my views because I want to see how many people ge into this before I commit. Consider that a challenge. Back to the question, what boundries should the govt. have in regulating abortion? Where do you draw the line on abortions? Are late-term or partial birth abortions alright? Should abortions be able to be used as a source of birth control? What rights should the father have in abortion? If you do not agree with late term abortions, where do you consider the fetus a form of human life capable of being murdered? I believe those questions should generate some good responses and I promise I will write a lengthy response if I see some posts to keep the fire under the debate, but why should I push if no one pushes back? Also and I know this will be hard for me, please try to keep religion out of this and if you must use morals keep it to secular morals if possible. Religion can not be used to make policies or people cry seperation of church and state (even though that is no where in the constitution, look it up it's only implied). So there you go, let's get more than two people to do the bulk of this, I double dare you.

Legalizing Drugs...

Why is there this "War on Drugs?" What exactly is it, and who is involved in this 'war?' Now, I am not promoting the use of public drug use or anything, I promise. But the author of the opinion piece I chose had some very strong and agreeable points.

I was lured to this topic because I have dealt with the pain of close loved ones abusing alcohol. I have always wondered why it is so available when it is basically poison and has no positive effects on the body. This also goes for Tobacco. Infact, the top three leading causes of death in the United States last year were: 1) Tobacco 2) Poor diet and inactivity and 3) Alcohol. Lung cancer and DUI's have become so common that it doesn't even surprise anyone anymore.

Marijuana, for example, has never been the cause of any disease or illness. I have never heard of anyone being killed from it. It is actually used for medical purposes perscribed by doctors themselves. So why are we at war with it??

Addiction is all relative anyway. People are addicted to coffee, gum, gambling, chocolate, sex, food...and the list goes on. So why aren't any of these things "illegal?" The primary reason that people die from illicit drugs is because they use too much of it, and abuse it. Oh yeah, isn't that the exact same story of tobacco and alchohol? Hmmm.

I will also mention that it is costing our country billions of dollars trying to keep illegal drugs out of the public's hands. But for some reason after your twenty-first birthday, in which you suddenly become mature, you can go purchase some of your very own posion all for yourself...no quesions asked.

So what is harmful and what is not? Legislation has yet to successfully explain this even. But they still make substances illiegal without any scientific or medical proof. Drugs are shunned by everyone simply because they are illegal. If you really took a good look at all drugs/substances, and compared their chemistry...what would you consider illegal?

Will Torcher ever be consider Humane?

Torture is a subject that I only heard in war stories and though to be surreal. that only happens to war captives and cannibals. we are working on our papers for class and i chose this topic. you may think i'm morbid or weird but its fasinating to me. i like learning about WWII becuase the history shoes you the effect of torture and inequality.

Im a forensic science major, and alot of the things i will be dealing with arent pleasent, fluffy things. the criminal justice classes teach on the laws that prohibit U.S. citizens from being tortured in interegation rooms. there are many forms of interigation techniques. physical violence, emiotional, mental. also the good cop bad cop rutine is a form of interigation. in many parts of the world torture is the price prisonors of war face and have faced in previous wars.

Im not much of a TV watcher but there are some showes that i rather enjoy. one of these showes is NCIS. In season 7 there is an episode were a women of the muslum faith attachs Ducky ( the Cheif Medical Examiner on the show). through out the episode ducky is reminded of a Afgani refugee that he frequently gave medical attention to while he was in the Royal Army Medical Corps on the borders of Pakistan- Afgani boarder, in the lated 1980's. Ducky talkes about an officer called 'Mr. Pain'. he would beat and torture the afgani men to get information, but this one that Ducky took care of Mr. Pain would practicly kill him so ducky could watch him vertually die while trying to save him. even though its a TV show it has truths to it. I know were i stand on torture. Its wrong and its not humane!

my question is this... does using torture as an interigation technique; 1st diminish the reliability of the informaiton extracted from the 'prisoner'? and 2nd do these intence interegation techniques corrod the people and the country that allows such inhumane things to happen?